In an effort to reduce car trips in Redwood City, officials are considering fining developers and property owners whose tenants fail to meet certain non-driving goals.
The potential fines, which have yet to be determined if they are approved at all, are included in a proposed ordinance that will be considered by the City Council early next year. The ordinance seeks to codify and also update the city’s transportation demand management program that staff have been implementing since 2018, though the city has had TDM requirements for development projects since the early 2000s.
The proposal was a subject of a Planning Commission meeting last week. Commissioners and developers alike embraced the ordinance, but felt fining property owners would be unfair.
“I believe in a carrot not a penalty,” said Commissioner Nancy Radcliffe. “Fines are not my favorite way of approaching things.”
A TDM program is the application of strategies to reduce car trips and traffic congestion by encouraging walking, biking and public transportation among other non-driving modes of transportation. For the program, incentives such as discounted train passes or biking and electric vehicle facilities, for example, are offered and then driving rates in and out of the building are surveyed and reported to the city.
The TDM program is included in the citywide transportation plan called RWCmoves that was adopted by the council last year and sets a goal of having more than 50% of all trips in the city be by non-driving modes by 2040.
The TDM program is one of many tools to help reach that goal and it includes different non-driving goals for developments of various sizes.
For example, the goal is to have solo driving comprise just 33% of trips to and from downtown developments with 25 or more units while buildings of that size outside downtown comes with a 44% goal.
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For downtown office buildings with 50 or more employees, the goal is to reach 33% solo driving trips while for commercial buildings of that size outside downtown the goal is 52% drive-alone trips.
Currently, 65% of Bay Area trips are drive-alone while those rates are up to 69% in San Mateo County. In Redwood City, downtown apartments and offices see 50% and 49% solo driving rates respectively while apartments and office buildings outside that district have solo-driving rates of 66% and 78% respectively.
As part of the TDM program, staff is proposing to fine owners of properties not meeting their goals in two consecutive years.
Several developers who spoke during public comment said they shouldn’t be punished for the choices of their tenants.
“The problem with this program is the penalties that owners of these new projects will have that are a result of their end use and tenant choices that those people make,” said Olya Krasnykh, a vice president with developer Sares Regis. “That’s placing an unfair burden on the development community.”
Commissioners were also concerned about having a program that only applies to new development and not existing buildings, though Assistant City Attorney Prasanna Rasiah said the law prohibits applying new conditions such as these to existing development.
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(1) comment
(1) How in the world will this be monitored, managed and implemented?
(2) Yes, social engineering has arrived.
(3) Check out "Agenda 21" folks. It's here...........if we allow it!
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