Environmental Planning

Environmental Justice

• Early 2000s- now

• Idea that environmental benefits should be shared by everybody

• For example, equal access to green space, or equal access to pollution

• Environmental policy affects different groups, so we want to make sure no one is bearing extra brunt

Environmentalist Movement

Practice of designing and managing cities to minimize ecological footprints, reduce carbon emissions, and protect natural resources

Can be traced back to Garden City’s greenbelts

Connected to adaptive reuse, converting old, not used industrial or commercial buildings into modern living spaces to conserve land and materials

Rachel Carson or Silent Spring

• 1962 Book

• Wrote about the impact of human activity on other humans and non-humans

• The concept of environmental impact emerges

Climate Mitigation

Attempting to reduce causes of climate change, such as CO2 and GHG emissions, and the depletion of natural resources

The goal is to slow climate change

For example, more public transportation, or switching from coal and gas to solar

Climate Adaptation

Preventative measures that work alongside climate change incase we don’t meet mitigation goals

Ensures that when/if climate change comes, human lives aren’t terribly effected

For example, levees, sea walls, use of canopy cover to reduce heat island effect

CEQA

The California Environmental Equality Act (1970) mandates environmental review for public projects.

The Cannery

A CEQA project

100-acre mixed-use development in Davis proposed by The City of Davis with an Environmental Impact Report (EIR)

A case study used for SD 743, comparing how the same development looks different under VOT versus VMT system. It’s a significant shift in what CEQA considers an environmental transportation impact.

Showed that land-use planning and transportation planning are connected.

Allowed CEQA to consider “can the way we plan a community reduce people's need to drive?” which is an environmental impact question

Environmental Impact Statement

Under NEPA, federally

Prepared for major federal projects to analyze environmental impacts and alternatives

For example, a federally funded highway or federal land-management project