Equity Map Analysis of Alameda County Priority Development Areas (PDAs) Concentrating New Development in Vulnerable Neighborhoods
This quick turn-around independent project explores the impact of priority development areas (PDA’s) on communities of color. Long range plan Plan Bay Area 2040 proposed PDA’s as priority areas for long term development in the Bay Area and the region’s response to the state-mandated requirement for regional Sustainability Community Strategies.
PDA’s are meant to focus growth in the Bay Area to accommodate a significant projected population growth in the region by roughly 2 million people by 2040. PDA’s are a Sustainable Communities planning solution meant to incorporate transportation into land-use and the State’s climate action plan. Consequently, PDA’s are planned to facilitate low vehicle-miles-traveled communities with a greater mode split in active transportation, walking and public transit than personal vehicles. Concentrated, mixed-use and highly walkable neighborhoods close to transit are the resultant vision for PDAs.
Current required criteria for PDA’s is that they must be located:
In an existing community
Within ½ mile of “frequent” transit
In an area already planned for future growth/housing
(Source: ABAG)
Plan Bay Area 2040 saw significant public criticism, largely due to the introduction of PDA’s to focus growth – commercial, employment, residential and leisure hubs within certain areas of the city. One of the most salient recriminations of PDA’s is the belief that they would further disenfranchise low income, Black, Indigenous and POC (BIPOC) communities which have been forced out of Alameda County due to skyrocketing rents and land values as the region recovered from the 2009 recession. The Association of Bay Area Governments’ (ABAG) response to is the Development Without Displacement Program. However, ABAG has not succeeded in developing without displacement – the pattern of investment and development in low income, majority Black and Latino neighborhoods has lead to displacement. This project aims to re-consider the placement of PDA’s to work alongside ABAG’s Development Without Displacement Program to ensure that sustainable, walkable neighborhoods don’t undermine racial and class access in the East Bay.
If PDA’s might exacerbate or facilitate gentrification and displacement where may they be alternately located in Alameda County?
Methodology
Opportunity Factors indicate more suitable area:
Within a 1 mile buffer of BART station I to expand this requirement from ½ mile applied to original PDAs to 1 mile
Number of affordable homes (homes valued at less than $300,000)
Constraint factors indicate a less suitable area:
High poverty: Census tracts with percent populations below poverty exceeding the Alameda County poverty rate of 12%
High Black & Latinx population: Census tracts with over 50% Black and Latinx populations
“POC” as a metric and term can be unspecific. Overall, Black and Latinx populations have been hard-hit by gentrification in the East Bay and have declined
Composite Map- overlaying opportunity and constraints maps
Findings
The resulting suitability map expands the potential area in which PDA’s could be located, potentially lowering the high intensity, highly-walkable quality of ABAG’s PDA envisions. This is largely due to the scale of the analysis, which is done at the census tract level and partially due to the greater buffer (1 mile as opposed to ABAG’s ½ mile) around BART stations.
ABAG’s PDAs marked along Alameda County’s main corridor along Highway 880 from east Oakland through San Leandro and Hayward lie in areas deemed moderately to highly unsuitable for locating PDAs. East Oakland census tracts along 880 are almost all marked for PDA development.
ABAG’s PDAs north of Downtown Oakland, moving into North Berkeley and south of Hayward in Union City, Freemont and further east near Pleasanton are located in areas which this model primarily deems as suitable to locate PDAs.
Based on the findings of this model, census tracts in West Oakland and along and adjacent to Highway 880 from deep east Oakland through San Leandro and Hayward are the least suitable areas for locating PDAs. Consequently, ABAG PDA’s in these areas could have the greatest likelihood of displacing low income and high Black and Latinx populations.
This model more specifically communicates unsuitability. Unsuitability meaning areas, based on high percentage Black and Latinx and higher than average poverty rates, where PDAs should be located. The composite map reflects unsuitable locations primarily due to the lack of available data to reconstruct the requirements of ABAG’s PDA’s with the added constraints of vulnerable demographic communities.
The existing PDA map does take into account a wider, and more complicated dataset. Overlaying the suitability map with the current PDA map allows for a quick visualization of how the existing map could be updated. Data which could have been included:
Vacant lots as an opportunity factor or constraint factor –additional research could be done to identify how vacant lots in underinvested neighborhoods can facilitate development which leads to displacement or could be better utilized to fill commercial and housing needs. However, with PDA’s, there would have to be a further breakdown of PDA’s which indicate types of development and are more nuanced than a zoning map. Perhaps earmarking certain areas on a zoning map of PDA’s for affordable mixed use development.
City-owned land – potential opportunity factor
Areas with dense commercial development
Census tracts with rent controlled buildings
Street data specifying high-intensity public transit routes
Adjacent census tracts to PDAs – even though PDA map were to be modified to exclude highly and moderately unsuitable areas, PDA’s may potentially have an impact on adjacent neighborhoods and census tracts. This impact has not been clearly analyzed and this model does not explore potential impacts. However, excluding high poverty and POC neighborhoods directly from the map of a Priority Development Area may result in less acute impacts on POC neighborhoods.
Conclusion
If anything, this suitability model is indicative of the necessity for a comprehensive, highly thoughtful approach to future development. ABAG’s current PDA’s could potentially displace the last remaining areas of low income and high Black and Latinx populations concentrated near accessible transit in Alameda County. Since PDA’s are the literal blueprint for the next phase of development in the Bay Area region, a significant portion of East Oakland, Hayward and San Leandro could face disinvestment and decline over the coming decades without the commercial and residential incentives and infrastructural improvements and funding earmarked for PDA’s.
Ultimately, PDA’s are more a foundational, background element of the comprehensive tapestry of what long-term development planning and prioritization is the SF Bay region. Brushstrokes and details which could preserve Black and Latinx populations and produce more affordable housing – these brushstrokes are approaches which have already been applied elsewhere in the state. Rent control, in addition to more aggressive inclusionary zoning requirements (not simply community benefits agreements) in and near “unsuitable” areas, coupled with strong transportation support around PDAs – which will no doubt be well-resourced hubs of economic and social activity. ABAG should not simply trust the preservation of these vulnerable communities to its Development without Displacement Program but should maximize the program’s efficacy by actively seeking collaboration with existing anti-displacement organizations and efforts in region. The Program should also actively leverage its position within ABAG and jurisdiction over the equitable implementation of PDA’s to strengthen the political efficacy and enactment of greater renter protections and small business access to the land market. The potentially destructive consequences of PDA implementation for BIPOC can be waylaid likely only through a comprehensive approach to aligning parallel legislative, regulatory and financial preservation tools.
