Streetsblog Los Angeles

Over the past couple of years, the name “Claire Bowin” has been attached to many of the most important projects that Streetsblog regularly covers.  For that reason, we decided to feature a reader question and answer with Bowin so readers could both get to know her and learn a little more about how the city operates.

Claire Bowin

Because Bowin wrote such detailed answers, we decided to split her question and answer into two parts.  Today’s question and answer covers the public outreach for the Mobility Plan that are underway, Transit Oriented Development and Affordable Housing.  The last question, on affordable housing, is almost literally a dissertation on the issue and a must read for anyone that cares about housing, equality, development and TOD.  The second part of the series will run tomorrow.

Readers: The city’s General Plan 1999 Transportation element has all sorts of great language about livability, walkability, transit – but this plan language didn’t really end up with much in the way of results on the ground. How can the Mobility Element update underway do better?

Bowin: It’s amazing how much has changed in the past 13 years- LA is such a different place now than it was in 1999 and I think we’re finally moving towards a community that is truly multi-modal. Measure R’s passage, in 2008, demonstrated again how much Los Angelenos truly support a regional transit system. Measure R is also a good example of how important local leadership and dedicated funding are in ensuring that physical improvements actually get done.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out how important a strong implementation plan (read $$) is going to be if we really want to see the ideas in the Mobility Plan carried out. Without it we can have lots of lofty policies and goals but we won’t get the traction to actually make the many on-the-ground changes that are going to be needed to really attract Los Angelenos to try out new ways of getting around.

 How will the mobility plan assure that we are planning our streets as ‘places’ as well as mobility corridors for pedestrians, cyclists transit riders and drivers? Read more…

An exercise from yesterday's gathering showing where "TOD's" are spread around the city. Photo: Joe Linton

Yesterday, Tuesday July 12th 2011, marked the first meeting of a fledgling coalition re-examining the way Southern California does Transit Oriented Development (TOD.) Over 100 people, representing nearly as many organizations, attended the Los Angeles Summit on Community-Oriented T.O.D. which took place at the Asian Pacific American Legal Center near downtown Los Angeles.

The event was organized by the Bus Riders Union, East L.A. Community Corporation, Green L.A. Coalition, Little Tokyo Service Center, Natural Resources Defense Council, Public Counsel, Southeast Asian Community Alliance, and Strategic Actions for a Just Economy. Attendees included representatives from various local, regional, and statewide organizations focused on housing, transportation, health, the environment and more.

From the event announcement:

Transit-oriented development—or T.O.D.—is the new planning buzzword … but what does it mean for our communities?

The idea behind T.O.D. is promoting housing/retail development near LA’s new rail stations and other major transit points. Like “smart growth” and “new urbanism,” T.O.D. is being hailed as an answer to our cities’ traffic congestion problems and environmental pollution because it would encourage new people to live a car-free lifestyle …

But who would benefit from the new development?

How will we make sure that renters and low-income people of color already living near transit—and using transit every day— will not continue to be displaced?

How will we ensure that T.O.D. will include affordable housing and
other community-serving projects?

Join us as we learn about T.O.D. and create strategies to ensure that low-income people of color, and not the developers, play a lead role in state, regional and local decision-making around the kinds of development that take place in our communities. Read more…

Earlier today, A.B. 710, the Infill Development and Sustainable Community Act of 2011, sailed through a hearing of the California State Assembly Committee on Housing and Community Development. If adopted, A.B. 710 would drop minimum parking requirements for infill development in “transit intensive areas” down to one car per residential unit or per 1,000 square feet of retail space.  Infill development is any new project that is built on a currently unoccupied space.

The Oakland Uptown Project is often used as an example of progressive infill development in Northern California.

The only Assembly Member to speak on the legislation was Nancy Skinner (D-Berkeley), who authored the legislation. Also testifying in favor were Meea Kang, from the California Infill Developers Association, Mark Christian from the American Institute of Architects, Ethan Elkind, a researcher with UCLA and Cal-Berkley, and Christine Minnehan representing both the Western Center for Law and Poverty and California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation.  The NRDC, Policy in Motion, Creative Housing Associates and California Infill Builder’s Association also voiced support for the proposal.

Kang commented that reducing the parking requirements will make it easier and less expensive for developers to invest in transit oriented communities.   Another developer testified that he spends “90% of his time” figuring out the parking for new development and 10% on the other community benefits.

While Minnehan recognized the importance of reforming the state’s parking requirements, she expressed the same concerns that Public Counsel expressed to Streetsblog last week.  First, A.B. 710, as written, undermines existing legislation that encourages developers to include a 5% set-aside for affordable housing in exchange for reduced parking minimums in some circumstances.  Second, Minnehan worried that by making it less expensive to develop near transit that many rent-controlled units in urban areas would be demolished to make way for more expensive development.

Skinner touted her record supporting affordable housing and vowed to make sure her legislation doesn’t have any unintended consequences.  Earlier this week, she accepted an amendment that limits the scope of A.B. 71 by narrowly defining “transit intensive area.” Read more…

Streetsblog San Francisco reported earlier this week that the Metropolitan Transportation Commission has made a $10 million funding commitment to a mixed-use affordable housing project in the Tenderloin neighborhood, a convenient two-block walk from the nearest Muni stop:

David Baker + Partners Architects

The development at 168 Eddy Street would provide 153 new apartments reserved for low-income families and space for a 12,000-foot street-level grocery store. It would help quell some of the high demand for affordable housing in the neighborhood, where valuable lots used to park cars diminish the urban fabric despite very low car ownership. Bringing the first full-sized grocery market to the neighborhood would also provide access to healthy food options within walkable distances.

But as Gen Fujioka wrote this week on Streetsblog Los Angeles, San Francisco hasn’t always had policies in place to preserve space for low-income people as property values near transit skyrocketed.

One test of San Francisco’s affordable housing policies came in the 1990s during the dot-com boom. Amidst a hot real estate market, development pressures grew particularly in transit-rich areas. Evictions reached record levels and entire neighborhoods were transformed in a few years. According to research by UC Berkeley’s Center on Community Innovation, during the period between 1995 and 2000, the out-migration of low-income households exceeded 9,800 each year while the numbers of upper income households grew. Proximity to transit was a significant factor in explaining the pattern of displacement. Neighborhoods within a half-mile of major transit were particularly at risk of gentrification and displacement, suffering marked declines in the number of households of color.

Local social justice groups mobilized and got the city to adopt a moratorium on new development. Stagnant residential construction can also lead to rising rents, so more and more, planners are looking for ways to ensure that transit-oriented development goes hand in hand with housing affordability. Initiatives like the one now underway in the Tenderloin are a welcome sign that localities are waking up to the unintended consequences of TOD — that the rising tides of property values may not lift all boats.

Read more…

Proximity to downtown and employment centers, and the availability of developable land, are what lead to big real estate impacts from transit expansion. Source: CTOD

“Transit alone is insufficient to make a real estate market,” said Dena Belzer, the president of Strategic Economics, an urban design consulting firm. Her group is a partner in the Center for Transit-Oriented Development (CTOD), which this week released a new report on the effects of transit expansion on real estate markets.

Transit won’t, on its own, create a booming market for compact, mixed-use development, but if a city has a good, walkable grid and simply needs better access to jobs and centers of activity, it can do wonders. “There are sites where you can see that opening up access just really ‘popped’ things,” Belzer said. For the best chances of success, you need to use transit to connect underutilized land with walkable downtowns and employment opportunities.

The new CTOD report, “Rails to Real Estate: Development Patterns along Three New Transit Lines” [PDF], picked corridors in the Southeast (Charlotte, NC), the West (Denver, CO) and the Midwest (Minneapolis) to see how transit affected development patterns.

Residential units under construction near Charlotte's Blue Line. Photo: Willamor Media/Flickr

The big success story was Charlotte’s Blue Line – where transit “popped things,” as Belzer said. It’s the newest of the three lines, having just opened in 2007, at the height of an ongoing real estate boom. (It went bust along with the rest of the country, and all the big investors pulled out, but until that happened, everything was going great.)

Even in that short timeframe, this corridor saw the biggest spike in development after the opening of the transit line – nearly 10 million square feet of new development, compared with 6.7 million in Minneapolis and 7.8 million in Denver – and that’s along a rail line that’s only half as long as Denver’s (though tightly packed with 15 stations, compared to Denver’s 14).

Charlotte was destined for greatness because the city aligned its transit along all the right places, according to Belzer.

Read more…

The Pearl District in Portland is Often Held Up as an Example of TOD

(This article first appeared in Progressive Planner, the official magazine of the Planner’s Network and is reprinted with the author’s permission.  Gen Fujioka is the senior policy advocate with the National Coalition for Asian Pacific American Community Development. This article was written in collaboration with the Urban Communities of Color Caucus which seeks to advance practices that strengthen existing diverse neighborhoods. For further information contact: gen@nationalcapacd.org)

Transit-oriented development (TOD) has become a leading policy prescription for reversing America’s sprawling path of growth. The Obama administration, through its Sustainable Communities Initiative, state and local agencies and progressive think-tanks all emphasize TOD as a means to achieve housing, transportation and environmental goals, often through public-private-partnerships. But as TOD has been justifiably promoted as the cleaner alternative to auto-dependent development, gaps have appeared in the discourse that understates its costs. This report seeks to fill in some of those gaps with snapshots from four communities of color that have been impacted by various stages of TOD in the cities of Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Minneapolis-Saint Paul, respectively.

What Is a TOD?

Non-profit community development organizations were early innovators in building TOD projects, seeking to link affordable housing with transit. Today, TOD projects vary but they can be generally defined as mixed-use, higher density development oriented toward nearby public transit. In its varying forms, TOD is being promoted by a growing range of government programs.  The largest federal transit program, New Starts, strongly favors projects that incorporate TOD, and many state and local governments have created expedited approval processes, incentives and zoning and land use policies that foster TOD.
As the concept has been embraced by some market-rate developers, even some TOD proponents concede there may be social costs of such development. The federally funded Center for Transit-Oriented Development and others have published a number of policy toolkits and best practice guides for equitable TOD. While these publications describe individual exemplary projects, missing is an evaluation of the impacts at scale. The experiences described below suggest that much more needs to be done to ensure that TOD does not become a greener version of gentrification.

Affordable Housing Fuzzy Math in Seattle

ID Village Square, with 31 affordable units, opened in 2004. For more information, click here.

The multi-ethnic and Historic International District of Seattle (also known as the ‘ID’) lies on the southern edge of the city’s financial district. A majority of the neighborhood’s residents are very low income and people of color. Originally Seattle’s Chinatown, the neighborhood became a business and residential district for successive waves of Asian immigrants. In addition to housing, it offers a range of ethnic restaurants, shops and services. The ID is now also the central nexus of the region’s transit, including light rail, buses, Amtrak and the future high-speed rail station connecting Seattle with Portland.

The convergence of new rail lines and downtown growth led the city to adopt a transit-oriented upzoning that will allow more than a doubling of housing units in the already high density district. On paper, the plan’s goals would create 4,500 units of housing affordable for lower income households, however, the new zoning does not ensure the affordable units will ever be built. Over the next six years the city’s estimated $145 million housing fund will support the production of 1,800 affordable units for the entire city. If the ID received a proportionate share of the projected funding, it would only support several hundred new affordable units. “So far, smart growth in Seattle doesn’t add up,” says Ken Katahira, housing development staff for InterIm Community Development Association, a nonprofit that has built affordable housing and a community garden in the neighborhood. “Zoning for higher densities does not necessarily create more affordable housing.”

Upzoning the ID for taller buildings and greater densities has compounded the development pressure already generated by the new transit infrastructure. And as a practical matter, taller buildings cost more. Concrete and steel construction, required for structures over six stories, is unaffordable to even moderate- income families without deep public subsidies. In the absence of more prescriptive regulation and more robust funding, the city’s plan to foster TOD through zoning in the ID threatens existing affordable housing and small businesses located in “underdeveloped” buildings without ensuring affordable housing within new construction.

Transit-Oriented Displacement in the Mission District of San Francisco

Compared to many other urban centers, San Francisco has maintained a strong commitment to transit and affordable housing. With a dense urban core, regional transit hubs and an expanding network of light rail, a majority of San Franciscans take transit or walk to work. San Francisco has also pioneered many of the housing and land use policies that are now proposed by policy guides as innovative models for equitable smart growth, from inclusionary zoning to demolition and conversion controls. Read more…

This Streetfilm, by Clarence Eckerson Jr., is an important one for Los Angeles as we consider how our city and county are going to grow as a result of the expected transit boom in the coming decade(s). This film focuses on Transit Oriented Development, with a focus on how a light rail line transformed Jersey City with dense, mixed use, transit oriented development. Here are some of the lessons we should learn from Jersey City:

1) Transit Oriented Development should take advantage of many modes of transportation. In Jersey City, the developments take advantage of not only the Hudson-Bergen Light Rail and the bus system, but also a ferry system to move people across the water in to New York City. In Los Angeles, we don’t have ferries, but we do have a bus system that is constantly under attack because of operating shortfalls and of course we’re also working on creating a bicycle network.

2) Transit Oriented Developments should not have parking minimums. As a matter of fact, there is no minimum parking requirement in Jersey City, but a maximum one. It’s no wonder that car ownership around Jersey City’s T.O.D.’s hovers between 40% and 45%.

3) Zoning should support mixed use development. The Tri-State Transportation Campaign’s Kate Slevin explains that real mixed use zoning isn’t just for the gigantic new developments, but also would allow apartments and offices to be placed on top of first floor retail buildings along commercial corridors.

If you want to comment on anything I’ve written, just hit the comment button. If you want to comment on the film, please visit the Streetfilms website.

(Full disclosure: Slevin was my boss when I worked at TSTC)

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Doesn't look transit oriented from here. Both pictures via Curbed

Last week, at a packed meeting of the City of Los Angeles Planning Commission, the Commission punted on a proposed $250-million residential development known as the Lorenzo.  The developer, Geoffery Palmer of Palmer Construction, is known for his other Italian-themed apartment developments Medici, Visconti, Orsini and Piero.

He’s also known for successfully challenging a local law that required him to put a certain amount of low-income housing into his developments.

Lorenzo would add nine-hundred residential units and thousands of parking spaces adjacent to the a station for the Expo Line in South L.A. just a stop away from both USC on one side and the Los Angeles Convention Center on the other.

The developer and his allies in organized labor claim (note: It’s been pointed out to me that Palmer doesn’t use union workers.  I was referring to the people he turned out at the Planning Commission.  Apparently, those workers were just given the day off from work on one of his other projects.)  the project is a win for the community and construction industry.  Opponents say it’s an attempt to gentrify South L.A. and deprive the community of needed medical resources.  The land is zoned for medical developments, requiring the planning commission to change the zoning before the project could be approved.

For the local community, the issue of giving up medical space for a residential development their neighbors would be priced out of is a sore one.  And not one they’re planning on taking lying down.

“This is a community that is historically under-resourced when it comes to medical services. If the City were to deprive a predominantly low-income African-American and Latina community of another health care resource, it could open them up to a civil rights claim,” Serena Lin, Staff Attorney for Public Counsel.  Public Counsel represents the UNIDAD coalition along with a dedicated legal team including Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles, Chatten-Brown and Carstens, and Natural Resources Defense Council.

Given the heat of the debate, and the location of the proposed project, it’s time for Streetsblog to weigh in and decide whether the Lorenzo project even qualifies as a “Transit Oriented Development.” Read more…

For part two of our interview, click here.  Or, see all our video from the event at our YouTube page.

If there’s any doubt that housing and how the city grows will be a dominant issue in transportation and development circles, a new alliance of the Bus Riders Union and The L.A. Human Right to Housing Collective have joined forces to work for increased access to public transit and affordable housing in Los Angeles.

As Los Angeles continues to grow, it will grow around its transit hubs, both those that will be new and those already existing.  Many of those living in communities that will soon be served by rail transit or BRT are worried these new developments could change the character of the existing community and make it unaffordable to current residents.  Martinez, in the video above, explains:

Transit Oriented Development, historically, has meant housing for more affluent communities whether they be white or communities of color, but people that have more resources.  We have seen that affordable housing gets left out.  Public Housing is being completely done away with and we’re concerned about that.

The two civil rights organizations celebrated the 55th Anniversary of the Montgomery Bus Boycotts with a raucous rally and dance concert in front of Metro Headquarters in Downtown Los Angeles.  For those needing a history lesson, the Montgomery Bus Boycotts lead to an end to racial segregation on Alabama’s bus system and was one of the first victories of the Civil Rights Movement.  Wikipedia has a pretty good summary for those wanting more history.

Whether you’re a fan of the BRU or not, you have to admit they have a certain style.  This rally featured the normal chanting, march and “call response” that BRU rallies are known for.  But this one also featured a prayer ritual and performance from an Aztec dance troupe to cleanse the area and call for greater freedom in Los Angeles.

More videos, of the Aztecs and the rally, can be found after the jump.

Read more…

We see it over and over again in our cities. Migration out of central cities hollows out neighborhoods and leaves the people who remain struggling with the consequences of disinvestment. But when development returns to urban areas, the arrival of new residents can impose burdens on people who never left. Often, as amenities come into an area and crime goes down, property values rise and poorer residents can no longer afford to live there.

The addition of light rail has been linked to higher rates of car ownership, as compared to the Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) as a whole, but that doesn't mean we should stop building light rail. Image: Dukakis Center (PDF)

Even when the new development is built around transit, which can lower transportation costs for low-income residents, unintended consequences can ensue.

Researchers with the Dukakis Center for Urban and Regional Policy have recently reached some provocative conclusions from their study of gentrification and transit-oriented development. Without proper planning, they found, TODs can lead to stratified neighborhoods and higher rates of car ownership. They also offered some solutions to ensure that transit-oriented development achieves its intended goals, such as preserving affordable housing and restricting parking in new developments.

Historically, the authors note, transit-rich neighborhoods tend to be diverse. The low-income people and people of color who live there often don’t have cars and they depend on public transportation. They also usually rent their homes — and since rental housing turns over faster than owner-occupied homes, this speeds along the process of gentrification when new transit options come to a neighborhood.

Rents go up as transit arrives (often along with new shops and restaurants) and more affluent people move in. And guess what? Those wealthier people tend to have more cars. That’s the fundamental paradox: the people who are attracted to transit-rich neighborhoods – and have the money to pay more to live there – don’t use transit as much as less affluent people who can get priced out.

The authors stop short of calling this pattern “displacement” – they point to “normal processes of housing turnover and succession.” But what’s clear is that the people moving in are from a different income demographic than those moving out (though the researchers say the racial makeup tends to stay the same).

Income-based housing stratification and more cars are not the outcomes planners want from transit or transit-oriented development. The challenge is to keep development around transit from becoming too exclusive and too car-oriented. How can communities do this?

Read more…