Sacramento’s New Downtown

November 5, 2016

Interview By Cosmo Garvin

The Sacramento City Council is likely to approve the downtown railyards development plan this Thursday, November 10. Most of the buzz about the project has been around the proposed stadium for the Sacramento Republic soccer team.

The media has paid less attention to the amount and type of housing that will (or won’t) be built there, even though this is probably the most important part of the whole enterprise.

In Cosmo Garvin’s latest podcast, he interviewed Earl Withycombe and Alexandra Reagan of the Environmental Council of Sacramento, who say that “the current plan for the Railyards doesn’t include enough affordable housing, or enough of any kind of housing. They say the project isn’t dense enough, isn’t ambitious enough, about building a transit friendly, environmentally sound, inclusive urban core.”

ECOS comments on US-50 HOV Phase 2 Project Draft IS/EA

November 4, 2016

RE: Sac 50 Phase 2 High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) Lanes* Project Draft Initial Study [with Proposed Mitigated Negative Declaration]/Environmental Assessment

In general, ECOS is greatly concerned that this Initial Study does not adequately analyze the potential impacts of the project, and strongly recommends that a full EIR be conducted.

hov-ltr

Read our full comment letter here.

What’s an HOV lane? 
From Caltrans: The central concept for HOV lanes is to move more people rather than more cars. Some HOV lanes carry almost half of the people carried on the entire freeway.

Clearing CEQA: Study vindicates California environmental law

November 3, 2016

By Matt Kramer

Sacramento News & Review

CEQA gets a bad rap but it’s what allows people to provide feedback on plans for development in CA.

Many critics of CEQA [the California Environmental Quality Act] say that the it impedes business and ties projects up in litigation. However, a new Rose Foundation study places the percentage of projects that end up in litigation at only 0.7 percent. This helps shed light on a much-misunderstood law. “CEQA isn’t just about litigation; it’s also about having to do … reviews on projects that have a significant impact on the environment … It’s really the state’s bedrock environmental law.” says Ethan Elkind, director of the Climate Change and Business Program at the UCLA and UC Berkeley schools of law. #CEQA helps us protect our environment by requiring “that state and local agencies assess the potential significant environmental impacts of proposed development projects and work to minimize such impacts when practical.”

Read more here: https://www.newsreview.com/sacramento/clearing-ceqa-study-vindicates-california/content?oid=22662052