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Developer Leo Pustilnikov has won another battle in his long-running effort to redevelop the AES power plant in Redondo Beach and apparently will be able to move forward with a lawsuit claiming that the city has taken his property by not letting him develop it.

This article is brought to you courtesy of the paying subscribers to  California Planning & Development Report . You can subscribe to  CP&DR  by clicking  here . You can sign up for  CP&DR ’s free weekly newsletter  here . Push for Potential Home Insurance Ballot Measure Fizzles Los Angeles advocacy group Consumer Watchdog withdrew its Insurance Policyholder Bill of Rights, which would have required insurers to offer coverage to homeowners who fireproof their homes following the withdrawal of a competing industry measure. The competing measure introduced by brokers, The California Insurance Market Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2026 , would have repealed the law requiring approval of the Insurance Commissioner before raising premium rates. Both sides withdrew their measures, preserving the state’s existing insurance framework in Proposition 103, which gives the elected insurance commissioner authority to reject insurance rate increases. Despite this withdrawal, Consumer Watchdog has vowed to devote the next year to building support for new mandates requiring insurers to sell policies in “higher risk areas”, as insurance companies continue to drop or decline new policies to residents in burn areas. (See related CP&DR coverage .)  Schiff Introduces National Housing Legislation California Sen. Adam Schiff is proposing the Housing BOOM Act, legislation aimed at expanding affordable housing for low and middle income families through expanded tax credits, a $10 billion annual loan fund, new grants, rental assistance, and funding for homeless shelters. The bill would 1) expand the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC), a stackable tax credit which would inject the financial capital needed to spur the development of more affordable housing projects; 2) establish new programs through HUD to support middle-income and workforce housing, including a $10 billion annual loan fund and a $5 billion annual block grant program to expand affordable housing options for families earning 60-120% of Area Median Income; increase funding for HUD assisted housing programs supporting the development of affordable housing for rural and tribal communities and seniors and people with disabilities; convert underutilized hotels and public buildings into housing through creation of a federal grant program for state and local governments to facilitate these conversion projects. The legislation would also create a $10 billion annual loan fund and a $5 billion annual grant program targeted at middle-income housing development. High Speed Rail Analyzes Southernmost Segment: L.A. to Anaheim The California High-Speed Rail Authority released the Draft Environmental Impact Report/Environmental Impact Statement for a planned 30-mile rail segment between Downtown Los Angeles and Anaheim, representing a step towards full environmental approval. A public comment period is now open until February 3. The segment planned segment would link LA's Union Station and the Anaheim Regional Transportation Intermodal Center, using the existing freight and passenger rail corridor. As of the announcement, construction is currently underway on the 171-mile initial Merced-Bakersfield line of the planned high-speed rail project, and 463 miles of the 494 total miles of the planned Los Angeles-San Francisco system have been fully approved. State Gains New "Cultural Districts" The California Arts Council has designated 10 new California Cultural Districts, which recognize local creativity, diversity, and unique identities. The newest state-designated cultural districts include areas in San Francisco, Riverside, San Diego, Alameda, Stanislaus, Merced, Ventura, Los Angeles, Santa Clara and Santa Cruz counties. The designation brings state recognition, $10,000 over a two-year period, technical assistance, and access to joint marketing and branding resources. The announcement of these new districts comes just after the release of The Future of California Is Creative, a strategic plan for supporting the creative economy in the state. The program helps communities harness cultural assets to stimulate local economies, attract tourism, preserve historic sites, and support vibrant, inclusive creative economies.  CP&DR Coverage: Santa Barbara Developer Sues in Federal Court, Claiming It Is Singled Out By New State Law A Santa Barbara developer with a pending builder’s remedy project has sued the state in federal court, claiming a new law violates the developer’s constitutional rights. The root of the lawsuit is a proposal by The Mission LLC to build an eight-story housing project behind the iconic Santa Barbara Mission. Under AB 130, passed last summer, infill housing projects of up to 20 acres are exempt from the California Environmental Quality Act, but under SB 158, passed later in the session and signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, the infill exemption cannot be applied to the Santa Barbara project. The main argument in the new lawsuit is that SB 158 singles out the project’s developer in a way that violates both the federal and state constitutions, most notably the equal protection clause and the so-called “prohibition on special legislation” in the state constitution, which prohibits passing laws that target specific individuals or corporations. The developer’s lawsuit also names the City of Santa Barbara as a defendant, claiming that the city’s overlay zone does not conform with state Housing Element law. The overlay claim builds on a recent appellate court ruling from Redondo Beach.  Quick Hits & Updates  Los Angeles City Council halted a proposal to study a climate resilience district in Pacific Palisades over concerns whether a recently affected burn area should serve as an appropriate testing ground for a novel financing tool. The proposal would have created LA’s first Climate Resilience District, a designation which could help direct future local revenues toward climate-related studies and improvements. Over the summer, the Trump administration shuttered , without announcement, a $400 million project to transform a defunct naval base in Alameda into an outpatient clinic and columbarium for veterans. Mayor Marilyn Ezzy Ashcraft says that city officials received no prior warning to the shutdown, finding out the clinic by way of a Veterans Administration memo that was sent to some members of congress in August. The Department of Fish and Wildlife has recommended granting Southern California mountain lions threatened species status, citing freeways, rat poison and wildfires as a threat to the population of roughly 1,400. San Francisco officials in Mayor Daniel Lurie’s office proposed a parcel tax to address a $307 million annual budget deficit that threatens to send Muni, the city’s local transit, into financial collapse. The tax aims to spare middle-class households and small businesses by splitting the parcel tax into three groups scaled by income, with 96% of single-family homeowners paying a flat fee of $129 annually. The Tribal Council of the Colorado River Indian Tribes has recognized the Colorado River as a legal person under tribal law, marking the second such recognition after the Yurok Tribe recognized the Klamath as a person in 2019. The decision was taken, after community input from trial members, in order to help better recognize the river's welfare when planning for the future of water usage and preservation regarding the river. The California High-Speed Rail Authority released the Draft Environmental Impact Report/Environmental Impact Statement for a planned 30-mile rail segment between Downtown Los Angeles and Anaheim, representing a step towards full environmental approval. A public comment period is now open until February 3. The segment planned segment would link LA's Union Station and the Anaheim Regional Transportation Intermodal Center, using the existing freight and passenger rail corridor.  Attorney Robert Silverstein, who famously opposed development in Hollywood, died November 13 at the age of 57. For over two decades, Silverstein advocated for more scrutiny in the city planning department’s review of new real estate projects in legal battles including halting of construction of a Target on Sunset Boulevard and the overturning of the city’s approval of the Millennium project, a pair of skyscrapers that had been planned next to the Capitol Records building. (See related CP&DR coverage .) San Jose city council approved a plan to streamline the approval process for housing development and renovation projects on vacant or underused lots. This process eliminated the need for public hearings or CEQA reviews provided the projects meet a list of certain criteria, prioritizing construction of mixed-use commercial and urban residential projects. The San Francisco Downtown Development Corporation has received over $60 million in funding from donors including Google and OpenAI. The nonprofit public benefit corporation was launched in April by Mayor Daniel Lurie with the goal of reviving San Francisco’s city center. The developers of Midway Rising, a proposed plan for 4,200 apartments with 2,000 rent-capped, 14 acres of public space and a sports stadium in San Diego's Midway District, say they are undeterred by a an appeals court's recent overturning of a city election vote to remove Midway's 30-foot height limit. The developers say the court ruling does not affect mixed-use housing developments, which are governed by state density bonus law.

Having already prepared one environmental impact report that was set aside by a court, the City of Carmel-by-the-Sea undertook a new EIR for the purposes of evaluating the impacts of the city disposing, by sale or lease, of a historic mansion.  In 1971 and 1972, the city acquired the Flanders Mansion and surrounding preserve property. Constructed in 1924, the mansion was a "two-story Tudor Revival English Cottage," designed by a prominent architect Henry Higby Gutterson. The city had used the property for various purposes: including residential, gallery, and office space, but had been vacant since 2003. Facing ongoing ownership of a property with significant deferred maintenance, the city proceeded with an EIR to deal with disposition options.  Pursuant to the EIR, the city's primary objective was to divest itself of the mansion, with secondary objectives of (1) preserve the mansion as a historical resource; (2) put the mansion to productive use; (3) provide that ongoing use of the mansion would not impact the surrounding neighborhood; (4) protect the public's enjoyment of surrounding preserve; (5) protect the environmental resources and (6) provide the public as many park benefits as are practical.  The DEIR included four alternatives: no project; residential lease; public use lease; sale with conservation easements and mitigations. The DEIR concluded that all the project alternatives had fewer environmental impacts than the project as proposed, but only the sale alternative would meet the basic objective of divestment. The administrative record, although not the EIR, included an economic feasibility analysis of the various options. One of the letters on the DEIR commented on the feasibility analysis, the Surplus Lands Act, and the alternative of selling the home on a smaller parcel. The FEIR responded to the first two, but not to the third comment in this particular letter.  In May 2009, the city adopted various resolutions certifying the EIR, adopting a mitigation monitoring and reporting program, adopting a statement of overriding considerations, and approving the project (sale with conservation easements and mitigation measures). Following the CEQA challenge, the trial court held that the EIR failed to consider the impacts of selling the property in compliance with the Surplus Lands Act as well as failure to respond to one comment. The city appealed and the Flanders Foundation, the petitioner, filed a cross appeal implicitly to prevent the city from relinquishing ownership of what it considered an important public resource. The appellate court ruled for the city on all issues save one.  First, the court concluded that while the Surplus Lands Act applied to the sale, the evidence was that the development of an affordable project was unlikely. Therefore, sale to another government agency—at anything resembling a fair price—was irrelevant and, therefore, there was no requirement to study this potential scenario in the EIR. The appellate court also concluded that there was no obligation for the lead agency to include the economic feasibility in the analysis, and in a detailed critique, that the evidence contained within the analysis constituted substantial evidence. Notably, the court held that analytical framework in the study of what a reasonable prudent property owner would do, as compared to what the city could afford to undertake, was appropriate.  The court writes, "The Foundation insists that…restoration and maintenance of the Mansion property ‘can be achieved" without selling the Mansion property. This argument ignores the fact that…substantial evidence supports the City's finding that it would be economically infeasible for the City to retain ownership of the Mansion property." The appellate court also rejected the foundation's challenge to the statement of overriding considerations, after determining that there were multiple independent grounds stated in support of the override (and that the opponents failed to demonstrate a lack of substantial basis for each one). The appellate court did concur with the trial court that the City's non-response to the question regarding the viability of mitigation to park impacts through the sale of a smaller parcel (along with the home) warranted a response, and that the "City's certification of the FEIR was therefore invalid." The Case:  Flanders Foundation  v. City of Carmel-By-The-Sea (January 4, 2012, H035818) ___Cal.App.4th ___

An annexation and zoning plan that would constitute the most dramatic expansion of a California city in recent memory will, most likely, be more incremental than monumental. Last week, the Fresno City Council considered the proposed Southeast Development Area (SEDA), a 9,0000-acre swath that would annex farmland for urban development, including up to 45,000 residential units.

Last week, state demographers reported that California’s population had increased again in 2024 – if only slightly – making the third year in a row the population had gone up. That’s a market change from the pandemic years, when the state’s population dropped significantly for the first time ever.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- Angelenos of a certain age may remember Allan Malamud, whose column in the Herald-Examiner , and later the Los Angeles Times , was called “Notes on a Scorecard.” He jotted down scattered thoughts and observations—some amusing, some profound—over the course of nine innings and shared them with readers. I recently attended the annual journalists forum at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy , which entailed two days of discussion on all things land use around the country. Based on panels, keynotes, and side conversations, here are a few notes on the proverbial tract map. *** A reporter from the East Coast asked me what the one-year anniversary story on the Los Angeles fires will be. At first, I said there was no story. Almost nothing has broken ground yet, and no vision for Pacific Palisades (in the City of Los Angeles) or Altadena (in unincorporated Los Angeles County) has been announced or adopted. The sniping about whose fault it is—Mayor Karen Bass, Gov. Gavin Newsom, the LAFD, or Prometheus himself—will probably persist forever. (Rarely discussed: the inherent dangers of developing and living alongside an eminently flammable, drought-prone landscape.) The real story centers on decisions: What have homeowners, 12 months into exile, decided to do? What can they afford to do? Rebuild and move back? Rebuild and sell? Cut their losses? Go bankrupt buying insurance?  *** The federal government has clawed back $80 million in funding for wildlife corridors nationwide to help various fauna move about their habitats in the face of incursions by roads, development, and other uses. I couldn’t help doing the math: that’s exactly $12 million less than the cost of the soon-to-be-finished Wallis Annenberg Crossing near Calabasas, in western Los Angeles County. Over 150,000 people will drive under the crossing every day, so hopefully that outsized investment will be good PR. Otherwise, as much as Los Angeles loves its mountain lions, it sounds like a lot of money to help a few cats on the prowl. *** The Lincoln Institute has undertaken an impressive study to identify the owners of every single residential parcel in the United States, called “ Who Owns America? ” to discern, in part, how much real estate has been purchased by corporate entities. Even Wall St. is priced out of California I was not previously convinced that the specter of corporate ownership wasn't overblown. I was wrong. In some cities, corporations own up to 20% of the housing stock (St. Louis and Baltimore among them), disproportionately located in low-income and minority-majority neighborhoods.  Importantly, corporate investors tend to overpay by 4%, meaning they push up prices for everyone. California appears relatively unscathed. For once, our high costs work in our favor: real estate is too expensive for capitalist speculators to take a risk. *** An interlude with Providence, Rhode Island:Providence, RI, Mayor Brett Smiley took a question about his measured approach to bike lanes, which has disappointed many bike advocates in Providence. He argued that the development of bike lanes should be commensurate with use: currently less than 10% in Providence, and almost 0% at certain times of year. (Smiley has recently been in the news for far sadder reasons.)  Adaptive reuse in Providence Even allowing for induced demand, investment in bike lanes has to be sensible and strategic. I think everyone in California can name a newly installed bike lane that is both controversial and under-utilized. A lane on Venice Blvd. basically sunk the career of an L.A. City Council member a few years ago, and I’m really not sure that permanently shutting down all of San Francisco’s Great Highway is such a good idea.  Bike advocates should lobby as hard for biking—to help other people adopt biking and use those lanes—as they do for the lanes themselves.  Providence puts California to shame in an unexpected way. The city has declared itself a “city of design,” partly because of the Rhode Island School of Design and partly because it’s converting old mill buildings into inexpensive live-work spaces.  Thus, Providence’s creative economy is on the rise at the very moment when Los Angeles’ is being sold off for parts (cf. Netflix’s intended acquisition of Warner Bros., announced recently). With the exception of former Mayor John Bauters of Emeryville , I don’t think I’ve heard a mayor in California speak as enthusiastically about development as Mayor Smiley of Providence did. Rather than speak in hushed tones about “fair shares,” “following guidelines,” and “upzoning in appropriate places,” Smiley said, “People can choose where to live. We want them to choose Providence.” Full stop. So, California, what do we want?  *** Our keynote speaker was Michael Sandel, Harvard professor of political philosophy and teacher of the near-legendary course “Justice.” I asked him whether cities should be obligated—as a moral principle—to accommodate any and all people who would like to live in them. Sandel did not declare a categorical obligation, but he posited that if a city was to acknowledge such an obligation, it should also adopt a land-value tax, echoing 19th-century economist Henry George. Sandel reasoned that speculation in real estate leads to scarcity whereas a land-value tax promotes development and is infinitely expandable to match revenue with demand for services.  That recommendation was gratifying to the Georgists in the room. The institute’s founder, John C. Lincoln, was an enthusiastic Georgist, as are many current staff members.  (Side note: Sandel forbids screens in his classrooms. That strikes me as a pedagogically sound policy as well as an inherently pro-urban policy, insofar as human connection is one of the purposes of cities.) *** “States should set housing targets and enforce them.” With apologies to Huntington Beach , California is doing at least one thing right. *** Lincoln Institute President George McCarthy, an expert in local tax policy, mentioned that, for a while, Bogotá, Colombia, invited residents to voluntarily add to their tax payments if they wanted to support the city. On its face, this sounds insane. Who would voluntarily pay a tax? But let’s face it: most cities are not as nice as residents want them to be, and some people understand that a desire without a commensurate willingness to pay is tantamount to whining. There’s no better place than California to experiment with this approach. Why? Prop. 13 ensures that many Californians pay a fraction of their fair share. I’d like to think that at least a few of them would recognize their good fortune clearly enough to chip in. My proposal: whatever bonus a homeowner adds to his or her tax payment, half should be spent in the immediate neighborhood and half should be pooled and allocated to underserved communities. Dare I call it a win-win-win? *** Here’s something I didn’t know: A “Corruption tax” is a premium imposed by lenders on localities that do not have robust press coverage.  What does press coverage have to do with lending liability? Lenders know that the absence of a civic watchdog makes their investment more precarious than it would otherwise be. So, developers, support your local newspapers ! (Even if they annoy you sometimes.) *** For every local mayor and councilmember who is incensed over preemptive pro-housing legislation from Sacramento, they are in good company in almost every state in the country. This chart, compiled by the Mercatus Center, indicates around 400 total housing bills. These bills represent 33 states, according to the Mercatus data.    Bills, bills, bills. That’s a torrent of bills, for sure. But by our count, at least 200 of those bills are from Sacramento, in pretty much all 13 categories. *** A ballot measure to reduce local taxes or otherwise alter a locality’s revenue model “is only one half of a conversation” and therefore perilous, at least compared to legislation. “At least legislators have to think about other arguments. Ballot measures don’t need balance.” This is, of course, how you end up with measures like Los Angeles’s Measure ULA transfer tax. *** One discussion focused on state preemption of local land-use control, which is basically the story of California for the better part of the past decade. Cities have understandably carped about unfunded mandates and the burden that new housing places on them—with dubious fiscal benefits. Speakers had two major recommendations: 1) provide funds for planning; and 2) link intergovernmental transfers (i.e., funds the state sends to cities) to the production of housing: “Until growth is a promise that common pool resources will be invested in where growth is happening, we are never going to be able to solve the housing crisis.”

Treasure Island has nearly every necessary feature to make it the most exciting new residential development in San Francisco. This 403-acre island between San Francisco and Berkeley has superb views of downtown San Francisco, Alcatraz and Angel islands, and the Bay Area’s ridgelines. It has dozens of acres of green fields and an environmentally sensitive coastline, to make it a regional eco-attraction. And Treasure Island and its 125-acre companion, Yerba Buena Island, are large enough to become a self-contained community while still enjoying close proximity to the city. What could be lacking? Only design. For some reason, the developers are proposing something that looks like a suburban office park. Among the housing choices are four high-rise residential towers, which seem absurd on this small island, more than half of which is to be protected coastline and open space. The plan has an orderly grid, but the residential streets have a casual zig-zag look that is at odds with the developers’ avowals to emulate the streetscape of San Francisco. There is a 20-acre farm smack dab in the middle of the island, which is to be a demonstration farm for city folks who have never seen a real, live farm before. The developers plan to spend $20 million to build a new ferry terminal, only to greet visitors with a conventional shopping center. Living close to nature has its costs, apparently. Treasure Island is an odd place. Built by the city during the late 1930s to accommodate the Golden Gate International Exposition of 1939, the man-made island was converted to military use during World War II. The island has been the object of discussion among local planners and city officials since 1997, when the Pentagon gave the rectangular island back to San Francisco. On-site conditions include a smattering of ex-military buildings and about 900 houses and rental units. Water-borne wind and fog are downsides of the site. The most difficult issue, however, is access. Treasure Island is accessible to cars only by a hair-pin exit from the Bay Bridge. (Muni buses do serve the area.) In a city in perpetual need of new housing, Treasure Island joins Mission Bay as one of San Francisco’s two largest home-building opportunities. A specially created agency, the Treasure Island Redevelopment Authority, is overseeing a group of developers selected by former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown to build on the island. The developers include Kenwood Investments (which includes political lobbyist and Democratic Party fundraiser Darius Anderson) and Lennar Corporation, the giant homebuilder that is already involved in the redevelopment of three other former bases: Hunter’s Point in San Francisco, Mare Island in Vallejo and El Toro in Orange County. The newest partner is Wilson Meany Sullivan, which led the restoration of the ferry building in downtown San Francisco. After a dozen years of planning and public discussion, the goals for Treasure Island are clear: a community that is compact, environmentally respectful and easily accessible to the mainland. Many of these basic assumptions behind Treasure Island are rational. To maximize solar gain, planners have created a grid that maximizes the exposure of rooftops to the sun. To minimize the breezes, planners have proposed a “staggered” grid, where buildings block open pathways that could otherwise become wind tunnels. Plentiful tree-planting would provide a natural wind-screen. To make the island accessible to San Francisco, the developers want to build an entirely new ferry terminal on the southern tip of the island, which is a 10-minute boat ride to the city. The developers are planning between 3,500 and 5,500 units – depending on the final height of the apartment buildings – with a density somewhere between 90 and 110 units per acre. The housing would take the form of low-rise, mid-rise and several high-rise towers. Each housing cluster would have its own small park. In the name of creating a “self-sustaining community,” the developers propose 200,000 square feet of retail space, or enough stores to make it unnecessary to leave the island to buy anything smaller than a pickup truck. There is also a 400-slip marina and 600 hotel rooms. What is lacking here is any sense of urban organization. While it is commendable that the developers want to build compactly, the plan is not orderly. Visitors and returning commuters to Treasure Island are met with a hotel and a conventional, open-air shopping center, not by a coastline and spectacular views of the city. Disembarking ferry riders need an open space to orient themselves once they reach the island. An old-fashioned public square with civic buildings like post offices and satellite city offices would be in order, along with some smaller retail buildings. The proposed “grand plaza,” surrounded by retail, is overscaled and lacks the sight lines needed for visitors to get a sense of their location. Another factor that is disconcerting here is the presence of tall buildings – we still do not know how tall – in the casually planned residential streets. These residential swards (one can’t really call them blocks) could be likened to fields of grass (the low rise buildings) upon which grow some hedges (the mid-rise buildings) and occasional tall oaks (the high rises). Mixing density and height is good, but neither Feng Shui nor the Kabbalah can explain why the high-rise buildings poke out of the earth where they do on this plan. Moreover, I don't think tall buildings are appropriate on a site that has no other tall structures to provide context. I appreciate the need to keep the development compact, and the high-rises may be unavoidable if we are to achieve these ambitious densities. But they could make the island look overloaded, like a bunch of Gullivers strolling around a tropical atoll. High-density housing raises, at least for me, another issue, which is usable open space. In my view, high-density housing represents a loss – a loss in personal outdoor space, the direct relationship with both the soil and the street – that must be compensated for. In a mature city, those compensations could be stimulating street life, delis and bakeries, coffee houses, bars and museums. Equally important for high-density urban dwellers is active open space suitable for impromptu soccer matches, picnics, birthday barbeques and Fourth of July parties. Treasure Island has ample open space. The trails that circle the island and connect to Yerba Buena would probably be great for walking and bicycling. But the lack of active open space — the fields for softball and soccer — is the greatest failing of this plan. And even if Treasure Island contains adequate open space, the current plan suggests that high-rise dwellers would have to walk a considerable distance to get to a park. Ideally, open space — not only retail stores — should be literally at residents’ feet. The hierarchy of open spaces begins with one’s own yard, and then moves up in scale to neighborhood courtyards or mini-parks, then to civic parks and regional parks. The proposed farm occupies exactly the place where a large, urban park should exist.. It is fine that the developers of Treasure Island have adopted the right set of environmental values. Now they must rethink their plan to make a place that would be worth living in.

The scene is the control room of a spy satellite, launched by an unnamed country. Two men sit in semi-darkness, their faces washed in the ghostly light of a video screen. At this moment, the satellite is transmitting images of a new master-planned community known as Dos Lagos, located in the western Riverside County city of Corona. “What’s that?” says the first guy, pointing a sausage-like finger at the screen. It shows the configuration of office, retail and residential buildings. “I’ve never seen anything like it.” The second guy squints at the screen. “It looks like suburbia to me.” “How do you know,” says the first guy in a contentious tone, “that it’s not some sort of weapons plant? You see those two lakes? They could be cooling ponds for a reactor.” The second guy squints again. “Nothing big enough there for a reactor,” he says finally. “It looks more like a master-planned community in Southern California.” He adds teasingly: “You oughta go back to spook school, dude.” At this point, the two men break the tension by exchanging some playful punches. “How can you tell it’s suburbia?” says the first guy, still feeling a little defensive. “That layout sure doesn’t look like the suburbs where I grew up in the ’70s, when the streets looked like something you’d see inside a can of bait. This place is a lot more orderly and put-together, like a big industrial operation. Besides, if this is a residential community and not a weapons plant, like you say, what are those missile silos doing there to the left?” “Those are office buildings.” “And how do you explain those chemical factories next door?” “Those are live-work lofts. You’ve gotta have housing choices in these master planned communities. This isn’t the ’70s anymore.” After a moment, the first guy asks: “What are office buildings doing in a residential master plan? I thought you said this was the suburbs.” “The office buildings are there,” says the second, “ because this is an enlightened, state-of-the-art plan that balances jobs and housing.” “Really?” says the first, showing interest. “How many people who live here will actually work here too?” “If experience is our guide,” says the second, “almost nobody.” “Ah-ha!” the first guy shouts. “What about those airplane hangars next to the runway?” “Those are retail buildings arranged on either side of the main street,” says the second guy quietly. “Stores, huh?” says the first. Then, after a moment’s reflection: “How come that retail strip is the most formal and orderly part of the installation?” “Well, now, that is a good question,” says the second before answering his own question: “I think it’s because retail is the most public part of the master plan. This is where folks are supposed to gather and hang out. It’s a promenade, like.” “ ?” says the first, in a derisive tone. “Dude is talkin’ now. Tryin’ to lose your security clearance or somethin’?” The second guy colors a bit. “I read about it in the papers,” he says, sounding a bit steamed. “It’s called the New Urbanism. That main street is probably meant to be a lifestyle center, which is basically a shopping mall that’s supposed to look like a street or something.” “Don’t talk to me like I’m an idiot,” says the first, also getting a bit ticked. “I know a little something about the New Urbanism.” Attempting to lighten the mood, he asks: “Hey! You know what they call a city full of naked people?” The second one sighs. “The Nude Urbanism?” “I guess you heard that one already,” says the first. Then, summoning his confidence, he says firmly: “This layout makes no sense as urbanism.” “How you figure?” says the second, cool and incredulous. “Well,” says the first, “To the south, you have a strongly defined axis of the street with all the shops. But instead of continuing all the way through to the north, where the office buildings and live-work lofts are, the shopping street stops at those two lakes. If this street is so all-fired important, why doesn’t Mr. Enlightened Developer locate all the commercial buildings on the main drag?” “Because the water is an , dude,” says the second, with a trace of condescension, adding, “It’s about . This is L.A. It’s supposed to look like paradise.” “That doesn’t make any sense,” says the first. “If the water is an ‘amenity,’ as you call it, then why is it stuck in the middle, where it gets in the way of everything? It should be off to the side in a park.” “You’re an idiot,” says the second. “The water is smack dab in the middle so everybody can see the water no matter where they are! It’s brilliant!” “It’s stupid,” says the first, growing similarly uncharitable. “There is no reason for the main street not to have all the commercial space, especially if this street is supposed to be the part of this here master-planned community!” Now it is the second guy’s turn to get quiet. Clearly on a roll, the first guy jabs his fat finger at the screen again. “Plus, what kind of mixed-use development is this? Nothing is mixed! Everything is kept in its own little area — office buildings here, retail there, housing somewhere else. Nothing touches anything else. It looks like one of those sectional plates that little kids eat from, so their creamed corn doesn’t get up mixed up with their peas.” “Anyway,” the first guy goes on to say, “we’ve got to get our report out — we’re under pressure from Upstairs to find you-know-what.” “Say anything you want,” says the second dispiritedly. “I’m hittin’ the can.” He gets to his feet wearily and walks out. The first guy rubs his chin for a minute, and then starts to type. “Suspected suburban development,” he writes on his keyboard. Then, after a moment, he adds: “Weapons plant cannot categorically be ruled out.” He hits the send button, stands up, hitches his trousers and goes to lunch.

Legend records that the dying Julius Caesar looks up to find his friend Brutus among his assassins. “ ” (And you too, Brutus?) is his pathetic and much-quoted response. This tragic scene from the stage has nothing to do with land use politics in Santa Monica, of course - except for the smell of opportunism and something approaching betrayal of Santa Monica residents by their own city government. Santa Monica officials have been rightly aghast at proposals by MaceRich Company, the owner of the Santa Monica Place shopping mall, to build three high-rise towers, each 24 stories, on or near the site where the mall currently stands. This opportunistic proposal comes in response to MaceRich's offer to tear down its existing mall, designed by architect Frank Gehry in 1980. The mall is a klutzy building that even the architect may be pleased to demolish. The mall's removal would open the wildly successful Third Street Promenade to the city's wildly unsuccessful civic center. In this happy scenario, the teeming foot traffic of the shopping street spills out into an area of public parks and civic buildings, including the handsome new headquarters of RAND Corporation, as well as the ugly and obsolete Santa Monica Civic Auditorium. In exchange for the civic gesture of removing the Great Wall of Gehry and connecting the long-estranged Third Street and Civic Center, MaceRich wants a set of princely concessions, including the right to build not only the condominium towers but a pair of 40-foot-tall retail buildings on either side of Third Street. Some local residents have likened the proposed development to a canyon. Yes, Santa Monica city council members have been aghast at the idea of the three towers, which would be five times taller than the current height limit of 56 feet. But do not rush to call MaceRich “greedy” or “grasping” or any of the other names that some people frequently attach to developers. You may need those words soon for another party - namely, the City of Santa Monica itself. The city recently bought the former RAND site, which lies immediately north of the new campus, including some inestimably valuable land along Ocean Avenue with excellent ocean views (see , June 2000). Seeking to maximize its public investment, the city wants to build one or two 12-story residential buildings along the avenue. These buildings would not be as tall as the proposed MaceRich buildings, being only two-and-a-half times taller than zoning allows. Of the two proposals, the city's own proposal is arguably worse because it has a chance of actually getting built. The MaceRich proposal, in contrast, is a kind of bluff. California developers know their projects are going to get cut down to the bone, so their opening offer tends to be wildly oversized. (Developers seem to believe that if they were foolish enough to open talks with the city with a realistic proposal, they would walk out of City Council with blueprints for a bird house.) The sudden spate of high-rise proposals is unusual in Santa Monica, which is one of the most regulated places in California. “On a scale of 1 to 10,” a land use lawyer once told me, “Santa Monica gets an 11.” The city has been rigorous, perhaps to a fault, about upholding design standards and limiting development, especially along the city's waterfront. The city, for example, has set a limit on new hotel rooms, and the last two hotels to open in Santa Monica have been rehabs of historic hotel buildings, so as to prevent any net increase in units. If this kind of stringency can make lawyers tear out their hair in hanks, there are benefits, too. High-rise construction has been limited largely to a single street, Wilshire Boulevard, where it belongs, while the rest of the city, including the waterfront, remains no higher than four stories. As a result, Santa Monica has one of the most visible waterfronts of any city in Southern California. The offensive nature of the MaceRich proposal is that tall buildings would block views not only from the north and south, but from the east, as well. However, those towers are unlikely to be built, at least at the proposed heights. Although the city towers are only half the height as MaceRich buildings, they are even more offensive because they would block views from even closer to the ocean. And although I have not conducted an audit of the Santa Monica city treasury, I suspect the city does not really need this real estate windfall. Santa Monica is tourist catnip, and local businesses disgorge plenty of tax increment, sales tax and hotel tax (and soon more, as the city has proposed lifting the existing hotel tax from 10% to 14%). I respectfully - and seriously - propose the following: The City should negotiate with MaceRich, allowing the mall owner to build something like its desired density. But the development should be horizontal along the street in the form of row houses, rather than high-rise towers. To preserve MaceRich's square-footage, the city should redistribute that entitlement along Ocean Avenue, giving the developer a portion of the city's own property, if necessary. Both MaceRich and the city should limit residential construction to two-story townhouses, or four stories at the very most, with two-story units stacked atop one another. The townhouses would provide the city with the housing that it needs, while providing a pleasantly citified edge to Ocean Avenue. The same solid wall of housing would benefit the new public space on the remainder of the Ocean Avenue acreage because a solid wall of built stuff is the best way of defining a park or plaza ( “Urban Space” by Leon Krier). Inside the park, we can create a public garden or ball fields or cultural facilities or any other public use compatible with a heavily used public park. Nobody's ox is gored, especially not the public's. MaceRich and the city can both a make a killing on the absurdly inflated prices that ocean-front condominiums can command nowadays. (I have seen loft units off of Third Street priced at $4 million.) Best of all, everybody's ocean view is preserved. And nobody would be able to write a Shakespearean tragedy about how the City of Santa Monica assassinated its own General Plan in the hope of making a couple of bucks. “ , City Council?”

Officials with the Office of Planning and Research (OPR) have created a "new normal" baseline for discussing possible changes to CEQA transportation metrics under SB 743. They've succeeded pretty much by having the stamina to keep discussing their August 6 preliminary discussion draft. Over. And over. And over. For three months. In an extended public workshopping process the key OPR drafters -- Chris Calfee and Chris Ganson -- have spoken before many different California groups to explain their August draft, often appearing with leading experts and spokespeople who raise challenging questions about it. Bill Fulton was already referring to "The SB 743 roadshow" in mid-September. (See http://www.cp-dr.com/articles/node-3576 .) Now in late fall, with public comments on the draft due November 21, the roadshow has returned, well-tested, to Sacramento. Those appearances didn't build complete agreement on CEQA transportation metrics -- nothing could -- but through public debates and informal consultations, it appears OPR has built up a corps of influential loyal-opposition advisor/critics who are at least willing to keep arguing constructively and maybe willing to edge toward consensus. Two chances to take SB 743 debate's temperature Two panel discussions last week showed there's still plenty of disagreement on details, but most of the new conversation is happening within a frame established by OPR: how best to apply a Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) standard in California CEQA analysis without undue kerfuffles or litigation. An OPR-sponsored panel discussion November 3 brought together many of the leading figures in the SB 743 debate to argue and clarify the outstanding dilemmas. (Video is online at http://www.opr.ca.gov/s_sb743.php .) (The next day, in a panel discussion at the University of San Francisco, three of the speakers who had argued most fiercely in published essays in August -- Jennifer Hernandez, Ethan Elkind and Amanda Eaken -- made clear that not everyone has bought into the OPR approach, though they did manage to agree on some common ground. See our separate coverage at http://www.cp-dr.com/articles/node-3622 .) OPR's loyal opposition on display At the November 3 panel discussion, the two Chris's began with their now-familiar OPR presentation on the drawbacks of LOS congestion analysis and arguments for choices in the August 6 discussion draft. (For prior CP&DR coverage of this evolving presentation see http://www.cp-dr.com/search/articles/node-opr .) The presentation lays out the SB 743 mandate to measure transportation impacts by a standard other than Level of Service (LOS) congestion ratings, and why OPR favors a Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) standard to replace it -- that is, a rule based on the number and length of vehicle trips a project causes, not the amount of delay it may cause at any given intersection. It explains the rationales for disputed parts of the proposal: the proposed "no significant impact" presumptions for projects within half a mile of good transit; the recommendation of regional average VMT as the threshold of significance for individual projects; possible interactions between the VMT standard for transportation impact purposes and continuing LOS-based planning rules for purposes such as safety and air quality. As he frequently has, Calfee emphasized local agencies' authority to pick their own methodologies for estimating VMT, and he described many of the draft's practical suggestions for thresholds and mitigations as being recommendations, not hard requirements. Though in explaining local lead agencies' authority to choose their own methodologies, Calfee warned attorneys that the assumptions underlying transportation studies are best included in the administrative record. Calfee repeated his late-September comment that the January 1, 2016 date projected in the August draft for full implementation was "a placeholder" and "probably too quick" so "I would imagine that that date may change." And he had new hints on the rulemaking timetable: he said if the next proposal draft contained major changes, OPR might send it out for further public review, but when "we're comfortable with the proposal" it would go out to the Natural Resources Agency to start a formal rulemaking process, so he expected "that we won't come to resolution on this until some time in 2015." The Kool-Aid When Caltrans Deputy Secretary Kate White, acting as moderator, opened the discussion to panelists, independent planner Terrell Watt announced, "I think we're all up here on the panel because we've drunk the Kool-Aid, we're on the right path, we need to get constructive, roll up our sleeves, and figure out ." The only outright demurrer to that came politely from Jim Moose, partner with the firm of Remy Moose Manley. "I'm not sure whether drinking the Kool-Aid was a prerequisite for being invited," he said, suggesting he hadn't entirely been converted to the OPR draft. He had a few concerns, including that ordinary people dislike congestion, rural county officials dislike taking instructions from "urban liberal elites," and a reduction in CEQA litigation threats over LOS issues might reduce the "fear factor" that could motivate his clients to cooperate with other jurisdictions on reducing congestion. The rest of the panel was a dream team of CEQA transportation expertise: Jeffrey Tumlin, the respected Nelson/Nygaard transportation specialist; Eric Ruehr, chair of the Institute of Transportation Engineers' SB 743 task force; Ron Milam, director of technical development with Fehr and Peers and an expert on VMT analysis; Viktoriya Wise, San Francisco Planning's lead on VMT analysis; Curt Johansen of the Council of Infill Builders, and Amanda Eaken of the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC), who frequently invokes her role as a key figure in shaping SB 743 in the first place. The panel did raise criticisms and uncertainties. Among them: - Concerns for rural VMT analyses, about incentives for transit in small towns, and about oppositional attitudes of rural planners and developers toward instructions from central government. - A question whether projects that don't meet the threshold of current regional VMT average would or should get built anyway via mitigations or statements of overriding considerations. - Two objections Eaken has been making since August: First, that it's too lenient to grant a "less than significant impact" presumption to projects within half a mile of good transit because mere presence near transit doesn't guarantee transit-oriented design. Second, that when projects are analyzed individually, the threshold of significance could be stricter than OPR's suggested rule to generate less than the existing regional average VMT. Eaken argued projects should do better to reach 2050 climate protection goals. (Wise said San Francisco was already using stricter thresholds, and would want to continue doing so, in part "to accommodate all the infill growth that we are taking." - Calls for consistency between CEQA VMT rules and other requirements, including Sustainable Communities Strategies (SCS) and Air Resources Board pollution reduction targets. - On thresholds of significance -- an area where Calfee has already indicated willingness to change the draft (http://www.cp-dr.com/articles/node-3582), Tumlin suggested projects should be considered acceptable if they fell 15% below any one of four standards: the expected average VMT for new development in municipal general plans; the regional average; Air Resources Board goals, or the local SCS. He suggested projects can often reduce their VMT by as much as 40% and 15% should be possible for most. - Calls for preserving local agencies' flexibility by lifting the more specific or technical requirements out of the guidelines themselves and moving those into technical advisory memos or possibly OPR's revised General Plan guidelines. This persistent recommendation came in light of disagreements running since August about whether OPR's "recommendations" could carry the force of law -- especially due to objctions by the Holland & Knight law firm about possible mitigation measures listed in the OPR draft's Appendix F (see http://www.cp-dr.com/articles/node-3560 ). - Answering a query about case studies in VMT reduction -- White and Johansen recommended TransForm's GreenTRIP analysis tools. (See http://www.transformca.org/landing-page/greentrip .) - Some panelists questioned whether the proposed transportation metric guidelines ought to include recommendations on safety rules at all. Tumlin said "I can't believe that I'm actually arguing against safety," but for the sake of avoiding unintended consequences and litigation, he urged against definite road safety rules in a CEQA context. This was in part, he said, because of current controversy over conflicts between the overlapping road design manuals of CalTrans and of the National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO). (White said CalTrans was now encouraging use of the NACTO manual in urban areas.) - Audience member Tom Pace, from the City of Sacramento, asked that "things like queuing on ramps" not be counted as a safety consideration, for fear that infill projects might be harmed by mitigation requirements involving the highway ramps that surround downtown Sacramento. Calfee closed by saying "our hope is to be very transparent about some of the conflicts that we see in this process and some of the policy choices that need to be made." Comments on the August 6 transportation metric guidelines draft under SB 743 are due November 21 to CEQA.Guidelines@ceres.ca.gov . The OPR presentation is available on video at http://www.opr.ca.gov/s_sb743.php .

After the intensity of the last few election cycle — nationally and locally -- if ever there was an off-year election, November 7 was it. Only four cities statewide decided on land use measures. All of the cities are relatively small, and three of the measures relate to issues of hyper-local concern. A total of 26,000 people cast ballots in the four elections combined.