The Marin Post

The Voice of the Community

Blog Post < Previous | Next >

Plan Bay Area

Why Are Local Leaders Paralyzed Over ABAG's One Bay Area Plan?

Plan Bay Area's focus on development contradicts its goal of reducing greenhouse gases and challenges county and local officials to "not run with the herd."

For more a more in-depth discussion on this subject please read "Why High Density Housing Will Not Reduce Greenhouse Gases"


Dear Elected Officials:

I encourage you to please read Dick Spotswood's latest piece on the Association of Bay Area Governments' (ABAG) One Bay Area Plan. As he shows with great clarity, the growth assumptions of the plan are without any basis in facts.

To this, I would like to also add these facts:

At the risk of injecting some logic to this discussion, ABAG / MTC are saying that we need to promote more buildings (and many times what we'll actually need to meet historical growth and using today's building technologies) to solve climate change? (truly "green" building technologies are not yet commonly or economically available)

Ironically, all the ABAG / MTC greenhouse gas emission goals could be met by 2025 by simply increasing our state vehicle mileage standards by less than 5 percent! This would cost us nothing, economically, environmentally or otherwise. It would penalize the source (vehicle manufacturers) and not taxpayers and citizens who are doing nothing more than trying to save the communities they've worked so hard to create.

How can you not be appalled by all this? Why aren't any of the Marin County Supervisors convening town halls and community meetings to hear what people have to say?

Our representatives (city and county) seem paralyzed, cowering before these quasi-governmental juggernauts, without so much as raising their hand. All the focus seems to be on being polite and maintaining decorum at all costs, science and facts be damned.

I urge you to lead not run with the herd.