Articles

One of the largest takings awards in California history has been thrown out by a state appellate court, which ruled that preliminary airport planning and traffic circulation changes by the City of San Diego did not amount to a taking of a developer's property.

Hundreds upon hundreds of real estate developments, planning efforts, economic development projects and related matters have received coverage in the pages of CP&DR during the past 20 years. We present here an update on some of the most important, and some of the weirder, stories from that period — while keeping in mind that most of these stories still have not ended.

A plan that would overhaul the San Diego Bay waterfront in Chula Vista with a convention center, large hotels, as many as 2,000 housing units in towers up to 17 stories tall, and extensive parkland may be headed toward final approval after more than three years of work. >>read more

Changes to redevelopment law that are short of sweeping but still significant enough to stir the industry won legislative approval this year. The measures tighten blight requirements, ease challenges to redevelopment decisions and potentially limit use of eminent domain, but the bills do not go as far as originally proposed. >>read more

Lake Berryessa, a 30-square-mile federal reservoir in the hills northeast of the more famous Napa Valley, may be California's most secret lake. But a new land use and management plan could change that by promoting a more high-end tourist activity than the lake has seen in the past. >>read more

- AB 1387 (Jones). Expands a CEQA exemption for urban infill to projects of up to 100 units with a minimum density of 20 units per acre. The projects also must be within half a mile of a transit stop and comply with the local circulation element. Signed by governor. >>read more

I confess I have not read the book A Choice over Our Heads, but the resonant title of Lawrence Butler's book chimed in my brain the other day, when I first hearing about Sequoia Village. The project is an attempt to combine affordable housing and the philosophy of co-housing, a semi-communal way of living in which people agree to contribute labor, such as cooking one day for a week in exchange for communal meals the rest of the time. >>read more

Two rivers that have been dry for decades because of 20th Century water diversions may flow again thanks to some reverse engineering. However, while restoration of the Owens River does appear to be proceeding, returning the San Joaquin River to a year-round waterway is anything but guaranteed. >>read more

A decade ago, a team of federal scientists and researchers unveiled the most comprehensive report card ever compiled on the ecological health of the sprawling Sierra Nevada region. At about the same time, the Sierra Business Council released a landmark survey of its own, the first Sierra Nevada Wealth Index, which painted a comprehensive portrait of the communities scattered up and down the mountain range. The prognosis they delivered was not a hopeful one. >>read more

Although it's city has been in the redevelopment business since 1948, San Francisco has recently created its largest redevelopment project area. The new, 1,300-acre Bayview Hunters Point project might also be the most controversial redevelopment project in a city where land use planning and development are always contentious.

I mean no disrespect to the developers of Liberty Station when I suggest that they would have to go out of their way to screw up this elegantly organized project. >>read more

Voters in three Bay Area counties have the opportunity in November to cement in place existing policies that steer nearly all growth to cities and away from unincorporated territory. Measures in Contra Costa and Solano counties appear to face limited opposition, but an initiative that would increase parcel sizes and require voters to decide rezoning of some agricultural land and hillsides in Santa Clara County appears to be drawing stiffer protests. >>read more

Building homes around publicly accessible lakes may be the new gold mines in California's Sierra Nevada foothills. The unincorporated community of Copperopolis in western Calaveras County has just such a water feature in Lake Tulloch, and, not surprisingly, the area is experiencing a growth boom.

I don't agree with the saying that laws are made to be broken. That is the attitude of criminals. I believe, rather, that laws are elastic. Like the fan belts in cars, they are made be stretched until they snap. >>read more