According to a new State Population Report from the Department of Finance, California grew by 0.85 percent or 335,000 people in 2016. While most counties and cities saw growth, the largest numerical  increases occurred in Los Angeles, with more than 42,000 residents, San Diego added over 15,000 people, San Jose almost 10,000 more residents, and San Francisco over 9,000. The City of Sacramento had the largest percentage gain in population with 1.4 percent or 6,900 people. The fastest growing counties in the state are all in Sacramento area: Amador, Placer, and Yolo counties. The fastest growing county was Amador County with 1.9 percent due to prison expansion. Generally, smaller, suburban localities are growing more quickly than their large urban counterparts, with large cities growing around 1 percent and the most booming small cities around 5 percent. Even so, multi-family units represented 57 percent of unit growth last year. The report also found the state’s housing supply increased by 88,562 units, meaning one new home for every 3.78 residents. Developers are adding homes at a higher pace than recent years, but still far below what experts believe would be enough to keep up with California’s growing population.  Study: Development in Los Angeles Comes at Expense of Trees Researchers at USC have found that trees and other greenery in single-family neighborhoods in Los Angeles are declining significantly with the increase in housing construction. In some cases the trees are disappearing because of mansionization , where smaller homes are replaced with disproportionately large properties. Using aerial imagery the study found the amount of trees and greenery fell between 14 and 55 percent in the period from 2000 to 2009 in LA County. For instance, for each home expansion about one-third of the existing green cover is lost. Trees produce many benefits such as carbon sequestration, shade, decrease chance of erosion and landslides, and other public health benefits such as filtering dust particles. In Baldwin Park, green cover dropped from 70 percent in 2000 to 31 percent in 2009. Compton lost 41 percent, Downey, San Pedro, Sylmar and Pomona experienced 20 percent losses. The City of Los Angeles has a tree-planting program now, and last year more than 18,000 trees were planted. SPUR Chastises Tech Companies for Location Choices San Francisco Planning & Urban Research released a report “Rethinking the Corporate Campus” that accuses the innovative Silicon Valley companies of being backward in their choice of office locations and typologies. According to the report, many are located in suburban one-story campuses with sprawling parking lots, far from public streets. These choices come at high environmental and social costs as commutes get longer and housing prices more expensive. The report tackles two questions: How do we encourage employers to choose efficient, sustainable, high-performance locations? How do we create new locations that are more efficient, sustainable, and high-performing? While there are a few examples of companies moving next to mass transit: Twitter, LinkedIn, Samsung, Salesforce, the majority have stuck to their suburban sprawling offices. Judge Thwarts Sierra Club Wish for Development Moratorium in San Diego County San Diego Superior Court Judge Timothy Taylor denied  the Sierra Club’s attempt to block new large-scale developments on previously undeveloped, unincorporated land before the county adopts a revised plan for curbing greenhouse gas emissions. Taylor however did say the court was very concerned that county officials have not been acting more quickly and that the environmental group can renew its request if the county has not made significant progress within two months. County officials earlier this year said the climate plan would be released this summer. The climate action plan was first found inadequate in 2012 and was directed to be redrafted to set clearer standards on what emissions levels are acceptable. San Francisco Inclusionary Housing Policy Advances The San Francisco Planning Commission approved an ordinance that would require market rate developers to make 18 percent of rental units affordable to low- and moderate-income households. The commission was decided between two versions: the more aggressive of which would have required that 24 percent of rental units be affordable. While both sides wanted to maximize the number of affordable units, the disagreement was on how many affordable untis could be squeezed out before a project became economically infeasible. This housing ordinance would only represent about 10 percent of the affordable units the city produces, 75 percent are funded with federal tax credits and are only available to households that earn less than 55 percent AMI, or $63,400 for a family of four. The County Board of Supervisors must approve the housing law. Two California Projects Vie for ULI Housing Award The Urban Land Institute (ULI)  Terwilliger Center for Housing  has announced the finalists for this year’s  Jack Kemp Excellence in Affordable and Workforce Housing Award , which honors exemplary developments that ensure housing affordability for people with a range of incomes. Two of the seven nominees are in California: The 2017 Jack Kemp Excellence in Affordable and Workforce Housing Award finalists are: 1) Perris Station Senior Apartment Homes (Perris, Riverside County) replaced a blighted property, fulfilling the city's goal of adding high-quality, sustainable housing that is affordable to low-income seniors, and providing space for retail/office uses. The development is a model for offering amenity-rich living for active seniors as well as resource-efficient and “green” design features. 2) The apartment complex Veo (Carson, Los Angels County) serves as a mixed-income, mixed-use walkable community of for-sale townhomes sized specifically for families. Street-level retail has rejuvenated the area by enhancing the streetscape with outdoor dining and other improvements. The winner will be announced during the Terwilliger Center’s Housing Opportunity Conference, set for September 10-11 in New Orleans. Quick Hits & Updates Environmental groups have filed a federal lawsuit against President Trump’s executive order to open protected coastal waters to offshore drilling. The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Alaska, claims Trump has no legal authority to undo protections adopted by President Obama in 2015 and 2016. California officials condemned the executive order and vowed to fight any new oil development off the state’s shores. The Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU) announced winners of its annual Charter Awards for excellence in architectural, landscape, urban, and regional design. CNU recognized 16 projects across the US, Mexico, Spain and South Africa. The two California projects were Plaza La Reina in Los Angeles as a “timeless and artful building” and St. Joseph’s Redevelopment in Oakland as “harmony of old and new is gift to city." The San Francisco Metropolitan Transportation Commission voted unanimously to provide $13.3 million in funding to extend the forthcoming SMART rail line from downtown San Rafael to Larkspur Landing by 2.1 miles. The city will also receive a new transit center to better accommodate buses and trains, but funding has not been identified and it could take at least five years. Planning firm Nelson/Nygaard along with business leaders, nonprofits and advocates  released a report titled “The Silicon Valley Bike Vision Report.” The document includes designs and maps that analyze existing bikeway conditions in Silicon Valley, mode share metrics, a collision analysis, an inventory of existing bikeways, and origin0destination pairs for significant locations. Sober Network Properties, which owns seven sober living facilities in San Clemente, has filed a lawsuit against the city’s zoning of such facilities. The lawsuit alleges residents of one home were verbally abused and harassed by groups of people opposed to sober living homes. San Clemente finalized ordinances in 2016, with an 18-month lifespan, allowing sober living homes to certain areas of the city. Los Angeles Metro has begun soliciting bids from companies interested in conducting a feasibility study of potential modes of transit and possible routes for the traffic-clogged Sepulveda Pass. The combination of Measure R transportation sales tax in 2008 and Measure M tax, give nearly $8 billion for this project. Metro’s current schedule call for a transit system to be built through Sepulveda Pass by 2033. A new UCLA environmental report gave Los Angeles County a “C” in energy use and persistent air pollution. The 2017 Sustainable LA Environmental Report Card for Energy and Air Quality gave the grade based on a failure to reduce fuel use, increasing commute times, and some of the worst smog in the nation. However, the county had reduced its GHG emissions by 20 percent in 2013 from 1990 levels, and are on track to meeting its 45 percent reduction goal by 2025. Developer FivePoint Communities has sent the Irvine City Council a proposal for switching land for the Orange County veterans cemetery. Instead of putting the cemetery in the Great Park, it would be swapped for land near the 5 and 405 freeways. The change would not cost any money for the city or its taxpayers, and there are no substantial zoning, traffic or environmental issues affecting the freeway cemetery land. However, some City Council members are accusing the developer of trying to improperly get additional homes built in the Great Park. Santa Barbara County Supervisor Joan Hartmann is urging Congressman Doug LaMalfa to stop the legislation that would immediately annex the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indian’s 1,400-acre Camp 4 in Santa Ynez Valley. The fight began in 2010 when the tribe purchases the land and announced it planned to build housing. Neighbors of the site worried they would overdevelop the property. Airbnb and HomeAway settled a lawsuit with San Francisco agreeing to help ensure all local hosts are registered. The websites will now only include legal listings and the city “has tools for quick, effective enforcement,” according to City Attorney Dennis Herrera. In 2015, a San Francisco law required all vacation-rental hosts to register with the city but only about 2,100 out of 8,000 hosts had done so. Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Richard L. Fruin Jr. concluded that the City Council’s approval of a Hollywood Target shopping center violated planning rules. The project has been defeated in courts twice in three years. Target first filed an application to build in 2008, and the partially built, three-story structure has been empty since 2014. Redfin's “ migration report ” ranks the San Francisco metropolitan area, including San Jose and Oakland, as the first market where house hunters are most likely to leave. The analysis showed 1 in 5 home seekers living in the Bay Area is looking outside the region. Last month, the Bay Area Council found 40 percent of Bay Area residents want to leave in the next few years. The number jumps to 46 percent among millennials.

It was a warm day with very little breeze. Visible to the south, east, and west, motionless smoke columns served as precise geographic markers of the buildings that had been torched so far. The cops were nowhere. As white gentrifiers in West Adams, we were at the mercy of any neighbor who might want to settle a score, such as the guys who lived in the gang house down the block. My street of early-1900s Craftsman houses was as eerily tranquil as an Edward Hopper painting. The party was elsewhere: three short blocks to the east, buildings were ablaze on all four corners of the intersection of Western and Washington boulevards. A mile to the north, in Koreatown and the Wilshire District, storeowners perched on rooftops with rifles to ward off arsonists and looters. (As it turned out, the gang viewed us part of their turf to protect, as the gang leader told me a few days later in a friendly conversation. In spite of myself, I felt grateful.) Before they ended, the Los Angeles riots extended from South Central all the way to the Hollywood Hills to the north. How did the unrest become so widespread? L.A. is an automobile city, and the unrest was literally a riot on wheels. Much of South Los Angeles is organized around endless north-south streets, like Western, Vermont, and La Brea, that span the 20-mile distance between downtown and the beach cities. Who started the fires? It’s unclear whether they were lit by locals inspired by news reports, or perhaps a small number of people, sitting in the back seats of cars and tossing incendiaries out the rear window, block by block, as their drivers headed north to Hollywood. In the first hours, I was determined not to leave my house. Some of my reporter friends were actually cruising the streets in search of interviews and photo ops, despite a police curfew. When a cloud of acrid smoke settled on our house, it was time to go. The family of four, a large white dog, and a Selmer saxophone piled into the car to join the exodus to Sherman Oaks, behind the protective barrier of the Santa Monica Mountains. In the end, the five-day riot left 50 people dead. It destroyed or damaged more than 1,000 buildings, at an estimated cost of a $1 billion. About a year later, some new commercial buildings, in candy colors and fashionable zig-zag angles, came to my neighborhood to replace the nondescript strip malls burned. In my opinion, they were not an improvement, even though the bar was pretty low. *** In the days immediately after the riots, some people felt that Los Angeles needed fresh leadership and ideas. Their impulse was to privatize the project of community redevelopment. This belief may been particularly strong in Los Angeles, where government is perceived to be weak and business to be resolute and wise. To head this ad hoc committee of civic repair, organizers chose Peter Ueberroth, a Republican resident of Orange County. Ueberroth, who had organized the successful 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, was “a guy who knows how to get things done.” No sooner had Rebuild LA formed than it ran into a problem: How would this city-building be done, exactly? What projects should they undertake? Based on what policy? No one ever figured it out. Despite good intentions and some nice gestures, Rebuild LA quickly turned into one more poverty agency in search of projects, “partners” and funding, and companies that had pledged either money or initiatives seemed to shrivel up. More action, arguably, came from the city’s official civic-improvement arm, the Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Agency (LA/CRA.). The agency gained great power in the Bradley years. It built some projects and attracted developers with free land and expedited financing, among other benefits. CRA created new project areas, including one centered on the riot-damaged corner of Vermont and Manchester. The agency supported commercial ventures like Magic Johnson’s 12-screen multiplex at the Crenshaw Mall, the agency’s attempt to give South Central a real mall a few years priors to the riots. Another attempt at a shopping center, this time a grandiose effort called Vermont Gardens, which promised a cultural performance space in its center, started construction in 1995 but stalled out a year later. The agency helped build a number of low-income housing complexes, although projects that are instantly identifiable as affordable housing tend to stigmatize their neighborhoods. Momentum to repair the city faded when the sense of crisis diminished. When the Northridge earthquake hit two years later, followed by the immensely entertaining O.J. Simpson murder trial, Angelenos found something else to focus on. While there were some individual success stories from the CRA and Rebuild LA, it’s hard to assess what lasting good was done. A recent released report  from UCLA, timed to coincide with the anniversary of the unrest, reports that economic conditions in South Central, if anything, have worsened slightly. *** The emergence of downtown as a popular residential neighborhood, along with the redevelopment of Hollywood, were perhaps the two most remarkable planning events in the past quarter century – and it was quite a quarter-century. Other great planning events include the completion of the Century (105) Freeway, creating a link between southern suburbs and aerospace jobs in the LAX area, which was no longer needed because those jobs had largely disappeared. Several new transit lines reached completion to Pasadena, East L.A., the San Gabriel Valley and Santa Monica, but these expensive projects were not enough to offset freeway congestion. More importantly, football returned, in the form of the Rams. And the Chargers. Boba drinks, designer cupcakes, Korean-Mexican fusion tacos, all left their marks. South Central L.A. was renamed South L.A. The web arrived, swallowed the music, travel, and newspaper industries, among others, while failing to end civilization on New Years 2000. Forest fires grew more frequent and more intense. Multiple droughts occurred. The Chinese became the biggest foreign investors in L.A. real estate. Jerry Brown killed the redevelopment agencies. Housing prices grew to absurd levels, and city officials acknowledged that the city was in a perpetual housing crisis. L.A. had three boring mayors who seemed to accomplish nothing; the current mayor is a bright young man with some good ideas about walkable streets and other urban amenities that world-class cities should enjoy. Again, the question is where is the constituency for planning? Los Angeles still doesn’t know what it is. Civic awareness is non-existent in this unfriendliest of cities. *** On a personal note, I remarried, sold my West Adams house at a $50,000 loss after I heard gunfire one afternoon while the children were playing outside. I remarried and bought a house in the Valley. I read about violence in South Central in the L.A. Times with a mixture of revulsion, guilt and relief. Young people were still dying needlessly from gun violence, but now they were far away; there was nothing to do but shake your head and turn the page. As for South Central, the experiences of both Rebuild LA and the CRA suggest that the social and economic problems are too deep to respond to real estate solutions by themselves. Physical planning can provide improvements in mobility and housing. The fundamental problem remains economic. In my view, the federal government should revive the Depression-era Works Progress Administration, and create millions of jobs. In other words, the government should invest directly in individual people by giving them paychecks -- as opposed to tax credits or other financial incentives to developers and contractors. The much-discussed need to repair perhaps $1 trillion in freeways, roads, dams and bridges would seem like a good fit here. In addition to a new WPA, government should form joint ventures with tech companies, and create manufacturing or just-in-time delivery warehouses in inner city locations. Perhaps the government could subsidize the physical plant, the cost of training and other non-business-related costs. I believe Freud when he says that people need “love and work.” High unemployment is a cause of substance abuse, fatherless households, spousal abuse and incarceration; an unemployed person is a frustrated person and sometimes a dangerous one, too. Glitzy shopping centers and expensive upgrades of cultural monuments like Watts Tower are nice, but they don’t really touch the fundamental issue, which is economic. Neighborhoods improve when people are working. People can buy homes, or refinance and repair existing ones. Unemployment is a persistent problem in South Central, because African-American unemployment is higher than white unemployment, especially for teenagers and young adults. High-paying jobs, followed by improve education and better health care, are the right medicines for South Central. Compared with those five days, the breeze has been relatively gentle in Los Angeles over the past 25 years. We need to do more to keep it that way.

The American Planning Association announced its 12 National Planning Achievement Awards for 2017 in advance of its national conference in New York City. Four of the 12 winners are based in California winners. UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs got the award for Best Practice-Silver for “Placemaking for an Aging Population: Guidelines for Senior-Friendly Parks. ” The guidelines describes 10 purposes that senior-friendly open spaces should address: control, choice, safety and security, accessibility, social support, physical activity, privacy, contact with nature, comfort, and aesthetic and sensory delight. Monterey Bay won a Best Practice-Silver as well for its “Historic Fort Ord Regional Urban Design Guidelines” that outline reuse plans for the 28,000-acre historic military installation. The City of Ontario won an award for a Grassroots Initiative-Gold for its “Huerta del Valle Community Garden” which provides fresh organic produce to the community. The garden opened in 2013 and features 68 family plots and 2.5 acres of agricultural land that produces 6,000 pounds of food annually. In 2015, Huerta del Valle Community Garden became a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. The final California winner was Marin County and its “Game of Floods” which won an award for Public Outreach-Gold. The Game of Floods combines games with community planning exercises to communicate about sea-level rise vulnerabilities and adaption. Review of National Monuments Includes Eight in California Eight national monuments’ designations in California are among the 30 being reviewed by the Trump administration for possible de-listing. Under a new executive order almost a billion acres nationwide are being reevaluated for their status if they were designated by presidents after 1996 and are at least 100,000 acres. The California National Monuments covered by Trump’s order include Cascade-Siskiyou at the Oregon border, Berryessa Snow Mountain, Carrizo Plain, Giant Sequoia, San Gabriel Mountains, Sand to Snow, Mojave Trails, and Santa Rosa and San Jacinto Mountains. Trump says this will end the “egregious abuse of federal power, and give that power back to the states and the people.” While most of California’s national monuments will pass the tests, the two most recently designated desert national monuments could be in jeopardy. Last February, Obama protected 1.8 million acres at the request of Sen. Dianne Feinstein and House Republicans opened an investigation in March 2016 claiming a “lack of transparency and consultation with local stakeholders.” However, no president has rescinded a national monument designation, and there is no provision in the Antiquities Act for reversal which would likely lead to lawsuits. San Diego Reveals Plans for Vast Network of Urban Sensors San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer announced the city would be working with General Electric to upgrade streetlights to reduce energy costs by 60 percent and create a connected digital network that can optimize parking and traffic, enhance public safety and track air quality through deployment of 3,200 smart sensors. It would, city officials contend, create the largest city-sponsored “Internet of things” network in the world. These smart nodes will use real-time anonymous sensor data to direct drivers to open parking spaces, help first responders during emergencies, track carbon emissions and identify intersections that can be improved for pedestrians and bicyclists. The anonymous information will be used for San Diego’s “Vision Zero” strategy to eliminate traffic fatalities and injuries, and it will be available to developers who want to create civic-minded apps and software. The new lights will be installed this summer and the project will be completed by fall 2018. Ruling Tentatively Preserves Bond Funding for High Speed Rail Sacramento County Superior Court Judge Raymond Cadei tentatively denied High Speed Rail opponents' attempt to block the state from spending about $1.25 billion from a $10 billion bond voters approved in 2008. Cadei allowed the project to move forward but delayed a final ruling on a legal challenge asserting the state is not keeping its promise to its voters. Cadei said that the injunction was at the wrong time and blocking the money could hurt Californians as taking away the state’s access to the bond dollars would require forfeit of billions of dollars in federal grants. The lawsuit challenges AB1889, which changed previous law to allow money from high-speed rail bonds to be spent on electrification of Caltrain. Those opposed said only voters can make that change, not Gov. Brown, and contended that the ruling gives the legislature “carte blanche” to redirect voter-approved bond funds.  White Paper Describes Opposition to Housing, Possible Responses UCLA professor in urban planning Paavo Monkkonen, released a white paper addressing obstacles to the production of housing in California titled, “Understanding and Challenging Opposition to Housing Construction in California’s Urban Areas.” The paper provides  ways that residents and groups express opposition to new housing their own neighborhoods and makes a set of policy recommendations for the state government to address the challenge. Monkkonen argues limiting new construction make all housing less affordable, exacerbates spatial inequalities, and harms the state’s economic productivity and environment. The paper covers motivations for opposing densification and tactics used to block housing projects. Monkkonen concludes that the state should enforce and enhance existing laws, push local planning agencies to be more representative and equal, provide information for public discussions, and develop ways to make planning decisions at the metropolitan not neighborhood scale. CARB Seeks to Warn Developers of Pollution Risks The California Air Resources Board (CARB) issued a guide to help cities and developers identify risks of and reduce exposure to pollution from busy urban roads. Strategies to Reduce Air Pollution Exposure near High-Volume Roadways provides planners and builders of infill developments with science-based strategies to protect public health and reduce impacts of nearby traffic. CARB Chair Mary Nichols said, “Infill developments are crucial to California’s ability to meet our air quality and climate goals…The health benefits of denser urban neighborhoods can be reduced if they are built close to congested highways.” The strategies include reducing traffic emissions, reducing concentrations of air pollution from vehicles, or removing pollution from the air. Draft Los Angeles City Budget Released Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti unveiled his proposed 2017-2018 budget , with significant funding for expenditures related to transportation and land use. The $9.2 billion budget allocates more than $176 million towards housing and services for the homeless and $35 million to fix roads. More than $89 million of the $176 million is HHH funding and the transportation funds will come from Measure M and SB1. The proposed budget also includes $3.5 million for Community Plan Updates, $17 million for Vision Zero, $3.6 million for Great Streets, $14 million DASH Expansion, $31 million for sidewalk repair, $7.1 million for tree-trimming, and joint use arreements for park space. Quick Hits & Updates The Sacramento Area Council of Governments entered into a contract with Social Bicycles for a regional bike share system that will include Sacramento, West Sacramento, Davis, and UC Davis. The preview system will include 50-100 bikes in May 2017 in Sacramento (downtown and Midtown) and West Sacramento. The program will grow to 800 Smart Bicycles plus 100 Electric Bikes during expansion targeted for the fall. The City of Los Angeles  released a new interactive Vision Zero map that shows the location of recent traffic fatalities, identifying them by age, gender, and whether they were traveling by foot, bike or car. The map focuses on the High Injury Network (HIN): six percent of streets where 65 percent of deaths and injuries take place. The map includes data from 2003 to 2016. (See prior CP&DR coverage .) The CEO of the High-Speed Rail Authority, Jeff Morales, announced he will be stepping down this summer after five years. The board of directors are in the process of selecting a replacement. Los Angeles Metro’s Planning and Programming Committee approved final project definitions for a future Eastside Gold Line extension. The project must get approval from the full board, and then can move into environmental clearance studies. The Eastside Gold Line extensions are funded by Measure M with two phases: $534 million to break ground in 2029 and open in 2035 and $2.89 billion for break ground in 2053 and open in 2057. The committee also approved four West Santa Ana Branch light rail alignments to be used for environmental studies. Measure M funds two phases of light rail on the West Santa Ana Branch, which will ultimately run from Union Station to Artesia. Metro plans to scope their EIR this spring, prepare a full EIR, and the agency expects to approve in late 2019. Santa Clara Valley Water District is considering building a new $800 million dam and reservoir in the hills of eastern Santa Clara County near Pacheco Pass. In February the board voted to pay consultants up to $900,000 to study the idea. If the findings return favorable, the district will apply for funding under Proposition 1.  The California Housing Consortium has launched BringCAHome.org , a website with information for Californians on infographics and statistics on the housing affordability crisis, “take action” section that connects Californians with legislators, and a toolksit of county-by-county factsheets on housing affordability and the type of workers who are being priced out. A report released by the High Desert Corridor Joint Powers Authority on the proposed Desert Xpress high speed rail line finds that 27 percent of the more than 23 million passengers that travel between Southern California and Las Vegas would do so by high-speed rail if given the option. The project could also save money for travelers, help the environment, increase safety, and generate $1 billion in revenue. The report notes the promise of infrastructure funding from the Trump Administration and the move of the Raiders from the Bay Area to Las Vegas which can hopefully boost the project to attract new investors. (See prior CP&DR coverage .) The Sustainable Agricultural Lands Conservation Program (SALC) is accepting applications for Agricultural Conservation Easement grants and Agricultural Land Strategy and Outcome grants. SALC is the first program in the country to invest in farmland conservation for its climate benefits. Launched by the Strategic Growth Council in 2015, SALC Program dedicated $4.6 million to agricultural conservation easements and planning grants in its first year. Last year, it awarded $37.4 million to preserve 20 properties protecting 19,000 acres. The Anaheim City Council voted to ban commercial marijuana operations, including cultivation, manufacturing and distribution for recreational or medical uses. State officials are expected to issue licenses next year, but city officials say the ordinance give the city control of the issue, rather than deferring to unknown state laws. Anaheim has also limited growing marijuana plants to in their homes and backyards, rather than front-yards. (See related CP&DR coverage .) The City of Los Angeles adopted a new ordinance that would strengthen enforcement of the Rent Stabilization Ordinance. Under the Ellis Act, landlords who tear down rent-controlled units must either replace them one-for-one with affordable units or ensure that 20 percent of new unit are affordable. The new law would also help prevent displacement of tenants by increasing regulation of both vacant and occupied rental units, requiring owners to re-start the Ellis process if withdrawn units are re-rented, tightening rules when units are demolished without necessary approvals, and requiring property owners to file annual reports. The West Oakland Environmental Indicators Project, in partnership with researchers at UC Berkeley, is installing  and monitoring air quality sensors in densely packed neighborhoods near the city’s port to give people who live and work there live readings of pollutants that can injure their health. The project has installed the first 25 of 100 sensors in residents’ yards, schools, senior centers, and businesses.

CP&DR Vol. 32 No. No. 4 April 2017

In 1883 novelist Helen Hunt Jackson visited what is now the City of Hemet in 1883 to do research for what became her novel Ramona. The title character is orphaned in Southern California following the Mexican-American War and finds adventure and romance on the frontier. Her story drew thousands of easterners weary of toil and strife and inspired countless readers to pursue the Southern California dream. Had Jackson landed in present-day Hemet, though, she might chosen a different setting for her heroine. The ranchos, orange groves, and soaring peaks that greeted Jackson gave way long ago to the tract housing, freeways, and big-box stores that characterize much of the Inland Empire. Hemet’s downtown — one of the oldest in the region, having been founded in the 1880s and incorporated in 1910 — slid into disrepair as the city's population grew to its current 83,000. A new Downtown Specific Plan, adopted on a 5-0 city council vote in early April, aims to bring a little urbanism to Southern California’s original frontier town. The plan applies to a 360-acre area covering 58 blocks including the civic center, historic core, and a future Metrolink commuter rail station. It is bisected east-west by the city’s main street, Florida Avenue and includes a handful of historic resources, such as the 1921 Hemet Theater.

Reversing a Superior Court judge’s ruling, the Fourth District Court of Appeal has ruled that the City of San Diego properly moved forward with construction of a lifeguard station – even though the construction occurred almost 10 years after the city issued a development permit that was supposed to expire after three years.

Southern California is facing a major die-off  of trees throughout parks, campuses and yards in both urban and rural areas, according to data from the U.S. Forest Service. For instance San Diego County’s Tijuana River Valley Regional Park has seen over 100,000 willows destroyed by the polyphagous shot hole borer beetle. Greg McPherson, a researcher with the US Forest Service, estimates the beetle could kill as many as 27 million trees, or 38 percent, in LA, Orange, Riverside, and San Bernardino counties. These would be only losses from the beetle, but many of the trees in the area cannot tolerate stresses of drought, water restrictions, higher salinity levels in recycled water, wind and new pests that arrive almost daily because of global trade and tourism, local transportation systems, nurseries and the movement of infected firewood. The hardest-hit native species of urban trees are California sycamores, typically found along streams and used as shade and street trees. Bay Area Cities Strengthen Rent Control San Jose City Council approved a suite of measures, on a 6-5 vote, to strengthen renter protections, including a requirement that landlords must cite a reason for refusing to renew a lease. San Jose has had more than 2,400 evictions without cause since 2010. This was among several moves in recent weeks by Bay Area cities to strength rent control. City housing officials will also study tying rent increases in the city’s 43,000 rent-controlled units to inflation rather than the current 5 percent increase allowed annually. The council also approved Ellis Act protections that would require landlords of rent-controlled units to provide 120 days to a year of notice before they demolish, remodel or convert their buildings and provide displaced renters money to relocate. In Pacifica, the City Council voted , 3-2, to approve a temporary rent-and eviction-control ordinance. In early May, the Council will decide whether to put a rent and eviction control on the Nov. 7 ballot. In Santa Rosa, residents will vote on a broad rent-and eviction-control measure in the June 6 election. Union City City Council approved an eviction-control ordinance that would limit evictions to just causes allowed by law. (See prior CP&DR coverage .) Nationwide Housing Crisis Costs Economy Up to $1.6 Billion  Analysis from economists Chang-Tai Hsieh of University of Chicago and Enrico Moretti of UC Berkeley finds that the lack of affordable housing in "superstar cities" like New York, San Francisco, and San Jose have cost the US economy about $1.6 trillion a year in lost wages and productivity. The report is titled, “ Why Cities Matter: Local Growth and Aggregate Growth .” The nation’s 380 metro areas generated $14.6 trillion in GDP in 2012, there is little research about factors that limit the growth of cities and metros. Hsieh and Moretti developed a statistical model that analyzed the contribution of each US city and metro to national economic growth. They analyzed 220 metros from 1964 to 2009 and looked at effects of housing on wages and productivity. The authors found that nearly 75 percent of the nation’s economic growth came from small group of Southern metros and 19 other larger metros. The superstar metros created wealth in finance and high-tech industries, but the gains were eaten up by the wages used to pay for higher housing costs. The authors also investigated whether workers are not flowing to the superstar metros because they have become too crowded, noisy and unpleasant, or whether it’s policies like zoning, building codes and NIMBYism. Improving transit is a large part of the solution, according to Hsieh and Moretti. (See prior CP&DR interview with Enrico Moretti.) Santa Monica Releases Conservative Downtown Plan The City of Santa Monica  released the final draft of its Downtown Community Plan. The 300-page document lays out the future of development downtown through 2030, includes what some consider to be aggressively slow-growth rhetoric. The document has five major elements: density, building heights, housing, affordability and transportation. The plan projects less than 20 percent of downtown’s property area will change because it is largely built-out. The maximum height for buildings will be 84 feet (although some areas maximum will be 32 feet) and three exceptions exist already. The plan breaks up downtown into seven districts, with the tallest buildings planned for the area near the city’s light rail stop. City officials say the plan paves the way for the construction of 2,500 housing units over the next two decades. The plan regulates the number of studios and one-bedroom apartments and requires a certain percentage of new units be available for low and middle-income families. For transportation, the priorities are pedestrians, bicycles and public transit. The document still must go through public review at the Planning Commission and City Council, before officially becoming policy. (See prior CP&DR coverage .) Lumber Companies May Challenge Spotted Owl Habitat Designation The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled unanimously that a group of lumber companies, calling themselves the American Forest Resource Council, have legal standing to challenge the northern spotted owl’s designated “critical habitat.” Federal officials in 2012 designated more than 9.5 million acres in California, Oregon and Washington as essential to the owl’s survival. Judge Brett Kavanaugh wrote that there is substantial probability that the critical habitat designation would cause a decrease in the supply of timber and the members would suffer economic harm as a result of the decrease in supply. The case moves back down to district court, and the trial judge may order the Fish and Wildlife Service to redraw the critical habitat maps. Permits for Housing Construction Decline in Los Angeles Permits for housing construction in LA area have declined from 34,034 for 2015 to 32,008 last year or a six percent drop. The units that have been constructed have been primarily condominiums and apartments. This slowdown can most likely be attributed to pullback in bank lending, new land use regulations, and difficulty for developers to find available land. This is the first decline in six years, since permitted units hit a recession-era low of 7,281 in 2009. Most of the new construction is concentrated in downtown LA, where developers can build taller buildings and higher densities. These declines in housing construction may be a cyclical pause or a trend in the making. However, lower numbers of available units negatively impact the cost and availability of homes for buyers. Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington in Texas had 55,618 units permitted last year, and Houston-The Woodlands-Sugar Land had 44,643. Even New York and Atlanta’s metropolitan areas surpassed LA with 10,458 and 4,113 more units respectively.  Lancaster Does Away with Parking Requirements in Commercial Zones The high desert city of Lancaster approved  an ordinance that would delete parking requirements in commercial zones. The staff report contends that eliminating these requirements is one step towards reversing low-density, sprawling development patterns, and resulting fiscal liabilities. For development, parking spaces carry a high cost in terms of the land needed to build them but also the costs in maintenance. Planning Director Brian Ludicke said businesses can treat parking as a "business decision" rather than a regulatory requirement. A benefit is that city planning staff can save time spent on calculating, determining, and verifying compliance. To prevent extreme abuse, developers must determine the number of parking spaces sufficient for their project and provide justification to the Direct of Development Services and/or Planning Commission. Quick Hits & Updates According to analysis  by Redfin, San Jose is the nation’s most competitive market for residential real estate with 69.6 percent of homes sold over the listing price. Second and third place were San Francisco and Oakland, respectively. Low supply has driven competition, which keeps pushing home prices up. Los Angeles County will  lose nearly 14,000 affordable rentals over the next five years according to analysis by the California Housing Partnership Corp. The group says these units, spread across 232 building,s are at “high” or “very high” risk of being converted to market rate units.  A report  from the USC Price School of Public Policy, “The Affordable Housing Crisis in Los Angeles: An Employer Perspective,” contends that nearly 60 percent of leading employers have cited the region’s high cost of living as impacting employee retention. Seventy-five percent cite housing costs specifically. Nearly 64 percent report including cost of living when negotiating hiring packages for high-level employees. Rohnert Park Mayor Jake Mackenzie was unanimously elected as the chair of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission. Mackenzie has served for the past two years as MTC’s vice chair and has represented Sonoma County on the Commission since 2008. A controversial project  proposed by Cadiz, Inc. to pump Mojave Desert groundwater to sell to urban Southern California has been given new life by the Trump administration. The existing documents said Cadiz could not use an existing federal railroad right-of-way for a new water pipeline, which meant the project would have to go through federal environmental review. Cadiz asked the BLM to reverse what it called a flawed decision. The new memo from the BLM, states that future right-of-way decisions will be made by the agency’s Washington office. Anaheim’s $185 million ARTIC transit hub, will have to pay  its operating deficit from the city’s general fund for the foreseeable future. For the past three fiscal years, the station has fallen far short of ridership projections and operated in the red, with a $2.5 million deficit for 2016-17. This year, because of television shows and commercials filmed there, is projected to generate $1.4 million in revenue. Los Angeles real estate investor Leeor Maciborski faces  fines of $17,000 after writing checks through more than a dozen companies to help elect City Councilman Mitch O’Farrell. Under city rules, each donor can only give $700 per election at the time, the company exceeded restrictions by $3,000. The Elk Grove City Council approved , 4-0, $8 million worth of incentives to lure a Costco superstore. Construction will begin in June on a 17-acre site in the suburbs. The project includes 150,000-square foot store and up to 30 gas pumps. The Center for Biological Diversity has filed  a lawsuit against the city of San Bernardino Municipal Water Department and the City of San Bernardino challenging a plan to dramatically reduce water flows in the Santa Ana River. The project would cut water by 50 percent, hurting endangered wildlife and recreational opportunities for people. The National Parks Services has added  the Pan American Bank structure in East Los Angeles to the National Register of Historic Places. This structure is the headquarters of the oldest Latina-owned bank in California and was co-founded in 1964 by Romana Acosta Banuelos, who was also the first Latina Treasurer of the US. Sacramento leaders have met with automakers and technology company representatives to become a national testing  ground for driverless cars.The city is callings its efforts the Autonomous Transportation Open Standards Lab, or ATOS.

In a case involving a historic house on Coronado Island, an appellate court has reinforced the idea that local governments deserve great deference in making findings and shouldn’t be second-guessed by judges.

One of the most nebulous areas of the California Environmental Quality Act is what’s a separate project and what’s not. Under CEQA, lead agencies can’t piecemeal projects in order to avoid dealing with impacts.

The following is a selection of the largest master planned communities currently underway in California. See accompanying story, Post-Recession, Master Planned Communities Come Back to Life .

Up to the year 2000 or so, through the headiest days of growth in the Inland Empire, the 13 square miles between Ontario and Chino now known as Ontario Ranch had a population of over 300,000. If all goes according to plan, it will have roughly 150,000 by the midpoint of this century. Despite this dramatic decline, Ontario Ranch is not some woebegone Rust Belt city. Indeed, it is experiencing not so much one of population so much as it is a change of species: from cattle to human. What it does not represent, however, is much of a change in California’s development patterns. In decades past, outer suburban areas like the Inland Empire, inland San Diego County, Sacramento’s rural counties, and the far tendrils of the Bay Area boomed with subdivisions and master planned communities — typically dominated by single-family homes. Recently, though, economic conditions and a new regulatory climate put a halt to much of that type of growth as cities turned towards infill development and greenfield development was deemed unsustainable. “The size and scope of master-planned communities meant that they did take a larger hit because of their size,” said John Beckman, CEO of the Building Industry Association of the Greater Valley. The recession and housing crisis of 2007 onward stopped development, of all types, in its tracks. Meanwhile, the 2008 passage of Senate Bill 375 was intended to usher in a new age of infill development in center cities. Cultural trends, consumer preferences, and environmental concerns inspired the tantalizing notion that, perhaps, sprawl was dead, interred in a cemetery of its own making. (See prior CP&DR coverage here and here .) Don’t order the headstone yet. Ontario Ranch is but the most massive of a new generation of large master planned communities that are in various stages of development statewide. Technically, Ontario Ranch is an annexation, consisting of nine master-planned communities that are enormous — on the order of several thousand residential units — in their own right. They are joined by the likes of Mountain House in San Joaquin County, Otay Ranch (5,300 acres) in San Diego County, The Villages of Lakeview in Riverside County (11,350 homes, 2,800 acres), Tesoro Viejo in Madera County (5,190 homes, 1,600 acres), and Newhall Ranch in northern Los Angeles (21,500 homes, 10,000 acres). The community of Grapevine (12,000 units, 8,100 acres) recently received approval from Kern County; a sister community on the 270,000-acre Tejon Ranch site, Centennial, is awaiting approval from Los Angeles County. (See sidebar  on California's pending large master planned communities.) Despite some exceptions, many of these developments aren’t so much new as they are remnants of the early 2000s with new funding and old approvals. Mountain House, Newhall Ranch, and Tesoro Viejo have been kicking around since the 1990s.

The Association of Bay Area Governments and the Metropolitan Transportation Commission released draft Plan Bay Area 2040 . The plan is an updated long-range Regional Transportation Plan and Sustainable Communities Strategy for the nine-county Bay Area. The previous iteration was adopted in 2013 as a result of the California Sustainable Communities and Climate Protection Act of 2008 (Senate Bill 375). The result of two years of planning, Plan Bay Area 2040 continues a “no sprawl” vision with a focus on infill areas near transit for more walkable neighborhoods, and it attempts to identify transportation and land-use strategies that promote sustainability, equity, and economic vitality. According to the plan, 77 percent of new homes and 55 percent of new jobs are focused within Priority Development Areas, which are designated infill areas close to transit. Some critics  contend that the plan will not do enough to make the region’s housing more affordable. There will be nine open houses, one in every county in the region. Additionally there will be three public hearings: San Jose May 16, Vallejo May 18, and San Francisco May 12. The comment period for all documents will close Thursday June 1. (See prior CP&DR coverage  of second-generation SCS's.) SCAG Adopts Regional Transportation Plan / SCS  The Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG) adopted  the 2016-2040 Regional Transportation Plan/Sustainable Communities Strategy (2016 RTP/ SCS). The plan demonstrates how the region will reduce emissions from transportation sources to comply with Senate Bill 375 (SB 375) and meet the National Ambient Air Quality Standards set forth by the federal Clean Air Act. The 2016 RTP/SCS is a Project List containing thousands of individual transportation projects that aim to improve the region’s mobility and air quality and revitalize the economy. Since the plan’s adoption, some of these projects have experienced technical changes that are time-sensitive.As a result, amendments to the 2016 RTP/SCS and the Federal Transportation Improvement Program (FTIP) are needed in order to allow these projects to move forward in a timely manner. SCAG’s Transportation Committee approved the release of the Draft 2016-2040 Regional Transportation Plan/Sustainable Communities Strategy Amendment #2 and the Draft 2017 Federal Transportation Improvement Program Amendment #17-07. There will now be a 30-day public review and comment period ending May 8. Public hearings  will be held in Los Angeles April 25 and will be accessible via videoconference from any of SCAG’s regional offices. Appeals Court Upholds Cap-and-Trade Program An appeals court has upheld California's cap-and-trade program, preserving what supporters say is a crucial source of funding for the state’s efforts to combat climate change. Two judges on the three-judge panel sided with state officials who argued the program is within its authority to regulate the industry through permits to release GHG emissions. The dissenting judge contended the cap-and-trade functioned as an unconstitutional tax. The suit was brought by business groups, including the California Chamber of Commerce, that contended that the program was an unfair burden on businesses. The decision could still be appealed to the California Supreme Court. Cap and trade funds contribute to land use programs such as the Affordable Housing and Sustainable Communities grant program.  Architecture Awards Recognize Nine California Projects The Chicago Athenaeum Museum of Architecture and Design and the European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies have awarded over 79 buildings, commercial and institutional developments, landscape, architecture and urban planning projects form 43 nations for the American Architecture Awards for 2017. Nine projects in California were recognized.  Golden 1 Center , home of the Sacramento Kings, received an award for its innovative solutions, active and spectacular outdoor event plazas, creativity and innovation, and sustainable designs. Other California projects to win the award were the Colorado Esplanade  in Santa Monica, Blu Dot Showroom in West Hollywood, In Situ in San Francisco, Petersen Automotive Museum in LA, The Main Museum of LA Art, Minnesota Street Project in San Francisco, Oasis: Silicon Valley Technology Center in Santa Clara, and Sea Song in Big Sur. Lawsuit to Promote Housing In Lafayette Struck Down A Contra Costa County Superior Court judge ruled against activists who filed a lawsuit against the City of Lafayette. The group, San Francisco Bay Area Renters Federation (SFBARF) alleged that Lafayette violated the state’s Housing Accountability Act by approving a smaller housing development rather than a larger apartment complex. Part of a larger movement to increase the region’s housing supply, the suit became known as “Sue the Suburbs.” The developer, O’Brien Homes, initially proposed 315 apartments but in the revised plans that were approved, included only 44 single-family homes, which would be more expensive. SFBARF argued the city pressured the developer to reduce the size of its project, to prevent potential renters from moving to Lafayette. The city says it has over 500 apartment units completed or in the pipeline, particularly downtown near BART and public transit. Los Angeles to Revamp Civic Center into ‘Civic Innovation District' The City of Los Angeles released  a draft plan to convert the existing downtown Civic Center into a “Civic Innovation District” that would include mixed-use street-fronting retail, startup office space, pedestrian paths, public parks, and high-rise residential housing. In March, the City Council approved the new Civic Center Master Plan, based on a study from IBI Group, that will guide the redevelopment. The plan involves demolishing the historic but socially-problematic former LAPD headquarters from 1955, the modernist-style City Hall East building, and the Metropolitan Detention Center. The plan will be implemented in six phases, beginning with the demolition of the former police department headquarters. Existing City Hall South building will be replaced in 2019, in 2021 the 390-foot tall tower will go into the existing Los Angeles Mall, and between 2024-2027 includes the block containing the Parker Center replacement. The entire plan will be completed between 2030-2032. The plan requires one more vote by the city council for adoption.  Bay Area Polls Reveal Concerns about Housing, Transportation The Bay Area Council Poll released  a series of four polls related to quality of life and attitudes towards land use in the Bay Area March 30 - April 2. The first poll focused on Housing, Traffic & Cost of Living and found 46 percent of millennials are considering leaving the Bay Area. Of cost of living, traffic and housing, the first is the top problem with 55 percent, followed by traffic (41 percent) and housing (39 percent). The second poll was about transportation in the region and 70 percent said that the Bay Area needs a major regional investment in transportation, even if it means raising taxes. Even 83 percent of voters said they want traffic treated like an emergency. The third poll was about economic confidence and found 31 percent of voters thought the economy was doing better compared to the previous six months, with millennials feeling the most concerned. The last poll was about the Housing shortage and solutions and found that 70 percent of millennials support building denser while only 57 percent of those aged 40-64. Lower Colorado, Bear River Make ‘Endangered Rivers’ List The American Rivers group released its report of “America’s Most Endangered Rivers” and the Lower Colorado River and Bear River made the list . The Lower Colorado River provides drinking water for one in ten Americans, but is under major threat for water scarcity and demand. Over the past years, federal agencies and state water leaders have made progress towards conservation and programs that reduce overuse of the river. This success is threatened by the Trump Administration’s Fiscal Year 2018 Budget proposal which would cut programs like the Bureau of Reclamations’ System Conservation Program, the USDA’s Regional Conservation Partnership Program, and the Department of Interior’s WaterSMART program and Title XVI grants for municipal conservation and efficiency efforts. Bear River from the Sierra Nevadas flows 73 miles to the pastures and fields of the Central Valley. This river supports recreation, cultural use, rare habitat, and water for agriculture and municipal supplies in multiple cities and counties. This river is threatened by a proposed 275-foot tall Centennial Dam.