A bill that would permit a lawsuit challenging a housing element to be filed at almost any time advanced through a state Senate committee earlier this week and is headed to the Senate floor. Assembly Bill 602 passed the Senate Transportation and Housing Committee on a party-line

Back in 2005, after Con Howe stepped down from his longtime role as Los Angeles's planning director, my phone kept ringing off the hook with calls from people trying to help new Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa find a new planning director. Some wanted to know who I thought would be go

Read Bill Fulton's appreciation of Gail Goldberg's time in Los Angeles here . After four-and-a-half years at the helm of the Los Angeles Department of City Planning, Gail Goldberg has announced her retirement. In a letter [pdf] to Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa Goldberg, who arrived

The California Air Resources Board has released very cursory greenhouse gas emissions reductions targets for the state's 18 metropolitan planning organizations. Although draft greenhouse gas (GHG) reductions targets under SB 375 are due June 30, detailed targets will not be propo

Pitting affordable housing advocates against local government officials, planners, and builders, a housing element bill has seemingly risen from the dead to become one of the hottest land use bills in Sacramento. Assembly Bill 602 would provide an unlimited time period during whi

Some people are, lamentably, forced to live in substandard housing. They languish in stark Modernist buildings that are often segregated from the proverbial hustle and bustle of the city. They enjoy no amenities and they have a hard time making a living, even with public assis

2010 Summer and Fall UCLA Extension Public Policy Courses The UCLA Extension Public Policy Program has now released its listing of courses for Fall Quarter. We encourage you to visit www.uclaextension.edu/publicpolicy for more information about the courses listed. Online enrollme

The Legislature doesn't get credit for doing many things right these days, but lawmakers appear to be making at least one bipartisan strike for fiscal sanity.

Few definitive trends emerged in the handful of local land use ballot measures that were decided across the state yesterday. Voters in Costa Mesa, Mission Viejo, Pleasanton, Sutter Creek, and Brentwood maintained status quo with votes that either limited development or rejected n

HOLLYWOOD, June 4 -- What's that spell?!? If you're a policy wonk, public official, or real estate developer and you were within earshot of Hollywood Boulevard yesterday, then you'd darn well better know.

HOLLYWOOD -- Speaking at the Urban Land Institute 's Transit Oriented Development Summit, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-California) announced that the Federal Transit Administration had admitted the entire 9.3-mile stretch of Los Angeles Metro's proposed "Subway to the Sea" for prelimina

By Morris Newman TIPPER and AL GORE have retired for the evening. They lie supine under the covers and are wearing pajamas, each with their respective monograms on the chest pockets. Al: "Honey, something's been on my mind...." Tipper: "If it's dirty, please write it down. You kn