Livable Communities Working Group Meeting

The South Bay Cities Council of Governments Livable Communities Working Group is scheduled to meet on Wednesday, January 15, 2014. 

MEETING TIME  –  2:30 P.M. to 4:30 P.M.   

LOCATION:  South Bay Environmental Services Center, 20285 So. Western Avenue, Suite 100, Torrance 90501

The meeting agenda is posted below as well as a pdf copy of the Metro “First and Last Mile Report”  

To LCWG Members;

Hope you all had a rewarding holiday.Our first meeting of 2014 will feature 3 high profile programs that will have great interest to cities.  RSVP to Rosie Lackow at [email protected] 

First, SCAG is sending Frank Wen, Ping Chang and perhaps a couple of GIS/Forecasting staff in order to review the upcoming data collection initiative and answer questions about what is expected of cities.  I believe the presentation will have a dual purpose:

• Local input for the 2016-2040 RTP/SCS.  This is similar to but different from the Map Book correction process that was discussed in the fall of 2013.  The instruction for this task were emailed to every Community Development Director on 12/31/13.  I have copied most of the text of that email at the very end of this memo.

•  SCAG is setting up a framework for monitoring implementation of various aspects of the 2012 RTP/SCS.  The key component of that initiative is the “Local Implementation Survey.”   I think this will be emailed to cities and or made available through a Web browser.  And I believe Frank and Ping will want to discuss the survey with you.

 This will be your chance to clarify SCAG’s data collection process and provide feedback regarding time and effort to comply.

Second, Steven Mateer of Metro will present the long awaited and very significant report on the first/last mile to transit.  These are conceived of as “paths” and can apply to certain aspects of even a transit-poor area like the South Bay.  Thanks to continued pressure exerted by the SBCCOG, there is even a section on various slow-speed zero-emission vehicles.  The Appendix to the report, A Taxonomy of Mobility Devices, will be especially useful to all planners.  This draft report is being presented in order for Metro to collect comments for final revisions before presenting the first/last mile policy to the Metro Board in February.  Please let Rosie know if you want an electronic copy of the report and/or the Appendix before our meeting. 

Third, I will briefly review the findings of our PEV Readiness project funded by SCAG and the CEC.  Copies of the report will be available at www.southbaycities.org in February. 

We will close with updates on the annual General Assembly and other relevant projects.  We will not meet in February.  Our next meeting will be March 19.

Wally Siembab

310 645 1129

Text of the 12/31/13 SCAG email:

A critical component to the success of the 2016-2040 Regional Transportation Plan/Sustainable Communities Strategy (RTP/SCS) will be the participation and cooperation of all 197 local government partners within the Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG) region. In mid-October, a letter was sent from SCAG to all local jurisdictions that outlined the protocols for communication, information sharing, and verification/approval between SCAG and local jurisdictions regarding local growth forecasts. Also included in the letter was a detailed description of the stages of the Local Input Process for the 2016-2040 RTP/SCS:

•  Stage 1 – Preliminary General Plan, Zoning, Existing Land Use, and Resource Data Collection and Review (March 2013 – November 2013)

• Stage 2 – Review of Base Year 2012 Socioeconomic Data and Future Years’ (2020, 2035, and 2040) Growth Forecast, Green Region Initiative Survey, and Open Space Conservation Activity – Local Government Questionnaire (November 2013 – May 2014); and
• Stage 3 – Land Use Scenario Planning Exercises (May 2014 –September 2014)

In entering Stage 2 of the process, SCAG is requesting your jurisdiction’s input on population, household, and employment estimates for year 2012 and preliminary growth projections for years 2020, 2035, and 2040. This information is available for local review at both the jurisdictional level and at the sub-jurisdictional Transportation Analysis Zone (TAZ) level. Note that jurisdictions may submit sub-jurisdictional input at their option;  however, sub-jurisdictional information will only be included as advisory in SCAG’s adopted 2016-2040 RTP/SCS.

SCAG’s data will be transmitted together with our revised Data/Map Books, which have been updated based upon input from local jurisdictions during Stage 1 of the Local Input Process and are available for download at ftp://scag-data:[email protected]/Data_Map_Book. Population, household, and employment information is available starting at Page 19 of each Data/Map Book. Instructions for providing input to SCAG and/or verification of these datasets is available in Attachment 1.

Please note that our records show that we did not receive input from your jurisdiction on SCAG’s Data/Map Book (sent out on August 9, 2013) during Stage 1 of the Local Input Process. It is important that SCAG’s land use datasets be reviewed and corrected, as needed, to ensure that information feeding into the 2016-2040 RTP/SCS is as accurate as possible. As such, we will still be accepting input on this data during the Stage 2 of the Local Input Process.

In order to facilitate the review of this information and to answer any questions on the process, SCAG staff will be arranging one-on-one meetings with each local jurisdiction in the months of January, February, and March. Additional items that will be briefly covered by SCAG in these sessions include a Local Survey requesting information on the details of any recently adopted sustainability plans and/or policies related to the implementation of the 2012-2035 RTP/SCS (Attachment 1), and data on local open space plans, policies and approaches (Attachment 2).