Conservative Group Sues to Stop Plan Bay Area

Bay Area Citizens, or BAC, says that the plan violates the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and must, therefore, be struck down.

The plaintiffs are a coalition of residents from throughout the region who have actively monitored the plan’s development, offering critiques and proposing alternatives.

The coalition is represented by attorneys with Pacific Legal Foundation, a conservative organization that advocates for limited government and individual rights.

Damien Schiff, an attorney with the Pacific Legal Foundation, told the Marin Independent Journal that the law required the regional agencies proposing Plan Bay Area to consider alternatives that would achieve the same results but with reduced effect on the environment.

“Here we think the plan fundamentally failed,” Schiff told the Marin IJ.

He said that whenever "a proposed government action carries major development implications, CEQA requires that the public be made fully aware of environmental consequences — the consequences both of proceeding and of not going ahead. This didn’t happen with Plan Bay Area”

Instead, Schiff said, the Association of Bay Area Governments and the Metropolitan Transportation Commission ignored facts that were not convenient to them in order to pack more housing into affluent neighborhoods.

Bay Area Citizens was founded in March by Marin County residents, although the lawsuit was filed in Alameda County Superior Court.

Plan Bay Area creates housing and transportation plans in response to the California Sustainable Communities and Climate Protection Act of 2008, which mandates that all of the state’s 18 metropolitan areas reduce greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles by 7 percent per capita by 2020 and 15 percent by 2035.

Plan Bay Area, according to the Marin IJ, “aims to achieve the greenhouse gas reduction targets by requiring 78 percent of new housing and 62 percent of new jobs in the Bay Area through 2035 to be located within some 200 priority development areas. These are areas typically accessible to mass transit, jobs, shopping and other services that have been identified and approved by local cities or counties for future growth. Local jurisdictions that approve priority development areas will be rewarded with grant money.”

Schiff told the Marin IJ that the Plan Bay Area approval process was flawed because it didn’t include an evaluation of an alternative approach suggested by Bay Area Citizens, which suggested expanded bus service and reduced transit fares.

Marin Grassroots: Affordable Housing Opponents are Too Hostile

Minds Appear Made Up About Plan Bay Area 

Marin Residents: Slow Down Plan Bay Area Housing Plan

Frustrations Abound at Latest One Bay Area Plan Meeting 

Hundreds Turn Out for Controversial Affordable Housing Meeting