Seemingly since the invention of the elevator, critics of growth in California have warned of “Manhattanization,” as if the adoption of liberal zoning policies could instantly result in a thicket of high-density towers. Thus far, that fate has not befallen any cities. But due to a recent confluence of new laws and economic conditions, high-rises are being proposed, approved, and built in some unusual places.

The passage of AB 130 and SB 131 – the budget trailer bills from last summer – has shifted the landscape for planning in California in new ways. And although the impetus for these shifts came from the state’s desire to encourage more housing, there are pros and cons for both local governments and housing developers from the deal.

After a one-year hiatus, the Land Use Law and Planning Conference, sponsored for over 30 years by UCLA and now by the W. P. Carey Center for Real Estate and Finance at Arizona State Unviersity and the California Planning & Development Report, is returning to downtown Los Angeles Friday, January 23.

Gov. Gavin Newsom released his last proposed budget Friday, with an emphasis on a the consolidated housing agency he promised to create - The new Housing and Homeless Agency would be spun off from a larger agency that also covers business and consumer affairs, with the Department of Housing and Community Development sitting in the new housing agency.

Top Stories 2025  In a perfect world, urban planning and wildfires would scarcely make acquaintance with each other. Settlements would be built far from fuel, with well managed buffer zones. Building materials would be resilient. Escape routes would be clear. And humanity and nature would live in perfect harmony.  Alas.  Last year’s wildfires in Pacific Palisades and Altadena were not the biggest by land area, nor were they the most deadly. They were, though, the most costly,

An annexation and zoning plan that would constitute the most dramatic expansion of a California city in recent memory will, most likely, be more incremental than monumental. Last week, the Fresno City Council considered the proposed Southeast Development Area (SEDA), a 9,0000-acre swath that would annex farmland for urban development, including up to 45,000 residential units.

Last week, state demographers reported that California’s population had increased again in 2024 – if only slightly – making the third year in a row the population had gone up. That’s a market change from the pandemic years, when the state’s population dropped significantly for the first time ever.

Nearly five million Californians live in high fire hazard severity zones, and the year’s disasters in Los Angeles County are only the most recent examples of just how severe California’s wildfires can be. For planners in the hundreds of cities and counties that touch on the wildlands-urban interface, fire hazard planning, via safety elements and other initiatives, is literally a life-or-death matter. Meanwhile, firefighting agencies face increasing urgency to fight and preven

The 682-unit project was declared exempt from CEQA and apparently met the city's objective design standards. The city council voted against it anyway.

City backed off of appeal after judge ordered that a $14 million bond be posted.

A pair of measures passed in Sausalito and the more ambitious of two housing measures passed in Santa Cruz

Proposed 2026 ballot measure would create two categories of projects: "essential projects" subject to tighter timelines and other projects subject to current law.