The Strategic Growth Council staff is recommending awards of almost $300 million to 25 different projects around the state that promote greenhouse gas emissions reduction and affordable housing, and assist disadvantaged communities. The Council will meet next week to approve the list.

In the second medical marijuana ruling out of the City of Upland in the last week, the Fourth District Court of Appeal has ruled that Upland's ban on mobile medical marijuana dispensaries is not subject to the California Environmental Quality Act.

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti announced Monday that he has selected Vince Bertoni as the city's new planning director, replacing Michael Lo Grande. Bertoni is currently planning director of Pasadena and a former deputy director in Los Angeles. Bertoni must be confirmed by the L.A. City Council.

Local governments in the Inland Empire won one and lost one in rulings about medical marijuana, both from the same panel of justices on the Fourth District Court of Appeal.

All of sudden, or so it seems, a stadium mania has overtaken California. The dreams, schemes and honest-to-goodness plans for football and baseball stadiums are coming so fast that it’s difficult to keep track of them.

Ever since Gov. Jerry Brown killed redevelopment in 2011, the conventional wisdom has been that eventually he would give it a second life - but only after he was sure the old system was completely dead, in a way that protects the state general fund, and probably after he himself won re-election to a final term.

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

Thirty years ago, in his first big majority opinion -- a land-use case from the California coast -- Antonin Scalia found the colorful and irreverent style that came to distinguish his career on the Supreme Court. And with one clean swipe, he knocked William Brennan out of the box and became the intellectual leader of the court.

What do touchdowns, trade shows, room service, rivers, and dorm rooms have in common? In San Diego, quite a bit.

The California Department of Food & Agriculture erred in preparing an environmental impact report for a program intended to eradicate with an invasive pest without examining the long-term consequences of an alternative program to control the pest rather than eradicate it, the Third District Court of Appeal has ruled.

The holiday season continues to be a cruel time of year for California's redevelopment community. Last year, the state Supreme Court struck a blow on Dec. 29, allowing the state to abolish redevelopment agencies.  And this year, on Dec. 18, the state Department of Finance denied funding to many of the 240 of the 400 successor agencies who had appealed earlier rejections.

A summary judgment ruling April 7 by U.S. District Judge John Mendez upheld the Tahoe Regional Plan Update, endorsing a new regulatory approach to protecting Lake Tahoe that emphasizes incentives for more centralized, better mitigated development. His decision helps to ratify a high-level accord that in 2011 and 2012 resolved political tensions between California and Nevada over shared governance of Lake Tahoe.