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Home May 2005 |
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Volunteer of the Month: Michele Williams Volunteer of the Month—Michele Williams This spring, Michele dedicated her time, energy and expertise to Greenbelt Alliance's smart growth survey project. The project is a survey of every single city in the Bay Area on growth, housing, planning, density, parks—everything relating to smart growth. It's an enormous project—with an entire fleet of interns!—and Michele has been a special help. Michele brought with her a wealth of knowledge and experience, with Master's and Bachelor's degrees in City Planning from UC Berkeley and Cornell, as well as her years with the Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Corporation in San Francisco. Michele's work on the smart growth survey included gathering answers to survey questions, compiling and analyzing the data, and helping to design a scoring system for the cities. Her ability to balance volunteer work and her paid consulting work was impressive—what's more, she also swam daily and trained for a marathon on the weekends! Michele begins the prestigious Multicultural Fellowship Program at The
San Francisco Foundation this summer. We appreciate all she's contributed
to Greenbelt Alliance, and wish her the very best.
Antioch Citizens Launch Urban Growth Boundary Campaign At last! After years of organizing to oppose sprawl developments in far eastern Contra Costa County, Antioch citizens are launching a campaign for long-term protection of lands around their city. At a community meeting on May 18, Citizens for a Better Antioch announced their goal of putting an Urban Growth Boundary initiative on the June 2006 ballot. The initiative would create an Urban Growth Boundary at the current city limits. It would also make "Future Urban Area 1"—a four-square-mile expanse of rolling hills and wildlife habitat—into the Sand Creek Reserve, where very little development would be allowed. The initiative comes at a critical time in Antioch, as development threats loom over the Sand Creek area and neighboring lands known as Roddy Ranch. Meanwhile, the negotiations over a county-wide urban limit line have ended without agreement, meaning each city will need its own Urban Growth Boundary to qualify for transportation funding. Greenbelt Alliance supports the initiative and we hope you will too.
Hundreds of hours of volunteer help will be needed to gather the thousands
of signatures needed to put the initiative on the ballot. To volunteer,
or to find out more, call Citizens for a Better Antioch at (925) 439-4492.
Support Good Planning for New Transit The Metropolitan Transportation Commission—our regional transportation agency—has $8.9 billion to invest in new transit projects around the Bay Area. To make the most of those dollars, MTC should ensure that new projects increase the number of people riding transit. To do that, MTC is about to pass a Regional Transit Oriented Development policy requiring cities to plan for density around new stations by specifying minimum numbers of homes and jobs in station areas. This will help increase the number of riders, create needed homes, and accommodate growth without sprawling onto open space. But the policy won't be effective unless MTC requires minimum densities that are meaningful. Right now, the policy's density requirements are too low—and now some cities are pushing to make them even lower. We need your help! Let MTC know you support its proposed policy, but it needs to raise the minimum density requirements for housing and jobs. (Specifically, housing should make up 70-80% of the combined requirement, and the combined requirement should be raised by 20%.)
Click here for more info on MTC's proposed policy, or contact Kate O'Hara by email or at 415-543-6771.
Greenbelt Alliance Releases New Curriculum Greenbelt Alliance's new curriculum, The Greenbelt in Your Schoolyard, helps bring nature into the lives of urban youth. The curriculum was originally created to help show our Youth Outings participants that nature doesn't have to be something "out there" that requires a special field trip to visit. The lessons are relevant for any Bay Area education program: nature is all around us, our lives depend on it, and there are easy ways everyone can help keep it healthy. The booklet contains five activities for grades 3-8, each with a different theme (plants, wildlife, water, food, and nature in the city). Do you know Bay Area teachers who might be interested in this new resource? Please tell them about it! The curriculum is available for free to Bay Area educators: email
or call Julie Cummins at 415-543-6771 for a bound copy, or download
a PDF version.
June 1st: South Bay Environmental Forum On June 1st, Greenbelt Alliance will be participating in a panel discussion on how to protect open space and promote infill development in Santa Clara County and throughout the Bay Area. WHO: WHEN: WHERE: R.S.V.P.:
Go Greenbelt! Wraps Up A Successful Sixteenth Year This year's ride started with rain and even encountered hail, but on Saturday, May 14th, when fifty-plus Go Greenbelt! riders coasted off the Golden Gate Bridge onto the Presidio, the sun was shining and there were broad smiles all around. Another great ride for a great cause. Go Greenbelt! is Greenbelt Alliance's annual 480-mile week-long
bike tour of the Bay Area to raise funds and awareness for local open
space protection. Visit this year's photo
gallery and check out the article in our upcoming summer newsletter.
Sat Jun 4: San Bruno Mt. in Bloom Click here
for recent press coverage of Greenbelt Alliance's work Become a Member or Renew Your Membership Support our work to protect the Bay Area's open space and make our cities better places to live. Click here to join or renew, or click here to join our Greenbelt Guardian monthly donor club. Questions? Contact Melissa Wright at 415-543-6771 or mwright@greenbelt.org.
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