California Air Resources Board

Principal Investigator/Author: Louise Bedsworth

Contractor: University of California, Berkeley

Contract Number: 22STC020

Project Status: Completed

Relevant CARB Programs: Sustainable Communities & Climate Protection Program, Affordable Housing and Sustainable Communities

Topic Areas: California Climate Investments, Building Decarbonization, Climate Change,  Research & Sustainable Communities, Sustainable Community Strategies (SCS)

Research Summary:

This project will investigate the applicability and potential benefits of a TDR program to State Greenhouse Gas (GHG) reduction and land conservation efforts, with a focus on advancing equitable outcomes and prioritizing investments in disadvantaged communities.  It will also identify options for effective State support of TDR statewide.

The contractor will perform quantitative and qualitative research, including facilitating structured conversations with an array of both public and private stakeholders, to assess:

• Potential benefits of scaling up TDR utilization across California, including potential impacts on GHG emissions, and potential to advance social and racial equity in both rural and urbanized contexts;
• TDR challenges and opportunities in the California context, based on prior and existing TDR programs nationally;
• The elements necessary for successful use of TDR throughout California, drawing from examples both in California and elsewhere;
• Financial feasibility of TDR in five California regions, including how incentives could be meaningfully structured to be attractive to developers of infill housing development in various regional economic markets. One of these regions must include a community with a planned California High-Speed Rail station;
• Potential State roles to facilitate expansion of TDR state-wide, including detailed analysis of the options for effective State engagement, and the cost-benefit analysis of alternative potential State actions. 

Project results will inform potential changes to programs funded by the California Climate Investments programs, including the Affordable Housing and Sustainable Communities grant program, which supports infill affordable housing, and the Sustainable Agricultural Lands Conservation program, which supports conservation of agricultural lands. These competitive grant programs are scored using Quantification Methodologies to estimate potential greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction benefits of applicant projects. This project may also inform the calculations and assumptions that support the program scoring analysis.

Keywords: transfer of development rights (TDR), greenhouse gas (GHG), emissions reduction, equity, disadvantaged communities, affordable housing, sustainable communities, infill-housing