The Bay Area Regional Collaborative (BARC) has released a report that urges the region to act together on climate change and other threats. The group is also asking the public to weigh in. Comments will be accepted until January 15, 2018.
The draft is titled Raising the Bar on Regional Resilience, and it first came out in November 2017. It lays out how exposed the Bay Area is to rising seas and other climate effects. At its core, the report is a call to action, since it asks for one comprehensive approach to regional resilience.
That idea fits BARC’s original purpose. The California legislature created the collaborative in 2004 through SB 849, a bill by Tom Torlakson. Its job is to coordinate the planning of four regional bodies. They are the Metropolitan Transportation Commission and the Association of Bay Area Governments. The other two are the Bay Area Air Quality Management District and the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission.
The timing matters as well. Earlier in 2017, the Rockefeller Foundation gave $4.6 million to a coalition of Bay Area leaders for the Resilient by Design Challenge. That contest looks for new ideas on sea level rise. As a result, the region now has a design competition and a planning framework moving at the same time.
Residents, local governments and community groups can read the draft and send feedback before the deadline.