Community Weighs Local Versus Regional VMT
Snapshot:
Ontario, Calif.
Pop.: 173,690
Area: 50 sq. miles
Location: 35 miles east of Los Angeles
County: San Bernardino
City motto: “Southern California’s Next Urban Center”
City website: http://www.ci.ontario.ca.us
NMC plan: http://www.compassblueprint.org/files/ontario-devforum-phase2.pdf
Source: City of Ontario Fact Sheet
By Marcie Geffner
For the Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG), California’s SB 375 is not just about setting goals to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The largest association of governments in the state is also showing cities how to reduce sprawl and vehicle miles traveled.
Compass Blueprint, a SCAG grant program that helps localities in Southern California better coordinate land-use decisions with regional transportation investment policy and decision-making, awarded the City of Ontario approximately $200,000 in the form of two grants in 2005-06 and 2007-08. The grants helped New Model Colony (NMC), an 8,200-acre community in Ontario, reduce vehicle miles traveled (VMT), and thus GHG emissions, due to the creation of more jobs within the city, according to Mark Butala, manager of comprehensive planning at SCAG.
“If Ontario, rather than continuing the original plan of a lot of low-density sprawling housing, became a major regional employment center, a lot of the trips currently coming into Los Angeles and Orange County from the Inland Empire would be stopped short in Ontario, significantly reducing the average home-to-work vehicle miles traveled,” Butala says.
Residential Plus Employment
An early plan for NMC, set out even before the land was annexed to the city in 1999, was a far cry from today’s vision of mixed-use compact development. That plan, approved by an advisory committee in 1997, called for 20,396 houses and 10,792 apartment units on 5,196 acres and 5.5 million square feet of commercial space on 504 acres. The planned residential density was 4.6 dwelling units per acre with an average lot size of 6,728 square feet.
The Compass Blueprint grants enabled Ontario to hire a consulting firm that helped the city analyze various scenarios to develop the former agricultural preserve into a functioning neighborhood, plan for mixed-use development, and balance the ratio of housing to employment. The process included a framework to integrate land-use decisions, transportation needs, and economic development; a review of the city’s capital improvement budget to find sources of funding; and collateral materials to win public support for the NMC project.
The new plan includes large- and small-lot subdivisions, multifamily units, townhomes, and office, retail, and industrial space. Mixed-use buildings and live-work housing were part of the plan as well.
Airport Drives Job Growth
Located near Ontario International Airport, the community is well positioned as a regional job center due. The airport is a “good jobs driver,” Butala notes, and local jobs are needed since the city’s population has increased from approximately 100,000 in the late 1990s to roughly 170,000 today.
The tradeoff—because, seemingly, there always is one—is a likely increase in local VMTs, which will partially offset the reduction in regional VMT. That’s a tradeoff SCAG supports because the benefit of fewer regional VMTs should outweigh the cost of more local VMT.
Energy-Efficient Housing
One housing development within NMC is Edenglen, a master-planned community by Brookfield Homes. The community offers five neighborhoods of homes at a range of prices from the mid-$200,000 and up, plus a clubhouse, swimming pool, and park.
Brookfield has another project, concept-named Basic, on the drawing board for NMC in 2013, according to Dave Bartlett, VP of land entitlement for Brookfield Homes Southland in Irvine, Calif. Basic is envisioned to be a complete village of 4,000 homes on 800 acres. Brookfield has set a lofty goal for the community to be “the most energy-efficient and water-efficient” in the state, Bartlett says.
The company has already learned some lessons about sustainable—read with caution because Bartlett doesn’t like that term—development. He says it’s possible to add climate-friendly features and still control costs, though tradeoffs must be made. “You might have more efficient insulation or duct systems that are sealed, tested, and inspected,” he says, “but as a result, you might not have that pretty thing on the outside of your house that makes it look cool.”
For the Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG), California’s SB 375 is not just about setting goals to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The largest association of governments in the state is also showing cities how to reduce sprawl and vehicle miles traveled.
Compass Blueprint, a SCAG grant program that helps localities in Southern California better coordinate land-use decisions with regional transportation investment policy and decision-making, awarded the City of Ontario approximately $200,000 in the form of two grants in 2005-06 and 2007-08. The grants helped New Model Colony (NMC), an 8,200-acre community in Ontario, reduce vehicle miles traveled (VMT), and thus GHG emissions, due to the creation of more jobs within the city, according to Mark Butala, manager of comprehensive planning at SCAG.
“If Ontario, rather than continuing the original plan of a lot of low-density sprawling housing, became a major regional employment center, a lot of the trips currently coming into Los Angeles and Orange County from the Inland Empire would be stopped short in Ontario, significantly reducing the average home-to-work vehicle miles traveled,” Butala says.
Residential Plus Employment
An early plan for NMC, set out even before the land was annexed to the city in 1999, was a far cry from today’s vision of mixed-use compact development. That plan, approved by an advisory committee in 1997, called for 20,396 houses and 10,792 apartment units on 5,196 acres and 5.5 million square feet of commercial space on 504 acres. The planned residential density was 4.6 dwelling units per acre with an average lot size of 6,728 square feet.
The Compass Blueprint grants enabled Ontario to hire a consulting firm that helped the city analyze various scenarios to develop the former agricultural preserve into a functioning neighborhood, plan for mixed-use development, and balance the ratio of housing to employment. The process included a framework to integrate land-use decisions, transportation needs, and economic development; a review of the city’s capital improvement budget to find sources of funding; and collateral materials to win public support for the NMC project.
The new plan includes large- and small-lot subdivisions, multifamily units, townhomes, and office, retail, and industrial space. Mixed-use buildings and live-work housing were part of the plan as well.
Airport Drives Job Growth
Located near Ontario International Airport, the community is well positioned as a regional job center due. The airport is a “good jobs driver,” Butala notes, and local jobs are needed since the city’s population has increased from approximately 100,000 in the late 1990s to roughly 170,000 today.
The tradeoff—because, seemingly, there always is one—is a likely increase in local VMTs, which will partially offset the reduction in regional VMT. That’s a tradeoff SCAG supports because the benefit of fewer regional VMTs should outweigh the cost of more local VMT.
Energy-Efficient Housing
One housing development within NMC is Edenglen, a master-planned community by Brookfield Homes. The community offers five neighborhoods of homes at a range of prices from the mid-$200,000 and up, plus a clubhouse, swimming pool, and park.
Brookfield has another project, concept-named Basic, on the drawing board for NMC in 2013, according to Dave Bartlett, VP of land entitlement for Brookfield Homes Southland in Irvine, Calif. Basic is envisioned to be a complete village of 4,000 homes on 800 acres. Brookfield has set a lofty goal for the community to be “the most energy-efficient and water-efficient” in the state, Bartlett says.
The company has already learned some lessons about sustainable—read with caution because Bartlett doesn’t like that term—development. He says it’s possible to add climate-friendly features and still control costs, though tradeoffs must be made. “You might have more efficient insulation or duct systems that are sealed, tested, and inspected,” he says, “but as a result, you might not have that pretty thing on the outside of your house that makes it look cool.”