OPR Finally Finishes SB 743 Guidelines

The Office of Planning and Research has released long-awaited CEQA guidelines that, by many accounts, promise to revolutionize the way developers and lead agencies measure the transportation impacts of projects under the California Environmental Quality Act. The guidelines call for applicants to analyze not the impacts on nearby intersections — the commonly used metric known as “level of service,” which was never mandated by CEQA but has been the de facto standard — but rather to analyze “vehicle miles traveled”: the amount of driving that the project is likely to generate. “This proposal will streamline project review, particularly in cities and for transportation projects such as new bike or bus lanes that improve air quality and reduce greenhouse gases,” said OPR Director Ken Alex in a statement. "These rules make clear that reducing vehicle miles resulting from projects is a state goal and an environmental benefit.” Planners have long felt that LOS backfired, privileging cars over all other forms of mobility. “It exacerbates the very problem it pretends to solve. It’s really bad for motorists,” said Jeff Tumlin, Principal at Nelson\\Nygaard. “Metrics like VMT actually help solve the problem motorists experience by using development to make it easier not to drive.” The use of VMT is mandated by Senate Bill 743, which passed in 2013. Complementing Assembly Bill 32 and Senate Bill 375, SB 743 seeks to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by influencing transpiration and land use patterns. Essentially, VMT analysis enables lead agencies to favor projects that generate fewer miles and, therefore, less traffic and fewer emissions, rather than projects that relieve localized congestion. Since its passage, OPR has engaged in a long, methodical process of drafting and outreach — including several preliminary draft guidelines — to arrive at the current iteration of the guidelines. (See prior CP&DR coverage of VMT v. LOS.) OPR has transmitted the update — which cleans up other elements of the CEQA guidelines beyond VMT analysis — to the California Natural Resources Agency. The Natural Resources Agency will soon begin the formal administrative rule making process, which will entail additional public review, and may lead to further revisions. The guidelines survived a legislative challenge in 2015 that could have delayed them further. (See prior CP&DR coverage.) Rave Reviews While the guidelines took longer than many proponents had hoped, the response from many planners has been overwhelmingly positive. “They did an excellent job in thinking through how you would apply this to the transportation and land use projects,” said Matthew Baker, policy director at the Planning & Conservation League, an advocacy group which often serves as the primary defender of CEQA in the state. In order to accommodate the state’s broad range of agencies and geographical, the guidelines enable agencies to define VMT in absolute terms, per capita, per household or in any other measure. This flexibly was crucial for broad buy-in, because the guidelines apply to the entire state rather than to only transit-oriented neighborhoods, as some stakeholders had suggested during the drafting process. The guidelines do not mandate what threshold jurisdictions must adopt, but they recommend that thresholds be reasonably lower – 15 percent – than existing regional averages. “OPR struck a very clever balance in order to get broad political support for this remarkable change,” said Tumlin. “Part of that balance is providing a great deal of flexibility for lead agencies.” The guidelines also enable cities and regions to set their own thresholds of significance. Thresholds will likely be set based on a region’s existing average VMT, with significance levels set somewhat below existing conditions. It may be a tricky process for some regions, especially those with rural and urban areas. “We’re trying to weigh the pros and cons of (15 percent thresholds) as opposed to establishing something specific for Sacramento County,” said Todd Smith, principal planner at the County of Sacramento. “If we set our significance threshold low, that’ll have potentially political implications for those geographical locations where the VMT would be higher for (many) projects.” “It's not expecting developers in Madera to be able to achieve a trip generation rate comparable to downtown Los Angeles,” said Tumlin. Planners in large cities predict that the guidelines will essentially obviate the need for environmental impact reports for most infill developments, especially those in dense urban cores. Projects that would have been prohibitive under LOS because of their vehicular impacts to nearly intersections may not need any transportation analysis review if their VMT per capita falls below thresholds. The result, say some planners, can make their — and developers’ — jobs much easier, and it could be revelatory for cities that are trying to increase densities and pursue progressive planning strategies. “Transportation as an area of analysis under CEQA is essentially gone for many infill projects,” said Ethan Elkind, director of the Climate Program at the Center for Law, Energy & the Environment at UC Berkeley School of Law. “If you’re within a half-mile of a major transit stop…it’s very likely that you’re not going to have to do any sort of transportation analysis.” Unintended Consequences? For all of the exuberance surrounding VMT analysis, critics warn that their benefits may be over-hyped and even irrelevant to the actual goals of SB 743, which include GHG emission reductions, development of multimodal transportation networks, and diverse land uses. Moore noted that, under SB 743, VMT addresses these goals only by implication. “It’s an indirect measure, so it has all the problems that tend to come with indirect measures,” said Adrian Moore, vice president at the Reason Foundation. “If you’re worried about congestion, sprawl, pollution, and GHG emissions – VMT is just a crude approximation to try to get at them.” Moreover, the advent of electric vehicles promises to nullify VMT analysis’ effect on greenhouse gas emissions. “What does the VMT metric...mean when we're looking at increased availability and use of electric vehicles?” said Sacramento County’s Smith. Even if SB 743 is seen from an urbanist perspective rather than an environmental perspective, the complexity of California’s urban landscape may further muddle both the planning and emissions-related goals of SB 743. Moore offered the example of a proposed Walmart store that might, on its face, exceed VMT thresholds and draw many customers from, say, a 10-mile radius. And yet, those customers might already be visiting a Walmart 30 miles away. Thus, what seems like unfavorable VMT analysis could obscure even worse existing conditions. ”Are we sure that it’s….not going to create a lot of unintended consequences that are just going to beget more interventions?” said Moore. While Moore said that LOS’s promotion of sprawl is “100 percent true," he made the broader point that cities and job centers often shift in California. So favorable metrics that relate to one job center might turn terrible with the development of job centers elsewhere. "Polycentric doesn’t even capture (California)…it’s super-polycentric,” said Moore. “This measure...doesn’t take into account the dynamic changes as people choose to live and work in ways than minimize their personal costs.” And, in some ways, Moore seems VMT as an enabler of sprawl — just with slightly better access to amenities and alternative modes of transportation. On balance, though, proponents say that VMT analysis will be beneficial even in rural areas, and it might inspire developers to change their business models. “There’s a very easy solution for a Central Valley developer: focus on infill even in the small towns. That’s all you need to do,” said Tumlin. While VMT metrics seem to favor new developments nestled in dense urban areas, proponents say that they also benefit residents of existing single-family homes and suburban communities. That’s because new development in urban cores may equal less development on the urban fringe and, therefore, less traffic for residents to contend with as they commute to and from job centers. On the urban fringe, VMT metrics may compel developers to create more complete communities rather than single-use bedroom communities that are tied to job centers and amenities only by long stretches of semi-rural highway. “It holds the developer's feet to the fire and the county's to make sure we have planned, sustainable, smart growth strategies in place as we’re entertaining new development,” said Matt Treber, planning director of Madera County. Most controversially, highways themselves — and all other roads — are exempt form VMT analysis. Many proponents of VMT consider this move to be counterproductive, since the building of new roads can, in some places, create induced demand. “Roads, being the largest VMT generator in the transportation system, and the primary way that enables more low-density, car-oriented development that runs completely counter to the intent of 743,” said Baker. Even this provision may have an upside. Because metropolitan planning organizations typically set priorities for intra-regional transportation projects, including roads, their decisions carry significant weight under SB 743. This, in turn, links VMT analysis with each region’s Sustainable Communities Strategy. “I think it wisely suggests a lot of importance on the SCSs,” said Tumlin. “It closes some doors for highway opponents to stop projects that have been already programmed and environmentally cleared in regional plans. But in doing that, I think it elevates the value of regional planning." Early Adopters A handful of jurisdictions — mostly major cities — have already adopted VMT metrics on their own. They did so in part to anticipate SB 743 and in part because they independently determined that VMT metrics complimented their urban planning goals. Pasadena was the first and has been followed by San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose, among others. (See prior CP&DR coverage.) Early reviews from those jurisdictions have been positive. “(LOS) was flawed, time-consuming, expensive. We had a real vested interest in doing environmental review in a way that is more comprehensive that looks at the method of travel, how far a person is going, how many other people are in the vehicle, etcetera to look at the effects on the environment,” said Lisa Gibson, Director of Environmental Planning at the City and County of San Francisco. "It is a very easy to understand metric overall. It's not something that’s subject to a lot interpretation. It’s empirical….it’s a clear threshold…. The results have been easily understood,” added Gibson. In Pasadena, which was the first city in California to adopt VMT metrics, Planning Director David Reyes said that developers have been eager to collaborate. He cited a large apartment complex near a Gold Line light rail station that, because of the application of VMT metrics, was found to have no impacts and approved without an EIR. The city and developer are discussing mitigation measures like transit passes for residents and pedestrian improvements whereas under LOS the only option might have been to widen nearby streets and create additional turn lanes. “At first was confusion,” said Reyes. “Everybody for so long had been conditioned to understand vehicles trips and delay at intersections. When you flip the script on them, there’s an educational process.” For the majority of the state’s jurisdictions, though, the release of the guidelines initiates a long-awaited process by which planning departments statewide will have to devise new thresholds, retool their methodologies, and adopt a new frame of mind. The process could even strain department resources in smaller departments. New Paradigm for Planners The upside, however, is that VMT analysis promises to be much simpler and less time-consuming in the long run. “It is a very easy-to-understand metric overall,” said Gibson. "It's not something that’s subject to a lot interpretation. It’s empirical, it’s a clear threshold, you’re either above it or below it.” By contrast, LOS relies on a letter grade system and requires analysis of as many individual intersections as could be impacted, thus creating a snarl of data points. Even some places that might seem to be at odds with VMT analysis, such as rural areas that do not have the dense neighborhoods and abundant transit options that VMT favors, are already prepared for the new metrics. “It wouldn’t be a significant barrier to those developments because they are planned appropriately with jobs and housing balance,” said Treber. “In every instance the county has been looking at these to ensure that we don’t have a bedroom community to the city of Fresno.” One of the big policy questions that these jurisdictions will likely have to address is that of impact fees. Currently, impact fees are assessed according to the magnitude of a project’s impact on traffic flow and on the cost of associated mitigation measures — typically meaning roadway improvements. "One thing that cities struggle with is LOS is actually written into their impact fees,” said Manoj Madhavan, transportation planner with the San Francisco Planning Department. Under VMT, jurisdictions will have to recalibrate their fees and, in many cases, identify a whole new suite of mitigation measures, which might include everything from funding for bike lanes to subsidies for bus passes to sidewalk improvements. “They're losing CEQA as an exactions tool for roadway infrastructure,” said Tumlin. “Fortunately it’s very easy to do transportation impact fees in California, but it requires effort.” Ultimately, CEQA analyses are enforced by lawsuits. VMT metrics may open the door to a whole new subchapter in the long story of CEQA case law as opponents challenge projects. Then again, VMT might even prove to be far less contentious. “The way the guidelines are written, they gives more deference to lead agency determinations on transportation,” said Elkind. “That could help shield the lead agencies and project proponents from lawsuits.” Elkind noted that litigiousness is usually not limited to transportation impacts anyway. “If somebody is going to sue over the CEQA analysis they’ll probably lump in the transportation analysis anyway,” said Elkind. "They always sue under a bunch of different areas of CEQA analysis.” Contacts & Resources CEQA Guidelines Update, Nov. 2017 (including VMT analysis) Matthew Baker, Policy Director, Planning & Conservation League Ethan Elkind, Director, Climate Program, Center for Law, Energy & the Environment, UC Berkeley School of Law, eelkind@law.berkeley.eduLisa Gibson, Environmental Review Officer/Director of Environmental Planning, Planning Department, City and County of San Francisco lisa.gibson@sfgov.org Manoj Madhavan, Transportation Team Lead Adrian Moore, Vice President, Reason Foundation, adrian.moore@reason.orgDavid Reyes, Planning Director, City of Pasadena, davidreyes@cityofpasadena.netTodd Smith, Principal Planner, County of Sacramento, smithtodd@saccounty.netMatt Treber, Planning Director, Madera County, matthew.treber@co.madera.ca.govJeffrey Tumlin, Principal, Nelson\\\\Nygaard, jtumlin@nelsonnygaard.com Prior CP&DR Coverage of VMT: OPR Revises SB 743 Guidance, Putting Thresholds in "Advisory" CategoryBill to Delay Implementation of SB 743 Gains TractionPasadena Ushers in Era of VMT MetricsLOS to VMT: the arguments have begunOPR's transportation metric drafters hint they're more open to changeInsight: What comes next after LOS?

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