The Fourth District Court of Appeal has upheld Orange County's environmental impact report for expansion of the James A. Musick jail. In an unpublished opinion, the court overturned a trial judge's ruling in a lawsuit brought by the City of Lake Forest. (City of Lake Forest v. County of Orange, G023884.) The county wants to expand the existing jail, which is bordered by Lake Forest, Irvine and El Toro, from 1,250 beds to nearly 8,000 beds. However, the county has indicated it would pursue a smaller facility to end various lawsuits over the project.

California's system for generating and distributing electricity — which has attracted little attention from the public and most policymakers in the past — became topic number one in December and January when extraordinary efforts by the state and federal governments were needed to keep the lights on. But the electricity concerns is only the latest in a series of recent efforts that focus on the state's infrastructure Transportation planners are wrestling with daunting growth projections for Southern California: another 7 million people in metropolitan Los Angeles by 2025, including 3 million in Los Angeles County alone. The Southern California Association of Governments released a draft transportation plan in December that painted a bleak picture for the region and all but begs for tax increases. One month later the Metropolitan Transportation Authority produced its Long Range Transportation Plan for Los Angeles County that emphasizes additional carpool lanes, bus service and other new transit options. Meanwhile, the California High Speed Rail Authority continues its work, with 15 town hall meeting scheduled across the state in February and March. At the state level, many people are anticipating the report from the Commission on Building for the 21st Century, commonly called the Governor's infrastructure commission. The report originally was due last December 1. But the group — which is headed by Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante and Business, Transportation and Housing Secretary Maria Contreras-Sweet — asked for more time so it could take the most comprehensive look possible. The final report will urge better coordination of land-use planning processes and infrastructure planning, said commission Director Audrey Noda. Jobs-housing balance, brownfields redevelopment and infill development will all be addressed, said Noda, who expects the commission to complete the report this spring. Such a comprehensive approach would be new to the world of state-sponsored infrastructure planning in California. David Dowall, a professor of city and regional planning at University of California, Berkeley, hopes the commission will go even farther beyond conventional thinking. Last year, Dowall authored a report for the Public Policy Institute of California that insisted the state move toward infrastructure management and policymaking, and away from provision of facilities. In "California Infrastructure Policy for the 21st Century: Issues and Opportunities," Dowall argued for prioritizing projects based on how much consumers are willing to pay for services, shifting infrastructure responsibilities to private and nonprofit entities, and using long-term financing rather than pay-as-you-go mechanisms. Dowall has seen a draft of the 21st Century commission's report and said it contains many of the concepts he advocated. Some people realize the state cannot simply build itself out problems, he said. "At the same time," Dowall added, "I think there is a lot of resistance on the part of the governor's office and labor unions and some of the commissioners over the dreaded P word — privatization." Dowall and others are continuing their work through the PPIC and plan to release a detailed look at infrastructure planning and delivery this spring. In the area of transportation, SCAG's Draft Regional Transportation Plan — and statements by SCAG leaders — suggest that the jig is up in Southern California. The plan calls for a more efficient regional transit system, a high-speed train from Los Angeles to the Inland Empire, bigger airports and new highway lanes dedicated to truck traffic. "We've reached the point in time where we can't build ourselves out of trouble with new freeways. We just don't have the room to construct them," SCAG Spokesman Jeff Lustgarten said. According to SCAG, the region during the next 25 years will fall about $10 billion short of the amount needed to maintain the existing system and build short-term projects that are already programmed. So SCAG officials recommended generating another $40 billion by: o Increasing the gas tax by 5 cents in 2005 and a penny a year until 2025; o Extending sales tax overrides that will sunset in within 10 years in San Bernardino, Riverside and Orange counties; o Adopting a dedicated sales tax for the first time in Ventura County; o Imposing new taxes on alternative fuel vehicles o Continuing Gov. Davis's plan from last year of reallocating more state funds for local transportation projects. All of those measures entail inherent political risks, but they would provide $30 billion for long-term projects. "That, honestly, is not anywhere close to what we really need, but it's a step in the right direction," Lustgarten said. The MTA paints no prettier picture than does SCAG, although some of MTA's plans could be more financially realistic. While the MTA calls for building more carpool lanes on nearly every major freeway, it emphasizes an increase in transit alternatives, such as expanding "rapid-bus" service and adding Metrolink trains. The rapid-bus routes have fewer stops and buses have the ability to hold lights green. Recognizing that Californians are reluctant to give up the convenience of their cars, both SCAG and MTA discuss creating some sort of shuttle service that would take people from their homes directly to train stations or bus stops. Planners at SCAG would like to see something completely new for the region — a high-speed magnetic levitation transportation system, or "Maglev." SCAG hopes that federal officials choose the region for a demonstration project, although SCAG might pursue such a system even without extra federal funding, Lustgarten said. The 200-mph train would run from Los Angeles International Airport to downtown to Ontario Airport to a destination in the Inland Empire. Such a system would cost an estimated $6 billion, but it is enticing because it is inexpensive to maintain, Lustgarten said. Plus, because the trains create so little noise and air pollution, lines could be built with minimal setbacks. A more far-reaching high-speed rail plan is the hands of the High-Speed Rail Authority. Although two years ago Gov. Davis dismissed the concept as "Buck Rogers technology," the commission lives on and appears to receive more respect all the time. Engineers are studying routes that would link the Bay Area to Merced, Sacramento to San Diego via Bakersfield, Los Angeles and Orange County, and Los Angeles to San Diego via Riverside County. An environmental impact report is underway. A late-January announcement from the Authority said the town hall meetings are a way "to seek the opinions of the communities along the identified corridors regarding what transportation concerns they have, where stations are most needed, how the high-speed train system should connect and compliment existing modes of transportation and more." Contacts: David Dowall, University of California, Berkeley, (510) 642-2223. Audrey Noda, Commission on Building for the 21st Century, (916) 321-2892. Jeff Lustgarten, Southern California Association of Governments, (323) 466-3445. SCAG RTP website: www.scag-rtp.govconnect.org/ High-Speed Rail Authority website: www.cahighspeedrail.ca.gov Public Policy Institute of California website: www.ppic.org

While slow-growth advocates won the majority of ballot measure contests in California this November, the pro-growth side claimed victory in three major statewide contests elsewhere in the West. In both Arizona and Colorado, voters defeated statewide initiatives aimed at creating urban growth boundaries around most cities by 70-to-30 ratios. Both Arizona Proposition 202 and Colorado Amendment 24 would have required voter approval of development outside the growth boundaries. Also in Arizona, voters narrowly rejected Proposition 100, which was aimed at permanently conserving about 270,000 acres of open space and agricultural land. While the Arizona and Colorado decisions leave the status quo in tact, voters in Oregon struck a huge blow against their land use regulatory system. The Oregon electorate voted 53% to 47% for an initiative that requires the government to compensate landowners for every state or local regulation that diminishes property value. An impartial, pre-election analysis determined that Measure 7 could cost state and local government in Oregon more than $5 billion a year. Opponents have vowed to challenge Measure 7 in court. The election was a major victory for property rights advocates who contend that many laws and administrative rules amount to "regulatory takings." Santa Clara County supervisors approved a Stanford University growth plan that was designed as a compromise between the school and area residents who want to preserve Stanford's foothills. Under the plan approved in late November, Stanford can build 3,000 housing units for faculty, staff and graduate students, and 2 million square feet of other facilities, including a basketball arena, performing arts center, classrooms and laboratories. Development will be centered in the core campus area. The plan requires Stanford to protect 2,000 acres in its western foothills for 25 years and abide by a county plan for protecting about 400 acres of environmentally sensitive property. A last-minute proposal from Supervisor Joe Simitian to prohibit development on about 1,000 acres for 99 years was strongly opposed by the school and lacked adequate support on the Board of Supervisors. Possibly the largest private landowner on the Peninsula, Stanford has largely had land use autonomy for its 8,180 acres in the past. (See CP&DR Local Watch , February 2000.) The new Community Plan, which is scheduled for final approval December 12, is the most detailed and most public planning document devised for Stanford. Assembly Speaker Robert Hertzberg has appointed 29 people to his new Commission on Regionalism. Nick Bollman, president of the Oakland-based California Center for Regional Leadership, will serve as chair. According to Hertzberg's office, the commission will "study and recommend changes to state policies and governance structures to help regions address issues that tend to leapfrog city and county boundaries." A complete list of members can be found on the speaker's website, http://democrats.assembly.ca.gov/members/a40 The Southern California Association of Governments has formally rejected state housing figures. The Department of Housing and Community Development mandated development of 504,000 housing units by 2005 in the five-county SCAG region, down from 625,000 units HCD originally proposed. Instead, SCAG said the region could accommodate only 438,000 new units. How SCAG and the state will resolve the apparent impasse was unclear. Local governments in the SCAG region are suppose to complete housing element updates by December 31. In a stunning setback for the developer, the California Coastal Commission voted unanimously to limit development at the controversial Bolsa Chica site to only 65 acres. Hearthside Homes sought permission to build about 1,200 homes on 183 acres at Bolsa Chica, a 1,200-acre coastal wetlands and mesa in unincorporated northern Orange County. Various developments have been proposed over the last three decades for Bolsa Chica, but environmentalists fighting to save one of the region's last large wetlands have prevailed in most rounds of the protracted regulatory and legal battle. Few observers expect the Commission's vote to end the struggle. Cisco Systems intends to build a 3.4 million square foot campus in Fremont's recently approved Pacific Commons office park (see CP&DR Economic Development , November 1999). Fremont approved the 8.25 million square foot Catellus project along San Francisco Bay earlier this year. Cisco could employ up to 10,000 workers at the site, making Cisco Fremont's largest employer. The campus would be in addition to a facility twice as big that the City of San Jose recently approved for Cisco, which makes Internet hardware. The Navy has signed an agreement with San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown to clean up Hunters Point Naval Shipyard and give it to the city in phases during the next four years. The 500 acres of land along the Bay has gone mostly unused since the Navy shuttered the facility in 1974. The city could acquire an 88-acre tract as soon as February 2001. The shipyard has long been seen as a potential site for housing and commercial development in the Bayview-Hunters Point District, which is one of San Francisco's poorest. Some area residents, however, call the site a public health menace and have little faith in the Navy. The shipyard was placed on the Superfund list in 1989 and the Navy has yet to fully clean it up because various parties could not agree on cleanup levels. A judge has upheld Kern County's year-old ban on the spreading of sewage sludge on farmland (see CP&DR Environmental Watch , July 2000). A number of Southern California agencies that have trucked sludge to Kern County sued last year, claiming in part that Kern County could not adopt the ordinance banning sludge without an environmental review. Tulare County Superior Court Judge Paul Vortmann ruled against nearly all of the wastewater agencies' claims. An appeal is likely.

The Department of Energy could sell 47,000 acres in an area with five endangered species to Occidental Petroleum without consulting the Fish & Wildlife Service, the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal has ruled. The federal legislation authorizing the sale of land outside Bakersfield allowed the sale to go forward without an endangered species consultation, and without Occidental applying for a new "take" permit under the Endangered Species Act, the court held. National Petroleum Reserve – 1, also called Elk Hills, lies about 25 miles south of Bakersfield. It is one of the nation's biggest oil fields, but it also contains at least four endangered animals and one endangered plant. Pursuant to Congressional direction, DOE has extracted oil from the field at a high rate since 1976. During that time, DOE consulted with FWS three times. Most recently FWS issued a "biological opinion" in November 1995. The FWS established several mitigation measures (but did not require participation in a habitat conservation plan) and issued an "incidental take" permit under section 10 of the ESA, which allows development that could otherwise threaten a species' survival. In February 1996, Congress passed the National Defense Authorization Act (DAA) of 1996, which directed DOE to sell Elk Hills within two years. In October 1997, DOE accepted a purchase offer from Occidental. The Tinoqui-Chalola Council of Kitanemuk and Yowlumne Tejon Indians, and the Southwest Center for Biological Diversity sued. They claimed DOE violated section 7 of the Endangered Species Act (16 U.S.C. 1531 et seq.) by not consulting with FWS prior to completing the sale, and by failing to ensure the sale would not jeopardize continued existence of endangered and threatened species. District Court Judge Oliver Wagner ruled the suit was moot because the sale had been completed. Alternatively, he determined that Congress waived Section 7 with regard to the Elk Hills sale. The Southwest Center (but not the Indians) appealed. A unanimous three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit ruled the case was not moot but held that Congress overrode Section 7 to allow the sale to proceed quickly. A key point for the court was the Defense Authorization Act's provision allowing the Secretary of Energy to transfer DOE's incidental take permit to the Elk Hills purchaser. "Because the incidental take statement is generally nontransferable, this provision reflects Congress's intent to permit the purchaser to continue operations under the same terms and conditions applicable to the DOE without requiring the DOE to reinitiate consultation with the FWS and without requiring the purchaser to first obtain a permit pursuant to section 10 of the ESA," Judge David Thompson wrote for the court. The court further noted that the DAA allowed the purchaser to operate under the incidental take permit only if its activities were identical to those of the DOE. Thus, DOE fulfilled its Section 7 obligations to protect the rare species because a change in activities would require Occidental to seek a new take permit, the court held. The Case: Tinoqui-Chalola Council of Kitanemuk and Yowlumne Tejon Indians v. U.S. Department of Energy, No. 99-16384, 00 C.D.O.S. 280, filed November 20, 2000. The Lawyers: For Southwest Center for Biological Diversity: Daniel Rohlf, Portland, Oregon. For DOE: Greer Goldman, Department of Justice, Washington, D.C.

A federal appellate court has overturned a land exchange between the Bureau of Land Management and a private company that hoped to develop a regional landfill in Imperial County. A unanimous three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals said the BLM grossly underestimated the value of its land where the landfill was proposed. The BLM relied on an appraisal that said the "highest and best use" of the 1,745 acres in question was open space or mine waste storage. The appraisal did not consider the property's value as a landfill, even though a number of agencies had issued permits for the proposed landfill. The difference in value could be in the tens of millions of dollars, the court suggested. "The government must not wear blinders when it participates in a real estate transaction, particularly if the result, as here, is the transfer of a flagrantly undervalued parcel of federal land to a private party," Judge Procter Hug Jr. wrote for the court, which ordered the land exchange set aside. In 1992, Arid Operations Inc., a subsidiary of Gold Fields Mining Corp., submitted an application to Imperial County to construct the Mesquite Regional Landfill on the BLM's 1,745 acres. As that permit went through the review process, Gold Fields pursued a land swap with BLM. In June 1994, the private firm of Nichols & Gaston determined the property's highest and best use was open space or mine support for the Mesquite Mine, which Gold Fields operates next to the site. Nichols & Gaston valued the land at $610,914. In early 1996, the BLM completed the deal, trading the Imperial County land for 2,642 acres of private property in the Santa Rosa Mountains Wilderness and National Scenic Areas in Riverside County, and in the Little Chuckwalla Mountains Wilderness Area in Imperial County, and $919 in cash. Environmentalists led by a group called Desert Citizens Against Pollution challenged the land exchange administratively but got nowhere. In November 1996, Desert Citizens and two other groups filed a lawsuit seeking to set aside the deal. District Court Judge Rudi Brewster, however, ruled that Desert Citizens had no standing because the group alleged an environmental injury without challenging the government's compliance with an environmental statute. He also ruled there was no causal connection between the alleged injury — loss of aesthetic enjoyment of federal lands — and the purported undervaluation, and he threw out the suit. BLM and Gold Fields consummated the land exchange the next day, although the landfill still has not been developed. On appeal, the Ninth Circuit determined Desert Citizens did in fact have standing. "The recreational or aesthetic enjoyment of federal lands is a legally protected interest whose impairment constitutes an actual, particularized harm sufficient to create an injury in fact for purposes of standing," Judge Hug wrote. "The district court constructed a novel rule by stating that injuries of an environmental or aesthetic nature can be shown only where plaintiffs allege noncompliance with an environmental statute or regulation. … Nothing in our jurisprudence requires citation of a so-called ‘environmental' statute as a prerequisite to standing." Moreover, Hug wrote, the Federal Land Policy and Management Act (FLMPA), 43 U.S.C. §1701 et seq., which governs vast tracts of federal land, is an environmental statute. Getting to the merits of the case, the Ninth Circuit had little good to say about the Nichols & Gaston appraisal or the BLM's reliance on it. The court held that the appraisal did not meet Uniform Appraisal Standards for Federal Land Acquisitions, 43 U.S.C. §1716(f)(2), because it ignored market demand and land use trends in the vicinity. "The appraisal determines the highest and best use to be utilization in conjunction with Gold Fields' current mining operation. Yet the appraiser well knew that Gold Fields and the BLM fully intended to utilize the land for the Mesquite Regional Landfill, and had taken substantial steps to do so," Hug wrote. The court noted that an environmental impact report and an environmental impact statement were prepared for the landfill. Imperial County amended its general plan to allow the project, signed a development agreement with Gold Fields, and issued a conditional use permit. The Regional Water Quality Control Board issued discharge requirements and the BLM granted a right of way for rail access to the site. All this occurred before the land transfer. "Here, the use of the land as a landfill was not only reasonable, it was the specific intent of the exchange that it be used for that purpose," Hug continued. "There is no principled reason why the BLM, or any federal agency, should remain willfully blind to the value of federal lands by acting contrary to the most elementary principles of real estate transactions." The court pointed out that a different landfill site in Imperial Court was valued at $46,000 an acre for tax purposes, while the BLM valued its property at $350 an acre. Although the valuation standards are different, there was a potential a discrepancy of $80 million. Furthermore, the Nichols & Gaston appraisal was too old when BLM used it as a basis for the Record of Decision, the court ruled. The BLM handbook says approved values are good only for six months, and the BLM in California typically presumes appraisals to be valid for one year, according to the court. Yet the Nichols & Gaston appraisal was 20 months old when the BLM issued its Record of Decision. The Case: Desert Citizens Against Pollution v. Henri R. Bisson, No. 97-55429, 00 C.D.O.S. 8896, 2000 Daily Journal D.A.R. 11827, filed November 6, 2000. The Lawyers: For Desert Citizens: William Curtiss, Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund, (415) 954-4400. For BLM: Ellen Durkee, Department of Justice, (202) 514-2000. For Gold Fields, Charles Kaiser, Davis, Graham & Stubbs, (303) 892-9400.

Cognitive science has taught us that a human being cannot keep more than seven things in its mind at any given time. That figure, of course, does not apply to local governments in California, which appear unable to focus on more than one thing at a time. Perhaps we should set up a charitable organization for cities suffering from the condition known as Single-Purpose Agenda Syndrome (SPAS). I can see television ads right now featuring a bureaucrat, in short sleeves and pocket protector, looking balefully into the camera, as the voice-over says, "A city's mind is a terrible thing to waste." One city that will not be featured in the Single-Purpose Agenda Syndrome ad campaign, however, is Vallejo. The Solano County city has been able to juggle three agendas — military base reuse, promotion of home ownership and neighborhood preservation — without dropping any of them. The case in point is Roosevelt Terrace, a complex of 600 two-bedroom apartments formerly used by Navy personnel stationed at Mare Island. (The city is the base reuse authority for the former Navy installation, which closed in 1995.) By converting the military housing into market-rate condominiums, the city did a bunch of things at once, in addition to reusing a Navy base: It created home ownership possibilities in a mature city with limited opportunities for new housing; it lowered the density of the complex, making it more compatible to a middle-class neighborhood; and the city even cut itself a share of the profits. Most of the truisms about military housing do not apply to Roosevelt Terrace. We tend to think of military housing as isolated on bases; Roosevelt Terrace, like much of the other housing for Mare Island, is located in a middle-class neighborhood. (Much of the neighborhood, in fact, originated as military housing, most of which has been demolished and replaced with conventional subdivisions.) We also tend to think of military housing as flimsy stuff that is usually too dilapidated to save. The Vallejo project, however, is made out of poured-in-place concrete, eight inches thick. For that reason, the developer, De Silva Group of Dublin, chose to rehabilitate the units rather than demolish them. Despite the almost glacial pace of Pentagon decisions, Vallejo has acted rather quickly and efficiently to convert Mare Island. Although the EIR/EIS was completed more than three years ago, the Navy decided to convey the base to Vallejo only in late 1999, and only in November did the city and the Navy come to an agreement about the schedule for remediating the contaminated sites on the former Navy installation. Notwithstanding, the city has gone forward on Mare Island and has leased a total of 2.5 million square feet of industrial space to 50 tenants, including the U.S. Forest Service. Roosevelt Terrace provides another example of the city's aggressive strategy for reusing the old Navy base. "The city's approach on Mare Island has been to put available properties on the market as quickly as possible, so we went for a negotiated transaction shortly after the base was closed," said Alvaro da Silva, the city's director of community development. (Nearly everyone in this story is named Silva, and none of them are related.) The homebuilder and the city agreed on a deal three years ago but had to wait until the Navy conveyed title to the city, which only happened in May. At that time, the city went into a fast-track mode to approve the various entitlements for the project. The city conveyed title to the property to the developer in October, when construction began on the project now to be known as Villages at Terrace Park. (Well, at least it's not in French.) The deal features incentives for the developer on the front end and a reward for the city on the back end. The city sold the 19-acre, 50-building development for a very modest $1.57 million. In turn, the city receives a share of net profits on a sliding scale: For the first $3 million in profit, the city will take a 20% share; for the second $3 million, the city's portion increases to 33%; thereafter, the city takes 50%. "In the final analysis, the city gets about 40% of the profits," said Peter Silva, project manager for De Silva Group. He was philosophical about the city's big cut, and said the payments to the city are analogous to the share that a developer would pay to the land-owning partner in a real estate development deal. The actual profitability is unknown because the developer would not disclose its costs and has not finalized the prices. Under current per-square-foot market rates, prices would start at about $85,000 and go up to about $180,000. In comparison, prices for single-family homes in Vallejo are now in the high $200,000-range. The development plan calls for the demolition of seven buildings and the construction of a new, centralized sports facility and common area. The buildings, formerly made up entirely of two-bedroom units, will now become a mix of 314 condominiums of two-, three- and four-bedrooms with all new finishes and appliances. And although the Roosevelt Terrace is reasonably well maintained, the units are architecturally uninspiring, insofar as they resemble a row of shoeboxes. To dress up the homes, the developer has hired PDF building design of Suisun City to provide new porticos, or projecting front doors, and to alter the roof lines so the projects seem less monolithic. The entire complex is being fenced in and gated. As with many of the deals I examine, the development of Villages at Terrace Park represents a constellation of special circumstances not easily replicated elsewhere: An unusual developer who was willing to wait years for the project (albeit one with tremendous upside); a city that was given a promising property; and, of course, the overheated housing market of the Bay Area. Still, Vallejo was able to match its assets with the needs of its community. Real planning, as opposed to single-issue planning, is the ability both to pursue and to coordinate different goals at the same time. Vallejo was able to keep its eye on the ball, or on several balls, all at once. As for other cities with Single-Purpose Agenda Syndrome, I'm taking up a collection for them. As the voice-over on the public-service announcement says, "Only you can help."

Planning for a long stretch of rural lands on the fringe of suburban San Diego County continues to be a roiling controversy played out in the courts, the election booth and the Board of Supervisors chambers. The county lost the latest round in the courtroom recently when Superior Court Judge Judith McConnell ruled that the environmental impact report for the general plan amendment covering 191,000 acres was inadequate. The ruling pleased environmentalists and the state Attorney General's office, but the county has appealed. As the San Diego regional economy expands and the real estate market continues to blaze, the pressure for urban development is mounting. At the same time, San Diego County has one of the world's widest arrays of plants and animals, several of which are protected under federal and state law. While only portions of the land involved in this controversy are subject to intense development pressure, and no endangered species live in the immediate area, the land contains some of the best grasslands and oak woodlands remaining in Southern California. "It's really a rural sprawl type of problem," said Dan Silver, executive director of the Endangered Habitats League, which has weighed in on the environmentalists' side. "It's a ranchette issue, which is a severe problem in San Diego County." At issue are 191,000 noncontiguous acres that stretch almost the length of the county from north to south. The county has placed the land in its land use designation known as "(20)," or "agricultural preserve." The area is the western portion of what is often called San Diego County's "backcountry." In 1994, the county amended its land use element to establish an eight-acre minimum for all of the (20) lands. Environmentalists sued, and Judge McConnell ruled in 1996 that the plan was inconsistent with the county general plan's agricultural goals and that the county needed to prepare an environmental impact report. The county appealed the ruling but lost an unpublished appellate court decision in 1997. Away from the courtroom, environmentalists took to the ballot box in 1998 with an initiative to downzone 600,000 acres of the backcountry to 40- and 80-acre minimums, excluding several unincorporated villages. County voters, however, rejected the Rural Heritage and Watershed Initiative by a 60-40 ratio. (See CP&DR, September 1998, December 1998.) In April of this year, the Board of Supervisors adopted general plan amendment 96-03 for the 191,000 acres. The amendment designated the agricultural preserve lands that lie inside the County Water Authority boundary for 10-acre minimum parcel sizes. This amounted to about 10% of the 191,000 acres. The remaining 90% was given 40-acre minimum lot sizes. The county then asked Judge McConnell to remove her 1996 order blocking imposition of new general plan policies for the area — a request opposed by environmentalists and the state Attorney General's office. In an opinion that quoted singer Joni Mitchell, Judge McConnell ruled that the county's EIR was inadequate under the California Environmental Quality Act. "It has been said — and sung — that ‘you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone,'" McConnell wrote. "Yet where CEQA applies, the opposite is true: Citizens and decision makers must, in fact, be informed of what they have before, and not after, it is gone. While the environmental effects of GPA 96-03 are unknown, they are not, as the County insists, unknowable." McConnell said that the proposed general plan designation would allow agricultural grading to proceed without any further county review, potentially harming flora and fauna. And, she noted, the county proposed to implement no mitigations for this potential impact. In a follow-up order, McConnell directed the county to prepare an EIR specifically addressing the impacts on biological, zoological, botanical and hydrological resources, and to identify feasible mitigation measures. The judge's decision hit hard at the issue of "intensive agriculture," which could devastate important habitat with wide-scale grading, said Rachel Hooper, an attorney for environmentalists. Deputy Attorney General Sally Magnani Knox said that the county must analyze impacts of wide-scale grading — and establish feasible mitigations — at the general plan stage. "The problem with this project is they assumed it would allow clearing of native vegetation for agricultural projects without any additional review," Knox said. Senior Deputy County Counsel Laurie Orange, however, argued that McConnell and the Attorney General's office are incorrectly holding the county to a project-specific standard of environmental review. The county would scrutinize subdivisions and other developments subsequent to the general plan amendment at the time they are proposed. And, Orange said, no more grading would be allowed under GPA 96-03 than is already permitted. "The project is not proposing any development … It's actually more environmentally sensitive than the prior plan," Orange said. "This is a continuation of all the uses that have been ongoing for decades." Environmentalists and county planners differ on the likely outcome of imposing 10-acre and 40-acre zoning. Environmentalists say 10-acre lots, expensive water and, in some cases, poor soil combine to discourage farming and invite ranchette-style development. Planners and the San Diego County Farm Bureau say the proposed zoning encourages the county's $1.2 billion-a-year agricultural industry. They say 66% of they county's farms are on 9 acres or less, and the industry has shifted to high-value, labor intensive crops such as cut flowers and bedding plants that do not need huge parcels of land. Duncan McFetridge, chairman of Save Our Forest And Ranchlands (SOFAR), said that protecting these 191,000 acres is key to maintaining the integrity of the rest of the backcountry. Descanso-based SOFAR has headed up the litigation and was behind the failed 1998 initiative. McFetridge rejects both GPA 96-03 and a larger, ongoing general plan update. The county should use the County Water Authority boundary as an urban growth boundary and prevent most development east of the line, he said. He suggested that the political winds may have changed since the rejection of the Rural Heritage and Watershed Initiative two years ago. Urban growth boundaries are seen as promoting efficient development, urban renewal has gained momentum in San Diego, El Cajon and Lakeside, and the county keeps losing in court. "We all know the only way to get out of this impasse is with an initiative … We're always thinking about it," McFetridge said. "We have some incredible stuff to save. We're not L.A. yet." Meanwhile, county planners have begun public hearings on what they call "Alternative 3," which is a draft land use distribution plan on a macro scale, according to Joan Vokac, the county's chief of advance planning. Alternative 3 is a "density-based" plan, rather than a traditional "parcel-based" plan. The county's proposal sets desired population densities for areas, then allows for design flexibility. The county based its proposed densities on input from 26 planning groups spread around the county, which planners queried regarding preferred population levels, Vokac said. Thus far, people have had a difficult time grasping the density-based plan. They do not yet see the benefits, such as protection of farmland and open space, and more efficient use of infrastructure, she said. The Board of Supervisors hopes to complete the general plan update by mid-2001. But few people expect a new general plan to end the litigation and threats of initiatives regarding San Diego County's backcountry. Contacts: Duncan McFetridge, Save Our Forests And Ranchlands, (619) 445-9638. SOFAR website: www.sofar.org Rachel Hooper, Shute, Mihaly & Weinberger, (415) 552-7272. Sally Magnani Knox, Attorney General's Office, (916) 322-1802. Dan Silver, Endangered Habitats League, (323) 654-1456. Laurie Orange, San Diego County Counsel's Office, (619) 531-5799. Joan Vokac, San Diego County Department of Planning & Land Use, (858) 694-3765. County general plan website: http://www.co.san-diego.ca.us/cnty/cntydepts/landuse/planning/GP2020/

Who says urban planning isn't partisan? It has certainly been many a planner's working assumption that local land use decisions in California are not affiliated with any political perspective, but are merely "good planning." In fact, since the days of 1910s reform Governor Hiram Johnson, local government has been legally devoid of party-affiliated elections. But with the assertive emergence of the Green Party in Election 2000, the fact can no longer be ignored: national political party platforms can and do correlate to local planning issues. Although small in number, the Greens are beginning to change the political landscape of local government in several regions of the Golden State. Though the Green Party's controversial run for the presidency with Ralph Nader ended with a bit of a setback when the party fell short of its goal of 5% of the national vote, Greens continue to make inroads on the planning and development stage in California through their diligent insistence on thinking globally and acting locally. Greens won 10 local government seats here this fall -- 60% of the 18 seats the party won nationwide. The biggest news comes from the pleasant Sonoma County town of Sebastopol. In a council race there, Greens Craig Litwin and Sam Spooner joined seated councilman Larry Robinson to form a Green majority on the five-member body. This is the second time this has happened nationally. The first was when the Greens formed the majority of the Arcata City Council from 1996 through 1998. The Greens also took an important swing seat on the San Luis Obispo City Council. And in Santa Monica, statewide Green Party spokesman Michael Feinstein reclaimed a City Council seat he held earlier. Feinstein is one of two Greens on Santa Monica's seven-member panel. The election raises the Greens' number of local government seats statewide to 29, barely even mist in the bucket considering the thousands of local elected positions in California. But there is something about the Green ascendancy that compounds its impact. First, it is the only group to promote party affiliations as part of a campaign strategy. In so doing, members correctly recognize that the Green Party holds cache when it comes to land use and a few other local government matters. Second, using the party organizational network, Greens in local government use one another as resources. Larry Robinson tells of how his city drew on expertise from Green council members in Arcata – 200 miles to the north – to develop Sebastopol's pesticide-free ordinance last year. Arcata had adopted a similar regulation under Green guidance there. "We plan to stay connected across the state to develop a tighter network among Greens," Robinson said. The importance of the Green arrival in local politics should be exciting to planners, even though the Greens are sometimes dismissed as idealists with roots in European socialism. In fact, the Green agenda correlates directly with the "smart growth" and "sustainability" themes popular in urban planning today. Greens are widely identified with environmental protection, making them influential allies with many of the state's most effective local advocacy groups. Greens are also in the lead on public transit and alternative transportation, responsible fiscal policy, and community empowerment. And Green leadership in the living wage movement is clearly reminiscent of 1960s-era sociology-oriented planning. Even on the process side, Greens appear exemplary in their pro-planning perspective. New Sebastopol Councilman Spooner, for example, is calling for a more people-friendly City Council meeting format. "I think we should convene more like a community meeting and less like a congressional hearing," he said. Greens typically have risen in jurisdictions with traditions of progressive politics, such as Santa Cruz, Berkeley, and Santa Monica. But Greens show up in other places too, such as the cities of Modesto, Morro Bay, and even in the San Bernardino County town of Yucaipa. Though Green-seated jurisdictions are small in number among the thousands of counties, municipalities and special districts in the state, their influence should not be dismissed by planners or development professionals. After all, liberal-minded municipalities are where many planning theories are tested on the ground. Take Arcata's alternative to a series of expensive and inefficient traffic signals: a series of landscaped roundabouts. And then there is Santa Cruz's recent living wage ordinance, widely considered the most progressive in the nation. The reemergence of partisan politics through the Greens' agenda will clearly influence local government in several subregions of California. In these places, we can expect Greens to raise the level of discussion beyond business-as-usual. To what should be the delight of many planners, we can expect planning issues to be framed in a sustainability context. This perspective suggests that the Greens are in it for the long haul, rather than just to react to the latest batch of development projects. Stephen Svete, AICP, is president of Rincon Consultants, Inc., a Ventura-based consulting firm.

Environmentalists were victorious in one of the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals' first interpretations of a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling on the Clean Water Act. The Ninth Circuit held that two environmental organizations could sue a Northern California lumber company for alleged Clean Water Act violations because the supposed pollution harmed members' recreational use of a creek. In January, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that South Carolina citizens could sue the operator of a hazardous waste incinerator for violating the Clean Water Act (33 U.S.C. §1251 et seq.) because the company's illegal discharges into a river affected the citizens' recreational, aesthetic and economic interests. (Friends of the Earth v. Laidlaw, 528 U.S. 167; see CP&DR Legal Digest, February 2000.) The California case was similar. Members of the Ecological Rights Foundation and the Mateel Environmental Justice Foundation argued that they avoided some activities in Yager Creek, such as fishing and swimming, because of alleged pollution from a Pacific Lumber Company mill located upstream. In a 1997 lawsuit filed under the Clean Water Act's citizen suit provisions, the environmentalists claimed that Pacific Lumber allowed contaminated stormwater to flow offsite, had not prepared a required Storm Water Pollution Prevention Plan, failed to monitor and report conditions, did not collect water samples and was guilty of other violations. In a ruling before Laidlaw was decided, U.S. District Court Judge Marilyn Hall Patel held that the environmental groups did not have standing to sue and issued summary judgement for Pacific Lumber. The Ninth Circuit overturned Patel and remanded the case back to her for further proceedings on the merits. "Under Laidlaw, then, an individual can establish ‘injury in fact' by showing a connection to the area of concern sufficient to make credible the contention that the person's future life will be less enjoyable — that he or she really has or will suffer in his or her degree of aesthetic or recreational satisfaction — if the area in question remains or becomes environmentally degraded," Judge Marsha Berzon wrote for the unanimous three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit. In this case, two individual members of the environmental groups stated long-standing interest in Yager Creek, and both complained that Pacific Lumber's conduct impaired their enjoyment of the creek. Those are sufficient statements to survive summary judgement on the standing issue, the court ruled. The Ninth Circuit also rejected Pacific Lumber's contention that the case should not go forward because the environmentalists had not proven the company caused any actual environmental harm. No scientific proof is needed in order to obtain standing, the court held. Finally, the court dismissed Pacific Lumber's arguments that the suit was moot because the company is now operating under revised general discharge requirements, and because the plaintiffs' 60-day notice of intent to sue was defective. The Case: Ecological Rights Foundation v. Pacific Lumber Company, No. 99-17076, 00 C.D.O.S. 8692, 2000 Daily Journal D.A.R. 11526, filed October 30, 2000. The Lawyers: For ERF: Sharon Duggan, (415) 566-5321. For Pacific Lumber: Jared Carter, 707 764-4216.

When the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service proposed in September that 5.4 million acres in 31 California counties be designated critical habitat for the threatened red-legged frog, howls of outrage came from nearly every corner of the state. Builders, water agencies, local government officials and farmers decried the designation as an impending disaster with dire implications for everything from construction of affordable housing to the integrity of Southern California's precarious water supply. The volume of criticism prompted the agency to postpone the deadline for formal designation of frog habitat by two months to March 1. The scale of the proposal alone would have been sufficient to draw harsh criticism. But the frog decision was merely one of 11 habitat designations or proposals to have been issued by USFWS since early summer. That might not sound like many until you consider that only 134 of the 1,234 federally listed species have received critical-habitat designations in the 27 years since passage of the Endangered Species Act. What's more, many of the habitat designations and proposals this year were of unprecedented scale. Although USFWS issued several modest proposals pertaining to species that occur in populations of limited geographic range, other proposals were huge: 405,598 acres for the Alameda whipsnake; 513,650 acres for the coastal California gnatcatcher; 876,000 acres for the peninsular bighorn sheep; 478,400 acres for the arroyo southwestern toad. There are several reasons for the unusual congruence of habitat decisions over the past six months, as well as for their unusual scale. Some of these reasons are obvious while others are not. It is worth examining the reasons because of the insight they can provide into the economic, political, ecological and demographic forces colliding in California today. First, however, it is necessary to examine precisely what it means for the federal government to designate critical habitat. In most cases, the USFWS action is neither as protective of species as environmentalists hope nor as great an impediment to economic activity as landowners and business groups claim. The Endangered Species Act establishes three significant mechanisms for protection and recovery of an imperiled creature: listing, creation of a recovery plan and designation of critical habitat. The listing process is by far the most important from a regulatory standpoint. Once the federal government lists a species as endangered or threatened, it receives immediate protection under Section 7 of the Endangered Species Act. In general terms, this requires the federal government to ensure that no harm comes to that species or to its critical habitat, an admonition typically carried out through a process known as "consultation." Any federal agency that issues a permit required for any public or private activity — filling a wetland or altering a streambed, for example — is required to consult with USFWS or the National Marine Fisheries Service in advance of issuing that permit, to make sure it will not authorize an activity that puts a listed species in jeopardy. In addition, species listed as endangered immediately come under the protection of Section 9 of the act, which prohibits any "take" of that species — a term defined to include killing, harassing or harming individual animals or plants. (Threatened species do not automatically qualify for such protection, although the agency may extend it administratively.) The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that the "take" prohibition can apply also to activities that destroy a listed species' habitat. Once a species has been listed as endangered (in danger of extinction in some or all of its range) or threatened (likely to become endangered in the near future), the ESA requires the federal government to develop a recovery plan. It must describe actions that will restore the species' long-term viability and allow the species to be removed from the list. The law also requires the designation of critical habitat "to the maximum extent prudent and determinable." Critical habitat is defined as specific locations within the geographic area occupied by a listed species that contain physical or biological features essential to the species' conservation. Critical habitat also includes specific locations outside the area occupied by the species at the time of listing that are determined to be essential to species' survival. From a regulatory standpoint, designation of critical habitat means little. Even in its absence, private landowners are prohibited by law from killing or harming endangered species, or destroying their habitat. And the ESA's consultation requirements apply to all federal permitting activities on private and public land regardless of whether that land falls within a critical habitat delineation. In other words, critical-habitat designation will not stop any development project that would not already have been blocked simply because it would have harmed a listed species. The habitat designation also does not impose any restrictions on use of land that has been so modified that it no longer constitutes viable habitat — urban areas, suburban back yards, most farmland. It also is unlikely that critical-habitat designation will lengthen the time it takes for applicants to get projects approved under the ESA consultation process or California Environmental Quality Act review. Again, the actual or suspected presence of an endangered species compels the same level of scrutiny, regardless of whether critical habitat has been designated. Federal agencies have been somewhat slow to complete the listing process because a backlog of candidate species, partly the result of an 18-month congressional moratorium imposed in 1995, continues to await evaluation. Agencies have been even slower to adopt recovery plans (only about half of all listed species have such plans) and to designate critical habitat. In general, USFWS and NMFS are required to undertake these steps at the time a species is listed: as a practical matter, the agencies frequently have resisted unless forced to do so. This is precisely what is happening in California: Nearly all the recent or pending habitat proposals are the result of court orders or settlements of lawsuits, most involving the Center for Biological Diversity. The Center, based in Tucson, Arizona, has targeted California ecosystems for protection through its Golden State Biodiversity Initiative. Its strategy has been to file lawsuits to compel listings for candidate species, and then to follow up with additional lawsuits to force designation of critical habitat. The Center has been extremely successful, having won ESA protection for 80 species and securing proposals to designate 7.3 million acres of critical habitat. In essence, the Center has taken control of the federal species-conservation agenda in California. It is not fair to blame the federal agencies alone for their tardiness in complying with the ESA. Acquiring the detailed data on distribution, abundance, behavior, interactions with other species, threats from human activity, ecosystem integrity and other factors required to devise a blueprint for recovery and to designate critical habitat takes time and money. But a hostile Congress in recent years has withheld funding in this area. In fact, property rights advocates in Congress have sought repeatedly to hamper NMFS and USFWS efforts to identify endangered-species habitat on private land by removing funding for such inventories from agency budgets. Now those efforts have backfired. Forced by litigation to identify critical habitat for threatened or endangered species — but frequently unable to acquire the detailed information required to precisely delineate those areas truly essential for the species' survival — USFWS has proposed or designated very general areas. In a sense, the farmers, developers and builders who have been so effective in persuading their congressional representatives to beggar the habitat-inventory process have only themselves to blame for these expansive designations. Imprecise data is not the only likely reason the recent habitat proposals have been so broad. The possibility with greater long-term significance relates to human population growth and urban development patterns. Several of this year's habitat proposals have been the sort to which Californians are accustomed: small areas for unusual creatures that never were widely distributed: 10,560 acres in Santa Cruz County for the Zayenta band-winged grasshopper; 2,566 acres in San Luis Obispo County for the Morro shoulderband snail; 4,025 acres in San Diego and Orange counties for the San Diego fairy shrimp. It is an axiom of conservation biology that small, geographically restricted populations are more vulnerable to habitat-altering catastrophe, whether that comes at the whim of nature (a volcanic eruption, for example) or at the hands of man (construction of a shopping mall). Such creatures are disproportionately represented on the endangered-species list. The conversion of California's natural landscape to farms and cities has had dire implications for geographically restricted species. But as the human population continues to grow and urban development spreads into new areas— the high desert, the Sierra foothills, rugged coastal mountains — even species that once occupied vast geographic ranges are in trouble. The red-legged frog, for example, may have been the most widely distributed amphibian in the state. At one time, the frog was common in nearly every low-elevation drainage between Redding and Baja, from the Sierra foothills to the sea. It has been eliminated from 70% of its range, and is found primarily in Monterey, San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara counties. According to USFWS, only four areas within the entire historic range of the species harbor more than 350 adults. Regardless of litigation, political attacks on the ESA and the outraged complaints of developers and farmers, human population pressure will continue to intensify threats to California's nonhuman inhabitants. The pace and extent of habitat designations the state has seen in the past six months probably are but a preview of the future. Contacts Center for Biological Diversity, (520) 623-5252. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, California-Nevada Operations Office: (916) 414-6600.

A development agreement between San Luis Obispo County and the developer of a subdivision and resort did not amount to an unconstitutional contracting away of the county's police power, the Second District Court of Appeal has ruled. The opinion validates development agreements as legitimate planning tools and appears to erase any lingering doubts about the constitutionality of the practice. Although conflicts over development agreements are common, there is little case law directly addressing the state law that permits local governments to sign such contracts. "It's the first case to directly hold that the development agreement statute does not permit an unconstitutional contracting of local governments' police power," said Stephen Kostka, the developer's attorney. "That's a question that gets raised often in litigation. … This is something I've probably litigated about a dozen times, but it has never risen to the level of a published appellate court decision before now." The homeowners group that challenged the development agreement in San Luis Obispo County hopes that decision does not stand. Santa Margarita Area Residents Together (SMART) has filed a petition with the state Supreme Court because the Second District not only validated the development agreement but took the county's action one step further, according to attorney Alexander Henson of the Environmental Defense Center. "The court of appeals decision is horrible," Henson said. "It misstates the record and creates a type of project approval that can commit a public agency to a density and an intensity of land use without any environmental review." The conflict centers on the Santa Margarita Ranch, which covers 13,800 acres in San Luis Obispo County. After the developer, Santa Margarita Limited, sued the county regarding the number of legal parcels, representatives of the developer, the county and SMART mediated their differences. The end result was a 1997 development agreement outlining permissible land uses for the ranch: development of 1,800 acres for 550 housing units, a golf course, lodge and equestrian center; 8,400 acres of permanent open space; and 3,600 acres protected by 40-year Williamson Act contracts. The development agreement essentially froze the new land use designations in the Salinas River Area Plan, which the county adopted to accommodate the project before signing the development agreement. The agreement called for the developer to follow up with a specific plan, a vesting tentative map, an environmental impact report and a second development agreement. This process was unusual. More often, the county would sign a development agreement at the same time as, or after, it approved the general plan amendment and entitlements. SMART then filed a lawsuit contending that the agreement was invalid because it covered the planning stage of development before any structures were designed or approved. In other words, the group argued that the development agreement was signed too early in the process. The group also argued that the zoning freeze was an unconstitutional contracting of the county's power to police land use. San Luis Obispo County Superior Court Judge Barry Hammer ruled for the county. A unanimous three-judge panel of the Second District, Division Six, upheld the decision and awarded attorneys fees to the developer. The appellate court said that SMART interpreted the development agreement statute (Gov. Code §65864 et seq.) too narrowly. "It should be construed to allow development agreements as soon as the government and developer are required to make significant financial and personnel commitments to a project," Justice Steven Perren wrote for the court. The statute does not require project approval to occur at any particular stage, and the statute expressly contemplates discretionary approvals after the agreement is signed, the court ruled. While recognizing the development agreement contemplated further government approvals, the court also held that the county's adoption of the development agreement amounted to approval of an actual project. "While further agreement and discretionary approvals are necessary, every approval or denial permitted by the Agreement is designed to advance the project in accordance with the standards for Ranch development adopted by the County in the Salinas River Area Plan," Perren wrote. Interestingly, neither side had argued that signing the development agreement itself was tantamount to project approval, which would require environmental review. The county declared the development agreement categorically exempt from the California Environmental Quality Act and postponed environmental review until a specific plan was prepared. SMART did not challenge the categorical exemption. As for the question of the county surrendering police power, the court found that case law "supports the conclusion that the Agreement, as well as the Development Agreement Statute, satisfy all constitutional mandates concerning a city or county's exercise of its regulatory authority." Among the cases the court cited were: Morrison Homes Corp. v. City of Pleasanton , (1976) 58 CalApp.3d 724; Avco Community Developers Inc. v. South Coast Regional Com ., (1976) 17 Cal.3d 785; and Alameda County Land Use Assn., v. City of Hayward , (1995) 38 Cal. App.4th 1716. The court concluded that San Luis Obispo County's zoning freeze on the Santa Margarita Ranch was not a surrender of police power. "The Project must be developed in accordance with the County's general plan, and the Agreement does not permit construction until the County has approved detailed building plans. … The County concluded that the zoning freeze in the Agreement advances the public interest by preserving future options. This type of action by the County is more accurately described as a legitimate exercise of governmental police power in the public interest than as a surrender of police power to a special interest," Perren wrote. The state Supreme Court has not yet decided on SMART's petition for hearing. Kostka, the developer's attorney, said he doubted the state's high court would accept the case because there is no conflict among the appellate districts. But SMART attorney Henson said the court could be interested in development agreements as regulatory tools and in the issue of contracting away police power. The Case: Santa Margarita Area Residents Together v. San Luis Obispo County Board of Supervisors , No. B136088, 00 C.D.O.S. 8467, 2000 Daily Journal D.A.R. 11269, filed October 18, 2000. The Lawyers: For SMART: Alexander Henson, Environmental Defense Center, (805) 781-9932. For the county: Timothy McNulty, deputy county counsel, (805) 781-5400. For Santa Margarita Ranch Limited: Stephen Kostka, McCutchen, Doyle, Brown & Eneresen, (925) 937-8000.

Election Day 1998 sure looked like a watershed for ballot-box zoning in California. That was the day that voters in Ventura County and five cities there passed the so-called SOAR (Save Open-space and Agricultural Resources) initiatives, which created an almost "air-tight" system of urban growth boundaries around the cities and agricultural preservation in unincorporated areas. In the months after that election, California began to look like "SOAR-land". Reporters from around the country trooped through Ventura to interview the organizers of what appeared to be the cutting-edge of land-use policy nationally. These same organizers also played Johnny Appleseed around the state, advising other cities and counties on how to draft and campaign for their own SOAR-style initiatives. So it was a bit surprising on Election Day 2000 that the two most highly publicized "children of SOAR" �the San Luis Obispo County SOAR and the Rural Heritage Initiative in Sonoma County � went down to defeat. And what made it all the more perplexing was the fact that these high-profile defeats came as slow-growthers won most races (34 out of 55, or about 62% statewide). The only other high-profile countywide measure � urban growth boundaries in Alameda County � won. But that occurred because the Sierra Club outspent the homebuilders in the campaign and because more individual members of the Sierra Club live in Alameda County than in any other county in the nation. In retrospect, these results all reveal how remarkable the 1998 Ventura SOAR campaign was � and, in particular, what a shrewd political move it was to place the countywide SOAR measure on the same ballots as the city SOARs. People are more likely to vote for � and, indeed, to work for � a growth restriction in their city than in their county. By tethering the county measure to the city measures, the SOAR proponents removed the biggest political obstacle to passage of the countywide measure � the perception that it is not pertinent to local residents. (Also, for a variety of complicated reasons, the Ventura County SOAR forces were not badly outspent by their opponents.) In San Luis Obispo, the SOAR forces attempted the same strategy, but they managed to place the measure on only one city ballot � in conservative Paso Robles, where it failed. Even if proponents had hit all the cities, however, they still might not have succeeded. Unlike Ventura County, San Luis Obispo County has a large number of residents living in unincorporated areas. These folks are not only conservative by nature, but they also apparently feared more development in unincorporated areas that are already designated for suburban growth in the county's general plan. (The anti-SOAR campaign cleverly played on these fears.) In Sonoma County, where (like Ventura) most people live in medium-sized cities separated by greenbelts, prospects seemed good. In fact, Greenbelt Alliance, a Bay Area environmental group, had successfully passed growth boundaries in virtually all Sonoma County cities. But this fact actually harmed the Rural Heritage Initiative. Led by the Sonoma County Farm Bureau, opponents argued that RHI left farmers out of the initiative-writing process and complained that the measure would hamper even minor, farm-related development projects. Plus, both opponents and supporters of Measure I claimed that a vote for their side was a vote for farms and parks. Unlike Ventura, voters could not easily make the connection between growth boundaries in their cities and the countywide SOAR-style measure. So perhaps Ventura County is unique � not just in the way it looks and feels, but in the political makeup that passed SOAR in 1998. But the long-term lesson from the November 7 election may not come from the defeat of SOAR-style measures. It may instead be the growing number of initiatives requiring voter approval for major land-use changes inside those growth boundaries. A SOAR system presumably channels growth into existing urban areas and other nearby locations. And in some other parts of the state � especially Orange and San Diego counties � the trend is toward requiring elections on projects inside these urban areas rather than outside. For example, Escondido passed such a requirement in 1998. The result this time around was that Escondido voters were confronted with eight separate ballot measures dealing with increased densities and changes in zoning. In aggregate, all these proposals didn't add up to much. The total amount of land involved in the eight measures combined was about 100 acres, or the same as the one override measure in the City of Ventura. Even so, all eight measures in Escondido failed. And more of these vote-on-density measures are on the way; the requirements for subsequent votes already exist in many other San Diego County cities and such requirements were extended in Solana Beach and imposed in Newport Beach on Election Day. Will a vote requirement on increased densities in already urbanized areas be the real "son of SOAR?" It's entirely possible. As pressure to increase densities in Ventura County grows because of SOAR's geographical constraints, more development will be channeled into existing cities, and that is sure to displease some residents. The power to vote on density increases is an attractive and emotionally satisfying solution for many people. But is it a good idea? SOAR has its faults, but one of its strengths � from an urban planning perspective � is that is does not seek to permit voters to micromanage the land-use process. Rather, it places constraints on where growth can go and then challenges planners, developers, and elected officials to create better communities inside those boundaries. SOAR may not be good planning in and of itself, but it can serve as a tool to encourage better planning. Voting on increased densities inside the boundaries may not serve the same function. Our existing urban communities are necessarily dynamic, and in many cases important land is underused, thus increasing the pressure for more sprawl. As the Escondido votes show, density votes can lead to micro-management of what ought to be a thoughtful and logical planning process inside urban growth boundaries. And in this way, the SOAR approach does not foster good planning, it frustrates good planning.