Planning Grants for Priority Development Areas

On June 3, 2014, the Authority released a call for projects for planning grants for Priority Development Areas (PDAs) in Contra Costa. About $2.75 million in planning grants will be available. The sponsors of the selected planning grants will receive planning services from an on-call list of consultant teams. These teams have expertise in transportation and land use planning, environmental and fiscal impact assessment, market evaluation and community outreach.
The intent of the grants is to increase the readiness of those designated PDAs for planned development.

The key planning goals of this program, building upon the original MTC Planning Grant Program goals, are to:

• Increase both the housing supply, including affordable housing for low-income residents, and jobs within the PDAs.
• By increasing land use intensities in PDAs, boost transit ridership and thereby reduce vehicle miles traveled (VMT) by PDA residents, employees and visitors.
• Increase walking, bicycling, carpooling and car-sharing by effectively managing parking and driving while promoting multimodal connections for residents, employees and visitors within the PDA.
• Locate key services and retail businesses within PDAs thus further reducing VMT.