Vol. 18 No. 07 Jul 2003

"Buildout" is a funny term. It is the word that most planners use to describe what their town would look like once everything that is called for in the general plan has been built. In today's world, buildout is easily quantified. Most cities and counties can point to their general plan and identify precisely how many houses and how many square feet of commercial and industrial space buildout involves. In California, where the Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) is always bird-dogging loc

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A proposal from residents of northern Santa Barbara County to divide the county in two is making progress. An election on the creation of Mission County could occur as early as fall of 2004, although voting in 2006 appears more likely.

Different approaches to land use — the north is seen as much more amenable to development than the south — lie at or very near the heart of the movement.

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Stanislaus County, the City of Patterson, and a North Carolina-based developer have teamed together on a business park that all parties hope will bring employment to an area that has seen rapid housing development but minimal job growth.

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The City of Buena Park has successfully defended a lawsuit against city ordinances that prohibit long-term occupancy of motel rooms. The Fourth District Court of Appeal ruled that the ordinances were not unconstitutional takings and did not deprive the motel owners of equal protection.

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A Southern California housing developer that has aggressively fought a wide variety of government fees in recent years has lost a building permit and plan review fee case at the Fourth District Court of Appeal.

In a terse opinion, the unanimous three-judge appellate panel ruled that Barratt American’s claims were either time-barred or attempted to rely on the wrong statutes.

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The experiences of two developers — one a large-scale master plan developer and the other a smaller, apartment developer — are snapshots of the uneasy relationship between home building and environmental policy in North San Diego County at a time when newly minted environmental laws are racing to keep pace with rapid home building.

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Cities and counties are charged with the responsibility of developing not only communities in which people live and work, but also with protecting the health of the surrounding natural environment and agricultural lands.

To achieve balance between these core values, advocacy groups and government agencies alike have taken interest in understanding the available supply of land and the capacity for planned growth in their regions.

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Riverside County supervisors have approved two-thirds of the closely watched Riverside County Integrated Program (RCIP). In June, supervisors approved a new general plan and a multi-species conservation plan for the western third of the county.

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In their effort to address the disproportionate health risk faced by working-class blacks and Hispanics, air-quality regulators in Southern California may soon find themselves playing a greater role in local land-use decisions — a prospect embraced by environmental justice advocates but alarming to many in the business community.

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The Sonoma County Water Agency’s environmental impact report for a project to increase the agency’s withdrawals from the Russian River has been thrown out by the First District Court of Appeal. The EIR’s analysis of cumulative impacts and project alternatives, and the document’s description of the environmental setting were all inadequate, the court ruled.

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