Greenbelt Alliance Origins, Part IV: Spurring the Nation's First Metropolitan Greenbelt Plan
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Greenbelt Alliance Origins, Part IV: Spurring the Nation's First Metropolitan Greenbelt Plan |
Greenbelt Alliance * The Newswire
Volume 2, April 2003
2003 marks the forty-fifth anniversary of Greenbelt Alliance's work to protect open space and promote livable communities. Throughout this year we are highlighting our history in the Newswire.
After many successes protecting open space and raising public awareness of the importance of the Bay Area's greenbelt, Citizens for Regional Recreation and Parks, the forerunner of Greenbelt Alliance, helped create the nation's first metropolitan greenbelt plan. In 1961, Citizens for Regional Recreation and Parks first encouraged the Association of Bay Area Governments to develop a general plan that protected the greenbelt from future sprawl development. Greenbelt Alliance founder Dorothy Erskine worked as a liaison between citizen groups and the Association of Bay Area Governments staff throughout the 1960s. Dorothy spoke on behalf of Citizens for Regional Recreation and Parks to clarify open space proposals and define specific land use proposals in each of the Bay Area's nine counties.
After the Association of Bay Area Governments released a preliminary regional plan in 1966, Citizens for Regional Recreation and Parks undertook an extensive study on the economic impact of a regional open space program. The two-year study, funded by a $59,000 grant from the Ford Foundation, culminated in a comprehensive research report, Economic Impact of a Regional Open Space Program, and a summary report entitled The Case for Open Space. These reports, graced with photos of the Bay Area by Ansel Adams, showed the benefits of the proposed Bay Area greenbelt to be greater than the costs, which significantly influenced the Association of Bay Area Government's regional plan process.
In 1967, Citizens for Regional Recreation and Parks became People for Open Space, reflecting the organization's commitment to protecting recreational and non-recreational open space, such as agricultural lands, watershed areas, and wildlife corridors.
In 1970, the Association for Bay Area Governments adopted a comprehensive regional plan, which included a 3,400,000-acre permanent greenbelt. This was the nation's first plan for a permanent greenbelt around a major metropolitan area. In the years ahead, People for Open Space would continue to protect open space and promote livable communities in the entire Bay Area.