FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Q. What is the SF Bay Area Chapter of Citizens Alliance for Property Rights?

CAPR is a private, non-profit, non-partisan organization whose primary goal is to secure the rights of property owners. The rights of property owners are threatened today by governmental action at every level, usually under the banner of environmental protection. Private property rights are the foundation of the liberties we enjoy. Further, experience has shown the private property owners are the most effective stewards of the environment.

The Citizens Alliance for Property Rights (CAPR) was founded in Washington State in 2003 and now has chapters in several states. The San Francisco Bay Area Chapter of CAPR was established late last year.

Q. What is your top priority at this time?

A. Our most important current activities involve a comprehensive – and draconian – 25-year master plan for the nine-county San Francisco Bay Area known as “One Bay Area.” If approved, the plan will remain in effect for a generation. The next generation of Bay Area residents will have fewer choices of where they live and work and how they move about this wonderful area.

We believe this master plan is a bad idea, based on flawed assumptions.  We believe the more our fellow citizens know about the plan, the more likely they are to share our concerns. Our principal efforts therefore are informational and educational.

Q. What is the One Bay Area plan and why do think it’s such a bad idea?

One Bay Area is joint project of a number of regional Bay Area organizations, primarily the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) and the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG). The stated goals of One Bay Area include reducing emissions of so-called “greenhouse gases” by channeling future economic and population growth into existing urban centers, dramatically reducing the use of personal automobiles, severely restricting development of lands that are currently “open space” – regardless of whether those lands are private property or publicly owned.

One Bay Area would achieve its objectives by controlling housing development, transportation, and land use throughout the Bay Area. Decisions regarding these vitally important issues would be made primarily by agencies that are not elected by the people and therefore essentially unaccountable to the public.

For a number of reasons, we believe the One Bay Area plan is ill-advised in that it will greatly restrict personal freedoms, undermine private property rights, and actually degrade the quality of life in the Bay Area.

Q. What are your major objections to the “One Bay Area” plan as it is emerging?

We probably don’t have enough time to spell out all of our objections in detail, so let me just briefly highlight the major objections.

 

• One Bay Area rests on a number of highly questionable assumptions about population growth, economic growth, and the availability of public funds – especially federal funds – to pay for the huge expansion of government that the plan would entail.
• The plan rests on getting citizens to buy into vaguely defined but noble-sounding goals such as “smart growth,” “sustainability,” “social justice,” “equity,” and similar terms. In reality, the plan is an enormous expansion of government and government control of the lives of citizens.
• The plan itself was developed behind closed doors and passed off as a “grass roots” plan through a series of carefully orchestrated “visioning” meetings with pre-ordained outcomes.
• The plan involves draconian controls on housing, public transportation, land use, and economic development.
• Those who have developed the plan and who would be in charge of enforcing it are almost entirely insulated from accountability to the citizens who lives would be subject to controls that are unprecedented in American history.

Q. What’s wrong with trying to achieve “smart growth” and “sustainable development”?

 Everyone likes the abstract ideas of “smart growth,” “sustainable development,” and many of the other noble-sounding goals of One Bay Area. As the old saying goes, “the devil is in the details.” “Smart growth,” for example, is simply a term for handing over total control of future development to a small handful of unaccountable people who believe they have the ultimate wisdom, intelligence, and knowledge to make all of the most important decisions about how their fellow citizens will live, work, move about, and lead their lives. The proponents are extremely reluctant to define the terms they use. For example, during the “visioning” sessions, it became clear that “open space” as the plan uses the term includes privately owned property that would be subject to such drastic controls that it amounts to taking property without compensation to the owners.

Q. What does the UN project known as Agenda 21 have to do with this and why is there so much focus on Agenda 21?

 Agenda 21 is a series of far-reaching policy proposals regarding global economic development. It’s actually a red herring in the current debate and discussion of the One Bay Area plan. People can find plenty of information about Agenda 21 on the Internet. Our focus is on the details of the One Bay Area plan, especially the enormous expansion of government controls over virtually every aspect of our lives. It usurps the authority of local representatives on critical issues such as land use, housing policies, and transportation and transfers power to regional government bodies that are not answerable to citizens.

We are encouraging our fellow citizens to learn as much as possible about the details of One Bay Area, the assumptions on which it is based, and the ways it would affect their individual lives. We are focusing disseminating information about the plan and encouraging citizens attend and voice their concerns at the next round of visioning sessions.

Q. Is CAPR another part of the Tea Party movement?

No. CAPR – actually we are the San Francisco Bay Area Chapter of the Citizens Alliance for Property Rights. CAPR is a non-partisan, non-profit organization devoted to promoting and protecting individual liberty and private property rights. Our members reflect the entire spectrum of political views, from liberal to conservative.

Q. What are you encouraging residents of the Bay Area to do with regard to the One Bay Area plan?

Our top priority is to encourage and help citizens become informed about One Bay Area. Our experience is that when citizens understand the plan and how it will greatly expand the size, cost, and reach of government at the expense of individual rights and liberties, they will join us in expressing their concerns about this draconian plan.