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The City of Monterey and the surrounding urban area is likely the smallest region to host the conference of the California Chapter of the American Planning Association, but it punches above its weight in terms of the complexity of urban planning challenges and issues. The region lies on the border between the Central Coast and the Bay Area, hemmed in by mountains and the Pacific Ocean. In preparation for this month's conference, which starts September 28 at the Monterey Convention Center, CP&DR spoke to local planners involved in conference planning to give conference-goers a preview of what they might observe on the ground in mobile workshops and in sessions influenced by the host region. Fittingly, we spoke on Admission Day, which commemorates the date when California was admitted to the Union. As the former capital of Spanish and Mexican Alta California, Monterey is the only city in the state that takes Admission Day as a holiday. CP&DR's Josh Stephens spoke with Monterey Community Development Director Kim Cole ; Marina Planning Manager Alyson Hunter; andSalinas Planning Division Manager Grant Leonard . How do you characterize your cities? Alyson Hunter, City of Marina: We're a small city. We're about 22,000 people, and we've got about 3 miles of coastline on Monterey Bay. One of the most interesting and fascinating, and, from a planning perspective, challenging parts about working for the City of Marina is that geographically, half of our city is the former Fort Ord Army Base. In the mid-'90s it was closed down, and several cities and other public entities got the land. Historically, we've been a bedroom community, both to the base and to the other larger cities around, like Salinas and Monterey. But we are trying to create some job-producing development here. We've got exciting Joby Aviation happening at our little Marina airport, manufacturing EVTOL flying machines. We're trying to grow both residentially and commercially, with niche manufacturing to keep up with our big neighbors to the north and south. Kim Cole, City of Monterey: Monterey is a historic town. We were the capital of Alta California, and the State of California constitution was written in Monterey. And before all of that, we were a Native American village. We have layers of history. Building on that today, I think about our town as being focused on the environment and education. I think when you hear the debates in our town, a lot of it centers around how to preserve the National Marine Sanctuary and the city's relationship to the sanctuary. And in terms of education, we have the Monterey Bay Aquarium, a junior college, and two of our three military bases are focused on education: the Naval Postgraduate School and the Defense Language Institute for the Army. That creates a really dynamic environment to work in. Grant Leonard, City of Salinas: We're the largest city on the Central Coast and in Monterey County. We're an ag town, principally, also a bedroom community. We actually contribute commuters to the Bay Area. Many residents leave as early as 5 a.m. to get to work in San Jose. But we're enjoying a moment of revitalization in our downtown, which is really thriving. We're expanding our industrial and business parks, including a new Amazon warehouse and distribution center. We're also, like Marina, trying to maximize the use of our airport through new aviation technologies. And we're a growing city. We have three future growth areas with 10,000-15,000 homes. Two of the three planning areas are entitled, and we’re currently doing the specific plan for the third one. Those are all based on New Urbanism: more walkable communities, balance of shops and commercial and recreation opportunities, schools, but also principally housing.  Our main priorities continue to be, from the community and council, economic development and housing. We're the first city in the area to have a certified housing element this cycle. A major right now is on rent stabilization, tenant protection rights, and then “expanding the pie,” as the politicians like to say, for economic development. How do the state’s housing shortage and affordability constraints play out in your region and cities? Hunter: Like Salinas, Marina was also certified early for this cycle, because we are one of the few cities on the peninsula proper that has actually built a couple thousand homes over the last 15 years. Our RHNA number was very low because we're already building a ton of housing. We're trying to encourage commercial development to help meet the job–housing balance. We have our third big master plan project just coming online under construction right now. But our number one constraint is water. We're all under different water rules, even in this small geographic area, which is another planning challenge/nightmare. Coastal cities have had particular challenges with RHNA because of geographic constraints. How has RHNA treated Monterey?  Cole: The city has a current housing stock of about 13,000 housing units. We received a RHNA allocation of 3,654 units. We're working on implementation of all our programs, but despite all that, we're not really seeing housing growth. The reason is infrastructure constraints. The City of Monterey and a couple of our adjacent jurisdictions are subject to a cease-and-desist order from the State Water Resources Control Board. It's been well over 20 years of our region trying to find water. We are not part of the State Water Project. There's no importing of water from outside the region. Our region has been looking at recycled water. And we're actually importing water from the Salinas Valley, cleaning that water, and ultimately injecting it into our aquifers. The first round was successful. Our local water district is trying to expand that service.  The third arm to that is a very controversial regional desal plant in Marina. The Coastal Commission has approved it. The PUC recently made a big decision. What our region has to show is that it produces enough water over a two- or three-year period that survives drought conditions that the State Water Resources Control Board will lift the water moratorium. What has it meant for the last few years? Monterey cannot set a new water meter in our city. Every sink and toilet in our city for residential construction is counted by our regional water district, and other uses, like commercial, typically are limited to square footage. If you have an existing retail space, you're limited to that square footage. You can't increase. So the only development we've really been doing is where they can squeak out an additional bathroom from a house, maybe take out some other extra fixtures and build ADUs. Our big project is converting an old office building on Garden Road from office to 64 residential units, 12 of which are dedicated towards our inclusionary housing program.  So, even though we received a very large RHNA number, we're unable to produce housing because of the cease-and-desist order. So every glass of water at the conference is precious. Cole: Yeah, so you better drink it! How different, or similar, is the situation in Salinas? Leonard: Kim mentioned Monterey has about 13,000 housing units total. Our future growth area has 12,000 to 15,000 housing units yet to be built, so quite a different scale. Housing in Salinas is really a story of one farm field conversion to a subdivision after another. And home values are a little lower—you can get a 3-bedroom, 2-bath home here for probably 50 to 70% of the cost of what it is on the peninsula. So instead of a million, it'll be $700,000 over here. What we have a real issue with is overcrowding and habitability. Our lower-income community members end up doubling up, tripling up.  I think one thing that's maybe not talked about enough in California, is people are retiring, and they're holding on to their houses when their kids move out. You have a lot of housing stock built for families that now has one or two people in it. In Salinas there are neighborhoods that are much less populated and have very nice homes, and then you have neighborhoods that are really overcrowded. One of the things we're working on with our general plan update, Salinas 2040, is increasing the allowed density throughout the city, so everywhere can basically be upzoned. That'll speed forward some redevelopment projects that we're looking at. Our revitalization plans for East Salinas and also Chinatown all have housing as a key component. Are you going to be annexing at all to accommodate those 13,000 units, or can it all be done by upzoning and infill? Leonard: The future growth areas are already annexed. They were identified in the late 1980s with a memorandum of understanding with the county. They were then annexed in 2008, right as the Great Recession was happening. The planning for them for two of the three locations was finalized in 2019 and 2020, just before COVID. So, it's been a series of planning steps, and each one has seemed to be hit with a large outside factor that delayed it, whether it was no savings and loans in the 90s, and then the recession in 2008, and then COVID. But they're already annexed into the city, and we don't have plans for any future annexations, except for one business park on the north side of town. Our main focus with the new general plan for 2040 is infill and upzoning. Is HCD sympathetic to Monterey’s water constraints?  Cole: HCD has been very proactive in their enforcement of the housing element. They’re reviewing all of our rezonings, and they’ve already required one amendment.  As far as sympathy goes, RHNA doesn’t look at water supply. The City of Monterey received more units because of socioeconomic factors. Our original allocation was about 1,600 units, but when the regional government looked at equity issues, we got double that number. Everyone knows Monterey, Pacific Grove, and nearby cities can’t build that  many units until the cease-and-desist order on water is lifted. The real issue is environmentalism. Our region is very environmentally forward, and there’s strong concern about desalination in the National Marine Sanctuary. Desal would give us a stable water supply and allow us to lift the cease-and-desist order. But politically, it’s controversial. Many people want to protect the bay and live only on our existing water resources. In the next two years, we’ll likely see whether desal is constructed or not.  Leonard: Salinas has similarities to other mid-sized cities and ag towns. Our water issues differ from the peninsula’s—we rely on groundwater and the Salinas River Basin, since we’re not on the state aqueduct system. A new state law created the Salinas Valley Basin Groundwater Sustainability Agency, which must bring our aquifers into balance by 2050. That could mean pumping restrictions, new fees, or an “extraction barrier,” essentially a light version of desal, because seawater contamination is already moving inland. Agriculture uses 90% of the water in the valley; urban areas use 10%. The expectation is that agriculture will take the bigger hit. We face aging infrastructure for stormwater, sewers, and roads. Building new highway interchanges, even for safety, is prohibitively expensive. Economic development is another challenge—we’re working to retain and expand businesses, but there’s uncertainty about federal funds and real impacts on the local economy. In East Salinas, immigrant communities are fearful, which has hurt local businesses. Our United Business Association is really struggling this year.  Hunter: I've been in public planning for 28 years in Coastal California, dealing with the Coastal Commission and their various idiosyncrasies. I'm finding it fascinating now that HCD has grown into this whole different, massive thing that did not exist a few years ago. Housing elements a few years ago were kind of like a checkbox thing, no big deal. And now it is the biggest thing.  I'm observing this clash of the titans between these two state agencies, where previously nobody messed with the Coastal Commission—they were in charge, and whatever they wanted happened. I'm finding this new dynamic fascinating, and I'm curious what this group thinks. Hopefully this will come up at the conference, because it's a critical component for coastal communities trying to deal with their housing requirements. Cole: I would expand it in terms of the clash of the titans at the state level that we're experiencing. It's the Coastal Commission, it's HCD, it's the State Water Resources Control Board, and now it's fire regulations.  If you look at Monterey, we are a heavily forested community. A huge portion of our city is in a very high fire hazard zone, or in a sea level rise zone. And my question is, for the state, who's going to win, or who's going to arbitrate? I don't know if we can achieve it all. Right now, each state agency tries to achieve perfection in their own area, and they all have jurisdiction over Monterey. The question is: how are we going to find some middle ground? Some days the Coastal Commission area may lose out, other days housing may lose out. And the Caltrans Division of Aeronautics. We have an airport in our city. We're 8 square miles, and when you layer and layer and layer, it's really hard to push development forward. There's going to need to be some middle ground. Hunter: That makes me wonder about regional planning, and how we might need to divest ourselves of our small municipal boundaries, and really start—especially with sea level rise, coastal hazards, wildfire—we might need to have that conversation. A lot of planners would not go on the record saying “divest power.” Hunter: Infrastructure-wise, things are regional. Kim's talking about their regional airport. In Marina, just outside our city limits, we have the regional sanitary landfill attached to the regional wastewater treatment facility—a gigantic operation that serves the whole region. I think we're going to have to talk about it eventually. Which new state regulations have affected you?  Leonard: Just on state regulations—where it’s really affected Salinas has been on the housing front. ADUs are being allowed by-right; we’re processing hundreds each year. We’re getting SB 330 applications to streamline or circumvent local regulations, making everything objective design standards, removing discretionary review. We’re even seeing some SB 9 applications. It might have taken a couple years, but we’re seeing the full effect of those 2019–2020 housing laws now. Hunter: For Marina, we’re fortunate. We’re not under the thumb of HCD as much, since we’ve already built our RHNA numbers for this cycle. But it’s still a struggle—there are only two planners in Marina right now, myself included. Staffing is difficult everywhere, and implementing new laws constantly coming at us is very challenging. Cole: ADUs are working because they don’t require new water meters. SB 9—we allow up to six units on a single-family parcel, exceeding state minimums. But we’re not seeing that development because we can’t set new water meters.  You’ve got a couple hundred planners coming to the region, all interested in these issues. What would you like them to notice about your area as a whole and your respective cities? Cole: We've been talking about rough patches, but we've had regional successes too. The groundwater replenishment program is a major success. The busway that's about to start construction, two regional bike paths, the coastal trail, rental assistance programs, historic resources. There’s a lot to see on the peninsula, between all the cities. And then there’s the agricultural powerhouse of the Salinas Valley, plus the military bases. There’s a great classroom for planners to see what has been done. Leonard: There's going to be one mobile workshop to downtown Salinas. Salinas has a lot of history—John Steinbeck, Cesar Chavez, the labor movement. In the 1930s, because agricultural technology advanced, even though it was the Depression, Salinas was a very wealthy city. We've got a lot of architecture from that period—Craftsman, Queen Anne Victorians, Art Deco. We had three movie theaters in a two-block radius downtown, two of which still exist and are designated historic. Plus, we'll present our East Salinas District Identity Master Plan, which combines neighborhood branding, public art, economic development, and streetscape improvements to create a unique feel for the neighborhood. It's not about gentrification—we want to revitalize what’s there so the community stays and benefits.  Hunter: There’s going to be a bus ride mobile workshop through the former Fort Ord, touching on some of the Marina development. Marina is super-interesting. We are a young city, incorporated only in 1975. We came up as a service community to Fort Ord, similar to Seaside but much smaller. After just 20 years, the Fort Ord closure doubled our size and caused tremendous growth. It's safe to say Marina has had some growing pains, but we’re moving forward, modernizing, and getting our feet on the ground with new master plan developments. This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.  Contacts   Kim Cole,  Community Development Director, City of Monterey, Alyson Hunter , Planning Manager, City of Marina,  Grant Leonard , Planning Division Manager, City of Salinas,  Image Credits Marina State Beach: California State Parks  Salinas Arch: Wikimedia Commons Monterey Harbor & Downtown: Wikimedia Commons 

1986 was a lousy year for urban planning but a relatively great year for journalism. Back then, when I was growing up in Los Angeles, my family received daily deliveries of the Los Angeles Times, the Herald-Examiner, and even the Santa Monica Evening Outlook, which, as its name implied, was quaintly printed during the day and distributed in the evenings—often by teenagers on bicycles, the newspapers hand-wrapped with rubber bands. I am not sure that truth has ever fully been spoken to power in Los Angeles—the metropolis being the city of noir, deceit, and scandals aplenty—but there was no shortage of outlets, reporters, and discussion fostered by what was then an incredibly healthy journalism industry. California Planning and Development Report was but one specific, unusual, and much-needed addition to this thriving ecosystem. At the time, those mainstream outlets seldom covered land use, a subject that was hardly an object of discussion the way it has become today. At a time when the state and much of the country was sprawling at a steady, inexorable pace y, there wasn’t much in the way of intrigue. Under the legacy media’s watch, sprawl crept across California’s landscape, smog alerts remained common, BART was the state’s only major rail system, and downtowns were as dead as disco. In November 1986, Los Angeles voters passed Proposition U , a slow-growth measure that haunts the city to this day.  That very same month, Bill Fulton had the radical idea of covering land use and planning as a serious journalistic endeavor, and he has done so ever since. Indeed, when Bill founded CPDR, he did so in part because planning was in such a sorry and beleaguered state.  Back then, I was not remotely attuned to the niceties of urban planning and policy. But, by coincidence, I lived (part-time) in the exact same city as Bill did: West Hollywood. While my parents dragged me to stores at the Beverly Center and the theater performances on Melrose Ave, Bill was plugging away at his newsletter. I was 11 years old, but I intuitively appreciated living in a dense, lively area, compared with the dullness of the suburbs or the Valley, where many of my friends lived.  How times have changed—in both urban planning and journalism. We celebrate the 40th volume of CP&DR at a time of relative triumph for the approaches and values Bill has long promoted. What were once fringe ideas—smart growth, new urbanism, and transit-oriented development—have now themselves become the dominant ethos of planning. The rapidity with which modernist planning took over in the 20th century has been rivaled only by the glacial pace  at which we have attempted to undo the problems it introduced. But undo it we must. The smart-growth build-out is far from complete. Still, we hope our state is better for these efforts. Perhaps we can credit some of the changes to this newsletter, to Bill, and certainly to Bill’s contemporaries, colleagues, and students. I wish we could say the same for journalism.  As cities have come roaring back, their nerve centers have atrophied and disappeared entirely. You don’t need to be a journalist to know that newspapers have folded at a staggering rate: 3,200 since 2005. Some of the influences are obvious: they did not keep up with the transition to digital media and did not figure out how to monetize it. Their ad revenue was siphoned away by sites like Craigslist. They competed for attention with social media. Much of these journalists’ hard work was given away for free. Most nefariously, many papers have been eviscerated by private-equity schemes that view newsrooms not as civic resources but as distressed financial assets—worth more dead than alive. They are taking a wrecking ball to public discourse—not unlike what planners did to American cities after World War II.  We are now accompanied by many other urban-related media services. Entire websites are dedicated to urbanism, among them Planetizen and Next City, while sites like  Atlantic Cities and Curbed have come and gone. Many journalists—not just one or two—have made urbanism their beat. We have Substack newsletters ( Bill’s included ), Twitter/X feeds, and impressive citizen journalists use social media to cover and comment on urbanism Despite traditional journalism’s decline,  urban planning and the new media ecosystem surrounding it are arguably healthier than ever.  In the next 10 or 40 years, I don’t know how  that combination will play out. Where was once Bill’s humble newsletter, CP&DR has aged into a vital legacy publication--that’s good for us, I suppose. And yet,I fear the loss of civic discourse, investigative reporting, and placemaking expertise that come only with robust papers of record. Sniping on Nextdoor and holding hands on Bluesky will not suffice.   What I do know is that Bill and I, supported by our talented contributors, are going to keep trying. We e want our readers to keep trying as well. What does that mean? It means reading actively. It means participating in discussions. It means making the time to be interviewed, sharing tips when something is newsworthy, and doing all the things required to facilitate a civil society, even if other venerable institutions have failed to step up.  So, while we celebrate this 40-year milestone for CP&DR and all of the great city-building that has taken place during its watch, let us redouble our dedication to a free, fair, and vibrant press -- for the sake of cities and of democracy itself.

Though 2025 is an off-year for elections, voters are going to the poll statewide because of Proposition 50, the Congressional redistricting measure sponsored by Gov. Newsom. Only two of these ballots include land use measures. But, despite the small numbers, there is a distinct pattern: both jurisdictions are upholding California’s not infrequent tradition of competing land-use ballot measures. The jurisdictions are far from surprising: the City of Santa Cruz and the City of Sausalito, neither of which is a stranger to contentious land use debates, and both of which have severe housing shortages and affordability crises. The two cities are debating very different solutions. Sausalito’s measures ask voters to approve zoning updates that will enable the city to implement a housing element compliant with state housing law. State Housing Element Law requires the City to have a housing element which plans for at least 724 new housing units at various income categories by January 30. It’s a move that other cities have used: city councils that are wary of allowing more housing put the onus on voters to approve necessary changes -- or else. In this case, the council is asking voters for piecemeal approval. Measure K calls for zoning of a portion of Martin Luther King Park for housing, and Measure J upzones 12 sites in the city’s commercial district. Both measures must pass in order for the city to reach compliance and avoid the threat of state-imposed penalties. The Santa Cruz County measures are both complex measures designed to fund affordable housing. Measure B, sponsored by the county’s Association of Realtors, would enact a 0.5% transfer tax on property sales over $4 million whereas Measure C, sponsored by members of the city council, imposes a similar tax on much smaller transactions: sales of at least $1.8 million. City staff estimates that Measure C would raise $2.5 million annually -- roughly four times more than Measure C would. If both measures pass, the one with more votes will prevail. Sausalito Measure K : Local Control Shall the measure to achieve compliance with State Housing Law mandates, by adopting a housing overlay zone allowing City-directed development on limited parts of the City-owned Martin Luther King Jr. property consistent with Sausalito’s publicly adopted Housing Element, providing capacity for no more than 50 units of housing prioritizing Sausalito’s seniors; while maintaining existing recreational, dog park, and school uses; maintaining building height limits, be adopted? Sausalito Measure J : Commercial District Local Control Shall the measure adopting various housing overlay zones to allow housing at various income categories, including housing for seniors/families/individuals, on twelve sites in Sausalito’s commercial districts, consistent with Sausalito’s publicly reviewed and adopted Housing Element – in order to maintain compliance with State Housing Element Law, preserve local land use authority, prevent state fines, and preserve historic community character, while maintaining existing required developer fees – be adopted? Santa Cruz Measure B : Parcel Tax for Workers and Climate Resilience Measure To fund affordable housing for local workers, seniors, veterans, persons with disabilities, reduce/prevent homelessness, and increase climate resilience, shall the Santa Cruz County Association of Realtors-sponsored measure, enacting an annual parcel tax of $50 and a real estate transfer tax in the amount of 0.5% in excess of $4,000,000 (with a maximum of $100,000), with certain exemptions, providing approximately $1,100,000 annually, for 10 years, subject to oversight/audits, be adopted? Santa Cruz Measure C : Parcel Tax for Housing Measure To fund affordable housing for local workers, seniors, veterans, and persons with disabilities, and reduce/prevent homelessness, shall the Housing Santa Cruz County-sponsored measure, enacting an annual parcel tax of $96 and a graduated real estate transfer tax from 0.5% in excess of $1.8 million, up to 2% in excess of $4.5 million (with a maximum of $200,000), with certain exemptions, providing approximately $4,500,000 annually, for 20 years, subject to oversight/audits, be adopted?

Voters resoundingly favored new housing Santa Cruz and Sausalito, two cities that have historically had strong anti-growth movements. In Sausalito, a pair of complementary measures designed ot help the city comply with state Housing Element law passed easily. In Santa Cruz, a competition between two measures to promote affordable housing proved to be a snooze, as the more aggressive measure won by a comfortable margin whereas a watered-down measure barely broke double-digit percentages.

For the past century or so, two industries have both fueled Los Angeles’s local economy and defined its civic image: Hollywood and real estate. Now that both are faltering, I can’t help but consider some of their perhaps surprising commonalities -- and their woeful indifference to each other. As many non-Angelenos probably don’t know, the most famous architectural symbol of the entertainment industry originally had nothing to do with Hollywood and everything to do with real estate. “Hollywoodland” was a 1920s housing development, advertised by a gigantic mountaintop sign. Eventually, the “LAND” fell down, and the movie studios stuck around. Landmarks aside, what does entertainment have to do with real estate development? Superficially, very little. One is as tangible as they come, while the other flickers through thin air. One is near the very base of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, providing shelter. The other is, notwithstanding the banality of the Kardashians, a crucial component of self-actualization. One can yield ungodly profits or plunge companies into bankruptcy. So can the other. When L.A. real estate was cheap. For all of their obvious differences, these two industries are unusually kindred spirits. Consider the dramatis personae: Developers and producers instigate the project, create the broad vision, raise the money, and assemble the team. Financiers and investors, through often Byzantine arrangements, put up capital up-front, based on their assessment of trends, taste in source material, demographic research, and, perhaps most importantly, blind trust in their creative teams. Then they wait for returns. Architects and writers draft the projects, with varying measures of creativity and practicality. Engineers make sure the building stands up; cinematographers make sure the camera captures what it needs to. Contractors and their teams of craftspeople and laborers actually build the thing, turning blueprints into framing and drywall. Directors and their teams of craftspeople and laborers shoot the thing, turning scripts into performances and images. The top brass work out of trailers. Around noon, the food trucks show up for everyone else. Fundamentally, entertainment and real estate must predict the future. Projects evolve on the order of years. They are capital-intensive, demanding up-front monies years before revenues come in, depending on the whims of consumers. Some projects appeal to urban aesthetes; others are family-friendly. Ultimately, audiences file into the theater or turn on the TV, inhabiting a fantasy for a little while. Residents and tenants move in, acting out their lives for months, years, or forever. Let’s not forget about some big personalities. Egos rise when you build something 40 stories tall, or when tens of millions of people know your name. The question for the aspiring Los Angeles mogul is, would you rather be an Ozymandias or a Shelley? These connections would amount to fun trivia if both industries were thriving. Alas, they are not -- at least not here. Moviemaking in Los Angeles County is flickering out , with 31% fewer filming days in 2024 compared to 2020. This year is shaping up to be worse . Craftspeople are out of work. Support services like prop shops are closing . CBS recently sold Television City, its West Coast headquarters, which will be redeveloped . At least one entire studio lot -- the historic 20th Century Fox lot, now owned by Disney -- may be vacated , left to an uncertain fate. Not enough action here. It started years ago with "runaway production" -- shooting in Georgia, New Mexico, or Canada, rather than on local sets and locations with local talent – usually because those states and countries offer tax credits and other incentives. These trends have only accelerated with the fragmentation of media, the rise of DIY "content creators" and the placelessness of apps and streaming services. The industry's decline became particularly apparent weeks ago when, chillingly and bizarrely, Pres. Trump mused about putting 100% tariffs on entertainment created elsewhere. (How this would work is beyond me.) Granted, a day of shooting in and of itself has little marginal effect on an economy as big as California’s. But, over time, other places have developed deep local talent pools and sophisticated infrastructure (such as Shadowbox outside Atlanta) on par with, or better than, any of the legacy studios in Los Angeles. It will probably always be the “entertainment capital of the world,” but the devolution of the industry means that the “capital” wields less power, and takes in less revenue, than it used to. One of the reasons production "ran away" in the first place is that the cost of labor in Southern California is exorbitant. It's cheaper to pay gaffers in Atlanta and extras in Vancouver than to pay them for the same work in Hollywood. And why do local people need to earn so much? In large part because the cost of living -- and especially the cost of housing -- is manageable only if you're Bruce Wayne. Housing development trends are in lockstep with entertainment trends. Despite RHNA numbers demanding that Los Angeles add over 400,000 units -- itself a large city -- apartment approvals in Los Angeles hit a 10-year low in 2024, with only 3,860 units approved -- half the number in 2014. Recent research out of the UCLA Luskin School is less than ebullient. Though Los Angeles recently adopted a massive housing-oriented rezoning program, called CHIPS, "Los Angeles will fall far short of its housing production goal" and will risk "displacement of vulnerable households" unless it supplements the rezoning with an "ambitious single-family upzoning policy." All of this arguably was foreshadowed by a massive citywide downzoning effort that took place back when Shampoo was the city's defining movie. More recently, the Hollywood Community Plan--governing development in the actual neighborhood--has been the target of one of the city’s most vicious anti-development lawsuits. It wasn't always thus. Cheap real estate made Hollywood. In previous generations, aspiring actors, craftspeople, and dealmakers gravitated to Los Angeles, living in flophouses, bungalow courts, dingy apartments, and pool houses. They didn't go bankrupt while they went to auditions and worked on their scripts. They probably didn’t pay attention to civic affairs. But they should have. And they definitely should now. On an annual basis, I attend more events related to planning and real estate that I can count. Panel discussions; keynotes; daylong conferences; mixers -- you name it. These events, repetitive though they may be, contemplate how the city should grow; how it should look; who should build it; who should pay for it; and who it should serve. This is heady stuff, and it's relevant to anyone who lives or does business in Los Angeles. How many times have I run into someone from the entertainment industry? How many representatives of production companies or studios? How many agents? How many reps of unions or guilds? Zero. Not a single one. How do I know? Because I keep track. For years, I’ve hoped that, someday, someone would descend from the glitz and be willing to talk about what’s going on in the dirt. I keep waiting for someone in our city’s global, influential, once-wealthy industry to take even a passing interest in the health of the city. But, no. These people make Greta Garbo look like Ryan Seacrest. The metonymy that is Hollywood has taken a woefully dim view of the all-too-real city that hosts it. Bigwigs who live in Bel Air don’t have to care about worldly concerns like workforce housing or civic pride. The last time the real estate industry and Hollywood cooperated with each other was, as CP&DR Publisher Bill Fulton argues in The Reluctant Metropolis , in the development of downtown Los Angeles’s Music Center complex, championed by Buffy Chandler. That was in 1960. Since then, the prevailing indifference is a symptom of a frustratingly tepid civic spirit in Los Angeles. Life here has been easy for too many people and for too long. Now that it's gotten hard, we can either cooperate with each other, or we can retrench further. The latter isn't going to work out well for anyone. The industry recently got some promises from Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, and it has been lobbying for help from Sacramento, in the form of Georgia-style tax credits. All of that is... fine. But there's no incentive or tax break that could begin to compensate for the macroeconomic impacts of Los Angeles's bonkers housing market. The question is, has Hollywood or the housing industry missed their cues? Have both entered their Norma Desmond phase? Not if they stop playing make-believe and start getting real. Hollywood needs to wake up. Whatever the civic equivalent of a line of coke is, that's what the industry should be snorting. (Or, more elegantly, it needs another Buffy Chandler.) Then, it might want to apply its powers of messaging and persuasion to this crisis. The need for housing -- via apartments, ADU's, transit-oriented development -- needs to go viral. Ideally, Hollywood should promote exactly the type of neighborhoods that it likes to shoot. Movies and TV shows disproportionately portray busy, walkable, attractive urban neighborhoods (see related CP&DR commentary ) that are easy to create on a studio lot but almost impossible with conventional zoning, financing, and infrastructure. The entertainment industry needs to understand that a cheaper city will also be a more creative city, where artists can thrive without worrying so much about eviction or starvation. A more creative city means better (and maybe more profitable) shows, movies, music, and art. As for what developers and, especially, planners can learn from Hollywood? Let’s face it: planners are, in general, not quite as dynamic as movie stars are, nor are they as tenacious as producers and agents are. A little of that swagger probably wouldn’t hurt. Developers already have it, but they often end up looking like bullies—the proverbial “ greedy developers ”—rather than partners hoping to realize a civic vision. I know it’s become a cliche, but let’s also not discount the importance of storytelling—or at least of clear communication. Whether it’s a mayor articulating a citywide vision for development or a staff planner seeking public input into a project, the sense of drama, conviction, and eloquence that characterizes great entertainment can come in handy. Like actors who shoot 20 takes of the same scene or appear in 100 nights of the same stage play, planners must sell their performances each and every time. Great actors, directors, and writers understand the histories and backstories of their respective performances, and they understand why their characters, plots, and themes are important. Developers and planners need to do the same: they need to understand how projects or plans fit in with greater vision for their respective places. The idea should be to win as many fans as possible. Another thing these two industries share in common: making movies and building buildings are both exceedingly boring . They are long, tedious processes aimed at exciting results. They have that in common with public policy. But, I’m willing to bet that not making movies and not building are even worse. This is the moment when both of these once-great industries, with help from planners, need to recognize their common interests and flip this script. Hooray for Hollywood(land). Image credits:  California Historical Society Digital Archive, via  Waterandpower.org. Coolcaesar - Own work,  CC BY-SA 4.0

Regular readers of CP&DR will recall the major controversy over the review under the California Environmental Quality Act of the proposed construction of a student housing project on the People’s Park property in Berkeley: A community group in Berkeley – Make UC A Good Neighbor -- challenged the CEQA analysis and won in the appellate court. Then the Legislative adopted a bill to essentially overturn the appellate ruling and the California Supreme Court ruled in favor of the University of California and against the neighbors.

Seemingly since the invention of the elevator, critics of growth in California have warned of “Manhattanization,” as if the adoption of liberal zoning policies could instantly result in a thicket of high-density towers. Thus far, that fate has not befallen any cities. But due to a recent confluence of new laws and economic conditions, high-rises are being proposed, approved, and built in some unusual places.

Southern California's most ambitious freeway "cap" proposal is still going forward – though there are literally mountains to move before the cap is constructed. At a discussion Thursday of the so-called " Park 101 " project, a half-dozen panelists debated methods for moving the cap forward. But all were enthusiastic – and it's clear that if the Park 101 cap by Union Street is constructed, several more in Southern California will quickly follow. "Let's get this thing into environmental," said Doug Failing of L.A. Metro, who formerly served as Caltrans District 7 director in Los Angeles. His comment summed up the day. Park 101 is a proposal to cap several blocks of Highway 101 in the vicinity of Union Station in Downtown Los Angeles. But the cap isn't the only aspect of the project. The project's proponents have also suggested that several under-used onramps and offramps be reconfigured or eliminated, opening up lots of land either for development or for parks.  In 2008, CP&DR's Morris Newman praised the concept of Park 101, calling it " naïve but necessary ". Four freeway caps are under active consideration in Southern California right now, including three along Highway 101 -- Park 101, a cap to accommodate a park along Highway 101 in Hollywood, and a cap on Highway 101 in Ventura that would reconnect the downtown to the beach. Santa Monica is considering a cap on Interstate 10 that would reconnect the Civic Center with the rest of the its downtown. All are the subject of planning efforts funded either by their respective cities or by the Southern California Association of Governments. Of the four, Park 101 is by far the most ambitious – seeking to reclaim several blocks of land surrendered to the freeway 60 years ago. The Highway 101 corridor was on the edge of downtown when the freeway was built in 1950, but development has gravitated toward it, as it now separates the Civic Center area from Union Station, Olvera Street, and Chinatown. One advantage that the Park 101 project has is that virtually all surrounding development is controlled by public agencies, meaning a joint agreement among all the agencies could facilitate both the public construction project and private development opportunities.  Panelists had several ideas to speed the process along, including: 1. Break it into small pieces. Vaughn Davies of AECOM, the lead designer on Park 101, has suggested covering one block to begin with – the block between Main and Los Angeles streets, which would re-connect Olvera Street with the City Hall area. Daies estimated that such a cap would cost a relatively modest $20-25 million. 2. Don't build anything on the cap itself. One of the biggest potential obstacles is to construction is Caltrans, which owns the air rights over the freeway. Caltrans typically wants to lease, not sell, the air rights; and insists on retaining the right to reclaim the air rights at any time. All the panelists agreed that keeping development off the freeway cap itself – and concentrating it on adjacent property, which will increase in value – will make the path to construction much easier. Indeed, by capping only one block, making it a park, and pushing development to the side, the Park 101 project – in the short run, at least – begins to look a lot like the freeway cap constructed over I-15 in the 1990s in the Mid-City neighborhood of San Diego. 3. Use the Transfer for Floor Area Ratio system to help fund the cap and related improvements. A number of Park 101 proponents have suggested that the City of Los Angeles confer development rights on the freeway cap, which can then be sold to nearby developers as a way of raising money – a system previously used in Downtown Los Angeles on the convention center property. "The freeway is zoned PF, public facilities," said Park 101's Emily Gabel Luddy, formerly chief urban designer with the City of Los Angeles. "If we can write the cap into the community plan, the City could bestow development credits that could be used somewhere else." Others cautioned that the market for such TFARs isn't currently strong. "There's already extra density available from the convention center," said developer John Whitaker of DLA piper. "Some people who can get 13:1 don't want to build it? They're looking at smaller projects. 4. Combine the Park 101 project with the Union Station master plan. L.A. Metro is about to undertake a master plan for the Union Station property – and, in fact, is about to interview several design teams. A number of panelists suggested that Metro fold Park 101 into this project. Metro's Failing didn't take the bait – "The teams themselves will be initially focused on the confines of Union Station," he said – but held out the possibility that in the long run Metro is "open to all ideas". The 101 Freeway through downtown LA, before and after proposed capping. Courtesy www.park101.org .

If you want to know where Jerry Brown is going on redevelopment, just take a look at AB 664 – a bill he signed in late September designed to help San Francisco finance facilities for the 2014 America's Cup race. The bill does exactly what Brown was trying to undo in eliminating redevelopment: It diverts new property tax increment for a local purpose. But Brown included several other features in the bill that might suggest his thinking on redevelopment. First, he relied on the structure created by the existing Infrastructure Finance District law – a cumbersome law which nevertheless permits tax-increment diversion without a blight finding. Second, he capped diversion of funds from the so-called ERAF fund – the property tax fund used to finance schools – at $1 million per year. And third, he subjected the entire thing to state oversight – in this case, the California Development and Infrastructure Bank, or I-Bank. The America's Cup situation is an unusual one with a one-of-a-kind backstory. But it's striking that the bill contains so many of the likely components of redevelopment reform. When Brown proposed eliminating redevelopment last January, he promised "a replacement tool". It's never been clear to anybody what he meant by that statement – it may not have been clear to him – but the America's Cup model show the way. To understand the bill and the complicated backstory, read Peter Detwiler's bill analysis for the Senate Governance and Finance Committee. Actually, you should read it just to enjoy it. Like all of Detwiler's bill analyses, it is notable for its clarity, depth of understanding, and humor. There's nobody else in the Capitol who writes like Detwiler, and he  retired at the end of the session. Those of us who strive to understand what bills really say will have to find some other shortcut.

This month – October 10, to be exact – marks the 100th anniversary of initiative and referendum in California. It's hard to imagine that Gov. Hiram Johnson, the godfather of the constitutional amendment, could have imagined all the different ways that the initiative process would be used – especially by the moneyed interests that were his target in 1911. But it's equally hard to imagine that Johnson could have foreseen the way the initiative and referendum process would transform planning and development in California. The bottom line is pretty stark: Almost everywhere in the nation, "ballot-box zoning" is non-existent, but in California it is common. This divergence occurred over a period of many decades and several milestone court cases. The result is that even in places where land use initiatives are rare, the threat of the ballot changes the political equation for development.  Whether the prevalence of ballot-box zoning is a good thing or a bad thing depends on your point of view, but one thing is for sure: In the arena of local government – unlike at the statewide level – grassroots efforts usually prevail over the moneyed interests. In some cases this has forced innovative change, but in many other cases is has cemented the status quo and created a barrier to change of virtually any kind. It's clear that Johnson and the other California Progressives who pushed the idea of direct democracy didn't think much about its use on local ballots. They were focused on breaking the power that the Southern Pacific Railroad had over the Legislature. In fact, initiative and referendum powers were rarely used on the local level – until communities around the state began to resist growth in the 1970s. At that time, initiatives that amounted to ballot-box zoning were rare and it was unclear whether they passed legal muster. Initiatives and referenda apply to legislative actions only, not quasi-judicial actions. Many planning decisions fall into the latter category – variances, conditional use permits, and the like. The big legal question was whether a zone change was a legislative act. In 1980, the California Supreme Court concluded that the answer to this question is yes: Since zoning must conform to the General Plan, a zone change is therefore a legislative act. ( Arnel Development Company v. City of Costa Mesa , 28 Cal. 3d 511 (1980)) The Arnel ruling opened the floodgates for ballot-box zoning in California, which really took off during the real estate boom years of the 1980s. According to an analysis we at CP&DR did about a decade ago, there were 600 land use-related ballot measures on local ballots over the next 15 years.  The result has been voter-imposed restrictions on development of all shapes and sizes: height, density, number of residential units per year, outward urban expansion. Interestingly, as our analysis concluded, the types of legislation being enacted by the voters were no different than the types of legislation being enacted by elected officials. The only difference was that because they were enacted by the voters they could only be changed by the voters – and in many cases they explicitly required subsequent voter approval on specific types of land use changes. The most famous of these "subsequent voter approval" initiatives are the SOAR initiatives passed in Ventura County between 1995 and 2000 (see CP&DR blog Dec. 2000 ). Encouraged by the Supreme Court's decision to uphold Napa County's initiative requiring voter approval to change the zoning of any piece of agricultural land, SOAR established urban growth boundaries, which have changed little since the initiatives were passed. In most Ventura County cities the boundaries encompassed enough land to accommodate suburban-style growth, though such land will clearly become scarce once the real estate market booms again. (The city with the tightest growth boundary is – yes, you guessed it, Ventura.) Has SOAR been a good thing for Ventura County? On the one hand, it has constrained outward urban expansion, protected agricultural land, and forced infill development. On the other hand, it has – well, it's done all the same things, possibly increasing housing costs along the way. SOAR has also caused agricultural landowners in Ventura County to change their practices. They are moving aggressively toward higher-value crops (meaning a reduction in scenic orchards) and greenhouses. So the landscape has changed – just in different ways than the initiative's drafters expected. The use of ballot-box zoning has not been evenly spread across the state. Overall, it reflects the deep cleavage between the coastal and inland parts of the state. Ballot-box zoning is common in coastal communities – even in historically development-friendly Orange County – and rare in the Inland Empire and the Central Valley. (The exceptions would be college towns like Davis and affluent suburbs near struggling central cities, like Redlands near San Bernardino and Lodi near Stockton.) Traditionally, it's been most politically successful at the city level – especially smaller cities – where footpower counts the most. Grassroots citizen groups have often gained a political foothold through ballot initiatives, and their leaders have often gone on to become elected officials. Ballot-box zoning has generally done poorly in large county elections, where a big-money campaign by developers can overpower a grassroots campaign. In all the years that former editor Paul Shigley and I tracked ballot-box zoning on these pages, the conclusion we most often came to was mixed bag. It was always hard to know what political events would trigger the nuclear explosion of a ballot measure and harder still to know the effects. Indeed, John Landis, formerly a planning professor at UC Berkeley (now at Penn), once conducted a major research project and came to the conclusion that both the political forces and the policy outcomes were not that different in communities that had imposed growth control via initiative and those that had done so through conventional processes.  Still, I think the impact in many individual communities has been profound – and not always good. A number of cities that adopted restrictive ballot measures in the 1970s, for example, have never gone back and changed the restrictions. For example, Alameda – an island near Oakland in the San Francisco Bay – banned apartments via initiative in the 1970s and banned densities higher than 21 units per acre in 1991. An attempt by SunCal to override the ballot measure to accommodate a large project reusing an old Navy Base was crushed in 2010 by an 85-15 vote (see CP&DR Vol. 25, No. 3 Feb. 2010 ).  Whether you liked the SunCal project or not, you have to admit that Alameda has protected something and sacrificed something by adhering to its ballot measures for the past 40 years. Alameda today is a lovely, isolated, and relatively low-density community, featuring mostly single-family houses and older (and not very attractive) apartment buildings. The ban on multi-family development has not, of course, led to the razing or redevelopment of the apartments that nobody likes, and it has prevented construction of the attractive mixed-use projects that have characterized the Bay Area. Similarly, ballot-box zoning in California has protected some things and sacrificed others. It's often protected a particular scale and type of development – usually older, lower-density, suburban style development. Yet it's often prevented the construction of new, often high-quality development for which there's market demand. After a quarter-century of watching this stuff, my conclusion is that ballot-box zoning in California is still a mixed bag – and a crapshoot.

For a lot of planners, the idea of an "infill exemption" to the California Environmental Quality Act has been a kind of holy grail over the past few years. CEQA is a fact of life in California and unlikely to go away. But having to run though the entire CEQA process for a project a quarter-acre infill site – just as you might for a project on 5,000 acres of raw land – has been more than a little frustrating for developers and planners alike. Sure, an infill project has an impact. But if getting environmental clearance is a hassle, then what's the point? CEQA's previous infill exemption was narrow and carried a lot of conditions with it – so it wasn't easy to use. But now the holy grail appears to be within grasp. SB 226 – promoted heavily by Gov. Jerry Brown and signed by him earlier this fall – creates the first comprehensive CEQA infill exemption. So, will this exemption do the trick? Or will CEQA continue to be used to hang up even worthwhile infill projects? SB 226 – carried by Sen. Joe Simitian, D-Palo Alto – sure looks like the realization of a longtime dream. Brown, though an ardent defender of the environment, has always promoted a slightly different view of CEQA than other environmentalists. As mayor of Oakland, he pushed through a strong infill exemption that applied only to certain locations in Oakland. And even before taking office, he placed a high priority on CEQA reform for infill projects and small-scale rooftop solar. SB 226 moves the ball forward on infill and rooftop solar both. On the infill front, SB 226 contains two important provisions. First, it greatly limits CEQA review of infill projects under certain circumstances – and those circumstances are much broader than under the previous infill exemption. Second, it prohibits a finding of significance on greenhouse-gas emissions from overriding any categorical exemption under CEQA. Dealing with GHG emissions are part-and-parcel of CEQA analysis these days – thanks in large part to the actions of Jerry Brown when he was attorney general – so this is no small matter.  SB 226 also creates a statutory exemption for rooftop solar facilities on industrial and commercial facilities and, under some circumstances, parking lots and parking garages as well. The absence of a strong alternative CEQA process for infill development has been frustrating to planners and developers for many reasons – but the main one has simply been that neighbors and other project opponents can use CEQA's many procedures to slow down or even stop a worthy infill project. NIMBYs have used the greenhouse gas issue extensively to slow projects down. Traffic is almost always an issue under CEQA, and of course an infill project is likely to have localized traffic impacts. And project alternatives may well include either sites or densities that would kill the project.  All of these stall tactics, of course, depend on the idea that even a worthy infill project must be judged on its own merits. There is no mechanism in CEQA for determining whether the environmental impact of an infill project would be less than a project of equivalent size in some greenfield location – an analysis that would almost always make the infill project look good rather than bad. The new infill rules – contained in a new Section 21094.5 of CEQA – contain several provisions that should help infill projects in the CEQA process. First, the new law says that if an infill project was covered by a programmatic environmental impact report – for a General Plan Update or a Specific Plan, for example, subsequent CEQA review is limited only to (a) effects specific to the project of its site; or to (b) "substantial new information" that suggests the project's effects will be more significant than the prior EIR suggested. Second, CEQA review would not be required at all if (a) the previous EIR did not consider the project's likely effect to be significant; or (b) the lead agency finds that development policies and standards previously adopted – which apply uniformly to this project and others – will substantially mitigate the impacts identified in the previous EIR. And third, even if an EIR is required for an infill project, that EIR would not need to consider growth-inducing impacts and would not require the alternatives analysis to deal with alternative locations, densities, and building intensities. When you add it all up, these are pretty significant changes. If you did a plan-level EIR and incorporated mitigation measures into the development standards that implement the plan, your infill project is exempt. If analysis is needed, it's limited to new information or the project's site only. And even if you have to do an EIR, you're freed up from doing two significant back-of-the-book analyses that have the potential to shoot down a project – growth inducement and lower densities. Now that the bill has been signed, the action moves to the Governor's Office of Planning & Research, which is charged in the law with revising the CEQA Guidelines to implement the infill exemption. (CEQA Guidelines are ultimately issued by the Natural Resources Agency, but OPR must write the actual Guidelines amendments.) More than in most administrations, OPR is heavily loaded with lawyers these days – partly because Brown bought over an assistant from the Attorney General's Office, Ken Alex, to run OPR and partly because legalistic CEQA reform was a high priority. So it will be interesting to see whether OPR's new Guidelines actually help simplify environmental review of infill projects or whether the involvement of so many lawyers makes the infill exemption/streamlining more complicated. (Another question is how much effort OPR will put into the infill reform as opposed to the rooftop solar exemption, considering that streamlining permitting processes for renewable energy is Alex's top priority.) And, of course, it remains to be seen whether cities and counties will actually use the truncated review in a meaningful way. As is so often the case with CEQA, that will depend on the jurisdiction's underlying philosophy toward growth. If a jurisdiction is pro-infill, this will help; if a jurisdiction is anti-growth, they'll likely find a way around this. One thing is for sure, however: SB 226 is a lot more powerful than the previous CEQA exemption – and more powerful than the exemption contained in SB 375, which exempts projects compliant with Sustainable Communities Strategies – but which also must meet a laundry list of other requirements. The history of CEQA reform is more like 375 than 226 – with environmental lobbyists in Sacramento circumscribing exemptions and streamlining very carefully so that they usually don't make much difference. With Jerry Brown, however, CEQA has reached its Nixon-goes-to-China moment, and the broad and simple nature of SB 226 may be far more important than the exemptions that have come before.

In a hastily called press conference to roll out the 2012-2013 budget on Thursday afternoon, Gov. Jerry Brown said he would consider funding redevelopment only if the Legislature brings him offsetting cuts. The California Redevelopment Association is seeking legislation that would postpone the elimination of RDAs beyond the February 1 date set by the state Supreme Court last week. In response to a reporter's question about whether Brown would support an extension "for a few months," Brown said: "Our position is the Supreme Court has invalidated AB 1x 27 and we're left with AB 1x 26 and that's the way it stands. I know that people have concerns about ecoonomic development and housing, and I'll be glad to hear whatever thoughts people can bring forward. But, remember, we cut out redevelopment not because I dislike redevelopment – I don't exactly – but we are short of money, and we're just saying core services trump the redevelopment program. And if people want to add back spending, we're going to have to find that substitute, because if we're gonna finance redevelopment, we've got to get the money from somebody."