A state appellate court has upheld a Santa Clara Valley Water District rate increase as exempt from the California Environmental Quality Act, rejecting multiple arguments from a retail water company that the increase was subject to environmental review. Created by state law, the Santa Clara Valley Water District provides wholesale water to various retail water suppliers. The district also manages the groundwater basin by recharging the aquifer and by providing treated surface water so that other entities limit their groundwater pumping. The district has authority to levy a fee on water extracted from the groundwater basin. In March 2006, the water district submitted its annual report for the upcoming fiscal year to the Board of Supervisors. The report contained the staff's recommendations and analysis concerning groundwater-charge rate increases for the 2006-07 fiscal year. The staff recommended for a "low case" scenario for potential rate increases of about 3% to 7%, and against a "high case" scenario that would fund additional operations and capital investments. Staff also recommended increasing surcharges on treated water, partly to reduce treated water sales because the groundwater basin was full at the time. Great Oaks Water Company submitted a formal written objection to the rate increases, arguing they were being used to affect groundwater levels and were therefore subject to environmental review. Great Oaks is a private utility that serves 100,000 residential, commercial and industrial customers with water extracted from the company's wells in Santa Clara County. The water company is subject to the district's groundwater charges. After several meetings, the district's Board of Directors accepted the staff's recommendations and approved the rate increases in June 2006. The board made findings that the charges were exempt from CEQA review because the charges were for meeting operating expenses, purchasing supplies, meeting financial reserve needs and completing capital projects necessary to maintain services within existing service areas. The district essentially cited the CEQA exemptions for rate setting found in Public Resource Code § 21080, subdivision (b)(8). Great Oaks sued, arguing that the district's CEQA findings were inadequate and not supported by substantial evidence, and that the rate increases were adopted for purposes requiring CEQA review. A Santa Clara County Superior Court judge rejected the contentions, as did a unanimous three-judge panel of the Sixth District Court of Appeal. Great Oaks argued the findings were inadequate because the district did not cite specific facts in the record to support the exemption. The court disagreed and pointed to the standard the state Supreme Court established in Environmental Protection & Information Center v. California Dept. of Forestry & Fire Protection , (2008) 44 Cal.4th 459. In that case, the court ruled that it was acceptable for an agency's findings to refer generally to the administrative record, even though specific references would be the better practice. What matters, the court ruled, was "the analytic route the administrative agency traveled from evidence to action." The Santa Clara district passed this test, the Sixth District ruled. The water district identified statutory purposes for which it claimed the exemption, and referred to portions of the annual report and other information from the hearing process to support those purposes. "In other words," Justice Wendy Duffy wrote for the court, "based on the totality of the resolution's findings, we can readily ascertain the analytic route that the district traveled from evidence to action." Great Oaks argued substantial evidence did not support the findings, and it pointed to evidence the district used rates to manipulate groundwater supplies and expand the district's services. The court rejected the contention, concluding the "annual report alone contains substantial evidence supporting the district's findings that the groundwater-charge rate increases were for statutorily exempt purposes." "Even if the record shows that the district was effectuating groundwater management policy through its groundwater rates," Duffy continued, "as long as its stated purpose for the use of the funds raised via the rate increases fell within the scope of the statutory exemption, the district's action remained exempt." Great Oaks pointed to evidence the district had used past capital expenditures to expand services, but the court said past practices did not matter here because Great Oaks failed "to provide linkage between these past expenditures or projects and the funds to be received in the future from the proposed groundwater rate increases." The Case: Great Oaks Water Co. v. Santa Clara Valley Water Dist. , No. H032067, 09 C.D.O.S. 1179, 2009 DJDAR 1363. Filed January 28, 2009. The Lawyers: For Great Oaks: Jeffrey Lawson, Silicon Valley Law Group, (408) 573-5700. For the district: Thomas Berliner, Duane Morris, (415) 371-2200.

Post-war suburbia has its defenders and its detractors. Recently, I encountered a truly staunch supporter of suburbia and a well-spoken critic. One of them sees black where the other sees white. It was a good reminder of how difficult planning is in California. Helen Allen, a city councilmember in Concord, is an unapologetic defender of the suburbs. I spoke to Allen several weeks back while preparing a story on reuse plans for the closed Concord Naval Weapons Station. The council approved an urban blueprint centered on a BART station. Although she voted for the plan simply to move along the process, Allen hates the plan. People choose to live in places like Concord because they are attracted to quiet neighborhoods of single-family homes with nice yards, Allen said. The plan for the Navy property emphasizes transit-oriented development, high densities and mixed uses. How, she asked, can such a design be considered "smart" when it departs so radically from the rest of town, which people like very much? A well-known firebrand in the East Bay, Allen is in her fifth term on the Concord City Council. Previously, she served on the Clayton City Council and Planning Commission. She's been a player in Contra Costa County land use planning for 35 years, a period during which Contra Costa County's bedroom suburbs have boomed. That's because people find those suburbs desirable, Allen said. The high-density, transit-oriented plan for the Navy property? "Nobody wants to say the king is naked," Allen told me. "I'm trying to be realistic." A little more recently, I spoke with Graham Brownstein, executive director of the Environmental Council of Sacramento, for an upcoming story in Planning magazine on fast-growing cites. One of the cities I examined is Elk Grove. In many respects, Elk Grove is the epitome of modern-day suburbia: massive single-family subdivisions, several commercial power centers, and broad boulevards connecting to highways that carry commuters to jobs in nearby Sacramento. From Brownstein's perspective, Elk Grove also epitomizes everything that's wrong with suburbia. There are no real alternatives to the automobile, there are few employment centers, and the low-density development has paved over hundreds of acres of prime farmland and valuable habitat. "It's not a question of growing or not growing, but rather, how do we grow and are we growing in ways that harness our investment in the best way possible?" Brownstein said. "Even if there weren't economic benefits, you could make an argument that it makes more sense to build communities for people rather than for cars." Brownstein pointed to midtown Sacramento as a better model. Midtown's grid and street design make walking and bicycling feasible, there is a nice mix of structures and uses, traffic is congested but does move, and large employers are located in the neighborhood and close by. He also cited central Folsom, which has a walkable grid, mixed uses and a light rail transit station.   So which vision is correct? Allen's suburbia, which characterizes California since World War II ended? Or Brownstein's urbanism, which predominated prior to the war? Passage of Senate Bill 375 suggests Brownstein's vision may win. I would suggest, however, that we're still in the very early innings. - Paul Shigley

The City of Stockton had no right to take private property on which it later built a minor league baseball stadium, the Third District Court of Appeal has ruled. "This is a case of ‘condemn first, decide what to do with the property later,'" Justice Kathleen Butz wrote for the unanimous three-judge appellate panel. "We shall conclude that the project description in the resolutions of necessity was so vague, uncertain and sweeping in scope that it failed to specify the ‘public use' for which city sought acquisition of the property. This crucial defect precluded an intelligent inquiry into whether city had a legal right to condemn the property and fatally flawed the condemnation process." The court did not order the return of the property – complete with ballpark and parking lot – to the previous owner. Instead, it permitted the city to commence the eminent domain process anew. The court did order the city to pay the property owner's legal costs, estimated at nearly $1 million. The five-story Marina Towers office building was constructed during the mid-1970s as part of a waterfront redevelopment effort that never took off. By the time an entity called Marina Towers LLC (Marina) purchased the property and an adjacent unimproved parcel in 2000, the office building was vacant. The owners proposed renovating the building and opened negotiations with San Joaquin County officials about a potential lease. Meanwhile, city staff members were working on a plan that identified the Marina properties and others along the north shore of the Stockton Deep Water Channel for development of the Stockton Event Center, which would feature an indoor arena, a baseball stadium, a hotel and apartments. The city notified Marina in May 2003 that it was considering acquiring the property via eminent domain. Two months later, the City Council approved a preliminary site plan for the Stockton Event Center that called for an apartment complex on the site of the vacant office building. In September 2003, the council conducted a hearing to consider a resolution of necessity – an essential step before the filing of an eminent domain legal action. At the hearing, Marina's representative complained the city had not defined the project for which it needed the property and questioned how condemnation could benefit the public when it appeared the city was simply transferring the property from one developer to another. Nevertheless, the City Council unanimously approved resolutions of necessity for both parcels, stating that the city already owned 20 acres on the north shore it was preparing for development, that the site was a "catalyst site" for redevelopment and that assembling the north shore parcels would permit development of larger and economically feasible uses. Six days later, the city filed its eminent domain action. Marina fought the lawsuit vigorously. While the litigation was pending, the city adopted an environmental impact report for the Stockton Event Center project, adopted a new resolution of necessity stating it needed one of Marina's parcels for parking, and then adopted a supplemental resolution designating the other parcel for a ballpark. By the time a trial began in 2005 on the city's right to take the properties, the city had already constructed the ballpark and parking lot (see CP&DR Local Watch , December 2006 ). Marina argued the city's acquisition did not serve a public purpose, the resolutions were invalid because they did not identify a public use, the city violated the California Environmental Quality Act by failing to complete a new EIR before condemning the property, and the city unlawfully condemned property in a redevelopment project area without complying with the Community Redevelopment Law. The property owner got nowhere with a San Joaquin County Superior Court judge, who rejected all of Marina's claims. A jury later awarded Marina $1.97 million as compensation for the taking. Marina found a much more receptive audience at the Third District Court of Appeal. In its decision, the court reviewed the details of eminent domain law and the Community Redevelopment Law. Although the property lies in a redevelopment project area, the City of Stockton – not the Stockton Redevelopment Agency – acquired the property. Thus, because the property was not being taken to eliminate blight as permitted under redevelopment law, the city had to find (1) the project was in the public interest and necessity, (2) the project was compatible with the greatest public good and least private injury, and (3) the property acquisition was necessary for the project. But the court determined that because there was "no intelligible description" of the project, Stockton could not make the required findings. "If the governing body does not have before it a definable project for which the property is sought to be taken, any discussion of the pros and cons of the condemnation would be an empty gesture and the necessity findings rendered at the conclusion of the hearing would be devoid of real meaning," Justice Butz wrote. Instead, the city provided a list of every potential legal reason for taking the property. But, the court held, "A statement that the property is being taken for any or all of the authorized purposes listed in the Government Code or Code of Civil Procedure amounts to a failure to disclose the purpose of the taking." The fact that the city later changed the resolutions of necessity and actually built public facilities does not matter, the court ruled, because, "a governing body's post-resolution conduct is not relevant" to the validity of the resolutions. Thus, the court ruled, the trial court should have dismissed the city's eminent domain action. Marina argued that if the city's condemnation was not valid, Marina should get the property back. But the court declined to give Marina a publicly funded stadium and parking lot. Instead, it offered the city "the opportunity to adopt new resolutions of necessity for the Marina property containing an adequate description of the proposed projects." Exactly how the process might work, however, is uncertain because the new resolutions arguably would be after-the-fact rationalizations and hearings to "consider" the resolutions mere formalities. Ever since Redevelopment Agency v. Norm's Slauson , (1985) 173 Cal.App.4th 1121 – in which the court blocked an eminent domain action because the agency had already contracted with a developer to build housing on the property being condemned – courts have frowned on resolutions of necessity that amount to foregone conclusions. The Case: City of Stockton v. Marina Towers LLC , No. C054495, 09 C.D.O.S. 1848, 2009 DJDAR 2187. Filed February 13, 2009. The Lawyers: For the city: Thomas Keeling, Freeman, D'Auito, Pierce, Gurev, Keeling & Wolf, (209) 474-1818. For Marina Towers: Norman Matteoni, Matteoni, O'Laughlin & Hechtman, (408) 293-4300.

If you're in a big hurry to build a road project, environmental review can get in the way. As Bill Fulton reports in this month's Insight column , the state budget pact exempted eight Caltrans projects from the California Environmental Quality Act so that they get built quicker. But some folks in Tehama County are saying, "Hey, wait a second" One of the exempt projects is on Highway 99 in Los Molinos, a small, unincorporated Tehama County community in the almond and pecan orchards between Red Bluff and Chico. Highway 99 is a two-lane highway in these parts. The speed limit south of Los Molinos is 65 mph; to the north, the limit is 55 mph. But the highway is the main drag and commercial corridor in Los Molinos. It's where the town's grocery store, pharmacy, gas stations, bank, post office, hardware store, restaurants and churches are located. The speed limit in town is 35 mph, but many motorists cruise through at 45-plus mph. Caltrans plans a significant traffic calming project to slow motorists passing through Los Molinos and make the situation safer for pedestrians and bicyclists. Caltrans's project calls for building an island at both ends of town, a traffic signal, curb, gutter and sidewalks, and a crosswalk with pedestrian-activated warning lights. I envision something like Highway 299 through Willow Creek in Humboldt, a marvelous traffic calming project completed several years ago. Willow Creek, on Highway 299. But as the Red Bluff Daily News reports, not everyone is satisfied with the Los Molinos project plan. The Chamber of Commerce suggests one aspect of the project could make the situation more hazardous. I don't know if the Chamber's concern is warranted. I do know that this project could be the biggest thing to happen in economically depressed Los Molinos in decades. If Caltrans had to complete an environmental review of the project, we might get some answers to the Chamber's concern. Because of the exemption signed by the governor, we apparently won't know until after the project is built. – Paul Shigley

In the High Desert north of Los Angeles, under the same patch of sky where Chuck Yeager first tore through the sound barrier, Palmdale Regional Airport has been the object of grandiose dreams for nearly two generations. Los Angeles World Airports (LAWA) purchased 17,000 as yet undeveloped acres during the 1960s as a portal for commercial jets that would connect the Antelope Valley with any other point on the globe. High-speed rail would whisk passengers up from the Los Angeles Basin to this new international air hub. Three decades later, you can't fly from Palmdale to San Francisco, much less Singapore. In the most recent effort to get even a modest vision off the ground, United Airlines initiated in May 2007 two daily nonstops to SFO from the rechristened LA/Palmdale Airport (PMD), which had operated from Air Force Plant 42 since 1971. United was the eighth carrier to operate from this rinky-dink terminal amid the Joshua trees, but 18 months later, in December 2008, United cancelled the service. United's departure creates more than an inconvenience for High Desert dwellers. It marks perhaps the most grave setback in a long, frustrating effort to spread Southern California's immense amount of air traffic more evenly across the region. "Palmdale is basically the lifeline of the future," said University of California, San Diego, political science professor Steve Erie, a longtime observer of air service in Southern California. "It's just that the future hasn't arrived yet." United had agreed to serve Palmdale in part because of $4 million in federal and local subsidies, plus a heap of enthusiasm. Wheels Up Palmdale, a coalition of the cities of Los Angeles and Palmdale, LAWA, the Air Force, and local business groups, had lobbied for the service and for the subsidy. Their goals included local economic development and shorter drives for High Desert residents who would otherwise use LAX or Burbank airport. " would have a positive ripple effect throughout the county and region," said Tony Bell, spokesman for Supervisor Michael Antonovich, who represents northern Los Angeles County. "It would be a tremendous boon for the area, improving air quality, the economy, and mobility." "When we went up there for everybody was happy," added Los Angeles City Councilman Bill Rosendahl, who served on the Southern California Regional Airport Authority (SCRAA). "But I knew it was a stretch. It was more symbolic about what the future could be than the reality of the moment." More than 300,000 people live in the immediate Palmdale/Lancaster area, with many more in the greater High Desert region. Smaller free-standing cities throughout California, such as Redding, Santa Barbara, and San Luis Obispo, support commercial service. But, lacking major employment centers, the bedroom communities of the Antelope Valley did not generate the business United sought, and would-be passengers from surrounding areas did not materialize. "There simply wasn't enough customer interest," said United spokesman Jeff Kovic. "It was heavily marketed by United and our partners in the Los Angeles area." Because of freeway traffic and the crush of passengers at LAX, Los Angeles-area public officials and regional planning agencies have long sought to divert passengers away from LAX and towards the region's six other commercial airports (Palmdale, Burbank, Ontario, Long Beach, Orange County and Palm Springs). Palmdale features prominently in the Southern California Association of Government's 2004 "Integrated Metropolitan Airport System Plan," which had figured on up to 12.8 million annual passengers and $1 billion in investment in Palmdale by 2030. Now, LAWA has actually relinquished PMD's Federal Aviation Administration certification to operate as a commercial airport (it can be reinstated), while jackrabbits preside over LAWA's 17,000 vacant acres. Proposals for using that property as a sanitation facility and even a solar power farm have recently surfaced. "Regionalization is dead for the near term," said Erie. "There was some commitment on the part of L.A. and L.A. World Airports, but the problem is that they cannot force the airlines to do what the airlines don't want to do. Airlines fly to markets not to airports. And the problem is that when the airlines are financially troubled they cut back on particularly new, uncertain, and marginal routes." As its proponents describe it, airport regionalization centers not so much on air travel per se but rather on the associated traffic and land use patterns. The hope was that public sector leadership could compel airlines to spread out flights among the region's airports so that fewer travelers would have to drive across the region in search of convenient flights and favorable prices, often found at LAX. The economic benefits an airport provides would also spread out. Though few local leaders voiced opposition, the political will and infrastructure to make regionalization a reality never materialized, as unorganized and often mutually uninterested municipalities and rival airport authorities made coordination nearly impossible. The SCRAA, which had convened sporadically for the past decade to discuss ways to coordinate Southern California's 14 commercial and cargo airports, was only an ad hoc group that garnered little attention and, like the Southern California Association of Governments, wielded no coercive or budgetary power. "It's difficult to coordinate the efforts unless everyone comes to the table willing to take additional air traffic," said LAWA Executive Director Gina Marie Lindsey, who praised the efforts of both United and Palmdale's local boosters. "Everybody to push their air traffic somewhere else as opposed to coming to the table and saying, ‘Let's divide this up evenly.'" Lindsey noted that, since 1980, LAX's share of regional passenger traffic has dropped from 74% to 57%. Whatever spirit of regionalization remains is now focused on L.A./Ontario airport, which can legally serve up to 30 million passengers per year but currently serves fewer than 10 million. The greatest long-term hope for Palmdale may therefore depend on the ground transportation infrastructure that comes of Los Angeles County's $30 billion Measure R, the 2008 sales tax initiative. "To make Palmdale ever happen you need the transportation links," said Rosendahl. "This needs a 10- to 20-year plan with the commitment from leadership that says we're going to do it. And there's never been that commitment from the regional approach." LAWA recently issued a post-mortem report declaring the airport currently unsuited for commercial service. Nevertheless, the City of Palmdale holds out hope that PMD can be revived. It may try to assume control of the airport and pursue a low-cost carrier. "We're going to take greater control of our destiny," said Palmdale Mayor Jim Ledford, who has championed the airport since he first took office in 1992. "It is an economic engine that we have not even seen the beginning of." Ledford added that he welcomes LAWA's involvement if it chooses to return. While proposals for new airports historically meet with the fierce local opposition, Palmdale is eager to capitalize on an asset that is bought and paid for. "We have what I would submit is the best land use plan for an airport," said Ledford. "We have the best buffering, we've done the noise corridors; the air quality zones off the freeways are in place; it's part of our general plan." Ironically, though, the very same reasons why Palmdale will not become another El Toro – the former Orange County Marine Corps base that infamously failed to win approval as a commercial airport (see CP&DR Deals , May 2003 ; CP&DR , April 2002 ) – is the same reason why Palmdale is unlikely to become another LAX. "The difficulty in building or activating an airport is directly proportional to the population at the site," said LAWA's Lindsey. "The viability of a regularly scheduled commercial service at Palmdale is a ways off. There's not all that many people around the Palmdale airport. That makes it difficult to build traffic, but it does mean that there's not much opposition." Except maybe from the jackrabbits. Palmdale Mayor Jim Ledford, (661) 267-5100, www.cityofpalmdale.org . Los Angeles City Councilman Bill Rosendahl, (213) 473-7011. Steve Erie, UCSD Department of Political Science, (858) 534-3083. Gina Marie Lindsey, Los Angeles World Airports, (424) 646-5260, www.lawa.org . Office of County Supervisor Michael Antonovich, (213) 974-5555.

Have you registered to attend the nation's premier redevelopment conference? The 2009 CRA Annual Conference & EXPO will feature an outstanding slate of speakers and workshops that will provide attendees with new insights, useful strategies, and practical guidance on how to carry out the work of redevelopment in these difficult times. This year's event is being held on April 1-3 at the Monterey Conference Center and Portola Hotel in Monterey. This year's theme is Redevelopment. New Strategies for Making Communities Better and Greener. Attendees will learn the latest information on the State's budget, Federal Stimulus Package, CRA's lawsuit against the State, how to build green communities, how to build coalitions at the local level, CRA's California's Communities program, and more. CRA is so confident that you will learn at least three new things at the 2009 Annual Conference & EXPO that will help you build better communities; we will give your money back if you don't! Wednesday morning's opening speaker is former Governor of Maryland and chairman of the National Governors Association, Parris Glendening, who is President of the Smart Growth Leadership Institute. Governor Glendening will discuss the blending of smart growth and sustainability strategies to address the challenges facing redevelopment agencies. He will also discuss how, as governor, he created a groundbreaking smart growth initiative that focused on using the entire $23 billion state budget as an incentive for smart growth. The Awards luncheon will begin at noon followed by the 13th Annual Awards of Excellence ceremony. This year's program will recognize the eight award-winning projects and the recipients of the Lifetime Achievement In Redevelopment Awards and the William A. Carlson Fellowships. Concurrent sessions and bus tours will be held following the awards ceremony and on Thursday morning. A bus tour of a successful green development project in downtown Monterey is scheduled for Wednesday afternoon, and a bus tour of Fort Ord's redevelopment area is scheduled for Thursday morning. Concurrent sessions will feature topics of discussion that include compact development to comply with AB 32 and SB 375; an update on real estate capital markets; innovative approaches to public/private Brownfields development; case studies on green downtown and affordable housing projects; building healthy communities; attracting new economy businesses; implementing AB 987; and, "Train the Trainer" sessions on effective presentations and use of PowerPoint. Thursday's luncheon features Huell Howser, the host and producer of California's Communities, CRA's ground-breaking public television series. Huell will discuss his adventures in filming California's Communities. A DVD featuring the first six episodes will be given free to all attendees at the luncheon! Huell will also be at the EXPO following the luncheon. Attendees will have an opportunity to say hello to Huell and have their photo taken with him. This year's EXPO begins at 2:00 p.m. and features 90 exhibitors displaying the widest array of redevelopment products and services in one place. A list of exhibitors is on CRA's website at www.calredevelop.org . At the website, click on Annual Conference then click on EXPO and Exhibitors . There is a line-up of outstanding sessions on Friday morning that attendees will not want to miss. It begins with concurrent sessions addressing how to lessen the impact of the foreclosure crisis on communities; exurbanization and its implications; declining assessed values; and pass-throughs to comply with AB 1389. Following these sessions will be a general session that will discuss a topic of vital importance to sustaining the funds and tools of redevelopment into the future—coalition building at the local level. Assembly Member Anna Caballero, Chair of the Assembly Local Government Committee, has been invited to begin the session. The session will then feature Dr. Tom Wolff, co-author of From the Ground Up! A Workbook on Coalition Building & Community Development. His topic, Coalition Building: Key to Avoiding More Takeaways of Agency Funds, will discuss how to build local coalitions to advocate redevelopment as an economic stimulus and job creation engine. Following Dr. Wolff, a panel of local redevelopment representatives will discuss how they are successfully building coalitions in their communities. The session will conclude with a discussion on strategies for the future of redevelopment. CRA is a State Bar of California approved Minimum Continuing Legal Education (MCLE) provider. MCLE credits will be available for many of the workshops at the conference. The conference program identifies those sessions eligible for MCLE credit. Registration for CRA's 2009 Annual Conference & EXPO is available online by going to the CRA website here .  Registration forms in the conference announcement can also be faxed to CRA at (916) 448-9397. For additional information on the conference, contact Judy Jennemann by email at jjennemann@calredevelop.org or by telephone at (916) 448-8760. Special Speed Coaching Session for the Next Generation of Redevelopment Leaders A speed coaching workshop for the next generation of redevelopment leaders is being held on Wednesday, April 1, from 3:45 – 5:00 p.m. at the Marriott Monterey Hotel (across the street from the Monterey Conference Center). The workshop will provide young, aspiring redevelopment professionals with guidance and counseling from senior level redevelopment officials on how to become leaders in the field of redevelopment. To learn more about this workshop, including how to register, go to CRA website and click on the Annual Conference then click Speed Coaching Workshop.

Need to know where you can find the Timberland Productivity Act in state law? How about the statute governing specific plans? Want to know what the heck the Mills Act really offers to owners of historic properties? Can't figure out where to locate an appellate court opinion that was issued in 1999? Then you need "The Quick List," a glossary of statutes pertaining to local government that also provides guidance on retrieving public documents, as well as links to useful government, planning and policy websites. The 28-page document is a very helpful reference guide for anyone with an interest in local government or land use matters. Compiled by the state Senate Local Government Committee, "The Quick List" has been around since the 1980s, and legislative staffers, government officials, lobbyists and journalists have been relying on it ever since. Staff members and Senate fellows have updated and expanded the document over the years, and the latest and greatest version hit the streets in February. "The Quick List" is available right here . – Paul Shigley

A few months ago, leaders of the California Building Industry Association started using the term "depression." When you look at the numbers, it's hard to argue that the homebuilding industry is not in a depression, rather than a recession. That's why builders are flogging a new, $10,000 state tax credit for purchasers of new homes. The tax credit was part of last month's state budget package, which appears to have had goodies for a large number of constituencies (see Bill Fulton's Insight column ). The homebuyer's program contained in SBx2 15 (Ashburn) provides purchasers a $3,333 credit annually for three years that may be applied to the buyer's state income tax return. The unit must not have been occupied previously, and the buyer must agree to occupy the home as a principle residence for at least two years. The program has a $100 million limit, meaning 10,000 buyers could receive the subsidy. Some buyers may also be eligible for the new federal tax credit program, although it appears the criteria don't overlap well. The intent of the state program is to kick-start California's moribund homebuilding industry, which is reporting the lowest number of starts since, well … since anyone started keeping track. In January, builders pulled permits for 2,007 units, the lowest seasonally adjusted month on record, according to the Construction Industry Research Board. The low numbers caused the board to knock down its forecast for 2009 to 56,000 housing starts – or about 150,000 fewer units than were produced in 2005. True, January is often slow for builders. Still, Santa Cruz, Merced, Madera, Napa, Solano, Sutter and Yuba counties combined issued only 15 permits for new units in January. Fifteen! These are counties with a combined 1.4 million residents. Essentially, new homebuilding has stopped in large portions of the state. Not slowed, but stopped. But will the tax credit program actually goose construction activity, or will it simply help some big builders unload inventory? "We should be able to see very quickly the willingness of builders to start pulling building permits again," Lane Marceaux, chairman of the California Major Builders Council and head of Shea Homes' Northern California division, told reporters during a recent conference call. But Marceaux and Tim Coyle, vice president of the CBIA, declined to predict how quickly builders would respond. "We can't predict it will produce the outcome we expect, but it does have a track record," Coyle said. He was referring to a federal program implemented in 1975, also during an economic slump. Congress authorized a tax credit worth 5% of home value up to $2,000 for the purchase of new homes. Home buying increased by 25% within a year and housing starts doubled in two years. Fear and uncertainty have been keeping people out of the home buying market lately, observed Coyle. He said the tax credit should help ease consumers' worries, but I'm not convinced. With the state unemployment rate steaming past 10% and real estate values continuing to drop, I think fear and uncertainty rule the day. Combine them with continuing tight credit for both buyers and builders, and reasons for confidence diminish further. I have other questions about the tax credit program, such as whether it should have been targeted to certain areas or certain buyers. But I'm probably asking for too much. Give the builders credit for trying to get something going. We'll check back later this year to see if the program seems to be working. – Paul Shigley

We may be witnessing the end of the auto mall as a cash cow for cities. Auto sales nationwide are half what they were a year ago. Perhaps as many as half of all auto dealerships will go under in the current economic downturn. Car buyers have shifted their browsing to the Internet with amazing speed. And they're buying cars from anybody they don't have to haggle with – no matter where the sellers are. As I suggest in my current Economic Development column in Governing magazine , auto malls may soon suffer the fate of general merchandise retail malls. Once they were impregnable fortresses of transactional commerce. Now they're beginning to wither away. So, as with retail malls a decade ago, cities will face a choice with their auto malls: They can play defense and try to maintain a strong position in the withering marketplace of car sales, or they can figure out something else to do with the land freed up by failed auto dealerships. Sacramento may be the first place where all this is playing out. The market is dwindling, and the two dominant auto centers – Roseville and Folsom – are beginning to suffer. Recently, the city and county governments of Sacramento made common cause against these suburban auto malls by agreeing to a sales tax sharing system for auto dealerships. The truth, however, is that this is not regional cooperation; it's circling the wagons. Wouldn't it be ironic if sales tax sharing finally came about after many years of political battles, but only to protect withering auto malls from dying entirely?  – Bill Fulton

Tom Bradley's dream for downtown Los Angeles was never realized – at least not in the form he originally envisioned. The city's biggest-thinking mayor (1973-1993) of the postwar era, Bradley wanted a great downtown like those in Chicago, Houston and San Francisco. By the 1970s, L.A.'s period of greatness, as distinct from mere bigness, had started: Los Angeles had surpassed Chicago as the nation's second largest metropolis, while the Los Angeles and Long Beach ports, clogged with imports from booming Asian economies, were now busier than the New York-New Jersey ports. Los Angeles was the American gateway to the rising tigers of Asia, just as New York was the American gateway to a declining Europe. Los Angeles needed a downtown commensurate with its new status as financial hub of the West Coast. This downtown would have soaring towers, silk ties and firm handshakes. This downtown would be an essential location for Corporate America and all the blue stockinged lawyers, accountants and consultants holding its train. Above all, downtown would impose a center on a notoriously uncentered city, as if to rebut H.L. Mencken's notorious snark that Los Angeles was no more than a "group of suburbs in search of a metropolis." Today, downtown L.A. has become a great residential neighborhood and a significant office market, although developers and market forces ultimately played a bigger role than government or public policy. Prior to the 1970s, L.A.'s faded and obsolete downtown was fit for a smaller city of an earlier era. The center of downtown was the iconic City Hall on Main Street, a white tower with battened walls and a pyramidal dome that for many years was the tallest building downtown by city ordinance. Completing the symbolic triumvirate of downtown power was St. Vibiana's Cathedral, the seat of the Archdiocese for a heavily Catholic community, and the Los Angeles Times building. Industry and warehouses centered on the rail yards on the east side, near the river. The office district stood in the terra cotta covered buildings of Broadway and Spring Street, while Seventh Street's cluster of department stores was the regional shopping destination. The Pacific Electric Red Car made downtown a principal hub of a four-county commuter rail network. The rest of downtown was housing, primarily frame houses, some of which had fallen into slum-like dilapidation. Novelist Christopher Isherwood famously decried Bunker Hill as "the most squalid" neighborhood in the country. Highway construction during the 1950s and 1960s gave downtown new, de facto boundaries, with Interstate 10 to the south, Interstate 110 to the west, and the junction of Highway 101 and Interstate 5 on the north. On the east, the channelized Los Angeles River provided a fourth concrete boundary. The freeways "isolated downtown from the rest of town," according to Carol Schatz, president of the Central City Association, a trade group that promotes relocation and business growth. The former city center had become an island of bureaucracy. While industrially vibrant, downtown was rarely visited by the middle-class residents of the Westside or the San Fernando Valley. Downtown wasn't "nice." Unless you were a bureaucrat, a juror or a builder pulling a permit, there was no reason to go there. The Central Business District To achieve his downtown vision, Bradley realized the Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA) was his most important ally. Through seven different redevelopment project areas, the agency virtually carpeted the whole of downtown. Other city agencies, however. seemed to resent a redevelopment agency that danced to its own tune, while catapulting its chosen developers over the snake pit of the city's notorious entitlement bureaucracy. Detractors complained the CRA operated almost as a government unto itself. The powerful City Council in this weak-mayor city also seemed both wary and envious of the redevelopment agency. Councilmembers routinely waved through projects with little discussion, yet the council on several occasions tried to rein in the powerful agency and yank redevelopment, and its money, away from an ambitious mayor. The most lasting damage occurred in 1977 with the settlement of an oddball lawsuit brought personally by Councilman Ernani Bernardi against the agency. His suit charged that the redevelopment agency aided the development of office buildings at the expense of low-income housing and other social services. (Advocates of redevelopment might argue that the agency needs big taxpayers to finance affordable housing.) To settle the suit, the agency agreed to cap the spending of tax increment revenues in the Central Business District at $750 million. Repeated attempts to renegotiate the cap during subsequent decades – Bradley later suggested $5 billion – went nowhere because the settlement precluded any changes without all parties' agreement. The First Super Project: Bunker Hill After its formation in 1949, the CRA soon seized upon Bunker Hill as "Redevelopment Project Number One." For the next two decades, the agency commissioned a series of master plans in which large commercial buildings would replace declining residential neighborhoods. Following the scrape-and-rebuild mode of classic urban renewal, the agency demolished all the housing in 1970. In 1979, the agency finally settled on a master plan for an 11.5-acre area that called for an extremely dense project of 11 million square feet of office space, 3,000 apartments and 2,000 hotel rooms. The agency sought out developers, and the two finalists were a Chicago firm affiliated with Metropolitan Life Insurance Company and Rob Maguire II, a then-unknown who had assembled a team of young architects, including Cesar Pelli, Frank Gehry and Barton Myers. The agency chose Metropolitan Structures, perhaps for its financial strength, although its bland design of three identical, reflective glass towers, each 1 million square feet in size, seemed anti-climactic, even sadly ironic, after decades of planning. The CRA was forward thinking, though, requiring developers to build public amenities in exchange for public subsidies such as land assemblage or the sale of land at below-market rates. The agency, however, often played a weak hand in negotiating the devil's bargain of asking private developers to build public amenities. During the early 1980s, the CRA negotiated with the California Plaza developers to build the new Museum of Contemporary Art on that commercial campus. For some reason, the agency accepted a design that located the museum's front door 20 feet below street level. (My guess is that Metropolitan Structures did not want the cultural building to block the view of a hotel and apartment complex from the street.) The resulting museum building looks as if the ground had slumped beneath it, leaving only the pointed roofs visible from Grand Avenue. Renowned architect Arata Isozaki reportedly quit the job at least twice before its completion in 1984. Even more questionable was the design of a regional shopping mall in Citicorp Tower. Although the agency had long desired fancy shopping downtown, the CRA allowed the developers of the three-tower complex to sink a new shopping center into a hole 50 feet below street level. Except for a decorative "space frame" above the hole, the shopping center was invisible from the street. The developers apparently did not want the shopping space to block the view of their office towers, and the idea of designing the two together somehow did not occur to them. This bizarre underground mall, made up of three descending rings of retail centered on a shadowy round courtyard, resembled something out of Dante's inferno, except it was cold. The unfortunate center remains open today. If new public buildings were questionable, office buildings were hot. In 1985, foreign investment punctuated by the $550 million purchase of the Arco Plaza office complex made downtown L.A. arguably the most desirable place for a West Coast developer to buy or build. Even though some suburban office markets commanded higher rents than downtown, overseas investors targeted the center city, perhaps in belief that the center city would contain L.A.'s most valuable office market. By the 1990s, a real estate brokerage could publish a map of downtown office buildings with foreign flags attached to most of them. Despite record prices for land and buildings, downtown was not penciling out. Downtown's Fortune 500 companies, never great in number, almost disappeared entirely due largely to the late 1980s' merger-and-acquisition activity. Arco, IBM, Unocal and Security Pacific Bank all departed, leaving acres of empty sublease space that spoiled the market for full-price "landlord space." Downtown office buildings were rarely more than 85% occupied, the break-even point for many landlords. Macroeconomic troubles followed. The S&L meltdown combined with the Japanese banking crisis halted new office construction. Shuwa Investments, which had been Southern California's leading Japanese investor, was exposed as a naked emperor, having built its real estate empire by borrowing against the paper value of its stock market holdings. When those holdings went poof, the once-mighty investor vaporized like smoke from an incense burner. Since 1992, no speculative office project has been built downtown, although developers continue to propose them and the city has actually approved several. A New Wave Of Public Investment During the subsequent lull of the 1990s, the CRA continued to invest heavily in downtown L.A. The agency doubled the size of the convention center, while developing new apartment buildings and residential complexes in Chinatown, Little Tokyo and South Park, an area of aging industrial buildings and parking lots that the agency wanted to transform into a residential neighborhood. The agency built two apartment buildings and a condo complex in South Park, but market-rate housing was a tough sell. Except for people commuting between the U.S. and Asia and downtown business owners, few wanted to live downtown. By the late 1990s, downtown's 2,000 residents remained almost invisible amid the transient population of 500,000 daytime workers. Downtown also seemed resistant to the idea of loft housing, despite the popularity among artists of converted concrete buildings in the industrial area. Obsolete building codes didn't help; the small number of developers attempting to convert older buildings in the office district found they needed special variances. Even when completed, these pioneering developments sometimes fared poorly, because they were often isolated from other residential buildings. Developer Ira Yellin, who pioneered private sector preservation in downtown L.A. with the refurbishments of the sky-lit Bradley Building, Grand Central Market and Los Angeles Union Station, lost money during the early 1990s when he converted the upper stories of the Million Dollar Theater, an ornate movie palace, into rental units. Yet room to grow was limited. Architect Chris Martin told the Downtown News during the late 1990s that many aging office buildings were obsolete and impossible to convert to modern office space. Without a viable option for reuse, he warned, many buildings faced demolition. Downtown L.A. was choking on its own history. A single city law resolved this crisis and changed the urban landscape. In 1999, the City Council approved the adaptive reuse ordinance, a law sponsored by the Central City Association that encouraged developers to convert old buildings to housing by relaxing certain building and safety requirements. Historic buildings line Broadway. One outspoken developer was Tom Gilmore, who converted three 19th Century office buildings into what he called the Old Bank District. In the great Los Angeles tradition, Gilmore was a tireless promoter who stumped for downtown living from every platform he could scramble onto. His great discovery was rehabilitation of several adjacent buildings at one time, creating a sense of both community and safety. While some renters would complain of alleged shortcomings in his rehab efforts, Gilmore had done the impossible: He had popularized downtown loft living in Los Angeles, albeit after other large downtowns had long since hopped on the rehab wagons of SoHo, SoMa and LoDo. Los Angeles, in fact, was "the last major city to embrace downtown loft conversions," said Schatz, of the Central City Association. Developers and their lenders are herd animals, risk averse and hesitant to explore. With the acceptance of the Old Bank District, however, local and national developers were soon building luxury condos in older buildings, while new residential structures arose on former hamburger stands and parking lots. The one-time Standard Oil headquarters became The Standard, a hip hotel with a marquee stylishly hung upside down. (If you had to ask why, you were too hopeless to stay there.) Formerly feared and shunned by young professionals, downtown soon filled with the fleshpots of the yuppie and dink classes. Adaptive reuse and gentrification had achieved where urban renewal had failed. By the time Bernardi's curse came true in 2000 and the central district ran out of redevelopment money, it seemed a non-event. Downtown's loft scene had the "big mo." By 2008, nearly 47,000 people lived inside the freeway ring, according to the Central City Association. "I don't know exactly which number represents critical mass," said Schatz, "but I think we have achieved it." The Next Super Projects: Grand Avenue And LA Live When the Frank Gehry-design Disney Hall opened in 2004 after two decades of management and design changes, cost overruns and fundraising, downtown finally had a swashbuckling masterpiece for what had become an arts corridor. The concert hall, the new Los Angeles Cathedral, The Colburn School of music, the Museum of Contemporary Art and the Los Angeles Music Center, a Lincoln Center knockoff dating from the 1960s, all stood along a three-block stretch of Grand Avenue. The CRA thus shifted into high gear to create the "connective tissue," such as townhouses and single-story retail buildings, to tie all the buildings together. The CRA commissioned urban architect Doug Suisman to develop ideas about public space. He proposed a grassy median running down the center of the boulevard, inspired by Barcelona's ramblas, if much narrower. The development potential of Grand Avenue lay in four large land parcels on the steep slope directly east of the street; half of those lots were owned by the City of Los Angeles, the other half by Los Angeles County. The city and the county, which typically clashed over downtown development, in this case created a joint venture to develop the lots in a single super project. Part of their motivation was a longstanding ambition to grow rich by selling surplus land for commercial development. Grand Avenue, however, was an odd design problem. The construction of Bunker Hill's enormous office buildings had required the removal of nearly all the underlying soil to make room for parking structures and access roads. The hill was gone and all that remained was a street, really a bridge, spanning a freeway entrance. Ironically, the CRA, which had invented Bunker Hill in its modern form, found itself muscled aside in the Grand Avenue design competition. In the wake of the Bernardi lawsuit, the agency had no money to hand out, and, hence, little influence. The agency was forced to stand aside while a "public committee" of city and county officials, led by firebrand Supervisor Gloria Molina, reviewed the proposals. Managing both the "public process" and the expectations of the elected officials were two experienced hands, developer Jim Thomas and insurance magnate Eli Broad. The competition came down to two nationally known developers, both of whom proposed high-rise towers for apartments, condominiums and hotel rooms. Eventually, the officials chose The Related Cos. The company had just completed the well-regarded Two Columbus Circle in Manhattan, a pair of twin towers designed with three floors of retail immediately above street level. Molina, a champion of low-income housing, signed off when the developers set aside 25% of the units for that purpose. Related's proposal appeared similar, including plentiful retail, to its New York towers. But even with the prestigious Gehry as urban designer, the extremely dense high-rise scheme relegated Grand Avenue to the status of foyer for a 500,000-square-foot shopping experience. The five-tower project serves the investor demand for high-rise "product" to the near-exclusion of all other types of housing, shoehorning an East Coast project onto a Los Angeles site. Because of financing problems, development has fallen more than two years behind schedule. The third Super Project is LA Live, an entertainment and hotel extravaganza nearing completion on the southern edge of downtown, near the convention center. The city has long wanted a convention center hotel, which it considered the missing ingredient needed to book national meetings. Built around the existing Staples Center sports arena, this 17-acre project includes the Nokia Theater, nightclubs and a 53-story tower containing two separate hotels and 200 high-priced condominiums, stacked atop one another like layers in a parfait dessert. Jumbotron images animate a central courtyard. The commercial bombast of LA Live In a further show of impotence, the CRA applauded the project while allowing its long-nurtured South Park project to get steamrolled. The attainment of a convention center hotel is the fig leaf that allows the agency to pretend that at least one of its original priorities survives within this $3 billion act of usurpation. Developer Philip Anschutz was able to build this self-contained, inward-looking, anti-urban monument to his sports, theater and ticket-sales empires simply by filing an amendment to the city's general plan. So much for 30 years of planning. A billionaire developer with an alluring project will inevitably have his way with the city, in every sense. It is hard to mention planning in this context without bitter irony. The cash-poor, politically orphaned redevelopment agency – formerly the downtown agenda-setter – now must rubber stamp whatever the City Council wants. Otherwise, it is hard to imagine how an agency with an avowed mission of "quality urban design" could encourage a giant project that disregards the rest of downtown, to the extent of setting up an opaque wall on Figueroa Boulevard. The considerable flaws of Grand Avenue and LA Live, however, do nut nullify the larger achievement of downtown Los Angeles. If Tom Bradley's downtown of economic domination was never fully realized, something better arose in its stead: A pedestrian oriented urban neighborhood where the selling points are human-scaled urbanism, plus the regional attractions of a large job market, mass transit, education, culture and entertainment. Above all, downtown is convenient, especially if you leave the car at home. "We walk everywhere – to the movies, to the supermarket," said a 30-year-old woman of my acquaintance, who shares a child-free apartment with her husband. When you tire of Super Projects, you can take a walk through the restored Union Station, a masterpiece of Art Moderne dating from 1940 and downtown's finest building prior to Disney Hall. Across the street is Philippe's French Dip restaurant, where a cup of coffee costs 10 cents, just as it did 40 years ago. You can explore the produce and flower markets during the early morning, and buy a decent suit for wholesale in the Garment District. As imperfection goes, it's not bad.

It was a little-noticed aspect of the final California budget deal, but Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger made California Environmental Quality Act history when he signed the long-delayed 2008-09 budget in February. Schwarzenegger asked for and got something no governor had ever gotten through the budget process before: an exemption under the California Environmental Quality Act for certain state construction projects based on economic hardship, rather than on natural disaster. The governor also got a CEQA exemption for as-is sale of state surplus property, which is possibly not something of much value in a down economy but a significant concession nevertheless. It's not uncommon for CEQA to be the fall guy in a recession, especially one where real estate development has taken a nosedive. But the charge – often unsuccessful – is usually led by homebuilders and developers, who typically argue that CEQA is one of the causes of the slowdown. It's not uncommon for the governor to ask for a CEQA exemption when natural disaster strikes – floods, fires, mudslides, earthquakes, the usual range of California nightmares. But a governor asking for and getting a CEQA exemption because the economy is slow? That's never happened before. It's a reminder of just how tough times are, and also a reminder that even after nearly 40 years and endless court rulings, CEQA is merely a law that can be changed or even repealed if the governor and the Legislature want to do so. Meanwhile, the builders – perhaps mired in the endless stalemate with local governments and environmentalists in Sacramento – haven't pushed the "blame CEQA" idea the way they usually do. Instead of pursuing aggressive CEQA streamlining in response to the economic climate, the builders focused most of their effort in the last legislative session on getting a minor and complicated CEQA exemption put into SB 375. Schwarzenegger's CEQA exemptions are contained in AB 8x2 (or AB 8xx), a bill carried by Republican Assemblyman Brian Nestande of Palm Desert, whose father, Bruce Nestande, was Mr. Transportation in Orange County for many years as a county supervisor, a legislator, and a state transportation commissioner. The most highly publicized part of the bill was the provision that delayed implementation of a new state air pollution rule requiring retrofitting of off-road diesel construction equipment. That provision was openly criticized by Schwarzenegger's own top air quality regulator, Mary Nichols, who told the Los Angeles Times , ""There are people who will die because of this delay." But the CEQA provisions are also important. They include both CEQA exemptions and a streamlined environmental review process for an overlapping set of transportation projects. The eight projects listed in the bill for CEQA exemptions are: (1) A Highway 101 interchange modification, adding a southbound auxiliary lane and a southbound mixed-flow lane, from Interstate 280 to Yerba Buena Road, in Santa Clara County. (2) Northbound and southbound high-occupancy vehicle lanes on I-805 from I-5 to Carroll Canyon Road, including construction of north-facing direct access ramps, in San Diego County. (3) Rehabilitation and traffic calming on State Route 99 through Los Molinas, from Orange Street to Tehama Vina Road, in Tehama County. (4) A State Route 99 Island Park widening project that adds one mixed-flow lane in each direction, from Ashlan Avenue to Grantlund Avenue, in Fresno County. (5) State Route 99 median widening and the addition of one mixed-flow lane in each direction, from State Route 120 west to 0.4 miles north of Arch Road, in Manteca in San Joaquin County. (6) State Route 12 pavement rehabilitation and shoulder widening in San Joaquin County on Bouldin Island. (7) State Route 91 widening, adding one mixed-flow lane in each direction, from State Route 55 to Weir Canyon Road, in Orange County. (8) U.S. Highway 101 pavement rehabilitation and shoulder widening in San Luis Obispo County. The list of projects that qualify for streamlined CEQA review – essentially an internal Caltrans environmental review process that is not done under CEQA – included some of these same projects but also four others, including three in Orange County. These are: (1) Palm Avenue grade separation in San Bernardino County. (2) State Route 57 northbound widening, from Katella Avenue to Lincoln Avenue, in Orange County. (3) The addition of an auxiliary westbound lane to State Route 91, from Interstate 5 to State Route 57, in Orange County. (4) State Route 91 widening that adds one mixed-flow lane in each direction, from State Route 55 to Weir Canyon Road, in Orange County. A Highway 50 carpool lane project had already been in CEQA litigation, which was settled in January. In exchange for dropping the lawsuit, environmentalists got Caltrans to promise to pay Sacramento Regional Transit $8 million toward a second light-rail track from Sacramento to Folsom along the Highway 50 corridor. It remains to be seen whether the budget-deal exemptions will actually move projects along faster. Schwarzenegger may be trying to make these projects "shovel-ready" to qualify for the Obama stimulus money, though nobody has yet asked the question of whether projects funded with stimulus money must go through the environmental review process at the federal level under CEQA's equivalent, the National Environmental Policy Act. Perhaps most important, we'll see whether California's homebuilders catch on to the idea that CEQA might be a bigger target in the current slowdown than they thought. Inside the Sacramento beltway, it's easy to get caught up in the idea that only incremental changes are possible – and that builders have limited leverage on CEQA against the environmentalists. But Schwarzenegger may have proven that the combination of the economic downturn and ongoing budget problems make it possible to think about weakening CEQA in a much broader way over the next couple of years.

When the San Luis Obispo County Board of Supervisors approved the first of what could be several phases of development at Santa Margarita Ranch, located 10 miles northeast of San Luis Obispo, they did so on a 3-2 vote – at a special meeting two days before Christmas with two lame-duck supervisors providing the deciding votes. The five-hour meeting on December 23 was not full of holiday cheer. Project opponents complained bitterly to the Board of Supervisors about what they saw as a rush to approve a questionable project. County staff members were obviously uncomfortable with being told to comply with the developer's wishes. Supervisors jabbed each other with pointed statements. Representatives of landowners Rob Rossi, Doug Filipponi and Karl Wittstrom contended the project had been delayed unnecessarily. After the vote, Supervisor Katcho Achadjian, a project supporter, told the San Luis Obispo Tribune it was "a lose-lose situation." If the board failed to approve the project, the landowners would sue. If the board approved the project, opponents would sue. He was right. Opponents filed a lawsuit in late January, arguing the Board of Supervisors violated the California Environmental Quality Act, state planning and zoning law, the Subdivision Map Act, and the county's general plan and land use ordinance. The local opponents were joined by a potentially formidable ally – the Endangered Habitats League, an advocacy group with a long track record of battling over and negotiating development and conservation in metropolitan Southern California. The league has never taken its advocacy this far up the coast, but it decided to participate in here because the proposed development "would set a precedent for other ranch and farmlands in the iconic Central Coast," according to a written statement by EHL attorney Michael Fitts. A former Mexican land grant, Santa Margarita Ranch covers 13,800 acres of the Salinas River Valley near Santa Margarita, an unincorporated community of about 1,100 people just east of Highway 101. Cattle have grazed on the ranch since the 18th Century, but large-scale development has been under consideration since at least the 1980s. For a brief period, Stanford University owned the property, which is now under the control of Santa Margarita Ranch LLC. In the 1990s, the landowners sued the county in a dispute over the number of legal parcels on the ranch. The county settled the litigation in 1997 with a development agreement that outlined overall uses for the property: 1,800 acres for 550 housing units, a golf course, a lodge and other visitor facilities; 8,400 acres protected as permanent open space, and 3,600 acres of agricultural land. Local residents sued over the settlement, arguing the county had unconstitutionally given away its police power. In a precedent-setting decision, the Court of Appeal in 2000 upheld the development agreement as "a legitimate exercise of governmental police power in the public interest." ( SMART v. County of San Luis Obispo , 84 Cal.App.4th 221; see CP&DR Legal Digest , December 2000 .) In 2004, the landowners submitted an application for a tentative tract map and a conditional use permit for a "major agricultural cluster subdivision" on the south edge of Santa Margarita. The proposal sought to create 111 single-family lots of 1 to 2.5 acres apiece, five open space lots of 190 to 1,000 acres apiece, and a 2,400-acre remainder lot. The landowners also laid out their vision for the property's full development with an additional 400 houses, a golf course, various ranches, retreats and lodges, nine wineries, space for galleries, shops and restaurants, and a livestock auction yard. The proposal underwent a lengthy environmental review process. Local, state and federal agencies raised questions about the project's impact on protected plant and animal species such as the San Luis Obispo Mariposa lily, the California tiger salamander and the red-legged frog, as well as impacts on oak woodlands, water quality, air quality, traffic and archaeological sites. County planners urged consideration of alternative project layouts. The project made it to the county Planning Commission in July 2008. The Commission conducted several contentious meetings at which county planners and the Commission recommended a smaller, tightly clustered residential subdivision closer to the existing town. The landowners refused to modify the project and insisted the Commission vote on the proposal as-is. In October 2008, the Commission denied the tract map and conditional use permit because of conflicts with the county's land use policies. The Commission also refused to certify the environmental impact report. The landowners appealed to the Board of Supervisors, which was about to undergo a change. In June 2008, voters replaced Supervisors Jerry Lenthall and Harry Ovitt with Adam Hill and Frank Mecham, respectively. Hill and Mecham were expected to bring a more environmentally sensitive perspective to the board, but they were not scheduled to take office until the first meeting in January 2009. Project opponents asked the board to postpone the appeal until the new supervisors were seated, but Achadjian and the lame ducks insisted the project had languished in the county's bureaucracy long enough. The board conducted five sessions on the appeal and ultimately approved the proposed project at the December 23 special session. At that meeting, county Planning Director Vic Holanda made clear his dissatisfaction with board majority's handling of the project. "I'm really concerned that you are putting our department, our professional staff, in a very tenuous situation," Holanda bluntly told the board. "In over 30 years of my career, I have never been subjected to this type of proceeding. I'm not saying it's illegal. It's highly unusual to have the applicant … dictate to the staff how to write conditions and findings for a very important project." "For the record," Holanda continued, "I'm objecting to this type of proceeding. I believe we should have a continuance to work with the applicant so that we can develop a reasonable project, not only for the community of Santa Margarita, but for this county. I'm very concerned with where we are going with this." Nonetheless, three supervisors voted to approve the project and an EIR that contained overriding considerations because of numerous unmitigated impacts, including a finding that the project does not have an assured long-term water supply. Susan Harvey, president of North County Watch, which filed the suit over the project's approval, said she would like to see a fresh planning process for Santa Margarita Ranch that includes all stakeholders. A better project would place development close to the town, while protecting prime agricultural soils, the headwaters of the Salinas River, endangered species habitat and valuable archaeological sites, she said. Resources: San Luis Obispo County staff reports: http://slocounty.granicus.com/MetaViewer.php?view_id=2&clip_id=601&meta_id=122055 http://slocounty.granicus.com/MetaViewer.php?view_id=2&clip_id=574&meta_id=116335 North County Watch: www.northcountywatch.org