Gold Rush Ranch Opponents Submit Referendum Signatures

Relations between the City of Alameda and developer SunCal appear to have soured in the wake of voters' overwhelming defeat of SunCal's plan to redevelop Alameda Naval Air Station. Three days after 85% of voters rejected SunCal's plan during a February 2 special election, city officials sent SunCal a notice of default, the first step in ending SunCal's exclusive negotiating agreement to redevelop the base.

The nonprofit organization GreenInfo Network has released a newly revised database that attempts to identify every publicly protected parcel of open land in California, ranging from national forest to urban pocket park. The database inventories 49 million acres of protected land composed of 51,500 separate holdings owned by 860 governmental agencies or nonprofit organizations. Downloadable for free, the information should be of use to planners, academics, government agencies, nonprofit organization, businesses and others, said Larry Orman, GreenInfo Network executive director.

The Riverside County Board of Supervisors has postponed until January a decision on a new town proposal that has drawn significant opposition from hunters, bird watchers and environmentalists because of the 2,800-acre project site's close proximity to the San Jacinto Wildlife Area.

Lewis Group of Companies' proposal is called Villages of Lakeview. It would contain 11,500 housing units, a shopping center, offices, a number of community facilities and 32 miles of bike lanes, trails and paseos. About half of the site would be used for parks or preserved as open space.

The City of Sacramento has approved a specific plan for the 29-acre Docks site along the Sacramento River, across Interstate 5 from downtown.

The largest development project ever approved in Amador County might also become the first project in the county to be decided by voters in a referendum.

With 1,334 housing units, 300 time-share units, a golf course resort and a commercial area, Gold Rush Ranch would approximately double the size of the City of Sutter Creek. Project opponents say the project is simply too big, and they fear Gold Rush Ranch could mark the start of extensive suburban-style development in an area that has been relatively slow to grow.

Characterized as "the last piece in the puzzle" for Chula Vista bayfront redevelopment, a land swap between the San Diego Unified Port District and developer Pacifica Holdings has been approved by the district and the City of Chula Vista.

San Diego County Board of Supervisors Chairwoman Dianne Jacob has asked the state Public Utilities Commission to reconsider its approval of the Sunrise Powerlink transmission corridor because of its potential to make the unincorporated community of Alpine into "a ghost town" due to years of construction.

A $400 million economic stimulus grant from the federal government for the proposed Transbay Terminal in San Francisco will provide the final piece of financing for construction of the first, $1.2 billion phase of the terminal project. However, federal transportation officials appear to have stepped into the middle of a dispute between local officials and the California High Speed Rail Authority over the precise terminus for high-speed rail in San Francisco by siding with the locals. In addition, one rail authority board member, former judge and state Sen.

Local road and street maintenance needs an additional $71 billion investment over the next 10 years, according to a study prepared by the California State Association of Counties and the League of California Cities. The study identified $99.7 billion worth of maintenance needed to roads, streets and their essential components, such as storm drains, sidewalks and signals. However, only $28.3 billion is expected to be available.

It's official: 2009 was the slowest year for new housing construction since the 1940s.  Builders pulled permits for only 36,209 housing units in 2009, according to the Construction Industry Research Board. That was a little more than half of the 64,962 housing starts in 2008, which had been the record post-war low.

Opponents and supporters of a proposed luxury resort and housing development in the City of Healdsburg have signed an agreement outlining what a new environmental impact report should address.