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The state Supreme Court and the Third District Court of Appeal appear to be feuding over a California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) case concerning the water analysis for a 20,000-housing unit project in Rancho Cordova.

Nearing the 20th anniversary of its incorporation, the high desert city of Hesperia is simultaneously confronting its past and future. The city continues to install infrastructure that was never provided in the first place and is working on a plan to create what would be the first real downtown in a city of 86,000 people. At the same time, Hesperia is considering plans from two developers that would open up a whole new part of town for growth and potentially increase the city's population by two-thirds.

Development of a home improvement store and realignment of an adjacent road in Sonora constituted one project, and the combined activities should have been subject to a single environmental analysis, the Fifth District Court of Appeal has ruled.

Why is Trump asking the city to get involved in his purchase of Running Horse?

Environmental groups and land trusts have completed four major land acquisitions in four different parts of the state. To varying degrees, the acquisitions were intended to prevent development and preserve or enhance natural resources. The acquisitions occured in Sonoma, Placer, Tehama and San Diego counties.

The state Department of Water Resource (DWR) has received harsh criticism from State Auditor Elaine Howle for the department's administration of a flood protection corridor program. The auditor found that DWR lacked objective criteria for scoring applicants when it awarded $28 million in bond funds to five projects in 2001, and did not require mandated information from applicants when it awarded $29.1 million in 2003.

The downtown in the East Bay city of Hayward has many features that any redevelopment agency would envy — an Amtrak station, a Bay Area Rapid Transit station, historic buildings, and a modern grocery store with additional shops. Soon to come is a 12-screen movie theatre and more retail shops. But what may be helping the downtown area even more is years of work to create additional housing in and around downtown, within walking distance of BART and its connections to jobs in Alameda, Contra Costa and San Francisco counties.

Billboard ordinances in five cities have survived constitutional challenges, as the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeal has rejected claims filed by three billboard companies. In three published decisions, the Ninth Circuit upheld billboard regulations in San Diego, Beaumont and Oakland. In unpublished memoranda, the court upheld regulations in Chula Vista and Lemon Grove.

Voters in Palm Springs threw out a 10-year extension of a development agreement for a project on the side of Mt. San Jacinto during the November 6 election. Slightly more than 60% of voters said yes to the Measure C referendum, which called for setting aside the development agreement extension.

If any part of Los Angeles begs for redevelopment, it would be a 2,600-acre terrain in the northeast San Fernando Valley known as Sun Valley.

When voters approved the incorporation of Elk Grove in Sacramento County in early 2000, the town had a population of about 54,000. Today, Elk Grove's population is heading past 140,000, and the city is looking at a 13,900-acre area for potential expansion.