Joel Kotkin is just thinking about the children. Too much, if you ask me. As you may recall, two weeks ago it was Wendell Cox who used the Wall Street Journal opinion pages to herald the "war" that California's urban areas are launching on the suburbs. For whatever reason, the Journal really has it cut out for California, because Kotkin's piece—which isn't actually an op-ed but rather a sycophantic quasi-interview  by Allysia Finley—levies similar criticisms of California's land use policies, but with some even more strained logic and offensive biases. I'd rather not make a career out of responding to erroneous analyses  of California's demise. But, as a loyal Californian and fan of truthfulness, I can't ignore this latest volley of claptrap. Cox and Kotkin both claim that policies that discourage suburban development and/or encourage dense urban development are undermining the notion that California is the promised land. This myth of the California dream is particularly powerful for Kotkin, who contends that California used to be "God's best moment." This is the blithe vision that none but the most daft have ever believed. The only cliché about California that is more abiding than sunshine is that of noir (itself a ponderous metaphor, but we'll go with it). Well known scholars such as Mike Davis has covered that ground extensively, as has almost every other honest student of California. So, to base public policy on a myth—or, more accurately—one half of a myth makes little sense. Does California have its prosaic problems? Sure it does. In fact, I conducted an insightful, cordial interview with Kotkin about two years ago in which he lucidly described some of California's demographic challenges. Let's look at those that Kotkin identifies this time. Kotkin's central claim is that the four million people who have reportedly left California in the past ten years have done so for two interrelated reasons. Restrictive local land use policies have made coastal areas unattainably expensive. So, rather than consign themselves to miserable outer suburbs, families are up and moving to states like Texas and Nevada because of low taxes. This trend has rendered urban areas like San Francisco and West Los Angeles "boutique" cities that cater only to the wealthy. I couldn't agree more with Kotkin's implication: a more diverse range of residents should be able to live in lovely places like San Francisco and Santa Monica. By all accounts, Kotkin should be overjoyed by Senate Bill 375. If all goes as planned, it will enable more people to live in expensive places near the coasts while relieving pressure on single-family home prices. Except, according to Kotkin, the policies that would promote housing—and de-boutiqueify these cities, by a) enabling more people to live in them, and b) creating more places like them—carry the air of a Stalinist plot. "Things will only get worse in the coming years as Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown and his green cadre implement their "smart growth" plans to cram the proletariat into high-density housing," writes Finley. Let's overlook the rhetoric of socialist class struggle and focus on supply and demand. If the coasts are such nice places, then it would stand to reason that, if offered sufficient housing stock, people would willingly live in them rather than subject themselves to "cramming." Alternatively, if those cities don't increase their density, then the only way to make them more diverse, and suitable for the middle class, is to kick out the rich and let families squat in their mansions. Viva la Revolucion! And good luck figuring out the espresso machine. It's clear, then, that Kotkin's objections to smart growth are not reasoned policy analyses. They are ad hominem attacks against a class of people whom he finds icky. According to Kotkin, if you're not rich then "your chances of being able to buy a house or raise a family in the Bay Area or in most of coastal California is pretty weak." You can't raise kids in multifamily dwelling in coastal California? Who does Kotkin think he is, Dr. Spock? I'd like him to tell his theory to my mother -- and to the millions of other parents who have raised perfectly decent children in tight quarters. On this point, it's worth quoting Kotkin in full: What I find reprehensible beyond belief is that the people pushing themselves live in single-family homes and often drive very fancy cars, but want everyone else to live like my grandmother did in Brownsville in Brooklyn in the 1920s. (This is the moment when, if I was John Stewart and this was The Daily Show, I'd be looking plaintively into the camera and stuttering, "But...he...just..said....") Let's make this clear: Kotkin is claiming that the reprehensible people who are unbelievably supporting SB 375 are the very same single-family-home dwellers whom he venerates. This would be contradictory at best--but it also happens to be wrong. In fact, the current governor (who had nothing to do with the passage of SB 375) famously lives in a multifamily building in Sacramento. Granted, the former governor lives on a property in–where else?—West Los Angeles that could comfortably fit several extra families. And that's just in his carriage house. (How convenient for him.) Regardless, who's the one who's making land more expensive? As for the legislature, I have no idea where they all live. Probably in one big houseboat on the American River. But I do know that SB 375's author, Sen. Darrel Steinberg, represents Sacramento (which is a city, last time I checked). And I know that, on average, Democratic voters are more likely to be urban dwellers and that Republican voters are more likely to be suburbanites. Kotkin must know this, unless he has forgotten where Nancy Pelosi is from. So the voters who have supported SB 375 are in fact more likely to already live in denser urban environments. They support SB 375 not because they want to make everyone else miserable but because they want more people to enjoy the urban experience. Most of us city folk don't give a rip about what happens in the suburbs; if they want to stay boring, homogenous, and sparely populated, that's fine by me. Meanwhile, I've never met Kotkin's grandmother, but I'm sure she's a very nice lady and would not like her grandson to say mean things about her home. But that's beside the point. All the people who currently live in Brownsville—because they're hipsters who dig the lifestyle or families who enjoy the inestimable financial benefits of participating in New York City's economy—would probably not like him to say mean things about their lifestyle either. Kotkin then offers up a notion that is both logically and grammatically nonsensical: "The new regime…wants to destroy the essential reason why people move to California in order to protect their own lifestyles." This is where it gets personal. I live in an apartment. So do most of the people I know. By and large, all of us are pleased with our lifestyles because we get to live in great cities and reap their estimable social and economic benefits even if we don't have vast backyards or fences to shield us from people who make us uncomfortable. I support more dense urban development not just because I think it's a fine way to live but also because it will, indirectly, reduce my cost of living if the supply of apartments—which are already in high demand—increases. This is how land use economics works. So let's recap: Kotkin disparages people like me for liking a lifestyle that he disagrees with. He thinks that more people should live where I live (i.e. near the coast) but he doesn't think that coastal areas should build more housing, and he definitely doesn't think that the state should promote that housing. Because then there'd be too much of a bad thing, even though people want that bad thing very badly if it's located in the right places. And that's why, according to Kotkin, California shouldn't have passed SB 375 and instead should have maintained the status quo. Or something like that. Kotkin also spews some nonsense about the evils of green energy, but, to be honest, I'm too exhausted to write any more. Something weird is going on here, and I'll be damned if I can figure it out. If Kotkin wants to discuss further, I invite him to join me in my fourth-floor hovel and witness my childless depravity firsthand. He can bring his own espresso. This article has been updated since its original publication on April 26. For an excellent numbers-based analysis of these issues, see Robert Steuteville's May 1 essay in Better! Cities and Towns.

Of California's roughly 37 million people, not a single one of them remembers a time when the state was not growing at a seemingly out-of-control pace. With the exception of the Depression and World War II years, our state has tripped over itself to build homes, roads, and entire cities nearly from scratch. We bulldozed one patch of desert, farmland, or chaparral only to find the surveyors marking up the next plot. It's been exhilarating, but also exhausting.  And, according to analysis of the latest Census data, it may be coming to an end.  In  "Generational Projections of the California Population By Nativity and Year of Immigrant Arrival,"  a USC team led by professors John Pitkin and Dowell Myers, project that the state will henceforth grow scarcely faster than your money market account does: about 1% per year. In the face of decreasing rates of immigration and birth, the report predicts growth of less than 10% per decade, inching up to 44 million people by 2028. That's as opposed to 26% growth in the 1980s and 14% growth in the 1990s. To put this shift in perspective, as recently as 2007, the state Department of Finance predicted that California would reach 50 million people by 2032. The new numbers push that date back to 2046.   As could be expected, the proportion of elderly people in the state is expected to rise. But with a lower birthrate, there will come a time when there is a greater proportion of working-age adults as well. That's good for the tax base, which will need to support services for all of those seniors.  The report identifies one profound cultural shift: in the coming decades, the majority of Californians will be native-born, starting at 53% in 2010 and rising from there. Perhaps this will, once and for all, put a stop the immortal California question, "you mean you're actually  from here?"  Mind you, 10% per decade with a base of 37 million is still a lot of people. The USC team contends, though, that this pace will give planners a chance to actually plan rather that simply keep up.  That's good news for infrastructure and preservation of open space. But, in a roundabout way, could it be bad news for smart growth?  Even though current strategies such as the smart growth plans of SB 375 are designed to reduce the impacts of growth--on a per capita basis--they still anticipate and, indeed, rely on the occurrence of growth. The Sustainable Communities Strategies do not, contrary to the claims of critics, call for forced marches from the suburbs to center cities. Rather, they assume that urban housing will fulfill a predicted demand for more housing overall. But, with fewer Californians, that's fewer people to inhabit urban infill projects and fewer people to ride public transit.  A transformation of California's urban landscape may, therefore, happen more slowly too. In some places, planning may take the form of retrofitting and updating rather than expanding.  This isn't to say that California is going to grind to a halt or become Japan, where the population is predicted to plummet in the coming decades. At best, it means that we may, finally, get to enjoy that mellow, laid-back lifestyle that we all came here for in the first place.

State Controller John Chiang sent what many cities consider to be an ominous letter, advising them to hand over assets that they may have acquired from redevelopment agencies. The letter, dated April 20, instructs cities, counties, and other agencies to cast a wide net to identify assets that may have been improperly transfered following the January 1, 2011 effective date of AB 1X 26, the bill that calls for the dissolution of redevelopment agencies and liquidation of their assets.  Cities and other entities are ordered to "reverse the transfer" and return all applicable assets to successor agencies, which are charged with liquidating such assets. The order refers to assets transfered both "directly and indirectly" between RDAs and parent jurisdictions. Many agencies had reportedly formed hasty loan agreements and put real assets on the books of their host jurisdictions presumably in order to shield those assets from liquidation.  The order "applies to all assets including, but not limited to, real and personal property, cash funds, accounts receivable, deeds of trust and mortgages, contract rights, and rights to any payment of any kind." The only exemption is if such assets were involved in a contract with a third party, such as a developer, as of June 28, 2011.  The letter warns that cities and counties can expect audits "in the coming weeks." The League of California Cities has announced that its Post-Redevelopment Working Group is working on a response to the letter and will advise cities how to proceed.  For the full text of the letter, please click here .

The adjective "short" best describes California's land use and CEQA statutes of limitation, and Okasaki v. City of Elk Grove illustrates this principle perfectly.  From CEQA's 30- and 35-day limitation periods, to the 90-day limits of the planning and zoning matters (Government code section 65009), to the Subdivision Map Act (Government Code section 66499.37, time waits for no litigant. The most recent case addressing the planning and zoning law wrestles with the interface of the 90-day statute in Government Code section 65009, with the timeline found in Code of Civil Procedure section 1094.6. These latter timelines call for an extension of time periods in circumstances in which the petitioner has requested the agency to prepare the administrative record, in which case, the statute extends to 30 days from the delivery of the record. (Section 1094.6(d)) Okasaki challenged a variance granted to a neighbor by the City of Elk Grove. Roughly one week after the city's decision, Okasaki requested that the city prepare the administrative record. Eventually, 90 days passed without the city preparing the record and without Okasaki having filed suit. Okasaki eventually filed suit soon after the 90-day period passed.  The city successfully demurred on the basis of Government Code section 65009. The court of appeal affirmed. However, Okasaki argued the timeline for filing the writ was extended by the city's failure to deliver the record. Not so, according to the appellate court. Rather, in reconciling these two provisions, the appellate court noted that 65009 was the more specific section and therefore prevailed over the terms of the broader provisions found in Code of Civil Procedure section 1094.6. The Case:  Okasaki, et. al.  v. City of Elk Grove, et. al.  (February 24, 2012, C066203) Cal.App.4th  The Attorneys: Jerry Sandefur for Plaintiffs and Appellants. Best Best & Krieger and Stacey N. Sheston for Defendants and Respondents. Wiliam W. Abbott is a partner in the Sacramento law firm of Abbott & Kindermann, LLP.

The premise behind the categorical exemptions in the California Environmental Quality Act for infill and single-family projects is that projects in relatively dense, established urban areas are unlikely to create major impacts. According to a recent decision, this premise has its limits.   The City of Berkeley is not known for lavish hillside homes the way that, say, Beverly Hills is. And yet, recently the city's Board of Zoning Adjustment had granted a categorical the construction of what can only be described as a mansion. Community members fought the project, filing Berkeley Hillside Preservation v. City of Berkeley .  Property owners had applied for permits to demolish an existing home on a 29,714 square foot lot and to construct a 6,478 square foot home along with an attached 3,394-square foot, 10-car garage. The lot is a hillside lot with an approximately 50% grade. Based upon CEQA exemptions for infill and for construction of new small structures, the Board of Zoning Adjustment approved the permits.  The proposed construction was supported by neighbors, but other interested parties appealed the approvals to the City Council, claiming that the CEQA exemption was granted inappropriately. A geotechnical engineer, Dr. Lawrence Karp, submitted a letter indicating that he had reviewed the building plans, and that he was familiar with the site based upon his work on other building sites in Berkeley. In the letter, Karp contended that additional benching would be required, that this was not reflected on the plans, and that the site potentially had some exposure to seismic risk. Karp also indicated that additional vegetation removal was required that was not otherwise reflected on the plans. Karp concluded by indicating that the project would likely have significant impacts during construction and operationally due to seismic risk.  Two engineers submitted letters on behalf of the applicants (at least one was a geotechnical engineer). They argued in part that Karp misread the plans and that the project was appropriate for the site. The City Council was presented with conflicting evidence as to relative size of the proposed structure to other homes in Berkeley. The City Council denied the appeal, and the opponents filed suit. The trial court ruled for the city and applicant, and the neighbors appealed again. The key issue on appeal was whether or not the city appropriately applied a CEQA exemption in light of all of the evidence. The appellate court indicated that judicial review requires a two-step inquiry. First, the court determines if there are unusual circumstances. As applied here, the appellate court found that the evidence was that the construction was unusual based upon size. The evidence most favorable to the city was that less than .4% of existing homes in the city were larger (although the record included less favorable evidence as well). The city argued that the relevant consideration in determining unusual circumstances was the vicinity of the proposed construction, and from this perspective, the proposed size was not unusual. Rejecting this approach, the appellate court directed that the proper point of focus was the broader category of similar structures for which the exemption was intended, not just those in the vicinity.  Once this test is satisfied, the inquiry shifts to whether "there is a reasonable possibility that the proposed construction will have a significant effect on the environment due to the unusual circumstances of its size." The appellate court found that the opponents had made the requisite showing of a fair argument through the Karp letter. The fact that there was evidence in favor of the city's decision was not conclusive under the fair argument test. Accordingly, the appellate court determined that an EIR was required. Comment:  The issue at hand is not whether or not a property owner has an inalienable right to build a ten-car garage or a 7,000-square foot house. What is important about this decision is that it highlights the barrier that CEQA poses to infill and to the revitalization of existing urban areas. CEQA prioritizes the status quo over change. If we are serious about creating vibrant urban communities, then we need vigorous CEQA reform. It's not rocket science to figure out why development steadily marches onward at the suburban fringe: defenders of the status quo file CEQA lawsuits, cows rarely do.  The Case:  Berkeley Hillside Preservation v. City of Berkeley (February 15, 2012, A131254) 203Cal.App.4th 656. The Attorneys:  For Appellants: Susan Brandt-Hawley For Respondents City of Berkeley: Zach Cowan, City Attorney, Laura McKinney, Deputy City Attorney For Respondents and Real Parties in Interest Mitchell  Kapor, Freada Kapor-Klein, and Donn Logan: Myers, Nave, Riback, Silver & Wilson, Amrit S. Kulkarni, Julia L. Bond William W. Abbott is a partner in the Sacramento law firm of Abbott & Kindermann, LLP.

The definition of wetland would seem to be self-evident: wet land. If only it were that easy in California.  From vernal pools that slowly diminish in the Central Valley heat to brackish estuaries separating ocean from land, California's topography includes some of the most varied types of wetlands imaginable. Their numbers and varieties baffle that which governmental regulations such as the federal Clean Water Act describe.  A new proposed policy, released in preliminary draft form by the Water Resource Control Board, seeks to preserve the state's remaining wetlands and tighten controls over how permits to impact wetlands are issued.  The product of seven years of discussions and scientific study, the Preliminary Draft Wetland Area Protection Policy—based, in part, on the federal definition—is being hailed by environmentalists but already raising anxiety among developers. It defines wetlands according to the following criteria:  • is continuously or recurrently inundated with shallow water or saturated within the upper substrate;  • has anaerobic conditions within the upper substrate caused by such hydrology; and  • either lacks vegetation or the vegetation is dominated by hydrophytes. These criteria were recommended by the Water Board's Technical Advisory Team, which consisted of a team of 15 scientists with expertise in various aspects of wetland ecology and geology.  Only 9% of the state's wetlands remain as compared to the days of Spanish settlement. For much of the 20th century, the policies of the state and of the Army Corps of Engineers was to fill wetlands in order to make lands arable and developable. This policy seeks to reverse that trend while preserving the diversity of the state's wetlands. In order to account for unusual wetlands that occur in California's arid climate, the definition includes the following caveat: "Places lacking vegetation but otherwise meeting the hydrology and substrate criteria for wetlands are defined as wetlands…(to include) tidal flats, playas, some river bars, and shallow non-vegetated ponds." That accounts for some of the more arid regions of the state and some of the wetland types that typically don't have vegetation," said Eric Stein, Biology Department Head at the Southern California Coastal Water Research Project and member of the Technical Advisory Team.  The draft policy also includes a wetland delineation method, a wetland assessment and monitoring framework, and authorization procedures for dredge and fill discharges to waters of the state The draft has been released "for information purposes" and will not be subject to public comment for several more weeks. Water Board officials expect that it will undergo revision before the board votes on a final draft.  Though rhetoric cannot capture every variation and account for every potentially valuable natural resource, scientists say that this definition will serve the desired purpose, especially compared to status quo. Thus far, the state has not adhered to an official definition. Different agencies, from the Coastal Commission to the Department of Fish and Game, have often relied on their own notions of what constitutes a wetland.  As a result, say state officials, the process for protecting wetlands—or, conversely, for issuing permits to dredge, fill, and discharge—has been haphazard at best.  "It's difficult to manage a resource without knowing exactly what it is and being able to identify exactly what it is," said Bill Oreme, chief of the Water Board's Wetlands and 401 Unit.  The Water Board ordered the drafting of the new policy with three goals in mind: 1) establish clear, uniform criteria for the application, review, and approval of permits to discharge dredged or fill material to waters of the state; 2) to achieve no net loss of wetlands; 3) provide a common framework for the monitoring and assessment of wetland areas.  All of these goals hinge on the definition of what a wetland is, but some say that the new definition does not go far enough to achieve them. "We think it's far too narrow," said Colin Kelly, state attorney at Orange County Coastkeeper.  "If you look at other sections of California state regulations, there aren't as many qualifiers on what a wetland is." Kelly said that those qualifiers could end up excluding important resources.  Until recently, the Clean Water Act was interpreted to cover a wide variety of wetlands, but no longer.  The federal government's definition has prevailed over waters covered by the Clean Water Act. But even that has been a moving target, thanks to a pair of recent Supreme Court decisions—Solid Waste Agency v. U.S. Army Corps of 2001 and Rapanos v. U.S. of 2006—that ruled that the act applied only to tributaries of navigable waterways. This ruling effectively reduced the amount of waters that fall under the protection of the Clean Water Act and forced the state to enact its own policy to protect important waters that are now excluded from the CWA.  State officials could not merely adopt federal standards, and apply them to all potential waterways in the state, because of the variety and relative preciousness of the state's wetlands. Biologists contend that wetlands often serve as crucial habitats for all manner of species, particularly migratory birds. Thus, even an ephemeral vernal pool could provide safe harbor in an otherwise arid landscape. Meanwhile, coastal wetlands are considered valuable for flood control, water filtration, and recreation.  Though officials stress that the policy and definition remain in draft form, developers are anxious about changes that could arise if and when a final version is adopted.  "Our principle concern is the potential duplication of federal, state, local regulations," said Mike Winn, president and CEO of the Building Industry Association of California. "It's already a very complicated process and this doesn't seem to be simplifying matters at all.  It contradicts and makes what for decades now has been a painful but at least somewhat predictable process less predictable." The board also hoped to bring its definition of wetlands in line with that of the Clean Water Act; however, some say that there are enough discrepancies – such as the occasional exclusion of the vegetation criterion – that permit applicants may end up doing more work.  "We have a really serious concern with the process of having to go through two wetland permitting processes, not just one," said Winn. "It looks to me like it may be just enough different to make it confusing…and perhaps burdensome," said Elizabeth Lake, partner at the law firm of Holland & Knight.   Despite the trepidation that many developers feel any time the state changes a policy, state officials insist that the new policy might actually ease the burden on developers who apply for permits. Officials say that the new definition will neither increase nor decrease the amount of resources that lie under the state's protection, and they have pledged to make the permitting process more streamlined.  Thus, developers will not necessarily find more lands off-limits, and even if applications are to be denied, they will be denied more quickly than they are under the current system.  "There's going to be no difference between what we presently have jurisdiction over and the condition after the policy," said Oreme.  "What you're going to see is that areas that are regulated today are probably very similar to areas that are regulated under this policy," said Stein.  Oreme said that currently each of the state's nine Regional Water Boards follow their own criteria, meaning that any developer who works in more than one region faces different policies.  "I think developers should find a lot of advantages to this policy," said Oreme. "This policy will establish a set of criteria that will be uniform across all water boards."  Although the Supreme Court took many wetlands out of federal jurisdiction under Section 404 of the Clean Water Act, many wetlands areas remain federally protected. The Water Board has made efforts to ensure that its new definition matches up with that used by the Army Corps of Engineers. In cases when the jurisdictions overlap and a developer must submit applications to both a regional water board and to the Corps.  The Corps has therefore been involved with the drafting of the new policy and has pledged its commitment to facilitate an efficient permitting process.   "We will continue to work with the State on its proposed policy to reduce duplication, streamline reviews and make decisions about protecting wetlands that are consistent and reasonable, and plan to submit further comments once the Draft Policy is open to formal public review," said Michael Jewel, regulatory chief for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Sacramento District. Despite the state's mandate to incur no net losses, both the Corps' and the Water Board's statements of purpose indicate that they are committed to "reasonable economic development."  Contacts & Resources:  State Water Resources Control Board Clean Water Act Section 401 Program Colin Kelly, Staff Attorney, Orange County Coastkeeper, 714.850.1965 Elizabeth Lake, Partner, Holland & Knight, 415.743.6969 Bill Oreme, Chief, Wetlands & 401 Unit, State Water Resources Control Board, 916.341.525 Eric Stein, Biology Department Head, Southern California Coastal Water Research Project, 714.755.3233 Mike Winn, President & CEO, Building Industry Association of California, 916.443.7933

The fate of thousands of would-be redevelopment projects now rests in the very busy hands of the California Department of Finance. Working with an augmented crew, the department has so far received roughly 200 Recognized Obligation Payment Schedules (ROPS) and has so far sent back roughly 20 for review by their respective successor agencies. Letters such as these ( pdf ) have gone out to those cities so that they can amend their ROPS or justify the listed expenditures.  Department spokesperson HD Palmer could not offer definitive specific numbers in part because the action has been furious this week. Successor agencies were supposed to have submitted their ROPS to DOF by April 15. Not all of them submitted on time, however, so more ROPS are arriving by the hour. DOF has three days to review and respond to ROPS, all of which must be reviewed by May 1 at the latest are to pay their bills.  "It's in their interests to submit them because, under the provisions of the bill, expenditures can't be made after May 1 unless they're approved," said Palmer.    ROPS are the list of projects that successor agencies believe to be eligible for continued funding under AB X1 26, the law that ordered the dissolution of redevelopment agencies and guides the wind-down process.  Finance is charged with making sure that all tax increment monies go back to the state, such as AB X1 26 allows. The means that they are on the lookout for projects that were approved after a June 27, 2011 deadline or, commonly, loans made to cities by redevelopment agencies after the governor announced his intention to dissolve agencies in January 2011.  Some cities whose ROPS are under review include:  Riverside, with over $150 million in expenditures that DOF claims do not adhere to AB 1X 26; they include over $100 million in loans and grants made between the city and redevelopment agency Scotts Valley, with $3.6 million in loans to the city Orange, with $7 million for a project not approved until November 2011 San Leandro, with a $2 million loan and nearly $9 million in cooperative agreements If Finance ultimately refuses to approve funds for these items -- and similarly questionable expenses at other cities -- the projects will be among the thousands of redevelopment projects that are already moribund.   With roughly 400 successor agencies and ROPS's varying in length -- from hardly any projects in small towns to potentially thousands in large cities -- the department has called in reinforcements. "We knew we were going to have to do a significant amount of review in a relatively limited time frame. That's why we a) redirected members of our audit staff to work full-time on this, and b) brought back some retired (employees)," said Palmer. "We're confident that we'll be able to do the kind of reviews that are necessary." Palmer said that roughly 60 staff people are working full-time to address the flood of ROPS.

Yesterday, at Day Three of the APA's National Planning Conference, a panel of planning directors and other city officials from Southern California cities offered their take on a range of issues – good and bad – that cities in the region are facing. The panel was designed for a non-California audience, and the panelists' take on statewide trends was telling.   A few highlights:  Nowhere is the housing crisis more acutely visible than in the Inland Empire, where M. Margot Wheeler presides over Community Development for the City of San Bernardino . She spoke about the paradox of needing to build more affordable housing at the same time that vacant, underwater tract homes are rotting on their foundations:  "Was the housing meant to be affordable or did it just become that way? Affordable housing is the flip side of redevelopment. It's the 20% set-asides.  Redevelopment is about chasing the almighty dollar of sales tax and fiscalization of land use: car dealers and regional malls. Single-family housing never pays for itself." "With the demise of set-asides, the likelihood of developing affordable housing is going to be a more onerous task than it ever was before." Wheeler suggested the development of accessory units such as granny flats and garage units, even though they often run afoul of zoning codes and draw the ire of residents. But she said those voices must not be allowed to hold sway and insisted that the "retrofit of existing neighborhoods is going to be crucial."  Kathleen Garcia, planning director in Del Mar , had some choice words for public participation and, implicitly, for NIMBYism. She began by describing a one-acre development that – in a city of just over 4,000 residents – was subject to 68 public meetings and then had to go to a popular vote. She noted that the residents who would stop a development like that do not necessarily represent the entire community.  Fullerton planning director Al Zelinka offered some incisive commentary about the relationship between government and constituents. At first blush, he seems to be levying harsh criticism on residents for being ignorant. But that's only half the story. He's also implying that government needs to be more clear and, if it wants constituents who can offer useful input, it has to take initiative to educate them.   "It's amazing to me how uninformed, uneducated, unaware the public is about where the money comes from, how it's supposed to be used, and how the budgeting process happens…. This moment of economic hardship is our time to have an informed, educated public and to lead the conversation about where our city is going to go." Representing "America's Finest City"—which he said had been rechristened "Enron by the Sea," San Diego development services director Kelley Broughton, spoke about the challenge of measuring success. Performance metrics are always tough in the public sector, which does not follow the benchmarks of profit and loss. "In private sector, you're focused on getting things done.  In public sector, it's harder to tell." Broughton noted that the city has "put in tools 20 years ago that haven't been used yet," meaning that no matter how good the tools are, it's impossible to yet give them full credit.  Alan Bell, deputy planning director in Los Angele s, was asked to speak about the California Environmental Quality Act, whch he described as "the law that we love to hate."  "The whole environmental clearance process has been seized by those who want to stop projects.  CEQA is the weakest link and the most expeditious way to stop a project. It's not about good planning or about what is good for a particular community. It's about trying to meet one's own agenda." "For big cities, that's ironic, because urban infill makes the most sense.  We want to preserve deserts and farmland. That means developing in areas that have the infrastructure to support that. Yet CEQA enables contestants to subvert that process." To illustrate what he considered the absurdity of CEQA, Bell cited the recently released 10,000-page environmental report for Los Angeles' proposed Farmers Field football stadium. "Who is going to read?" he asked. "No one." Bell noted that CEQA's scale contradicts the very mission of forward-thinking planning: "The whole law is oriented towards project planning, not community planning. So it's not serving the larger purpose that planners want." Amy Bodek, director of development services and former redevelopment director in Long Beach , illustrated the bureaucratic impacts of the demise of redevelopment. She spoke of layoffs, reassignments, and other tumult associated with disbanding a department that had previously been humming along with a $120 million annual budget.   Santa Monica planning director David Martin spoke about his city's process for creating development agreements for projects that are not being developed by-right. He described an idealized sequence by which an agreement is discussed at no fewer than seven meetings, before bodies including the planning commission and city council. He admitted that, in reality, the more controversial a project is, the more likely it is to require far more discussion.  Carol Barrett, community development director in Berkeley , said that she once half-jokingly asked her city manager if she could "Ignore email sent between 1am and 5am." She said that, for the most part, "it was not persuasive, reasoned discourse" that, she felt, was not productive for the palnning process. But Barrett said she continues to heed all public input because "we persist with public engagement because it's the right thing to do.

LOS ANGELES -- For all the efforts that California has expended to embrace regional planning , it turns out that regional planning may already be outdated.  At this morning's APA National Conference session on "megapolitan America" Robert Lang of the University of Nevada-Las Vegas posed a question: "What the hell does Reno have to do with San Francisco?" What the hell, indeed.  According to Lang and the University of Utah's Chris Nelson, co-authors of the recently published Megapolitan America: A New Vision for Understanding America's Metropolitan Geography , California's capital of tech, sophistication, and urbanity ought not ignore the northern Nevada capital of bowling, divorce, and sprawl – nor vice-versa. According to Lang, anything that happens in San Francisco, or, more specifically, the Port of Oakland, has direct impacts on the economy of Reno. The more ships that come into the port—which was dredged a few years ago, with an immediate increase in traffic – the more trucks and trains pass through Reno, where they unload cargo for redirection to all points throughout the intermountain West.  Nelson's and Lang's point is that the emerging units of economic growth—as well as environmental protection and transportation networks—are not cities, metro regions, or even MPO regions. They are "megapolitan" regions. They identify 23 megapolitan regions across the country, including the Sierra-Pacific region, plunging inland from San Francisco to Reno, and Southern California, stretching roughly from Santa Barbara to the Mexican border. These regions pursue the geographer's Holy Grail of grouping contiguous places according to function and affinity rather than by de jure political boundaries (cf. Joel Garraeu's Nine Nations of North America or Wilbur Zelinsky's Cultural Geography of the United States ).  Lang and Nelson claim that these regions already act as de facto economic, and, sometimes, cultural units whose components share common interests, complementary strengths, and overlapping commuting patterns.  They include everything from the Seattle-Portland region to Colorado's Front Range to the original "megalopolis" lining the Eastern Seaboard. Often, these regions function in spite of themselves.  In particular, American urban areas have not always embraced planning and coordination within discrete metro regions, much less between metro regions.   California's four biggest metro regions are already trying to reverse this trend, in the name of mitigating climate change. After four years of yanking and tugging, regional Sustainable Communities Strategies are coming to fruition, often with great fanfare (and sometimes, in the case of San Diego's SCS, some litigation for good measure).  If the thought, though, of creating inter-regional – and even inter-state – plans makes your head hurt, I'm sure you're not alone.  For starters, California and Nevada do not exactly like each other. They can't even agree on how to preserve the one undisputed jewel that they share: Lake Tahoe . On all other matters, California tends to treat Nevada with indifference and Nevada often treats California with derision. That's especially true in the Reno area, where faded casinos have suffered from the rise of Indian casinos in northern California.  Lang and Nelson point out, however, that northern Nevada's economy relies more on trucking than on gambling. "The logistics industry is the only thing holding Reno together," said Lang.  The eighteen-wheelers coming over Donner Summit therefore give the regions – the Bay Area, Sacramento, and northern Nevada alike – to cooperate. As Lang said of distinction between the economically linked cities of Phoenix and Tucson, "to a German looking to invest in solar energy, they're all just Saguaros and Circle K's."  You can only imagine what they'd think of Reno. But Lang's point is that it doesn't matter. Traffic is traffic and money is money. If California wants to prosper in the next generation, it not only has to figure out how to implement its regional plans well, but also how to create plans between regions. That means that ABAG, SACOG, and Washoe County need to reach out to each other, as do SACG and SANDAG. Daunting as this prospect may sound, at least California is ahead of the game, thanks to SB 375. We have a vocabulary for talking across political boundaries. I can only imagine what will happen when Boston tries to cooperate with southern New Hampshire, or Cleveland with Pittsburgh.  It's not like we in California don't have enough to do already, but if history is any guide, then there's plenty of reason to think that Nelson's and Lang's predictions of an inter-regional future will indeed come to pass.  Now someone has to tell Nevada.

You may not yet have heard, but tanks are massing on the border of Santa Clarita.  Special forces have ziplined into Poway city hall. Under cover of night, Jerry Brown himself stands resolute on the prow of a PT boat, his beloved corgi Sutter at heel, motoring up the American River towards Folsom. There, an unhinged planning director has gone native, grilling freshly slaughtered meat in a backyard. From atop the Coit Tower, you can hear it: the strafing has begun in San Rafael. May God have mercy on all our souls.  So implies the latest essay by Wendell Cox, "California Declares War on Suburbia," published in this past Saturday's Wall Street Journal. In it, Cox takes aim at Senate Bill 375, California's landmark law promoting compact development patterns for the purpose of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Any regular reader of CP&DR knows that over the past year the state's "Big Four" metropolitan planning organizations--in San Diego , Los Angeles , Sacramento , and the Bay Area--have been producing regional plans to comply with SB 375 . Lamenting that 1.6 million people moved out of California in the 2000s, Cox contends that these plans will force housing prices up and thus drive more people out of the state.  SB 375 is naturally irresistible to Cox, the outspoken libertarian urban scholar who, on a roughly annual basis, announces the results of such-and-such new study or analysis that conclusively proves the evils of smart growth. (See CP&DR publisher Bill Fulton's response to Cox's previous volley.) What I've finally figured out is that, in his own mind, Cox does not dwell in the outer suburbs of which he is so fond. Rather, he seems to inhabit his own Frontier, an empty, windswept place where no one else will read his thoughts and, therefore, never discover their fallacies. Because if Cox did imagine that anyone would read his work, then he might for a moment consider that he puts up some pretty big targets. Think Moby Dick in a swimming pool.  In the latest go-round, Cox's logic follows a circuitous path, so it's best to respond roughly in order of the claims that he presents.  Since 2000 more than 1.6 million people have fled, and my own research as well as that of others points to high housing prices as the principal factor. SB 375 and AB 32 did not pass until 2008 and 2006, respectively. In the first half of the 2000s, developers could not build homes fast enough in California. So, yes, it must be the climate change regulations and not the incredible demand for housing that has driven prices up.  California has declared war on the most popular housing choice, the single family, detached home Let's not confuse most popular with most common. And let's not forget that the single-family home is most common because of the laws, regulations, and public investments that made it most common.  Metropolitan area governments are adopting plans… Here's his first whopper of a falsehood: metropolitan planning agencies are government agencies, but they are not governments. They have no police power and exert influence only to the extent that they control some transportation funding. And much of their policymaking depends on the consensus of their members: typically cities and counties, which are governments. Notably, MPO planners have based SCS's in large part on the general plans of these constituent jurisdictions. (Cox should know that the SCS of the Southern California Association of Governments was adopted on a unanimous vote; and, no, the suburban representatives were not bound and gagged in a back room.) … that would require most new housing to be built at 20 or more to the acre, which is at least five times the traditional quarter acre per house. Cox has built a career on an appealing but often useless observation: less dense areas promote efficiency because cars burn relatively less gas when they travel at consistent speeds on uncongested streets. This metric, however, ignores overall fuel consumption that takes place when you have to drive to the next county to buy a quart of milk.  If every urban area in California continued to build at four houses to the acre, the distances from homes to basic amenities would grow ever greater. And you can forget about your commute: unless companies are going to open up branch offices in Tracy and Palmdale, then commutes from Cox's fantasy fringe to established job centers would become farcical.  Big houses and the Frontier mentality are fine if you live and work in Jurupa. Sure, people like big houses.  They also like living close to their jobs. Some of them even like living close to other people.  Cox ignores the inherent attributes of places -- charm, vibrancy, attractiveness, convenience, accessibility (see London, Paris, Santa Monica, San Francisco... you get the point) -- that would make a resident perfectly happy to live in close quarters and assumes that residents base their preferences purely on housing types. In other words, don't hire Cox as your economist, and please don't hire him as your real estate agent.  But what about the inner suburbs? What about Milpitas? Or Covina? Or even Irvine? They can't keep expanding. So if, as Cox's whole premise suggests, population growth is a good thing, then how exactly are they going to grow without becoming more dense?  State and regional planners also seek to radically restructure urban areas, forcing … SB 375 doesn't force anything on anyone. It provides incentives and a few penalties. No city is going to go out of business if it doesn't comply.  Moreover, planners at MPO's have insisted that SCS's will cause anything but "radical" restructuring. Places that are suburban will remain largely suburban. Places that are urban will simply become "more" urban and thus relieve pressure on suruban areas. By promoting this high-density development, most new development will take place on a relatively small footprint, thus largely preserving Cox's precious status quo.   …much of the new hyperdensity development... "Hyperdensity"? Hyperdensity is Hong Kong. It's Mumbai. It's a Hunger Games screening on opening night. The notion that Cox thinks any place in California could ever be hyperdense is enough to forever disregard him. (Ironically, I don't actually want to disregard him. I like a good contrarian.) ...into narrowly confined corridors. This description implies that California's boulevards will turn into sun-starved canyons, with laundry hanging between tenements. That's hardly the case. But even if it was, Cox willfully ignores the premise behind directing density to "narrow" corridors: it keeps density out of single-family home neighborhoods. What a concept. If the planners have their way, 68% of new housing in Southern California by 2035 would be condos and apartment complexes. This contrasts with Census Bureau data showing that single-family, detached homes represented more than 80% of the increase in the region's housing stock between 2000 and 2010. On Day One of moral philosophy class, most professors review the naturalistic fallacy, otherwise known as the is-ought fallacy. It means that what "is" is not necessarily what "ought" to be. (For an example, see the American South, ca. 1600 – 1865.) Mr. Cox apparently was absent that day.  Over the past 40 years, median house prices have doubled relative to household incomes in the Golden State….economic studies…have documented the strong relationship between more intense land-use regulations and exorbitant house prices. I'm not going to tangle with Cox over studies. We all know that there's a study for everything. I'll only say that a lot more things were going on in the 1970s than just the introduction of land use regulations. There was also, say, Prop. 13, the oil crisis, the consumption of readily developable land, and disco too.  Since then, California has weathered the flight of the defense industry, the slow decrease in oil production, the scourge of the War on Drugs, the closure of military bases, the evisceration of the public school system, the near-lifetime incarceration of nonviolent felons, and the rise of the Kardashians (who, not coincidentally, live in Calabasas). I have no idea what this has to do with home prices, but my point is that California is a slightly more complicated place than Cox makes it out to be.  A 2007 report by McKinsey….recommended cost-effective strategies such as improved vehicle economy, improving the carbon efficiency of residential and commercial buildings, upgrading coal-fired electricity plants, and converting more electricity production to natural gas. The California Legislature recommended the same thing. It's called AB 32.  It is better to raise children with backyards than on condominium balconies. In a universe full of empty assertions based on nothing but aesthetic biases, rarely does logic flee from opinion with quite such haste as it does from this one.  In point of fact, only an illiterate boor would categorically privilege the suburbs over all else. Cox needs look only to Betty Friedan (or Betty Draper, for that matter) to consider that maybe life holds more than meatloafs, soap operas, and chain restaurants.  Plenty of young parents would be perfectly happy to live in nice, well located multifamily dwellings rather than in poorly constructed stucco boxes in the high desert. If only there were more such dwellings to go around. However, if Cox thinks that the outer suburbs are so darned attractive, then he can get bargains on just about as many homes in Riverside, Stockton, and Merced as he wants. Everyone else who can afford to buy is buying elsewhere, or so just about all the demographic analyses suggest. A less affordable California, with less attractive housing, could disadvantage the state as much as its already destructive policies toward business. Here, Cox conflates the form of housing with the supply of housing. Sustainable Communities Strategies explicitly account for projected population growth. Though Cox may not like them, all the odious little apartments in those regional plans are meant to house exactly the number of people by which each respective region is projected to grow. If Cox thinks all 10-plus million of those new residents should live in detached homes, then I'd like to see what sort of plans he has in mind.  Conclusion To Cox's credit, he never denigrates the mission of reducing emissions and greenhouse gases. At least he shares that goal with the fact-believing community. I wish, though, that he had more to offer. Surely SB 375 and its SCS's have their flaws. But if California is going to absorb millions of new residents, reduce pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, and be anything less than a snarled hellhole a generation from now, then it needs to do something. For now, SB 375 is that something, and spreading falsehoods and half-truths about it will not help. Cox would like to believe that war is coming. It's not. But summer is coming, and it's going to be a long, hot one if California—and the rest of the world—does not get its house in order.  This piece has been updated since its original publication April 11.

With the American Planning Association National Conference arriving in Los Angeles tomorrow, it's likely that more planners than usual will not just be attending lectures and idly networking but rather will be actively, and sometimes desperately, trying to remain in the profession.  Gov. Jerry Brown's decision to eliminate redevelopment agencies has not only sent cities into a frenzy and threatened thousands of projects, it also may be sending thousands of planners, and other land use professions, into a dismal job market. Although many planners are hanging on as staff for successor agencies, as 2012 progresses, many expect that competition for scarce planning jobs will grow ever more intense.  Just before redevelopment agencies had to shut down Feb. 1, the California Redevelopment Assoc. conducted a survey to roughly determine how many staff members of redevelopment agencies would be laid off.  "At the time, we estimated 2,500-3,000 employees of redevelopment agencies would be laid off as a result (of elimination)," said CRA interim executive director Jim Kennedy.  As recently as a year ago, redevelopment had appeared to be one of the most secure career paths for urban planners, even amid state- and city-level budget crises. The passage of Prop. 22 had ensured that agencies would be fully funded, until the governor and legislature eliminated them entirely. Many redevelopment planners are expected to seek refuge with municipal planning offices, but many of them have also downsized because of budget cuts.  "It's pretty financially constrained these days," said Kennedy. "We're not engaged in a high level of hiring activity.  I would suspect that it's a buyer's market." Ironically, the elimination of redevelopment could heighten the need for capable planners in cities across the state—if only cities had the money to hire them.  "Redevelopment helped fund many local services, including planning efforts for urban areas that were in the greatest need," said Kevin Keller, a planner with the Los Angeles Dept. of City Planning and president of the California Chapter of the American Planning Association. "The removal of this tool actually increases the need for planners to fill this void, but the public sector job market will likely remain flat for the immediate future."  In municipal planning departments, many planning functions that used to be conducted in-house are now being outsourced to private firms, meaning there are fewer permanent staff positions than ever.  "As governments have downsized, they're starting to look to more outside help for what they consider interim needs," said Phil Carter, president of PMC, a Rancho Cordova-based consulting and placement firm that specializes in public sector, land use-related careers.  Those jobs that are available may not be considered dream jobs. Many planning departments consider long-term planning and vision-setting positions to be the most expendable.  "We're seeing a continued slowdown in the demand by local government for certain types of planners, mostly those who are working on larger-scale design-type projects: urban landscapes or downtown plans," said Carter.  Meanwhile, Carter said that those jobs that are available tend to focus on relatively mundane administrative tasks, such as the processing of development applications.  The Los Angeles planning department is one of few agencies that intends to hire new employees in the foreseeable future. It may be an anomaly, however, because its funding is coming from grants rather than from sustained revenues or contributions from the city's general fund.  For planners on the job market, flexibility and geography may offer keys to success--as long as job-seekers are determined to remain in planning. Kenny Lousen, president of the Associated Students of Planning at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, said that some graduating students who have studied redevelopment have resigned themselves to exploring other lines of work.    "A lot of the students are focusing on whether they should go to grad school first or if they should start somewhere that's not their forte," said Lousen.  Eva Yuan-McDaniel, deputy director of planning at the Los Angeles planning department, said that lack of experience should not necessarily deter applicants. The department hires, in large part, according to an applicant's score on the city's civil service exam.  "You are not discriminated against just because you got out of school…or because you left school two decades ago," said Yuan-McDaniel.  In fact, graduating students may not, however, have the hardest time on the job market. Because applicants need to be flexible, Carter described something of a sweet spot for job seekers: a few years of experience, but not so much experience that they have committed to a particular function.  "Certainly someone with 3-5 years of a good urban planning background has a leg up on someone coming out of school," said Carter. "At the same time, we'll run into people who have been in the business for 10-15 years and they have locked themselves into a way of doing things that a younger person hasn't yet." Even though redevelopment agencies had been located in cities throughout the state, Carter recommended that job seekers be willing to relocate to increase their chances of landing jobs. He noted that development activity is likely to pick up in cities far more quickly than it will in rural  areas and in outlying areas that experienced housing booms in the early 2000s.  "There are huge geographic voids in the state," said Carter. "The more urban settings are more active." Contacts:  Phil Carter, PMC, 866.828.6PMC Kevin Keller, California Chapter, American Planning Association, www.calapa.org Eva Yuan-McDaniel, Los Angeles Dept. of City Planning, 213.978.1244

Gov. Jerry Brown's successful effort to shut down the state's now defunct redevelopment agencies has taken another casualty: the California Redevelopment Association.  In a statement released today ( pdf ), CRA officials and board members announced that the organization, absent its raison d'etre, would soon begin the process of shutting down, pending a vote of its membership. The venerable organization had led the fight to preserve redevelopment. Along with the League of California Cities, CRA drafted and promoted Prop. 22, the 2010 ballot measure that was designed to protect local funds, such as redevelopment monies. It then took on Gov. Brown and ultimately filed suit to overturn the legislation that forced agencies to shut down if they refused to make payments to the state. That legal effort turned disastrous for CRA, as the state Supreme Court rendered a ruling that eliminated the payment scheme and condemned all the state's RDA's.  Since the court rendered its decision in December, CRA has been helping agencies navigate the dissolution process.  In a letter from CRA President and Alhambra City Manager Julio Fuentes, and CRA Interim Executive Director Jim Kennedy reads, in part: "(W)e are confronted with the unfortunate reality that the years of incredible success with redevelopment – building affordable housing, creating jobs, cleaning up and reusing contaminated sites, and revitalizing communities – have now come to an end due to a policy choice of the State of California to address its fiscal imbalance in part by dissolving redevelopment agencies. As a result, cities and counties in California will, at least for a time, have to address community revitalization needs without this incredibly powerful tool. "With the dissolution of local redevelopment agencies as of February 1, it has become clear to the board and executive staff that the business plan for CRA is no longer sustainable.  (T)he CRA Board of Directors has now concluded with great reluctance that it has no other prudent choice but to initiate the dissolution of the association." Fuentes and Kennedy explain that the League of California Cities has already taken a leadership role in discussing the future of any "next generation" local community revitalization tool:  "The League of California Cities has already convened a Next Generation Task Force to assist in these discussions. The imperative for California's communities to continue addressing their infrastructure, affordable housing, jobs/economic development, brownfield reuse, and military base reuse challenges remains." CP&DR will provide updates as they become available.