By Katherine Howard & Susan Vaughan
Over the last year, legislators have been debating new housing legislation — both state and local — to meet the pressing needs of California's growing population. It is important to face the state's affordable housing crisis head-on. Having a decent home for everyone is critical. But as we work to meet that need, it is also important to ensure that the environment is not harmed.
Creating vibrant urban communities requires a strong commitment to protecting the quality of urban life. Some of the features shared by healthy urban communities include convenient public open spaces, parks, playgrounds, and natural "unimproved" spaces. Creating these communities must also involve a commitment to preserving existing affordable housing, preventing displacement of low- and moderate-income residents, protecting cultural heritage, providing efficient public transit, and sheltering existing communities from unreasonable economic and physical disruption.
It's also critical that urban areas be non-polluting so as to minimize our impacts upon this planet's resources and environment.
When there is a lot of pressure for one set of needs — in this case, housing — there is the temptation to ignore other needs. There is a tendency to say that "just for this project" it is acceptable for the developer to ignore the impact on the environment.
One such short-sighted idea currently being discussed would allow projects to be approved "by right" and, in the process, to bypass environmental review now mandated by the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA).
The California Environmental Quality Act was passed in 1970 as part of a national wave of environmental protection legislation. CEQA requires project sponsors to disclose the environmental impacts of their proposed projects to the public, to accept public comments, and then to mitigate those impacts. Moreover, CEQA empowers members of the public to legally challenge the adequacy of the environmental reviews.
The Sierra Club strongly supports the power of people to participate in the development of regulations, plans, and evaluation criteria at every level of decision-making for their communities. Public input under the environmental review process can actually make projects better.
But legislation that lets housing projects bypass the CEQA process is not fair to our communities, to our environment, nor to the very people for whom it claims to be providing housing. As new members of the community, they will be paying the price of poor environmental decisions. Bypassing environmental review can lead to greater congestion and associated increases in air and water pollution, loss of habitat, and loss of yet more species.
The environment is suffering desperately from serious stressors. The so-called Doomsday Clock — a scientific indicator of the world's vulnerability to nuclear, environmental, and political threats — is now set at fewer than three minutes to midnight. Can it be stopped? Not unless we do everything in our power to protect the planet.
Thoughtful city and regional planning with environmental protections is the best way to provide housing for people now and for a planet we can all call home for future generations. In California, CEQA and environmental review are a vital part of that planning.
What Can You Do?
Currently State Bill 35 (Wiener) is before the California legislature. This legislation would allow local governments to ignore CEQA and bypass environmental review for certain types of housing projects. This could potentially lead to increases in air and water pollution, increased habitat loss, and prevent the public from having access to information about negative impacts to their health. The costs associated with dealing with the pollution would fall on taxpayers and local governments, instead of on the responsible parties.
Please write to your state senator and assemblypersons and ask them to amend this legislation to require environmental reviews under CEQA.
Let us know if they respond and what they say!
Katherine Howard is a parks advocate and member of the Executive Committee, SF Group, Sierra Club. Susan Vaughan is a public transportation advocate and member of the Executive Committee, SF Group, Sierra Club.
Image by Matt via Flickr