Audio Recording
Audio Transcript
Boardroom SX80: Good morning, all, and welcome to our
Boardroom SX80: P. Cdc.
Boardroom SX80: Workshop. On financing the future and rising sea level. we are this morning combining 2 working groups.
Boardroom SX80: You can envision it as where the dollars need to see.
Boardroom SX80: And as we know, and as we’re going to hear, we need a lot of dollars in order to avoid meeting the sea in places where we really don’t want it to be.
Boardroom SX80: This is one of the very important milestones, I think, in our efforts
Boardroom SX80: to figure out how we are in fact, going to adapt to rise in sea levels
Boardroom SX80: in the bay.
Boardroom SX80: and
Boardroom SX80: I suspect, because I cannot help myself that I will have a number of things to say during the morning. But at this moment i’m going to turn it over to
Boardroom SX80: Peggy to get us started.
Boardroom SX80: Thank you. Chair. I’m gonna take her all
Boardroom SX80: here. Vice chair. Eisen
Boardroom SX80: here, Commissioner on
Eddie Ahn: here.
Boardroom SX80: Commissioner Joya.
John Gioia: Here.
Boardroom SX80: Commissioner Gory.
1st District Supervisor Susan Gorin: Here.
Boardroom SX80: Commissioner Fine
Boardroom SX80: Commissioner, she, Walter
Boardroom SX80: here Commissioner, left for went.
Boardroom SX80: having a hard time today. Sorry I’ve been up since 4 30, Did I miss anybody?
Boardroom SX80: Nope, it looks like you have 7 commissioners here.
Boardroom SX80: Thank you very much. Sorry.
Boardroom SX80: All right. I thank you for those who are here in person, and for those of you who are participating remotely.
Boardroom SX80: I know I urged everyone to participate
Boardroom SX80: in person, both for this and for our commission meeting this afternoon.
Boardroom SX80: just because we need
Boardroom SX80: for these important things to get together as much as possible. But I also appreciate. There are
Boardroom SX80: distance and travel and environmental reasons that support participating remotely.
Boardroom SX80: So who’s going to start the Dana. Take it away.
Boardroom SX80: please. Great. Thank you. So we will just jump right in our first agenda. Item is our financing the future agenda item, which is a presentation on our funding and investment framework that we have been working on with Mtc. A bag.
Boardroom SX80: So i’ll reintroduce myself. I’m Dana Breckwald, i’m the assistant planning director for climate adaptation with B. Cdc. And I’m. Joined here today by Rachel Harder Phyllis, the Resilience planner at Npca. Bag and I also want to. You know that Dave Button, assistant Director of Major Plans is also here as well.
Boardroom SX80: So let me get my screen set up.
Boardroom SX80: Yeah. So as I mentioned. We’re here today to discuss the conclusion of our sea level rise, adaptation, funding, and investment framework. And this project builds off of major regional planning efforts, all of which have called for a priority action to fill knowledge gaps in the adaptation funding space.
Boardroom SX80: So, as a result, we kicked off the framework here at the bark governing board in December. 2021, and we’re back here today to conclude the project and summarize our final findings.
Boardroom SX80: So, as we introduce the final findings of the framework. It’s, of course, always important to put them in context. The bay area is defined by its relationship to water with iconic beaches on the outer coasts.
Boardroom SX80: waterfront parks across the region, with cliff sides, wetlands, playgrounds, and more vast wetlands and diverse habitats.
Boardroom SX80: and maritime culture. And commerce
Boardroom SX80: We also have diverse shoreline communities, such as bustling downtowns, tight-net residential neighborhoods, cozy beach towns and industrial job centers
Boardroom SX80: spanning across the bay the delta and the outer coast
Boardroom SX80: and winding across the region, of course, are also transportation and infrastructure networks which line the shoreline, both connecting us to one another as well as supporting the region’s economic vitality.
But rising sea levels puts this all at risk.
Boardroom SX80: So to day we’ll be spotlighting the framework findings on key financial estimates to tackle this challenge, but it is also important to keep in stake what’s at.
Boardroom SX80: Keep in mind what’s at stake with sea level rise, adaptation, and what adaptation could mean for the people and places that we care about so deeply.
Boardroom SX80: So i’m not going to go into a deep dive on climate change. I’m sure You’re all familiar with the numbers. But, needless to say, sea level rise is happening already.
Boardroom SX80: The shoreline is already aided, and is higher than it was at the beginning of the twentieth century, and coastal flooding is commonplace with king tides and extreme storms, as you’ve seen over this past winter
Boardroom SX80: by 2050, we could be living with 12 to 32 inches of more more of permanent water, with much, much more by the end of the century.
Boardroom SX80: although there’s still a lot of uncertainty at this point. But what we do know is that while this is a California wide coastal issue, it will be felt most acutely here with 2 thirds of the statewide impacts occurring in the Bay area.
Boardroom SX80: So clearly there is a need for significant adaptation action to occur in the region, or we lose much of what we love in the Bay area. It’s not possible to quantify every benefit of adapting Iconic shorelines and the diverse communities that live behind them. But we can spotlight some elements of what’s at risk as waters rise
Boardroom SX80: first. It’s estimated that 200,000 jobs and 75,000 homes may be at risk.
Boardroom SX80: including over 12,000 of the vulnerable homes that are in the areas. The region’s most socially vulnerable areas as defined by BCC’s community vulnerability data.
Boardroom SX80: A regional perspective on this on this issue can ensure that everyone has the opportunity to adapt, regardless of capacity level.
Boardroom SX80: And in addition, we have vulnerable acres at risk, including the region’s, rich, diverse wetlands and tidal marsh habitat.
Boardroom SX80: while 85 billiondollars estimated, is at risk in terms of the assessed value of parcels.
Boardroom SX80: our critical infrastructure will also be exposed.
Boardroom SX80: These estimates can be mitigated with coordination or multi benefit solutions adapting vulnerable transportation networks with elevation or realignment could cost up to 150 billiondollars.
Boardroom SX80: Other infrastructures, such as wastewater and public utilities, will also be extremely costly To adapt
Boardroom SX80: adapting to Isentide’s Bay area, which B. Cdc. Released in 2020 painted a region wide picture of the sea level rise risks, including areas where there’s a nexus of critical regional systems, all exposed to flooding. At the same time.
Boardroom SX80: We call these hotspots, and they are included. They include areas where transportation, infrastructure, vulnerable communities and jobs, in housing growth or priority development areas or priority conservation areas are all co-located meeting that they pose a significant shared risk for the region.
Boardroom SX80: but They also represent opportunities where the shoreline adaptation could provide multiple benefits at once.
Boardroom SX80: Some of these areas are exposed early on, like Santa Fe Quarter, Madeera and Martinez, while others become exposed later on.
So let’s keep these hotspots in mind, as we consider where investments may be prioritized in the future.
Boardroom SX80: I also want to emphasize here that while there will be a so need for significant investment on the local level by cities, private landowners and developers.
Boardroom SX80: local action will not be enough to meet the needs of sea level Rise, adaptation, cities, face tough trade offs in adaptation, and most critical in the context of this project. Without a region wide approach. We risk competition between cities for funding, funding, only going to high capacity cities.
Boardroom SX80: and we may actually miss adaptation in critical locations like the hotspots you just saw, because we’re not collectively agreeing on funding priorities.
Boardroom SX80: So, just like cities can’t solve sea level rise problems on their own. Our regional agencies also need to coordinate, to provide the most effective solutions. No single agency has all of the authorities and capacity to address adaptation solutions from all angles
Boardroom SX80: Over the past several years B. Cdc. Has been coordinating with Mpca. Bag and the San Francisco asteroid partner to align our respective regional plans and coordinate on implementation of the key tasks that we’ve identified.
And this collaboration is the foundation for this Project
Boardroom SX80: B. C. D. C’s primary plan that informs our steel of a rise work is our Bay Adopt joint platform, which was published in 2021,
Boardroom SX80: and the joint platform contains 9 actions and 21 tasks that overcome barriers, and paved the way for faster, more equitable adaptation.
Boardroom SX80: It doesn’t specify shoreline projects but instead, lays the foundation for more responsive engagement and community-led planning consistent and accessible information, coordinated and aligned plans.
Boardroom SX80: projects that hit the ground with fewer snags and more funding and a collective way to measure the region’s progress.
Boardroom SX80: And I specifically want to call out at Action 6 here, which is, figure out how to fund adaptation.
Boardroom SX80: This project helped us to achieve the first task under this action, which is to expand understanding of the financial costs and revenues associated with regional adaptation and help set the foundation for the next 2 tasks.
Boardroom SX80: And then, lastly, I just want to remind this group that the joint platform is informed by guiding principles that we created with our stakeholders that you can see here. I won’t. Read them at this time, but just keep in mind that these principles can help guide any future decisions as that we, as a region make about how we fill the region’s Funding gap, which you will hear about next.
Boardroom SX80: So at that i’ll turn it over to Rachel to introduce you to the project and its findings.
Boardroom SX80: Thank you, Dana Rachel, Hard to feel this resilience planner at B. C. A. Back.
Boardroom SX80: and just as a quick refresher on the framework. We’d like to review 3 of the key focus areas of this project.
Boardroom SX80: The first is to update and improve our regional accounting of anticipated civilized projects.
Boardroom SX80: and some of the outcomes of this are to update our prior regional analyses with local projects from recent planning efforts, as well as to estimate the regional steel, for as adaptation needs through 2050.
Boardroom SX80: We also have a focus to update and characterize the existing revenue sources for sea level as adaptation.
Boardroom SX80: And to do this. We’ve inventoried and forecasted known revenues for State and Federal public funding programs, and also characterized how some of these existing adaptation funds are dispersed, and for what purpose?
Boardroom SX80: Finally, a focus area is to study how new revenues for sea levelorize adaptation needs could be raised more equitably. And for this we analyzed a range of possible revenue measures at different scales, trying to understand the high level equity approaches to close the seal. The rise of funding gap
Boardroom SX80: next slide
Boardroom SX80: in support of the first focus area. We’ve created a regional inventory of adaptation needs identifying locally developed projects in various planning stages.
Boardroom SX80: This inventory was sourced by local plans, and for B. Cdc’s shoreline Adaptation Project, mapping program or sap map, which is an extension of Eco Atlas.
Boardroom SX80: This inventory was created to help us to develop high level cost estimates for regional adaptation and to begin to identify planning and implementation gaps. We identified approximately 200 locally identified projects and study areas which have less defined adaptation interventions. Many of these with multiple sites among them.
Boardroom SX80: and to review this inventory in the fall we spoke with local staff across all 9 Bay area counties, updating over 2 thirds of the inventory and adding additional projects as well.
Boardroom SX80: However, the data in this inventory was not complete in all cases, as you can see in this example, not all projects that are included in the inventory provide the same level of sea levelise protection. For example.
Boardroom SX80: some less protective projects are shorter term projects, while others are green projects that provide other flood mitigation, but are not intended to harden the shoreline at the adaptation development edge
Boardroom SX80: we were not able to gather flood protection information for approximately 50% of these projects.
Boardroom SX80: Similarly, projects were missing. Other details, such as 20% of the project’s missing project costs. We developed methods to get around some of these data gaps, including the use of placeholders.
Boardroom SX80: next slide
Boardroom SX80: to better quantify the full magnitude of regional need. The inventory also needed a way to account for costs in areas with less advanced advanced adaptation, planning or project implementation
Boardroom SX80: or in areas where the projects were missing, cost information
Boardroom SX80: to do this placeholder values were created by assuming the protection of the shoreline in place, including areas that have no known plans, areas where a study has not yet defined specific projects
Boardroom SX80: or areas where a project was not confirmed to provide sufficient protection.
Boardroom SX80: These placeholders should be thought of as project gaps that represent vulnerable segments of the shoreline, and will be replaced by specific ideas generated from further local adaptation planning in the future.
Boardroom SX80: And while this is a helpful data data summary of a moment in time which will be making available as an online interactive map later this spring. In the long term we envision B. Cdc’s sat map as the tool through which the region can continue to track adaptation projects
Boardroom SX80: as such data from the framework will be integrated into that effort from which plans and project data can be updated. As they develop
Boardroom SX80: in the near term. We’ll integrate this data into regional planning efforts, such as Plan Bay area, 2050 plus, and the regional shoreline adaptation plan
Boardroom SX80: excite.
It’s okay.
Boardroom SX80: And as mentioned previously, the inventory has been developed to help us estimate a regional cost. Estimate for shoreline adaptation
Boardroom SX80: for context. The estimates that we’ll discuss today are presented in year of expenditure
Boardroom SX80: and the framework builds off of previous work done in Plan Bay area, 2050, which estimated the regional need at 19 billiondollars through 2050.
Boardroom SX80: To update this information for the framework. We’ve made a number of assumptions. As a first step we created updated cost assumptions for different project types, using the best available data. With this change alone the same set of projects from the previous work would be projected to be just shy of 40 billiondollars.
Boardroom SX80: We also accounted for increased inflation over the last 3 years
Boardroom SX80: previous. Analysis, looked at an inflation rate of 2.2% in the future, while the framework has assumed a rate of 3% through the study period.
Boardroom SX80: The framework also measures protection through 4.9 feet of sea level rise to account for both permanent sea level rise projected from the Ocean Protection Council through 2050,
Boardroom SX80: as well as a 100 year storm, which surpasses State guidance recommendations, and also coincides with many of the local planning assumptions of some of the local efforts here in the region.
Boardroom SX80: Finally, where an area was identified with no current adaptation plan nuclear concepts. The framework analysis assumed a default, adaptation, action, or all vulnerable shorelines, including areas without planning and those in need of augmented plants.
Boardroom SX80: And when we piece these elements together, the adaptation estimate through 2050 is a 110 billiondollars expressed in year of expenditure dollars.
Boardroom SX80: About half of that cost is based on locally identified projects with the remainder estimated as a placeholder value, including estimates for additional sediment. Management needs
Boardroom SX80: Partial project funding where known was also subtracted from this total, but there may be additional projects with partial funding that were not known at the time of the assessment. However, we like to emphasize that this is not necessarily the value that needs to be raised by governments to adapt
Boardroom SX80: as a reminder. This estimate accounts for a very conservative approach in place
Boardroom SX80: a very conservative approach in which we assumed the protection of the shoreline in place for all vulnerable shorelines, including low density areas.
Boardroom SX80: This inventory is also a snapshot of a current moment. In time and adaptation. Efforts will continue to develop or shift, especially for projects that are in the early planning or conceptual stages, so the costs are likely to change as more information becomes available.
Boardroom SX80: Other strategies not estimated or assumed through the framework. Analysis will also play a role, including adaptation without protection, building code changes or other local policy adjustments.
Boardroom SX80: In addition, feature analysis will need to include riverine and groundwater data as it becomes regionally available, as well as additional adaptation plans such as those made by utilities.
Boardroom SX80: So now that we’ve seen this total number, let’s revisit that cost of inaction that we showed you on a previous slide.
Boardroom SX80: One key finding of this analysis is that even just a partial estimate of the cost of inaction was found to be much higher than the estimated cost of sea level rise. Adaptation projects through mid century.
Boardroom SX80: Our cost of inaction, analysis included losses to assessed property, values of homes and the impacts of inaction on the transportation system, but did not include more sophisticated estimates, such as real market value of property losses, impacts to the environment.
Boardroom SX80: communities, businesses, and more that would certainly increase this cost of inaction. Even further.
Boardroom SX80: the difference in these values makes it clear that adaptation, action will be worth while many times over.
Boardroom SX80: So now that we’ve seen the total number for the region, let’s dive into some additional details and a few of the distinctions across the counties.
Boardroom SX80: The analysis has shown that most of the planned projects are hybrid in nature, representing a regional focus on multiple benefits, such as levees paired with marsh restoration.
Boardroom SX80: though the threshold for the amount of nature based solutions needed to be considered, a hybrid project
Boardroom SX80: was very low, meaning that hybrid projects may be over represented here
Boardroom SX80: in terms of the counties. Alameda and Marin counties have the highest cost estimates with the information that we’ve gathered, aligning with their anticipated steel of arise Vulnerability.
Boardroom SX80: notably approximately half of the estimated value comes from placeholders created to develop cost estimates with significant implementation. Gaps identified in alameda Contra Costa and Marin counties.
Boardroom SX80: However, this.
Boardroom SX80: while identifying this implementation gap, is helpful, it also does not point out a key nuance between these counties.
Boardroom SX80: For example, in Marin County, while they are still identifying specific projects for vulnerable locations. The county has almost no identified planning gaps, and, in fact, the planning is quite robust and comprehensive
Boardroom SX80: by contrast. In Contra Costa County. The placeholder value represented here represents a significant implementation and planning gap.
Boardroom SX80: We anticipate that these distinctions will become clear through future efforts, such as through the developing sea level, rise planning guidelines in the Cdc’s regional shoreline adaptation plan and updating project information in plumb area 2050, and beyond.
Boardroom SX80: Let’s piece these different elements together by taking a deep dive into one county
Boardroom SX80: on the Hotspot’s map, one Major Hotspot, was identified in East Palo Alto.
Boardroom SX80: This location contained the Dunbarton Bridge touchdown us 101,
Boardroom SX80: too, socially.
Boardroom SX80: socioeconomically vulnerable communities. The ravens with Pda
Boardroom SX80: and the Bay Trail as well as the Menlo Park and East Palo Alto Bayland’s priority conservation area.
Boardroom SX80: When we look at the inventory, however, we see that not only has significant planning occurred along this shoreline, but several adaptation projects and study areas are already underway.
Boardroom SX80: This means that most of the county wide cost of the 11 billiondollars that we have estimated is based on real costs. With a minority of those representing placeholders.
Boardroom SX80: We can even dive into one of these projects further and highlight the safer Bay project, which consists of a series of levies, dikes, and restoration projects, with a priced estimate of over 200 milliondollars.
Boardroom SX80: diving deeper into each county, and looking at each shoreline’s, vulnerabilities, especially the areas of first and horse, i. E. Early flooding and areas of interconnected vulnerabilities where key assets are located.
Boardroom SX80: as well as taking a deeper look at the planning and implementation gaps, can all help us to shape a more nuanced approach to layering the the local funding with regional or state grants to meet each county’s. Need
Boardroom SX80: We’ve also developed an existing sea level rise, adaptation, revenue, forecast, to estimate how much revenue the region can anticipate through 2050 from sources that already exist.
Boardroom SX80: The framework has identified new public funding sources To add to prior revenue estimates in this space, such as the one in Plumb Bay area, 2050, including 30 new adaptation Grant programs from the past 2 years of State and Federal funding.
Boardroom SX80: However, despite the influx of new revenue opportunities, only a small share of the billions of dollars in New State and Federal funds are estimated to be available for both civilized adaptation, and to be awarded
Boardroom SX80: in the Bay area.
Boardroom SX80: What the bay area is likely to receive will be whittled down significantly when we assume a portion for statewide and national funds.
Boardroom SX80: Additionally, most of the 30 new funding line items are not specific to sea level rise, adaptation, but may support a range of adaptation needs such as wildfire or extreme heat, and so the revenue must be further bilted down to sea level rise specifically
Boardroom SX80: when these limitations are accounted for the region should expect only a fraction of new State and Federal funding opportunities
Boardroom SX80: next slide.
Boardroom SX80: and I can pass it back over to Dana to close up this next section.
Boardroom SX80: Thanks, Rachel. So it it’s in this this context of of funding that we look at exploring new funding sources.
Boardroom SX80: A part of the closing the gap will be increasing the available revenues, and while we can and will work to advocate for State and Federal funding, it may also be beneficial to raise funds at the local county and regional scale to fund projects will provide matching funds to Federal and State opportunities that emerge.
Boardroom SX80: The framework approached this analysis in a high, level, exploratory way, intended to provide insight for future research and discussion in the years ahead, not to point to the the right measure. We need to take right now.
Boardroom SX80: and it’s within this context that we research 3 possible new revenue measures at the local county and regional skills to understand how much funding could be raised annually, what the bond issuance potential is, or how much
Boardroom SX80: different funding measures could raise for near term project implementation and initial equity implications specifically, who would pay versus who benefits
Boardroom SX80: while many funding options are out there for sea level rise adaptations such as sales, taxes, business taxes, and development fees. Among others.
Boardroom SX80: these options were filtered for overall feasibility and regional precedence, and the 3 measures that were selected based on these filters for generating case studies led us to focus on parcel taxes AD blorent property taxes and assessment districts.
Boardroom SX80: Of course, our high level findings show that there is no silver bullet. There is no single revenue measure that’s projected to be capable of addressing our funding gap.
Boardroom SX80: and as such, additional funding from State and Federal sources will also be necessary
Boardroom SX80: of the 3 revenue types that we reviewed. Parcel taxes and app floor and property taxes were viewed at the county regional scales, but we also looked at assessment districts on a sub local basis. For each of these we determined. We looked at high level findings and used regional precedents to determine case studies
Boardroom SX80: So parcel tax are typically a flat rate tax that Don’t account for the value or size of the property
Boardroom SX80: an add lower property tax can be a progressive tax, as higher assessed properties may pay more. However, we have limitations due to prop 13, and lastly, assessment districts are directly tied to specific benefits. With last opportunity to tailor them to account for equity Disparities
Boardroom SX80: As such. They are most feasible in specific areas, with either more resources and or more direct impacts of sea level rise
Boardroom SX80: for case studies. We did do regional estimates. Aside from the assessment districts, and with our consultants supporting us, we looked at example, rates for what taxes could support if raised and bonded at different scales.
Boardroom SX80: We notice that property, that par parcel taxes and adulorum property taxes, the bonding potential is quite different.
Boardroom SX80: and this is due to the fact that aval or property taxes have a much higher tax rate for highly assessed parcels, as well as greater regional precedents.
Boardroom SX80: Again, just to remind you, this is an initial review of case studies and its exploratory to set the that set the stage for future conversation and discussion.
Boardroom SX80: We also looked at all of these tools through the lens of equity focused on who pays versus who benefits
Boardroom SX80: for these 2 are For this analysis we focused on adulterum and property taxes, as they are more likely to be scaled at the county and regional levels as opposed to the assessment district which is highly dependent on the community in question.
Boardroom SX80: So with regards to geographic equity, Santa Clara, Alameda, and San Francisco counties have the largest property tax rate, while San Francisco or San Mateo and Marin counties, have a disproportionate share of the risk of sea level rise.
Boardroom SX80: However, the risks to parcel values obscure some additional nuances. For example, in the context of regional revenue measure, the protection of key regional infrastructures, such as us, 101 in San Mateo and Morin
Boardroom SX80: would benefit travelers regionally, not just local residents.
Boardroom SX80: So our our key finding here is that it will be necessary to use multiple funding sources, such as AD form or taxes or parcel taxes to help balance the tax burden across the region.
Boardroom SX80: To look at social equity. We define socially vulnerable areas using BCC’s community vulnerability data which categorizes areas using a number of vulnerability indicators such as income and race.
Boardroom SX80: And with this information we found that both taxes benefit socially vulnerable areas to a greater extent than the regional share. Therefore, advancing equity. however, parcel taxes were found to be less socially equitable and add toil on property. Tax. They they place a higher tax burden on socially vulnerable areas.
Boardroom SX80: So these are really high-level findings. So If we were, if county or regional measure were to be considered for sea levelized adaptation. Of course we would need to take additional steps first. Further research creation of guiding principles
Boardroom SX80: to ensure that measures were specifically tailored to advance equitable outcomes from their Perspective of who pays
Boardroom SX80: as well as how the Funds are ultimately structured and distributed.
Boardroom SX80: So, as we conclude, we’d like to zoom out and review the key findings from this project
Boardroom SX80: first is that the framework has identified a mix of green and great projects with more than half of the region’s known projects focused on hybrid or multi-benefit solutions.
Boardroom SX80: These represent just one of the many ways our region
Boardroom SX80: to adapt our region to rising sea levels, but it also represents one potential cost range associated with adaptation.
Boardroom SX80: We’ve also identified a significant funding gap of over 100 billiondollars, and to address this increasing revenues, prioritizing or phasing shoreline protection and discouraging development in highly vulnerable areas, and should all be considered moving forward.
Boardroom SX80: We’ve also identified key differences across the region with disparity, both in terms of estimated sea level rise costs, as well as the level of local planning and implementation due to resource constraints.
Boardroom SX80: and we’ve determined that multiple funding sources at multiple scales will be determined to
Boardroom SX80: required to address the funding gap. Even with prioritizing and phasing of adaptation products projects.
Boardroom SX80: Again, it’s crucial to prioritize equity, and in addition to considering funding approaches that reduce the burden on socially vulnerable areas, we can also utilize shared principles to ensure that our adaptation of decisions are made with equity in the forefront.
Boardroom SX80: and, lastly, all these pieces together make it clear that a regional approach will be a critical piece of the funding and financing puzzle to ensure that we meet regional goals and avoid leaving critical pieces of the adaptation puzzle behind.
Boardroom SX80: So I do want to point out as we as we saw in San Mateo County. There’s already significant work planned or underway, so we have started to take a bite from this 110 billiondollars Bill.
Boardroom SX80: Just 3 examples. Here. Foster City is in the final year of construction for its levy improvement program which will protect the 30,000 residents of this waterfront community. From sea level rise storms and high tides.
Boardroom SX80: The Sr. 37 corridor adaptation is currently in planning stages, and this east west route is critical for the connection of the region connecting the North Bay counties.
Boardroom SX80: and equity is also a key consideration in this project. Unlike many other regional corridors, the majority of surveyed drivers on the route are lower income with many in the North Bay, using the cordark to connect to jobs in Marin, and beyond
Boardroom SX80: moving to the East Bay, the North Richmond shoreline, living Levy project seeks to provide protection for both key regional infrastructure, including the West County wastewater district’s. Wastewater treatment plant as well as frontline disadvantaged communities near the shoreline.
Boardroom SX80: These and and and our example in san Mateo County are just a handful of the examples that we could share with you. There are many more exciting efforts already happening in communities large and small, but every step forward is making a difference in the diverse communities and networks across the bay area, and we can build on these experience and learn, as we continue to plan for the region’s adaptation.
Boardroom SX80: So, as the framework project concludes, we’ve identified a number of actions to move these findings forward first to prioritize sea level rise investments in upcoming plans
Boardroom SX80: such as Mt. C. A. Bags Plan Bay area, 2050 plus, and BCC. Shoreline adaptation plan to help identify which projects might require early action and mitch, which areas might be appropriate for lower cost interventions.
Boardroom SX80: Second Mtc. A bag will explore how to integrate resilience into envisioned regional measures on affordable housing and transportation to the extent possible.
Boardroom SX80: Third B. C. DC. Will complete and maintain the development of the shoreline adaptation project. Mapping data to ensure that the region has access to the best possible inventory.
Boardroom SX80: In light of our initial analysis on the limitations of new revenue measures, it will be critical to continue to use State and Federal resources to address our funding gap.
Boardroom SX80: so we should continue to engage and mobilize elected officials to accelerate our State and Federal advocacy to secure a greater portion of funding for the bay area.
Boardroom SX80: and our last 2 next steps are to fulfill tasks to point
Boardroom SX80: 6.2 and 6.3 in the joint platform, and this is to better define, lead roles for funding plans and projects to ensure that the region is empowered to secure adaptation monies and distribute them equally.
Boardroom SX80: and lastly, to identify a path to support cities, counties, and the private sector to fill the funding gaps that the region cannot fill alone.
Boardroom SX80: So at that we’ll thank you for your time and attention and turn it back to chair, Wasserman to facilitate questions and discussion.
Boardroom SX80: Thank you very much, Dana.
Boardroom SX80: The questions on the screen are illustrative. They are not limiting.
Boardroom SX80: so I will start with entertaining questions
Boardroom SX80: or comments from Commissioners.
Boardroom SX80: Start up here. Honor, you are attending. As for that could go ahead.
Boardroom SX80: I have a number of questions.
Boardroom SX80: and I think I heard
Boardroom SX80: a very similar if not identical presentation at the bark meeting, and I
Boardroom SX80: still have questions. I thought I saw on one of your slides that we estimate $125,000
Boardroom SX80: a foot to adapt roads to sea level rice. It was in a footnote in one of the earlier slides.
Boardroom SX80: Are Are we saying that it costs a 1 million dollars for every 8 feet of roads to adapt them to sea level rise.
Boardroom SX80: That’s a very good question, and it is an extremely high level assumption that we’ve made looking at the elevation or realignment of transportation. That is, a Median cost estimate for that specific type of
Boardroom SX80: adaptation. So it is one of the higher cost estimates for transportation absolutely.
Boardroom SX80: So of that 110 billionthat we came to at the end of the day is a lot of that.
Boardroom SX80: This transportation piece of it.
Boardroom SX80: I believe
Boardroom SX80: about
Boardroom SX80: oh, somewhere over 50. I think of the estimate, when it comes down to it just due to
Boardroom SX80: the nature of how much it costs to work in infrastructure, especially in the context of the bay, where so much of our infrastructure is in highly dense areas which makes that cost much much higher.
Boardroom SX80: So and we I see that we’ve made that adjustment from 2 feet to 4.9 feet on sea level rise is the cost to adapt to sea level rise directly correlated to the level of in in other words, is
Boardroom SX80: is it cost twice as much to adapt to 4 feet as it does to 2 feet? Or is it not linear in that way?
Boardroom SX80: I don’t believe that it’s, linear and our specific analysis
Boardroom SX80: wouldn’t have shown that relationship, even if that was the case, because we also took a more conservative approach to what was protected.
Boardroom SX80: So our analysis assumed that everything was protected which in some cases not protecting or using ministry or alternative strategies, might be
Boardroom SX80: a different cost, estimate, and in some cases less
Boardroom SX80: so, in addition to that protect in place assumption and that escalated
Boardroom SX80: inundation level. Yes, those 2 things make it a much higher cost. But in terms of whether it’s linear don’t believe we’d be able to say. I guess what i’m trying to understand is
Boardroom SX80: if if you’re talking about 2 feet of sea level rise. Are you gonna need
Boardroom SX80: 70 of that? 110 billionjust at 2 feet, and the other 30, you know, for the remaining 2.9 feet, or
Boardroom SX80: do you have to? In other words, are we is the 110 billionwhich is a pretty scary number. Is it?
Boardroom SX80: Is it something that we can expect to see, you know, sooner rather than later, or it’ll just, you know, over the course of time and sea level rise. It’ll just keep adding up.
Boardroom SX80: if you understand. I I I do. Yes, so I think that’s related to You know what gets wet then, and when we’re constructing different projects ultimately, and in
Boardroom SX80: the course of this framework the assumptions that we made, we didn’t have a lot of construction year for different projects, and so we had to make a lot of assumptions. But through plain bay area 2,050 plus, and I believe, the regional shoreline adaptation plan, both of those
Boardroom SX80: efforts. We’ll be able to explore this further, and I can speak to especially with Plan Bay area, 2,050 plus. We plan to look at what gets wet at each layer, and hopefully start to think about
Boardroom SX80: what the difference is when we look at prioritizing in that sense in terms of cost. So we should have answers building on this work hopefully in this future efforts. I have 2 more questions, although they may be a little dense. One of your slides, and I tried to find slight numbers on the bottom right hand corner, and some times I could, and sometimes I couldn’t, so
Boardroom SX80: I think it’s somewhere around Slide 15. It was called Adaptation needs additional.
Boardroom SX80: Yeah, is it 60? And where you explain sort of the green hybrid and gray projects? And I just need a little more understanding of that. Many, many people probably understand that very well, people to the right and left to me. But I but I don’t so can you, just as you know.
Boardroom SX80: sort of teach me about the green gray, hybrid distinctions, and what that what that tells us
Boardroom SX80: Sure. And I can start and see if anyone would like to add, so gray would be
Boardroom SX80: protection elements such as sea walls or traditional levies as we would consider them. and Green, I think, on the other extreme, would be marsh restoration, for example, or other types of infrastructure, and so, or adaptations and hybrid would be somewhere in between, or a combination of those elements.
Boardroom SX80: Ecotone Levy could be considered hybrid or just marsh restoration. Next to a se wall in one project could also be considered hybrid, and the threshold, for whether
Boardroom SX80: different, you know.
Boardroom SX80: project leads or jurisdictions considered something as a hybrid project could be quite low in some cases, or really different in some cases. So there’s a little ambiguity in terms of the firm lines of
Boardroom SX80: what hybrid could mean. But it really
Boardroom SX80: the the green and the gray are more more defined. Different adaptation types.
Boardroom SX80: I mean in the ideal world. Would they all be green ideally, but due to the type of development that we have especially so close to the shoreline in some cases
Boardroom SX80: that won’t protect, because we don’t have the space for it, or the type of development that is in that location is not suitable for it. For example, it wouldn’t make sense to have marsh restoration on the embarkadero shoreline, and so just due to the nature in which we have developed.
Boardroom SX80: There are, you know, hybrid accommodations that ultimately need to be made if we want protection. Okay. And then maybe this is for Dana, because you were talking about the taxes and the possibilities of raising revenue through taxes.
Boardroom SX80: So I don’t know enough about this. But if we are going to try to find funding on a regional basis, so that once we have the monies, we can allocate them
Boardroom SX80: to where the need is without risk, without regard to how wealthy or not wealthy that community is.
Boardroom SX80: Are these taxes taxes that we could
Boardroom SX80: could even be collected on a regional basis and distributed regionally?
Boardroom SX80: Or are they collected by necessity from count counties or cities, and therefore they would
Boardroom SX80: probably be used by that count to your city.
Boardroom SX80: I can. Yeah. I’m: okay. So PC. Has the the history of doing this, these types of measures that are regional scale. So I will let
Boardroom SX80: Rachel
Boardroom SX80: with the 3 different case studies that we looked at the parcel taxes and AD valorum Property taxes are type tax types that could be raised at the regional scale potentially, or the county scale, they so there’s variation in terms of the scale that is available to them. We also looked at assessment districts as
Boardroom SX80: a case study, and these are well. Theoretically, they could be applied at a very high scale, such as the region. There are almost no examples of that they are typically used at the sub local level. And that’s what we looked at when we were making assumptions about it in the case study.
Boardroom SX80: So let’s take AD Ballorem, Texas as an example. So Alameda County would
Boardroom SX80: assess the tax and Marin County would assess the tax. But what are the chances, then, that the monies that are raised in that way could be used to help
Boardroom SX80: Nap, or wherever the need is. You see what i’m saying
Boardroom SX80: it’s my oh, Thank you. Thank you. As I say, I knew people to the left
right
Boardroom SX80: sure. I mean it just to point out with the San Francisco Bay restoration authority that was created by State statute that allows the money to be collected regionally.
Boardroom SX80: But the statute also provides an allocation
Boardroom SX80: mechanism.
Boardroom SX80: So we have. About 50% goes to based on population, and 50% goes to highest needs. But this is all right. Yeah.
Boardroom SX80: Okay.
Boardroom SX80: We were reflected by State legislation. Great, that that’s where I was going. Thank you so much. Everyone.
Boardroom SX80: Commissioner Joy
John Gioia: first thanks for the presentation, then John John John, Wait, I apologize.
Boardroom SX80: I’m going to recognize the people here. First Commissioner, show up.
Boardroom SX80: Okay. I have 2 questions. One is just very local. It’s a little hard to read those maps at that. You know the scale. They are so when I saw the placeholder area for the South Bay W. What jurisdictions does that represent is that Moffat Sunnyvale, or is that include mountain view.
Boardroom SX80: I I will say that we are going to be publishing our online map later. This in the spring that has that will allow you to zoom in to those project and placeholder locations. So
Boardroom SX80: I mean, I can, if you want to answer specifically about that location. But later on you will have access to the map that will allow you to zoom in on in greater detail.
Boardroom SX80: and i’ll just add that I can’t speak to that area at this moment, but can certainly look into that for you and you, said the Moffat
Boardroom SX80: Moffat. Sunnyvale, is it? It’s it’s it’s Sunnyvale or Mountain view.
Boardroom SX80: I’ve spent. I’m. I’m spending a lot of time at City Mountain Council meetings, talking about
Boardroom SX80: financing our sea level rise protections, and I just want to make sure that they’re properly reflected here, anyway. So my second question is about the calculations you did, I’m. Assuming that you just said that the existing law we have for proposition. 13 is what you did the calculation for. You didn’t do the calculation, for if we had a split role, or
Boardroom SX80: you know even a more significant change in proposition. 13 is just the existing one. Is that correct?
Boardroom SX80: That is correct. We based our case studies on existing on precedence. And so
Boardroom SX80: there are other options beyond what this initial study looked at. But for this initial high level assessment we only looked at precedence.
Boardroom SX80: The proposed changes that Haven’t passed would would Garner, that we might be able to use for this? Thank you.
Boardroom SX80: Yes, thank you. So I was surprised by your forecast that existing public revenues would only be 5 and a half 1 billiondollars over the period
Boardroom SX80: like when we, when we look at what the kind of investments that the Us. Army core of engineers making in other regions of the country.
Boardroom SX80: you know. Can’t we expect more?
Boardroom SX80: And and 5.5 million? So yeah.
Boardroom SX80: that’s a a great question. And again, what we looked at is what the region has historically received in terms of its portion of funding, and we use those values to project forwards through 2,050.
Boardroom SX80: And so it is possible that in the future we might receive a larger portion. But I think that one thing that we’ve learned through this analysis is that the region likely needs to advocate for a larger portion that it than it has historically received to balance what we’re receiving Visa V. The rest of the country
Boardroom SX80: right? Can I also help answer that question? And I see water in the audience, and Warner and I have talked about this a number of times. There is something starting with the capital H. That Florida, New York, and Texas have
Boardroom SX80: have been involved with, or have received that we haven’t.
Boardroom SX80: It’s called a hurricane. And so those monies are. F. Have been for the most part after the fact monies. And so it’s a really interesting situation, because I think what we are. What we as staff are suggesting
Boardroom SX80: is that the advocacy that needs to be done has to be done in preparation for as opposed to as a recovery from.
Boardroom SX80: because I mean, I think the challenge here is.
Boardroom SX80: you know it’s. It’s not foreseeable to me that we can raise 110 billiondollars through local tax measures. That is, when you need it. It has to be substantial Federal state.
Boardroom SX80: So for
Boardroom SX80: just to jump in on that one. It absolutely.
Boardroom SX80: and this largely leaves out in dollar estimates what
Boardroom SX80: private developers will provide. Some of the gap will have to be provided by private developers as they build projects
Boardroom SX80: that they need to protect. and their contributions depending on the project and the location and a bunch of other things. They well extend beyond their own project.
Boardroom SX80: But those numbers are very hard
Boardroom SX80: to project
Boardroom SX80: at this regional level.
Boardroom SX80: Commissioner Joy.
John Gioia: Thanks. I I do think we need to take the estimates as a
John Gioia: as a range right? I mean, we know that these are all estimates, and whatever it is, it’s a lot of money, and I think, getting back to David Pyne’s point.
John Gioia: We we’re gonna have to look at all these different funding opportunities, Federal, State and local
John Gioia: and just reflecting. I’ve been elected in local government for 35 years. 25 of those, with the county and have been involved with regional measures, with Dave on the Restoration authority double a. With county measures with sub, you know, sub county measures.
John Gioia: and I think we we need to be pursuing sort of multiple pathways, one at a regional level
John Gioia: makes a lot of sense. But also I I think there’s going to be a lot of effort at county levels.
John Gioia: so I sort of see a parallel path of
John Gioia: I mean, I a lot of my works thinking about. How do we communicate our needs? So the public will vote on it. We can have the we can have the best policy in the world and the best need. But unless we can communicate that need in a politically successful way. We’re not going to get voters to pass it.
John Gioia: you know clearly, you know, at
John Gioia: Equity needs to be really at the foundation, both from standpoint of our of our communities, our highly impacted communities, regional equity as well.
John Gioia: So I I think all the work going forward sort of needs to lay out information that we could use
John Gioia: from a regional standpoint for a regional measure and a county by county standpoint.
John Gioia: So your estimates of what the cost will be by county is really important. We’re starting a a planning process that’s going to be more robust and contra costa a lot of work we have cut out for us, as your own chart shows.
John Gioia: You know, voters and counties are not going to pay. It’s going to be harder to get them
John Gioia: to pay for something that’s occurring somewhere else. We went through this discussion, you know. I thought we were very successful in how we design measure double a with as Dave, as part of it was based on need, part based on population. People want to see a return to source.
John Gioia: so I I think our effort should also support the the sub regional efforts that will go on around the bay area by county.
John Gioia: and we need leadership in every one of the 9 counties to make this work, and we also need some regional leadership as well. So that’s sort of my message is. Pursue 2 tracks have information that’s helpful for those of us doing countywide planning processes
John Gioia: as well as, and and leave it up to those counties to figure what is going to have the best chance of passage, but at the same time look at a regional measure
John Gioia: as well. That has a pretty broad stakeholder involvement.
Boardroom SX80: Thank you, John Commissioner Gordon.
1st District Supervisor Susan Gorin: Good morning, everyone, and I agree with everything that John just said. I have a couple of questions on the speaking to question Number one. How do we get the attention of elected leaders, and certainly we have many on B. Cdc.
1st District Supervisor Susan Gorin: But can you give us a status report of the local task force that you are convening, and how you might and involve them in that question. And this larger context
Boardroom SX80: I can answer that. And then Commissioner Joy is actually the chair of that task force, so i’ll make space for him. He’d like to respond as well. So we had our initial kickoff meeting on January 20, fourth. We I’ve been trying to bring on a consultant to help facilitate that particular group.
Boardroom SX80: That contracting has been taking a a while. So our second meeting has been pushed off a bit, but we are anticipating that. That will get going again
Boardroom SX80: in the next month or 2,
Boardroom SX80: and then I I think
Boardroom SX80: we have some slides that demonstrate this and our next, the rising seal of a working group meeting. But there is a reciprocal relationship, obviously, between the task force and this group as evidenced by the fact that Chair Joya is here for both. So I think this is the type of space where we can identify what type of issues we’d like to bring to that task force, and how we’d like to
Boardroom SX80: get them in alignment with with what we’re looking at in this working group. So I don’t know if you have anything I mean, I I think you’re I think it is important to use that regional elected work group to identify the leaders in counties who are willing to step up. I know they’re getting informed
John Gioia: and educated more on the issue from B. Cdc. Staff, but they’re also expressing. You know where they need and want more information, and I so I think that is a good starting point. We’ll need more county wide leaders, but
John Gioia: I think that we can get that’s a good starting point to develop some some leadership around the bay area. We need to do more of that.
1st District Supervisor Susan Gorin: Thanks, John for sharing that group. I think it might be helpful if the B. C. DC. Commissioners are sort of kept abreast of what information is being presented to the local task force
1st District Supervisor Susan Gorin: and what they’re what they’re thinking and considering, maybe providing opportunities for them to join us in some joint discussions, especially regarding financing
1st District Supervisor Susan Gorin: for the infrastructure around the bay. Obviously I can check in with the 2 folks from Sonoma County, but I think it might be good to keep that on our radar. And then one final question, and I know that they Time and John both join me.
1st District Supervisor Susan Gorin: and representing the San Francisco Bay Restoration authority, and opined about how financing has been used to, I think, benefits the whole Bay area.
1st District Supervisor Susan Gorin: and i’m wondering if we have a category in this report, or maybe, in addition to this report, the pie graphs showing
1st District Supervisor Susan Gorin: what is being funded, what is being created and financed and completed throughout the bay area. So you have some pie graphs about, maybe the the dollars necessary and the strategies necessary, but what has already been completed to work towards those goals.
Boardroom SX80: I can speak to some of this, and then pass it off if there’s additional notes.
Boardroom SX80: But we only have a partial assessment of what has been completed this far. Some of that was just what we uncovered from the support of local jurisdictions, and we also have a subset of projects to be identified as completed through the app map, which was a helpful resources for us as well. And so I would say, we have a partial sense of what has been done, but not a very comprehensive one at this time.
1st District Supervisor Susan Gorin: and I would just end my comments by saying the Restoration authority is getting ready to release a 5 year plan sort of a report card
1st District Supervisor Susan Gorin: of what was accomplished over the past 5 years, and it might be a good appendix for this report, and i’m still thinking about ways to integrate the information
1st District Supervisor Susan Gorin: about the projects under in in design as well as in completion. So thank you so much.
Boardroom SX80: Thank you. Commissioner. Left quits.
Steve Lefkovits: Thank you, and thank you, Staff, for
Steve Lefkovits: a wonderful report, or a very comprehensive and well done. I have a couple of high level questions. Frankly. You know the report that filled me with a little bit of dismay. I thought maybe breaking down some high level things like it was a little bit of hope. I was just curious. If you know heuristically, or off the top of your heads, you had any idea of
Steve Lefkovits: how much of that 110 billiondollar number might be private property projects versus public infrastructure, public projects, any directional notion at all.
Boardroom SX80: I don’t think that we have that
Boardroom SX80: information, or at least not a good sense of how the the proportion of that information. There’s a few private projects that we’re aware of certain developments like the Treasurer Island, for example.
Boardroom SX80: but they are few, and I would say the majority are either public, and then also
Boardroom SX80: a a large portion. As we mentioned earlier, about 50% of that estimate is placeholder cost estimates, and so those are certainly unknown.
Steve Lefkovits: of course, all right, and my next question was just about the timing of priorities. Do we.
Steve Lefkovits: you know? Does it? Would it make any sense to try to prioritize certain, say marsh and levy projects that might bias time or give further support to other projects that are further inland
Steve Lefkovits: Is
Steve Lefkovits: Is is there some benefit to thinking about phasing remediations?
Steve Lefkovits: So you know we’re not thinking about coming up with this money all in a 10 year period.
Boardroom SX80: Yeah, that’s even though we didn’t get into in this project exactly what that criteria would be for prioritizing and phasing. That is one of our key takeaways is that we won’t. Be able to do all this at once, and
Boardroom SX80: there are areas that, as you, as you pointed out, for example, restoration projects need to occur. First.
Boardroom SX80: there are certain locations along the shoreline that are flooding already today, so there are a number of criteria that we could use for a prioritization. Moving forward, we just haven’t gotten to a point in this project where we’ve made any decisions about what that might look like, and what tools we would use to to implement that prioritization.
Steve Lefkovits: Fair enough. Thank you. And just one more question. I I just wonder this is such a nice piece of context setting have looking at the larger. Even California. Have you anecdotally or otherwise heard any estimates from other high impact areas. That
Steve Lefkovits: is La Orange County, San Diego, or they going through this process? Are they also going to be calling on State Federal resources?
Steve Lefkovits: How do we think about. You know how unique we are on this timeline
Boardroom SX80: good question, and I am not aware of any other places in California that have done this kind of assessment in terms of what the costs would be. I know there’s been some locations, for example. I believe San Mateo County has an assessment of what is at risk.
Boardroom SX80: but in terms of what those costs are, I believe that we might be the only ones that I know of that have done such an assessment, and I think that just speaks to the unique vulnerability that we have here. We are susceptible to most of the sea level rise inundation, and just the amount of shoreline that we have here in the bay makes us very unique in terms of the geography of the rest of the state.
Steve Lefkovits: Thank you so much.
Boardroom SX80: just to re-emphasize
Boardroom SX80: the answer to the last question. I would remind you that one third of the California coastline is within the Bay. and the estimate is that 2 thirds
Boardroom SX80: of the damage from rising sea level to the State of California will occur inside San Francisco Bay.
Boardroom SX80: Commissioner Gunther.
Andrew Gunther: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just want to start by congratulating the staff on attacking with great vigor, and thought a very, very difficult question.
Andrew Gunther: I really see that you guys are devising a method and and an approach for
Andrew Gunther: organizing us for thinking about this problem. This is, I think, the second time that I’ve seen this kind of presentation, it’s greatly improved. It’s becoming more robust, and I hope that that will continue.
Andrew Gunther: My first question is, do you guys see that we have the resources and the
Andrew Gunther: regional support
Andrew Gunther: to continue to refine and update our inventory and our map.
Boardroom SX80: Very good question.
Boardroom SX80: I would say that right now, since.
Boardroom SX80: These are some of the first assessments that have been done if we did it in Plymouth area 2,050 a few years ago, and we built on that through the framework effort. And to
Boardroom SX80: make this a more robust analysis in the future, I would, I would say we would need more resources as of right. Now, it’s a very small team that does this, and there’s not really
Boardroom SX80: a structure for accounting for the different adaptation measures that are going on around the bay at this time, so it it is a a lengthy effort just to figure out what is being planned, where and what’s going on, so I would say more resources would be needed. Yes.
Boardroom SX80: and i’ll just jump in and say that our our staff map program, which is led by Todd Helenbeck over here is an ongoing program. We do have resources devoted to him and his staff.
Boardroom SX80: and also if we we have the time to get to it. We’re we’ll be talking about our regional shoreline adaptation plan again, which we’ve been looking at at ways in which we can have sort of a continual stream of information between cities and counties and the planning and the projects that they’re working on and incorporating that into our regional approaches and our regional tracking. So we we certainly have plans to continue this back and forth of information.
Boardroom SX80: so that we have more data over time. But as Rachel mentioned it’s, You know, we’re working on very few staff and always seeking ways to support and expand these types of programs.
Andrew Gunther: Okay, I think that that the effectiveness of this work will be greatly enhanced if we can make sure to be able to continue it. And have you all be the repository of what’s going on.
Andrew Gunther: so that we have one place that we can look, and I would ask you to not be bashful about it, including supporting that
Andrew Gunther: ongoing effort as a recommendation from your work.
Andrew Gunther: I was very happy to see you framing this as a return on investment.
Andrew Gunther: and I am sure frankly that the costs are going to be higher than we think they are now, but I also think the benefits will be greater, and and I would encourage you to think about you. You mentioned that
Andrew Gunther: the this your benefit number, was just a first cut, and if we could get that in a little more, with a little more sophisticated approach that should help us in our communication effort about the value of this. Does your work include the cost of rising groundwater
Boardroom SX80: at this time? It does not because we did not have robust groundwater information for the entire jurisdiction. Just a subset at this time.
Andrew Gunther: I understand that. But there’s just one example of how things are going to cost more. Did you think about framing your cost numbers through in the context of operational landscape units? We have seen a lot of of information, indicating that both understanding our vulnerability and understanding our adaptation options is well. It can be well framed by thinking about these operation Landscape units
Is it easy for you to look at cost in that way as well?
Boardroom SX80: Actually, yes, it is. That is a layer that we have overlapped with the geographies that we identified. And so that is
Andrew Gunther: another way that we can cut those numbers right. Do you guys consider that the way we have reached out to the public. The way we have funded work preparing for earthquakes is a frame in which we might be able to approach
Andrew Gunther: the funding for sea level, rise and storm surge impacts.
Boardroom SX80: I I I can jump in on this one. So I actually used to work in the earthquake space. So i’m pretty familiar with that. The way that that’s generally been approached is at a jurisdiction by jurisdiction level, or at a state level through legislation. So we don’t have any regional precedence for funding earthquake retrofits at a regional level. We could certainly learn from
Boardroom SX80: lessons.
Boardroom SX80: you know, through through that space. And as to what has worked and what Hasn’t and I think we should pull on on multiple fields and arenas, such as the Restoration space, which has been quite successful in generating funding for projects.
Boardroom SX80: So it is an example, but it still has the challenge of, you know, raising funding on a city by city basis through grants from Fema, or, you know, entities like that.
Boardroom SX80: or occurring at a statewide level where the resources get distributed throughout the State. For example, in Earthquakes L. A. Was always a major competitor for funds, and La gets much more of the funds for earthquake retrofit than the bay area does. Similar problem that we might have about not getting our fair share of resources here for adaptation.
Andrew Gunther: but we did have regional. Do I remember correctly. We have regional tax taxes that have been supporting, as I understand it, tens of billions of dollars, of retrofit to bridges and roads, and
Andrew Gunther: and all maybe coordinated by Cal. Trans. But but they, the public has supported this work and has seen the benefits. Am I correct about that?
Boardroom SX80: I’ll pass it over to Dave. Hi, good morning, everyone.
Boardroom SX80: Yes, they just state your name for the record.
Boardroom SX80: Yes, that’s absolutely true. Regional measures. One and 2 did focus on seismic enhancements for bay area bridges. So that is an example of regional action and the seismic resilience space. But I think you know, as Dana correctly pointed out.
Boardroom SX80: you know in general, those those earthquake actions have occurred to other levels of of government. So I think the question with sea level rise is really what is the right balance between local regional State and Federal investment in this space, and it’ll probably require some element from all of those different levels of government.
Andrew Gunther: Thank you. And lastly, just to data. So if there are. Is there information from this report that you think is particularly of of importance to our working group on a sediment beneficial reuse?
Andrew Gunther: I hope you will make sure to get that information to Brenda, so that the Commissioner is working in that working group can bring this information in to our deliberations.
Boardroom SX80: Yes, absolutely.
Andrew Gunther: Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner Molten Peters.
Boardroom SX80: Thank you. I want to thank you for the presentation and and appreciate all the staff work and this working group to begin to get our arms around a really large topic, a question and a comment. Did the cost estimate include
Boardroom SX80: relocation of utilities, preservation, or modification of reconstruction of the infrastructure of any sort.
Boardroom SX80: It did not include relocation at this time. Okay.
Boardroom SX80: And then just a a comment building on the the need for partnership with local government that most of the Commissioners County Commissioners have expressed. That’s great to have B. Cdc. The the aggregator, and and the set guiding principles and priorities, and in the way that Mtc. Does.
Boardroom SX80: I also think it’s important to find ways to empower the local counties to do their part in this planning and to and to fund their work as well. So I just want to add that.
Boardroom SX80: Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner Joya.
John Gioia: Yeah. One thing I forgot to say is I, I don’t think we should be taking the storm water off.
John Gioia: be, or tax off the plate, because that is, that is becoming a major issue. Folks who are with the Regional Water Quality Control Board know all the the new permit requirements on development and permits on cities and counties
John Gioia: has come with a very increased cost, and
John Gioia: those stormwater fees are not exempt under prop. 218, like water and waste water fees were. So you have to go to the ballot every time you want to raise those fees. So we’re and we’re saying
John Gioia: local, clean water, agency cities and counties having greater responsibility in this area, and it’s related to sea level rise.
John Gioia: So I I really would argue to not take that off the plate
John Gioia: and leave, and and you know whether it’s done regionally or done county by county. There’s been some efforts, county by county to look at this.
John Gioia: and you know we can look at how we support it regionally. So I I just want to point that off. It’s it. I I don’t know how we can remove off the plate. Something that which there’s a growing mandate and responsibility to do.
Boardroom SX80: I think that. concludes Commissioner, comments Peggy, are there any
Boardroom SX80: but he in the audience who wants to speak, I would note
Boardroom SX80: that we have a second presentation
Boardroom SX80: that is related to this, but focusing on the broader
Boardroom SX80: sea level rise issue. As I said at the beginning.
Boardroom SX80: I see no hands in the house of Peggy, remote public speakers. That was not a discouragement. Guys.
Boardroom SX80: We do have one person, Jennifer Chang Henterly.
Boardroom SX80: Go ahead and mute yourself.
Boardroom SX80: You have 3 min
Boardroom SX80: the public comment. Go ahead.
Jennifer Chang Hetterly (she/her): Thank you. Good morning. My name is Jennifer Heterley and I’m. Speaking today on behalf of the Sierra Club’s Bay live campaign which advocates for preserving and enhancing bay ecosystems as a necessary resource for ensuring community resilience in the face of sea level rising.
Jennifer Chang Hetterly (she/her): We’re pleased to see this joint effort to better understand the magnitude of the challenge before us, and to plan ahead for funding regional sea level rise. Adaptation, however, we’d like to see much more clarity and specific attention paid to the investments needed to adapt our natural ecosystems.
Jennifer Chang Hetterly (she/her): For example, how are the costs of inaction assessed for these natural assets, where green strategies are tally, does it predominantly reflect existing local planning and projects, or do placeholder projects? Consider everywhere that strong opportunities exist for such strategies.
Jennifer Chang Hetterly (she/her): The health of our bay communities depends not only on resilience for the built environment and our transportation infrastructure. We also need a healthy bay to help sustain our communities.
Jennifer Chang Hetterly (she/her): They ecosystems, provide great value in storm, water, retention, carbon, sequestration, and biodiversity, which research shows is, it. Critical risk is, several species are collapsing. This affects us all, and these natural resources need to be valued and protected as the vital assets. They are
Jennifer Chang Hetterly (she/her): too often threats to ecological assets, get ignored in cost-benefit analyses and play only a minor role in adaptation, planning. But as climate change worsens we can no longer afford to take them for granted.
Jennifer Chang Hetterly (she/her): Ecosystem valuations which assign a value to the ecosystem or or the service it provides, such as water, filtration, or wave attenuation are evolving to provide a more sophisticated and acceptable way to assess the benefits the environment brings to an area.
Jennifer Chang Hetterly (she/her): An example is Art Bay areas work with the natural capital park project.
Jennifer Chang Hetterly (she/her): We urge you to strengthen the framework with robust attention to resilience for our natural assets, including ecological costs of inaction and consideration of much needed upland migration pathways as sea level rises.
Jennifer Chang Hetterly (she/her): Thank you very much for the opportunity to comment.
Boardroom SX80: Thank you, Jennifer. We have no more public comment. Here
Boardroom SX80: we have one in the audience. Warner.
Boardroom SX80: Identify yourself for those very few who may not know
Boardroom SX80: Commissioners.
Boardroom SX80: My name is Warner Chabot. I’m an executive director of the San Francisco Estuary Institute. Sfbi has served local, regional and state agencies on landscape scale environmental issues for 3 decades. We provide science support data and gis tools to support, to help monitor, measure and visualize climate, adaptation challenges and possible solutions.
Boardroom SX80: We don’t, do policy advocacy. This is really a policy issue. You’re dealing with. Therefore my remarks are my own. As a somewhat biased observer.
Boardroom SX80: the 110 billiondollars challenge is the most consequential public policy issue this region has faced in the last 60 years since the beginning Origin of B. C. D. C. As elected and policy leaders. It may be your most difficult challenge. Over the next decade
Boardroom SX80: the bay area faces many climate challenges, including drought, wildfire, and extreme heat. However, the most significant defining issue of our region is the triple threat of sea level rise, rising groundwater and lowland, flooding for more extreme and frequent storms. That’s because
Boardroom SX80: our low and well, this triple whammy is also the most significant climate equity issue that we face. That’s because our low-income underserved and disadvantaged communities are the most likely to be hit the hardest by rising seas, rising groundwater and flooding
Boardroom SX80: as policy leaders. You need to prioritize regional priorities. Obviously influential voices will call for regional 1 billiondollar housing and transportation measures. However, if we don’t address and solve the triple threat, those housing and transportation solutions will soon be underwater.
Boardroom SX80: This shoreline issue is court solving a many of those issues.
Boardroom SX80: While the solution requires good science and innovative engineering, this region has those resources in abundance. We have thousands of engineers, scientists, and planner types working on this issue, however.
Boardroom SX80: 2 areas that may need the most significant vision and innovation are governance and municipal finance to be crude and blunt. This is where you, as elected regional policy leaders, have an extraordinarily large and extremely hot potato in your lap. Any funding solution is going to involve local State and Federal actions out.
Boardroom SX80: I have one local and one Federal action for you to consider at a local level. Please note that we made great progress 8 years ago, when we passed, measured double a. We raised 25 million dollars a year for Wetlands restoration. At the same time we made that measure a Los Angeles past measured W. They are now raising 300 milliondollars a year, 12 to 14 times as much in perpetuity. So it can be done. Local elected bond measures that address local issues are possible at a much greater possibility.
Boardroom SX80: Then measure double a number 2. The Army Cork.
Boardroom SX80: New York, Louisiana, and Texas are running circles around us and raising each of them, have a 30 to 50 billiondollars. Proposal in the pipeline to deal with shoreline adaptation. I’m not suggesting. They are concrete, heavy solutions. But I am suggesting that here in the bay area we have innovative leaders that are moving the army corps into thinking about working with nature, and we have the possibility of the Bay area being a national leader, and how an urban region tackles these types of issues with vision and hope
Boardroom SX80: and and clarity. And I think we should be thinking about a a project process with the army corps of engineers to try to work with them on a 30 to 50 billiondollars. big, hairy, audacious goal for the bay area to tackle. This issue because we can also focus on the low-hanging fruit of Nature-based solutions, such as restoring our wetlands and those are the areas that will also help protect the disadvantaged underserved communities that are going to be hit the hardest. Thank you.
Boardroom SX80: Thank you.
Boardroom SX80: I’m going to make a suggestion. Then a couple of comments.
Boardroom SX80: I’m going to make suggestion first, just to be clear.
Boardroom SX80: The program this morning was supposed to now move
Boardroom SX80: to a report on rising sea level, and they adapt, and how we move forward on that in the context of what we just heard.
Boardroom SX80: That discussion itself
Boardroom SX80: has a number of important layers that I don’t think we can effectively address in the next 12 min.
Boardroom SX80: Therefore we’re going to
Boardroom SX80: reschedule that meeting
Boardroom SX80: for next month.
Boardroom SX80: I think we we need to think about it a little bit, but we will probably do it again as a joint workshop, because obviously the financial needs and the financial availability of funds.
Boardroom SX80: our critical part of doing anything.
Boardroom SX80: couple of comments, and I will make a few more specific comments when
Boardroom SX80: we summarize this for the Commission meeting
Boardroom SX80: in an hour.
Boardroom SX80: I certainly want to join in in in the chorus of thanking staff for the very hard work on this both agencies and and thank
Boardroom SX80: the staff of both agencies for the cooperation.
Boardroom SX80: Certainly there’s been a number of areas of cooperation between B. Cdc. And Mtc. Over the years, and particularly over the last couple of years, and particularly in this area. But I think this effort represents a significant step forward which is going to be absolutely
Boardroom SX80: critical to continue. And indeed accelerate. if we’re going to have success in saving
Boardroom SX80: our
Boardroom SX80: natural resources are built resources, and are people from the threats that are coming.
Boardroom SX80: I would refer you back to Slide 15.
Boardroom SX80: This story
Boardroom SX80: is a story of
Boardroom SX80: real threat
Boardroom SX80: and real hope.
Boardroom SX80: And we need both.
Boardroom SX80: And that slide is the one that compares
Boardroom SX80: 230 billiondollars plus of potential damage. And we know that’s low
Boardroom SX80: to the 110 billioncosts
Boardroom SX80: of what we can conceive of. Now, in terms of what we need to do to mitigate
Boardroom SX80: that cost. It’s not going to eliminate it. We cannot delude ourselves. but it can make a very significant dent if we figure out
Boardroom SX80: how to raise and effectively spend that money now, and some of that, as this presentation has talked about is going on now.
Boardroom SX80: this is not all conjectural for the future.
Boardroom SX80: There are a bunch of things we don’t know.
Boardroom SX80: as has been pointed by questions, and and and candid and transparent answers which are important.
Boardroom SX80: and I will go back
Boardroom SX80: to John Joyous comment that, I think is absolutely critical.
Boardroom SX80: We need to continue figuring out how to marshal this information
Boardroom SX80: and get it out
Boardroom SX80: to the broader constituency of elected officials, but even more importantly.
Boardroom SX80: to the broader constituency of the public. who are going to have to support in a variety of ways.
Boardroom SX80: not only regional and local bond measures, but also our efforts
Boardroom SX80: to affect State and Federal resources.
Boardroom SX80: to devote to devote more resources to our region to the bay area if we’re going to succeed
Boardroom SX80: protecting ourselves.
Boardroom SX80: So I thank you.
Boardroom SX80: This is an iterate process. We’ve said that from the beginning I will continue to say it.
Boardroom SX80: What we are doing
Boardroom SX80: builds step by step, and builds by bringing in plans and looking at the plans
Boardroom SX80: from a variety of perspectives and circ*mstances and locations.
Boardroom SX80: and we’re just going to have to keep at it. And yes.
Boardroom SX80: Mr. Gunther, we need more resources
Boardroom SX80: unless there are any other comments or questions. I think that brings us to adjournment of this session.
Boardroom SX80: I look forward to seeing most of you at 10’clock for the Commission meeting.
Boardroom SX80: Thank you very much for being here. Thank you for participating remotely.
