Articles

The City of Los Angeles' slum abatement program is categorically exempt from the California Environmental Quality Act, the Second District Court of Appeal has ruled.

A state appellate court has greatly reduced the amount of damages that San Diego County must pay to a landowner in an inverse condemnation case. The court reduced a jury's award of $646,000 by $187,000 and directed the trial court to reconsider other costs included in the award.

Much of the history of architecture consists of architects making copies of notable buildings, and planners making copies of town plans, all while altering the originals to fit the situation at hand. Thus, Roman temples become Midwestern banks, the Palladian villas of Vicenza, Italy, become the Colonial buildings of the Eastern Seaboard, and a French monastery designed by Le Corbusier becomes the Sunkist building in the San Fernando Valley. It goes without saying, perhaps, that

The Port of Oakland is scheduled to begin work late this month on a $260 million dredging project that will expand the port's capabilities and cement the facility's position as the cargo shipping center for Northern California. The project is only one of many the port district is pursuing that could eventually bring more than 10,000 industrial, retail, service and white-collar jobs to Oakland.

Faced with big growth pressures, the small coastal community of Half Moon Bay is engaged in high political drama while dealing with a knotty set of planning problems. The city has approved several controversial developments, but it is also considering a way to limit development on thousands of old, substandard lots. Half Moon Bay also continues to struggle with how to operate under growth control initiatives and is receiving pressure from the Coastal Commission to update its Local Coastal Plan (LCP).

Everybody knows there are lots of lots in California. And there's always been lots of controversy about what you can do with your lots. But now there's lots of controversy about the more basic question of what is a lot and what is not. Jurisdictions all over the state are dealing with the question of how to handle old parcels that don't meet current standards. Increasingly, however, localities are facing big property owners who are asserting something a little different – the idea that big c

Like many types of affordable housing, farmworker housing has received a substantial boost during the last 15 months thanks to an unprecedented level of state spending. However, the picture for California's agricultural workers is not all bright because the state cash has arrived after many grower-provided housing units have closed. And local opposition to farmworker housing persists, even in communities that are primarily agricultural.

Buffeted by competition from lower priced imports, snarled in a tangle of environmental regulations, besieged by sprawling cities and suburbs, America's small family farmers can be forgiven for feeling like members of an endangered species.

A lawsuit challenging a Southern California water agency's purchase of a private water company has been reinstated by the Second District Court of Appeal.

In the session that ended Sept. 14, the California Legislature has passed bills that would strengthen the connection between water supply and land use planning, place restrictions on how long redevelopment agencies can keep operating, and shut down the "certificates of compliance" loophole in the Subdivision Map Act being used by Hearst Ranch and others. The question of whether Gov. Gray Davis will sign the subdivision and redevelopment bills in particular is sparking keen interest in land-use circles.

Two Southern California redevelopment agencies have lost separate lawsuits over the allocation of property tax revenue from redevelopment project areas.

The U.S. Supreme Court will decide a case in which Lake Tahoe property owners allege that a temporary building moratorium amounted to an unconstitutional taking.

A Clinton-era Interior Department policy that delayed endangered species petitions filed by the public has been thrown out by the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The unanimous three-judge panel agreed with environmentalists who said the policy improperly stalled consideration of plants and animals that could qualify for protected status.