The Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) is a regional planning agency incorporating various

local government Local government is a generic term for the lowest tiers of public administration within a particular sovereign state. This particular usage of the word government refers specifically to a level of administration that is both geographically-loc ...

s in the

San Francisco Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area G ...

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

. It encompasses nine counties surrounding the San Francisco Bay. Those counties are

Alameda An alameda is a street or path lined with trees () and may refer to: Places Canada * Alameda, Saskatchewan, town in Saskatchewan ** Grant Devine Dam, formerly ''Alameda Dam'', a dam and reservoir in southern Saskatchewan Chile * Alameda (Santia ...

, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa,

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17t ...

, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Solano, and Sonoma. It has the ability to establish housing and transportation goals for cities to minimize

urban sprawl Urban sprawl (also known as suburban sprawl or urban encroachment) is defined as "the spreading of urban developments (such as houses and shopping centers) on undeveloped land near a city." Urban sprawl has been described as the unrestricted growt ...

by that requiring housing be zoned for near new workplace construction. It deals with land use, housing, environmental quality, and economic development. Non-profit organizations as well as governmental organizations can be members. All nine counties and 101 cities within the Bay Area are voluntary members of ABAG. As an advisory organization, ABAG has limited statutory authority. It is governed by its General Assembly, which consists of an elected official (delegate) from each city and county which is a member of the organization. The General Assembly determines policy, adopts the annual budget and work program, and reviews policy actions taken or proposed by the organization's Executive Board. A majority of city and county votes are required for action. The organization is associated with such agencies and projects as the San Francisco Bay Trail and the

San Francisco Estuary Partnership The San Francisco Estuary Partnership (Partnership) is one of the 28 National Estuary Programs created in the 1987 Amendments to the Clean Water Act. The Partnership is a non-regulatory federal-state-local collaboration working to restore water ...

. ABAG works with other regional agencies, including the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC), Bay Area Air Quality Management District, and San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission, to promote

sustainable development Sustainable development is an organizing principle for meeting human development goals while also sustaining the ability of natural systems to provide the natural resources and ecosystem services on which the economy and society depend. The ...

by working in partnership with city and county governments to establish both Priority Development Areas and Priority Conservation Areas. These local actions will, in turn, help achieve a more efficient, equitable, and environmentally sustainable region.

History

ABAG was formed in 1961. In 1970, it issued its Regional Plan, 1970-1990, the Bay Area's first comprehensive regional plan. The document outlined a regional open space plan, regional information systems and technology support, criminal justice and training, water policy and waste collection, and earthquake hazards and planning. ABAG, along with the MTC, worked together to develop and implement

Plan Bay Area Plan Bay Area is the long-range Regional Transportation Plan and Sustainable Communities Strategy for the nine-county San Francisco Bay Area. It is the Bay Area's implementation of the Sustainable Communities and Climate Protection Act of 2008, or ...

in 2013 as a transportation and land-use/housing strategy through 2040.Plan Bay Area website, http://planbayarea.org/plan-bay-area.html

Housing

References

External links

*
Priority Development Areas

Priority Conservation Areas

ABAG Earthquake-related information.
(See also

earthquake An earthquake (also known as a quake, tremor or temblor) is the shaking of the surface of the Earth resulting from a sudden release of energy in the Earth's lithosphere that creates seismic waves. Earthquakes can range in intensity, fr ...

)
Home structure seismic evaluation.
(See also seismic retrofit.)
For seismic shake maps generated for this area.
(See

Hayward Fault Zone The Hayward Fault Zone is a right-lateral strike-slip geologic fault zone capable of generating destructive earthquakes. This fault is about long, situated mainly along the western base of the hills on the east side of San Francisco Bay. It runs ...

for examples of use in an article.) {{Authority control Government in the San Francisco Bay Area Councils of governments