Publications

Leveraging a New Law: Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions Under SB 375

Hedonic Valuation of Residential Resource Efficiency Variables

Evaluating the Performance of Pedestrian-Oriented Developments

Moving Beyond Prevailing Street Design Standards

Building Energy Efficient Communities: A Research Agenda for California

Leveraging a New Law: Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions under SB 375

California's Senate Bill 375, passed in 2008, aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by reducing the amount that Californians drive. The law creates emissions reduction targets for major metropolitan areas, and requires metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) to meet these targets by planning to house new growth in areas where residents drive less and investing in sustainable transportation projects that serve these areas. This report examines the key factors that will affect whether MPOs are able to successfully implement SB 375, in particular whether MPOs control enough transportation funding to provide incentives for local governments to implement the changes called for in regional land use plans, using interviews with 55 planners from across California and an in-depth analysis of current MPO plans. Based on this work, the report offers recommendations to state agencies and MPOs on how to leverage the opportunities created by SB 375 to spur a shift toward sustainable communities.

Hedonic Valuation of Residential Resource Efficiency Variables: A Review of the Literature

"Cool community" design strategies aim to reduce urban temperatures through a variety of measures, including providing new urban parks and open spaces, planting new trees and vegetation, and using light-colored roofing and paving
materials that reflect heat. These strategies have the potential to combat global warming in three ways: by reducing the amount of energy needed to cool buildings; by making walking and bicycling, which are the most energy-efficient forms of transportation, more appealing; and by mitigating some of the projected increase in temperatures due to climate change. Though engineers and designers have extolled the benefits of cool community strategies, few local governments have implemented these strategies. One potential explanation for this is that cool community strategies are difficult to finance, since some of the strategies are viewed as creating strictly private benefits and are thus undervalued by the public sector, while other strategies are viewed as creating mostly public benefits and are thus undervalued by the private sector. This report, which is the result of a collaboration between CREC and the Fisher Center for Real Estate and Urban Economics at the Haas School of Business, is a literature review of articles using hedonic modeling techniques to assess the value of cool community features in residential settings.

Evaluating the Performance of Pedestrian-Oriented Developments: Summary of Site Visits and Research Design Options

Pedestrian-oriented developments are characterized by a mixture of land uses, shorter distances between homes and destinations, and design improvements to the pedestrian environment. Though several such developments have been constructed within California in the last twenty years and planners commonly promote them, there has been little post-occupancy evaluation of how much they actually increase pedestrian activity and reduce driving. CREC recently undertook a preliminary study to determine how to best proceed with such an evaluation. Researchers identified a group of 21 pedestrian-oriented developments across California and collected data about each site, both through site visits and sources such as the U.S. Census. This report summarizes the data collected and suggests potential approaches for future research on the pedestrian environment.

Moving Beyond Prevailing Street Design Standards: Assessing Legal and Liability Barriers to More Efficient Street Design and Function

Recently, state policies such as SB 375 and the Complete Streets Act have charged regional and local governments with planning to better accommodate pedestrians, bicyclists, and transit riders in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve quality of life. In order to implement these policies, these agencies need to design and build streets that encourage multi-modal travel. This report, which is the result of a collaboration between CREC and the Center for Law, Energy, and the Environment at the Boalt Hall School of Law, examines the many potential barriers that cities face in designing such streets, including:

• federal street design guidelines that are focused on moving automobiles safely and efficiently,
• local policies requiring minimal delay for vehicles,
• design requirements of other public agencies that use space on or beneath the street, and
• the lack of alternative design guidelines that encourage multi-modal travel.

Though local governments often cite legal and liability concerns as a reason not to deviate from conventional auto-oriented street designs, our research revealed a much more complex set of reasons why these designs persist, in spite of policies that encourage otherwise.

Building Energy Efficient Communities: A Research Agenda for California

This white paper establishes a research agenda for CREC, describes the context of resource efficient design in California (especially with respect to climate change), and identifies five links between community design and energy efficiency:

1. The Transportation-Land Use connection
   
2. The Street Design-Transportation Connection
3. The Urban Heat Island Effect and Cool Communities
   
4. Solar Access and Building Energy Use
5. Community Resource Use and Embedded Energy Management
   

For each of these areas, the paper summarizes the main findings in the literature and identifies major research gaps. In addition, it discusses institutional impediments to resource-efficient community design, as well as the property value implications of resource efficient design features.