News Subscribe  to Our Newsletter Sign  up for Email Updates CGF  In the News Press  Inquiries Past  Articles Calendar			Land  use planning on the Peninsula: Embracing new  possibilities by Joe Simitian These excerpts are from remarks State  Assemblyman Joe Simitian presented in November 2002 at the San  Mateo County Economic Development Association/ Peninsula Policy  Partnership conference entitled "New Housing... Revitalized  Downtowns... Improved Transportation." As a former Santa Clara  County Supervisor, Joe knows well the demands of housing, transportation,  and open space protection on the Peninsula. Here he asks some tough  questions in order to start a new conversation about the future  of our region.    - Editor All of us are frustrated by the high-cost-housing  and too-long-commute that seem to be our lot in life. But what I personally  find most frustrating is that we act as if this is surprising. From 1992  to 2001, Silicon Valley created six times as many jobs as housing units,  and then we found ourselves asking: Why is there a shortage of housing?  Why does the housing we have cost so much? Why does it take so long to  get from one place to another? And how do we fix this mess? To start, we have to acknowledge the obvious. If you create six times  as many jobs as housing units, you're going to have a shortage of housing,  expensive housing, and a lot of people driving every day from where they  live to where they work. This wasn't an accident - just local city councils  and County Boards of Supervisors approving general plans, zoning ordinances  and individual project applications to accommodate six more jobs for every  single unit of housing. So the mess we're in comes as no surprise. It's the obvious result of  a jobs-housing imbalance, which was the obvious result of the decisions  we made as a cluster of communities. And as long as we're acknowledging  the obvious, there's a rather obvious reason that cities and counties  made these decisions in spite of their predictable adverse consequences  - because the State of California has created a system of public finance  that rewards cities and counties for commercial development (retail in  particular) and punishes cities and counties for residential development.  Simply put, "That which gets rewarded gets done." I'd also like to acknowledge the fact that after you've priced people  out of the County and forced them to live some god awful distance from  their place of employment, you aren't going to be able to nag them out  of their cars and onto mass transit simply because it's politically correct,  socially beneficial, or even less expensive. By now it should be obvious that if we're going to get people out of their  cars and on to mass transit we're going to have to provide a system which  is cheap, safe, reliable, and which takes them from where they already  are to where they really want to go. Particularly in an area like ours  where so many of our potential transit users are relatively prosperous  "riders of choice." Having acknowledged the obvious, let's take the next step and ask the  uncomfortable questions. Let's start with this one: What is the ultimate  carrying capacity of our region? The question is uncomfortable because  it suggests that our region's resources are finite, and perhaps even worse,  that our opportunities are limited. Nevertheless, it's an important question to ask if we're going to adapt  successfully as we approach some of our limits. What are the limits? For  example, are we prepared to expand Highway 101 to ten lanes (bulldozing  everything in our path up and down the Bayshore freeway from San Francisco  to Gilroy)? Doubtful. Would we prefer to double deck the entire length  of the highway? Probably not. So what are our other options? Flextime? Incentives for telecommuting?  A world-class transit system so compelling in its virtues that eight lanes  of highway is more than enough? I don't know. But I do know that we won't ask and answer these questions  until we ask ourselves: "What are the limits of the system given  the way we currently use that system?" Same thing with land. It's a finite resource. If we force ourselves to  ask what the carrying capacity of the land is, we'll have to answer first  within the framework of existing use - and that will suggest real limits.  And asking that question will help us tease out some other interesting  opportunities. The carrying capacity of the land will of course be greater  if we make 10 stories our norm, or decide that untouchable hills and open  space are no longer untouchable. As it happens, I neither advocate nor  anticipate either of those options. Now: here's a more awkward, and much less abstract question. If the problem  is that we're producing six times as many jobs as housing units, should  we require commercial development to mitigate the housing demand that  it generates? Or, alternatively, should we limit the rate of commercial  development to a level that is no greater than our increase in housing  supply can sustain? Again, I neither advocate nor anticipate either one of these options.  And I suspect that to many local residents this is not just an uncomfortable  question, but a radical one. But I think it's a question worth asking  - because the very employers who would panic at such a question are the  same ones (until the recent recession) who were laboring mightily to attract  and retain a quality workforce in the face of a high cost/low availability  housing market. These problems are largely of our own making. We made them, and we can  fix them. What we lack is the political will, and part of the challenge  in marshalling the necessary political will is the mistaken notion that  these problems are insoluble. The conventional wisdom is that dramatic results require large-scale dramatic  action, but we would do well to remember that our housing and transportation  problems developed gradually and incrementally, and that they can be solved  that way as well - if we have the discipline to stay on task over the  long haul. The notion that big problems require big solutions too easily  and too often becomes the rationale for taking no action at all. Reject too the all too common misconception that the term "sustainability"  is code language for "no growth." Sustainability doesn't mean  no growth. Sustainability means...sustainability. Indeed, smart businesses  know that sustainable growth is the key to sustainable profits. Smart  counties and smart businesses know that whatever it is they're doing is  more likely to be sustainable if it's done better and not just more. If  both prosperity and profits can be made sustainable, then sustainability  ought to be embraced, not eschewed. Which leads me finally to the conclusion that if we're going to get out  of this mess, we are going to have to embrace a world of new possibilities.  For instance, we may have to rethink the notion that suburban California  consists exclusively of ranch-style homes carpeting the landscape-and  that density equates with a deteriorated quality of life. If we say yes  to good projects, and no to bad ones, we might just discover that some  people actually like living in close proximity to shops, services, and  transit. For many, the "new urbanism" might even be their first choice.  I'll grant you that it's not everyone's first choice. I'll even grant  you that it's not most people's first choice. But I'll bet that for an  awful lot of people it beats commuting from Tracy! Maybe we ought to consider the possibility that other regions in California  could be our partners in prosperity rather than our competitors. Other  regions in California can help us balance our housing and jobs on a statewide  basis, they provide affordable venues for jobs we may not be able to sustain;  and provide expanded markets for our goods and services right next door. And as long as we're going to dream a little, why don't we open ourselves  up to the possibility that local communities can work together regionally  - and effectively - without surrendering their sovereignty. It's even  possible that at some point the State will start worrying more about real  results on the housing front and focus less on outdated command and control  approaches. Because I really do believe that if we acknowledge the obvious, ask the  uncomfortable questions, resist the conventional wisdom, and embrace new  possibilities, we can and we will fix this mess. Published March 2003 in Green  Footnotes. Page last updated March 19, 2003 .