Though the economic prosperity and real estate boom of the past decade may seem like a distant memory, it wasn't more than two or three years ago that planning departments around the state were buried in paperwork. From sprawling subdivisions to loft renovations, developers sent them all the work they could handle. Some planning agencies even complained that attention to case processing prevented them from actually planning.

Today, planning departments are as overburdened as ever, but for completely different reasons.

Not long ago, when California's economy was booming and concerns about rising seas were mounting, California tapped into its environmentalist traditions to pass popular laws that promised to lead the nation in greenhouse gas mitigation. While there are no sure signs that the global climate has cooled, the same cannot be said for the state's support of anti-climate change legislation. 

This month more Census forms will arrive in California mailboxes than in those of any other state. And, while anxieties about response rates and undercounts persist nationwide, it is likely that California will fill out and submit more of them than will any other state. In its rawest state, the resulting data will give planners their most fundamental piece of data - the sheer number of people the state must accommodate. >>read more

California voters could overhaul the state and local tax system, as well as the state budgeting process, in November. Ballot initiatives that would constrict state and local government funding, and, conversely, dramatically increase state and local government revenues are in circulation for signatures.

Many California cities and counties are wrestling with flood waters these days, but, perhaps more importantly, they are also wrestling with revised flood risk maps issued by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The new maps have raised the consternation of local government officials, homeowners and developers in numerous locales, and in a few places the new maps are forcing reconsideration of growth plans.

It's an exaggeration to say that 2010 will be the year in which nobody builds anything. But it might not be much of a stretch.

The consensus found in numerous prognostications from economists, academics and analysts is that a "normal" level of development activity is still two to four years away. In the meantime, as Chuck DiRocco, director of real estate research at PricewaterhouseCoopers summed up, "Now is not the time to develop."

Many people in the planning and development community are saying good riddance to 2009. It was a year marked by extreme financial distress for government agencies and private industry. If 2008 was a year to "do more with less," then 2009 was a year to "do less with even less" -- a year simply to hunker down and try to endure.