Growth management has been a nearly untouchable topic in the state capital since the 1980s. Only a handful of lawmakers and administration officials have been willing to discuss growth management, and then only indirectly. But in late October, the Assembly Select Committee on Growth Management convened the first of what could be many hearings during the coming months and in various locations regarding California's growth challenges. Managing California's growth "is the most important issue we face," said Assemblyman Mark DeSaulnier (D-Concord), the committee's chairman. The former Contra Costa County supervisor said that the discussion within the Capitol building about growth needs to change, and he contended the state government is not set up in a way to deal with growth comprehensively. The discussion during the inaugural three-hour hearing would have sounded familiar to most planners. Elizabeth Deakin, executive director of the University of California Transportation Center, told the committee that the state's population could grow to 90 million by 2100. If that were to occur under present land use policies, she explained, the Bay Area and Sacramento regions would merge, and there would be unbroken stretches of urban development from that region down the Central Valley and the coast to the Mexico border. Deakin said there should be more choices for where people live and how they travel, and greater emphasis on farmland preservation. Rusty Selix, executive director of the California Association of Councils of Government, and Trish Kelly from the California Center for Regional Partnerships talked about regional blueprints that a number of COGs have adopted and how those blueprint processes have addressed statewide growth issues. These presentations drew a counter from Assemblyman Roger Niello (R-Fair Oaks), a member of the committee. He said farmland preservation is overrated because technology and economic efficiency permit farmers to grow more on less land. And Niello defended greenfield development as a good way to create new job centers close to housing. He said policymakers should not "mindlessly pursue that we've got to develop the urban core." Lobbyists from the California Building Industry Association, the League of California Cities and the Sierra Club then proceeded to agree on almost nothing during the hearing's final hour.

The State of California needs a better system for determining how much it pays for resource conservation lands, the Legislative Analyst's Office concluded in a lengthy report issued in October. Although the Legislative Analyst's Office (LAO) does not say directly that the state has overpaid when it bought forests, wetlands, beaches, habitat and open space, the implication is easy to draw. "Over the years, the state has spent billions of dollars in public funds to acquire land for resource conservation and currently substantial amounts of new bond funds are available for the same purpose," the LAO report says. "However, the state lacks a process to facilitate good quality appraisals to support the purchase price of these acquisitions." "Without a sound process in place to guide the appraisal function for these acquisitions, the state may be paying too much for the resources properties that it is acquiring," the LAO concluded. The report was undertaken as part of the LAO's day-to-day oversight function, and was not prepared at the request of any particular lawmaker or because of any particular acquisition, said Mark Newton, director of the office's resources and environmental protection program. Nor was the report intended to slam the state for past transactions. "The bottom line look is at getting a process in place," Newton explained. "We didn't go back and look at various individual transactions and conclude the state paid too much." Instead, Newton said, "We had some very major acquisitions that we were looking at, and very limited information." Indeed, thanks largely to voter-approved bonds, the state has made numerous large acquisitions during the last 10 years: • $480 million for the 7,500-acre Headwaters Forest, a stand of old-growth redwood trees in Humboldt County in 1998. • $140 million for the Ballona wetlands at the Playa Vista development site in Los Angeles in 2003. • $135 million for Ahmanson Ranch in eastern Ventura County, where a 3,000-unit housing project had been approved, in 2003. • $92 million in cash and about $140 million in tax credits for 1,500 acres, plus a conservation easement on 80,000 acres, at the Hearst Ranch on the San Luis Obispo County coast in 2004. • $65 million for the Bolsa Chica wetlands in Orange County in 2002. What the LAO report only hints at is the political atmosphere in which every one of those deals was negotiated and consummated. In every case, the political pressure was so intense to prevent development and conserve the land that the administration — Republican or Democratic — had few real options besides doing the deal. The LAO found that different agencies have different processes for appraising the value of resource land, and some agencies are more methodical than others. The Department of General Services and the State Public Works Board have the most comprehensive processes for getting, reviewing and approving appraisals. However, the Wildlife Conservation Board, the Department of Fish and Game, the Department of Water Resources and the State Reclamation Board are among the Resources Agencies that are exempt from that process. The LAO identified three primary concerns with the current appraisal process: There are no comprehensive standards; the appraisal and acquisition processes are too closely linked, impeding the appraisal's objectivity; there is a lack of public information, which inhibits accountability by the public and Legislature. Appraising resources properties is particularly tricky, the LAO noted, because there often are few "comparables" and determining development potential can be difficult. When the agency that has an interest in acquiring the resources land is in charge of the appraisal process, things get even trickier. The LAO report used the Cargill salt ponds acquisition in San Francisco Bay as a case study (see CP&DR Environment Watch , July 2002). In 2003, state and federal agencies concluded a deal in which the state agreed to pay $72 million and private groups another $28 million for the 16,500 acres. But because the purchase relied on an appraisal of $243 million, Cargill also claimed a $143 million charitable contribution as a federal tax deduction. Since then, both state and federal authorities have questioned the deal. It has come to light that the deal was based on a 28-month-old appraisal conducted by two private appraisers at the request of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service; that the appraisal contained enormous assumptions about the development potential of a very problematic site; and the appraisal made equally questionable assumptions about the mitigation value of the wetlands, and assumed things about Cargill's salt-making rights that were untrue. Nor did the appraisal disclose that it was based on a variety of hypothetical conditions. The LAO makes four basic recommendations: • The Legislature should require the development of a specific set of appraisal standards for resource conservation acquisitions. • Agencies should revise their existing administrative structures for getting and reviewing appraisals. • Agencies should make available to the public — before completing transactions — appraisal reviews, not appraisals themselves, regardless of the agency or transaction amount. • The state should ensure that tax benefits for landowners who sell for less than appraised value are not excessive. Sandy Cooney, a spokesman for the Resources Agency, defended the agency's practices but said officials would review the LAO report and its recommendations. Jim Evans, spokesman for state Sen. Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento), who chairs the Natural Resources and Water Committee, called the LAO report "completely fair." "We need to care about it because there are millions of dollars of acquisition funds available from the bonds that were passed last year," he said. Evans said he was unsure if legislation would be necessary to follow up on the LAO's recommendations, because lawmakers might be able to exercise additional oversight through the budget process. Contacts: Mark Newton, Legislative Analyst's Office, (916) 319-8323. Jim Evans, Office of Sen. Darrell Steinberg, (916) 651-4006. LAO report, "Improving the Appraisal Function in Resources Land Acquisitions," http://www.lao.ca.gov/2007/res_appraisals/res_appraisals_101807.aspx

PLANNING ASSOCIATE/PLANNING ASSISTANT : City of West Covina, CA - (Salary: $4,063 – $5,293/monthly salary). Bachelor's degree in urban planning, architecture, landscape architecture, public administration, or related fields. Planning Associate requires two (2) years of responsible professional experience in the field of urban planning, preferably with a state, county, or municipal agency. A graduate degree in urban planning or public administration desirable. Planning Assistant requires one (1) year of responsible experience in the field of urban planning, preferably with a state, county, or municipal agency. A graduate degree in urban planning or public administration desirable. Submission of a City application and resume are required. APPLY BY: November 19, 2007. APPLY AT: City of West Covina's Human Resources Department, 1444 W. Garvey Ave., West Covina, CA 91790 (626) 939-8450 or visit our website at www.westcovina.org

Jessica Daniels Joins Solimar Jessica Daniels has joined Solimar Research Group ( www.solimar.org ) as a Research Associate and Project Manager. Ms. Daniels recently received her Masters of Regional Planning from Cornell University. She originally joined Solimar as the 2007 Solimar Fellow, working on a wide variety of projects involving demographics, housing, land conservation, and smart growth policy. A native of the Atlanta area, she holds a B.A. in Economics from the University of Montana and previously worked for the Livable Communities Coalition in Atlanta. Founded in 2000, Solimar is one of the nation's leading land-use research and policy consulting firms. Recent projects include: • Travel behavior analysis and infill development policy strategies for the South Bay Cities Council of Governments (Torrance/Redondo Beach, California) • Creation of GIS-based tools to identify infill development potential for the City of Los Angeles. • Transferable development rights policy analyses in Santa Barbara County, California; the City of South Lake Tahoe, California; and Gallatin County, Montana. • Economic development strategies for the cities of Fillmore, California, and Lawndale, California, under a contract from the Southern California Association of Governments • Creation of a new method of modeling the impacts of infrastructure projects for the Keston Institute for Infrastructure at the University of Southern California.

Southern California is in flames again – it's gotten to the point where I can't even remember which fire the soot on my car is coming from – and makes me wonder once again why we've given up on land use planning as a way to reduce fire risk in such a fire-prone region. As I write this, the current conflagration has cost more than 1,000 homes and forced the evacuation of more than a half-million people. Will Californians come out of this catastrophic event thinking that we need to use land use planning to avoid fire-prone areas? I doubt it, no matter how much devastation we see on television, because over the past few years we've moved in the opposite direction on fires. We're not trying to avoid hazardous areas. We're trying to fireproof ourselves instead. The turning point came during the devastating fires in 2003 , when some subdivisions – notably Stevenson Ranch near Santa Clarita – made it through the fires with little damage because of buffers and other mitigation measures. As our columnist Stephen Svete noted shortly afterward , most of the post-mortems focused on building codes, not planning. Blue-ribbon commissions emphasized the importance of building codes and San Diego finally got around to banning wood roofs. As for as planning, most everybody was fatalistic . "A moratorium," San Bernardino County Supervisor Patti Aguiar told the Riverside Press-Enterprise , "probably made sense a long time ago, if you didn't want anybody up there. But now, everybody's already up there. It's pretty darn late." If there's one, um, blazing bright spot in all this, it's Riverside County. Thanks partly to new state fire hazard maps, Riverside is taking fire risk seriously – and considering the possibility of creating a fire hazard zone similar to the 100-year floodplain that would not permit development. So not everybody has given up. And that's a good thing. Because surely if there's one thing that land use planning is well-suited for, it's mapping out hazards and helping to avoid them. California has, as they say, a "fire-driven ecology". To me, that means soot on my car is OK. But subdivisions in the forest don't make much sense. - Bill Fulton

Hollywood has finally made it official: Los Angeles is undeniably an urban place – one that's beginning to look and feel more and more like Manhattan. It's one thing when we urban planners say it and point to loft conversions in Downtown L.A. But when NBC-Universal confirms it, you know it's true. A couple of weeks ago, NBC-Universal announced that the NBC studios and West Coast news operation is going to move – from old suburb to new urb. The old location was a gated 34-acre soundstage farm at Alameda and Olive in Burbank, which opened in 1962 – the same year as Dodger Stadium, right at the height of the suburban era.   And the new location? Part of a large new mixed-use project on property adjacent to the University City Red Line station, where NBC will rig up a street-level studio for news shows similar to the one at 30 Rockefeller Center in Midtown Manhattan. That way, the bustling L.A. commuters headed for the Red Line can serve as urban eye candy in the background during various NBC news and talk shows. In making the announcement, NBC-Universal officials said the old complex of buildings was outmoded and "it was becoming increasingly difficult to keep building new technology on top of an old backbone." (Check out the L.A. Times story .) The new building will be technologically modern and "green" as well, they say. But in terms of citybuilding, the return to a more urban setting – or the creation of a new one – may be the more important point. Like most radio network facilities in L.A., NBC was originally located in Hollywood – in an iconic building right along the street at Sunset and Vine that opened in 1938. With the coming of television, however, NBC moved out of Hollywood's urban core and into a studio-like atmosphere adjacent to Warner Brothers in Burbank. (The Hollywood building was demolished in the 1960s and replaced with another iconic building – a Home Savings bank that's now a Washington Mutual branch.) That's why "Beautiful Downtown Burbank" was such a good joke. The phrase originated in the late'60s, as part of Gary Owens' announcer lead-in on "Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In," which was taped there. But it became world-famous when it was repeated by Johnny Carson after "The Tonight Show" moved from Manhattan to Burbank in 1972. Could there be a bigger contrast in all of urban America than Rockefeller Center and a bunch of soundstages located off the freeway in a second-tier town near a cemetery? In fact, it was the legacy – or the stigma – of Beautiful Downtown Burbank that led NBC to start programming live from New York again in the ‘70s and ‘80s, first with "Saturday Night Live" (an urban, hip version of Laugh-In) and "Late Night With David Letterman" (an urban, hip version of "The Tonight Show".) But it looks like L.A. will have the last -- urban, hip – laugh. The Lankershim property, which Universal sold to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, is being developed by Thomas Properties. The current plan is for a 1.5-million-square-foot project that includes offices, the media production facility, retail shops, restaurants, and parking for both visitors to "Metro Universal," as it is called, and Red Line riders. In other words, Manhattan in Cahuenga Pass. What's next? An urban, hip version of Magic Mountain – with roller-coasters descending into the Red Line tunnel? By the way, the real Beautiful Downtown Burbank seems to be doing fine – as I discovered, somewhat to my consternation, on Friday night. To get from NBC to the real downtown, you drive a couple of miles up Olive (northwesterly) to San Fernando Road, right by the Verdugo offramp on I-5. Anchored by Burbank Town Center, the old downtown – like so many others in L.A. – has been transformed into a hopping center of restaurants, movies, and other entertainment. At 8 o'clock Friday night, I drove in, through, and out of no less than five different city parking lots and parking garages before I finally found a rooftop space. So Johnny Carson shouldn't be worried. - Bill Fulton

California is an urban state, but it also has about a million small cities. All right, maybe not a million. Actually, there are 377 incorporated cities in California with fewer than 75,000 people. We have already reviewed the best and worst downtowns in California's big and mid-sized cities. Now we cast our gaze to the downtowns of the state's small cities. Some of these cities have classic Main Street downtowns with mom-and-pop businesses and a lunch counter where all the good ol' boys and girls gather every day. Other cities have reinvented their downtowns with a new urbanist bent in recent years. Some cities have big plans, but not much else. We could use your help. We've already heard from readers promoting downtowns in San Luis Obispo, Walnut Creek, Davis and Burlingame. All worthy suggestions. But what are your favorites — and why? What isolated cities have a functioning, self-contained downtown? What mountain community has a downtown that works for residents and tourists? Who has done the best job of redeveloping a blighted core area or creating a new downtown where none previously existed. I guarantee that reader input has an impact, as it certainly influenced our recent rankings of mid-sized city downtowns. Feel free to post comments at the bottom of this blog, email us directly or simply pick up the phone. We're planning to release our list in November. - Paul Shigley

Three bills that would have established "green" building standards for housing, commercial structures and state government buildings were vetoed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. The governor also vetoed a controversial planning bill that would have limited cities' ability to satisfy regional fair-share mandates with non-residentially zoned properties. In addition, the governor rejected a bill that would have placed new requirements on mobile home park conversions to resident-owned subdivisions, and a bill that would have mandated additional disclosure of economic development subsidies. Overall, Schwarzenegger vetoed 214 of the 964 bills (22%) sent to him by the Legislature, according to Peter Detwiler, staff director for the Senate Local Government Committee. Schwarzenegger has consistently vetoed more than 20% of bills that reached him, a higher percentage than any governor of the last 40 years. While the governor has attempted to bolster his standing among environmentalists, he rejected the three green building bills because, he said, they took the wrong approach. The bills were AB 1058 (Laird), which would have required the Building Standards Commission and the Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) to adopt green standards for residential structures by 2010; AB 888 (Lieu), which would have required commercial buildings larger than 50,000 square feet to meet the U.S. Green Building Council's "gold" standard by 2013; and AB 35 (Ruskin), which would have mandated the gold standard for new and renovated state government buildings. In his veto messages, Schwarzenegger said he supports "development of green building standards." But, echoing the California Building Industry Association, the governor said neither private entities such as the Green Building Council nor state lawmakers should determine the building standards. Instead, Schwarzenegger said, "I am directing the California Building Standards Commission to work with specified state agencies on the adoption of green building standards for residential, commercial and public construction for the 2010 code adoption process." While the green building vetoes generated substantial publicity, Schwarzenegger's rejection of AB 414 (Jones) was of interest primarily to city planners and affordable housing advocates. The bill would have permitted cities and counties to count only 50% of the potential housing units in commercial zones for the purpose of meeting fair-share affordable housing numbers. Housing advocates said the bill was necessary to prevent local governments from using dual zoning — mixed-use or commercial areas where housing is permitted — to fulfill all of their Regional Housing Needs Assessment affordable housing mandate. Planners and cities countered that the bill would discourage infill, promote sprawl and limit local flexibility — a message that appears to have reached Schwarzenegger. In his veto message, the governor said HCD should evaluate housing elements on a case-by-case basis. Other land use bills receiving vetoes: • AB 1542 (Evans). The bill would have amended the Subdivision Map Act to impose new requirements on the conversion of mobile home parks to resident-owned subdivisions. Park residents and affordable housing advocates contend the conversions are a way to skirt local rent control regulations. The governor expressed some understanding but said "mobile home issues require a comprehensive approach." • AB 1091 (Bass). The bill would have altered criteria for awarding $300 million in transit-oriented development housing funds by requiring developments to be within one-half mile — rather than one-quarter mile — of a transit station. The governor said the looser standard "could substantially reduce the effectiveness of this program." • SB 103 (Cedillo). The measure would have required local agencies to prepare a report, conduct hearings and post information on their websites regarding any economic development subsidy worth at least $100,000. Schwarzenegger said local governments "already provide sufficient information" about such subsidies, and the bill would add to government expense and delay projects. • AB 1743 (Huffman). The bill would have delayed construction on a planned death row project at San Quentin State Prison until after the state studies possible alternative sites. Many locals would like to see the 40-acre site in question used for a transit station or affordable housing. The governor, however, said lawmakers earlier concluded San Quentin is the best place for the project, and delays only add $1 million a month to the $340 million project. • AB 1219 (Jones). This district bill would have permitted the state to make deals with the City of Sacramento to provide for development of The Docks mixed-use project along the Sacramento River, and for redevelopment of the rail yards adjacent to downtown. Schwarzenegger said he was open to selling state land but only if the deals were exempt from the California Environmental Quality Act; otherwise, the state would incur additional costs. The governor did sign a number of land use measures: • AB 1053 (Nuñez). Drafted during the last hours of the session, this bill makes business improvement districts eligible for Proposition 1C housing funds for infrastructure. The speaker carried the bill on behalf of developer AEG, which wants to tap the funds for an entertainment-oriented mixed-use project in downtown Los Angeles. • AB 641 (Torrico). The bill permits affordable housing developers to delay paying development fees until the certificate of occupancy stage. • AB 1259 (Caballero). This measure extends by a year the deadline for jurisdictions in the Monterey Bay Area Governments region to submit updated housing elements. The new deadline is June 30, 2009. • SB 2 (Cedillo). A compromise among local governments and homeless advocates, the bill requires cities and counties to identify specific sites for homeless shelters and not impose on transitional and supportive housing projects any restrictions beyond those that apply to any residential project. • AB 373 (Wolk). This bill overhauls the Mello-Roos Community Facilities District law and the school facilities improvement district law. • SB 162 (Negrete McLeod). Under this measure, local agency formation commissions must consider environmental justice when deciding on boundary changes. The governor also signed six flood control and land use planning measures .

A water supply analysis for a proposed development in the Santa Clarita Valley appeared at first glance to have passed a California Environmental Quality Act test laid out earlier this year by the state Supreme Court. However, the Second District Court of Appeal in mid-October vacated its decision of the previous month regarding the environmental impact report for the West Creek project to make way for a rehearing. The court initially ruled that the EIR adequately addresses the likely availability of long-term water sources. For a short time, the ruling was the first published decision issued since the state Supreme Court handed down four principles for analyzing water supplies under CEQA in Vineyard Area Citizens for Responsible Growth, Inc. v. City of Rancho Cordova , (2007) 40 Cal.4th 412 (see CP&DR , March 2007 , CP&DR Legal Digest , March 2007 ). Two of those principles covered arguments presented by Santa Clarita Organization for Planning the Environment (SCOPE) over the West Creek EIR, but the document — which was certified prior to the Vineyard decision — appeared to survive nonetheless. Arguing that the court relied on a portion of the Vineyard decision that was revised and that the court got other aspects of the Santa Clarita Valley case wrong, slow-growth advocates and environmentalists requested a rehearing. Usually, a rehearing request is merely a procedural step before a petition to the state Supreme Court is submitted. But the Second District, Division Six, took the unusual step of granting the rehearing, which automatically vacated the September 25 opinion. The rehearing could be scheduled before the end of the year. Antonio Rossmann, an attorney in the case for the Planning & Conservation League, contended that the court's decision to re-hear the case opens the door for a completely different outcome. But Robert McMurry, an attorney for developer Newhall Land and Farming Company, expressed little concern. "I think this is a language issue, and sharpening of the language," McMurry said of the rehearing decision. The case provides an interesting portrait of water supply policy and environmental analysis. Naturally, the case comes from the Santa Clarita Valley, which is ground zero in disputes over water availability for urban growth. At least three times during recent years in the valley, courts have rejected water supply analyses, and those earlier rulings figure to varying extents into the case at hand. Newhall Land and Farming Company's West Creek project is proposed to contain 2,500 housing units, 180,000 square feet of retail space, and 46 acres of community facilities. In 2003, the Second District rejected Los Angeles County's water analysis for West Creek, concluding that it relied on "paper water" the State Water Project may not be able to deliver. ( Santa Clarita Organization for Planning the Environment v. County of Los Angeles , 106 Cal.App.4th 715 ( SCOPE I ); see CP&DR Legal Digest , April 2003 ). After the county and Newhall revised the EIR, a Santa Barbara County Superior Court judge upheld the new analysis. In its now-withdrawn opinion, the court upheld the lower court. The court explained the four principles from the Vineyard decision: • First, an EIR must provide sufficient facts for decision-makers to be able to "evaluate the pros and cons of supplying the amount of water that the project will need." • Second, an EIR must analyze supplies for an entire project, not merely the early phases of development. • Third, an EIR "must address the impacts of likely future water sources, and the EIR's discussion must include a reasoned analysis of the circumstances affecting the likelihood of the water's availability." • Fourth, there must be some discussion of alternatives if anticipated water is not available. The third and fourth principles were at issue in the case at hand. SCOPE argued that the availability of future water sources is in doubt because the primary source is a transfer of unreliable State Water Project (SWP) water from the Kern County Water Agency to the Castaic Lake Water Agency. That transfer of 41,000 acre-feet of water annually has been controversial since the agencies agreed to the water sale during the 1990s. The sale was based on the Monterey Agreement, a 1995 document that outlines how the Department of Water Resources (DWR) allocates SWP water. Among other things, the Monterey Agreement permits the transfer of up to 130,000 acre-feet of water from the agricultural Kern County Water Agency to urban entities. In 2000, however, a court invalidated the EIR for the Monterey Agreement in Planning & Conservation League v. Department of Water Resources , 83 Cal.App.4th 892. Less than two years later, a court rejected the EIR for the Kern-Castaic water transfer because it tiered off the invalidated Monterey Agreement EIR. ( Friends of the Santa Clara River v. Castaic Lake Water Agency , 95 Cal.App.4th 1373; see CP&DR Legal Digest , March 2002 ). Nevertheless, Castaic began receiving the transferred water in 1998 and has continued to get the water ever since. In SCOPE I , the court rejected the West Creek EIR because the analysis assumed the entire 41,000 acre-foot transfer would be available every year, even though the SWP often fails to deliver full allocations because of droughts. In the latest round of litigation, SCOPE argued the revised EIR fails because it does not disclose that the Kern-Castaic transfer is not final and permanent. Under this argument, the EIR would violate Vineyard 's third principle. In its withdrawn opinion, the court disagreed. The EIR concludes "that as a practical matter an adverse outcome in the Monterey Agreement litigation is unlikely to ‘unwind' the transfer agreement," Justice Arthur Gilbert wrote for the court. "Contrary to SCOPE's argument, this conclusion is supported by reasoned analysis." In the request for a re-hearing, Rossmann contended the court was assuming too much because the Monterey Agreement (now called the Monterey Amendment) remains in doubt. In fact, DWR released a new EIR for the project on October 22 and scheduled hearings around the state on the document for November and December. Considering recent federal court orders slowing pumping from the Bay Delta, it is possible DWR could drop the Monterey Amendment, which would eliminate the basis for the Kern-Castaic water transfer, Rossmann argued. The court had noted that the transfer may be made permanent even without the Monterey Agreement and "the legislative policy of this state is to facilitate water transfers." Agreeing with this conclusion, Newhall attorney McMurry contended there is virtually no chance of ending the transfer because Castaic has paid $47 million, the farmers who formerly used the water entitlement have stopped farming, and water has been flowing to Castaic for nine years. As for alternatives in the absence of the water transfer — a subject of the fourth Vineyard principle — the court cited the original Vineyard opinion, which was later amended. Rossmann argued that under the correct version of Vineyard , Newhall must identify replacement water sources and their environmental consequences. McMurry, however, said the Vineyard revision merely makes clear that the "substantial evidence test" applies to water reliability, and the West Creek EIR passes the test. The Case: Santa Clarita Organization for Planning the Environment v. County of Los Angeles , No. B189116, Opinion filed September 25, 2007. Opinion vacated and re-hearing granted October 15, 2007. The Lawyers: For SCOPE: Alyse Lazar, (805) 496-5390. For the Planning and Conservation League: Antonio Rossmann, Rossmann & Moore, (415) 861-1401. For the county: Elizabeth Cortez, county counsel's office, (213) 974-0684. For Newhall Land and Farming: Robert McMurry, Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker, (213) 683-6000.

Get ready for the Great Eminent Domain War of 2008. Jim Madaffer, the San Diego city councilmember who's the incoming president of the League of California Cities, traveled all the way to Ventura Friday – by train – to encourage local elected officials from the Central Coast to help collect signatures for the League's eminent domain initiative. The League's measure is an alternative to a measure being circulated by the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association. The League's measure – which failed to pass the Legislature this year – would prohibit eminent domain on owner-occupied housing. The Jarvis measure includes a much more sweeping eminent domain prohibition, along with restrictions on zoning similar to those contained in Proposition 90 – and a prohibition on rent control as well. Proposition 90 lost by 5 points in 2006 , even though there was a significant campaign against it and little campaign for it. Because the League was unable to get the measure on the ballot through the Legislature, League officials are now scrambling to gather signatures. At the Friday night event, Madaffer said the League is asking each local elected official in the state to collect 50 to 100 signatures – mostly as a way to reduce the cost of the signature-gathering campaign, which is expected to cost upwards of $3-5 million. (The Madaffer plan would gather between 100,000 and 200,000 signatures at no cost to the campaign.) The League is making a big stink out of the idea that the Jarvis association played ball in the Legislature, then bailed – a "bait and switch," Madaffer called it – before the Legislature passed the limited eminent domain initiative. This required the League and its allies to, first, decide whether to mount its own initiative – a Yes/No campaign instead of a No campaign, as Madaffer put it – and, second, gather a lot of signatures in a short period of time for their own initiative. Meanwhile, the Jarvis measure has the backing of a large range of property owners, including landlords, because of its expansive provisions. Madaffer scored "smart growth points" with Central Coast electeds for riding the train. (He boasted about "getting a lot of work done" on the five-hour ride.) But he admitted that he was not well-briefed about his itinerary in Ventura, and hailed a cab – which someone else had called ahead to obtain – for the 600-yard trip from the Amtrak station to the Crowne Plaza Hotel. He apologized and said he easily could have pulled his roller-bag down Harbor Boulevard if only he had known. Plus he would have gotten a pretty good tour of locations that have become famous because of the movie Little Miss Sunshine, in which Ventura played the role of Redondo Beach. - Bill Fulton

The housing market slowdown appears to be running straight into the state's new flood control laws. It makes one wonder which way Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who is close to homebuilders, will turn when the collision occurs. Schwarzenegger signed a collection of six bills aimed at limiting urban development in flood-prone areas of the Central Valley on Wednesday. Ironically, on the same day, backers of a San Joaquin County project that helped spur the bills — partly because of Schwarzenegger's interference — said their development is on hold because of the flat housing market. The project is River Islands in the City of Lathrop, about 10 miles south of Stockton. As approved by the city in 2003 , River Islands would have 11,000 housing units a 325-acre "employment center" and a mixed-use town center 4,800 acres along the San Joaquin River. The city approved the project even though floodwaters had inundated the site six years earlier. The developer, the Cambay Group, said it would prevent future flooding by building 300-foot-wide levees known as "high ground" and by strengthening other levees. Still, the project needed the approval of the obscure Sate Reclamation Board. After the board and its staff asked hard questions, Schwarzenegger dumped the board and appointed all new members. River Islands soon had its permit. River Islands is not dead. The British-funded developer is in it for the longer term and continues to build infrastructure in anticipation of future housing. But would the project have been approved if provisions in the six new flood bills had been effective in 2003? Probably not. The primary reason is not the legislation's new requirement for 200-year flood protection and general plan hazard policies. The primary reason is liability. One of the bills signed on Wednesday is AB 70, by Assemblyman Dave Jones (D-Sacramento). Although the language is a bit vague, AB 70's premise is this: If a city or county approves development on a flood-prone farmland protected by a state levee, the city or county is partially liable should that development flood. The legislation came in response to a 2003 Court of Appeal decision that said the state was solely liable for property damage caused by the 1986 failure of a levee in Yuba County, a decision that ultimately cost the state $500 million. The Jones bill is effective only until 2015, when other legislation requiring general plan policies and 200-year flood protection takes effect. The League of California Cities and the California State Association of Counties opposed AB 70 because they see it as a poison pill. If AB 70 had been in place four years ago, would the Lathrop City Council have approved 11,000 houses on real estate that was underwater only six years earlier? At the time of approval, Lathrop's mayor brushed aside flood issues by saying they were the state and federal government's problem. But if the city were liable for property damage from a future flood, that thinking changes. Property damage from only one flood could easily bankrupt the city. AB 70 aside, would River Islands survive under other bills signed on Wednesday? Again, probably not. The cornerstone of this year's flood legislation is SB 5 by Sen. Mike Machado (D-Linden). Among other things, the bill requires the state to prepare a Central Valley flood protection plan by 2012, and for cities and counties to incorporate the plan's data, policies and implementation measures into general plans and zoning ordinances by 2015. It's hard to imagine how a flood protection plan for the entire region — by which Lathrop would have to abide — could allow development on the River Islands tracts. The property is adjacent to a river that has a history of flooding, and lies upstream of the City of Stockton and on the edge of the Bay Delta. Yes, the developers could probably spend enough money on levees to protect their project from floodwaters. But that only sends floodwaters into Stockton and the fragile Delta more quickly — a prospect that a regionwide plan would likely discourage. Love it or hate it, River Islands is here to stay. The project actually has a pretty intriguing land use plan . But under the new rules approved by Schwarzenegger, the project is possibly the last of its kind. That was the point of the legislation. For a more complete rundown on the bills, check our recent story " Lawmakers Approve Flood Measures ." - Paul Shigley

There were lots of highlights, and some lowlights, at my first state planning conference. Here I list the best and the worst of my experience at the California Chapter, American Planning Association conference last week in San Jose. I'll let you decide which is a highlight and which is a lowlight. 1. Flew up Monday morning (October 1) after playing musical chairs to get a seat in Southwest Airline's "open seating." I was surprised the cab driver from the airport knew San Jose was the 10th largest city in the country. 2. Arrived just in time to sit down to a self-appreciating speech by Carl Guardino, president and CEO of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group. San Jose has made great strides to produce affordable units, but I didn't think his outfit was as great as he kept saying it was. 3. Went to "Successful Infill Projects – Past Present and Future," where William Anderson showed us a bunch of projects in San Diego. The city is going for a "City of Villages" strategy. He said wide sidewalks and lenient parking requirements are the keys to successful infill. Anderson cautioned that "right-size density" is important and that some projects with too much density have made them infeasible. A flourishing redevelopment district hinges upon the success of failure of the projects proposed. The City of Villages plan has been percolating for many years, as Bill Fulton's Insight column from 2002 suggests. 4. Meandered over to "'Ground-truthing' Smart Growth and New Urbanist Developments." I sat down in one of the only available seats in the front and thought I was in the wrong room for about ten minutes while I was lectured on permeable surface pavements. I finally noticed "Groundtruthing" was in quotes and this was basically another LEED workshop. Sarah Sutton of DC&E spoke inspiringly about green rooftops. She mentioned they're great for birds and butterflies and I started thinking about how green roofs wouldn't need to be mowed if there were deer on them. Go to stopwaste.org and follow the Bay Friendly Landscaping link to learn more about green roofs. 5. Who'd have thunk a workshop about parking would be the most entertaining of the conference. "Smart Parking for Smart Communities" opened with the most creative PowerPoint I've seen when Dr. Rick Willson of Cal Poly Pomona played the role of a disheveled car who is homeless and confused by new pushy regulations with "unbundling" and "peak demand." Distraught with the system, Dr. Willson, the car, went to his therapist to hear, "It's probably you." Then Dan Zack of Redwood City explained how he read Dr. Donald Shoup's book, The High Cost of Free Parking, and used it to model the city's downtown parking strategy. Patrick Kennedy, a well-known developer from Berkeley, later commented that Zack was the Tom Cruise of parking and that the Italians don't make very good parking lifts. Dr. Willson's "My Homeless Car" PowerPoint can be found at his website, http://www.csupomona.edu/~rwwillson/ and Redwood City's parking management plan can be found at http://shoup.bol.ucla.edu/Downtown%20Redwood%20City%20Parking%20Plan.pdf . Patrick Kennedy's website is www.panoramicinterests.com/index2.html . check out the ARTech Building with 21 apartments and only 17 parking spaces fitted with lifts. 6. The next workshop was "Implementing Infill Development: Moving Beyond CEQA." But the discussion never strayed too far from CEQA and EIRs. There was plenty of talk about statutes and tiering. The purveying message seemed to be that LEED certification should be enough to streamline infill projects, but I wondered about other important stuff like affordable housing and proximity to transit. 7. The next morning I attended "Smart Growth and the Workplace," an excellent tag-team presentation by Ellen Greenberg and Dena Belzer. California doesn't have the same traditional strong-centered metropolitan employment areas as the East Coast. So, in order to obtain the vibrant, dense transit corridors with a variety of services that serve as the template for great smart growth design, the West Coast needs to look beyond the "creative class" of the new economy and also target older industries and retail for smart growth clusters to be linked by transit. 8. Form-based codes seemed like a black-box to me so I decided to attend "Implementing Your Community's Vision with Form-Based Code." Daniel and Karen Parolek presented detailed descriptions of how form-based codes provide holistic and prescriptive regulations that can be used to streamline the approval process. Daniel said every time he looks at how specific districts plug into the city of Grass Valley's form-based code he finds something new. It made me wonder about unintended consequences and what affect form-based codes have on the "givings and takings" associated with zoning. Our own Bill Fulton followed with a witty synopsis of Ventura's implementation of the code for the downtown area. He said rather than dividing the entire city into transects, it is sometimes more efficient to implement the codes only in specific areas. For more on this visit formbasedcodes.org . Grass Valley's new code update is at http://www.cityofgrassvalley.com/services/departments/cdd/DEVELOPMENTCODE/GVDeveloCode041007_Article2.pdf . Ventura's downtown specific plan is at http://www.cityofventura.net/depts/comm_dev/downtownplan/pdfs/dtsp.pdf 9. My last workshop was El Toro/The Great Park: Setting New Standards in Sustainability. I learned that Lennar is the greatest sustainable developer ever, according to Bob Santos, president of Lennar. The park, as envisioned, does sound nice, with photovoltaic solar panels on every home and tentacle-like tracts of open space extending from the park into the town center. It sounds like Lennar is using the development as a guinea pig for integrating sustainability into all of its projects, but I bet new homes in Irvine have a lot more financial wiggle room than Lennar's eight new developments in Bakersfield have. 10. We left the conference a little early to check out Santana Row, a new urbanist development west of downtown. I was impressed and thought it superior to similar developments in Southern California, such as Valencia Town Center. But when we asked a policeman leaning against the wall at the entrance to the main drag if it was a public street, he replied it was not and that the Row has a contract with the police department. One of my counterparts commented the development was "fake" and I didn't believe her until then. Developments like the Row, while aesthetically pleasing, may not be the next best thing for California if they choose what diversity, if any, to permit walking on their streets. The Santana Row website http://www.santanarow.com/ describes the development in more detail, while CP&DR 's Morris Newman offered his take on Santana Row in a Places column four years ago. - Aaron Engstrom