Fresno COG Header

Regional Transportation Plan and Sustainable Communities Strategy Roundtable

Date:
Time:
Place:

Wednesday, February 24, 2021
1:00 PM

Fresno COG Via Zoom



Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) Accommodations
The Fresno COG offices and restrooms are ADA accessible. Representatives or individuals with disabilities should contact Fresno COG at (559) 233-4148, at least 3 days in advance, to request auxiliary aids and/or translation services necessary to participate in the public meeting / public hearing. If Fresno COG is unable to accommodate an auxiliary aid or translation request for a public hearing, after receiving proper notice, the hearing will be continued on a specified date when accommodations are available.

OUT OF AN ABUNDANCE OF CAUTION REGARDING THE COVID-19 VIRUS THE FEBRUARY 24, 2021, RTP ROUNDTABLE MEETING AT 1:00 P.M. WILL BE HELD VIA ZOOM.

 

Join Zoom Meeting:

 https://zoom.us/j/94155327314?pwd=dCs3VW8zaGdwbU5TRjBTTjZrWEt2dz09

Meeting ID: 941 5532 7314

Passcode: 751766

 

 If you wish to address Roundtable during the public comment portion of the agenda, click on the icon labeled “Participants” at the bottom center of your PC or Mac screen. At the bottom of the window on the right side of the screen, click the icon labeled “RaiseHand”. Your digital hand will now be raised.

 

Join by Phone:

(669) 900 6833 US

 

Meeting ID: 941 5532 7314

 

Passcode: 751766

 

 
 If you wish to address the Roundtable during the public comment portion of the agenda, Press *9 to “RaiseHand” and we will select you from the meeting cue.  Use *6 to Unmute yourself before speaking.

 

Those addressing the Roundtable must state their first and last name and agency for the record.

 

To facilitate electronic access, no person shall speak until recognized by the Chair.

RTP/SCS Roundtable Meeting Agenda and Annotated Agenda in PDF

I.WELCOME AND INTRODUCTIONS (Rob Terry)

A.
ROLL CALL (Jeaneen Cervantes)

II.NEW INFORMATION/DISCUSSION ITEMS

A.
RTP/SCS Roundtable Meeting Minutes of January 27, 2021 [APPROVE]
B.
SCS Performance Indicators for Public Input (Seth Scott) [APPROVE]

Summary: Performance indicators are the metrics used to determine if a scenario is achieving desired goals, and they are the main tools by which scenarios can be compared with one another.  The indicators chosen from the long list of possible metrics are critical to tell a clear and comprehensive story of which scenarios have the most desirable outcomes for the Fresno County region.

Staff has created a short list of indicators that are either critically descriptive of a scenario’s design (e.g., housing type mix) or that are specifically enumerated in legislation (e.g., GHG emissions, per SB 375).  These indicators will be included for analysis within the SCS.  On top of that, staff (with help from the SCS subcommittee) has compiled a longer list of elective indicators that could be included in scenario analysis.  The EJ Subcommittee subsequently met and recommended additional equity indicators to be added to the list. The revised list of proposed indicators is attached. Staff plans to present this list to the public in an outreach effort in the Spring, asking survey participants to weigh in on the indicators that best represent their values and concerns for the future.  Staff will return with the results of this outreach in April, and ask the Roundtable to recommend which performance indicators from the list should be included in scenario analysis within the SCS.

Action: Staff requests that the RTP Roundtable approve the attached list of performance indicators for public input.

C.
Revenue Projections (Suzanne Martinez) [APPROVE]

Summary: As required by federal transportation law (23CFR450.322), the RTP shall be financially constrained. To meet this requirement, the RTP compares revenue projections for its 25-year planning horizon against all projects submitted during the RTP call-for-projects to ensure that the adopted program of projects will not exceed reasonably foreseeable future revenues. The revenue assumptions include revenue estimates for specific governmental funding programs, local contributions, and tax initiatives.

The attached draft revenue projection lists all reasonably available funding sources, the base year annual funding estimate, the source of the base year estimate, the inflated annual funding estimate in 2026, and the RTP lifetime cumulative estimate based on estimated 2026 dollars. 2026 is used as a starting point for the revenue projections because the first four years of the RTP’s planning horizon will be accounted for in the 2023 Federal Transportation Improvement Program (FTIP).

Fresno COG relied on the following assumptions to develop revenue and cost projections:

  • The RTP’s estimated revenues assume an inflation rate of two percent and are reported in expenditure year dollars.
  • Local Transportation Fund revenues are assumed to be constant throughout the RTP’s life
  • The Surface Transportation Block Grant Program (STBG) and Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Improvement (CMAQ) Program, will continue or be replaced by similar programs throughout the RTP’s life.
  • Federal and State Transit funds are assumed to remain at their present levels throughout the plan’s life.
  • Projected state and federal highway revenues reflect the average amounts programmed in the State Transportation Improvement Program (STIP) and are consistent with the CTC-adopted, five-year STIP fund estimate.
  • Measure C, Fresno County’s local ½-cent sales tax for transportation improvements, will be renewed and/or augmented before it expires in 2027. Voters have extended the measure once already, in 2006.
  • The 2026 annual estimates reflect a 3-year deficit in revenues due to COVID-19 based on the Fresno County 2019-2050 Growth Projections, and a U-shaped COVID19 recovery that assumes economic recovery to 2019 levels by 2022.

 Action:  Staff requests that the Roundtable approve the attached revenue projections for the 2022 RTP/SCS.

D.
Update on Sixth Cycle Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA) Plan Development (Meg Prince) [INFORMATION]

Summary:  Fresno COG is currently developing its 6th Cycle Regional Housing Need Allocation (RHNA) Plan. RHNA is a state-mandated process to identify the number of housing units that each local government must accommodate in the Housing Element of its General Plan (Government Code §65584).

As part of the RHNA process, the State Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) allocates shares of statewide housing need, by income category, to councils of governments (COGs), and advises COGs in the preparation of the RHNA plan. Fresno COG, as the council of government for the Fresno County region, is then required to develop a methodology to distribute the housing need to jurisdictions within the region and prepare a regional housing needs allocation plan that determines housing allocations specific to jurisdictions and furthers the objectives of Government Code §65584. Each local jurisdiction must then update the Housing Element of its General Plan in accordance with the community’s housing needs.

Senate Bill 375 strengthened the coordination between housing and transportation planning and amended the RHNA schedule and methodology to align with the development RTP/SCS. The development of Fresno COG’s 2022 RTP/SCS will happen in tandem with the 6th Cycle RHNA Plan.

Staff will provide a brief presentation on the RHNA process, timeline, and early estimate of our draft RHNA determination from HCD.

Updates on the process and documents available for review will be posted to Fresno COG’s RHNA web page: https://www.fresnocog.org/project/fresno-county-regional-housing-needs-allocation-plan/.

Meg Prince can be contacted for questions or more information at mprince@fresnocog.org.

Action: Information only. 

E.
SCS Scenario Concept/Indicator Public Outreach Plan (Brenda Veenendaal) [INFORMATION]

Summary:  The RTP Roundtable, Fresno COG's Transportation Technical and Policy Advisory Committees have submitted five Sustainable Communities Strategy (SCS) scenario concepts for consideration by the Fresno COG Board at their February 25th meeting. These draft concepts are built around SCS strategies that were previously approved, where each concept is defined by the degree of prioritization given to each of the 20 SCS strategies relative to each other.

Fresno COG staff is planning an outreach effort that will present these five scenario concepts to the public and garner input on them through an online, interactive survey.  Included in this outreach is the prioritization of indicators that will be used to assess the performance of each SCS scenario. Staff is developing the details and timeline for this outreach effort, which is scheduled to kick-off on March 26th and run through April 25th of this year. Staff plans to report back to the Roundtable on April 28th with the outreach results, and will be asking for a recommendation on the top three scenarios to be included in the SCS analysis.

Fresno COG staff will present the draft SCS scenario concept/Indicator ranking outreach plan to the RTP Roundtable at the meeting. 

Action:  Information Item. Direction may be provided at the discretion of the Roundtable Committee.

III.OTHER ITEMS

A.
Items from Staff

B.
Items from Members

IV.PUBLIC PRESENTATIONS

This portion of the meeting is reserved for persons wishing to address the Roundtable on items within its jurisdiction but not on this agenda.

Note:  Prior to action by the Roundtable on any item on this agenda, the public may comment on that item. Unscheduled comments may be limited to 3 minutes.

Upcoming meeting dates:

March 24, 2021 from 1-3 p.m.

April 28, 2021 from 1-3 p.m.

May 26, 2021 from 1-3 p.m.