The City Council will take comments from the community and discuss the Draft Plan Bay Area on May 15, 2013. Comments on the draft Plan Bay Area and the Draft Plan Bay Area EIR are due on May 16, 2013.

The Draft Plan Bay Area is a regional long-range transportation and land use/housing plan for the nine counties of the San Francisco Bay Area. The Plan is a key tool in implementing Senate Bill 375 (2008), which mandates each of the State’s 18 Metropolitan Areas to develop a Sustainable Communities Strategy (SCS) to meet greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction targets. Sponsored by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) and the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG), the Plan integrates regional transportation and land use/housing policies in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from cars and light trucks. The Plan also informs the Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA) required by the State of California.

Since the ‘Initial Vision Scenario’ for the Plan was released in March 2011, numerous drafts of Plan elements have been presented to the public at workshops and public hearings conducted by ABAG/MTC. The Final Draft Plan Bay Area was released on March 22, 2013 and the Draft Environmental Impact Report was released on April 2, 2013. The draft Plan and EIR are available on the Plan Bay Area website.

The City Council will also discuss the role of Priority Development Area (PDA) designations within the draft Plan as it applies to funding transportation and infrastructure improvements. PDA's are areas designated by local jurisdictions as being suitable for focused development in the vicinity of transit centers, a planning approach referred to as "transit oriented development." For more information on PDA's, please visit MTC's website.