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Eco-City Governance: A Case Study of Treasure Island and Sonoma Mountain

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DOI: 10.1080/1523908X.2011.611288
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Journal of Environmental Policy & Planning
Vol. 13, No. 4, December 2011, 331– 348
Eco-City Governance: A Case Study of Treasure Island and

Sonoma Mountain Village
Downloaded by [University of Westminster - ISLS], [Simon Joss] at 00:35 29 November 2011
SIMON JOSS
University of Westminster, 32 – 38 Wells Street, London WIT 3UW, UK
ABSTRACT In recent years, there have been several dozen major ‘eco-city’ initiatives
underway worldwide, primarily in response to global climate change and growing urban-
ization. Among these, two have been in the making since the early 2000s in California,
USA, from where the eco-city movement originated over 20 years ago: Treasure Island,
in San Francisco, and Sonoma Mountain Village, in Rohnert Park (Sonoma County).
This article analyses these urban sustainability initiatives in terms of the emerging
hybrid governance relations and interactions and how these inform the planning, co-
ordination and implementation of the initiatives. Among the key governance aspects
discussed are the partial privatization through elaborate public – private arrangements,
the role of international partners in shaping the urban sustainability agenda and the
project-based approach used to effect the initiatives. The findings suggest a prevailing
mode of ‘governance at a distance’ and related innovation in governance mechanisms,
which, in turn, impacts on how urban sustainability is conceptualized and put into
practice.
KEY WORDS: Eco-city, urban sustainability, governance, innovation, Treasure

Island, Sonoma Mountain Village
Introduction
‘An ecocity is an ecologically healthy city. No such city exists’, thus opens Ecocity
Berkeley, Richard Register’s (1987) seminal work that helped inspire a new genre in
urban planning and policy. Two decades later, eco-city initiatives have become an
international phenomenon, embraced by an increasing number of policy-makers,
planners and businesses (Downton, 2009; Hodson & Marvin, 2010; Joss, 2011).
According to a recent global survey, by the late 2000s, some 80 or so major eco-
city developments were underway (Joss, 2010a). These show considerable
context specificity, as well as diversity related to both conceptual dimensions—
for example, in terms of relative emphases on social, economic and environmental
Correspondence Address: Simon Joss, University of Westminster, 32– 38 Wells Street, London
WIT 3UW, UK. Fax: 020 7911 5164; Tel.: 020 7911 5000 ext. 7604; Email: josss@westmin
ster.ac.uk
1523-908X Print/1522-7200 Online/11/040331-18 # 2011 Taylor & Francis

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1523908X.2011.611288
332 S. Joss
sustainability—and practical approaches, especially concerning ‘retro-fit’ (within

existing urban infrastructure), ‘in-fill’ (urban expansion on large, typically brown
field, sites) and entirely new cities. At the same time, however, they also exhibit
remarkable commonalities, such as the predominance of greenhouse gas emission
reduction targets and related technological features, the concurrent emphasis on
urbanization and urban economic growth, and the attempt at cultural (re-)brand-
ing. In doing so, they reflect the recent international mainstreaming of eco-city
(policy) initiatives, driven by the contemporary twin challenges of global
climate change and rapid urbanization in tandem with growing business interests
and advances in technological innovation.

While this mainstreaming represents a significant evolution from the earlier
conceptual (and often radical) notions of eco-cities, it has far from comprehen-
sively answered the question of what exactly an eco-city should look like and
how it is to be achieved: much boundary work remains to be done around concep-
tualizing, specifying and analysing what constitutes a sustainable city. Consider-
ing individual eco-city developments within their specific circumstances and
comparing them across contexts should help to deepen our critical understanding
in this respect.
Treasure Island (TI), in San Francisco Bay, and Sonoma Mountain Village
(SOMO), in Rohnert Park in Sonoma County (California), both geographically
located not far from Richard Register’s original Eco-City Berkeley initiative, are
two of this new generation of large eco-city developments in the making. Both
projects, with endorsement from international organizations, have already under-
gone several years of intensive planning and development and are set to take a
further decade or so until final completion. They each involve multiple actors,
complex planning and decision-making, and considerable financial, technological
and political challenges. Hence, they invite questions about the structures,
processes and resulting dynamics of designing, planning and implementing
eco-city initiatives within particular policy, political and socio-economic contexts.
Eco-City as Governance: Analytical Framework

These two initiatives are analysed here from a network governance perspective,
by inquiring into the particular governance relations and interactions, and
related processes of producing urban sustainable development, involved in
eco-city initiatives.
That governance and (urban) sustainability are closely intertwined in a self-
reinforcing relationship has become widely recognized in recent years in both
the academic and policy literature (see e.g. Adger & Jordan, 2009; Griffin, 2010;
Jordan, 2008, 2009; Joss, 2010b; Rydin, 2010). As Farrell et al. (2005, p. 143)
noted, sustainable development is a political concept ‘replete with governance
questions’. The fact that sustainability deals with, and cuts across, the economic,
social and environmental pillars of policy-making—and does so at multiple
levels (from the local to the global and involving a mixture of state and non-
state actors)—has prompted calls for more synergistic approaches to developing
policies and implementing decisions than is the case with more traditional
‘command-and-control’ policy- and decision-making. This is reinforced by the
typically long-term nature of sustainability issues—calling for governance
beyond the short-term political or economic cycles—as well as their often inherent
complexity and uncertainty, requiring shared knowledge and co-ordination across
Eco-city governance 333
existing political boundaries and spheres of responsibility. Thus, in the ‘era of

governance’, while the role of traditional ‘government’ at various geographical
levels and scales remains relevant, the emphasis is, nevertheless, on ‘. . .more
informally based, decentralised, shared, collective and inclusive decision-
making structures’ (Gray, 2005, p. 2).
However, as Griffin (2010) pointed out, it should not be read as given that a
governance approach to sustainability necessarily delivers more effective or legit-
imate policy solutions compared with more traditional government mechanisms.
A growing body of literature across a range of sustainability issues has shown that
new forms of governance for sustainability can harbour problems, tensions and
contradictions of their own. For example, the blurring of responsibility in
public – private partnerships (PPPs), or the hybridity of state-initiated yet pri-
vately run bodies, can lead to blockages in decision-making and cause public
accountability problems (see Book et al., 2010; Joss, 2010b). Other examples
suggest that governance mechanisms designed to reconcile economic and
environmental sustainability goals may, in fact, exacerbate tensions between
them (see Cochrane, 2010). Much of this has been shown to be closely dependent
on the particular thematic, policy and geographical contexts, within which
governance for sustainability occurs.
This governance problematique can also be expected to be a feature of recent
eco-city initiatives, especially ones where new actor coalitions and organizational
entities are formed to propose, plan and implement either ‘new build’ or ‘in-fill’
projects. (In comparison, ‘retrofit’ initiatives may be carried out through more tra-
ditional mechanisms, with more central involvement of city and/or regional auth-
orities, although here, too, new governance processes have recently emerged.)
And yet, as a result of their relative novelty, there has been limited research to
date into what modes and processes of governance are used and how these
produce and co-ordinate urban sustainability policy and practices (and vice
versa). As Adger and Jordan (2009, p. 7) pointed out, the choice of a particular gov-
ernance instrument or mode for a particular sustainability initiative can be fraught
with difficulty. Hence, there is a need to understand and scrutinize the way in
which governance processes are put into effect in eco-city initiatives.
In response, this article seeks to analyse—with the example of TI and
SOMO—how network governance relations in new eco-city initiatives emerge
and evolve, what interactions and functions these relations produce, and how
this shapes concepts and proposed practices of urban sustainability. In other
words, following Jordan (2009, p. 764), how are these initiatives guided, who
guides and what governance intervention occurs? The analysis is informed by
network governance and related assemblage theory (see e.g. Cochrane, 2010;
Rydin, 2010; Sørensen & Torfing, 2004; Van Wezemael, 2008). Its focus is on the
interactions arising from hybrid networks of interdependent actors through
self-regulating arrangements set within wider normative, cognitive and policy
frameworks. The focus is, furthermore, on how these interactions contribute to
the production and assemblage of a shared agenda or ‘public purpose’—here,
new forms of (both virtual and actualized) urban sustainability. Together, this
helps to identify key features and patterns, and related contingencies and ten-
sions, within eco-city governance, emanating from the relationship between, for
example, economic and environmental sustainability, international and local
discourses, and private and public actor interests.
334 S. Joss
While both TI and SOMO have already been in the making for almost a
decade, they are expected to take a further decade or more until completion.
The present analysis, then, necessarily focuses on the initial governance processes
rather than on the final outcomes of eco-city innovation. The latter will be critical
to analyse in due course, too, in order both to assess the performance of eco-city
initiatives—crucial, given the very rationale for (urban) sustainability—and to
shed further light on how governance processes enable (or hinder) sustainability
outcomes. The present task is to characterize and interpret how urban sustainabil-
ity strategies and plans are put into effect through eco-city initiatives, as exempli-
fied by the two cases.

The analysis draws on written documents and materials related to the two
initiatives—including policy documents, development agreements, master and
sustainability plans, information brochures, newspaper articles and websites—a
series of in-depth, semi-structured interviews conducted during 2010 with nine
directly involved planners, developers and policy-makers, and with investigative
journalists (offering critical observer views), as well as onsite visits.
The following section briefly outlines the background and main character-
istics of the governance networks of the TI and SOMO initiatives. This is then fol-
lowed by a more detailed discussion of key governance mechanisms and
interactions and the resulting effects on urban sustainability strategies.
In-Fill Projects with Variations

SOMO and TI share several similarities. They both emerged in the early 2000s,
with private sector parties being instrumental in bringing about an explicit sus-
tainability agenda, and progressed to initial implementation by 2010 and are
expected to be completed in the early- to mid-2020s. (As such, they mirror the
recent phase of eco-city initiatives beginning in the early 2000s—see Joss,
2010a.) They each constitute large in-fill projects within established urban bound-
aries, follow a ‘clean-slate’ approach to developing large disused sites as new
neighbourhoods and make use of urban sustainability master plans, partially
derived from international endorsement schemes.
At the same time, they exhibit significant differences: TI is based on an
elaborate, formal PPP, while SOMO centres upon a private development.
Table 1 summarizes the key elements of the governance networks in play.
TI’s PPP has been instrumental in driving the initiative both conceptually and
procedurally. According to Michael Tymoff (Treasure Island Development Auth-
ority (TIDA)), it is a unique feature of TI and ‘. . .the single key aspect that will
allow the project to be implemented’. Originally, the TI project emerged in the
wake of the US military’s closure in 1993 of its naval base on the 450-acre, man-
made island in San Francisco Bay a few miles to the north-east of the city centre.
For several years, initial plans made by TIDA—the public agency set up in 1997
to oversee the island’s redevelopment—foresaw a low-density suburban develop-
ment and proposals for an adult entertainment centre. It was only a couple of years
after TIDA had entered into an exclusive negotiating agreement (2003) with the
Treasure Island Development Community (TICD), a private consortium acting
as the master developer, that the plans fundamentally changed to the current
eco-city project. By 2010, the island’s transfer from the Navy to the city was
effected through a federal defence authorization act, and the Board of Supervisors
(the city’s legislature) passed legislation in support of its redevelopment.
Table 1. Governance networks in SOMO and TI

SOMO TI
Urban setting New urban neighbourhood—Rohnert New urban neighbourhood—

Park (Sonoma County, CA) San Francisco (CA)
Governance mode Private development PPP
Main network actors CE TIDA (governmental)
Genesis Steel Frame Treasure Island Citizens
Community Fuels Advisory Board
City of Rohnert Park TICD (private)

BioRegional TIHDI (community)
Wider network actors ADC (Sonoma County) CCI (Climate Positive
California state authorities Development Program)
Governance mechanisms ‘Alternate means and methods’ PPP agreements (‘term sheets’)
‘Use permits’ Sustainability master plan
Sustainability master plan Development plan
Development plan
Promising to become a ‘new regional destination’, ‘the most sustainable large

development project in the United States’ (San Francisco Office of Economic and
Workforce Development, 2010) and an ‘exemplary model of sustainable living’
(Treasure Island Community Development, 2010, 2006, p. 4), TI is planned as a
mixed-use, high-density city district consisting of some 8000 residential units
and 240,000 square feet of new commercial and retail space designed to LEED
Neighbourhood Development (ND) Gold building standards; 300 acres of open
spaces including a 22-acre organic farm, recreational parkland and wetlands;
and an integrated public transport infrastructure (ferry and bus services to the
city centre and electric shuttle buses on the island), bicycle- and pedestrian-
oriented layout and congestion charging. The project also includes social and
economic sustainability components: up to 30% affordable residential housing,
including 435 units for formerly homeless people managed by the Treasure
Island Homeless Development Initiative, and employment for up to 2000
people in the commercial centre.
SOMO’s governance mode is characterized by the more singular involvement
of its private sector actor—Codding Enterprises (CE), a regional building
company—operating concurrently as site owner, master planner and sustainabil-
ity innovator, with the city authorities and wider state actors being more loosely
involved in a mainly regulatory role. The initiative is, thus, more intimately
bound up with CE’s business model. According to Geoff Syphers, CE’s chief sus-
tainability officer, it came about as a result of a generational change at CE in the
early 1990s, which led to a fundamental business re-orientation towards sustain-
able urban development and related technological innovation. SOMO is the com-
pany’s first major initiative in this new field area and as such serves as a pilot both
for the company’s new business model and for its engagement in eco-city devel-
opment. Situated on the eastern edge of the city of Rohnert Park, in Sonoma
County, it covers an area of some 200 acres, including a pre-existing large technol-
ogy campus. Once completed, SOMO aims to be a ‘deeply sustainable, mixed-use
community’ (Sonoma Mountain Village, 2010) centred upon a town square—
remodelled from the technology campus—that provides both businesses and
336 S. Joss
local residents a ‘five-minute lifestyle’ with offices, shops, services and 27 acres of
recreational parkland within short walking distance. The 1900 residential homes
and the 840,000 square foot business and retail centre will all be built to be
carbon neutral and zero waste. During the development stage, the SOMO
business cluster aims to support business start-ups and, thus, both to return
jobs to the region (with a reported 700 new jobs by 2010) and to encourage sustain-
able technology development.
Towards Privatized Urban Sustainability

A key characteristic of recent eco-city initiatives has been the involvement of
various business organizations (investment firms, engineering groups, building
companies and architecture firms), especially in in-fill and new build projects
(Joss, 2011). This is also evident in the two cases here, where private sector
actors have played a central role both in initiating the projects and in facilitating
their planning and implementation. This role encompasses financial, technical
and construction aspects, as well as engagement in sustainable development
itself. At the same time, there are significant differences between the two cases
in terms of the mode of private involvement and the interaction with various
public actors.
SOMO is illustrative of a shift towards privatized urban sustainability initiat-
ives. As site owner-cum-developer-cum-technology firm, CE (backed by a silent
investor with an approximate one-third financial stake) has been the main
driver of the initiative: it—and not the city authorities—originally proposed a
mixed-use sustainable urban development when acquiring the site from its
former owner (Agilent) in 2003. It has since driven the development by, among
others, starting up sustainable technology firms (see further below); working
with the city’s planning and building departments to obtain ‘alternate means
and methods’ (a planning tool allowing developers to seek variances to existing
codes); forming a joint review board with the city authorities to agree with
SOMO’s zoning plan; and entering into a community benefit agreement with
the Accountable Development Coalition (ADC), a regional non-governmental
advocacy coalition of labour, environmental, social housing and employees’ inter-
ests. In doing all of this, CE has chiefly shaped the concept and forms of urban
sustainability for the site.
CE has also engaged with California state policy in connection with its plan
for a megawatt central solar plant, which would deliver both 100% renewable
and affordable energy for SOMO’s residential homes. According to Syphers, the
site lends itself to a central power array, as the necessary space and power feed-
in system is readily available in the existing campus complex. However, current
state energy policy does not allow the use of a single solar array for local distri-
bution to homes. In order to change this policy, CE has concurrently sought pol-
itical intervention with the help of the local representative in the California
State Assembly (reaching committee hearing stage in 2010), pursued a rule
change by the State Utilities Commission and explored with the Attorney
General’s Office the possibility of bringing a case against the state.
On its part, Rohnert Park may be said to be involved in the initiative by ‘gov-
erning at a distance’: chiefly by acting as a regulatory authority, under which the
development was approved and the future community will emerge as a new
neighbourhood. While Jake Mckenzie, Council member and twice former
Mayor, expects SOMO to ‘put the city on the map’, he is at the same time clear that
it had to be built as a private development—rather than, for example, as a PPP—
not least because CE, as an established regional building company with several
developments across the city, has had a long relationship with the city as an appli-
cant. While the relationship concerning SOMO is reported to be constructive with
close contact through City Hall, Mckenzie emphasizes the separation of roles, with
CE having to comply with the city’s relevant laws and regulations and to apply for
development approval.
Within this regulatory context, CE has, nevertheless, effected substantial
departures from standard norms, such as with the aforementioned use of ‘alter-
nate means and methods’ to achieve, for example, higher density development
through more narrow street sections and shorter block lengths, and to allow
over ground ‘sheet flow’ for storm water for soil irrigation, habitat creation and
landscape design. In a further departure from the city’s zoning regulations,
SOMO uses a customized ‘formal base code’, which allows for various density
zones across the site determining building types and heights, thus giving CE
greater flexibility to accommodate SOMO’s design specifications. Overall,
SOMO’s mixed-use residential development required a rezoning from industrial
to residential use, which, in turn, required an amendment of the general plan (the
city’s long-term development and growth plan). This was approved in 2005, fol-
lowed by the approval of the Environmental Impact report and the formal Devel-
opment Agreement in 2010, as a result of which SOMO became fully integrated in
the city’s statute book.
Another aspect of Rohnert Park’s governance at a distance is that it has not
itself sought to engage in public consultation on SOMO. Instead, Mckenzie
points to CE’s efforts to reach agreement with ADC, as well as to ‘bend over back-
ward every step along the way’ to consult with residents, invite them on site and
inject community life by allowing residents access to the site for sport activities
and opening a community events centre. Syphers estimates that more than half
of the suggestions made at community meetings have been incorporated into
the design of SOMO, such as proposals for extended cycle lanes and a dog
park. CE has also taken charge of defining the master’s association (the neighbour-
hood management entity required by state insurance law) by building in
additional community rights—for example, the right to rear small farm
animals—as well as some restrictions, such as limitations on pesticide use.
SOMO’s private character is further evidenced by the lack of any public
underwriting of the development. Instead, the project is entirely dependent on
revenues from leasing the redesigned campus buildings (with some 30 business
tenants in residence by 2010), selling plots of land to other developers on com-
pletion of the horizontal development (expected in 2012 – 2013), and CE as a devel-
oper selling residential units upon completion. Thus, SOMO has been directly
exposed to the recent market downturn, which resulted in the halving of the
median value of residential property across the city. As a consequence, the start
of residential building development has so far had to be postponed to 2012.
Private sector involvement has also been at the heart of TI’s development,
although here the relationship between public and private actors is more balanced
through the formal PPP arrangement. TICD consists of two main private actors
with 50% share each: Lennar, the third largest US home builder, backed by
several silent investors, and Wilson Meany Sullivan, a major building company
with expertise in retail and commercial building, joined by capital investment
338 S. Joss
firms Stockbridge Capital and Kenwood Investments. On entering the PPP, TICD
was instrumental in transforming TI into its current sustainability initiative. This
happened against a background of rising public opposition to TIDA’s earlier plans
for a mainly low-density suburban development and calls for the significant
scaling up of the project’s sustainability aspects. In addition, at political level,
San Francisco under then Mayor Newsom pushed for a decidedly more green
development agenda (the UN World Environment Day 2005, hosted by the city,
resulted in the Urban Environmental Accords signed by 60 mayors from across
the world).
Against this background, the partners in TICD came to recognize urban sus-
tainability as a business opportunity: Stephen Proud (Lennar) explains that his
company started to create urban divisions in 2006, as adopting the sustainability
agenda began to make business sense, with major opportunities to develop urban
markets and work on urban (in-fill) projects. Similarly, Kheay Loke (Wilson
Meany Sullivan) confirms that his company decided that they could afford to
embrace sustainability. Concerning TI, Loke explains that since in the PPP
arrangement all capital risks rest with the private developers, it was TICD
which first had to make a decision to embrace sustainability even if it was slightly
more risky in terms of cost control and acceptability. Following this, however,
TIDA had to show interest and leadership in the sustainability vision for TI.
As a result, urban sustainability became centrally integrated in the PPP
arrangement, with TICD having a key role in its development and delivery. The
use of a PPP is not uncommon per se, especially in the case of military base clo-
sures, such as TI, and involving large-scale, long-term development projects.
However, what may be said to be unique is the PPP’s contents, and in particular,
the disposition aspect—that is, the way in which the land is conveyed from the
Navy to TIDA and subsequently to TICD, the financial arrangements used to
effect this transaction and, importantly, the binding sustainability goals and
public benefits built into the development plan (the legal framework). TICD
pays the Navy for the purchase of the land on TIDA’s behalf. In addition, TICD
pays on behalf of the city for various sustainability and public benefit measures
as set out in the sustainability plan (Treasure Island Community Development,
2006), such as affordable housing, the creation of park land and onsite renewable
energy generation. This is done by dividing the horizontal development (the prep-
aration of the land, including open spaces and infrastructure) into four phases, the
first of which runs from 2011 to 2015. For each phase, TICD is required to raise per-
formance bonds from third parties as security for the completion of the work.
TICD will be able to recoup the investment during the later phases by developing
and/or selling off all private land (TIDA retains ownership of all public spaces
and buildings, including the affordable homes). Additional private developers
will, therefore, enter the initiative at a later stage to realize vertical developments.
This arrangement means that the city will not have to use general public funds to
finance the project and will not pay upfront for horizontal development costs.
Instead, TIDA will repay these over three decades through tax increments and
service charge income generated from new residents and businesses.
TI’s development and implementation, then, are substantially driven by and
dependent on private sector involvement. Yet, in contrast to SOMO, the public
sector is much more closely bound up in the initiative in terms of both co-defining
and negotiating the sustainability strategy and objectives and underwriting the
financial investment. TIDA, legally a body of the State of California, is, in practice,
run through the office of the Mayor of San Francisco. It has been leading extensive
public consultation through both the Treasure Island Citizens Advisory Board and
numerous public meetings. Both sides in the PPP arrangement argue that—reflect-
ing San Francisco’s ‘sunshine ordinance’ (freedom of information legislation)—
the initiative has evolved with maximum transparency, evidenced by public
access to all business meetings and an open book process, which requires all
parties involved to work from one set of publicly available plans.
International Engagement
Another key feature of the governance relations in both cases is the engagement
with international actors. As a consequence, the two initiatives are not just
defined in relation to their particular local and regional contexts, but also
through wider international discourses and processes. This is a feature observed
elsewhere in similar urban sustainability initiatives. Rapoport (2011), for example,
discussed—with focus on Gia Lam, a new urban district of Hanoi, Vietnam—the
export of sustainable master plans by foreign private sector architecture and
engineering consultants to Asia, resulting in complex interactions between exter-
nal influences and local political, economic and planning contexts. In a similar
vein, Hult (2011) explored Swedish initiatives aimed at exporting Scandinavian
urban sustainability services to China, as in the case of Tangshan Caofeidian, a
new eco-city currently developed with Swedish engineering group Sweco.
The involvement of BioRegional in SOMO has become key to the way in
which the initiative is conceptualized and put into practice. The relationship
first arose in 2006 when BioRegional encouraged CE to consider developing
SOMO beyond LEED ND Platinum, the certification initially aimed for by CE. In
close collaboration, they subjected the original SOMO plans to detailed sustain-
ability analyses, prompting extensive redesign over a two-year period. BioRegio-
nal assisted in a consultative role with the redesign and separately, through its
arm’s-length endorsement scheme, in early 2008 accepted SOMO into the first
phase of One Planet Communities. Up until 2020, the project is set to be reviewed
by BioRegional on a yearly basis, before a decision is reached on whether to
endorse it permanently.
In the absence of Rohnert Park having a city-wide sustainability plan and
acting as direct partner in the development of SOMO, BioRegional’s involvement
is significant in that it has centrally informed and guided the initiative and its
approach to sustainable urbanism. This is illustrated by the Sonoma Mountain
Village One Planet Communities Sustainability Action Plan Report 2020 (Sonoma
Mountain Village, 2008), which defines SOMO closely in terms of BioRegional’s
One Planet Communities initiative and relates to the other four initiatives (Masdar,
United Arab Emirates; Mata de Sesimbra, Portugal; and One Brighton and One
Gallions, UK) endorsed by the initiative, more so than it relates to Rohnert Park.
TI’s main international partner is the Clinton Climate Initiative (CCI), which
selected TI as one of 16 founding projects under its Climate Positive Development
Program (launched in 2009). CCI operates as the action arm of C40, an association
of large cities around the world that have pledged to implement strategies to
reduce net greenhouse gas emissions to below zero. The Climate Positive Develop-
ment Program, which also works with the US Green Building Council, stipulates
several areas of activity (including clean energy, waste/water management and
transportation) to be developed in partnership with the selected projects. The TI
340 S. Joss
PPP has further enlisted international firms, such as engineering group Arup, to
assist with the development and implementation of its sustainability strategy.
However, reflecting the particular approach under the PPP, in comparison
with SOMO, the Treasure Island Sustainability Plan (Treasure Island Community
Development, 2006) is defined much more as a mixture of external frame-
works—including LEED ND, UN Urban Environmental Accords and Climate
Positive Development Program—and city-specific frameworks, such as the City of
San Francisco Sustainability Plan and the Healthy Development Measurement Tool.
‘Projectified’ Organization
The quest for new (market-based) governance mechanisms to realize large-scale
urban infrastructure initiatives, and the long-term development trajectories
involved, has led to a predominance of what some call ‘projectified’ approaches
to organizing such initiatives (see e.g. Book et al., 2010). Thus, urban (sustainabil-
ity) infrastructure initiatives are carried out by forming a temporary, separate
project between several organizations. Within the project, actors assemble
around an agreed set of objectives, targets and planning, organizational and
control processes. The expected benefits are that a focused, project-based
approach increases the efficiency of delivery and the responsiveness to evolving
circumstances and that it better harnesses various skills and mobilizes learning
across organizations. However, as Book et al. (2010) concluded from their analysis
of the Orestad new neighbourhood initiative in Copenhagen, such an approach
also risks that initiatives insufficiently relate to wider, long-term strategic pro-
cesses and policies and lack the necessary transparency and public accountability.
The project-based organization is also at the heart of SOMO and TI. It is
closely related to the governance interactions at work: both use project master
plans and sustainability plans to define the various project elements and specify
related objectives and targets. In the case of TI, the PPP term sheets (the legal docu-
ments stipulating the contributions of, and relationship between, the involved
parties) define project contents and delivery in minute detail. In practice, the part-
ners have effectively formed a joint project team working closely together on a
daily basis. TI’s project character is, nevertheless, moderated by the initiative’s
embedding in the city’s overall sustainability and development plans and the
formal political processes (including extensive public consultation).
SOMO’s project character is characterized by CE’s triple role and BioRegio-
nal’s close involvement in defining its sustainability plan. Rohnert Park’s city
authorities have had minimal direct involvement, limited mainly to the aforemen-
tioned design review board. Otherwise, SOMO is largely de-coupled from the
city’s wider planning processes. Its project character is further underlined by
CE’s business plan, which sees SOMO as a model urban sustainability initiative,
to be emulated elsewhere as part of CE’s foray into developing urban projects.
In both cases, the project nature is further enhanced by the fact that they are
in-fill developments built on disused sites with no pre-existing neighbourhood
structures (the sites will only become urban districts, with political representation,
once completed).
The issue of transparency and public accountability is, not surprisingly, a chal-
lenge for complex sustainability governance arrangements and project-based
organizations (see Joss, 2010b). While in SOMO’s case, formal accountability is
ensured through Rohnert Park’s regulatory processes—formalized through the
statutory development agreement—wider public accountability has been largely

left to CE, which appears to have been active in informing and consulting the com-
munity and wider civil society organizations (see above). Nevertheless, in contrast
to TI, much less detailed information (such as the full master plan and sustainabil-
ity plans) is publicly available due to the private status of the development and the
city’s limited role. TI, as a PPP within the context of San Francisco’s freedom of
information policy, is characterized by an ‘open book’ approach, with the vast
majority of documents being publicly available and all meetings of TIDA being
open to the public.
Still, investigative journalists Alison Hawkes and Bernice Yeung of the

San Francisco Public Press argue that that there has been a lack of ‘true public input’
and political scrutiny in the case of TI (see also SF Public Press, 2010). They attribute
this partly to the ‘immensely complicated’ nature of the (PPP) project plans going
into ‘hundreds of pages’. In addition, they attribute it to external factors, including
the concentration of power in the Mayor—they view TIDA’s relationship with the
Mayor’s office as too close and risky—and what they see as a lack of adequate scru-
tiny by the Board of Supervisors. The PPP actors do not share this assessment: Loke,
for example, refers to a ‘pure, perfectly transparent process’, while Proud likens the
transactions between TIDA and TICD as ‘negotiation in a fish bowl’. Nevertheless,
both Proud and Jean Rogers (Arup) agree that by its nature, the TI project generates
a large amount of documentation which may not be easily accessible to the wider
public due to the technical complexity and jargon involved.
Another feature of the project-based approach in both cases is the splicing up
of the development into a series of development phases. This is a project manage-
ment approach aimed at sequencing the various project elements, from horizontal
developments (land preparation) to vertical developments (buildings). The
phasing is also shaped by the financing methods used, with each phase requiring
separate private investment and third-party performance bonds as security. Thus,
the projects are directly exposed to external market forces, made apparent by the
recent market downturn, which has resulted in the delay of development start in
each case by approximately two years.
Governing for Sustainability

While an in-depth analysis of the relationship between governance regimes and
sustainability innovation processes is beyond the scope of this article, some pre-
liminary conclusions can be drawn on how the governance interactions shape
and condition urban sustainability innovation strategies and practices. The two
cases show contrasting approaches.
In comparison with SOMO, TI boasts more social sustainability features
through its plans for up to 30% affordable residential housing, including 435
units for formerly homeless people. At the same time, it has relatively less pro-
nounced environmental innovation features both in terms of various sustainabil-
ity targets—TI has obtained LEED ND Gold certification and SOMO went beyond
LEED ND Platinum certification to the more stringent One Planet Communities
endorsement—and in terms of environmental technology innovation. This is
partly explained by TI’s site-specific context—namely, the need for substantial
horizontal development to address the various geotechnical risks (a man-made
island, in an earthquake zone) and environmental risks (relating to land contami-
nation and rising sea levels). Thus, significant financial and time efforts must first
342 S. Joss
go into preparing the land before vertical development can commence. Hawkes
and Yeung see the horizontal development aspect as one of the reasons for inno-
vation being not particularly visible and original to date.
TI’s comparatively less ambitious environmental innovation process is also
partly explained by the nature of the PPP arrangement and the actors involved:
while it is innovative in the way it directly embeds the sustainability goals and
objectives in the governance mechanism, as a formal, highly structured arrange-
ment, it does not appear to provide ‘niches’ allowing the partners involved to
engage as innovators in environmental technology on an evolving basis. The
sequential phasing of the development, while helpful in terms of managing the

project across a long-time trajectory, according to Proud, nevertheless, requires
‘walking a fine line’ between TIDA and TICD and creates something of an ‘under-
standable tension’ between managing the financial risks and limiting guarantees
(TICD’s concerns) and ensuring public benefits at each phasing stage (TIDA’s
concerns). Furthermore, the actors involved, as building developers and urban
planners, are not themselves engaged in the project as technology developers
(unlike CE in SOMO).
Thus, TI’s main environmental innovation aspect consists in the way in which
the sustainability plan (2006) amalgamates various existing policy frameworks
(see above) and incorporates regulatory requirements, such as public access law
governing the site’s open space. The plan defines sustainability standards and
high-level goals for TI and specifies related mandatory baselines as well as
future performance levels and benchmarks. On the one hand, the approach
used is, in its own terms, ‘anticipatory’ in that it awaits the (external) development
of new technologies during the project period and, thus, builds in flexibility to
ensure responsiveness. On the other hand, the approach assumes a scaling-up,
from the baseline sustainability performance levels to ‘progressively higher stan-
dards’, although the latter are ambitions rather than requirements within the PPP.
Proud, therefore, sees a key challenge of governing TI’s innovation process in
being able to define the sustainability plan with sufficient detail without, at the
same time, precluding future policy objectives and emerging technological
options. Rogers concurs and also points to the fast-changing regulatory, economic
and technological environment that the plan will have to be able to accommodate
in years to come. For Tymoff, another challenge is achieving social innovation
concerning ‘soft infrastructure’ issues—such as affordable housing, economic
opportunities, improved biodiversity and urban agriculture—and how these
will be designed during the development period and then cared for in the long
term with the involvement of the community.
In comparison, the role of CE as a private developer and technology investor
has resulted in a more pronounced technology and related economic sustainabil-
ity innovation profile for SOMO and, conversely, weaker social sustainability fea-
tures. The company’s generational shift from an ‘old school’ regional building
developer to a specialist in sustainable urban development has led it to focus
on innovation investments, including investing in technology start-up companies
and mixed-use urban developments.
Syphers emphasizes the experimental and progressive nature of SOMO,
seeing it as ‘a step along the way of developing urban sustainability’. As such, it
gives CE an opportunity to conceptualize, experiment and develop new forms of
urban sustainability on an evolving basis. Syphers gives the example of the
water management system, which has been progressively developed to achieve
a net reduction in the onsite watershed. More generally, he points to the evolution
of the project from initially joining the LEED ND pilot programme to moving
towards accreditation in the One Plant Communities programme. The main govern-
ance challenge lies in working within given rules (codes, policies, etc.), or if necess-
ary changing the rules, to ensure maximum flexibility in the innovation process.
SOMO, then, is characterized by an ongoing innovation process. For example,
while work on the environmental impact report (ERI) and the development agree-
ment was still ongoing (2008– 2010), the central complex with its four large former
factory buildings was remodelled to create a community and business centre. An
events centre was opened and business space was leased to start-up companies,
several of which specialize in sustainable technology/business. As a private
developer, CE is able to do so based on its right to develop the complex with
‘use permits’, giving it latitude and flexibility to drive the design and innovation
process, although Syphers emphasizes the importance of doing so in co-operation
with the city.
CE’s own direct engagement in sustainability technology innovation comes in
the form of two new companies, one specializing in steel frame manufacturing and
the other in biodiesel production. On an onsite tour of Genesis Steel Frame, based
in one of the large factory buildings, Syphers explains that CE wanted to be able to
manufacture complete buildings (shell, roof and infrastructure) profitably yet to
SOMO’s sustainability criteria (buildings made of local materials, produced with
zero-carbon emission and without industrial waste, to high-energy efficiency stan-
dards, and 100% reusable). CE concluded it was economically most viable if it itself
invested in development and production onsite. Starting in 2007 with just three
employees, business has since grown considerably, now operating multiple
shifts, and additional companies set up in Canada, the Middle East and China. Pro-
ducing the buildings by itself, and owning all intellectual property, allows CE to
continuously innovate and redesign and re-programme production. It has
brought on board an industrial scientists to refine production, resulting in thin
steel frames using only about 50% of steel of a normal steel frame house.
CE’s other company is Community Fuels. In order to ensure cost-effective
low-carbon fuel use in SOMO’s construction, CE decided to start its own
biofuel production, as there were no good-scale biodiesel suppliers available.
Community Fuels has been operating since 2009 from the Port of Stockton (CA)
with access to rail and shipping and proximity to agricultural production and
has become the largest biodiesel company in the West of the USA. Again, techno-
logical innovation has played a key role: biodiesel production has been refined to
allow rapid testing—using a purpose-built onsite laboratory—of various kinds of
organic waste (from chicken skin to grape seeds), thus reducing the reliance on
soy products. Altogether, CE’s sustainability innovation is guided by a zero-
carbon, zero-waste sustainable materials strategy based partly on the Living Build-
ing Challenge guidelines by the Cascadia Green Building Council, which covers
aspects, such as local sourcing/recycling, disassembability and chemical safety.
Governance Innovation in the Context of ‘Governance at a Distance’

Eco-city initiatives are typically thought of in terms of sustainable urban design
and technological features and functions: high-density, ‘zero-carbon’ housing;
integrated transport infrastructure; advanced waste recycling systems; urban
agriculture; etc. Yet, as this study shows, governance is as much at the core of
344 S. Joss
what defines and conditions eco-city development as the more visible, physical
characteristics. This is particularly so given the long planning and implementation
processes and the elaborate financial and technical transactions involved, set
within complex regulatory and socio-political contexts.
The cases of SOMO and TI illustrate how closely planned eco-city initiatives
are bound up in governance: governance relations and interactions are central to
both their conceptual dimensions and the practical efforts and processes under-
way. The arising relationship between governance and urban sustainability is
self-reinforcing and characterized in the following three interrelated ways:
firstly, the hybrid governance relations underpinning these initiatives are each
the result of, and contingent on, the particular local and wider policy contexts.
Thus, the site on which SOMO is in the process of emerging, while within the
city boundaries of Rohnert Park, was formerly a privately owned technology
campus separate from the city proper. When it was sold, and ever since, the
city—while welcoming CE’s proposal for a mixed-use sustainable develop-
ment—has essentially restricted its involvement to that of regulatory authority.
This, together with the absence of a wider sustainability plan for the city, has
given CE considerable leeway in developing SOMO as a relatively independent
initiative. In contrast, the decommissioning of TI as a naval base triggered the
transfer of the site from the federal authorities to the city of San Francisco
through a standard PPP involving private developers. The city’s close involve-
ment was further reinforced by its active role in promoting city-wide (and as an
international city, through the UN Urban Environment Accords initiative) urban
sustainability, of which TI is an integral part.
Secondly, these relations shape the governance mechanisms and interactions
driving eco-city innovation. TI’s PPP requires formal and project-based co-oper-
ation between heterogeneous public and private partners involved in specifying,
developing and delivering the various urban sustainability contents: TIDA has
been instrumental in setting sustainability goals and targets; TICD is instrumental
in delivering these through upfront investment in a series of specified develop-
ment phases. These interactions are legally, technically and financially highly
complex and detailed and stand in tension with demands for transparency and
public accountability within the planning and wider political processes.
SOMO’s governance interactions are characterized, on the one hand, by CE’s
close co-operation with BioRegional to develop the sustainability concept and
plans and, on the other hand, by its negotiations with city and state authorities
to obtain various exemptions from normal planning rules and regulations to
allow SOMO’s development.
Thirdly, these relations and interactions produce and assemble the sustainabil-
ity contents at the heart of the eco-city initiatives. SOMO’s urban sustainability
model and its practical implementation are substantially shaped by the particular
combination of BioRegional’s One Planet Communities concept, CE’s role as site
developer and technology innovator, and the pre-existing technology campus
infrastructure. Hence, we see a significant departure from Rohnert Park’s
passive approach to urban sustainable development and a particular focus on sus-
tainable technology innovation through CE’s two start-up companies. TI’s sustain-
ability approach is produced through the PPP arrangement and, in comparison,
more closely integrated into San Francisco’s wider sustainability strategy, with a
stronger element of social sustainability.
There are significant differences between the two initiatives: for example, the
degree of privatization is higher in SOMO than in TI, as is the level of direct invol-
vement of the international partner. Conversely, the public actors are more sub-
stantively engaged in TI through the PPP, while the international partner plays
a less immediate role. As a result, SOMO, although now incorporated into
Rohnert Park as a new neighbourhood designate, nevertheless, appears quite dis-
connected in terms of both conceptual approach and practical governance mech-
anisms. Instead, it is more explicitly defined as a privately driven and
international model of urban sustainability, part of the One Planet Communities.
On its part, TI appears more deeply embedded in San Francisco’s decision-

making processes and forms a more integral part of the city’s wider urban devel-
opment strategy, aspiring to become a new ‘regional destination’.
At the same time, the two initiatives are driven by similar governance
dynamics. Both exhibit elements of ‘metagovernance’ or ‘governance at a dis-
tance’: on the one hand, the city authorities chose not to take full ownership of
the projects in financial, organizational and, arguably also, political terms; on
the other hand, private developers seized the opportunity to get involved as inves-
tors, developers and master planners, as a result of which urban sustainability is
substantially shaped conceptually and practically—such as in terms of investment
modes, project-based management and phased delivery—by private interests.
Such governance at a distance is not uncommon for large-scale urban infrastruc-
ture projects (see e.g. Book et al., 2010; Joss, 2010b) and can also be observed in
other (new/in-fill) eco-city initiatives. It is typically explained—as in the case
here—in terms of the inability (or political unwillingness) of public authorities
to carry the financial costs and related risks and their lack of experience and tech-
nical resources to deliver projects of such large scale efficiently. It is, nevertheless,
significant, in the present cases, that entire, large future neighbourhoods are
developed with such central involvement—including the core shaping of urban
sustainability strategies—of private actors.
Apart from practical concerns—such as the risk of exposure to market fluctu-
ations, the safeguarding of public accountability, and political control—this raises
more fundamental, normative questions about how and by whom urban sustain-
ability is defined, planned and practised. In this respect, San Francisco’s city auth-
orities, through TIDA, appear to exercise more overt control, albeit at a distance,
over TI—including the various sustainability elements and the phasing of devel-
opment—than Rohnert Park does over SOMO. As such, its governance approach
resembles more closely the conceptual notion of governmentality, with the PPP
representing the governance ‘technology’ through which TIDA’s goals are
implemented by TICD in return for investment opportunities. In contrast, in
SOMO’s case, governance at a distance comes closer to resemble the ‘hollowed
out’ state, with the shift from government to governance being more complete.
Rohnert Park’s influence over the direction of SOMO is (self-)limited to exercising
formal planning approval; the authorities’ disengagement in the process even
stretches to public consultation and the design of the neighbourhood association.
Significantly, governance at a distance also means innovation in governance:
new forms and mechanisms—set within wider regulatory and policy frame-
works—are designed to develop, co-ordinate and implement these initiatives.
In both cases, it has taken half a dozen years or more to arrive at tailor-made gov-
ernance mechanisms that allow the projects to move to the physical implemen-
tation stage. A visitor to TI in 2010 or 2011 could be forgiven for thinking that
346 S. Joss
little progress has been made to date, with the island being rather desolate and
little sign of an emerging eco-city development. However, a look behind the
scene of both TI and SOMO reveals extensive governance arrangements put in
place to prepare for horizontal and vertical developments in the years to come.
The centrality of governance is, then, emphasized by all interviewees and
evident from the numerous plans and agreements produced to date.
Innovation in governance is, thus, a defining feature of eco-city development:
urban sustainability becomes closely engaged in governance by adapting and
responding to established regulatory and policy frameworks. Here, it is interest-
ing to observe the close interplay at work between the internal governance pro-
cesses and the external contexts. In SOMO, for example, existing regulations
(‘alternate means and methods’) are used to depart from the established rules
governing storm water treatment or street widths (and, thus, indirectly setting
precedents for other developments). At the same time, existing policy is chal-
lenged where necessary—again, with potential ramification beyond the initiative
itself—as in the case of the use of ‘form base codes’ to achieve higher density
development and the central solar array project for which a policy change has
been pursued at state level.
Innovation in governance, in turn, also relates to the way in which urban sus-
tainability is fashioned. The forms and mechanisms of governance used condition
sustainability in both substance and process. For example, TI’s elaborate disposi-
tion agreement reached through the PPP arrangement defines the specific social
and environmental sustainability objectives and the particular way in which
these are to be achieved—namely, through obligations and incentives concerning
TICD’s work in the successive development phases, and TIDA’s guarantees,
mainly through tax increments, to repay investment upon project completion.
CE’s triple role of site owner, developer and technology innovator informs its sus-
tainability model, as exemplified by the approach taken to district-based solar
energy generation and the steel frame housing and biofuel production.
Conclusions
Twenty years or so after Richard Register’s first foray into eco-city planning, ‘eco-
logically healthy’ cities may still be some way off being fully realized. Neverthe-
less, the last decade, in particular, has seen a rapid mainstreaming of eco-city
innovation: there are now several dozen major eco-city initiatives underway
across continents, each engaged in various ways in putting urban sustainability
visions and models into practice. Among these, TI and SOMO, both located not
far from Register’s original eco-city initiative, have been in the making since the
early 2000s. While they are set to take another 10– 15 years to completion, they
already offer rich insights into the current governance of eco-city innovation.
They are both characterized by complex governance arrangements that are
defined by, and contingent on, their particular (geographical, political and econ-
omic) contexts, characterized by hybrid interactions among multiple stakeholders
and shaped in relation to the envisaged sustainability profiles. The constellation of
public and private actors in place creates varying degrees of ‘governance at a dis-
tance’, which, in turn, results in innovation in governance mechanisms. The effect
is that governance engagement has been a central, defining feature of the two
initiatives to date.
The implication is that, as eco-city initiatives (of various kinds and in different
contexts) begin to be implemented in growing numbers, close attention should be
paid to their governance perspectives. For future research, several issues arise
from this study: one is to analyse how governance mechanisms within individual
eco-city initiatives evolve and perform across time, which seems particularly
important given the long development trajectories and related political, socio-
economic and environmental uncertainties involved. Another is to inquire
further into how various governance modes enable—or hinder—innovation in
urban sustainability and what forms of actualized sustainability emerge as a
result. Again, another is to probe the wider politics of eco-city governance: the
design and use of particular governance mechanisms are, of course, inter alia,
the result of normative political choices and decisions; they set the path for how
urban sustainability will be governed in the future and, as such, they have the
potential to significantly reorder political and public spaces.
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Eco-City Governance: A Case Study of Treasure Island and Sonoma Mountain

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Eco-City Governance: A Case Study of Treasure Island and

KEY WORDS: Eco-city, urban sustainability, governance, innovation, Treasure

1523-908X Print/1522-7200 Online/11/040331-18 # 2011 Taylor & Francis

sustainability—and practical approaches, especially concerning ‘retro-fit’ (within

and advances in technological innovation.

Eco-City as Governance: Analytical Framework

existing political boundaries and spheres of responsibility. Thus, in the ‘era of

fied by the two cases.

In-Fill Projects with Variations

Table 1. Governance networks in SOMO and TI

Urban setting New urban neighbourhood—Rohnert New urban neighbourhood—

City of Rohnert Park TICD (private)

Promising to become a ‘new regional destination’, ‘the most sustainable large

Towards Privatized Urban Sustainability

statutory development agreement—wider public accountability has been largely

Still, investigative journalists Alison Hawkes and Bernice Yeung of the

Governing for Sustainability

sequential phasing of the development, while helpful in terms of managing the

Governance Innovation in the Context of ‘Governance at a Distance’

On its part, TI appears more deeply embedded in San Francisco’s decision-

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