COUNCIL INFRASTRUCTURE COMMITTEE MEETING
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 26, 2022
DOCUMENTS RECEIVED AFTER PUBLISHED AGENDA
PUBLIC COMMENT
October 21, 2022
Council Infrastructure Committee
Hayward City Hall
777 B Street Hayward, CA 94541
Dear Councilmember M
árquez, Councilmember Salinas, and Councilmember Andrews,
Climate change is drastically impacting the health, safety, and quality of life of Hayward residents. Heat, frequent wildfires, and compromised air quality are the new norm, with flooding from extreme storms and sea level rise an ongoing threat—and low-income people and communities of color are being hit first and worst. Hayward must take every opportunity to build a more resilient city to ensure it’s residents are able to adapt to these impacts.
Save The Bay brought the following recommendations to the Council Sustainability Committee on Oct 6 regarding the development of Hayward’s Climate Action Plan and General Plan. At that meeting, we heard enthusiasm for these recommendations, and a suggestion to bring them to the Infrastructure Committee for further discussion. Your committee’s focus on infrastructure provides Hayward a unique opportunity to ensure climate resilience and adaptation are prioritized in infrastructure planning. We look forward to discussing these ideas with you and collaborating on solutions.
As the City of Hayward seeks to address both the causes and impacts of climate change, we recommend that the city:
1. Plan for both greenhouse gas reduction and climate resilience, integrating multi-benefit nature- based solutions such as green stormwater infrastructure into all infrastructure planning efforts,
2. Develop a centralized infrastructure planning initiative that ensures departments are working together to address multiple hazards and provide multiple benefits through a single project, and
3. Prioritize frontline communities for resilience investments.
When climate mitigation and adaptation are treated as separate efforts, municipalities miss key opportunities to ensure new projects also help communities be more resilient to the impacts of climate change. Given the reality that our most vulnerable neighbors experience the biggest burden from climate impacts, planning for adaptation as well as mitigation is essential for building a more equitable city.
Many of the projects in your FY 2023-2032 Capital Improvement Plan 1 can meet multiple strategic goals
at the same time, if planned in a coordinated and strategic way. For example, the Linear Park project along Mission Blvd will be a beautiful outdoor space that provides many benefits for the community, however its design doesn’t include green stormwater infrastructure--a missed opportunity to also manage flooding and reduce polluted runoff into the Bay. Traffic calming projects, tree planting, and corridor median improvements can all be planned to incorporate strategies that reduce urban heat, manage flooding, and reduce pollution, if planned strategically with this goal in mind from the beginning.
1 Hayward Strategic Roadmap, FY 2023-2032 Capital Improvement Program. https://stories.opengov.com/haywardca/published/dxlOMQTY4. Accessed 10/21/22.
With the state’s recent allocation of over $1 billion in new funding for climate resilience projects, such as urban greening,2 an integrated infrastructure planning initiative that ensures all environmental and climate hazards are accounted for in project development would position Hayward to be competitive for this and other new and existing funding. Many of the programs you take advantage of today, such as SB 1 programs (Local Streets and Roads, Active Transportation Program) and OBAG, will already fund green stormwater infrastructure as part of a proposed project.
Now is the time to ensure that every infrastructure upgrade is an opportunity to address climate and environmental hazards with nature-based solutions, and that under-invested communities most at risk from the impacts of climate change are prioritized and centered in decision-making and planning. To accomplish this, we recommend the City of Hayward develop a centralized cross-departmental infrastructure planning initiative that ensures equity and resilience are incorporated into project design and execution from the earliest stages of project planning across departments.
New ideas and new systems are needed to address the unique and complex challenges posed by climate change. Hayward’s infrastructure planning must focus on both climate adaptation and mitigation. If you would like to discuss this proposal in more depth, please reach out and we’d be happy to talk to you one on one. We look forward to working with you on implementing nature-based solutions to meet Hayward’s climate resilience goals.
Thank you,
David Lewis, Executive Director
Save The Bay
cc: Alex Ameri, Director of Public Works and Utilities
2 Nature-Based Solutions, Extreme Heat, Coastal Resilience, and Community Resilience. Governor’s Budget Summary—2022-23, Pg. 95-99. Approved June 2022. https://www.ebudget.ca.gov/2022-23/pdf/BudgetSummary/ClimateChange.pdf