Vol. 19 No. 09 Sep 2004

The 2003-04 legislative session has closed with the passage of dozens of mostly minor land use bills, and the failure of dozens of others. Still, lawmakers did pass a bipartisan measure creating a new Sierra Nevada Conservancy, and they continued to hammer on local governments about affordable housing development.

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Every month when the news media reports the latest “record trade deficit,” what often goes unsaid is that this deficit means cargo handlers in Southern California are busier than ever. With the country’s ever-increasing reliance on imported materials and goods, the logistics industry appears to be thriving. But developing the warehouses and distribution centers has become an issue in many Southern California communities.

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Fighting over water is a popular sport in the West, where generations of lawyers have refined the practice until it approaches an art. Often, the quantities at stake are prodigious, the output of entire watersheds. In other instances, however, the volume is so minuscule as to leave outsiders puzzled by all the fuss.

A dispute of the latter sort is threatening to break out in Ventura County, where a broad coalition has united behind one of the largest dam-removal projects in American history.

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A county has the authority to regulate the development of a private water storage reservoir, and that authority is not pre-empted by state water law, the Third District Court of Appeal has ruled.

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A ballot initiative that was adopted by a city council was not subject to review under the California Environmental Quality Act, even though the city deviated from state election law regarding ballot measures, the Fourth District Court of Appeal has ruled.

The court held that the city’s process did not deviate from the Elections Code requirements enough to make the city’s action more than ministerial. Ministerial projects are exempt from CEQA.

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California Planning & Development Report offers this list of land use bills that passed or failed in Sacramento during 2004. The governor has until the end of September to act on the legislation that received lawmakers' approval.

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Is a proposed high-density project in Redwood City an example of smart growth, or a gridlock-inducing suburban nightmare? That is the question voters will answer in November, when they vote on whether to allow 17 high-rise towers to be built along the city’s San Francisco Bay waterfront.

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The City of Los Angeles will require economic impact studies for proposed Wal-Mart supercenters and certain other big box stores. The studies are intended to determine the effect of a new big box store on a neighborhood’s existing jobs, wages and businesses.

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The state Supreme Court has sided with a landowner in a dispute over Santa Cruz County’s regulation of second dwelling units. But the state high court only cleared the way for the landowner to pursue his claims in court and did not rule on the merits of those claims.

The court ruled that a landowner has 90 days to challenge permit conditions, even if the challenge calls into the question the ordinance underlying the conditions.

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A ruling by the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals appears to have thrown into doubt many of the approximately 100 mobile home rent control ordinances in effect in California cities and counties.

A divided three-judge panel ruled that the City of Cotati’s mobile home rent control ordinance was unconstitutional because, under the ordinance, the possibility existed that tenants might receive what amounts to a transfer of equity from landowners when tenants sell their mobile homes.

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