Developers suffered two losses during recent special elections. Voters in the fast-growing Riverside County city of Murrieta recalled the mayor and nearly threw out a second councilman. Meanwhile, the San Luis Obispo electorate rejected a 650,000-square-foot power center and the finance deal supporting the project. >>read more
The City of Berkeley and the University of California (UC) are at odds over a 15-year land use plan adopted earlier this year. The city contends that the UC plan burdens city-funded services and does not protect city desires regarding off-campus development. University officials defend the plan, saying that the school benefits the community in many ways and that the plan guarantees UC consultation with the city for any off-campus project. >>read more
Legislation that would permit certain redevelopment agencies to extend the life of redevelopment project areas has stalled for the year. Four Assembly bills hit a roadblock in the Assembly Housing and Community Development Committee when Chairman Gene Mullin (D-South San Francisco) decided that a broader discussion of redevelopment time extensions was necessary.
When a development project straddles the coastal zone boundary, the Coastal Commission may not use its jurisdiction over the portion of the project within the coastal zone to influence development outside of the zone, the state Supreme Court has ruled.
West Sacramento appears to be a city whose time has come.
For many years before and after its incorporation in 1987, West Sacramento has been a manufacturing and logistic industry hub. While the Sacramento region has grown in recent decades, that growth has gone mostly east and south of Sacramento to suburbs such as Roseville, Folsom and Elk Grove. Meanwhile, West Sacramento - right across the Sacramento River from the capital city - bided its time. Now, developers have “discovered” the Yolo County city of 40,000 people. >>read more
Although I know little about Scottish history, I seriously doubt that the Scotsmen of the early 1400s who invented golf ever thought about the environmental impact their delightful new pastime would bring to the as-yet-undiscovered shores of California. Intent on whacking leather balls filled with feathers, those same 15th Century Scotsmen probably did not think that their seemingly innocent diversion from herding sheep would ever be the rationale behind something as weird as the Santaluz development in North San Diego County. >>read more
Local governments in California have no authority over Indian casinos and collect no taxes from the casinos. But some cities and counties still see value in having a casino nearby and manage to reap economic benefits of a casino and its accompanying facilities. >>read more
Raise the topic of suburban sprawl in California, and you most likely launch a conversation about the San Fernando Valley, coastal Orange County, or the bedroom communities inland of San Francisco Bay. Only belatedly, if at all, will the conversation wander to the high desert, historically home only to scattered, windblown settlements scraped out of sand and creosote bush. >>read more
I recently had an unsettling experience in a parking lot in Lompoc. I was standing in the middle of an enormous asphalt parking lot, surrounded by large buildings emblazoned with the logos of national retail chains, and, for a split second, I didn't know where I was. >>read more
A recent ruling by the Department of Industrial Relations regarding labor rates for subsidized housing projects might be an advantage for affordable housing development, especially in rural areas. However, the situation regarding "prevailing wage" requirements might best be described as fluid. >>read more
The forests of the Sierra Nevada have long been a landscape of controversy, a battleground for conflict over logging, wildlife protection, water diversion, and the accelerating encroachment of vacation homes and subdivisions into flammable scenery.
In a March referendum election, El Dorado County voters upheld a revised county general plan and rejected a growth-control measure that would have tied growth to Highway 50 improvements. The election was another step toward a new general plan, as the county has been without a legal general plan for six years.
