Articles

A new environmental impact report is not required for a drastically modified high-rise project proposed in downtown Los Angeles, because there is substantial evidence that a 2005 addendum to a 1989 EIR was sufficient, the Second District Court of Appeal has ruled.

In a decision deferential to city officials, an appellate court has upheld the City of Vacaville's approval of an 860-acre project as compatible with the general plan. The decision also provides the first published ruling on the recently amended state density bonus law, which the court applies very broadly.

What a difference a year can make.

During the final days of the 2006 legislative session, a package of bills intended to force better coordination between flood control and land use planning in the Central Valley and Bay Delta region died amid a deluge of acrimony. This year, however, state lawmakers approved six bills similar to measures that failed last year.

Just as a well-aimed bowling ball can be expected to knock down all ten pins and boost a bowler to a top score, many planners believe that a well-written zoning ordinance can steer the housing market toward socially beneficial ends. There is a difference between a bowling lane, however, and a downtown area.

Playa Vista development in Los Angeles gets put on hold again, Santa Cruz County Superior Court judge tells city and UC to play nice, a San Luis Obispo landowner sues after winning approval to develop, State Auditor keeps busy with both good marks and ultimatums, and Glendale approves two residential towers downtown.

Only weeks after one round of relatively noncontroversial updates to the California Environmental Quality Act Guidelines officially took effect, the Governor's Office of Planning and Research has been charged with a far more ambitious task: amending the Guidelines to account for global warming.

Morris Newman's June Deals column, "Disney Spins Negative Fantasia About Housing," is off the mark, citing misinformation and wrongly taking Disney to task on Anaheim housing issues. As the former director of the California Department of Housing and Community Development, and now as President and CEO of the Orange County Business Council (OCBC), I appreciate the opportunity to correct the record.

It's undeniable: California is in the worst housing bust since the early 1990s. Sales have dropped by a third compared with last year. Prices are stable for now, but nobody knows what will happen once all those bank repos hit the market. And it's pretty clear that developers all over the state are sitting on their entitlements. Nobody's building anything unless they absolutely have to.

Seattle-based planner, architect and journalist Mark Hinshaw identifies a back-to-the-urban-core trend, in which people who have rejected suburban uniformity are choosing to live instead in dense, diverse urban environments. He explains his findings and theories in an interview with CP&DR.

The fight over fair-share allocations of needed housing within the Southern California Association of Governments region is on. At least two cities have filed lawsuits and numerous others are reportedly considering their legal and political options.

California's greenhouse gas reduction bill – AB 32 – has received worldwide recognition as cutting-edge policy on global warming, not least because Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has chewed up a lot of carbon flying around the world promoting it. Back in Sacramento, however, the hard part is just beginning: Deciding how to actually reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the state.

The City of Stockton intends to take back control of its water, eleven redevelopment agencies fail to correct major audit violations, a federal court judge throws out approved initiative that prohibits the dumping of out-of-county sewage sludge, and The owners of the 216-acre Wavecrest development site in Half Moon Bay agree to sell to POST.

San Marcos is suffering from a syndrome. (We're talking metaphors here, gentlemen; no need to call the process server.) The name of the ailment that afflicts this attractive, upscale suburb north of San Diego could be called Nowhere in Particular Syndrome. The symptoms include the lack of a center, coupled with a sense that one could be nearly anywhere in America—anywhere, in fact, that suffers from the same anonymity.