As the full weight of SB 375 starts to become evident, divisions on the state board charged with implementing the legislation are coming to the forefront. Some members of the Air Resources Board (ARB) are welcoming what they see as an opportunity to overhaul land use planning and remake cities, while others see the state intruding into an area where it is not wanted and has no experience.

The divergence emerged publicly during Thursday's ARB board meeting to consider recommendations from the Regional Targets Advisory Committee (RTAC), a group charged with helping determine the methodology for setting regional greenhouse gas emissions reductions targets. The RTAC report (see CP&DR, October 1, 2009) received a generally favorable reception from the board, which postponed a final decision on committee recommendations until early 2010.

However, one board member – San Diego County Supervisor Ron Roberts – voiced a concern that others in local governments and even in Sacramento have been expressing in the background regarding the potentially expansive role the board may assume. He said the ARB appears to be heading toward becoming a "super planning agency," even though that would be outside of its mission and expertise.

"I'm afraid that we're getting way off," said Roberts. "We've never been in the position of ruling on local land use planning. That's what we're doing."

Board member Ron Loveridge, who is the mayor of Riverside, and board member Daniel Sperling, who is director of the Institute of Transportation Studies at University of California, Davis, responded that SB 375 presents the state with an historic opportunity. The legislation – which created the RTAC and requires the ARB to set regional greenhouse gas emissions reductions targets next year – uses climate change concerns to "do something about our cities," Sperling said. Strategies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are the same strategies that could make cities more livable and healthier, he said.

"This is really a historic proposal," Loveridge added. "This is an effort to shape the urban form in ways that I have no past memory of."

And that, said Roberts, is what is so frightening about SB 375.

Roberts pointed to the board's decision last year on the scoping plan for implementation of AB 32, the law requiring the state to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 and to 80% less than 1990 levels by 2050. The scoping plan calls for the state to cut emissions by 174 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (MMT) by 2020. After heavy lobbying by development interests and environmentalists, the board set a tentative goal for reductions from land use changes at 5 MMT – a decision generally applauded by the developers (see CP&DR Insight, January 2009). James Goldstene, ARB executive officer, said the 5 MMT figure was simply a placeholder. Lynn Terry, deputy executive officer, said the RTAC did not assume 5 MMT was the ultimate goal. The RTAC did not recommend any numeric target.

But Roberts insisted the RTAC and staff had discarded the board's scoping plan decision without showing that the 5 MMT figure was faulty.

Later on, board members and RTAC members said that "business as usual" planning would not be sufficient to meet greenhouse gas emissions reductions goals. Roberts challenged that assertion. In San Diego County, business as usual means spending $1 billion to expand the trolley system and rewarding communities that approve higher density housing, he said.

"We're doing a lot of things, and I'm concerned we're not going to get credit for it. The state has a habit of penalizing you for doing the right thing," Roberts said. "I don't trust the state to do planning, and I don't trust the state to review our land plans."

Sperling and other board members said they have no intention of putting the ARB in the land use planning business. Still, the SB 375 process calls for the board to review and approve "sustainable communities strategies" that metropolitan planning organizations must adopt to meet the ARB-mandated greenhouse gas emissions reductions targets (see CP&DR Blog, October 1, 2008). Because sustainable communities strategies have never been done before, no one is exactly sure what they will look like. But they could well be broad brush or even fairly detailed regional land use and transportation plans that are aimed at getting people to drive fewer miles, which likely equates to higher densities, mixed uses, more transit and compact neighborhoods.

Ontario City Manager Greg Devereaux, an RTAC member, said local officials have great uncertainty over the scope of SB 375.

"Densities that work in some markets are not economically viable in other markets. The fear is that these factors will not be considered in determining what is ‘ambitiously achievable,'" Devereaux said, referencing the ARB's goal for the RTAC.

Board member Ken Yeager, a Santa Clara County supervisor, said more local planners and elected officials need to be participating in the SB 375 process right now, because it could ultimately result in local officials having to make unpopular decisions about growth.

Said Yeager, "Most people win elections by saying, ‘No, I'm a NIMBY.'"

– Paul Shigley