Articles

But housing remains a big issue in remaining bills headed to Gov. Brown's desk. 

Voters in a dozen or so cities and counties will decide on 15 land use measures June 5, with a fairly typical array of questions. 

 The fifteen or so land-use measures on city and county ballots June 6 represent a cross-section of issues that California localities are facing. They include referenda on perennial questions like proposed developments (Pleasanton Measure K),  affordable housing (San Francisco Proposition C) funding for parks and infrastructure (San Francisco Proposition B). and, yet again, State of Jefferson secession (Lassen County). 

Just when cities thought it was safe to sign on to notices of completion and put their long redevelopment nightmares behind them, a newly proposed bill yet again has put cities at odds with the state. 

Our review of CP& DR's most-read stories show that housing again dominated the news -- including builder's remedy, new legislation, and L.A.'s Measure ULA.

AB 98 would impose standards on new warehouses, especially in the Inland Empire -- but environmental justice groups say it doesn't go far enough and the bill was prepared in secrecy

Affordable housing, extension of vote requirements, several development projects all on ballots around the state.

Another Newhall Ranch case goes to the Supreme Court. The winning environmentalists seek a rehearing in the big Newhall lvictorh -- mostly to clarify the nature of their win. And, on another front, an appellate court reheard a groundwater extraction fee case and didn't budget. 

A typically diverse array of land use measures appears on the November ballot in a handful of localities around the state. Most questions ask voters to endorse or oppose specific developments, from a golf course redevelopment in El Dorado County to a park in San Carlos. Only the City of Modesto has a sweeping, citywide question, billed as a referendum on urban sprawl.  Then there is the City and County of San Francisco, arguably the most unique and hotly contested 49 square

Senate Bill 827 gets its own category in CP&DR's annual list of its most-read stories

Gov. Jerry Brown has vetoed two planning bills by significant San Diego legislators -- AB 504 by Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, which would have reined in the permitting power of Civic San Diego, the nonprofit redevelopment agency, and AB 35 by Assembly Speaker Toni Atkins, which would have increased the state's allocation of low-income housing tax credits by $300 million. 

Only a few significant planning and development bills made to Gov. Jerry Brown's desk by the end of the legislative session on Sept. 11 -- most significantly SB 774, which requires local governments to cut parking ratios for transit-oriented development. Several major bills did not make it out of the legislature, including: