I don't know relative political viability, but what about an alternative of the state grants the transit agency the power to auction zoning variances for a certain region around stations? No capital outlay or eminent domain problems
I like the idea, although I prefer ongoing streams of revenue over one-time sales. Unless the idea is to auction off incrementally greater and greater dev rights over time?
Politically, pretty heavy lift (like most things in CA). Would come down to a fight about local control, but might make for an interesting angle as the loss of some amount of land use power would be traded off against a tangible, public benefit.
How much of this is a reaction to the railroad robber barons of the 19th century? A lot of public at the time thought it was bad that railroads made so much money off land development.
Prop 13 happened in ‘78, and that coincided with reform in property tax assessment (ie assessors were under assessing) and rapid inflation (so the nominal dollar value of real estate was ballooning faster than wages).
To your intuition, though, the statewide ballot initiative process that prop 13 passed through was a response to 19th century railroad barons buying off the state legislature. Progressive reformers instituted a way for the citizenry as a whole to pass laws that the legislature couldn’t overturn.
Great piece. The KEY system that preceded BART was basically a land development business that ran a transit line! It only failed bc massive amounts of state and federal money went into subsidizing roads. Auto-based infrastructure could never compete on its own financial merits
Enabling BART to develop land for profit would require amending the Surplus Lands Act, which mandates transit agencies pay high wages and build affordable housing on public land that essentially eliminates profit. SB 79 initially included and SLA exemption for transit agencies, but it was stripped away due to opposition from low-income housing advocacy orgs
This post reminds me of the Works in Progress article on Japan's railways. https://worksinprogress.co/issue/why-japan-has-such-good-railways/
I don't know relative political viability, but what about an alternative of the state grants the transit agency the power to auction zoning variances for a certain region around stations? No capital outlay or eminent domain problems
I like the idea, although I prefer ongoing streams of revenue over one-time sales. Unless the idea is to auction off incrementally greater and greater dev rights over time?
Politically, pretty heavy lift (like most things in CA). Would come down to a fight about local control, but might make for an interesting angle as the loss of some amount of land use power would be traded off against a tangible, public benefit.
How much of this is a reaction to the railroad robber barons of the 19th century? A lot of public at the time thought it was bad that railroads made so much money off land development.
Prop 13 happened in ‘78, and that coincided with reform in property tax assessment (ie assessors were under assessing) and rapid inflation (so the nominal dollar value of real estate was ballooning faster than wages).
To your intuition, though, the statewide ballot initiative process that prop 13 passed through was a response to 19th century railroad barons buying off the state legislature. Progressive reformers instituted a way for the citizenry as a whole to pass laws that the legislature couldn’t overturn.
Great piece. The KEY system that preceded BART was basically a land development business that ran a transit line! It only failed bc massive amounts of state and federal money went into subsidizing roads. Auto-based infrastructure could never compete on its own financial merits
Enabling BART to develop land for profit would require amending the Surplus Lands Act, which mandates transit agencies pay high wages and build affordable housing on public land that essentially eliminates profit. SB 79 initially included and SLA exemption for transit agencies, but it was stripped away due to opposition from low-income housing advocacy orgs