Interviewing Angelo Siracusa — BAC boss
In 1966 he began working for
the Bay Area Council (BAC). Today he runs it. In 1973 he moved to Sausalito,
and his Berkeley girlfriend followed. In 1983 Angelo and Diana Siracusa bought
their Hawk Hill home overlooking Tam Junction.
If you enjoy an engaging
speaker who pulls few punches and knows his subject, listen to him when you
can. Until then, read this.
What does the Bay Area Council do?
BAC is a business supported
membership organization that engages in public policy issues that have an
economic and social dimension. We are involved in housing, transportation, job
training, economic development and growth management.
Our economic perspective is
through the eyes of business so some in the environmental community dispute
whether we act in the public interest. We believe we do. Housing affordability,
for example, is a public interest issue, effecting peoples’ livelihood as well
as corporate location and business expansion.
How has BAC’s agenda changed over the last 20 to 30 years?
Oddly, not very much. When
the Council was first formed almost 50 years ago, we were almost exclusively an
economic development, growth-oriented organization concerned about promoting
post-war growth.
For the past 20 years we
have been close to the stuff that is affected by and affects land use. For a
while, when the Association of Bay Area Governments was doing the Bay Area
Management Plan, we were more deeply involved in environmental questions. We
are now in environmental issues largely because of the relationship between air
quality and transportation.
Oddly enough, almost 20
years ago we were deeply involved in regional planning when then Assemblyman
Jack Knox introduced regional planning and governance bills. Now they are back
at the top of our agenda. Recently, we were significantly involved in the
development and legislative work of SB 797 which would have created a regional
growth management for the Bay Area.
Prior to the 1962 ballot election on whether to issue $792 million to
construct 75 miles of the BART system, San Mateo and Marin dropped out. Why did
Marin drop out?
Marin dropped out for the
same reason Marin resists transportation today. They thought transit would be
growth inducing.
They may have hid under the
argument of the Golden Gate Bridge’s inadequate engineering capacity to handle
fixed rail, but the real reason was the attitude that exists today. That is
Marin doesn’t want a transit system that would generate what transit systems
should generate--higher density development close to transportation corridors.
How would BART or a light rail system through the North Bay effect land
use?
Tough to say. When we were
first thinking about BART in the Bay Area, the Mayor of Toronto gave us a
presentation showing how well theirs works. His slide presentation showed
clusters of high ensity activity around their subway stations. Unfortunately,
or fortunately, depending on where you stand, Toronto has a metropolitan system
that was able to force not just transit decisions but related land use
decisions. We don’t have that in the Bay Area. Here a city or a county can say,
“Even though there’s a transit station here, we don’t want to change the land
patterns.” The transit station’s existence should promote development there.
Instead, the will of the local government too often stymies that sensible land
use.
Do you think increased rail systems development would increase the
development of Sausalito architect Peter Calthorpe’s Pedestrian Pockets?
Calthorpe’s PPs is really
founded on the notion that you can get a home to work environment. A
jobs-housing balance creates less of a necessity for either highways or
transit. Therefore, I don’t see a necessary causal relationship between PPs and
transit.
The Calthorpe idea, which I
strongly endorse, is “let’s create a physical, psychological and economic
environment where a person can and will want to live and work in the same
general area.” That “will want to” is very important.
What’s one thing you’d like Marinites to think more deeply about?
Their narrow view of their
own self interest. We all want open space next to us and less traffic. It’s
part of our view of quality of life. Yet that can be a very narrow, parochial,
selfish view. Marin is the worse example of that.
Marin’s density pattern is
appallingly low. Density can be good for the environment — although others will
disagree. There is nothing wrong with protecting the dairy lands of West Marin,
but I don’t buy anti-development arguments surrounding Hamilton Field or
Silvera (Ranch). We need to have the jobs-housing balance that sensible
development at those sites can provide.
I’m unhappy with Marin’s
extreme NIMBYism. Yet I can understand it. All of us believe that our view of
the environment is the world view of the environment, but Marin’s predominant
view isn’t environmentalism. It’s extreme NIMBYism.
Do you think the 11 cities in Marin have different attitudes regarding
these problems?
No doubt about it. The
political philosophies of southern and northern Marin are terribly different.
As it turns out, NIMBYism happens to transcend political philosophy. Even
conservatives who love the market place and property rights can be as
exclusionary as extreme environmentalists. So while they are different, it’s as
difficult to get things done in Novato as in Mill Valley.
When you are on the social circuit, maybe at Marin parties, are you...
I’m the outcast. Yeah, I’m
not too popular. A lot of people think
I state my beliefs with respect to other communities but not Mill Valley. My
beliefs are also true for Mill Valley. We should develop different kinds of
density patterns even in my hometown.
Somebody wanted to build a
home in my neighborhood, and somebody else passed a petition to not allow it.
I testified on behalf of the developer. Not because I liked the developer, but
because that person had a right to build there. An infrastructure existed.
Homes were already there. Development did not change the character of the
community.
Could hearing characters like Angelo Siracusa improve Marin or just
hurt the gray stuff between exclusive ears?