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California Embracing Transit Oriented Housing

by Broderick Perkins

In the Golden State of cookie-cutter houses in sprawling bedroom communities, home ownership comes with doses of road rage swallowed during commutes from hell. Fortunately, planners are learning it's wise to roll back the clock and build communities that historically make more sense.

With some of the highest home prices in the nation and inventories of buildable land (for both housing and highways) being gobbled up by development and green belt demarcation, California has little choice but to embrace smarter growth policies if it wants to keep open the gates to paradise.

From now until about 2025, 11 million to 16 million more people will become Californians and the state will need some 4 million homes to house them. That's greater growth than the state experienced during the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s -- combined.

Housing people and moving them from home to work, to school, to shopping, elsewhere and back is one of the biggest New Millennium challenges for the nation's most populous state.

A sound answer is "transit oriented development" or TOD, according to the landmark "Statewide Transit-Oriented Development Study: Factors for Success in California," a comprehensive 14-month study of the latest TOD developments in California and across the United States.

Completed late last year by the state's Division of Mass Transportation, the study says TOD is crucial because it's viable in both urban and suburban settings, provided development is not simply adjacent to transit, but shaped by transit in terms of parking, density, and building orientation.

"A successful TOD will reinforce both the community and the transit system," writes associate transportation planner Terry Parker, the report's project manager and co-author.

A well-conceived and developed TOD is designed to focus compact growth around transit stops to bring riders closer to transit facilities, to encourage walkable infill development, and to help save what's left of California's slice of the planet.

If you build it, the study says, they will come to enjoy quantifiable benefits.

Containing many elements of the so-called "new urbanism" or "neo-traditionalist" developments named for a more traditional pedestrian-friendly, easy-access-to-essentials approach to development, TOD offers a variety of benefits to residents, communities, regions, and the state as a whole.

According to the study, the major benefits are:

Mobility choices. By creating "activity nodes" linked by transit, TOD provides important mobility options, very much needed in the state's most congested metropolitan areas. This also allows young people, the elderly, people who prefer not to drive, and those who don't own cars, the ability to get around.

Reduced drive time. TOD can lower annual household rates of driving by 20 percent to 40 percent for those living, working, and/or shopping near transit stations.

Increased disposable income. Reduced driving time means reduced driving expense and savings of up to $4,000 per year for each household -- more in some cases. In some San Jose, CA areas, some residents spend more than $6,750 a year on personal vehicle operating costs, according to "Driven To Spend" by the Surface Transportation Policy Project, which documents the cost of personal transportation. That's a $562.50-a-month chunk of change better spend on housing.

The value of lower transportation costs associated with living in proximity to public transportation is so compelling, Chicago's Center for Neighborhood Technology and other planning agencies convinced Fannie Mae to test what's called "Location Efficient Mortgages (LEMs)" in Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle.

Just as "Energy Efficient Mortgages (EEMs)" allow a home owner with a more energy efficient home to spend more money on housing instead of energy, LEMs allow home owners to spend a greater percentage of their income on housing when they spend less on transportation.

That gives buyers more spending power to buy more home or a home they might not otherwise find affordable.

Boost in public safety. By creating active places that are busy through the day and evening and providing "eyes on the street," TOD helps increase safety for pedestrians, transit-users, and others.

Increased transit use. TOD improves the efficiency and effectiveness of transit service investments by increasing the use of transit near stations by 20 percent to 40 percent.

Reduced air pollution and energy consumption. TODs can reduce rates of greenhouse gas emissions by 2.5 to 3.7 tons per year for each household.

Greenbelt preservation. TODs typically consume less land than low-density, auto-oriented growth and it reduces the need to convert farmland and open spaces to development.

Published: June 6, 2003

Use of this article without permission is a violation of federal copyright laws.

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Broderick Perkins parlayed a career in old-school journalism into a contemporary digital news service that really hits home.

The award-winning consumer journalist, originally from Wilmington, DE, is founder, publisher and executive editor of the bootstrap DeadlineNews Group, a Silicon Valley-based editorial content and consulting service specializing in residential real estate, consumer news and related editorial consulting services.

The DeadlineNews Group includes the website, DeadlineNews.com, offering real estate editorial content and consulting services, and its back shop, the Deadline Newsroom, an open house on news that really hits home.

Perkins obtained his formal journalism education from University of Delaware and a journalism boot camp, the Institute of Journalism Education at the University of California-Berkeley. He went on to 20 years of service as a daily newspaper journalist at the Wilmington, DE News Journal and San Jose, CA Mercury News.

Perkins covered housing on the San Jose Mercury News reporting team which earned a General News Reporting Pulitzer Prize in 1989 for coverage of the Loma Prieta earthquake.

He has also produced real estate, consumer and small business content for the Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, RealtyTimes.com, Nolo.com, Better Homes and Gardens, the National Association of Realtors, Homestore/Move and Intuit/Quicken among more than three dozen publications.

In addition to managing the DeadlineNews Group, Perkins most recently served as chief editorial consultant for Nolo's Essential Guide To Buying Your First Home, Nolo, and writes real estate television scripts for RealtyTimes.com.

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