The nonprofit Union of Concerned Scientists released a report and interactive tool that forecasts what parts of the country are likely to see regular flooding from rising sea level rise. Areas that are expected to experience frequent flooding by 2030 are northern parts of Huntington Beach and the peninsula in Newport Beach, Balboa Island, the Seal Beach Naval Weapons Station, the Port of Long Beach, residential peninsula near Belmont Shores, and neighboring Naples Island. These areas will experience flooding of streets and beaches in just 13 years, decades earlier than previously predicted. In the Bay Area, Alameda, Oakland, San Mateo, San Rafael, and South San Francisco will be chronically inundated under a moderate global warming scenario in 2100. In a more rapid warming scenario San Francisco, Corte Madera, Larkspur, Burlingame, East Palo Alto and Palo Alto could see chronic flooding in 2065. In the research, the scientists used high-resolution topographic maps, sea level rise projects, and tide gauges. The Union of Concerned Scientists predicted the number of US communities facing chronic flooding to increase by 83 percent, to 167 communities in 2035. The hope in releasing this report is to encourage cities and the federal government to adopt policies that will discourage building in flood-prone areas and enhance federal policies to support communities dealing with rising sea levels. The report does not include infrastructure plans in place to mitigate some of the effects of rising sea levels. Legislature Narrowly Approves Extension of Cap-and-Trade Gov. Jerry Brown, Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de Leon and Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon proposed a new Cap-and-Trade extension plan and air quality program that was introduced in bill form last week. After weeks of contentious debate and uncertainty, the package, introduced as AB 398 and SB 617, passed with 28 votes in the Senate and 55 in the Assembly, each one more than the two-thirds needed in each house. The program funds a range of land-use grants, including Affordable Housing and Sustainable Communities. The two-bill package includes AB 398 which sets forth the extension plan and AB 617 which would create a new air quality monitoring program. In addition to extending the program through 2030, AB 398 would establish funding priorities for how the state would spend auction revenues over the next decade and establish an Independent Emissions Market Advisory Committee to report to the ARB and the legislature on the environmental and economic performance of the program. The new air quality program, AB 617, would require stationary sources to report annually emission of criteria pollutants and toxic air contaminants, require a statewide strategy to reduce air emissions in communities with a high cumulative exposure burden, and require local air districts that have not attained air pollutant goals under the Clean Air Act to expedite retrofits of industrial sources. Gov. Jerry Brown defended his efforts to extend the cap-and-trade program, which he says “if we don’t get it, it’d be a tragedy for California, and for the world.” The measure generated criticism from environmentalists and academics saying the package moved too far to the right in the hopes of appeasing industry. Facebook Proposes Mixed-Use Campus in Menlo Park Facebook has proposed a vast expansion of its Menlo Park campus, which would include 1.75 million square feet of office, 1,500 housing units, retail, grocery store, parks and plazas. Facebook has said it intends to set aside 15 percent of the units at below-market rental rates. The goal is to create a new mixed-use village that will provide services, housing, transit solutions and office space. The company submitted plans to the City of Menlo Park and hopes to begin construction in 2019. Construction will occur in phases, and the first will include the grocery store in the semi food desert, retail, housing and office hopefully completed in early 2021. OMA New York is the architectural firm designing the campus’ master plan. California Public Lands Could Open to Drilling Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke signed an order that would open more public lands for oil and gas extraction, including millions of acres in California. The order calls for federal oil and gas leases to be auctioned off at least four times a year in every state where reserves are available. The order will also attempt to reduce the nation’s backlog of drilling applications through speedier approval of permits. Environmentalists worry this will end the de facto moratorium of no new onshore oil and gas leases on federal land in the last four years because of environmental fights. In California, this could intensify the push by energy companies to broaden drilling in the interior Central Coast region and the southern San Joaquin Valley. The action would apply to 700 million acres of underground mineral reserved managed by the Bureau of Land Management. This order, according to Zinke, is part of Trump’s broader “America first” energy policy. Los Angeles River Restoration Gets Funding Boost The 51-mile Los Angeles River will  receive  $100 million in bond money in the recently approved state budget for river projects. The money would come from Proposition 1, a water bond approved in 2014, with half the money funding projects in the upper part of the river and the other half the lower portion. Two public agencies, the Santa Monica Mountain Conservancy and the San Gabriel & Lower Los Angeles Rivers and Mountains Conservancy will oversee the grant and award to projects. Cities and private organizations will apply for the funding, including River LA a non-profit working with Frank Gehry. The money will benefit less affluent communities to ensure all traditionally neglected segments of the river get their fair share. Revitalization of the river is considered a catalyst for redevelopment in central Los Angeles.  Report Warns of Effect of Housing Prices on Bay Area Jobs Beacon Economics released a report contending that the Bay Area’s job market being disrupted from a lack of skilled labor and skyrocketing home prices. According to the report, job growth has slowed in Santa Clara County, East Bay and San Francisco because of lack of affordable housing and skilled labor. However statewide, California employment is expected to expand at a range of 1.6 to 2.2 percent this year. In 2016 job markets grew by 2.9 percent in the Bay Area whereas this year it is between 0.7 to 1.8 percent across the Bay. The East Bay has the highest growth in tech jobs with 4.1 percent compared to 0.8 percent in San Francisco-San Mateo and 3.7 percent in Santa Clara County. One of the major challenges is long commutes, and lower-skilled workers not able to afford housing. Legislative Updates Senate Bill 106 was approved by the state Senate last Thursday, within the bill was a measure that allows Marin County’s largest cities and incorporated areas to maintain extra restrictions on how many homes developers can build. Housing advocates criticize it as hindering affordable growth in the area. The County had an exemption until 2023 but this has been extended to 2028 because a report on an earlier measure’s impacts isn’t due until 2019. The California state Senate approved , 27-12, a new fee on some real estate transaction documents that is expected to generate between $200 and $300 million annually for affordable housing projects. The $75 fee on deeds and notices, would be capped at $225 per transaction, and would exclude sales of residential and commercial property. Updates & Quick Hits Silicon Valley companies Google, Facebook, and Genentech are pushing for increased tolls for the Bay Area’s state-run bridges. The increases were first discussed in December at the Metropolitan Transportation Commission workshop, which proposed $9 for the Bay Bridge, which has congestion pricing, and $8 on other bridges. The additional revenue, estimated to be as much as $125 per year, would go to traffic congestion-easing projects like additional BART cars, BART service to San Jose, more high-occupancy vehicle lanes on Bay Area freeways more ferry systems and express buses, and the new Transbay Transit Center. The City of Los Angeles is moving ahead with a study of the public health benefits and economic consequences of phasing out oil and gas development around homes, schools, hospitals, and other public places. Activists are hoping for a 2,500 feet buffer around where people live and gather, which California Department of Oil Gas and Geothermal Resources estimates could shut down 90 percent of the city’s 322 active wells. A coalition of 12 Bay Area water agencies introduced plans to expand Los Vaqueros Reservoir, one of the largest reservoirs in the Bay Area located in the hills near Alameda-Contra Costa county line. The $800 million plan would raise the earthen dam by 55 feet to 273 feet high and expand capacity from 160,000 acre-feet to 275,000, enough for 1.4 million people annually. The water agencies are hoping up to $400 million will come from Prop 1, and the deadline to apply under the measure is August 14; the remainder of the costs would be covered by customers of each participating agency. Construction may begin in 2022 and be completed in 2027. The Imperial Irrigation District is using its power as the agency with the biggest water entitlement along the Colorado River to press California officials for their commitments to keep the Salton Sea from turning into an environmental disaster. The water district has been progressing towards a consensus with other water authorities and agencies. IID has warned the state that a credible, well-funded “road map” is needed to restore deteriorating shoreline habitats and cove up growing stretches of dust-spewing lakebed. Multiple agencies have worked together to create a 10-year, $383 million plan, which was sent to the state end of June.  Pres. Donald Trump’s proposed budget for the next fiscal year would end funding for the $12 million tsunami detection system completed in 2008. A House of Representatives subcommittee is expected to release more details of its own version of budget this week. The system has 39 sensors on sea floors around the world, which are tethered to floating buoys that communicate with the nation’s two tsunami warning centers via satellite. (See prior CP&DR coverage .) League of California Cities is looking for speakers and session topics for its 2018 Planning Commissioners Academy in Monterey April 4-6. The conference is for new and experienced planning commissioners, planning directors, staff and other interested officials that focus on current issues and topics that assist planners in their daily roles and operations within their cities. Proposals can be submitted online until August 14. The City of Solana Beach has approved a new fee that would spread the cost of future transportation projects across all new developments. The change will add $15,714 to the cost of a new single-family home, $11,205 to a new apartment, and on a square-footage basis to new commercial and industrial development. It is estimated to roughly generate $19 million- which would pay for bike lanes, pedestrian paths, and other improvements for the increased traffic. According to Los Angeles Metro, the one-year-old Expo Line reached its projected 2030 daily boardings this year. The rail line which, connects Downtown Los Angeles to the Santa Monica Pier, has an average daily ridership of 64,000. The first phase, to Culver City, reached its 2020 projected numbers in 2013. San Francisco Board of Supervisors approved two ordinances intended to keep lower-and middle-class residents in the city. The first law lays out several proof-of-residency requirements for landlords evicting tenants saying they want to occupy a dwelling themselves. The second law requires developers of large properties to make 18 percent of rentals and 20 percent of condominiums affordable. Amendments to the second law include at least 25 percent of all new units have two or three bedrooms, and that 10 percent of those be three bedrooms. The other required that every below-market-rate studio set aside for a higher income tier be inhabited by at least two people. San Francisco’s Muni Central Subway project may be delayed by almost a year if the construction contractor and the SFMTA do not catch up with ongoing construction delays. The nearly $1.6 billion project will give Chinatown its first subway, connecting the neighborhood to BART and the Muni subway network. The timeline to develop a streetcar in downtown Los Angeles has been pushed back seven months to July 2021 at the earliest. The streetcar was originally estimated in 2013 to be ready for business in 2016. The new project cost estimates are $274.2 million, up from $250 million. At least $200 million could come from Measure M sales tax funds, but the money isn’t available until 2053 unless LADOT asks Metro to move up the schedule to release the funds early. The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation announced 33 projects that will share $5 million as winners of the Knight Cities Challenge. The City of San Jose won for two projects: Local Color received $180,000 for activating commercial sites with a creative bazaar and Reimagining the City: City Designer for San Jose received $150,000 to ensure the city develops into a walkable, green and engaged metropolis by hiring a visionary chief architect.

The California Supreme Court’s long-awaited ruling in the SANDAG Sustainable Communities Strategy case last Thursday gave the regional planning agency a very narrow victory – but also gave environmentalists something they could call a win as well.

The Strategic Growth Council released its Annual Report ( pdf ) to the legislature for the 2016-2017 Fiscal Year. The SGC has seven programs that award funding with a majority of the funding coming from the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund. The Affordable Housing and Sustainable Communities program awarded $291 million in October 2016, Sustainable Agricultural Lands Conservation gave $40 million in awards last August, and this December the Transformative Climate Communities and Transformative Climate Communities Planning Grants will award $140 million and $1.5 million respectively. The Technical Assistance Pilot for CCI’s will award $2 million this fiscal year as will the Sustainable Communities Planning Grants & Incentives Best Practices Pilot award $250,000. The Integrated Regional Conservation and Development Program awarded $290,000 in February of this year. Report Analyzes Impact of AHSC Grants A trio of nonprofits released a report assessing the stat’s Affordable Housing and Sustainable Communities grant program. “Collaborative Investments to Reduce Greenhouse Gases and Strengthen Disadvantaged Communities” ( pdf ) was compiled by the California Housing Partnership Corporation, Enterprise Community Partners, and TransForm, which contribute to the AHSC program in technical assistance, research, advocacy, and financial consulting assistance to applicants. The report examines the climate and community benefits of AHSC developments and urges California to make a long-term commitment to provide continuous and stable levels of funding to the AHSC program beyond 2020.The AHSC program was established in 2014 and invests in affordable homes and transit infrastructure developments in disadvantaged communities to improve economic well-being and physical health for underserved Californians while also reducing GHG emissions. The program selected 58 out of 236 applications to invest $443 million throughout the state. The developments will reduce 1.1 million metric tons of CO2 over the course of their operating lives, which is essentially removing 8,000 cars from the road. More than 80 percent of total AHSC funds will be located within or will directly benefit disadvantaged communities. (See prior CP&DR coverage .) Feds Propose Repeal to ‘Waters of U.S.’ Rule The U.S. EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers proposed to repeal a controversial Obama administration regulation that extends the federal government’s oversight over smaller waterways, known as the “Waters of the United States” regulation. Under the proposal federal officials would go back to enforcing guidance documents from 2008 when deciding whether a waterway is subject to federal oversight for pollution control purposes. This is the first formal step to fulfilling Trump’s campaign promise to repeal the 2015 “Waters of the United States” regulation, which opponents have argued is costly and time-intensive. The goal is to return power to the states and provide regulatory certainty to farmers and businesses says EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt. Supporters of the regulation say the Clean Water Rule is vital for protecting small streams and wetlands that families, communities and businesses depend on. The new proposal will be published in the Federal Register within days and then the public can comment. (See prior CP&DR coverage .) Harvard Study Looks at Displacement in Los Angeles, San Francisco Data-Smart City Solutions at Harvard University released a report , “Where is Gentrification Happening in Your City?”, which focuses on six cities nationwide, including Los Angeles and San Francisco. The report looked at multiple cities and the demographic and physical changes that occur in neighborhoods that lead to an influx of wealthier residents, greater investment and more development. The report combined maps and information from six cities: Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York City, Seattle, Portland and Boston. Los Angeles’ analysis came from Mayor Garcetti’s Los Angeles Innovation Team (i-team) and the Urban Displacement Project from UCLA and UC Berkeley. The i-team came out with the Los Angeles Index of Neighborhood Change in 2016 that allows users to explore degree of gentrification for various zip codes between 2000 and 2014. The Urban Displacement Project tracks neighborhood change in Los Angeles using census data, Geolytics’ neighborhood change database, and LA’s open data they mapped trends in gentrification from 1990-2013. In the Bay Area the project initiative studied displacement risk, analysis trends and potential policy solutions. The group found that 48 percent of census tracts and 53 percent of low-income households lived in neighborhoods at risk or already experiencing displacement or gentrification. Los Angeles Proposes Streamlined Approvals for Large Developments The Los Angeles City Council voted unanimously to look into updating a 1990 ordinance that requires developers with proposals that include 50 or more units to go through site plan review. The current process can take years, especially if lawsuits related to CEQA review are filed. The proposed update would increase the 50-unit threshold and help streamline the approval process. Principal city planner Ken Bernstein told the Los Angeles Times, “Currently, even if a project conforms to zoning and other city codes, if it calls for 50 or more units, it must go through site plan and CEQA review.” Removing smaller housing projects from CEQA review will hopefully help LA’s affordability and housing crises. However, an overwhelming majority of public comments submitted in regard to the policy are in opposition of the proposed changes. Lawsuits Filed over Proposed Water Tunnels The Natural Resources Defense Council, Defenders of Wildlife, Bay Institute and Golden Gate Salmon Association filed two lawsuits over the $17 billion plan to move water under the Sacramento Bay-Delta via a series of water tunnels. The environmental and fishing groups challenged approvals given earlier this week by the Trump administration that said the project wouldn't cause significant harm to salmon, smelt, and other fish and wildlife. Environmentalists, Delta farmers and some northern California lawmakers are calling the tunnels a water grab by Los Angeles and corporate farmers that would harm water quality in the San Francisco Bay and Delta and drive some fish to extinction. Water District Sues State over Delays to Flood Control Project in San Jose The Santa Clara Valley Water District  filed a lawsuit against state officials claiming they are threatening the completion of a flood control project near Coyote Creek with too much bureaucratic delay. Coyote Creek flooded this year causing $100 million in damages in San Jose. The $35 million project is designed to provide 100-year flood protection to 2.2 miles of Upper Berryessa Creek between North San Jose and Milpitas. While the Upper Berryessa Creek did not flood this year it is located in a heavily urbanized area and overflows every 10-20 years, the last of which was 1998. The project was approved in 2014 but in April, state regulators told SCVWD that they had to restore 15 acres of wetlands or nearly 3 miles of creek somewhere in the South Bay to offset the harm to the environment from the project. The water district sued the regional water board saying the decision was unfair, illegal, and likely to cost millions. Quick Hits & Updates The AIDS Healthcare Foundation, sponsor of this year’s failed slow-growth Measure S in Los Angeles,  agreed to drop a lawsuit again a planned Hollywood office complex after developer Hudson Pacific Properties promised to scale down the size from 15 stories to 13. The developer has also abandoned plans for a supermarket on the ground floor. Foundation President Michael Weinstein sees the agreement as a legal victory for the organization saying there will be less traffic impact on local streets. The City of Irvine  hired its first transportation director in an effort to relieve traffic congestion in the city. The new director is Mark Linsenmayer, former deputy executive officer of countywide planning for LA County Metro. He will develop and implement transportation initiatives, including a plan to promote more pedestrian and bicycling activities. There is also a new five-member Transportation Commission, which held its first meeting May 16. The City of Santa Monica has proposed a plan to conserve water by requiring new or remodeled properties to use no more water than what the property required on average over the previous five years. According to city officials, water usage is at its lowest levels since 1990s and the new rules are meant to keep consumption low. The new requirements will be enforced for major remodels and new constructions and, according to the Santa Monica Daily Press, 75 percent of projects affected will be new single-family residences and large-scale renovation projects. The City of Oakland plans to use some of its $500 million in bond money approved by voters to purchase at least one downtown single-room occupancy hotel to house homeless residents. One organization, EveryOne Home, estimates Oakland has more than 1,900 people living without shelter. The city would use $14 million of Measure KK to purchase the hotel, which could serve a few hundred people a year. The City of San Juan Capistrano is suing  the California Public Utilities Commission over a proposed $350 million electrical transmission line that critics argue is unnecessary and costly. The city asked the court to stop the project, citing reports of excess power on the state’s electric grid. The initial evidence comes from a Los Angeles Times report that detailes how California regulators continue to approve new power plants even though the state is producing more electricity than it needs. Similar cases are pending in Oxnard in Ventura County and Porter Ranch near Aliso Canyon. The Los Angeles City Council approved unanimously, 14-0, the George Lucas Museum of Narrative Art which may begin construction this year at Exposition Park. Ma Yansong of MAD Architects will design the museum, which is expected to open in 2021. The museum is estimated to cost $1 billion, which the Lucas family will pay for. The California Coastal Commission  reached an agreement with Cemex to shut down the Lapis Sand Plant, an 8-acre operation on a remote beach in Monterey County. The agreement allows the plant to extract smaller amounts for the next three years, and at the end all equipment must be removed from the beach. Cemex would also be required to restore the land and protect sensitive species and sell the land for less than market rate to a nonprofit or governmental entity that would open it up to the public. TPS Parking Century and TPS Parking Management, which run the Parking Spot near LAX, are suing the city in an attempt to overturn approval of $5 billion ground transportation improvements. The parking lot operators argue the EIR does not adequately address the potential effects of the project and how to mitigate them. Trident Winds is proposing 60 to 100 wind turbines off the coast of San Luis Obispo. The farm could generate 1,000 megawatts and would be more than 20 miles offshore, out of sight except for the Hearst Castle hilltop. The power would reach the mainland through underwater transmission lines to the PG&E substation in Morro Bay. The project is subject to 33 permits and leases, and could be operational in 2025.

In a seawall case from coastal Encinitas, the California Supreme Court has refused to expand the meaning of the Mitigation Fee Act to allow landowners to accept land-use permit conditions under protest and proceed with the project’s construction anyway. Instead, the court ruled that the Encinitas landowners forfeited their right to protest when they built a new seawall under a permit from the Coastal Commission that contained conditions the landowners later challenged in court.

There’s always a tension between the desire of California voters to control development and the constitutional limits on their ability to do so. Especially in desirable smaller cities, voters often want to control everything – and they sometimes want to use their initiative powers to control chain stores. But, as the residents of Malibu recently found out, it ain’t that easy. The Second District Court of Appeal just struck down Malibu’s Measure R – the so-called “Your Malibu, Your Decision Act,” which sought to micro-manage retail development with the express purpose of limiting chain stores and promoting local businesses. The measure was approved by 60% of voters in November 2014. But in affirming an earlier decision by Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge James Chalfant, the Second District provided Malibu with a pretty harsh dose of reality about the limits of ballot-box zoning. Measure R had two basic provisions: First, that any commercial development of more than 20,000 square meet must be considered via a specific plan process and sent to the voters. And second, that any chain retail store – defined as any store with 10 or more outlets – is subject to a conditional-use permit process that applies only to that chain. The Second District struck down both sections of the measure. On the face of it, the specific plan measure did have some measure of legitimacy. After all, specific plans are technically policy documents and therefore they are legislative acts subject to initiative and referendum. But the Second District concluded that the way the initiative was written, the mandatory specific plan process infringed on the city’s administrative decisionmaking powers, which are not subject to the ballot box. The city cited extensive case law showing that cities frequently adopt specific plans, which are then quite legally subject to voter approval. Nevertheless, the Second District ruled that the Malibu process was outside the bounds of legally permissible voter approval processes. “There is a difference,” wrote Justice Richard Aldridge for a unanimous three-judge panel, “between, on the one hand, voter approval of a specific plan and, on the other, requiring a city council to prepare a specific plan and report, to hold a public hearing about the specific plan and report, and then requiring the plan to be submitted to voters for approval. The former is a legislative act; the latter is an adjudicative one.” In particular, the court criticized the Malibu initiative for requiring very detailed specific plans for all commercial projects over 20,000 square feet while, at the same time, not creating any standards for those specific plans. “Measure R,” Aldridge wrote, “withdraws from Malibu’s City Council the ability to issue discretionary land use entitlements or permits concerning a development project—unless and until voters approve a specific plan for that project. In this respect, Measure R is really about project-by-project review—which would otherwise be subject to administrative, not voter, approval— in the guise of a specific plan.” The conditional use permit provisions of the initiative appeared to be an easier call for the appellate court. The initiative requires any chain store to obtain a CUP that theoretically runs with the land but is not transferrable from one business to another. “The meaning of these restrictions is undisputed,” Aldridge wrote. “The nature of the chain establishment is to be considered, and, once a chain, say Starbucks, obtains a CUP, the CUP can be transferred to another Starbucks but not to Peet’s, notwithstanding that Starbucks and Peet’s have the same “use,” i.e., both are coffee shops. Measure R CUPs thus are establishment-specific and restricted in their transferability.” And such a system is not permissible, Aldridge concluded on behalf of the court. “As much as one may believe that Starbucks and McDonalds and their ilk have become so ubiquitous as to constitute a generic land use, the City cites no authority to support such a proposition,” he wrote. “Starbucks is not a land use. ‘Coffee shop’ or restaurant is the land use.” The Case: The Park at Cross Creek v. City of Malibu , B271620, B275311 The Lawyers: For Park at Cross Creek: Marshall A. Camp, Hueston Hennigan, mcamp@hueston.com For City of Malibu: Christi Hogin, Jenkins & Hogin, Chogin@localgovlaw.com For initiative proponents as intervenors: Robin B. Johansen, Remcho, Johansen & Purcell, johansen@rjp.com

The Legislative Analyst’s Office recently released a report , “How Will Aging Baby Boomers Affect Future Property Tax Revenues?” It finds that, property sales and growth and tax revenue have historically been depressed by aging — as Prop. 13 has keep tax rates relatively static — and that this pattern may continue even as boomers age out of their homes. Since 2004, property turnover has been on the decline and there are more homeowners in the 55-75-year-old demographic are up to 41 percent from 31 percent in 2005. In the same time period, the 35-to-55 age group has dropped from 46 percent to 38 percent as a share of the state’s population. Additionally, the report finds homeowners in the 55-75 age group are less likely than other groups to sell their homes, and they are likely to take advantage of provisions in Prop. 13 that prevent the state from capturing more tax revenue. A challenge to the state’s ability to generate revenue is that the passing of home from parents to children as this transfer does not reset the taxable value of the home. The report finds over the past decade, around 10 percent of property transfers have taken advantage of the parent-to-child exclusion to prevent an increase in property tax payments. This has led to an estimated $1.5 billion tax revenue loss statewide. Delta Tunnels Clear Major Federal Hurdle The National Marine Fisheries Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service released environmental documents approving the nearly $17.1 billion plan to build two 35-mile-long tunnels in the San Joaquin Delta. The reports show the projects will not jeopardize endangered fish and wildlife as the plan calls for restoration of 1,800 acres of habitat that is extraordinarily important for Delta smelt and other fisheries. These types of biological opinions help shape the operating rules for the diversions, meaning how much water the tunnels carry to the big delta pumps. Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, Westlands Water District, and others must first decide whether the tunnels stabilize their delta water deliveries enough to justify the high cost. The ratepayers of these water districts will be paying the costs. Digging may begin in 2021 and construction is expected to take ten years. However, there are still a number of approvals from state and federal agencies before the project can move forward. Housing Costs Reach New Records Statewide Across the state housing prices reached a record high in May for the second month in a row. In the Bay Area , single-family homes reached a median all-time high of $818,000. Santa Clara County reached median prices of $1,093,000 (up 9.3 percent from last year), Marin County median of $1,250,00, Alameda County all-time high of $805,000 and Sonoma County median $600,000. Santa Cruz County also soared to new records to a median price of $875,000 up from April’s $830,000. However in the Bay Area regional job growth, high consumer confidence and low mortgage rates pushed prospective homeowners into the marketplace. All of Southern California saw the median home price increase 7.1 percent to $492,000. San Diego County median home prices hit a nominal record at $530,000, 8.2 percent higher than a year ago. San Bernardino County saw the largest percent increase, 8.8 percent, to a median price of $310,000. Throughout the state, new housing construction doesn't come close to meeting demand. UCLA Senior Economist Dave Shulman wrote a report , “Housing Activity Grinds Higher” about the high-income people who can afford the extraordinarily expensive housing pricing out the low and middle-income people, like teachers. The report calculates that six of the seven least affordable cities in the U.S. are in California, and two, San Jose and San Francisco, are in the Bay Area. Affordability is not only the cost of buying or renting a home, but the gap between home prices and median income. Harvard Report Identifies California Housing Among Nation’s Costliest Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies released its State of the Nation’s Housing 2017 report. The study finds that, in California and other coastal states, home prices are over 40 percent higher in December 2016 than January 2000. For instance Los Angeles, between 2005 and 2015 has added significantly more units in the $1,200+ range and fewer units than 2005 in the $400-$1,200 range. San Francisco more than doubled its 2005 amount of $2,400 rental units i n 2015. The percentage of households that can afford the median-priced single-family home in the U.S. In coastal California cities, it is less than 33.3 percent while inland it is 50-66.5 percentage of households. By comparison, the values in the Midwest have declined up to 46 percent over the same time period. As the report notes, there are a variety of factors holding back a more robust supply of housing. These include substantial drop in construction workforce, stricter requirements for financing of the limited land available, and slowdown in creation of new households by millennials. As the report notes, 35.6 percent of millennials, those between 18-34, are still living with parents or grandparents in 2015. Guidelines for Expenditure of L.A. Transportation Monies Approved The board of Los Angeles Metro board approved guidelines that will direct the expenditure of funds from Measure M, the half-cent sales tax approved by county voters in November. One modification changes the current LOS, car-centric approach, to VMT measures, which evaluate the efficiency of the transportation system that has more high-capacity modes like transit. The new motion would replace LOS with VMT so “that these funds may be spent on operational improvements for movement of people traveling on foot, by bike, or by transit, in addition to automobile travel, in order to optimize the movement of people by all modes, not just vehicular travel.” Other modifications that were approved were eliminating restriction that mandated highway funds be spent on streets within one mile of a state highway, allowing private organizations to receive “Visionary Project” seed funding, matching non-local-return funding sources for major transit projects, including relinquished state highways in eligible highway funding, and clarification of percentage for ADA paratransit, student, and senior pass discounts. LA County taxpayers began paying Measure M’s half-cent sales tax July 1. San Diego County Approves Affordable Housing Plan San Diego County Supervisors unanimously approved three measures to increase the supply of low-cost housing. The measures use government-owned properties and more than $25 million in public money to work with private groups and developers to create homes for seniors, veterans, people with disabilities, and others who are financially vulnerable or at risk of becoming homeless. The first component is $500,000 transferred from community grants program towards studies and pilot programs to test innovative ways to provide affordable housing. The second measure was a $25 million trust fund to purchase services and supplies, pay permits and regulatory fees, repay loans, buy property, lease equipment, and other expenses related to affordable housing. The final measure designated 11 excess properties for new affordable homes. State Seeks to Undo Regulations on Development on S.F. Waterfront The State Lands Commission, chaired by Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, is suing to overturn the Sierra Club-spnosored Prop B, passed by 59 percent of San Francisco voters in 2014, that requires voter approval for any waterfront project that exceeds the city’s height limit. San Francisco Superior Court Judge Suzanne Bolanos rejected the Lands Commission’s request to immediately invalidate Prop B without a trial. The two sides will go to trial in September to decide whether voters anywhere in California can have a say in coastal development. Newsom argued the commission was not targeting San Francisco and was instead keeping pro-development voters elsewhere in California from approving projects on the coast. Two Community Plans in South L.A. Move Forward The City of Los Angeles Planning Commission unanimously recommended approval of updated community plans for South and Southeast LA. The two plans cover more than a dozen different neighborhoods including Historic South-Central, Vermont Square, Florence and Watts. There will be a focus on transit-oriented development, revitalization of commercial corridors, and the elimination of public health hazards from proximity to industrial sites. Those opposed to the plans, including United Neighbors in Defense Against Displacement (UNIDAD) released its own plan, which emphasizes preservation and development of affordable housing, community-focused economic development, and parks and health facilities. The plans must now be reviewed by the City Council’s planning committee and afterwards approved by the council itself. Quick Hits & Updates  Quelling a statewide anxieties about the fate of cap-and-trade, the California Supreme Court declined to consider an appeal from business groups who consider the program to be an unconstitutional tax. This ends more than four years of legal challenges to the program. However, Gov. Jerry Brown is pushing lawmakers to extend the program past 2020 with new legislation, “with this Supreme Court victory, now it’s up to us to take action extending California’s cap-and-trade system on a more permanent basis.” Los Angeles City Council approved a proposal from Councilmember Gil Cedillo to study extending the just cause requirement for evictions to non-rent-controlled buildings. As Cedillo says, “ I am not getting why we have evolved into a two tier system of eviction protections.” While in rent-controlled apartments just cause for an eviction must be given, unregulated buildings can end a month-to-month tenancy without providing a reason. The City Attorney and the Housing and Community Investment Department have 30 days to give recommendations, then the Council would have to tell the City Attorney to draft an ordinance which requires a separate vote. City of San Jose City Council unanimously approved a master plan for a 4.9-mile stretch of the intra-urban  Guadalupe River . The Master Plan calls for a 12 foot wide asphalt concrete trail, interconnected and loop trails, bridges, crossings at different grades, and various gateways, signages, and place markers. Design work for the trail is expected to start later this year and construction will take place in phases. The City of Mountain View City Council members and Environmental Planning Commission found that even with traffic improvements, the proposed North Bayshore Google campus can support only 1,500-3,000 housing units instead of the planned 10,000. However, the memo to the mayor notes the proposal for greatly reduced housing number does not prevent the City Council from approving the earlier plan. Many housing groups in the area are calling on the City Council to approve the 9,850 units proposed in the draft plan. The City of Sacramento is re- envisioning Old Sacramento and the waterfront. City Riverfront Manager Richard Rich will ask the City Council to form a committee of artists, business leaders, and others to explore how a large monument could be funded and built in Old Sacramento. Rich, a former Disney creative thinker, says the monument should celebrate the rail history.  The City of Carson has launched a $1.1 million future-planning process that will better integrate its industrial, commercial and residential communities. The City Council hired Dyett & Bhatia earlier this month to oversee public outreach and rewrite the 2004 General Plan. The City is currently half zoned for industry and the other half between commercial and residential. Most of the developable land is contaminated by closer landfills or industrial waste. Superior Court Judge Richard Ulmer ruled that San Francisco Treasurer and Tax Collector Jose Cisneros had legal authority to demand the information and was not violating the rights of Uber or its drivers. Uber had provided information voluntarily last year, but stopped in December saying further disclosures would violate drivers’ right to privacy. Uber must now provide names and addresses of its San Francisco drivers, who will be notified about their business licenses. The Fremont City Council unanimously agreed to impose new impact fees on commercial developments to generate more funds for affordable housing. Residential developers had previously been paying fees, but now many types of offices, retail, warehouses, and manufacturing facilities are paying as well. Starting next year, the city will collect $1 per square foot, which will increase to $3 in 2019 and $4 in 2020. New numbers from SacRT show ridership on buses and trains fell 12 percent since last summer. While the opening of the Golden 1 Center was seen as an opportunity for the Transit agency to attract new riders, it has realized the challenges are bigger than an arena. The light rail trains carry about 1,700 fans on arena nights, however this is only about 2 percent of daily transit travel. Factors of this loss can be low gas prices, poorly funded transit agencies, and ride-hailing services.

CP&DR Vol. 32 No. 6 June 2017

Planners who tend to keep their heads down politically might have missed the firestorm that erupted a few weeks ago over a column about the “YIMBY” movement on the left-wing site Truthout . The grassroots, pro-development movement got savaged in a quasi-article by Toshio Meronek and Andrew Szeto originally entitled "YIMBYs: The 'Alt-Right' Darlings of the Real Estate Industry.”  The headline was eventually changed to omit “alt-right” to seem less inflammatory, if still inaccurate. When “alt-right” gets thrown around in land-use circles, you know something is up.  For the uninitiated, the “Y” stands for “yes,” and the “yes” refers to development — mainly to housing. By filing comments, testifying at hearings, and otherwise inserting themselves into public discourse, YIMBYs try to provide a counterweight to anti-development forces. They generally support market-rate and affordable housing developments alike.  The unofficial leader of the YIMBY movement – and prime target of Meronek and Szeto – is Oakland-based Sonja Trauss, who founded the San Francisco Bay Area Renters Federation, delightfully abbreviated SF-BARF . They accuse her of being the powerful leader of "an army with soldiers around the world, from Boulder to Bratislava, while dominating the dialogue on how to deal with the very real problem of housing inequality.” I think any planner would be surprised to find that pro-development activists are “dominating” much of anything.  In reality, Trauss considers SF-BARF an open-source grassroots organization, replete with a wiki website that irreverently uses Comic Sans font. ULI it is not. Trauss provides information and does her own rabble-rousing, but any concerned citizen can take up the cause at any time.  Trauss describes herself as an anarchist, with no love for political ideologies. Short of burning the whole place down, she has contented herself with supporting The Man (real estate developers) so as to stick it to The (other) Man (homeowners associations and other anti-development forces). It’s a compromise, to be sure. But even anarchists need someplace to live.  Meronek and Szeto have decided that Trauss and her colleagues are “pro-gentrification,” in league with “greedy” real estate developers. They equate support for market-rate housing with support for “luxury” housing. They also equate it with not just tolerance for but, it seems, approval of displacement. YIMBYism, they claim, is "rooted in the same classist, racist ideologies it supposedly seeks to disrupt,” in line with redlining, slum clearance, urban renewal, and other explicitly discriminatory practices of decades past.  What Meronek and Szeto don’t seem to understand that there’s a difference between intention and consequences. As a factual matter their accusations are nonsense for all sorts of reasons. SF-BARF has routinely lobbied for projects with affordable units, with just as much enthusiasm as it has for projects with all market-rate units. Trauss famously “ sued the suburbs ” — or rather a suburb, Lafayette — for alleged violation of the Housing Accountability Act. The SFBARF mission statement reads, in part, “without an increase in overall yearly production of housing in the Bay Area, we will continue to suffer from displacement, crowding and exploitation from landlords.” See, they don't like displacement, or exploitation.  Meronek and Szeto can't quite believe that anyone would want more housing, so they accuse Trauss of being in the pocket of just about everyone. This includes Jeremy Stoppelman, CEO of Yelp, and, presumably, an uncaring fan of “luxury” housing. Never mind the fact that no capitalist — other than a real estate developer — would ever want his or her employees to live in expensive housing. Meronek and Szeto write of collaboration: "When asked about her organization's alliance with SPUR and realtors, she responds that the groups have 'a shared goal ... so we work together.’” And they accuse Trauss of “aligning” with tech billionaire (and Trump supporter) Peter Thiel simply for having breakfast with him – at his invitation. Come on. They had breakfast . It’s not like they shared a room at Davos. Even after their story roused a slew of thoughtful, and frustrated, online chatter, Meronek and Szeto doubled down on many of their claims in an opinion piece in the San Francisco Examiner . They write that YIMBYs have co-opted social justice movements against gentrification toward a capitalist, pro-gentrification agenda. YIMBYism’s long standing affiliation with right-wing free-market, or neoclassical/neoliberal, economics is precisely what our article illuminated....their politics are rooted in racist and anti-poor conservative neoliberal ideologies. Allrightee then.  Notwithstanding the fact that it's pretty hard for a three-year-old movement to be "long standing," tirades like this make it almost impossible to assign much credibility to the radical left. That’s a shame. Many progressive mainstream planners and, I reckon, the majority of YIMBYs share 90 percent of the values of people like Meronek and Szeto. They might have different priorities and favor different tactics, but I think we’re all on the same team.  (That team is scoring points. Last year, San Francisco voted for all sorts of funding for affordable housing, and the city is developing complementary ordinances.) And yet, like children who’ve been so badly bullied that they won’t let anyone be their friend, Meronek and Szeto make no attempt to persuade and instead seem like they’re spouting off only for personal satisfaction. They support social justice and yet call fellow progressives “alt-right.” If that’s not otherization – which is, rightly, one of progressives’ major bugbears -- I don’t know what is.  Enough, already.  I get it. I get resentment. I get fear. I get the fraught history surrounding the urban poor. But I don’t get the vitriol, and I don’t respect the dishonesty. I submit that honesty and compromise remain admirable values and effective political tools — especially on the local level where policymakers, community members, and activists are literally rubbing elbows with each other.  Does YIMBYism have problems? Sure. No movement is perfect. But slander and willful misrepresentations are bigger problems. They create bitterness and fragmentation when there ought to be unity, cooperation, and respectful disagreement. They may treat mainstream housing advocates like enemies, but, fortunately, we don't have to treat them in kind. My best advice for YIMBYs and anyone else interested in building prosperous, inclusive cities is to embrace their causes – of social justice and affordable housing – more enthusiastically than ever. The equitable city depends on protections from displacement, social justice, and affordable (subsidized) housing just as much as it depends on market-rate development, place-making, and urban amenities. YIMBYs can wage those battles whether the far left likes it or not.  As for the planners quietly slaving over applications and zoning code rewrites: this debate is coming your way whether you like it or not. There’s never been a better time to get fired up about housing, equity, density, and all the other fundamental challenges that make good planning — and good mediation — so important. I can’t fathom who benefits from getting worked up over the 10 percent of disagreement rather than excited about the 90 percent of common ground.  That’s not alt-right. That’s just right . This piece has been updated to clarify the nature of SF-BARF's lawsuit against the City of Lafayette.

Everybody agrees that something needs to be done to goose California housing production, and this has been a year that the California Legislature has been awash in bills. In fact, the legislature this year considered one housing-related bill for every 13,800 units that need to be built in the state by 2025 to alleviate the state’s housing crisis.

For 30 years now, the U.S. Supreme Court has refused to create a firm standard for takings of property via regulation. Land use situations are all different – they often involve quirky facts about land ownership and some type of diminution of value via regulation, but it’s really hard to generalize. And you never know what kind of weird situation will pop up next time around. All you know is that it’s likely to be something that never occurred to you. Which drives conservatives crazy.

In Walkscore's 2017 City and Neighborhood Ranking , a ranking of the most walkable and bikeable neighborhoods and cities in the US, Canada and Australia, San Francisco came out No. 2 with a score of 86. The top neighborhoods were Chinatown, Downtown-Union Square, and Lower Nob Hill. San Francisco also received the No. 2 slot for bike friendly cities with a score of 75 and transit friendly cities with a score of 80. There were 17 California cities evaluated and some cities like Los Angeles (67.4), Long Beach (69.9), Oakland (72) and Santa Ana (66.1) ranked relatively well. Long Beach and Oakland made 9th and 10th most walkable cities respectively. Sacramento ranked No. 8 nationwide in bikeability. Suburban California cities such as San Bernardino, Irvine, Fremont, Chula Vista, Stockton, Riverside and Bakersfield scored in the 30s and 40s, ranking them near the bottom. Newhall Ranch Wins Key Environmental Approval The California Department of Fish and Wildlife certified Newhall Ranch’s environmental impact report after reviewing modifications made to mitigate concerns raised by the California Supreme Court surrounding a rare fish and GHGs. The new changes from the 2015 document include offsetting 100 percent of GHG emissions the 58,000-resident development will generate by dictating all houses, commercial buildings and public facilities have solar panels and that 21,000 homes have electric vehicle charging stations with subsidies offered to purchase electric vehicles. The Newhall Ranch developers will build bridges and bank stabilization infrastructure to avoid water contact during construction to protect the rare unarmored threespine stickleback fish that lives in the Santa Clara River. The developer, FivePoint Holdings, is expecting to begin construction as early as next year. (See prior CP&DR coverage .) California Pushes Back against Threats to National Monuments California Attorney General Xavier Becerra argued President Trump has no legal authority to revoke or modify national monuments created by previous administrations. State Atty. Gen. Becerra wrote an 11-page letter to the Interior Department stating he would take “any and all legal actions necessary” to preserve six California monuments that the Trump Administration may attempt to revoke or shrink. Trump signed an executive order in April directing Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke to review all national monuments that were created since 1996 and are larger than 100,000 acres, or were expanded without adequate public outreach. The six monuments on the list are the San Gabriel Mountains monument, Mojave Trails and Sand to Snow monuments, Giant Sequoia monument, Carrizo Plain monument, and Berryessa Snow Mountain. Monument designations prohibits oil and gas development and limits logging and grazing. San Diego SoccerCity Proposal Goes to Nov. 2018 Ballot A proposal to redevelop San Diego’s Qualcomm Stadium into a into a $4 billion soccer stadium, commercial, retail, and parkland destination has encountered multiple complications of late. San Diego City Council members voted unanimously to send the SoccerCity proposal to voters in November 2018, instead of holding special elections this November or adopting the proposal without a public vote. Supporters of the proposal say delaying the vote sharply reduces the city’s chances of getting on of four new franchises that the MLS is planning to award. This delay means San Diego State University must regroup and decide where to build a new Aztec football stadium. The University has already terminated discussions to share and help fund the SoccerCity stadium, and therefore has no location to play past 2018. The discussion is primarily whether SDSU comes up with their own plan for Qualcomm, since it’s all up in the air until the public vote in 2018, or do they evaluate serious alternatives. Meanwhile, AusTex Oil Limited, an associated venture of SoccerCity backer FS Investors, is accused of breaching an agreement with shareholders. FS Investor principals Mike Stone and Nick Stone have minority stake in the company but are not named in the lawsuit.  Caltrans to Develop Grant Guide to SB 1 Planning Grants The Department of Transportation (Caltrans) Division of Transportation Planning is on a fast track to develop a grant guide and launch the new Senate Bill 1, The Road Repair & Accountability Act of 2017, planning grant funds: Transportation Planning Grants ($25 million annually) provide grants to encourage local and regional planning that further state goals, including, but not limited to, the goals and best practices cited in the regional transportation plan guidelines adopted by the California Transportation Commission. Climate Change Adaptation Planning Grants ($20 million over three years) provide grants to local and regional agencies for climate change adaptation planning. Caltrans will be hosting two workshops to gather public and stakeholder input that will inform the draft grant guide development. It is envisioned that these planning grants will provide much needed funding to support regional sustainable communities strategies and ultimately achieve the State’s greenhouse gas reductions targets of 40 and 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2030 and 2050, respectively. the workshops take place June 26 in Los Angeles and June 27 in Sacramento.  Santa Rosa Voters Buck Rent Control Trend In a special election this month voters rejected , on a 52.5 percent no vote, a measure to overturn the city’s rent control ordinance. The Santa Rosa City Council had passed, 4-2, a rent control ordinance in August. The California Apartment Association threatened collected enough signatures to force the council to rescind the ordinance or put it to a referendum. Measure C which would have implemented that ordinance, which would have included rent control and eviction protections, but a vigorous campaign by the Apartment Association resulted in its defeat. Santa Rosa is the fifth largest city in the Bay Area and has had median rent rise 2.8 percent over last year and 49.2 percent over the last six years. Though Santa Rosa is not in the heart of the Bay Area’s booming tech economy, supporters of rent control are concerned about speculation and housing pressures that have rippled through the Bay Area. (See prior CP&DR coverage .)  QUICK HITS & UPDATES LA Metro approved  funding a long-planned $1.4 billion extension of the Gold Line light rail line in the San Gabriel Valley 11.5 miles east to Claremont via Glendora, San Dimas, La Verne and Pomona. The stops would all be in LA County, which is covered by Measure M, a countywide sales tax measure. There are plans for one more stop to Montclair, but since that is in San Bernardino County it would require separate funding. The City of Los Angeles and its engineering team are working with seven design firms to reenvision  sections of the Los Angeles River through downtown Los Angeles. The participants include Gruen Associates, WSP, CH2M, Chee Salette, Mia Lehrer + Associates, AECOM, and Tetra Tech. The teams have released preliminary conceptual images, which include river banks with open spaces, play areas, public art, new connections and development. There has not been word if any of these proposals will be built, as the designs are budget-heavy. (See prior CP&DR coverage .) The U.S. Department of Transportation released maps measuring transportation-related noise and found living near the landing and takeoff zones around Los Angeles International Airport are particularly bad. The study shows more than 97 percent of the U.S. population “has the potential to be exposed to noise from aviation and Interstate highways at levels below 50 decibels or roughly comparable to the noise level of a humming refrigerator”. Less than one-tenth of a percent of the population could potentially experience noise levels of 80 decibels or more, roughly equivalent to a garbage disposal noise. Google is planning to build 300 modular housing units on its Bay View Campus at NASA’s Moffett Field for temporary employee accommodations. The Bay View project has been delayed for years but consists of three large office buildings about 600,000 square feet. The project to build modular units will cost between $25-30 million and be built by Factory OS of Vallejo. The cities of Long Beach and Los Angeles have both approved programs to create urban farms, community gardens, and educational green spaces through their Urban Agriculture Incentive Zone (UAIZ) Programs. The programs incentivize property owners to use their land for agricultural uses for a minimum of five years while receiving a tax deduction. Economic analysis conducted by the Council Economic Institute found that a new Oakland A’s stadium, whether it’s built downtown or next to the Coliseum, would bring an estimated $3.05 billion in benefits over 10 years and create about 2,000 construction jobs. The estimation is not based on a specific location, only on what the facility would generate. The A’s are expected to make a stadium announcement this year, and construction will begin within the next few years and take two years to complete. (See prior CP&DR coverage .) The City of Downey is developing plans for a transit-oriented development around its light rail commuter station off Garfield Avenue and Gardendale Street. Kimley-Horn and Associates will be conducting the study and putting together a specific plan for the area. The study will take about two years and will be funded through a $425,000 grant from Metro. San Francisco arts officials are committed to developing Treasure Island as a major cultural destination and are releasing their “Arts Master Plan” this week to the public. The goal is to create an area similar to Governors Island in New York with contemporary artists and their followers. The Treasure Island plan includes spending nearly $50 million on artwork over a 20-year period and three large-scale sculptures. San Diego Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to approve a series of steps to address homelessness and the lack of affordable housing. The plan includes the creation of a $25 million affordable housing investment pool, transferring $500,000 from a neighborhood reinvestment account to the county Health and Human Services Agency to underwrite predevelopment and planning activities for affordable housing, and identifying 11 county-owned properties for residential construction. The City of San Jose City Council approved , 10-1, an agreement to negotiate exclusively with Google to sell 16 city-owned parcels for a transit-centered Google Village. The plan includes between 6-8 million square feet of office ad other spaces in the Diridon Station area. The transit village would generate millions of dollars in tax revenue for the city and add up to 20,000 jobs. The City of Santa Ana City Council approved financial assistance to four affordable housing projects, three on a 6-1 vote, and one on a 5-1 vote. The Santa Ana Arts Collective, 57-unit artist-focuses, received an additional $2.9 million and they had previously received more than $4.6 million from the city and state. AMCAL Multi-Housing’s First Street Apartments project, 69-units for low-income working class families, was awarded $8.5 million. Tiny Tim Plaza project, 51-units for low-income and at-risk homeless families, was awarded up to $11.7 million. Aqua Housing, 58-units of permanent supportive housing for chronically homeless individuals, was awarded 31 more project-based vouchers.

The Wilshire Grand, a new feat of engineering in Los Angeles, features a 178-foot mast and a ‘sail’ to go with it. This would be fine — impressive, even — if the Wilshire Grand was a schooner, sloop, or clipper ready to push off from San Pedro and ply the high seas. But the Wilshire Grand is very much landlocked, 15 miles from the nearest ocean, anchored to bedrock by 73 floors. It’s a skyscraper. Shiny and new, and, for the moment, “officially” the tallest west of the Mississippi. The Wilshire Grand received its share of fanfare at its grand opening on Friday, as well it should. It’s a major addition to downtown Los Angeles’ stock. Architecturally, it’s handsome enough and it is a landmark by any measure. In a city that remains famously horizontal, it’s fun to get excited about something vertical. But let’s get real: the Wilshire Grand does not deserve to be called the tallest building in Los Angeles. For people who can’t count, measure, and compare on their own, there’s something called the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat , which “officially” measures and ranks skyscrapers. Says its website self-referentially, "The CTBUH also developed the international standards for measuring tall building height and is recognized as the arbiter for bestowing such designations as 'The World’s Tallest Building.’ Who these people are and, more importantly, why they get to define “tallest” is beyond me. Interestingly, and most importantly for this discussion, CTBUH includes masts, spires, and other semi-decorative elements in its calculation of a building’s height. That’s why, for instance, the Petronas Towers (88 floors) overtook the Sears Tower (108). And it’s why One World Trade Center, at a relatively puny 94 stories, even breaks into the top 10. Its spire brings it up to 1776 feet. That patriotically symbolic number that surpasses the Guangzhou CTF Finance Center and willfully disrsegards the way architects measure buildings -- in meters. (The New York Times helpfully  noted  some while back that WTC's 541 meters commemorates the year Totila became king of the Ostrogoths.) I’m not an engineer or an architect, but I know the difference between a spire and a story. Any layperson can appreciate that the true height of a building depends on its highest operable floor. If I’m feeling charitable, I’d throw in service floors or accessible rooftop. What I’m not willing to concede is that the 73-story Wilshire Grand, whose roof tops out at 934 feet, is "taller" than the 73-story, 1,018-foot US Bank Building — which has a flat roof and no protuberance to distort its height. (However, it has the county's highest open-air bar , which is a record I can get behind .) Whereas the Wilshire Grand merely makes a mockery of CTBUH standards, the Salesforce Tower , at 61 stories and 1,070 feet, is already ruining San Francisco. While it doesn’t resort to gimmicks to proclaim its height, its massive dome looms distractingly over what is — as skylines go — one of the most beautiful in the world. Granted, the Transamerica Building and its spire were always destined to be surpassed, the Salesforce Tower, looking for all the world like an aluminum-clad baguette, suggests that maybe there’s some wisdom to San Francisco’s infamous, and mildly ridiculous, shadow ordinance. But, honestly, who cares? While architecture buffs, like myself, can argue how many angels can dance on the head of a spire, we really have to ask whether our cities are better off for these mega-structures. As I wrote recently in Common Edge Collaborative , gleaming skylines often belie banal or even inhumane conditions at street level. So many skylines, be they as impressive as Dubai or as banal as Fresno, come down to earth in entirely unimpressive ways. They rise above empty sidewalks, expansive parking lots, overly wide boulevards, and nothing resembling local culture or style. Places like New York, Hong Kong, and San Francisco are the exceptions. Downtown Los Angeles…. it falls somewhere in between. Buildings like the Wilshire Grand and Salesforce Tower superficially proclaim their cities’ ambitions and testify to their healthy economies. They do one thing planners like, which is to reinforce the primacy of downtowns and take advantage of transit networks. Salesforce sits atop the new Transbay Terminal, and Wilshire Grand is across the street from Los Angeles’ second most important transit stop. And yet, they are lacking. Plenty of urbanists, including Jean Gehl  James Kunstler have decried highrises. Leon Krier famously considers them "vertical cul-de-sacs," entrapping their occupants in a dead-end structure and sapping life from their surroundings. And, like cul-du-sacs and their suburban neighborhoods, high-rises are, in many ways, cakewalks for planners. It’s easier to approve one big thing than it is to tend to the countless complex minutiae that make streets, cities, and neighborhoods truly great. And yet, that’s where real planning heroism lies. God is in the details, not in the clouds. I’d love for cities — not just Los Angeles, which really isn’t half-bad, but also the Dubais, Shanghais, Shenzhens, and other global cities that are really fixated on height — to pay more attention to their streetscapes and neighborhoods than to their skylines and create places that truly serve and ennoble their residents. Many of the best places are diminutive and detailed, not tall and sleek, no matter what the CTBUH says. It’s all well and good for Los Angeles to ride the winds of euphoria. But if planners in L.A., and other cities, don’t turn their attention closer to sea level, we’re all going to be sunk. Photo credit: Fredchang931124 via Wikimedia Commons .