Gov. Jerry Brown and the California Legislature have moved the goalposts again on climate policy, meaning the state’s metropolitan planning organizations and local governments are going to have to go into stretch mode again in focusing land use policies and transportation investments on reducing greenhouse gas emissions.  Furthermore, the pressure on the MPOs and the local governments will depend on lot on whether California retains the embattled cap-and-trade program or ditches it. No cap-and-trade will almost certainly mean bigger targets in the MPOs’ sustainable communities programs. In early September, Brown signed two climate change bills: SB 32 , the long-awaited successor to AB 32, and AB 197 . The first bill will put a lot of pressure on the regional sustainable communities strategies by essentially doubling the GHG emissions reduction target between 2020 and 2030. The second is designed to protect low-income communities from bearing too much of the brunt of the cap-and-trade program – meaning the bill could alter or threaten the cap-and-trade program altogether. Up to now, the state’s SCSs have been focused on AB 32’s target of reducing GHGs back to 1990 levels by 2020 – approximately a 20% reduction. And the evidence is that this effort is actually working. The ARB recently reported that the state’s inventory of greenhouse gas emissions dropped from 484 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent (MMTC02e) in 2007 to 441 MMTC02e in 2014. The 2020 target is 431 MMTC02e. There has been a lot of legal wrangling about what the state’s MPOs should do in the years after 2020, with environmentalists arguing that an 80% reduction target by 2050 should be taken into account even though it is contained only in an executive order, not state law. (This dispute is still pending before the California Supreme Court in a case involving the San Diego Association of Governments.) SB 32 moots this argument in part by codifying the goal of a 40% reduction by 2030 – a target that would almost certainly require the state to be on a trajectory toward 80% by 2050, no matter what the Supreme Court rules in the SANDAG case. In the second round of SCSs, as Josh Stephens recently reported , the big MPOs have been focusing mostly on incremental changes, not major shifts that would move toward 40% by 2030 or 80% by 2050. Moving to the SB 32 target will almost certainly require a much bigger shift. How big a shift, however, depends in large part on how the Air Resources Board decides to implement SB 32. In the wake of AB 32 in 2006 and SB 32 in 2008, the ARB implemented a system that required the various MPOs to hit certain per-capita GHG targets in their regional transportation plans. This system has driven transportation investments in the RTPs (which are usually combined with the SCS) and, indirectly, may be affecting land-use decisions at the local level. It is not clear, however, how much of the SB 32 burden ARB will require the SCSs to bear. In June, the ARB issued a concept paper in anticipation of SB 32’s passage, which highlights four possible approaches to hitting SB 32’s 2030 target. The concept paper states that increased emissions reduction will have to come from the sustainable communities strategies but does not seek to quantify that amount. The paper does, however, make it clear that the SCS targets will depend a great deal on the state’s overall approach – and especially whether the state’s cap-and-trade pollution reduction program stays in place. Cap-and-trade is under increasing pressure from both polluting industries and environmental justice advocates. Under the cap-and-trade program, polluting industries – especially those that burn fossil fuels and therefore contribute to GHG emissions -- bid in an auction to purchase “allowances” that permit them to pollute. Cap-and-trade revenues currently fund a wide variety of state programs relevant to planning and development, including high-speed rail and the Strategic Growth Council’s affordable housing and sustainable communities program, which has $400 million for development grants this year. But the fossil-fuel industry is always targeting the program and revenues from this year’s auction were anemic.  Meanwhile, AB 197 could threaten the cap-and-trade program from the opposite end of the ideological spectrum. From the beginning, environmental justice advocates have feared that cap-and-trade could harm poor neighborhoods disproportionately because ARB’s goal is to reduce the overall amount of emissions, not reduce emissions in specific locations. This question is always an issue in cap-and-trade programs. The Environmental Protection Agency’s cap-and-trade program for acid rain pollutants is always running into resistance from specific states that fear they will be at a disadvantage. For example, Ohio’s emissions might actually go up if Ohio polluters can buy pollution rights from locations, such as Florida or Pennsylvania, where pollution is cheaper to build up. Similarly, EJ advocates fear that polluting industries which purchase cap-and-trade allowances in California might choose to distribute those pollution allowances in a way that reinforces existing pollution patterns by focusing on existing older facilities near poor neighborhoods.  AB 197 seeks to mitigate that problem by requiring ARB to take “social costs” into account in setting up the cap-and-trade program. How, exactly, ARB is going to implement AB 197 is anybody’s guess . But it could mean that the cap-and-trade program is changed, reduced, or eliminated. And that will inevitably put pressure on the SCSs. Although the ARB concept paper does not quantify SCS emission reduction under different scenarios, it does generally characterize the degree of difficulty in each case. If cap-and-trade is retained, ARB reports, 2035 SCS targets will be subject to “increased stringency.” The same would be true of the state adopts a carbon tax, which is essentially a different way as the cap-and-trade program to get to the same goal.  Take away cap-and-trade or an equivalent policy, however, and the lift for SCSs becomes bigger. ARB outlined two alternative scenarios without a cap-and-trade program. The first focuses on reducing industrial pollution and requires “more ambitious targets” for SCSs. The second focuses on reducing transportation-related pollution – the other big contributor to GHG emissions – and, not surprisingly, calls for “ambitious stringency” in SCS targets. It’s not clear what “ambitious stringency” means, but it sounds pretty ominous. And that means more SCS fights ahead.

Despite consecutive seasons of miserable-to-average snowfalls in recent years, California ski resorts are moving ahead with ambitious expansion and development plans. In fact, less snow may simply mean that they’re being more aggressive about offering year-round attractions.  The latest development comes from Squaw Valley. The proposed Village at Squaw Valley would transform the mountain’s currently threadbare base area into a multi-use destination, with a hotel, retail and restaurant complex, 850 residential units, and a “Mountain Adventure Center” with indoor and outdoor recreational activities. Dreamt up and developed in relative haste for the 1960 Winter Olympics, Squaw Valley has never had a town or a base area to match those of rivals like Mammoth Mountain, Heavenly Valley, or Vail. After five years and over 400 community meetings, the Squaw Valley Specific Plan was approved, 4-2, by the Placer County Planning Commission in August. It will soon go before the Placer County Board of Supervisors. It is believed to be the largest project to be proposed in the county in recent memory.  Located just outside the Lake Tahoe Basin, northwest of the lake, the resort sits in an ecologically sensitive — and politically contentious — area (see prior CP&DR coverage ). Environmental groups and other activists pushed to reduce the project’s impacts and increase community benefits.  Before-and-after images of the Village at Squaw Valley.  "Squaw Valley Ski Holdings is prepared to significantly invest in the offering at Squaw Valley to position the resort as a true four-season destination, provide more year-round jobs, on-site affordable workforce housing, tens of millions of dollars in other benefits to our local community, and assist in stabilizing the North Lake Tahoe economy,” said Andy Wirth, president and CEO of Squaw Valley Ski Holdings, LLC, in a statement following the vote.  The plan for the village went through four major iterations, each one smaller than the last. The current version is half the size of the original proposal and, according to the resort, and is now only 38 percent of what is allowable per the Squaw Valley General Plan and Land Use Ordinance, which was adopted in 1983. Of the site’s 93 acres, only 12 will contain buildings. Ninety percent of the development will take place on current parking lots and other non-pristine land. Full build-out is planned to take 25 years.  Beyond the land-use plan, the resort has pledged to institute a range of mitigation measures to ease and offset environmental impacts. The resort will dedicate several million dollars to projects including stream restoration, upgrades to public parks, and support for public transit, plus a one-time $20 million payment to upgrade transit infrastructure. The plan estimates local tax revenues of $22 million annually that the county can allocate for environmental causes and social services.  "You already have a lot of established land uses that are primarily recreation- and-tourism based,” said Fisch. "If there is one specific issue area, that would be…the impacts of visitation because they inform the other impacts." The plan also estimates that by enabling visitors to lodge at the base of the mountain, rather than stay elsewhere and drive to the mountain, up to 2,000 trips per day may be eliminated from local roads on peak days.  Even these assurances do not comfort opponents of the current project. "The (environmental impact report) is simply fatally flawed," Richard Drury, an opponent of the project, told the Reno Gazette-Journal . He reportedly claimed that the plan’s figures on traffic and water availability cherry-picked different years with relatively few visitors and relatively high precipitation. "That is the kind of preposterous analysis that really requires a second look.”  Sierra Watch, a local environmental group, led an aggressive campaign to “keep Squaw true.” Its website contends that the plan includes ten-story buildings and amounts to a "massive and misplaced megaresort.” The plan pledges an average building height of 67 feet, which it says is “comparable” to the height of existing buildings on the site.  Representatives of Sierra Watch did not respond to multiple requests for an interview.  "It is a project that is within the holding capacity of the existing Squaw Valley general plan in that the project proponents are actually seeking to entitle development that would otherwise be permissible,” said Alex Fisch, supervising planner with Placer County Planning Services. “If there is a broad point of consensus among everyone, it's that the resort base does need redevelopment and does need to be made modern…the issue is, is this the right project?" "Their issues range from the character of the plan area to issues pertaining to increases in traffic and corollary effects with greenhouse gases as well as impact to habitat,” said Fisch. He added that the environmental impact report lists ten un-mitigatable impacts.  Contacts & Resources The Village at Squaw Valley  Overview Placer County Planning Department Documents Alex Fisch, Supervising Planner, Placer County Planning Services  AFisch@placer.ca.gov Images courtesy of Squaw Valley Ski Holdings LLC.

A proposed development in Newport Beach that has become a crucible for the California Coastal Commission was overwhelmingly rejected, 9-1, by the commission on Wednesday. With the controversial dismissal of former Executive Director Charles Lester in February, many environmentalists had accused the commission of taking a turn in favor of development and in opposition to serious coastal protection but the commission went in the other direction on Banning Ranch.

In the remand of the so-called “CEQA-In-Reverse” case , the First District Court of Appeal has ruled that the Bay Area Air Quality Management District’s 2010 Toxic Air Contamination thresholds under CEQA “may not be used for the primary purpose envisioned by District, namely, to routinely assess the effect of existing environmental conditions on future users or occupants of a project.” The court found, in essence, that “Source” thresholds were okay, but “Receptor” thresholds were not because CEQA cannot be used to measure the impact of current environmental conditions on a new project. “We agree that conceptually, a proposed project that would itself worsen environmental conditions would be a source – but it would also be a receptor to the extent it brought users or occupants to the site.”  CBIA v. BAAQMD , No. A135335.

In the latest court ruling in one of California’s longest-running land-use disputes, an appellate court has upheld a judgment of almost $3 million against a Sebastapol landowner for breaching his contractor with a development company that has been attempting to develop the landowner’s 21 acres for almost 20 years. Both sides have accused the other of a variety of breaches over the years, all associated with getting permits for the property and its development.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service found through genetic tests that the rare coastal California gnatcatcher qualifies a valid subspecies of gnatcatcher, therefore is entitled to continued protection under the Endangered Species Act. The finding reinforces protections to the bird’s critical habitat, which had been in dispute based on claims — based on findings in a 2013 article by biologists at the University of Minnesota and the Natural History Museum -- that the bird was not a separate subspecies and, therefore, had population robust enough to warrant protection. The species’ federally designated critical habitat covers 197,000 acres in six Southern California counties. The species was first listed in 1993 and has been the subject of ongoing disputes, including a 2014 lawsuit filed by the Pacific Legal Foundation on behalf of several construction and development groups, which precipitated the recent round of genetic testing. The suit claimed that the gnatcatchers is a single species that ranges from Southern California to the southern tip of Baja California. There are an estimated 2,900 coastal California gnatcatchers left in the U.S. Federal analysis indicate the that listing will cost up to $915 million by 2030 in costs incurred by development restrictions.  1.8 Million Acres of Amphibian Habitat Get Critical Designation The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service designated 1.8 million acres of public land in the Sierra Nevada mountains as critical habitat for three threatened amphibians: the Yosemite toad, Sierra Nevada yellow-legged frog, and the mountain yellow-legged frog. This decision will impact 16 counties from Lassen in the north to Fresno in the south as all grazing, logging and hydroelectric dam operations must take these amphibians into account. While this designation will not interfere with most extant land uses, it may precipitate changes in the issuance of grazing permits or hydroelectric licenses. Echo Lake in El Dorado County, along with 60 other Sierra Nevada lakes used for recreation, was excluded from the listing. Alameda County Survey Connects Housing Costs, Public Health The Alameda County Public Health Department released results of a survey indicating that the affordable housing crisis was causing a healthcare crisis in the East Bay, primarily Oakland. The survey, conducted by Alameda County and PolicyLink Center for Infrastructure Equity on thousands of low-income, senior and disabled people, showed that many are over-paying and in living in overcrowded, unsafe housing units. These conditions correlate with rising numbers of hospitalizations for hypertension, mental health emergencies, asthma attacks, and numerous other illnesses. Oakland’s working class, primarily Black and Latino, are being pushed into substandard housing. "While the causes and solutions to address the housing crisis are complex, inaction is a prescription for shorter, sicker lives for many of our Alameda County Residents,” wrote Dr. Muntu Davis in a policy brief. Management Plan for San Gabriel Natl. Monument Drafted The U.S. Forest Service released a 195-page draft management plan for the San Gabriel Mountains National Monument, which outlines changes in transportation/access, wilderness zones/protected species, mining, and recreation. The 346,177-acre monument was designated by President Obama in 2014 which means it requires a plan to manage the park that sees 4 million visitors per year. The plan lists many existing conditions of the park, but does not address solutions. Many of the issues that were addressed in the public hearing or the 1,545 comments received were labeled as “desired conditions” and not goals or targets to accomplish. Many in the environmental community praised the effort and said the document tackled many aspects, but lacked a clear plan for implementation. UCLA, Berkeley Launch Online Tool to Map, Understand Displacement UCLA and UC Berkeley announced the launch of a joint program called the Urban Displacement Project which addresses issues such as gentrification and displacement in urban communities. The project includes an interactive mapping tool to “help community leaders better understand the effects of new light-rail and subway projects and related developments- especially on low-income communities.” The tool will be a resource in helping to identify pressures and come up with solutions for gentrification. While many communities are improving transit-oriented development, this type of “upscaling” frequently leads to pricing out lower-income households. While the joint-program is not to ensure neighborhood change does not occur, only that the process is fair and just. The tool allows users to examine neighborhood-level data on racial/ethnic composition, which areas have seen upscaling, gentrification, population density, percentage of people living in poverty, median household income and level of education. Deal Reached on Cap-and-Trade Funds Gov. Jerry Brown and Democratic legislative leaders announced how they will spend the $900 million in revenue from the cap-and-trade program. The legislature approved, 47-26, measures to extend the clean air targets that allow all the climate change policies. The new pot of money will direct hundreds of millions to help disadvantaged communities, curb dangerous super pollutants, and cut petroleum use. For instance, a rebate program to help lower-income Californians buy cleaner cars will receive $80 million as will projects that build green space in urban areas. Additionally $140 million will be available for grants for communities with high rates of pollution. Los Angeles Grandfathers in Hundreds of Accessory Dwelling Units The Los Angeles City Council voted to approve hundreds of “granny flats” or accessory dwelling units (ADUs) that had been in legal limbo for months. These flats were already approved or in the pipeline, but a lawsuit over a discrepancy between the city’s ADU policy and state law threatened the city’s existing ADUs. The grandfathering plan would allow owners that had submitted their plans to the city before the lawsuit to continue. This includes more than 200 units that had gotten building permits but were unable to move forward and get city certificates that allow them to be legally occupied. The City Council has directed city planners to develop stricter rules than the state standards, which would take into account the different neighborhoods. This new fix would allow thousands of new units to be built and ease the city's housing crisis. Part of the discussion centers on the maximum size to allow the granny flats to be constructed. Quick Hits & Updates The Fresno City Council approved a 20-year lease with Outfront Media to place five digital billboards on four city-owned properties along the Fresno freeway. As part of the agreement, Outfront Media will remove the 47 nondigital billboards it owns across town. In San Diego the Citizens’ Plan to finance the new Chargers’ stadium may go to voters in November, but under dispute  is what would constitute voter approval. While those in favor of the plan say a simple majority is required, the City Attorney Jan Goldsmith’s office says the plan constitutes a tax increase and therefore requires a two-thirds of vote. (See prior CP&DR coverage .)  The San Francisco Planning Department along with SFMTA have launched a new website to allow users to design the city’s future subway over the next 50 years. The goal is to understand priorities for the residents of San Francisco. The Subway Vision is one piece of a new effort to create long-range plans for transportation called Connect SF. Orange County judge Theodore R. Howard ruled that the California Coastal Commission cannot prevent the repair and maintenance of a sea wall that protects mobile homes in San Clemente. The Coastal Commission says the rules are in place to protect future shorelines and the image of beaches. Los Angeles Superior Court Judge James Chalfant ruled  that the City of Hermosa Beach may continue enforcing its short-term rental ban.  Construction  has begun on the East Bay’s first bus rapid transit line, which will run 9.5 miles from downtown Oakland to San Leandro. BRT will include 12 curbside stations and 21 center median stations, which will allow them to run every seven minutes during peak hours.  The California Fish and Game Commission voted unanimously to add the the Northern Spotted Owl to the state’s endangered list. Its numbers have been dropping at a rate of 3.8 percent annually. In California, the owl’s habitat is along the coast in the northern part of the state, including the Mendocino Coast, Humboldt, Shasta, Klamath regions and Coastal Redwoods. California Coastal Commission staff have  recommended the proposed Newport Banning Ranch project shrinks significantly to protect wildlife habitat. The 900-home development would be located on an old Orange County oil field near the mouth of the Santa Ana River. The development shrunk to 55 acres after environmental assessment from staff scientists found important habitat for rare plants and animals last fall; the latest recommendation is to cut that down to 20 acres. A new report released from Trip, a nonprofit transportation research group, found that California’s inadequate transportation system costs motorists around $53.6 billion annually in the form of congestion-related delays, crashes and extra costs of operating a vehicle.

There's a scene in "X Men Origins: Wolverine" in which a government scientist infuses every bone in the title mutant's body with an inviolable metal called adamantium. The process is excruciating, but it leaves Wolverine with the distinct benefit of near-indestructibility. And claws.

When the redevelopment system was dismantled in 2012, redevelopment leaders around the state feared that the state Department of Finance's desire for short-term cash would force a fire-sale of redevelopment assets that would drive prices down and undermine cities' ability to complete their pending redevelopment projects.

The preservation of the Montgomery Hotel in the City of San Jose could be likened to a brick rescued from a burning house by its owners. By itself, the brick would have little or no value. As a souvenir of a vanished house, however, the brick becomes a treasured relic. That analogy might help outsiders understand the rationale behind the extraordinary labor and expense that the San Jose Redevelopment Agency has devoted to saving what is, by all accounts, a handsome but rather ordinary building. The 88-year-old Beaux Art Neoclassical building must be moved to make room for the expansion of the Fairmount Hotel. To prevent the demolition of the Montgomery, the city has decided to spend nearly $19 million, and possibly more, for the feat of moving the 130-foot-long building about 200 feet to the south. Moving structures, of course, is a time-honored method of preservation, from the statuary of Abu Simbal in Egypt to the Cape Hatteras Light House in North Carolina. Even so, moving the Montgomery is a big engineering and financial maneuver. During January, engineers removed portions of the foundation, and, in their stead, inserted squat, rubber-wheeled machines. On January 26 (we are writing this before the fact) the remaining walls were to be removed by a set of simultaneous explosions, and the entire building rolled, like some enormous lunar landing craft, to its new home. This technology has been used several times before to move buildings, but is more commonly used for moving drilling rigs, according to Sharon Jones, a project manager with the redevelopment agency. The agency will spend a total $18.7 million to move the old hotel, remove asbestos from the building, and prepare the site for construction of the Fairmount addition. The project is unorthodox by most standards of redevelopment. No developer has stepped forward to take over the building. Although the city would like the historic 143-room Montgomery to reopen one day as a luxury hostelry, critics claim that the move will make that difficult. And the previous mayor, Susan Hammer, seemed content to reduce the building to rubble. Why, then, is the Montgomery being saved? In our view, the redevelopment agency is trying to undo the damage done by urban renewal 30 years ago. Citing the above analogy, the Montgomery could be likened to the brick souvenir of the burned up house � only, in this case, it is downtown San Jose that is being remembered. Much of that downtown was destroyed during the 1960s and '70s in the name of urban renewal. Since that time, historic preservation has become a hot issue in San Jose. The redevelopment agency, which has rebuilt the downtown almost on its own, has treated the small number of surviving buildings from the original downtown as if they were masterworks of Frank Lloyd Wright. And current Mayor Ron Gonzales promised in his electoral campaign to save the Montgomery, among several other buildings. Unsurprisingly, some local observers, including the San Jose Mercury News, have questioned the value of moving the Montgomery. "Will historical preservation be San Jose Mayor Ron Gonzales' black hole?" asked the headline of an August 29 editorial. The article alleged that the Montgomery move would entail more money than previously publicized. According to the newspaper, the city would lose 230 parking spaces as a result of the move, which will cost local taxpayers $4.6 million to replace (assuming $20,000 per parking stall). Further, the newspaper editorial claims that the official cost of the move does not include the full cost of restoring the Montgomery, and reports that local preservationists were concerned about the move's affect on tile and moldings. And, on its new site the old hotel's lack a basement for storage, mechanical equipment and kitchens "will make its first floor very cramped indeed," according to the Mercury News. In a sense, the Montgomery move is a problem of the redevelopment's own making. Fairmount officials told me that the expansion of the luxury hotel, one of the largest downtown, was the agency's brainchild. To be sure, the agency is eager to create more hotel rooms to support the downtown convention center. (The agency is contributing $14 million toward the new construction.) Undoubtedly, the 260 hotel rooms promised in the new Fairmount wing are an asset to the meeting-and-convention trade, although the hotel is far from the only game in town; the city recently approved two new downtown hotels. That might lead some observers to conclude that market forces would have provided the hotel rooms needed for the convention center, and that the Montgomery could have stayed put and saved taxpayers $33 million. (That conclusion, however, probably does not take into account any subsidies that the agency might contribute to other hotel projects.) In this column, we sometimes have explored the conflict between two worthwhile agendas. Here, the conflicting agendas are "getting the best bang" for your redevelopment dollar, and saving historic downtown fabric. In some cities, a building of the quality of the Montgomery might disappear into a cloud of smoke, with few tears shed. And some observers might have to think long and hard about spending money to save an ordinary building that could be spent, hypothetically, on a comparable new building that would be architecturally distinguished and perhaps add more to the city than the old hotel. So, did San Jose do the right thing? After a long pause, I would say yes. True, the money spent to move the old hotel and subsidize the new one might have been spent on an all-new building, but downtown San Jose already has a number of fine new structures and needs all the historic buildings it can get. The Montgomery is part of a happy, if ironic trend in American urbanism, in which we are now scrambling to rebuild the streets and the buildings that we so casually destroyed just a few years ago. In a sense, the cost of saving the Montgomery is only a small part of the price we continue to pay for undoing urban renewal.

In 2010, the City of Santa Monica adopted a Land Use and Circulation Element to its General Plan that was hailed as a model of progressive planning. The LUCE foretold a denser but, possibly, less trafficked and more pleasant city and was one of the first such elements to achieve the goals of SB 375. Cities across the state looked to the LUCE as a model. It won "Outstanding Comprehensive Planning Award, Small Jurisdiction" from the California Chapter of the American Planning Association http://www.cp-dr.com/articles/node-2773 . The LUCE was designed to generate zero net new car trips in the city by 2025 and to reduce the city's annual greenhouse gas emissions by nearly 200,000 metric tons compared to 2010 levels. It also provided a bookend to the 1984 General Plan update. Back then, the city sought to increase its employment base but did not promote housing accordingly. Five years later, Santa Monica has plenty of jobs � 74,000 in a city of 92,000, with pressures increased with the recent rise of "Silicon Beach tech firms � but has taken a step back from the LUCE, eliminating a density bonus "tier" and four of five "activity centers" identified in the LUCE. And if a slow-growth group gets its way, a full repudiation of the goals of 2010 may be in the offing. The situation sets a politically sensitive table for the new city manager, urban planning legend Rick Cole, who started work on June 29. "The LUCE was basically sold to residents as a slow-growth document," said Armen Melkonians, founder of advocacy group Residocracy, which generally takes slow-growth positions. "The reality is that�.it effectuated changed in Santa Monica quite drastically and rapidly." He likened the LUCE's proponents to "snake-oil salesmen." Early this year, the City Council considered a comprehensive zoning code update intended to bring the city's code in line with the vision of the LUCE. It included three "tiers" of multifamily and mixed use development, affording developers increasing levels of density but requiring increasing levels of public scrutiny. The LUCE establishes two stories or 32 feet as the "base" in Tier 1. Tier 3, approved only through development agreements, requires developers to include community benefits, such as on- or off-site low-income units, in order to earn the right to build up to five stories or 50 feet in height. Tier 3 was designed to apply only to the city's major boulevards, notably Wilshire, Santa Monica, and Lincoln. Tier 3 was too much for many of the city's slow-growth advocates, who clamored for the down-zoning on the grounds that excessive development would infringe on neighborhood character and worsen the city's notoriously heavy traffic. The City Council voted 4-3 April 15 to eliminate that tier on Santa Monica and Wilshire, the city's two more important boulevards, as well as some of the other increased density envisioned by the LUCE. Even with this victory, slow-growth activists may yet gear up for a referendum that could force the city to rewrite the zoning code entirely. The LUCE was designed to add roughly 4,995 new housing units, well exceeding the 1,694 prescribed by the Regional Housing Needs Allocation, 974 of which are allocated as below market rate. It also envisioned five "activity centers" that would include relatively dense development and clusters of commercial establishments that residents could visit without relying on personal automobiles. Much of the LUCE's provisions respond to the advent of Phase 2 of the Expo Line light rail, which will serve three stations in Santa Monica as of next year and provide direct service to downtown Los Angeles. A separate 5-2 vote eliminated all but one of the five activity centers. Both sets of changes were confirmed, with minor amendments, upon second reading June 23. The elimination of Tier 3 would not apply to Colorado and Lincoln boulevards, or to downtown Santa Monica, which is governed by its own specific plan, currently being revised. Also, 100-percent affordable developments and adaptive reuse projects are exempt. Even with much of the LUCE still intact, critics of the down-zoning consider it an egregious retreat from progressive planning, especially in light of pro-infill policies that are being implemented statewide, such as Senate Bill 375. "There's the direct effect of the decision, and then there's the momentum that the decision signifies, said Juan Matute, co-chair of smart growth advocacy group Santa Monica Forward and associate director of the Lewis Center and the Institute for Transportation studies at UCLA. "The concern is that it's one in a series of capitulations to those who don't believe in the vision of the land use and circulation element for a progressive, sustainable SM and that this is just one in a series of decisions that will completely dismantle the LUCE's vision." Melkonians, of Residocracy, said that rampant development in Santa Monica over the past five years proves that city government cannot be trusted to manage growth. Melkonians, who is an engineer by trade, said that the LUCE's relies on faulty growth projections. He contends that many of the 10,000 or so additional residents projected by the LUCE would actually have been induced by new development. In essence, he claims that the LUCE's projections mistake cause for effect. "They failed to include any of the growth-inducing impacts of the General Plan update itself," said Melkonians. The city's population has remained relatively static over the past 45 years, having reached 88,000 in 1970. Critics of the LUCE also contend that, regardless of planning trends, conditions have changed over the past five years that make stricter growth controls more necessary.  Melkonians said that the LUCE relied on a planned subway extension, known colloquially as the "Subway to the Sea." That extension will not reach Santa Monica for decades, if ever. "There's a lot of support in the community for transit-oriented development," said Santa Monica Mayor Kevin McKeown, who voted for the down-zoning. "There was, on the other hand, considerable resistance to transit-anticipatory development." That resistance was on display several months before the zoning vote when the council, amid fierce lobbying from groups such as Residocracy, voted to rescind an agreement for a major mixed-use project next to the Bergamot Station Expo stop. One other change from 2010 involves not demographics but rather a dispute between two luxury hotels just north of downtown Santa Monica. The Huntley Hotel is opposing a proposed expansion of the Miramar that might obstruct the Huntley's view of the ocean. The Huntley donated $10,000 to Residocracy. "Voices in the community that were concerned about development became amplified as a result of the Huntley Hotel's involvement," said Matute. Melkonians said that donations do not drive the group's agenda. Whatever different methods of analysis reveal, the fact remains that the region faces what many consider a monumental housing crisis. Santa Monica's high housing costs are often held up as a symbol of that crisis. "We've grown only about a half-a-percent...that's below the birth rate," said McKeown "We're not even accommodating the kids who are born here." Even the slow-growth advocates wanted to make concessions for subsidized housing�some arguing that affordable housing should be the only type of new housing approved in the city -- supporters of the LUCE counter that, especially in the absence of redevelopment monies, generous amounts of market-rate development will be necessary to create affordable units. Tier 3 projects would have been approved contingent upon development agreements, through which the city could have compelled developers to include affordable units or set aside funds to promote other types of affordable housing. As well, Tier 2 projects may not be attractive to developers, for whom an extra story could make the difference between profit and loss. "It will be harder to build four- and five-story housing, which is where the most favorable economics are for residential construction," said Matute. Those concerns are overblown, according to Santa Monica Planning Director David Martin. "The result of all of our analysis is that a Tier 2 project is still feasible," said Martin. "We expect that the four-story mixed-use projects can still be built." Overall, Martin insists that the spirit of the LUCE remains intact. "I think the underlying principles of the LUCE are still sound. I don't think this undermines it in any way," said Martin. "It's not unusual for there to be some adjustments and reductions here and there." Though he voted for the down-zoning, Santa Monica Mayor Kevin McKweon said that he supports the vision of the LUCE and does not feel that the city's progressive spirit has been compromised. "What we did was to recalibrate that LUCE to accommodate what we see really happening in the next 20 years," said McKeown. "Our thinking on the zoning code was, I think, an extension of the thinking we put into the LUCE. The LUCE was a visionary plan of which we were very proud." One major element of the LUCE is the alleviation of the jobs-housing imbalance, symbolized by the nearly static river of cars that travel westbound on Interstate 10 every morning and eastbound evening. Proponents of the LUCE argue that it was designed to reduce traffic by offering housing that would be occupied by workers who currently commute into the city. "The measures that have been stricken were primarily those that would help the city cope with traffic in the future," said Matute. Melkonians rejects that theory, noting that there's no guarantee that all new Santa Monica residents will also work in the city. 2000 Census data indicates that only 32 percent of the city's residents worked in Santa Monica, with more workers commuting to Los Angeles than remaining in Santa Monica. "It's impossible that over 50 percent of (new residents) will work in Santa Monica," said Melkonians. "That's not how Southern California works." However this debate plays out in Santa Monica, it may foretell more challenges to the provision of housing and achievement of smart growth goals throughout the region. A recent report from the Legislative Analysts' Office emphasizes the need for coastal cities to allow more housing � as much as 100,000 more units annually than are currently expected to be build statewide. At the same time, the LAO acknowledged the challenges of developing in cities like Santa Monica. "Local residents are often resistant to new housing development and they'll use their local communities' land use authority to delay or block new housing development," said Brian Uhler, senior fiscal and policy analyst with the LAO, in a video released with Tuesday's report. "We see that this type of resistance is particularly heightened in California's coastal communities." Matute said that achieving these housing goals, and promoting infill development, is going to require planners around the state to become more politically savvy and more convincing in their outreach efforts. "The state, the regional, and the local plans in focusing on infill development are looking at putting a growing share of new growth in California...into existing communities," said Matute. "It requires an expanded level of community negotiation skills." Contacts and Resources Santa Monica 2010 Land Use and Circulation Element Kevin McKeown, Mayor, City of Santa Monica, kevin@mckeown.net David Martin, Planning Director, City of Santa Monica, david.martin@smgov.net Juan Matute, co-chair, Santa Monica Forward, http://www.santamonicaforward.org/ , jmatute@ucla.edu Armen Melkonians, founder, Residocracy, https://www.residocracy.org/ armen@residocracy.org

The Third District Court of Appeal has rejected several arguments that the laws eliminating redevelopment violate the California constitution.

The California Supreme Court has denied review of a case from Riverside County involving the interplay of habitat conservation planning and the California Environmental Quality Act -- and also depublished the case so it cannot be used as precedent.