Remember the "see-through" office building phenomenon that hit Houston during the mid 1980s and then Los Angeles in the early 1990s? Well, it's back. This time, it is the Bay Area that is afflicted with empty office buildings.
A public agency's proposed water treatment plant is subject to local zoning and building ordinances, the Sixth District Court of Appeal has ruled. The court held that the Government Code exemption to local zoning for "facilities for the production, generation, storage or transmission of water" did not extend to a water treatment plant.
In its first takings case decision in three years, the state Supreme Court has upheld a San Francisco law that regulates the conversion of residential hotel rooms to tourist use. In a 4-3 decision based largely on its 1996 Ehrlich decision, the court ruled that exactions that are part of a broad plan deserve deferential review, while ad hoc exactions are subject to much closer court scrutiny.
This year marks the 30th anniversary of the first voter-approved growth control initiative in California. In 1972, voters in the City of Petaluma — in Sonoma County, 40 miles north San Francisco — capped approval of new homes at 500 units per year, or about half the previous year's total. Growth has remained a hot issue in Petaluma, but today it lacks the urgency it had during the 1970s.
Quietly, while no one seemed to be paying much attention, the Central Valley has become one of the smoggiest places in the nation. Kern, Fresno and Tulare counties rank third, fourth and fifth among those counties that exceeded federal ozone standards the most days from 1997 to 1999, according to the American Lung Association's 2001 State of the Air report.
California's Revenue and Taxation Code contains provisions for all sorts of tax credits, most of them intended to encourage business or personal investment in activities deemed to have social value — creating jobs, saving energy, reducing waste, supporting charitable works.
Here is California Planning & Development Report's patent pending digest of this month's hottest news briefs about planning and development in the Golden State.
A tiered environmental impact report has been thrown out because the program EIR on which the tired document was based had been invalidated. The Second District Court of Appeal ruling came in a case involving the Castaic Lake Water Agency's proposed purchase of water from Kern County to serve Newhall Ranch and other development in Los Angeles County's Santa Clarita Valley.
Consensus may be rare in Sacramento, but nearly everyone agrees on one thing this year: proposals that cost money are doomed. Despite the lack of money — or maybe because there is no money — lawmakers could still pass a number of policy bills related to planning.
Counties do not have the authority to recover the cost of investigation and criminal prosecution of code infractions, the Fourth District Court of Appeal has ruled. The court held that cities do have the power to recover the costs of criminal code enforcement activities, but state law treats counties differently.
San Mateo County must approve plans for expansion of San Francisco International Airport before the project is considered by a state panel that decides on development along San Francisco Bay, according to a state Attorney General's opinion.
A Superior Court ruling that blocked the Chula Vista Redevelopment Agency from condemning a 3.2-acre parcel has been overturned by the Fourth District Court of Appeal. The appellate panel rejected all arguments from the landowner and ruled that the city's eminent domain lawsuit was an appropriate action that served the public use.
In 1974, Chula Vista adopted the Bayfront Redevelopment Project for territory west of Interstate 5. In 1998, the redevelopment agency amended the project area to include land
"L" was a young, slightly naive city of 122,000 people in the high desert. She loved her biggest retailer, Costco, very much and "L" vowed she would always be faithful to Costco, no matter the cost, no matter how much it hurt.
