SB 375 (STEINBERG): LINKING REGIONAL TRANSPORTATION PLANS TO STATE GREENHOUSE GAS REDUCTION GOALS

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Overview

On September 30, 2008, Governor Schwarzenegger signed Senate Bill 375, which addresses Greenhouse Gas Emissions through land-use

SB375 encourages planning on a regional scale, designed to reduce vehicle use and associated greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. It requires the California Air Resources Board (CARB) to set GHG emissions targets for automobiles for each region with a metropolitan transportation organization (MPO). Each MPO must adopt a sustainable communities strategy to achieve its assigned targets, or describe an alternative strategy that would achieve the targets. Once those plans and strategies are in place, SB 375 will reduce CEQA requirements for certain projects that implement the region’s sustainable communities strategy.

• Gives the Air Resources Board a role in the process
• Makes climate an explicit factor in land use planning
• Links land use decisions and transportation planning at the regional scale
• Provides incentives in the form of limited environmental review for certain mixed-use residential and residential projects
• Aligns housing element with sustainable communities strategy

Implications for local governments

• The sustainable communities strategy adds three elements to the regional transportation plan: (1) a land use component that identifies how the region could house the entire population of the region over the next eight and 20 years; (2) a discussion of resource and farmland areas to be protected; and (3) a demonstration of how the development pattern and the transportation network can work together to reduce GHG emissions.
• Requires the MPO to conduct extensive outreach with local government officials and adopt a public participation plan for the sustainable communities strategy that includes a minimum number of workshops in each county.
• Synchronizes the regional housing needs assessment process with the regional transportation planning process, reuires local governments to rezone their general plans, consistent with the updated housing elemnt within three years of adoption, and provides that RHNA allocations must be consistent with the developketn pattern in the sustainable communities strategy. Moves RHNA to an eight-year cycle from a five-year one.
• Provides a CEQA exemption or a streamlined process for housing and mixed-use projects that meet specified criteria, such a s proximity to transit.
• Requires regional housing needs assessment reflect the achievement of a feasible balance between jobs and housing. The allocation of housing share to each city and county must be consistent with the sustainable communities strategy.

• CARB must establish GHG emission reduction targets for each MPO region. The targets will focu on automobiles and light trucks, and to be established for the years 2020 and 2035.
• Requires California Transportation Commission to develop guidelines for travel demand models that assess the relationship between land uses, proximity to transit and development density.
• Requires regional transportation plans to include a sustainable communities strategy that includes a development pattern which, when integrated with the transportation network will reduce GHG emissions to achieve regional emissions targets.
• Provides a new CEQA limitation for “transit priority projects” defined as a mixed-use project meeting specified ratios and densities that is located within one-half mile of a major transit stop or transit corridor identified in the regional transportation plan. A “transit priority project can be exempt from an EIR if a set list of requirements is met.
• For residential projects with at least 75% of their square footage dedicated to residential uses and is consistent with a sustainable communities strategy certain CEQA limitations will apply