Have ABAG and MTC investigated whether Plan Bay Area’s development is feasible?

The regional land use plan, or distribution of growth to individual jurisdictions, was developed through a variety of land use and transportation scenarios that distributed the total amount of growth forecasted for the region to specific locations.  These scenarios sought to address the needs and aspirations of each Bay Area  jurisdiction, taking into account local assessments of development potential and local plans, while  meeting Plan Bay Area performance targets adopted by ABAG and MTC to guide and gauge the region’s future growth.

The framework for developing these scenarios is based as Priority Development Areas (PDAs) and Priority Conservation Areas (PCAs) nominated by local governments, not ABAG or MTC. ABAG and MTC incorporated local feedback from individual jurisdictions, relying on their best assessment of feasible growth over the plan period and then applied a series of additional factors to achieve Plan Bay Area’s goals. The scenarios were then developed through an open, deliberative process, during which public input was sought at every step along the way. After further modeling, analysis, and public engagement, the five initial scenarios were narrowed down to a single preferred land use scenario.

Feasibility of this scenario was further tested by an assessment of a representative sample of PDAs from throughout the region by consultants at Economic and Planning Systems (EPS) deeply familiar with the market characteristics of each jurisdiction in the Bay Area.  Overall, the study concluded that the proposed development pattern contained in the preferred scenario, while ambitious, represents an achievable level of growth with sufficient policy changes, some of which are now underway or currently being examined.