The City of San Luis Obispo has a goal to be completely carbon-neutral by 2035. The SLO Chamber appreciates the City’s political leadership and commitment to this ambitious aim. To achieve this, the City developed and adopted the Climate Action Plan in 2020. This plan highlights things like active transportation, clean electricity, and organic waste. As 2027 approaches, the City of SLO is working on updates to the plan.
The main challenge in reaching carbon neutrality continues to be regional transportation emissions. This challenge is directly related to the lack of housing availability in our city. The lack of housing in proximity to where people work results in more vehicle miles traveled and increased pressure on our transportation infrastructure.
State law in California requires that each local government develop a Housing Element to address the current and future housing needs of that population. Two goals outlined in the City of SLO’s Housing Element are “Affordability” and “Housing Production”. Creating more housing will address the affordability challenges and when planned correctly with the Land Use and Circulation Element, increased density will provide more options closer to where people work.
It is the Chamber’s perspective that the Climate Action Plan should include integration of both the Housing Element and the Land Use and Circulation Element. The incorporation of these elements will allow more cohesive planning with the focus on developing housing options closer to workplaces. This will result in more walkable communities—a direct benefit to the City’s active transportation goals. Additionally, enabling people to live and work in the same area reduces relocation to higher-carbon regions, decreasing carbon emissions overall. Finally, creating more opportunities for housing production in the City of SLO directly will strengthen our local economy by bringing more people in, effectively supporting businesses in employee retention.
The Chamber sees this upcoming update to the Climate Action Plan as an opportunity to align our climate goals with a more sustainable, economically resilient, and livable community. We are excited to see the changes that will result from bold city leadership on both housing and climate issues.