Blogs

Last Wednesday afternoon, I arrived in Seattle and checked into a room on the 16th floor of the Hyatt At Olive 8 hotel and began preparing to moderate a panel the next day on transferrable development rights programs. The hotel was brand-new and less than a block from the convention center. It was comfortable and cool, the first LEED certified hotel in Seattle. Little did I realize that the very room I was staying in existed because of the King County transfer of development rights program I was there to discuss.

There's an old joke that what the locals fear more than a federal government in disarray is a federal government that has its act together. Well, now the joke's being put to the test.

According to walkscore.com, I work in a walker’s paradise. The walkscore of our office in Ventura, California, is 95.

I also live in a pretty good walking environment. My duplex has a walkscore of 78—and that’s way better than the walkscore in the cavernous suburban house I used to live in, which was 3.

So, what’s all that worth?

Winters – one of the most charming towns in the Central Valley – is considering whether to accept the town’s first franchise fast-food outlet. I almost never take sides in these things, but I’m hoping the city’s leaders say no to the proposed Burger King.

UCLA Extension’s annual Land Use Law and Planning Conference is typically a demilitarized zone. Combative environmentalists and builders usually check their weapons at the door, and a civil discussion about legislation, litigation, and regulation ensues. Not so last Friday during the 24th annual event at the Biltmore in downtown Los Angeles.

For quite some time now, we’ve heard about the credit crisis, the foreclosure crisis, the health care crisis, the state budget crisis, the climate change crisis. Add one more crisis to your worry list: the transit crisis.

The Los Angeles City Council voted today to limit the number of medical marijuana dispensaries in the city (described by one councilmember as the “the capital of medical marijuana”) to a total of 70 storefront locations. With an estimated 900 dispensaries currently operating within city limits, there are currently more medical marijuana outlets in L.A. than Starbucks. That is a sobering figure. How on earth did we end up with this many Starbucks?

Like nearly everybody, I awoke last Wednesday morning to ghastly images and video of the Haitian earthquake. Anybody who lives along the California coast – and that’s about 80% of the state population – is likely to have respond to this event with a combination of pity, fear, sadness and possibly a bit of what psychologists call “the guilt of the survivor.”

What if the judges are getting it wrong? What if they don’t understand the law?

People don’t usually pose such questions in public. But I’m willing to risk it and to ask out loud: Does the Sacramento-based Third District Court of Appeal issue the wackiest California Environmental Quality Act decisions?

The weather report for commercial real estate is bad, according to The New York Times, which reports rapid falls in value in local office buildings. In California, the weatherman is predicting flurries of half-empty office buildings and shopping malls to fall on Golden State cities during the next two years.