Articles

Gov. Gray Davis completed the legislative year by signing every high-profile planning bill that hit his desk. Davis signed a bill that severely curtails the use of lot line adjustments and certificates of compliance in creating subdivisions. He approved a three-package bill that forces a closer link between planning and water availability. The governor also signed a $2.6 billion park bond initiative that will appear on the March ballot, and a measure that allows redevelopment agencies to extend their life spans by 10 years.

When taking property by eminent domain, a city does not have to pay for the property's value as a potential garbage dump, the Third District Court of Appeal has ruled. The court held that the farmland's value as a landfill was too speculative under eminent domain law.

The City of Palm Springs has agreed to pay $1.2 million to a conservation organization because the city built a golf course on land donated to the city as desert preserve. The settlement apparently ends the protracted litigation between the city and the Living Desert Reserve of Palm Desert.

An Orange County Superior Court judge has reversed a portion of a $94.5 million judgment against the City of San Diego in an inverse condemnation case. Judge Raymond Ikola approved the city's request for a new trial on $29.2 million worth of damages related to breach of contract, but he upheld a jury's remaining $65.3 million award to businessman Roque de la Fuente II.

The validity of a growth-control initiative in Alameda County has been upheld by a trial court. Superior Court Judge James Richardson in October issued final orders in a case filed by homebuilders over Measure D, which voters approved in November 2000 (see CP&DR, December 2000).

Farmers in the Klamath Basin of far northern California and southern Oregon have filed a $1 billion takings lawsuit against the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation over the government's decision to greatly reduce water delivery to farms in the area (see CP&DR Environment Watch, October 2001).

A digest of the fate of the sundry land use bills that crossed passed the governor's desk in 2001. A predominant proportion of the bills that made it to Gov. Davis' desk were signed into law.

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has allowed members of the building industry to intervene in a lawsuit that environmentalists filed regarding the San Diego Multi-Species Conservation Program (MSCP).

The developer of a proposed low-level radioactive waste dump near Needles has won the right to sue the State of California for damages.

An en banc panel of the Ninth U.S. District Court of Appeals has upheld an Indian tribe's right to regulate timber harvesting on privately owned land within an Indian reservation. The ruling was a reversal of a ruling issued last year by a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit, and an affirmation of the district court's original decision (see CP&DR Legal Digest, November 2000).

Contains list of major land use bills that were approved by the California State Legislature in 2001.

Planning is essentially the process of analyzing people and places, and nothing informs that process more than the decennial Census. This past summer, California's newspapers were filled with the first important round of Census 2000 data – detailed information about population and housing counts, age and race profiles, and household size. This is called the "SF1" data – the Summary File 1 data, derived from the "short form" filled out by Americans in April 2000.

There are probably no two words that can get a planning commission or community more worked up than these: big box. Any self-respecting planner would agree that the Wal-Marts and the Home Depots of the world present a challenge to good suburban design, but one still has to wonder why so many collective hands are wringing.

An environmental impact report for a proposed Oakland International Airport expansion has been found flawed on numerous grounds by the First District Court of Appeal. The court held that the Port of Oakland, which operates the airport, relied on outdated air pollution information, did not support its decision not to study health risks related to that air pollution, and failed to analyze adequately nighttime noise impacts.