The Regional Targets Advisory Committee returns to work next week for what promises to be a very technical meeting regarding greenhouse gas reduction forecasts. The meeting and discussion are the next step in trying to answer this question: How is California going to grow in a way that reduces the amount that people drive?   As you probably recall, the committee (known as the RTAC or "Are-Tack") was charged with making recommendations to the Air Resources Board for regional greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reductions from passenger vehicles, based on transportation systems and land use planning. The committee report issued last September was one of the first steps in implementing SB 375 , the 2008 legislation that ties land use planning and transportation so as to reduce GHG emissions. The committee found that a great deal more work needed to be done before the Air Resources Board could set GHG targets for the state's 18 metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) to use in regional transportation planning and new "sustainable communities strategies." The committee urged a collaborative approach involving the Air Resources Board, the California Transportation Commission and the MPOs. Since the committee finalized its report, the MPOs have gone to work analyzing existing regional transportation plans, preparing and analyzing alternative scenarios, and, importantly, testing data. Representatives of the four big MPOs – Southern California Association of Governments, San Diego Association of Governments, Bay Area Metropolitan Transportation Commission and Sacramento Area Council of Governments – and representatives from the more fragmented San Joaquin Valley have been meeting to develop common parameters. They are scheduled to present their findings during the RTAC meeting set for Tuesday, May 25, in Sacramento. "They each are engaged in very intensive and complicated plans for implementation," California Councils of Government Executive Director Rusty Selix said of the MPOs. "It's really uncharted territory." Uncharted and complex – as the number of variables to consider appears to be almost infinite. But a May 17 report from the Metropolitan Transportation Commission provides a nice summary for us laymen: "Most of the GHG reductions that can be realized will result from how successful the region can be in moving toward more dense/mixed use and transit oriented development, and implementing more creative ways to price the transportation system to adequately reflect the true costs of a limited resource." That statement may seem obvious but it's worth keeping in mind, lest we get lost in engineering details and formulas for chemical reactions. What we're talking about here is building urban – not suburban – communities and phasing out the notion of everybody commuting to work on the free way. I don't deny the importance of quantifying things, but I think we already have some good answers to the basic question. Ten MPOs, plus a collection of small MPOs, are scheduled to make scenario presentations to the RTAC on Tuesday. They'll tell the RTAC what they think they can achieve for GHG reductions, which appears to range from a little to a lot . However, it appears not everyone is speaking the same language, which is understandable. Some of MPOs' materials are already available at the Air Resources Board website . The Air Resources Board is scheduled to give the MPOs draft GHG reduction targets next month, and to finalize the targets in September. – Paul Shigley

In the first-ever appellate court decision regarding the California Environmental Quality Act and climate change, the First District Court of Appeal has held that the future development of a plan for greenhouse gas mitigation constituted improperly deferred mitigation. For that reason and others, the court ruled the environmental impact report for an oil refinery project was invalid. The City of Richmond and Chevron Products Company gave the First District Court of Appeal the opportunity to break new legal ground regarding an environmental impact report's treatment of greenhouse gas emissions (GHG). The court in  Communities for a Better Environment v. City of Richmond  found the EIR prepared for the construction of an energy and hydrogen renewal project inadequate in its project description and its intended strategy for mitigating GHGs. Chevron proposed the project in order to upgrade its Richmond refinery. In July 2008, the City Council voted, 5-4, to approve the project. The city imposed numerous conditions to address project impacts and concluded that all of the project's significant environmental effects had been eliminated or substantially lessened where feasible. A collection of environmental groups, led by Communities for a Better Environment, challenged the approval based on the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). The Contra Costa County Superior Court found the EIR was deficient because 1) the project description was unclear or inconsistent as to whether the project would enable Chevron to process a heavier crude slate than it was currently processing; 2) the city had improperly deferred the formulation of GHG mitigation measures; and 3) Chevron had improperly piecemealed the project by failing to include a hydrogen pipeline as part of the project. The city and Chevron appealed. The factors that likely influenced the appellate court's decision include: • A deal in which Chevron would pay the city $61 million dollars to fund civic improvement; the city would fast track additional project permits • The fact that the project as described in its Security and Exchange Commission documentation, provided under oath, contradicted the project description in the EIR • The city's delay in concluding that the project's GHG emissions would create a significant impact on the environment, coupled with the fact that the plan for mitigating this contribution would not be developed until one year after the issuance of the project's conditional use permit This case is significant because it is the first appellate case requiring the quantification and mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions for a project analyzed prior to the adoption of the California Environmental Quality Act guidelines relating to GHG (see  CP&DR Environment Watch , January 1, 2010). Many jurisdictions have prepared, or are preparing, climate action plans to guide GHG emission mitigation, but this decision suggests that future development of such plans may not serve as sufficient mitigation. Project Description The appellate court first considered the adequacy of the project description. The environmental groups argued that the EIR omitted pertinent information. At issue was whether or not the project would enable the refinery to process heavier crude. According to the EIR, the "project would not alter the refinery's current design for processing intermediate and light crudes." As a result, the EIR did not contain any data regarding the current crude mix processed at the refinery and did not analyze the environmental impacts of processing heavier crude. Some evidence, however, indicated the project would allow the refinery to process heavier crude. For example, the EIR explained that the project is proposed within the context of "a crude oil supply that is  increasingly heavier ," and consequently, the project was "designed to allow more flexibility in refining future crude supplies." Further, a disclosure document submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission following the 2007 fiscal year cited the central purpose of the project as enabling the processing of heavier crude. The court concluded the EIR failed CEQA's informational purpose because the project description was inadequate with respect to whether the project would enable the refinery to process heavier crude, and failed to properly establish and analyze baseline conditions for measuring the project's potential impacts. Deferred Mitigation Of GHG The court found the EIR improperly deferred the development of greenhouse gas mitigation measures. The court relied on the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 (Health & Safety Code, § 38500  et seq. , better known as AB 32) and a "white paper" prepared by the California Air Pollution Control Officers Association as evidence that "climate change impacts are significant environmental impacts requiring analysis under CEQA." The court criticized the timing of what it characterized as the city's "post-EIR" determination that project's 898,000 metric ton increase in carbon dioxide emissions was significant. The court focused on the mitigation measure proposed after the city did make a finding of significance. The mitigation measure required Chevron to submit to the city "a plan for achieving complete reduction of GHG emissions" within one year of project approval. The EIR certified by the City Council concluded that implementation of the mitigation measure would "result in no net increase in GHG emissions over the project baseline." In other words, the mitigation measure would reduce the GHG impact to less than significant. The court found this to be a classic case of deferred mitigation. "Numerous cases illustrate that reliance on tentative plans for future mitigation after completion of the CEQA process significantly undermines CEQA's goal of full disclosure and informed decision making," Presiding Justice Ignazio Ruvolo wrote for the unanimous three-judge panel. The court noted the decisions in  California Native Plant Society v. City of Rancho Cordova , (2009) 172 Cal.App.4 th  703 (see  CP&DR Legal Digest , May 2009), and  Sacramento Old City Association v. City Council , (1991) 220 Cal.App.3d 1011, allow a lead agency to defer the formulation of specific mitigation measures, but only if the agency first: • Undertook a complete analysis of the significant environmental impact; • Proposed potential mitigation measures early in the planning process; and • Articulated specific performance criteria that would ensure that adequate mitigation measures were eventually implemented. Richmond performed none of these tasks and instead relied on the fact that scientific information about GHG and techniques for mitigating GHG impacts were constantly expanding during the years the project was under review, making it difficult to decide which specific actions to take. The court rejected this approach. "The difficulties caused by evolving technologies and scientific protocols do not justify a lead agency's failure to met its responsibilities under CEQA by not even attempting to formulate a legally adequate mitigation plan," Ruvolo wrote. Finally, the court noted that the inadequacy of the project description was a more fundamental flaw than the inadequacy of the GHG mitigation measure. But because the EIR must be revised anyway, Ruvolo wrote, " he revised EIR should take advantage of any pertinent new information in analyzing the project's potential greenhouse gas emissions and their cumulative impact on climate change, as well as defining legally adequate mitigation measures to avoid those impact." The court directed the parties to new CEQA Guidelines § 15064.4 relating to the determination of significance of a project's GHG emissions and § 15183.5 relating to tiering. Piecemealing The environmental groups also asserted the city had improperly piecemealed the project by failing to include and analyze a proposed hydrogen pipeline that would transport excess hydrogen to other hydrogen consumers as part of the project. The law prohibits agencies and applicants from chopping a project into smaller pieces to avoid the appearance a project will cause environmental impacts. Here, however, the court found that the project and the proposed pipeline would perform entirely independent and unrelated functions and, therefore, their separate treatment did not constitute illegal piecemealing under CEQA. The Case: Communities for a Better Environment v. City of Richmond,  No. A125618, 2010 DJDAR 6136. Filed April 26, 2010. The Lawyers: For Chevron: Ronald E. Van Buskirk, Pillsbury, Winthrop, Shaw, Pittman, (415) 983-1496. For the city: K. Scott Dickey, chief deputy city attorney, (415) 678-3827. For Communities for a Better Environment: Adrienne L. Bloch, (510) 302-0430.

UCLA Extension will offer a one day seminar, Managing EIRs & EISs on Thursday, June 3.  The class will be held at the Extension Lindbrook Center in Westwood Village (Los Angeles, CA).    This seminar tackles the day-to-day practical issues and challenges in managing the preparation of Environmental Impact Reports (EIRs) and Environmental Impact Statements (EISs) required by state and federal environmental laws.  It equips participants with proven management tools to make projects run more smoothly and ensure successful and professional products and services.   This seminar draws extensively upon case examples and practical experience, presenting project management issues from the standpoint of both public agencies and consultants.  It allows ample time for questions and discussion, and provides numerous examples designed to enhance participants' problem-solving and communication skill regarding particular EIR/EIS management issues.  John E. Bridges, FAICP, Senior Vice President of P&D Consultants and Thomas E. Smith, Jr., AICP, Founder and Principal of BonTerra Consulting will lead the seminar.  For more information visit our website, www.uclaextension.edu/publicpolicy. The seminar runs from 9:00 am to 4:30 pm. The fee is $350 and includes materials.  Please reference registration number V5929 when enrolling online or over the phone. To enroll by phone, please call (310) 825-9971.     Check out our blog – www.uclaextensionppp.wordpress.com and Twitter – www.twitter.com/unexpubpol.

California's redevelopment agencies are pondering their next step after a court ruling that forced them to give $2.05 billion to the state in early May. The state's redevelopment association plans to appeal the ruling by Sacramento County Superior Court Judge Lloyd Connelly � but most of them had to write big checks back to their county treasurer on May 10 to comply with the ruling. The Third District Court of Appeals ruled against the California Redevelopment Association's request for a temporary stay on making a potentially devastating transfer of would-be redevelopment intended to ease the state's $20.7 billion budget deficit. California's redevelopment agencies were forced to hand over a collective $1.7 billion on May 10, with another payment of just over $300 million slated for next year. At least three agencies -- in Monrovia, Placentia, and Richmond -- have refused to make their assigned payments. They either consider the payment a bad investment and are willing to accept penalties in exchange for being able to continue with their projects or because they simply do not have the funds. This is the ninth such transfer of funds in recent memory but the others were "modest" by comparison, according to John Shirey, executive director of the California Redevelopment Association. In some cases, the giveback represented between one-third and one-half of their tax increment. The $2.05 billion price tag came about through legislative negotiations and has been divvied up according to agencies' tax increments -- regardless of the agencies' indebtedness, operating expenses, or project pipelines. The result is that some agencies are feeling more pain than others. The San Francisco Redvelopment Agency cut a check to the state for $28 million. The San Jose Redevelopment Agency paid $62.9 million of an annual tax increment of roughly $200 million. Lora Kutka, chief financial officer of the Fresno Redevelopment Agnecy, said that her agency's payment of $6.7 million represents roughly half the agency's net tax increment. Agencies have stated that the transfers will consume their operating budgets and "cripple" redevelopment--and the job and economic growth that is supposed to accompany it.  In the aggregate, the transfer will affect countless projects that are already underway, and the lack of funds may mean that agencies cannot dedicate time and expense to the planning of new projects that would, in turn, create more tax revenue when complete. The CRA contends that each dollar that a redevelopment agency spends generates up to $13 in economic activity. Moreover, affordable housing  will suffer considerably. "We expect about a $630 million shift will move away from the low- and moderate-incoming housing fund," said Julie Spezia, executive director of advocacy group Housing California. "That equates to 8,400 homes and almost 10,000 jobs statewide. We're really concerned that this sweep is happening at a really poor time and is going to hurt the state's economy and revenue overall." The funds will go the state's Supplemental Educational Revenue Augmentation Fund and will be earmarked for K-12 schools that serve or are located in the respective redevelopment project areas from which funds have been culled. In its legal challenge, the CRA contended that the transfer of funds violated Article XVI, Section 16 of the State Constitution, which provides for the local reinvestment of tax increments generated through redevelopment activities. Connelly, who had ruled in favor of a challenge to a similar proposed transfer last year, disagreed and ruled that the transfer was constitutional so long as the funds served the areas from which they were gathered. Connelly is former mayor of Sacramento and state legislator. The transfer was mandated last year in Assembly Trailer Bill ABX4 26, which arose from negotiations between Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders. Whether the size of the represents an appropriate sacrifice or an egregious imposition is a question for the legislature. "I don't think there's a single metric for that," said Marianne O'Malley, principal fiscal analyst in Legislative Analyst's Office. "Ultimately it's the job of the legislature to look at all the needs of California and figure out a way of funding them. I think those are policy calls that we elect legislators to do." Some agencies, such as San Francisco, consider themselves lucky to be able to weather a storm that was foreseeable only as soon as a year ago.  Although the impact on this year's projects and operating budgets are bound to be significant throughout the state, Shirey said that the long-term implications of the ruling that authorized the transfer are profoundly troubling. "What Judge Connelly ruled is that the legislature can define redevelopment to be whatever it wants to be, and under that kind of sweeping nod to the legislature, what it could mean is that the legislature starts using redevelopment for any purpose that it wants," said Shirey. "Every year will be open season on redevelopment by the legislature and the governor, and redevelopment agencies will never have any ability to do long-term planning." In the short term, agencies are coping in a variety of ways. Fortunate ones such as the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency, are financing their transfers through bonds and therefore has avoided, for the time being, cuts to any projects. "We are in a very fortunate position relative to a lot of our sister agencies in that our debt coverage ratio allows us to finance the payment to the state," said Fred Blackwell, executive director of the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency, of his $28 million payment. "It's a one-time deal for us. We didn't want to forego stuff that was already in the pipeline, but it's not sustainable." Other agencies, however, are turning to far more drastic measures, especially given that most, if not all, are seeing lower tax increments because of the recession. Most commonly, they are cutting back on infrastructure improvements, which, unlike the development of commercial projects, do not hold the promise of generating property tax revenue. "We had to basically cut our budget in half from where we were earlier in the year, plus the double-whammy of the economy being in the shape it's in," said San Jose Redevelopment Director Harry Mavrogenes. "On a project-specific basis, we have to ask, what's the upside?" said Ontario Redevelopment Director John Andrews. "That future upside is increment revenue, as opposed to a project where it's a traffic signal improvement or curb and gutter improvement. It's going to create for some more difficult choices." Andrews said that he would be having some "difficult conversations" with existing and potential project partners. Despite these hardships--and the fact that it has pledged to file an appeal--the CRA advised its member agencies to pay their share of the SERAF as of the May 10 deadline even though it believes that the decision is unconstitutional. "We did recommend to everyone that they make those payments," said Shirey.  "We did that because we follow the law. As result of the court's decision and the previous action taken by the state, that is the law. We're not going to engage in the hypocrisy that the state engages in by not following law." The firms that refused to pay said they simply didn't have enough cash to write the check. "For us to pay the $3 million ransom to the state, we would have to borrow money," said Monrovia City Manager Scott Ochoa of what he called the Monrovia City Council's "principled stand" against taking money from other city programs. "If these deals mature, we'll sell our holdings, generate proceeds, and with that be able to pay the obligation to the state, however distasteful that might be." In Monrovia, major projects such as Station Square, an 80-acre, 700-unit transit-oriented development near a future light rail station, might have to be put on hold if the agency pays the SERAF before it can raise more cash. "If the state is not above paying out IOU's, I don't see why they should be above accepting IOUs," added Ochoa. In Richmond, officials say that they were simply tapped out. "It's not because we're saying �we don't like what you did,'" said Richmond Community and Economic Development Director Steve Duran. "We're in a financial situation where we don't have any money to pay." These agencies that refuse to pay are subject to a so-called "death penalty" detailed in ABX4 26 that prevents them from undertaking any new projects until the transfer is paid. Regardless of the SERAF's impact on the state's agencies, many are questioning why local funds should be sacrificed for the sake of a problem for which they blame Sacramento. "Given the state that the California budget is in, everybody should be expected to share the pain," said Blackwell. "On the other hand, I think that redevelopment agencies were disproportionately affected in a negative way. Many in the Legislature end up looking at development and land use activities and comparing them to things like health and safety and come to the conclusion that economic and redevelopment activities are more expendable." "I think it's short-sighted," he added. "In times like these, redevelopment agencies are often the only real local stimulus tools that local governments have." While last year's court victory temporarily retained what the CRA considers the sanctity of local funds, it actually set the stage for a careful crafting of ABX4 26 that eliminated the clauses that concerned Judge Connelly last year in such a way that the legislature was able to blur the historical distinction between a tax increment and the rest of the property tax pool. Last year's ruling was, thus, a Pyrrhic victory for redevelopment agencies. "What the judge did when he ruled in our favor the last time around was basically to provide a roadmap for the legislature on how to do the taking in a way that was constitutional," said Blackwell. "And they followed that roadmap to a T." In effect, what the legislature decided � and what Connolly endorsed � was the legislature's ability to decide how to spend increment money within the project area, at least with regard to schools. "In terms of redevelopment, the agencies effectively modify the allocation of the property tax, and some revenues that otherwise would go to cities, counties, special districts and schools go to the redevelopment agency," said O'Malley of the LAO. This interpretation squares with what some consider to be the state's legitimate claim to all property tax funds. "I am of the belief that you can't separate the state budget from local government. You need to look at the totality of public services," said Jean Ross, executive director of independent watchdog group the California Budget Project. "In the whole series of policy decisions made since the voters passed Prop 13, they really have intertwined state and local government finance." The redevelopment community, however, considers even the transfer to local schools to be an affront to the spirit of redevelopment law. And they say that the legislature is simply taking advantage of redevelopment agencies' ready access to funds. "We view the issue as one of constitutionality," said Shirey. "We're not saying that we're worse off or better off than any function or entity that's having money cut, or having money stolen from us, as we are. This money is going to schools that are in redevelopment project areas, ignoring the fact that schools have nothing to do with the redevelopment purpose." The legislature's rationale, however, contends not only that schools conform to the definition of redevelopment but in fact have their own implicit economic value that may or may not be equal to that of the projects that redevelopment agencies support. "The fundamental question isn't would reducing redevelopment have an effect, but would preserving schools funding have an effect too?" said O'Malley. While those effects play out in the coming months, the CRA is hoping to address its concerns for the fate of long-term planning through a legal appeal and a ballot measure that has qualified for the November ballot which is intended to reaffirm the use of tax increment funds for redevelopment and prevent such future transfers.

After recently clearing its docket of California Environmental Quality Act cases, the state Supreme Court has accepted a new CEQA case for review. All seven high court justices voted to review the Second District Court of Appeal's decision in Save the Plastic Bag Coalition v. City of Manhattan Beach. In January, the appellate panel ruled 2-1 that Manhattan Beach should have completed an environmental impact report before adopting an ordinance banning the distribution of plastic shopping bags within the city limits (see CP&DR Legal Digest, February 1, 2010). The court ruled that an association of plastic bag manufacturers had legal standing to bring the lawsuit, and that the association presented substantial evidence to support a fair argument that the ordinance would have environmental impacts. The city argues that the coalition brought the suit purely to protect its commercial interests, which is not permissible under CEQA. The city also argues there is no substantial evidence the ban could harm the environment. The state Supreme Court accepted two questions for consideration: Did the association of plastic bag manufacturers have standing to challenge a local ordinance banning the use of plastic bags? Did the trial court err in ruling the ordinance invalid for the failure to prepare an environmental impact report? The Supreme Court's acceptance of the case means the Second District's opinion no longer stands. The case is Save the Plastic Bag Coalition v. City of Manhattan Beach , No. 180720.

President Obama has now nominated two women to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court – and the addition of Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan -- nominated Monday and almost sure to be confirmed -- will definitely give the court a new tilt. But the tilt isn't about gender. It's about geography. In Sotomayor and Kagan, Obama has selected two women who have lived their whole lives in big cities – they're both from New York, though from very different backgrounds (Sotomayor's from the Bronx). And that means they are likely to give the Supreme Court an urban spin that it hasn't seen since the Roosevelt/Kennedy/Johnson era, when the court included urban veterans like Felix Frankfurter (who grew up on the Lower East Side in New York) and Thurgood Marshall (from Baltimore). Even Kagan's predecessor, John Paul Stevens , who was from Chicago, wasn't this gritty; after all, he always wore bow ties. Other than Princeton, where they both went to college (though at different times, as did First Lady Michelle Obama), Sotomayor and Kagan have never lived outside big cities. Sotomayor lived her entire life in New York City until she took her seat on the Supreme Court last fall. Kagan's life has consisted of Manhattan, Cambridge (just outside Boston), Chicago (where she taught law school with Obama), and Washington, D.C. Indeed, all three women on the Supreme Court are New York urbanites, including Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who grew up in Brooklyn and subsequently taught at Columbia University in Manhattan. How will the urban spin affect a court that is already deeply divided over major social and cultural issues? Though it isn't often discussed, there has always been tension between urban ideas and suburban/small-town/rural ideas on the Supreme Court. In the land use arena, the victory for planning in the seminal case of Euclid v. Ambler in 1926, which upheld the constitutionality of zoning, was largely the result of the fear that affluent justices from small towns had about urban immigrant populations. "The constantly increasing density of our urban populations, the multiplying forms of industry and the growing complexity of our civilization make it necessary for the State, either directly or through some public agency by its sanction, to limit individual activities to a greater extent than formerly," wrote Justice George Sutherland for a very conservative, business-oriented court. An urban tilt might affect a number of divisive issues – such as gun rights, which often reflect differences in urban and rural viewpoints. However, it might also tilt land use issues toward government involvement and away from property rights, as urbanites – living in a more crowded and complicated world – tend to accept more regulation than suburbanites and rural dwellers. Of course, Kagan's confirmation wouldn't change the delicate balance of power on the court. The scales are generally still tipped by which way Justice Anthony Kennedy swings in any given case. And Kennedy's not from Manhattan, the Bronx, or Brooklyn. He's from Sacramento.

The ongoing catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico may be the best thing ever to happen to the renewable energy industry. I hope that doesn't sound crass. Really, I'm not celebrating in any way a disaster that has already killed 11 oil platform workers and is threatening the livelihoods of countless people in the fishing and tourism industries. But history teaches us that the Santa Barbara oil spill of 1969 was one of the galvanizing incidents of the environmental movement. That spill also was caused by the blowout of an offshore oil well. Three million gallons of crude oil spilled into Santa Barbara channel, coating miles of coastline and thousands of birds. You can almost draw a direct line from that event to the California Environmental Quality Act to the California Coastal Act. In fact, many of our cornerstone state and federal environmental laws stem from the early- and mid-1970s, when the environmental movement was ascendant. Last month's Gulf Coast oil rig blowout occurred just as the Obama administration began moving to open up more coastal areas to drilling. But what the president is now calling a "potentially unprecedented environmental disaster" has put all offshore drilling plans on hold, possibly forever. That includes Gov. Schwarzenegger's proposal to permit additional drilling in the Santa Barbara Channel to generate revenue for parks. In fact, on Tuesday, May 4, the governor withdrew his support for the offshore drilling proposal. "Why would we want to take that risk?" he asked. If the Gulf fishing industry is indeed put out of commission, tar balls roll onto land from Galveston to Tampa, and our televisions fill with images of dead birds and fish, nobody is going to be chanting "drill baby drill." Rather, I suspect there will be a huge surge of interest in placing solar panels on every structure, erecting wind turbines all over the place, and fueling cars with electricity and alcohol. Even if, somehow, the oil spill doesn't turn into an environmental disaster – and here's hoping that it doesn't – I still think the petroleum industry will have a public relations disaster on its hands, especially in California. One other likely casualty of the oil spill: the oil industry-funded initiative that would overturn AB 32 . Campaign advisors working against the initiative already have just about all the headlines and images that they will need. – Paul Shigley

It's possible to reduce greenhouse gas reductions in Southern California 7-9% per capita by 2020 with a mid-range growth scenario that "achievable and ambitious," Hasan Ikhrata, executive director of the Southern California Association of Governments, said Thursday. In a long-awaited presentation to the SCAG General Assembly in La Quinta, Ikhrata said SCAG would convey the estimate to the California Air Resources Board, which is scheduled to provide SCAG and other regions with a per-capita GHG target in June under the terms of SB 375 . Ikhrata's presentation was clearly an effort to influence the ARB's draft target. Elected officials in the SCAG region and elsewhere have expressed concern that ARB will establish a target that is beyond the reach of communities to hit. "Before ARB gives us a target we want to tell them what we can do," Ikhrata said.  Achieving the target would probably not reduce overall GHG emissions because the per-capita savings would be more than offset by population growth. Ikhrata also announced that SCAG will expand the Compass/Blueprint demonstration grant program from $1.2 million to $5 million in the 2011-12 fiscal year and will also launch a $2 million annual green incentive competition for its members as well. the Compass/Blueprint program provides consulting services to local governments in the SCAG region to craft smart-growth-oriented plans. SCAG developed five growth scenarios examining buildout in 2020 and 2035. He said the scenarios included assumptions not only about land use but also about six other topics -- transportation, public transit, nonmotorized transportation, transportation demand management, transportation system management, and pricing. He said the range of savings from the scenarios ranged from 6% to 10% in 2020 and 3% to 12% in 2035, depending on how aggressive the scenarios were. He did not provide specifics about the scenarios themselves. -- Bill Fulton

An appellate court has set aside the City of Watsonville's general plan on grounds that it is incompatible with the State Aeronautics Act, and because the city failed to consider a lower growth alternative in the general plan's environmental impact report. The ruling is the latest development in Watsonville growth wars that extend back to the 1980s. This case is another instance in which the supposed primacy of a general plan has, on a selected basis, been subverted to other special purposes, such as coastal planning, preservation of San Francisco Bay and Lake Tahoe and, as in Watsonville, airport planning. Watsonville Airport Master Plan The Watsonville Airport is located on the edge of the city, which is three miles from the shoreline of the Monterey Bay and 17 miles south of Santa Cruz. The airport's main runway accounts for a majority (88 percent) of airport operations, and its crosswind runway accounts for the balance. In 2005, the city amended its airport master plan (WAMP), re-designating the crosswind runway as a "low activity runway" and either modifying or eliminating existing land use restrictions around the airport, which serves private and corporate aircraft. Later that year, in related activity, the city circulated a draft EIR for a new general plan that called for the development of 2,250 new housing units around the airport, in an area known as Buena Vista (see CP&DR Local Watch, February 2003) . In May 2006, the city certified the EIR, adopted a state ment of overriding considerations, and approved the new 2030 general plan. As part of general plan approval, the city identified three significant unmitigated impacts: increased population and housing, loss of prime farmland, and the potential to impact groundwater supply. A coalition comprising Friends of Buena Vista, the Sierra Club, and an association of pilots sued to overturn the general plan approval because of its designs for growth in the rural Buena Vista area. At trial, the Santa Cruz County Superior Court held that the general plan was inconsistent with the State Aeronautics Act (SAA). The court also ruled that the EIR inadequately analyzed impacts on aviation and traffic, and that it failed to consider a reasonable range of alternatives. The city appealed on the grounds that its general plan did not violate the SAA handbook and that the alternatives it presented were adequate; the city conceded that the EIR did not adequately address traffic impacts to Highway 1. The opponents filed their own appeal, challenging the Superior Court's determination that the analysis of groundwater impacts was sufficient. Deviations From SAA Handbook A significant portion of the appellate court's decision is devoted to the extent to which the City of Watsonville is subject to provisions of the SAA, in particular, Public Resources Code § 21670.1. Not all cities and airports are treated equally under the SAA. Watsonville is located in one of the rare counties that is not required to have an Airport Land Use Commission. Consequently, the duty for safety planning for land uses surrounding the airport falls directly to the City of Watsonville. The court had to determine which provisions of the Division of Aeronautics Handbook apply to a jurisdiction such as Watsonville. Key to this case, the Sixth District Court of Appeal concluded that the handbook's safety and density criteria applied to Watsonville and similar jurisdictions. The court further determined that the city's redesignation of the crosswind runway and easing of development regulations was inconsistent with the handbook's restrictions. Although the runway redesignation and the new development regulations were contained in the airport master plan and adopted one year before the general plan was adopted, the appellate court reexamined the WAMP analysis in the context of the general plan update. The court concluded that the WAMP, and therefore the general plan, ran afoul of the Aeronautics Act, thus invalidating an action that the city had considered to be final. Turning to the California Environmental Quality Act issues, the appellate court held that the EIR was inadequate because it failed to assess impacts resulting from planning deviations from the SAA handbook, a requirement of CEQA Guidelines section 15154(a). While the city's EIR took the WAMP into account explicitly, WAMP did not address the land use compatibility and noise for the Buena Vista area because it was written with the implicit assumption that subsequent city planning for the Buena Vista area would address those issues. Inadequacy of Alternatives With respect to alternatives, the city's EIR included three: Alternative 1 accounts for the same level of new development throughout the city (including Buenta Vista) but would place it all within the city boundaries; Alternative 2 included the same level of development but with one-half of growth in new areas; Alternative 3 was no project (i.e. no new general plan). Compared to the proposed general plan, Alternative 1 would reduce impacts to farmland to less-than-significant. Alternative 3 would reduce impacts of population growth to less-than-significant. All three would reduce impacts to groundwater supply. However, the appellate court determined a more suitable alternative should have been studied – a reduced development alternative. Because most impacts identified in the EIR were growth-related, the court said the city should have studied a lower growth alternative, which the court believed still would have responded to 10 of 12 stated objectives for the general plan. Because a reduced development scenario could, in the eyes of the appellate court, have been compatible with a majority of the objectives and would have offered more diversity (compared with the studied alternatives), it should have been included. "The administrative record provides no justification for the FEIR's failure to include within its alternatives analysis a reduced development alternative that would have satisfied the 10 objectives of the project that did not require the level of development contemplated by the project," Justice Nathan Mihara wrote for the court. "Analysis of such an alternative would have provided the decisionmakers with information about how most of the project's objectives could be satisfied without the level of environmental impacts that would flow from the project." Instead of determining whether or not the alternatives studied provide a reasoned choice, the court essentially substituted its thinking in place of that of the lead agency to come up with a different range of alternatives. Water Analysis Though the opponents appealed the trial court ruling on the sufficiency of the water supply analysis, the court of appeal affirmed the adequacy of the EIR on this issue. The EIR included information regarding the particulars of the specific groundwater basin upon which the city relied. The EIR also provided documentation as to relative water use of agriculture versus development and anticipated water conservation measures, and the EIR concluded that the new general plan would not significantly worsen the current overdraft situation. In rejecting the challenge to the water analysis, the appellate court recognized several concepts important in EIR challenges: 1) the EIR is not required to identify the actual source of water, 2) there are "inherent uncertainties in long-term forecasts" and 3) speculation about difficulties in long-term financing of water supply projects does not invalidate the EIR analysis. The Case: Watsonville Pilots Association v. City of Watsonville, No. H033097, 2010 DJDAR 5423. Filed March 15, 2010. Ordered published April 12, 2010. The Lawyers: For the pilots association: Jonathan Wittwer, Wittwer & Parkin (831) 429-4055. For the city: Andrea Saltzman, Jarvis, Fay, Doporto & Gibson (510) 655-6086.

Don't be fooled by the peaceful, pastoral look of West Village, a proposed housing development on the campus of UC Davis. "Shucks," the conceptual site plan seems to say, "I'm just a little old country town. See my bib overalls?" I'm not falling for it. West Village may be bucolic and all, but this 220-acre project, intended to provide rental housing for students and for-sale housing to faculty, shows an uncompromising commitment to sustainability. Although pastoralism is not always the same thing as environmentalism, in this case it comes with some hard-minded environmentalism. In an age of "greenwash," or projects that purport to be more sustainable than they are, West Village is the real deal: a neighborhood in which density, compact development and care for the land all work together. West Village is no less than an attempt to create a workable model of the Neighborhood of the Future. "When you come to your senses," the master plan seems to tell us, "you will live this way." The land-use plan seems unremarkable: Essentially it's watered-down New Urbanism, which looks surprisingly like a classic Garden City, with neighborhood retail, a town square and a transit station at the center, surrounded by a doughnut of housing. That doughnut in turn is bordered by open space for recreation, and finally farmland at the outer periphery. (In this plan, the fields, which are used by the university for crop research, are located to the south and west of West Village.) Throughout the plan, parks and landscaping are parts of a single system of interconnected green spaces. Even better, storm water runoff will flow along "water streets" with medians designed to carry the storm water into bioswales located at the edges of the neighborhood. One of the bioswales is a seasonal wetlands. How cool can you get? One refreshing departure from the formality of doctrinal New Urbanism is a student neighborhood in the southern part of the project called the Rambles, which is an informal cluster of dormitories organized around a broad walkway. The northern side of the Village is devoted to faculty housing, both single-family and townhouses. All of these would be for-sale units, offered to faculty at below-market rates. (Financially, this seems feasible, because the university already owns the land.) This part of West Village becomes the Davis equivalent of "Professorville" in Palo Alto, where many Stanford faculty live. The master plan was designed by Mogavero Notestine of Sacramento and Moore Ruble Yudell of Santa Monica, although many consultants had in the hand in the plan approved by the university in November 2006. No matter who designed it, it is heartening to see a plan in which environmental concerns and the comfort of residents are the determinants of urban form. One of my favorite details of the plan is housing that is oriented to capture prevailing breezes. Natural ventilation is fundamental to passive heating and cooling, yet the practice of orientating an entire neighborhood to the breeze is rare in commercial home building, where the prime objective is to subdivide a plan as "efficiently" as possible, rather than actually build housing worth living in. (Here comes the hate mail...) All that could change, of course, when the university invites developers to build the stuff. I see one potential complication, however: The university plans to build for-sale housing on land owned by a public university. Is that a good thing? In defense of UC Davis, the decision to devote a portion of West Village to for-sale housing is probably good for the university. As universities like Stanford, UCLA, and UC Berkeley have learned the hard way, affordable, well-located housing can help attract faculty. And although I've seen no financial pro formas, my guess is that the West Village housing will pay for itself, so the university needn't take on long-term debt. That kind of boot-strap creativity may become more common among universities in an era when the state seems unable to pay for anything. On the other hand, has the university fully grappled with all the implications of selling housing amid the groves of academe? For instance, who owns the land underneath the house—the university or the home buyer? Another unanswered question is what happens when a faculty member, who bought the house at below-market rate, decides to sell? Who keeps the upside, the university or the prof? Housing is an investment as well as shelter. If I can't sell my house profitably, why would I want to buy it? But if the houses in Professorville North appreciate in value and grow out of reach of academics, what becomes of the university's recruitment tool? All those concerns are minor, however, compared to the overall ambition of West Village. That ambition is utopian, if utopia means the best possible way of life. This vision of the good life, in fact, reflects a long-held Anglo-American ideal, which is to combine a home in the country with convenient access to the urban workplace. The American suburb was born of this cultural ideal. The Garden City movement was another version, and so were Clarence Stein's designs. Frank Lloyd Wright's boundless Broadacre City was a radical version. West Village is more up-to-date and more scientific than those, perhaps, but the ideal of a clean, moral life on the land survives intact.

Just to clarify: the City of Milpitas lies inside the County of Santa Clara. Judging by their respective interpretations of redevelopment law, however, they might as well be on separate planets. Having had considerable success using redevelopment project areas and their tax increments to revive moribund industrial sites throughout the city, Milpitas is poised to extend the life of two existing project areas while adding a brand-new project area of roughly 600 acres in the central part of the city, between the 680 and 880 freeways. The plan amendments would increase combined limit on tax increment collection from $2.4 billion to $6.7 billion, and they envision capital improvements for the areas costing up to $1.4 billion. In 2003 Milpitas adopted an aggressive specific plan to increase density in a redevelopment area in the heart of the city, in part through infrastructure improvements, and it may have similar designs on the proposed addition (see CP&DR Local Watch Vol. 18, No. 11 Nov. 2003). The Milpitas City Council, acting as the city's redevelopment agency, voted unanimously April 20 to approve the project area amendments and addition, and it is expected to confirm its decision when the amendment is read the second time, on May 4. After that, the County of Santa Clara will decide whether to sue to stop the amendments. "The redevelopment law has been beefed up to contain a more rigorous definition of blight," said Lizanne Reynolds, deputy counsel for the County of Santa Clara. "We don't believe that they've shown this blight." According to city officials, the amendment and especially the addition are sorely needed if the city is to transform deteriorated, under-performing swaths of small, obsolete industrial and high-tech sites – thriving in the age of floppy disks but obsolete today – and unkempt, overcrowded residential areas. Conditions qualifying as economic and physical blight have been extensively documented, say those officials. "The goal in this particular area is that we have a huge swath of land that is underutilized and in some cases is not utilized at all anymore, with deteriorating buildings most of them old high-tech buildings that were built in the '70s and '80s that no longer are very marketable," said Milpitas Mayor Bob Livengood. Consultants Keyser-Marston Associates conducted a redevelopment analysis for the city that included the following conclusions: •Of the 26 industrial parcels, the average parcel size was approximately 4.5 acres with 13 under three acres. •A typical manufacturing/assembly facility requires a building size of 25,000 square feet, which would require a parcel size of 75,000 square feet (1.7 acres). Seven of the 26 properties cited are less than 1.7 acres. •Based on these assumptions, the minimum desired lot size is approximately 10 acres. •62 percent of the parcels in the Added Area are blighted. •Approximately 41 percent of the parcels in the Added Area are within the 100-year floodplain. Santa Clara County, however, has indicated that these claims matter little in the eyes of current redevelopment law. Over the life of the project areas, the county and the Milpitas Unified School District stand to lose an estimated net of $344 million and $1.23 billion, respectively, through tax money that would be diverted away from the county and reinvested in the project areas. County attorneys county contend that the city has exaggerated the extent and severity of the alleged blight in the plan area addition, which must meet a more narrow threshold set by SB 1206, enacted in 2007. "The redevelopment law has been beefed up to contain a more rigorous definition of blight," said Reynolds. "We don't believe that they've shown this blight." "Just like everybody else, the rates are higher because of the economy," said Marie Munson, managing consultant with of Seifel Consulting, which analyzed Milpitas' amendments and reports on behalf of the county. "We didn't see physical blighting conditions in those areas that were causing higher vacancy rates or lower lease rates." Based on these discrepancies, the county has threatened to file a lawsuit if the plan area addition and/or amendments are enacted. "We have not discussed this issue in closed session with our board yet, but we will be doing so," said Reynolds. Seifel conducted a "windshield study" as well as an analysis of Milpitas' own documentation, which concluded that many of the conditions cited by Milpitas could potentially lead to blight but did not constitute blight in and of themselves. The county rejected contentions about lease rates and vacancy rates, noting that neither deviated significantly from comparable areas in the county. It also contends that hazardous waste, while extant, does not necessarily preclude optimal use of the affected properties. Milpitas officials believe that this analysis underestimates the extent of the area's blight. "They drive through and see that there are companies there – and there are companies there," said Diana Barnhart, Milpitas Redevelopment and Economic Development manager. "But what they don't see is that in one building there might be 150,000 square feet of which a third of it is for a company and the rest has been vacant for 24 months or 5 years." The county took issue with smaller, less typical claims as well, including one that suggests that the presence of a private school and churches may indicate economic blight because landlords are renting to traditionally low-rent tenant. According to the county's April 20 report, "the assertion that parcels are ‘blighted' because they are being used by churches and a private school strains credulity." Siefel's report describes a relatively small block of the addition that may meet the threshold for blight; it is dwarfed by rest of the proposed area by a factor of ten. The county also questioned the implication that parcels in danger of a 100-year flood necessarily qualify as blighted. None of this criticism, however, has compelled the city to alter its redevelopment plan, which, so city officials claim, will eventually benefit city and county alike. "I think the county is just wrong," said Livengood. "I don't know why they're even bothering to oppose us in this." "If you want to wait for market forces, good luck," added Livengood. "You could be 10 or 15 years down the road with the same situation we have right now." The Milpitas Chamber of Commerce has not taken a position on the plan amendments, according to Frank De Smidt, chair of the chamber's Government Affairs Committee. The city instead has pressed onward, without altering the plan even after receiving comments from the county on April 4 and again on April 20. Those comments contend that the city's response to its concerns were inadequate and do not meet the requirements of the CRL or the California Environmental Quality Act. In its April 20 letter, the county contended that the city's "responses contain conclusory statements unsupported by factual information." Having used redevelopment funding to transform a shuttered Ford Motor plant into the Bay Area's largest indoor shopping center, the Great Mall, and to attract Cisco's corporate campus the city has historically enjoyed success with redevelopment. Barnhart, however, contends that the county has been reluctant to embrace redevelopment in the past. "The county has challenged just about every city's desire for redevelopment for the last 25 years," said Barnhart. "I don't think the county gives redevelopment any credit for development, growth, and activity. I think there's this presumption that the private market will do it on its own without redevelopment assistance." Reynolds insists, however, that the county has supported numerous redevelopment areas but that this one happens not to qualify under SB 1206 or justify the county's loss of revenue – no matter how much the revitalized areas might generate. "There are many cities in the county that have adopted and/or amended their redevelopment plans over the years and the County has not challenged them," said Reynolds. The city has not yet released a plan for the new and amended project areas but has indicated that it intends to promote the assembly of parcels and try to attract modern manufacturing and warehousing facilities, which according to current models require far more land than did the facilities that currently occupy the parcels. While the county's analysis concedes that some parts of the project amendment areas and additions may not be performing well enough to attract new, higher-paying tenants, the county noted that "'lack of investment and development potential' does not correlate with impairment of the physical development of the parcels." The county further concluded that the city's report "appears to cherry-pick the indicators that show lower property values in the Added Area in comparison of the rest of the City" and, on the count of over crowding, that the city's finding of 1.33 and 1.43 persons per room constitutes "overcrowding but not serious overcrowding, defined by the Census as 1.5 per room." This month's exchanges between the city and the county has resulted in virtually no concessions or agreements, and all indications are that the Milpitas City Council will in fact give the amendments final approval. "It's passed through the City Council unanimously so far," said Livengood. "I see nothing that would prevent us from moving forward." If this impasse continues, and leads to the threat of legal action, it would not be unheard-of, especially in the absence of an official system of mediation when such disputes arise. "You would hope the agency would spend time with county officials even before they start the process," said John Shirey, executive director of the California Redevelopment Association. "It is increasingly rare that there would actually be a lawsuit filed by the county. Typically these things do get worked out." For now, the city is waiting for the county to be the one to budge. "The county is broke," said Livengood. "Why they would want to spend a bunch of taxpayers' money suing us over what I consider trivial matters, you'll have to ask them that." Contacts: Bob Livengood, Mayor of Milpitas, (408) 586-3051 Lizanne Reynolds, County of Santa Clara Deputy Council, (408) 491-4200 Diana Barnhart, Milpitas Development & Economic Development Manager (408) 586-3059 Marie Munson, Seifel Consulting , (415) 618-0700

Though the economic prosperity and real estate boom of the past decade may seem like a distant memory, it wasn't more than two or three years ago that planning departments around the state were buried in paperwork. From sprawling subdivisions to loft renovations, developers sent them all the work they could handle. Some planning agencies even complained that attention to case processing prevented them from actually planning. Today, planning departments are as overburdened as ever, but for completely different reasons. Though the downturn in the economy has put fewer permits and entitlements across the counter at city planning departments, layoffs and staff reductions have resulted in more work for fewer people. Big cities have eliminated the equivalent of entire small-city departments. San Jose's planning department underwent three rounds of layoffs in 2009. Riverside County is cutting 25 percent of its planning department capacity. San Francisco has cut its staff time down to 37.5 hours per week. Fresno has seen 40 positions eliminated. To help close a $485 million city deficit, the Los Angeles Department of City Planning, once with a staff of over 1,000, has had to reduce its planning capacity by 40 percent. Some departments have responded by changing the way their planners work, while others have sought new sources of revenue. More often, however, it's been a combination of attempts to try to get the work of the planning department done. During this unprecedented period, some agencies have made some tweaks and stopgap measures while others are hanging on for dear life. Cross-Training Just as much of the state's fiscal pain has been centered in the state capital, the City of Sacramento Planning Department has also suffered its share of cuts. But the situation has compelled the department to look internally to achieve greater efficiency. "We used to be able to do 20 things at one time," said David Kwong, planning director for the City of Sacramento. "We can only do 15 now." Kwong said his department gets about 35-40 percent of its budget from the city's general fund, and the rest from revenue. He said about twenty positions have been eliminated, though fix or six were already vacant. That's brought his department down to 37 planners. "Some programs, admittedly, will have to take the back burner and take longer to do, as well as some programs being eliminated entirely," Kwong said. Though the work has slowed, it hasn't stopped completely. Kwong said permit applications are down from about 18,000 a year, to roughly 13,000. To handle the work with fewer planners, the planners under Kwong are now cross-trained in a variety of tasks and skill sets, allowing them to do a greater variety of work. "As the projects have faded with the economy, we saw a big need to change internally," Kwong said. "We couldn't just have one type of planner, per se. We had to have planners that were more versatile." That means long-term planners can now sometimes be found processing requests at the planning counter or helping with zoning administration. Kwong said there was some initial resistance to the changes within the department, but planners have now mostly gotten used to their new responsibilities. ARRA To The Rescue In Fresno, planners are facing a similar challenge. Over the past year, the city's planning department has been forced to cut about 40 positions, bringing its staff from about 220 people to roughly 180. But things could have been worse. Planning Director John Dugan said his department was able to save about 14 positions through a well-timed grant application. The city secured some American Recovery and Reinvestment Act block grant funds from the Department of Energy, which it split between energy auditing and a continuation of long-range planning programs. "It was a very creative response to take advantage of the energy grant, which allowed for new local development regulations that resulted in energy conservations, but also avoided the layoff of some of the planning staff," said Dugan. However, the structural issue in Fresno – as elsewhere – is that development is down. Revenues have been dropping about 10 percent each year for the past few years, said Dugan. When he looks back three or four years, there's more than a 40 percent decline. And because most of the city's planning program is funded by development application fees, the decline in building has had a huge impact. "When the fees tanked, all of the revenues that ran the planning department went with them," Dugan said. The budget for city's next fiscal year includes some extra contributions from the general fund to make up for the shortfall from the department's enterprise fund. Dugan sees a turnaround on the way, however. Fresno has historically grown by about 10,000 people per year, according to Dugan, and that growth creates a demand for about 3,000 new housing units. But the supply hasn't matched that demographic increase in recent years. "There's been a big pent-up demand as the new construction tapered off to the hundreds instead of thousands per year," said Dugan. "That's going to be breaking through pretty soon as financing opens up." Silo-Busting In L.A. In Los Angeles, fee increases have been the cornerstone of the planning department's attempts to survive the recession and massive citywide cuts in personnel. After implementing two fee increases, Planning Director Gail Goldberg said the department isn't quite there, but it's getting close. "We successfully went from what was considered a 100 percent general fund department to a budget that will be about 75 percent of special fund and only about 25 percent general fund," said Goldberg of the rise in fee-based funding. But fee increases are only a part of a grim picture in L.A. The city has instituted an early retirement buyout program and put many workers on a 10 percent furlough. Goldberg said that 40 planners have taken advantage of the early retirement program, which helped to reduce the number of forced layoffs but also drastically reduced the number of senior planners on staff. The proposed city budget for the 2010-2011 fiscal year would cut 13 more positions in the department. Notable departures include that of former Principal Planner Jane Blumenfeld, who was considered the department's foremost expert on the city code, and of Emily Gabel-Luddy, founding co-director of the department's Urban Design Studio, which opened only three years ago to much fanfare. "We are significantly down in terms of capacity, but we're not going to be facing huge layoffs," Goldberg said. "It's certainly a blow to the department to lose at one time that history of the department. I think, in some ways, it presents an opportunity to do some reorganization and to do things in a different way." Like Sacramento, Los Angeles is transitioning planners from specialized roles to more general planning assignments. The department is being restructured into teams based on city geography, and now planners will be involved in cases from start to finish, handling all aspects of each project. Goldberg said this reorganization has been in the making ever since she took over as planning director four years ago. "The criticism of the planning department was that we had functional silos. People that did subdivisions only did subdivisions. People that did zoning only did zoning," said Goldberg. "It has long been the thought that if we were organized in geographic teams….it would be better for the planners, but it would also be better for the work if people could take a project from the beginning to the end." That reorganization will likely be a good thing for the planning department, according to Los Angeles-based land use attorney Bill Delvac of Armbruster Goldsmith & Delvac. But he said the troubles aren't over in Los Angeles. His firm has seen an increase in work in recent months as developers try to time new projects for a rebound in the market. They're also trying to compensate for the backlog at the planning department. "Because it takes a year or two or three to get projects approved, more (developers) are gearing up now to hit the next cycle," Delvac said. That's good for his firm, but not so good for the planning department. "It's a challenge for the planning department," Delvac said. "The planners are not the source of the problem. They're on the receiving end." As the market recovers, cities and their planning departments will likely continue to rethink the way they operate, and the mechanisms that fund their operations. For now, they'll simply have to adapt an era of declining revenues and reduced department sizes – and the uncertainty of when the situation will begin to improve. Contacts Daivd Kwong, Director of Planning, City of Sacramento, (916) 808-2691 John Dugan, AICP, Director of Planning and Development, City of Fresno, (559) 621-8001 Gail Goldberg, AICP, Director of Planning, City of Los Angeles, (213) 978-1271 Bill Delvac, Armbruster Goldsmith & Delvac, (310) 209-8801