Recording and Presentation Available
To assist local jurisdictions in adopting Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) policies, the ABAG-MTC Regional Planning Program (RPP) hosted more than 100 local jurisdiction housing, planning and transportation staff in a two hour “VMT Policies and Housing Element Site Feasibility” webinar. 70% of the participants’ in the webinar reported that their local jurisdictions had not yet adopted local VMT policies.
In implementing SB 743, local jurisdictions were tasked with transitioning from Level of Service to Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) policies by July 2020. These vehicle reduction policies impact housing site feasibility. The webinar highlighted the need to for local VMT policies and alignment with Housing Element updates.
Erick De Kok, OPR Policy Director provided an overview of the planning context and staff from the cities of Fremont and Petaluma shared their experiences and insights working on and adopting their policies. A second panel of transportation and CEQA experts shared strategies and approaches to analysis and mitigations both at a planning and project level.
Major takeways included the importance and opportunity to:
- Develop local VMT thresholds to reflect local development needs, (vs using regional or state default), including cross departmental teams in the VMT policy development
- Plan for Transit and Active Transportation Ready Neighborhoods
- Exempt 100% affordable housing from CEQA
- Include VMT in programmatic EIRs as part of local housing element updates.
More information about this webinar and others is available here.