As the Bay Area plans for the impacts of the climate crisis—extreme weather events like alterations in rain patterns, wildfires, rising seas, and temperature increases —communities have an incredible opportunity to reimagine connections to the natural world, to each other, and rethink how to pursue more holistic solutions that can transform existing systems and correct historical harms. Greenbelt Alliance sees the significant potential for Bay Area communities to create solutions that will address overlapping ecological and social challenges simultaneously. It requires us to confront our shared history and center environmental justice in our decision-making practices. It also requires focusing attention on equitable land-use planning solutions that are vital, yet widely overlooked as pathways to resilience. Too often, conversations about how to tackle the climate crisis are disconnected from discussing how we are using natural and working lands to sequester carbon and provide wildfire buffers, or where new homes are being built in proximity to jobs and amenities as well as climate risk areas.
Every city and county in California will be updating its state-mandated Housing element by 2022. This is a once-in-a-decade planning process that can result in suboptimal land use plans for years to come if not done adequately to meet the climate and housing crises head-on. With support from the PG&E Foundation, Greenbelt Alliance has developed the Resilience Playbook and designed local advocacy strategies to implement the Playbook policies in key jurisdictions seeking heightened support at this critical local planning moment for the Bay Area to ensure the right climate-resilient policies get integrated where they are needed most.
With the Resilience Playbook compiling the most urgent and impactful land use policies applicable for the Bay Area, Greenbelt Alliance is driving local and regional policy advocacy in jurisdictions where we have existing relationships, and where action is needed most, to ensure Bay Area policymakers and planners accelerate building resilience to climate change by incorporating our suite of recommendations. Our team is mobilizing local coalitions, building working relationships with local elected officials, and generating tailored holistic and equitable climate-resilient land-use policies and community engagement recommendations that will enable climate resilience in local policy and planning processes getting underway in Contra Costa County.
This work addresses the lack of local capacity and siloed nature of planning head-on, and draws from tangible and innovative policies we have spent the last year researching, so that we can guide local government leaders, city staff, and advocates, to incorporating the right policies that will preserve, protect, and restore natural and working lands while producing the much-needed climate-smart housing.
Timeline: January 2022 to January 2023
Goal: Using the resilience playbook we follow and advocate around Housing Elements to make sure the process is equitable and transparent and that the Housing Element policies are just, dense, affordable and resilient.
Strategy: Each program team member will track a certain number of cities (the exact number will vary based upon other factors
Actions:
Submit letters to city council, planning commission and Housing Element working groups. Either a generic letter for cities we are not closely following or a tailored letter
Equity in the process
Climate SMART policies
Site Selection: Location, location, location
Messaging
Narrative: about GA cares about HE
Talking points for enviros about why housing/HE is important
Why people who care about environment should care about Housing Elements
Could be a 2 part series with the first webinar/workshop on why it matters and why they should get involved and the second on how to actually get involved?
Workshop with Richmond Land and CCC environmental advocates about Housing Element in February
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Advocacy Plan