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.
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 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.
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.
Norman Mineta, possibly the most important transportation policymaker of the last 20 years, closed the 2007 CCAPA Conference on Wednesday with a speech that was less than inspiring.
Not that Mineta wasn't entertaining. He told a number of humorous and self-depreciating stories from his 40-year career in public service. But he was speaking to a group dedicated enough to stick around for the fourth and final day of a very full conference. I think they were counting on more from a guy who understands both politics and policy.
The tension between planners and engineers is well-known. Planners have little patience with their counterparts down the hall, and vice-versa. Both sides think the other side doesn't "get it."
You can't turn around at this year's CCAPA conference in San Jose without hearing the terms LEED, sustainability, carbon footprint, greehouse gas emissions and zero waste.
Forget about floor-area ratios, design review standards and conditional use permits. These people think land use planning can save the world.
Downtown San Jose sure has changed since the last time CCAPA was at the Fairmont. That was in 1989, when the Fairmont had just opened up. The idea of a fancy hotel in downtown San Jose – or a fancy anything, for that matter -- was kind of a new idea. Today, the Fairmont's practically a venerable institution compared to the newer cool things, like light-rail and high-density housing and the Adobe "vertical" campus and the excellent "urban interface" between downtown and San Jose State …
Fittingly enough, the memorial service for Warren Jones – the founder of Solano Press Books, who died back in May – took place yesterday, on the eve of the annual conference of the California Chapter, American Planning Association, in San Jose. Like most conferences, CCAPA is all about exchanging information – practice tips, job leads, business cards. And Warren devoted most of his career to making sure that planners in California had access to the information they needed.
The smart growth crowd has weighed in on global warming, suggesting that more compact development patterns could reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 7-10%. Why? Because there's significant evidence that compact development patterns reduce vehicle miles traveled; and without the introduction of cleaner-burning fuels, the only way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles is to reduce driving.
But this is not likely to happen without more tough regulation that links emissions with land use.
A whole new set of stormwater regulations is about to wash over cities and counties, especially in Southern California. At first blush, these new regulations may seem most onerous on new development, which will probably have to meet very demanding onsite detention and water quality standards. But it might also mean retrofitting older urban neighborhoods – and using existing parks and other open spaces, including cemeteries, to help water quality in those neighborhoods.
The eminent domain legislation sponsored by the League of California Cities and the California Redevelopment Association (CRA) died on the floor of the Assembly this week when Republicans voted against the measure.
Although the sponsors of ACA 8 and its author, Assemblyman Hector De La Torre (D-South Gate), made a late change to add protections for houses of worship, Republicans refused to budge. Because the measure was a constitutional amendment, it needed a two-thirds vote in the Legislature (meaning some GOP members in both houses) before going on the ballot next year.
With lawsuits, referendums and an economic slowdown, it's been a rough few weeks for large-scale development projects. Some updates:
The 14,000-housing-unit Placer Vineyards project has been hit with at least three lawsuits. Sutter County, environmental groups and a citizens group filed the court actions over various impacts of the proposed 5,000-acre project in unincorporated Placer County, just across the line from Sacramento County. Litigation was anticipated, although Sutter County's lawsuit over traffic came as a bit of a surprise.
