CP&DR Vol. 41 No. 1 January 2026 Report

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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.

A Berkeley citizen group lost its challenge to People's Park in the legislature and the California Supreme Court. But that didn't stop the group from claiming enough of a victory to seek $1 million in attorney's fees. An appellate court shot the idea down.

This article is brought to you courtesy of the paying subscribers to  California Planning & Development Report . You can subscribe to  CP&DR  by clicking  here . You can sign up for  CP&DR ’s free weekly newsletter  here . Audit Supports HCD Efforts to Encourage Housing Element Compliance An audit of the California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) found that the agency’s letters jurisdictions regarding noncompliant housing elements were generally able to

California’s housing cost is still the highest in the nation and Sacramento is still focused on increasing housing production. And although overall production has not gone up much in recent years, it’s outpacing population growth – at least according to the demographers at the California Department of Finance. The latest numbers show that between 2022 and 2025, California added one new housing unit for every resident – 349,000 new people and 364,000 new housing units, or a li

A challenge to two SB 35 projects in Benicia by a local preservation group – arguing, among other things, that the projects involved historic structures and wetlands – has been struck down by the First District Court of Appeal. The ruling is unpublished and therefore cannot be used as precedent.

A case which says a city can delegate final approval of its housing element to the city manager -- and not hold a final approval -- has been published by the Fourth District Court of Appeal.

Of the dozens of Grateful Dead songs that have been autoplaying in my head since the news of Bob Weir’s passing broke this Saturday, “Shakedown Street” has been in particularly heavy rotation. The  bassline helps, but so does its commentary about American urbanism.  The Dead’s landscapes rarely involved cities. Dead songs are vivid: fairy tales set in the real world, though its landscapes are more pastoral than urban. In “Truckin’,” we pass through the likes of Dallas, Houst

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.

This article is brought to you courtesy of the paying subscribers to  California Planning & Development Report . You can subscribe to  CP&DR  by clicking  here . You can sign up for  CP&DR ’s free weekly newsletter  here . Supreme Court Declines to Hear Challenge to San Diego Coastal Height Limit San Diego’s 30-foot height limit west of I-5 will go back into effect now that the California Supreme Court has declined to take a case overturning a vote that eliminated the height

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.