We in the Strawberry community have been told we don\u2019t understand what a PDA is \u2013 that it\u2019s not a land-use designation, it\u2019s just a funding tool to let us get long-needed money to our community, no strings attached.<\/p>\n
This half-truth creates a perception that the PDA designation is an innocuous way to get obligation-free funding for projects that won\u2019t cause undesired growth and change to our community.<\/p>\n
The PDA comes with expectations<\/span>.\u00a0 While Plan Bay Area doesn\u2019t tie specific projects to specific funding, it couldn\u2019t be more clear in the assumption that most of the growth in the Bay Area (80%) in the next 25 years will be in PDAs.\u00a0 The PDA application form says \u201cthe area has plans for a significant increase in housing units.\u201d The city council and mayor of San Rafael cited this expectation when rejecting the Civic Center PDA.<\/p>\n The PDA is an invitation<\/span>.\u00a0 At least for developers, who are going to conferences where \u201chow to make money with high density housing in PDAs\u201d is being pitched, with the explicit corollary that \u201cthese are communities who are volunteering, who WANT high density housing built.\u201d<\/p>\n How will we explain to developers that we don\u2019t really want high-density housing, we just wanted the money.\u00a0 Will we have to do that in the courts, or when the PDA is portrayed as implicit community acceptance of high density projects?<\/p>\n The PDA comes with developer financial incentives of loans and grants.<\/span>\u00a0 There are millions of dollars of PDA-only funds for developers to use for construction, pre-development, even acquisition of land.\u00a0 Loans from the MTC TOAH fund have been issued so far for residential and mixed-use projects ranging from 64 to 172 units.<\/p>\n The PDA also comes with CEQA streamlining.\u00a0 Supervisors don\u2019t HAVE to take advantage of CEQA streamlining, but it will be available to these supervisors, or whoever replaces them (maybe even this year), if desired.<\/p>\n The PDA is new and unknown.<\/span>\u00a0 \u00a0A PDA doesn\u2019t mean what it did when the original designations were made 7 years ago in 2007.\u00a0 Who knows what it will mean 7 years from now?\u00a0 All we can be sure of is that it\u2019s volunteering for priority development.<\/p>\n We understand what a PDA designation is as well as PDA advocates, planners and the Board of Supervisors.\u00a0 If we choose to interpret the grey areas cautiously, well, we\u2019re the ones who will live with the consequences.<\/p>\n Please respect the concerns of the Strawberry community and vote to remove the PDA designation \u2013 in its ENTIRETY \u2013 from Strawberry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" We in the Strawberry community have been told we don\u2019t understand what a PDA is \u2013 that it\u2019s not a land-use designation, it\u2019s just a funding tool to let us get long-needed money to our community, no strings attached. This … Continue reading