Home California Sen. Glazer, Assemblywoman Baker & East Bay Officials Call on Governor to Veto AB 2923

Sen. Glazer, Assemblywoman Baker & East Bay Officials Call on Governor to Veto AB 2923

by ECT

Bill would undermine local control by handing housing development authority to BART

DUBLIN, CA – Bay Area legislators and local officials on Monday urged Gov. Jerry Brown to veto legislation that would give BART the power to override local residents’ concerns when the transit district builds housing projects within one-half mile of its stations.

At a press conference at the Dublin/Pleasanton BART station, Sen. Steve Glazer, D-Orinda, and Assemblywoman Catharine Baker, R-Dublin, joined East Bay mayors, county supervisors and others in calling on Gov. Brown to veto AB 2923, which passed the Legislature in the final days of the 2018 session.

Glazer said he is fully supportive of state efforts to beef up affordable housing stock, but that it makes no sense to give power over housing to an agency that can’t even fulfill its mission as a transit agency.

“BART is a failing agency that can barely keep its trains running safely, through stations that are frequently dirty with broken escalators and the constant danger of crime,” Glazer said. “The last thing the agency needs on its plate now are new powers to build housing that violates local standards.

“The cities in the East Bay are doing their part by approving thousands of new units near BART’s stations and will continue to do so while taking the input of local residents into account.”

Baker said “BART has major challenges delivering safe, reliable, and clean train service. Now is not the time to make BART responsible for housing, an area in which it has no expertise or experience.  We need to focus on helping BART meet its responsibilities, and let our local communities who are doing an excellent job with housing continue their work.”

Dublin is already a well-planned and well run community, added Dublin Mayor David Haubert.

“We have done more than our share to provide housing for the region. This bill will reduce much needed commercial and office space, which we need.”

Cindy Silva, Mayor Pro-Tem of Walnut Creek, said: “Without AB 2923, the City of Walnut Creek has worked with BART to build 600 more apartments and provide replacement parking for BART patrons.”

Lafayette Mayor Don Tatzin also urged Brown to veto AB 2923. “We are adding housing around our BART station but this bill is the wrong way to do so.”

With a veto, the Governor would reaffirm the primacy of local elected officials in handling housing development, said Concord Mayor Edi Birsan.

“The governor was a mayor,” Birsan said. “He knows that cities represent the values of the community and not the entrenched lobbyist of developers trying to torpedo local input. The essence of democracy is to be closest to the electorate at the local level.  AB 2923 violates that ideal by putting local control into the hands of a majority from outside of a county.”

Prior to his election to the BART Board, Joel Keller served 12 years as city council member and mayor, so he said he understands “the importance of land-use decisions being made by representatives of each individual community in the BART district, rather than the BART Board.

Locally elected office holders are accountable to their community and know and understand the interests of the cities that they represent.

“While I support the need to increase the amount of affordable housing in the Bay Area,” Keller added, “taking away local land-use decision making through AB 2923 is not the best way to achieve this goal.”

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1 comment

Simonpure Sep 18, 2018 - 11:27 am

I wouldn’t give BART the power to override anything. They can’t take care of their own business.

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