Opinion: A cleaner Del Mar — now rather than later
By Don Mosier
Del Mar mayor
Del Mar Mayor Don Mosier
Awareness of global warming began with a Del Mar resident and scientist. Charles David Keeling was the first person to measure the levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) and show that CO2 was rapidly increasing (the “Keeling curve”). California became a leader in the fight to slow the global warming caused by CO2 and other “greenhouse gases” with the passage of two important bills, AB32 and SB375, in 2006 and 2008. Voters supported the goals of AB32 and SB375 by defeating Proposition 23 in the last election. The time for implementation of these measures is now here.
The Clean Air Board recently set our regional goal of a 7 percent reduction in CO2 emissions by 2020. SB375 specifies the plan to meet these goals. SANDAG, the San Diego Regional Association of Governments, is charged with designing a regional growth plan that regulates both transportation and housing density. SANDAG is developing a Sustainable Communities Strategy (SCS) to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from cars and light trucks by making transportation funding decisions in the regional transportation plan be consistent with the SCS. SANDAG is also charged with developing regional housing needs assessments to allocate the number of housing units needed to serve all income categories in each city. Del Mar needs to update the housing element of its general plan by 2012 to comply with this mandate. The Energy Issues Advisory Committee has already begun the first step in the process of complying with AB32 and SB375, a greenhouse gas inventory of city-owned property.
However, Del Mar is lagging behind its neighboring coastal cities in getting serious about reducing emissions from local traffic and increasing our housing density. We need to quickly intensify our efforts to meet the regional goals for both. Failure to comply has the following consequences: “(SANDAG) may only award funding to projects that are consistent with the SCS. Thus, the incentive of receiving federal funding — or, stated differently, the threat of being denied federal funding — gives local governments a good reason to regulate in a manner consistent with the SCS.” (California League of Cities analysis). We need these funding sources to comply with SB375, and we will lose them if we do not — a good incentive to start our community conversations about transportation and housing density now rather than later.
Short URL: http://www.delmartimes.net/?p=20977
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Voices - Join the Conversation 
2 thoughts – 1. Del Mar is really only a very small neighborhood. Do we really need to give up our control of the kind of community WE want, in exchange for a few dollars to make it what WASHINGTON, or SACRAMENTO wants? 2. One way to eliminate all the demands made of local cities, including Del Mar, would be to unincorporate and just be a neighborhood of another real City, or the County. We could still have some control through a local planning group.