From Today to TOD – The Next Steps

A few years ago, a poll was taken about which planning departments in the Sacramento area were the most responsive and helpful.  The City of Sacramento came in last.  Between an organization chart that placed key reviewers in separate silos and a long-standing culture of poor responsiveness, developers found Sacramento a difficult place to do business.

Some may find that result refreshing, thinking that the role of a planning department is to make development difficult for developers.  They’d be wrong.  The best role of a planning department is to shape development so it meets that needs of the community, while creating an environment in which developers are encouraged to build projects that benefit the community because they can make a profit.

That’s the role that the Sacramento planning department was failing to fill.

In response, the city manager and city council took action.  New management was recruited and a reorganization was implemented.

Developers noted the changes, but weren’t enthusiastic.  Most had seen other cities go through similar modifications with little eventual improvement.  This time, they were wrong.

Months later, the local district of the Urban Land Institute held a meeting on the new city planning organization.  A developer told a memorable story.  Early during the transition, he was in his car when his phone rang.  On the other end was the new City of Sacramento planning director.  The director praised the concept behind a project that the developer was considering and asked what he could do to help the developer move the project ahead.

The developer was so startled that he dropped his phone.  He had rarely heard from a Sacramento planning director previously and certainly never with an offer of assistance.

Some of the initial euphoria over the changes at Sacramento has since faded, as often happens with early enthusiasm.  And economic hard times forced staffing changes.  But enough effect lingered that Sacramento now has a passel full of interesting and beneficial urbanist projects in the works.  Many hurdles remain to be cleared, but the future of Sacramento looks much brighter than it did only a few years ago.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve written about a number of issues surrounding the Petaluma Station Area Plan.  I’ve written about a transition in parking philosophies and the points on which a parking strategy might be tripped.  I’ve written about how much retail the Station Area can likely support.  I’ve written about adjoining land patterns and the need to recognize non-conforming land uses.  And I’ve written about the impact fee conundrum for transit-oriented development (TOD).

All of those topics, and more, are crucial and will remain crucial.  But equally important is outreach.  Talking with developers, whether in the Station Area itself or in surrounding parcels, who might be enticed to develop projects that will help bring the TOD to full fruition.

As illustrated by the accompanying photos, the area around the Petaluma Station Area has little urbanism in its current makeup.  It will take a long and sustained effort to make changes.

This doesn’t mean that the City of Petaluma, or any city, should grant broad concessions to get a TOD underway.  That’s a land-development model that has gotten us into much of the economic mess in which we now reside.

Instead, the goal should be a win-win-win.  A win for the City in the form of an immediate upswing in economic activity, a win for developers in the form of profits, and a win for the next generation of local residents in the form of economically sustainable development.   And win-win-win solutions are only found through frank interchanges of needs and concerns.  They don’t evolve in vacuums.

These comments aren’t intended to criticize the City of Petaluma planning department.  I certainly don’t have access to their call logs or know with whom they’re meeting.  I hope that they and others in City Hall are actively reaching out to, listening to, and encouraging possible developers.

Instead, the comments are meant to alert all cities that have urbanist goals to remember that adopting an urbanist plan is only a first step.  That a plan is a necessary foundation, but useless if there isn’t an ingrained commitment to implement the plan by actively working with the community and developers.

I’ve seen too many cities go through long and arduous processes of adopting far-sighted planning documents, only to be puzzled when developers didn’t immediately begin submitting conforming projects.  I don’t need to see any more failures.  We should all learn from Sacramento.

Reminder: The Petaluma Planning Commission will begin consideration of the Petaluma Station Area Plan at 7:00pm on March 26 in the Petaluma City Hall.

As always, your questions or comments will be appreciated.  Please comment below or email me.  And thanks for reading. - Dave Alden (davealden53@comcast.net)

From Today to TOD – Impact Fees

Over the past few weeks, I’ve written about the hurdles of converting from drivable suburban to walkable urban, with particular reference to the pending Petaluma Station Area Plan.  I’ve discoursed on subjects as varied as parking, adjoining properties, and transitional uses.   Today, as I near conclusion, I’ll grapple with the thorniest issue, impact fees.

Impact fees are charges that are collected on new development and are intended to fairly assess new residents for their share of the infrastructure improvements needed to support a growing population.  Impact fees are usually collected at issuance of building permits, although alternative arrangements are sometimes permitted.

The breadth of possible impact fees are limited only by municipal imagination.  The most common fees are for roads, water, sewer, storm drainage, schools, and parks.  An impact fee can only be imposed if a study has been done justifying the amount of the fee.

(Note: “Impact fee” is a generic term for this type of development charge.  It is also the term used in California.  However, other states use alternative terms.  In Oregon, these fees are called “system development charges” or “SDCs”.  I was involved in setting the SDC rules for the Oregon community where I lived before moving to the North Bay.)

By law, an impact fee can only consider the incremental impact of new homes or businesses.  It can’t be used to remedy existing infrastructure deficiencies.  However, that’s a fine line that is often erased by shuffling feet.

The StrongTowns theory tells us that many communities are increasingly victims of infrastructure maintenance shortfalls and are dependent on the fees from new development to cover the gap.  As a result, city councils and their consultants often struggle with the distinctions between new impacts and existing deficiencies.

Transit-oriented development (TOD) further confuses the question.  Although the point is rarely noted, most impact fees studies include an implicit assumption that new development will follow the same pattern as existing development.  That each new single-family home will generate the same ten vehicular trips as existing homes, will water the same area of lawn, and will produce the same number of school children.

What should a city do about impact fees when new development is targeted toward residents who prefer to make trips by transit, by bicycle, or by foot, rather than by car?  Who generate fewer school children because they are predominantly millennials or seniors?  Or who live in smaller spaces because much of their social life is conducted in the public realm?

Looking at Petaluma, as least as seen through the lens of the proposed Petaluma Station Area Plan, the answer is unclear and potentially unsatisfying.  Early in the station area planning process, the consultant team determined that the current impact fee structure would overburden the station area, with the result that development might not be financially feasible.  Combined with the knowledge that TOD residents generally require less infrastructure to live their daily lives, this put a burden on city staff to reassess the impact fees.

(Note: There is also a time factor to the infrastructure demands for TOD residents.  Early in the life of a TOD, residents may make nearly as many car trips as other city residents because the commercial elements of the TOD are still evolving.  But as the TOD begins to meet more daily needs, these car trips will likely reduce.  The impact fee standards don’t address this possibility.)

Concurrent with the findings of the consultant team on the impact fees for the station area, there was a growing concern in Petaluma that the impact fees were too high for all development.  The recently adopted General Plan included infrastructure improvements that were to be funded by impact fees.  Many argued that the resulting impact fees were stifling development.  (Once again, there were hints of the StrongTowns-predicted conflation of infrastructure needed to support new development and infrastructure needed to sustain the existing community.)

The city decided to reduce impact fees throughout the community.  The reduction for residential housing was about 30 percent.  The station area planning consultant was directed to reconsider the financial viability of the station area plan with the lower fees.  The results of this update haven’t yet been released.

This impact fee reduction was likely appropriate and the city should be applauded for taking the step.  But it sidesteps the question, which is fundamental to this discussion, of whether people who live in a TOD should be subject to the same impact fees as those who choose to live on the urban fringe.

To be fair, there is a distinction in the impact fees between single-family homes and multi-family homes.  Thus, the average TOD residence will have somewhat lower impact fees that the average residence at the urban fringe.  However, the impact fees remain the same between walkable TOD multi-family units and apartments at the urban fringe which are surrounded by parking lots and require a car for nearly every daily task.  And that seems flawed.

I concur that it would be an overly difficult task for a city to finely tune impact fees to each set of circumstances throughout a city.  However, the burden on cities under the California Government Code, Section 66020, is to make “proper and valid findings that the construction of certain public improvements or facilities, the need for which is directly attributable to the proposed development”.  “Directly attributable to proposed development” would seem to require acknowledgement of alternative types of development such as TODs.

There is one other point on which TODs differ from other types of development.  Like most cities, Petaluma’s impact fees are the same regardless of the size of the residence.  This feels appropriate for most situations.  From personal observation, a 1,200 square foot home is likely to have a similar number of residents as a 3,500 square foot McMansion.

However, many TODs include a new size of residence.  Micro-units of perhaps 300 to 400 square feet that are intended for a single person.  If the impact fees remain the same for these units, the incentive for a developer is not to build micro-units, because the fees per square foot might be four times greater than for conventionally-sized units.  And yet micro-units can fill a housing niche and add vibrancy to a TOD.

The station area consultant recognized this conundrum early in the process and suggested that impact fees for TOD units be scaled to unit size.  Thus far, the suggestion hasn’t been acted upon.

I won’t pretend that setting impact fees is an easy task.  Indeed, it’s complex and multi-faceted.   But the ultimate goal is the fair distribution of infrastructure costs.  I’m not sure that we’re yet approaching that goal when it comes to TOD.

As always, your questions or comments will be appreciated.  Please comment below or email me.  And thanks for reading. - Dave Alden (davealden53@comcast.net)

From Today to TOD – Parking (Concluded)

In my last post, I wrote about the difficulties of integrating new developments with existing land uses, especially when it involves a paradigm shift.  Such as the shift between drivable suburban and walkable urban.

I used the unexpected need for interim parking at a proposed downtown Petaluma transit-oriented development (TOD) as an example.  The TOD location adjoins the site at which the SMART (Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit) station will soon open.  It was expected that SMART parking would be located at another Petaluma SMART station, but that station has been deferred, forcing a parking need on the downtown site.

I also described the solution that had been developed by the planning consultant, Opticos Design of Berkeley.  Opticos proposed staged development of the SMART-owned land immediately adjoining the station.  The staging would allow much of the site to be used for interim parking during the early years of SMART operation

Finally, I warned that the solution, no matter how appropriate, could still come undone. 

Today I’ll note some of the potential pitfalls.  Although these particular issues may be unique to the Petaluma site, they will have their close equivalents for many similar projects.

If you’re not familiar with the site, you may want to open the final draft master plan.   The existing land ownership is shown on page 2.6.  The proposed overall site plan is shown on page 2.11.  The SMART-owned building sites on which the interim parking would be located are the two sites adjoining the station at the northeast.

A key point to remember when considering the potential pitfalls to the interim parking solution is that the proposed master plan is only that.  A master plan.  It doesn’t result in any construction.  Instead, construction will require a commitment from a developer who may argue for an alternative land plan as a condition of taking on the project risk.  Thus, no matter how well-conceived the master plan might be, it’s subject to reconsideration at a later date.

The first hurdle for the interim parking solution is the need for SMART to acquiesce to the solution.  As SMART’s goal is to have train riders, the provision for interim parking to be supplanted by housing as parking is built elsewhere would seem a fine solution.  But SMART also needs to maximize the return from their parcel to fund the rail construction.  That goal may work at cross-purposes.

Next, the potential developer of the SMART parcel, who will be identified by a future selection process, will need to agree to the plan.  This could be a sticking point.

A key element of the proposed master plan is a new street that is tentatively named Transverse Street and that will bisect the SMART and Haystack Landing parcels.  This street will provide a linear park approach to the train station.  The street is required to fulfill the traffic circulation plan for the site.  It would also provide access to the interim parking.

However, under the interim parking concept, there would be no initial development along Transverse Street.  Building a street without also building the fronting buildings is a financial burden that is difficult in good times and worse when the economy is slow and money is tight.  Many developers would balk at this condition.

Lastly, and potentially most significantly, the Haystack Landing parcel has recently been acquired out of bankruptcy by a San Diego development firm.  There is a possibility that the firm will decide that the proposed Transverse Street is incompatible with their development goals.  If that street is eliminated, the master plan vision for the SMART parcel is undermined and the interim parking plan may unwind.

Many would argue that the developer should be morally bound to comply with the master plan.  But it’s not that easy.  I’m not familiar with the new owner of the Haystack Landing site.  They may have a remarkably high level of community concern.  But even the most community-dedicated developers have investors and lenders to satisfy.  The proposed street would add cost and reduce building area.  It would be a burden on a financial pro forma.

Many times, a developer will approach the city with a proposed development that excludes or modifies key elements, such as a Transverse Street.  They will make the argument that they can’t afford to proceed with the project without the changes.  Sometimes, their claims will be true.  Other times, the claim will be nothing more than an attempt to increase the financial return from the project.  And the city has no way to know which the claim might be.  It’s effectively a multi-million dollar game of poker, with high value bluffing.

This is where community input can become important.  Many citizens will argue that any development is good and that making the requested concessions is a municipal necessity.  Others will argue that holding to a well-conceived master plan is the municipal imperative, even at the risk of a developer opting out of the project.  A city council will listen to what the citizens say.

I may seem to have wandered a long ways from an interim parking solution to the need for citizens to encourage a city council to defend a master plan.  But I’m only describing how land development decisions are truly made.  The parts are all interconnected and public involvement does make a difference

As I noted in my last post, the final meeting of the citizens’ advisory committee for the Petaluma Station Area plan will be held this Thursday, February 21.  The meeting will be at the Community Center and will start at 6pm.  Everyone is welcome to attend.  It’ll be a good chance for you to become more familiar with the master plan and to decide if it represents a vision of Petaluma’s future that you’re willing to support.

Moving from today to TOD is a complex subject.  Especially when it imposes a walkable vision on a community that is largely car-oriented.  I’ll touch on other issues in the coming weeks.

As always, your questions or comments will be appreciated.  Please comment below or email me.  And thanks for reading. - Dave Alden (davealden53@comcast.net)

Getting from Today to TOD – Parking

Urbanists have visions of the future.  Visions that may be twenty years or farther into the future, but are nonetheless in perfect focus.

Where the focus is often less clear is on the intervening years.  The years of awkward transition between a drivable suburban present and a walkable urban future.

A frequent urbanist vision is of transit-oriented development (TOD).   An urbanist sees a delightful street scene with refreshed commuters disembarking from sleek trains and walking or biking contentedly toward nearby homes.  There would be abundant opportunities to make nightly purchases in streetfront stores or to sit in neighborhood pubs, sharing news of the day.

But even if a TOD could be magically plopped into place tomorrow, the reality is still that the surrounding community wouldn’t be ready to accommodate a TOD in its midst.   Last May, I wrote about new development being a rent in the fabric of the city, a wound that takes time to heal.  A TOD, no matter how well-designed and executed, disrupts the existing day-to-day life of a city.

Finding ways to heal those wounds, to facilitate the transition to a TOD future, is key to a successful TOD.

The City of Petaluma is currently is the final stages of a master plan for the Petaluma Station Area, a possible TOD adjoining the SMART (Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit) station that will soon be built near downtown Petaluma.  The draft master plan provides an example of the transitional strategies that are required to implement a TOD.  Today, I’ll begin writing about transitional parking.  There are other issues, such as retail demand, that I’ll cover in future posts.

The initial SMART vision for Petaluma had a fully-conceived vision for commuter parking.  There were to be two stations in town.  One would be near the historic downtown and would be suited for pedestrian, bicycle, and transit access.  The other would be near the north end of town and would include extensive parking.  It was a reasonable strategy.

But as often happens, even reasonable strategies can come unwound.  In this case, economic hard times reduced the sales tax revenues that were to fund the construction of the new train.  SMART had to adjust their plans.  One change was the deferral of the north station.  What remained was the downtown station that hadn’t been intended to provide much parking.

That was the challenge that faced the consulting team, headed by Opticos Design of Berkeley, who was hired by the City of Petaluma to prepare a TOD master plan.

Before discussing the Opticos solution, I’ll offer a quick summary of the lands encompassed by the master plan.  For those who know Petaluma, this is information you already know.  But for others, you may wish to download the final draft master plan.  An overview of the TOD site can be seen on page 2-6.

The potential site includes three large blocks of land.  Immediately adjoining the historic train station and the site of new train station, and further bounded by E. Washington Street, Copeland Street, and D Street, is land owned by SMART.  The land is currently being used as a staging area for rail construction.  SMART intends to seek a developer for the land after rail construction is complete.

Next closest to the station is the Haystack Landing site, bounded by E. Washington Street, Weller Street,  D Street, and Copeland Street.  Earlier development plans for the property failed and the land has been in a bankruptcy court action for several years.  Except for a pair of metal buildings in one corner, the site is vacant.

Furthest away from the station, bounded by E. Washington Street, Weller Street, and the Petaluma River, is a shopping center that was recently renamed River Plaza, but is still commonly known as Golden Eagle.  Redevelopment of this site under the Petaluma Station Area would result in a higher level of economic use, but will likely happen after the other two sites because of the productive use already in place.

The concept that Opticos proposed to address the parking concern was an incremental development of the SMART land.  If the initial development can be limited to the areas closest to the station, E. Washington, and D Street, much of the internal area of the parcel can be used for parking on an interim basis.  By my calculations, it seems that 300 to 400 parking spaces could be created.

The plan on page 2-11 shows a possible overall development of the site.  To understand the interim parking thinking, look at the parking in the middle of the two halves of the SMART site.  Those two lots would be extended toward the central street and to the street to the southwest, which is Copeland Street.

The expectation would be that the parking areas along the street frontages would eventually be replaced by the final buildings as the initial buildings were fully absorbed.  The hope is that the north Petaluma station will have been built by that time, reducing the need for parking at the downtown station.

But there is one other possibility.  If there continues to be strong demand for parking at the downtown station, one or both of the parking areas in the middle of the building sites could be converted to parking structures.  The cost would be significant, but would only be incurred if there was a need.

Do these parking strategies offer a good transitional solution?  Absolutely.  Does it mean that we needn’t worry about the parking issue again?  Not even close.  There are many possibilities for the ship of good intentions to be driven onto the lee shore of real-world issues.  I’ll talk about some of those of possibilities in my next post. 

But for today, I’d suggest that you scan the draft master plan.  It’s a large document and I don’t seriously suggest you read every word, but read as much as holds your interest.

If being a part of bringing this vision to fruition is of interest to you, including the interim parking concepts, you may wish to attend the final meeting of the citizens’ advisory committee.  It will be held this Thursday, February 21, at 6pm at the Community Center.  Everyone is welcome to attend.  The master plan will then head to the Planning Commission and City Council, where your attendance could also be valuable.

Moving from today to TOD is a complex subject.  Hopefully, Petaluma can provide lessons for the other cities in the region.

As always, your questions or comments will be appreciated.  Please comment below or email me.  And thanks for reading. - Dave Alden (davealden53@comcast.net)