In The News: Stockton Climate Change Plan Includes Land Planning and Land Development Changes

On February 12, 2014 the Stockton Record Newspaper reported the City of Stockton released a climate change plan after 5 years of work. According to the article the climate plan is required as part of a 2008 legal settlement with the Sierra Club. However, the City isn’t required to act on elements of the plan, and the article says it is unclear how much of the plan will be executed. The implementation of the full plan will impose costs on the city government and local residents and businesses. The public costs are estimated at 26 million dollars and the private costs at between 68 and 426 million dollars.

The climate plan includes important land planning and land development changes. These are:

1. A goal of adding 3000 homes and apartments to Downtown Stockton by 2020. There were only 256 new units built in Downtown from 2002 to 2011.
2. A requirement to plant 500 to 900 trees a year each year after 2016.
3. A requirement for new mass transit routes and improvements to bike and pedestrian routes.