Articles

An advertising company should have challenged Caltrans' mid-1970s cancellation of billboard permits many years ago, the First District Court of Appeal ruled in March. The court rejected the company's attempt to revive the permits on grounds that the permits were not properly canceled in the first place.

The California Supreme Court has dropped its review of a business tax case from San Diego after deciding the court should not hear the case after all. The action means that the Fourth District Court of Appeal decision that exempted a tax on residential rentals from Proposition 218 remains in effect. However, the opinion will go unpublished.

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld a lower court's ruling against the Mohave Valley Irrigation & Drainage District in a water rights battle against the Interior Department. At dispute was an allegedly ambiguous contract regarding the western Arizona district's Colorado River water rights.

Judy Corbett is executive director of the Local Government Commission, a nonprofit organization whose members include elected officials, and city and county staff members. The commission provides forums and technical assistance to assist local agencies in a variety of subject areas. In 1991, the commission, working with architects and planners, produced the Ahwahnee Principles for community and regional planning. The Ahwahnee Principles provide an alternative to what the authors see as decades of

The City of West Hollywood had the authority under the Vehicle Code to turn a through road into a cul-de-sac to accommodate a development, the Second District Court of Appeal has ruled. The court rejected project opponents' contention that the city had to prove that the street was no longer needed for vehicular traffic.

The railroad has been a force in American urbanism since the Iron Horse first pushed its way across the Western prairies and mountain ranges. Many Western towns, including Laramie and Cheyenne in Wyoming, were founded by the Union Pacific Railroad during the late 1860s on its drive to complete the Transcontinental Railroad. In other cases, small towns like Omaha, Nebraska, became big cities almost overnight, when thousands of men who worked for the railroad poured into town, followed by the peop

New conflict-of-interest rules promulgated by the Fair Political Practices Commission went into effect in February, and many changes affect public officials who make land use decisions. The rule changes come at a time when land use scandals appear to be at a new peak, with one staff planner pleading guilty to soliciting bribes and the planning director in another city facing a trial on bribery charges (see sidebar).

List of recent scandals in various California planning departments, commissions, etc.

The new U.S. Census figures tell us that California is growing, which we knew. But the Census also reveals that California is changing in ways we may not have recognized – and that may mean that we no longer have the luxury of planning our communities the way we used to.

Redevelopment of closed military bases in the City of Alameda is moving forward thanks to the settlement of a lawsuit filed by affordable housing advocates and environmentalists. The settlement clears the way for a 600-unit housing development and a 1.3-million-square-foot business park at the former U.S. Navy Fleet Industrial Supply Center. Meanwhile, the city is in the process of choosing a master developer for about one-third the 2,600-acre former Alameda Naval Air Station.

A Santa Monica law limiting occupancy of second units to relatives and domestic employees has been thrown out by the Second District Court of Appeal. The unanimous three-judge panel ruled that the city's second-unit ordinance violated privacy and equal protection rights.

A billboard company jumped the gun when it claimed two of its proposed signs were "deemed approved" because of delays by the City of Los Angeles, the Second District Court of Appeal has ruled. The unanimous three-judge panel upheld a trial court's dismissal of a lawsuit filed by Eller Media Company.

Regulators with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (COE) traditionally have explained their agency's role in protecting the nation's waterways by saying it had authority over "anything bigger than a duck's butt."