December 6, 7pm-9pm
San Jose City Hall
Room W-120 (located in the Rotunda)

Come check out what is sure to be a very cool event put on by our friends at the Silicon Valley Bike Coalition!

In the US, babies first learn to roll over, crawl, and then walk. In
the Netherlands, there's one more stage that is of utmost importance:
learning to ride a bike.

The Netherlands boasts a 27% bike mode share. How do they do it? And
can San Jose and the region replicate it? Come hear from our panel and
learn about the various land use and transportation strategies being
employed in four different cities, Utrecht, Amsterdam, Rotterdam and
The Hague. Hear about how each city is dealing with the same kinds of
transportation and land use challenges as the Bay Area and how the
Dutch continue to retain and grow their bike culture, protect open
space, grow the economy and preserve a high quality of life.

Join the Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition for a panel of local experts
on transportation and land use planning.

Panel Speakers:
Sam Liccardo, San Jose Downtown Council Member
Manuel Pineda, Acting Deputy Director of SJ Department of Transportation
Shiloh Ballard, Vice President, Housing & Community Development at
Silicon Valley Leadership Group

 

Special thanks goes to Bikes Belong who facilitated an educational
trip to the Netherlands.

The Livable Communities Forum presents
Heather Wooten of Public Health Law and Policy to discuss the intersection of public health and land use.

The event is co-sponsored by the Mountain View Coalition for Sustainable Planning, The Health Trust, and Mountain View Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga


January 27, 2011
7:00-8:30 p.m.
The Mountain View Community Center
201 South Rengstorff Ave, Mountain View
Free admission, snacks provided.

Curious about how the Council meeting on the General Plan went the other night? Take a peek at MVCSP's unofficial minutes. They don't capture everything that happened but they should give you the gist!

These notes were taken by Sue Russell, member of MVCSP, the League of Women Voters and Advocates for Affordable Housing. Ellie Casson , member of MVCSP, added a few additional notes of her own.

Thanks to everyone who attended or submitted comments for Tuesday’s Council meeting on the General Plan. The members and views of the Mountain View Coalition for Sustainable Planning had a fantastic showing! We had about six or so people get up and express their support for a walkable, affordable, beautiful, transit-accessible city. These folks made it very clear that if achieving the City of Villages vision took a certain amount of new growth then that was ok by them! Way to be bold guys!

Council seems to be hearing the messages we're sending; four members of Council asked staff if the allowed densities in our identified focus areas were high enough to actually allow villages to develop. Staff said that in the new year they would delve deeper into what each neighborhood’s “village center” should look like and what it will take to get there, so stay tuned!

Keep up the good work! Our efforts are having an impact!

Hot off the presses! The document was so large we had to break it into three downloads.  Thanks to Bruce England for posting this earlier.

This document is in reference to the November 16 City Council meeting agenda item 5.01. ("That the City Council endorse the proposed General Plan Strategy, including the Environmental Planning Commission's comments on draft General Plan policy direction. This endorsement will serve to initiate and focus the development of the the Draft General Plan and General Plan Environmental Impact Report (EIR). ")

Downloading documents from the City web site is not very user friendly, especially for documents longer than 75 pages (this one is 99 pages), so here it is in pdf format for your convenience. Enjoy!

Dear Mayor Bryant, Vice Mayor Siegel, and Members of the Mountain View City Council,


The Mountain View Coalition for Sustainable Planning appreciates the opportunity to comment on the draft General Plan strategy, land use map, and policies (agenda item 5.01). Overall, we are very pleased that the draft plan reflects the community’s clear direction to design a network of healthy, sustainable villages that provide City residents and workers more choices for where to live and how to get around.  The General Plan takes some important steps toward achieving the ‘network of villages’ vision, such as focusing higher intensity development near transit centers and along transit corridors, and planning a mix of residential, commercial, service, and entertainment uses for the North Bayshore Area.  However, we believe that  some additional steps are necessary to ensure that the community’s vision comes to fruition. For example:

Increased intensity of development to support self-sustaining villages
The General Plan clearly articulates the goals of creating new retail and services within walking distances for residents and supporting non-auto mobility improvements for transit, walking, or biking.  However, in order to support frequent transit service and convenient amenities, the General Plan must encourage and incentivize land uses at high enough intensities to create a sufficient customer base for shops and transit.  MVCSP’s understanding is that Mountain View’s own internal economic studies have shown that under the guidelines of the currently proposed land use map, the City would fall short of achieving its goal of creating locally serving retail and improved transit. Accompanying this email you will find a table of statistics from reputable sources that we have compiled to illustrate that in order to achieve particular services (such as locally serving retail) a certain number of people are required. Please refer to this table for more detail. More generally, to ensure that the General Plan land use map supports self-sustaining villages, Council should direct staff to


increase densities in the major change areas.


See below for some specific recommendations that support increased densities for the General Plan focus areas.

Tom Radulovich is the Executive Director of the non-profit Livable City and a member of the BART Board of Directors. MVCSP is excited to host Tom Thursday night at the Mountain View Community Center to share some of the fascinating lessons he has learned while working to create a more sustainable San Francisco. Come join us tomorrow for this free, one-hour event.

Thursday, November 4, 2010
7:45-8:45pmThe Mountain View Community Center. 201 South Rengstorff Avenue

Free admission. Snacks provided. Contact [email protected] with questions.