The Clarke Team Named to Coldwell Banker International Diamond Society

Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage, a leading provider of real estate services in Northern California, announced that The Clarke Team, sales associates in the company’s Coldwell Banker San Carlos office, have earned membership in the company’s International Diamond Society for 2010 sales.

The Clarke Team would like to take this opportunity to thank our clients and referrals who helped us achieve this prestigious award. We value their trust and business in the past year and look forward to providing our the same high level of service moving forward.

The Clarke Team is located at Coldwell Banker, 580 El Camino Real, San Carlos, CA 94070

www.ClarkeTeam.com

650-498-5399

sold@clarketeam.com

San Carlos Wins Outstanding Planning Award!

The City of San Carlos announced that the San Carlos General Plan 2030 and its integrated Climate Action Plan will receive an Award of Merit for Outstanding Planning in the Comprehensive Planning, Small Jurisdiction category of the 2010 American Planning Association (APA) Northern California Awards Program. The integrated General Plan and Climate Action Plan documents provide the road map for the city's future to guide and manage long term environmental sustainability, focused growth, community identity, housing, economic development and parks and open space. The APA award will be presented to the City at an awards ceremony later this week on Friday, May 14, 2010. Andrea J. Ouse, the Co-Chair of the 2010 APA Northern California Awards Program said "There were numerous excellent submittals received by the Awards Committee this year. We want to recognize the great efforts that you and your City have taken to create a product that is worthy of a 2010 APA Northern California Award." The General Plan 2030 Process The San Carlos General Plan 2030 was developed over a 2 year period by a team led by Community Development Director Al Savay and Planning Manager Deborah Nelson. It included numerous workshops with the community and input from a 14 member citizen General Plan Advisory Committee (GPAC) and planning firm DC&E. The new General Plan includes a significant update and upgrade of the City’s earlier General Plan. In addition, it is linked to the City’s new Climate Action Plan through language in the General Plan. The Climate Action Plan was developed by a team led by Planning Manager Deborah Nelson and Assistant City Manager Brian Moura with input from a three member Climate Action Plan Subcommittee of the GPAC and green planning experts from PMC. In addition to reaching out to San Carlos residents and businesses, the 2030 General Plan Update process also included input and participation from a wide variety of groups in the region. This included SamTrans, San Mateo County Housing, the Grand Boulevard Initiative, San Carlos Green, Sustainable San Mateo County, Public Health Law and Policy, Bay Conservation and Development Commission, FOCUS Initiative, ULI 2008 TOD Marketplace, Bay Area Air Quality Management District and the Office of the Attorney General. After two years of study and over 70 public meetings, the San Carlos 2030 General Plan and its companion documents were adopted by the City Council on October 12, 2010. Implementation of the General Plan 2030 is well underway and was documented in the Implementation Plan approved by the City Council on February 22, 2010. An Innovative Model Together, these documents represent an innovative General Plan model to integrate mandated greenhouse emission reduction standards with Smart Growth and economic sustainability. The plans are of high merit and are a readily transferable model for other communities planning for the next 20 years of growth and development. Evidence of interest in the General Plan 2030 and Climate Action Plan has come from a number of agency requests for information. It also includes presentations of the General Plan 2030 and Climate Action Plan at the Annual League of California Cities Conference, the National American Planning Association Conference and an Earth Day event in Monterey County, among others. "Our community put forth a tremendous and thoughtful two year effort on these important plans for our future. It was a collaborative effort involving San Carlos youth, residents and businesses. The process also involved many partnerships and resources throughout the region. This recognition from the Northern California Chapter of the APA further validates our city’s outstanding planning efforts. We are now seeing that our approach is providing a model for future General Plans and Climate Action Plans in the region and the State and perhaps the country" notes Al Savay, the Community Development Director for the City of San Carlos.

San Carlos Climate Action Plan Wins NorCal APA Award!

San Carlos, CA - June 8, 2009 - The City of San Carlos announced today that it has received the 2009 Outstanding Planning Award of Merit in the Category of Innovation in Green Community Planning from the Northern California Chapter of the American Planning Association (APA).  

The award is in recognition of the City's Climate Action Plan which is being developed as part of the upcoming General Plan 2030 process and the City of San Carlos' ongoing series of Green Programs and Climate Change Initiatives.  The APA Award goes to the team that developed the plan led by Planning Manager Deborah Nelson, Assistant City Manager Brian Moura and Michael McCormick and Jillian Rich from PMC, a planning and consulting firm based in Rancho Cordova, CA.  Work on the plan was funded with a grant from the Bay Area Air Quality Management District (BAAQMD).

The City worked with a three member Climate Action Plan Subcommittee of the General Plan Advisory Committee (Don Cook, Suzanne Emerson and Michelle Margiotta) to develop the City's first Climate Action Plan (CAP).  The plan includes 21 reduction goals and 39 reduction measures aimed at reducing the City's Greenhouse Gas levels to 15% below the 2005 levels by the year 2020.  The project also successfully integrated Greenhouse Gas emission reduction and climate change strategies into the Environmental Management Element of the General Plan.  

In presenting the Innovation in Green Community Planning to San Carlos Planning Manager Deborah Nelson, the 2009 Awards Co-Director Eileen Whitty noted that the San Carlos Climate Action Plan merited an award for several key reasons including Making a Complex Topic Easily Understood, Clearly Outlining the Impacts of Climate Change and the Community's Carbon Footprint, Showing the Impacts of the Proposed Measures to Reduce the City's Carbon Footprint and Developing a Plan that is both Practical and Highly Implementable.

Interest in the San Carlos Climate Action Plan has been high among other agencies around the state since it is one of the first to be integrated with the City's upcoming General Plan.  Presentations on the CAP have been requested and made to groups including City and County Officials in Monterey County on Earth Day, the Silicon Valley Climate Protection Task Force and the BAAQMD Climate Action Leadership Summit.  The CAP will also be discussed as part of an upcoming Case Study on Public Involvement by the Institute of Local Government (ILG) and at the 2009 League of California Cities Annual Conference to be held in San Jose this September.

The 2009 San Carlos Climate Action Plan is now in its final stages of preparation.  It will be discussed with the San Carlos City Council in August with final adoption scheduled in October along with the City's General Plan 2030 Update.  A copy of the current draft of the CAP is available for review on the City of San Carlos Web Site at:http://www.cityofsancarlos.org/generalplanupdate/whats_new_/draft_elements/draft_climate_action_plan/default.asp