CP&DR Vol. 34 No. 4 April 2019

Settling a court battle, downtown San Diego’s semi-independent planning agency, Civic San Diego , will lose much of its authority. The settlement ends a years-long legal battle between the city and Martusa Baxamusa, a former Civic San Diego board member who alleged that the agency lacked oversight and abused its powers by expediting approvals for certain developers. Civic San Diego, which arose out of the dissolution of the state’s redevelopment agencies, has agreed to transfer powers back to the city, including its planning and permitting of downtown projects and its administration over the downtown parking district. The city continues to deny any wrongdoing, and claims the settlement is a positive step. “We’re pleased with this tentative settlement agreement, which will elevate the planning and permitting services the city provides to our urban neighborhoods,” city spokesperson Katie Keach told the San Diego Union Tribune. “This agreement will enhance our efforts to tackle the housing crisis, create jobs and improve the quality of life in our communities.” Water Board Adopts New Rules for “Waters of the State" The State Water Resources Control Board adopted new definitions and procedures for waters of the state. This is the board’s latest effort to safeguard the existing water regulatory process against the Trump administration's current efforts to scale back the reach of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineer’s regulatory powers. The new rules , entitled "Procedures for Discharges of Dredged or Fill Material to Waters of the State", strengthens protections for "waters of the state" and develops uniform definitions and procedures across California's Regional Water Quality Control Boards for regulating discharges of dredged or fill materials. Notably, the change formally adopts the Corps’ expansive definition of “wetlands,” which will strengthen protections for arid portions of the state not covered under federal jurisdiction. It also establishes a regulatory process for the submission, review, and approval of applications to discharge dredge or fill material to "waters of the state.” Feds Pass Drought Plan; Imperial Irrigation District Sues The same day Senate and House approval seemed to conclude the long-negotiated seven-state Colorado Drought Contingency Plan, California’s Imperial Irrigation District (IID) sued to block the plan. IID's lawsuit, filed in a state court, asks for further environmental review before the plan’s approval. IID has repeatedly refused to agree to the plan until the federal government provides $200 million to restore the at-risk Salton Sea. Earlier this year, California’s other prominent water agency, the Metropolitan Water District (MWD), agreed to take over IID's delivery cuts in order to move the plan forward. Additionally, California Senator Dianne Feinstein committed to work with the Department of Agriculture to help IID find the funds it needs to restore the Salton Sea. Despite IID’s latest bid to halt the agreement, MWD’s director Jeffrey Kightlinger is confident that the plan’s final signing ceremony will still take place in the coming weeks. “I don’t think the lawsuit changes anything on the ground,” he told the Los Angeles Times. (See prior CP&DR commentary .) More Cities Come into Compliance with New Housing Laws The Department of Housing and Development (HCD) announced that cities and counties are making progress toward compliance with state housing laws. HCD attributes the uptick to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s February meeting with mayors from non-compliant cities and counties. Since this meeting, three of these cities have become compliant, and 14 others have committed to specific actions toward compliance, or submitted drafts. "Strong local planning is key to building a California for All, and the progress thus far is encouraging," said Department of Housing and Community Development Director Ben Metcalf in the release. "We are seeing meaningful efforts by cities and counties that weren't in compliance to get back on-track and plan to meet the housing needs in their communities.” Quick Hits & Updates The California Air Resources Board (CARB) released its annual report analyzing the state’s 2018 investments from cap and trade funds in the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GGRF). Last year, the state invested $1.4 billion in various projects to reduce the effects of climate change on California communities – over double the total 2017 investment. CARB estimates that the 2018 investments will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by almost 37 million metric tons. This amounts to about what would be produced by burning four billion gallons of diesel fuel, or “roughly equivalent to taking eight million cars off the road for a year.” San Francisco District Four Supervisor Gordon Mar proposed a resolution to block Senator Scott Weiner’s SB 50, which will increase density and allow for taller buildings near transit hubs. Mar represents the city’s Sunset District, which notably contains predominantly low-density, single-family housing. Mar’s opposition claims that Weiner’s bill doesn’t contain affordability provisions and displacement protections – but Weiner responded that the opposite is true. Meanwhile, the Los Angeles City Council voted unanimously to oppose Sen. Scott Weiner’s SB 50 housing bill, arguing that the bill would create more market-rate housing without protecting or promoting affordable housing.  To Mountain View Whisman school board unanimously approved a $56 million agreement to lease out a 144-unit subsidized apartment buildings for its employees for the next 55 years at least. This move makes the Whisman school district one of a growing number of bay area districts that are using affordable housing as a tool to attract and retain top talent for its workforce. The Mountain View Environmental Planning Commission will review the plan at its April 17 meeting, and it will go before the city council for final approval May 7.  A poll conducted by Mercury News and the Silicon Valley Leadership Group revealed that nearly two-thirds of Bay Area residents believe that quality of life has gotten worse in the past five years. Respondents cite high housing prices, traffic jams, and high homelessness rates among the reasons for worsened conditions. Forty-four percent of the polls respondents report plans to move away from the area in the next few years, and 6 percent plan to leave the area this year.  The Santa Cruz City Council is considering invoking eminent domain to claim several private properties for a highway expansion project. The city has completed design plans for key expansions in high-traffic areas of Highway 1 and Highway 9, and, and if it fails to begin construction by 2020 it risks losing funding from a State Transportation Improvement grant. City officials estimate that in order to make that date, they need agreements with all property owners by July. To justify the purchase, the city must also make the case that the claim is necessary and in the public good. The California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) released SB 2 Planning Grants Program Notice of Funding Availability (NOFA) for approximately $123 million. The Planning Grants Program provides one-time, over-the-counter grants to local governments to update a variety of planning documents and processes that streamline housing approvals and accelerate housing production. Over-the-counter applications will be accepted for an eight-month period ending November 30. A new report shows that San Francisco surpassed New York as the world’s most expensive place to build. According to the report, conducted by consulting company Turner & Townsend, costs rose because of an increase in demand from the tech sector, a shortage in construction labor, and a spike in steel prices attributed to U.S. and China tariffs.  The City and County of San Francisco entered into a $500,000 agreement with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory for information and planning assistance to safeguard the city against future weather extremes, including heat waves and storms. This is a first-of-its-kind local agreement between city officials and local researchers; typically, municipalities use national weather and climate data for their planning analyses. City officials hope it will help them decide where to direct future infrastructure investments, including fortifying San Francisco International Airport, upgrading highway drainage, and re-engineering seawalls. The Fresno County Local Agency Formation Commission approved adding a new 1,035-acre area to Clovis's northeast side.  More than 500 acres of the land are already designated in the city’s general plan for business development, with another 325 acres for residential projects and 225 acres of parkland and open space.  Consultants for the city projected that by the time it is built out in 2035, the area could generate about 6,100 jobs. California cities are eligible to apply for up to $200,000 in grants under Proposition 68 , the $4 million parks and water bond from the California Department of Parks and Recreation. To apply for the grants, cities must respond to the Department’s mailed letter seeking information for fund allocation by June 3rd. After this, the grantee must submit an adopted resolution to the Office of Grants and Local Services (OGALS by November 1, 2019; the grantee must submit the application to OGALS by January 31, 2020; and the OGALS contract must be signed and submitted back to OGALS by March 31, 2020. More information can be found on the department’s webpage. Representatives of the Port of Oakland’s maritime industry raised concerns about the Oakland A’s new waterfront ballpark plan. Port commissioners are currently negotiating a deal for the baseball team to acquire Howard Terminal on the Oakland Inner Harbor, and install a 34,000-seat stadium and housing project. However, groups like the Pacific Merchant Shipping Association and San Francisco Bar Pilots Association are concerned about ship safety from decreased visibility around the site, and about the future economic viability of the port itself. The California Natural Resources Agency will be accepting project proposals for the Environmental Enhancement and Mitigation Program from April 12, 2019 through June 17, 2019. Approximately $6.7 million in awards will be funded by this program. Applicants submitting the most competitive proposals will be invited to participate in the next level of the process in  late summer or early fall 2019.  The California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) and the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research (OPR) announced the release of the SB 2 Planning Grants Program Notice of Funding Availability   for approximately $123 million. The Planning Grants Program provides one-time, over-the-counter grants to local governments to update a variety of planning documents and processes that streamline housing approvals and accelerate housing production. Over-the-counter applications will be accepted for an eight-month period ending on November 30, 2019. HCD’s technical assistance team will work closely with regions, sub-regions, and counties to help jurisdictions identify activities and provide tools that will accelerate housing production. A recent Ecological Journal study found that two Southern California mountain lion species could go extinct within 50 years. The study cites a precipitous decline in genetic diversity caused by inbreeding issues: The apex predators face major man-made blockers to their roaming needs in the form of freeways, cities, and private properties. The study’s authors urge Los Angeles County to construct wildlife land bridges over major freeways and wildlife corridors around private areas to help intermix two declining populations. The U.S. Department of Housing and Development approved $124 million in recovery funds for the 2017 California wildfires and mudslides. These funds support the state of California’s disaster action plan, which will address outstanding housing, business, and infrastructure damage in affected Southern California counties. The San Luis Obispo County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved an overhaul of its inclusionary housing ordinance, with updates promising to generate as much as $1 million per year. The existing ordinance, which required developers to build affordable units or pay fees for affordable unit construction,  only raised $25,000 per year. The updated fines will apply to construction of all new homes, rather than only to multiple-home developments. It also tiers the fees based on the development’s size – generating more revenue for with each increase in square footage. The Los Angeles City Council settled a court case securing the property rights of homeless people in the Skid Row area. The rare non-unanimous 10-2 decision, applauded by homeless advocates throughout the city, maintains a 2016 injunction that prevents police and city workers from confiscating possessions of homeless people without notice.  California cities earned top-20 spots in the Trust for Public Land’s 2018 dog park rankings : Oakland and San Francisco claimed 7th and 8th, respectively, Sacramento claimed 18th, and Bakersfield and Long Beach tied for 19th. The rankings measure the number of dog parks per 100,00 residents. Bay Area job growth accounted for 81 percent of new jobs in the state of California in the first two months of 2019, according to the state Employment Development Department. So far this year, the state of California has added 20,500 jobs, and 16,600 came from the Bay Area. These numbers are  driven in most part  by rapid hiring in the tech sector.  San Francisco’s New Housing Inventory Report showed that housing construction in the city declined by 41 percent in 2018, to only 2,600 units. However, more than 3,000 new units authorized this year remained unbuilt – which may signify that new homes built will increase in future years. Notably, the report also found that only one-quarter of these new units were affordable, down 56 percent from last year. The Commission on Catastrophic Wildfire Cost and Recovery has released a request for comments on a number of questions related to wildfire liability. All comments will play an important role in informing the Commission’s report to the legislature. Stakeholders can respond on the  Governor's Office of Planning and Research (OPR) website . Responses are encouraged by 5:00 pm on Monday, April 22 to help inform the next Commission meeting on Monday, April 29.

State telecommunications law doesn’t pre-empt local governments’ ability to regulate telecommunications facilities through typical zoning ordinances, the California Supreme Court has ruled.

An appellate court has rejected a San Rafael-area quarry’s attempt to expand its non-conforming use status by importing recycled asphalt and other materials. Even though the activity would promote recycling – and Marin County approved the expanded activity on the theory that it would not have any additional environmental impact – the First District Court of Appeal concluded that the additional approvals violated the county’s non-conforming use ordinance. San Rafael Rock Quarry and its predecessor companies have quarried rock on Point San Pedro Road in the San Rafael area since the 1940s. In 1982, Marin County rezoned the property for commercial and residential use, rendering the quarry operation as non-conforming. Under the non-conforming status, the quarry could produce asphaltic concrete only from material mined onsite. In 2013, SRRQ sought an expansion of its county mining permit to be able to use recycled material in its production processes. Marin County approved a two-year amendment and then, in 2015, a two- to four-year amendment. The county was sued by the Point San Pedro Road Coalition, a coalition of homeowner associations surrounding the quarry that was created in 1999 primarily to monitor its operations. The coalition argued that the amended permit was not permissible under the quarry’s non-conforming use status. The coalition’s first lawsuit failed because the group had not exhausted all administrative remedies by going to the state mining board first, but the second time around the coalition’s suit survived that hurdle. On appeal, the First District Court of Appeal ruled in favor of the coalition and against the county and SRRQ. “The record demonstrates, as the trial court explained, that SRRQ’s proposed processing of asphalt grindings cannot be equated with the processing of on-site mined materials and imported sand that was used in the production of asphaltic concrete at the time the use became nonconforming under the 1982 zoning ordinance,” wrote Justice Ioana Petrou for a unanimous three-judge panel. “The processing of the asphalt grindings involves more than the mere substitution of one type of raw material for another, which is then stockpiled and fed into existing equipment to be used in the production of asphaltic concrete. Instead, the processing of asphalt grindings involves new full truckloads of asphalt grindings traveling to the site.” The county had argued that the importation of material would not lead to any significant environmental impacts, including no new truck trips, but Justice Petrou essentially found that argument to be irrelevant. The court also concluded that denial of the permit would not affect the quarry’s current, legally permissible operations in any way. Speaking to the Marin Independent Journal, SRRQ lamented the notion that the nearby residents would not permit the company to pursue environmentally laudable recycling goals, while the Coalition said the ruling affirmed their longstanding view that Marin County has engaged in lax oversight of the quary. The Case: Point San Pedro Road Coalition v. County of Marin, No. A150002 (issued March 6, 2019; ordered published April 3, 2019). The Lawyers: For Point San Pedro Road Coalition: John D. Edgcomb, Edgcomb Law Group, jedgcomb@edgcomb-law.com For Marin County and San Rafael Rock Quarry: Michael Zischke, Cox Castle Nicholson, mzischke@coxcastle.com

Five-hundred miles inland from the Pacific Ocean, the Colorado River calms down, widens, and flattens somewhere between the gorges of Glen Canyon and the Grand Canyon. It was there that John Lee, a guilty party in the Mountain Meadows Massacre, set up a ferry service. He proceeded to raise his 56 children, with his 19 wives, before being prosecuted and facing a firing squad in 1877. It was the only crossing of the river for hundreds of miles, connecting one wasteland to another. Today, Lees Ferry, in what is now Arizona, does not so much connect as divide. It marks the boundary between the Upper Colorado Basin and the Lower Colorado Basin. The Upper includes most of the mountains and tributaries that make the Colorado what historian Marc Reisner called “The American Nile.” The Lower Basin is an arid Purgatory through which the water travels on its way to the sea. Hydrology and geography distinguish the basins from each other, with Lees Ferry as good a boundary as any other. The river gets 93 percent of its water from the Upper Basin. But, a miracle of regulation and legislation has made Lees Ferry the very fulcrum on which the entire American West balances. It marks the boundary between where the water comes from and where the water goes. You can appreciate how special a place Lees Ferry is when you consider the hydrological fury that enabled the Colorado to churn through the Kaibab Plateau – a fury matched only by the imagination of America’s 20 th century engineers. Hoover Dam and Glen Canyon Dam collectively restrain up to 35 million acre-feet, or half of the system’s total storage capacity and more than twice the river’s average annual flow. The 1922 Colorado Compact , supplemented by further regulations that are collectively called the Law of the River, achieves two things: first, it codifies the amount of Colorado River water available for human use; second, it apportions that water. Back in 1922, when all seven Colorado Basin states had a combined population smaller than Los Angeles County today, an equal distribution between the upper and lower basins probably seemed like no big deal. California received 4.4 million acre-feet, to Arizona’s enduring consternation. Needless to say, there was no EIS. In total, the compact allocates 7.5 million acre-feet for each basin, plus 1.5 million for Mexico. The Colorado’s long-term average annual flow amounts to, at most, 14 million acre-feet, and much less during the recent 20-year drought. What could go wrong? Just as a lucky drop of water that makes its way to the Sea of Cortez – or, these days to the Tijuana Aqueduct—can trace its path all the way to a peak in Rocky Mountain National Park, so can the American Southwest trace its existence back to the raising of dams, the signing of the compact, and, indeed, the first explorations of the river, most famously by John Wesley Powell in 1860. Before then, the history of the river belonged to Native tribes, whose influence over the river has been reduced to a trickle. While California is plenty thick with history, the typical Californian probably doesn’t think about it very much. But in every panel at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy’s Journalists Forum, hosted by the Babbitt Center for Land and Water Policy in Phoenix a few weeks ago, I couldn’t help thinking about the connection between the swimming pools of Orange County, the lawns of the Inland Empire, the golf courses of the Coachella Valley, and that crossing where John Lee found his refuge. Every day, we are drinking, bathing in, and flushing down his legacy. The forum focused on the Colorado in exquisite detail. By some account, the Colorado is the most regulated, engineered waterway in the world (rivaled, perhaps, by the Sacramento Bay-Delta). It offers no end of discussion topics. And yet, no topic could be more simple: water starts in one place, succumbs to gravity, and ends up in another. In the case of the Colorado, 40 million people siphon it off along the way, and 5.5 million acres are irrigated by it. What makes the Colorado so surreal for Californians is that the vast majority of users don’t even live in the Colorado Basin. While much of California’s allotment stays close to the river, irrigating the fields of the Imperial Valley and then percolating (insufficiently) into the Salton Sea, that which is dedicated to residential use is pumped westward by the Metropolitan Water District and shared among its 26 member agencies and 19 million municipal customers. Water influences urban planning only in the broadest sense. It doesn’t tell us where to build or in what configuration. But it determines how many of us can live here. I suppose the average Californian doesn’t have to know or care where his water comes from. I wouldn’t blame anyone for being confused by our concoction of cities, water districts, aquifers, and aqueducts. And yet, the discussion – intense, detailed, contentious, and, despite plenty of good faith, without consensus – suggests that we really ought to pay attention, either to weigh in on political solutions, embrace conservation methods, or at least pay due reverence to nature’s largesse. Farmers can surely do their part, and cities can too. Urban planners can’t change the Law of the River, but they influence over the ways people live and, indirectly, over the amounts of water they consume. They can design places that are sprawling or compact. Places that have shared green space or backyards. Places that pave over nature or that leave it be. Places that remember Lees Ferry or places that function as if water is just another abundant gift from a benevolent god. I can’t help thinking about how water relates to something we obsess about almost constantly: traffic. Traffic is artificial and chaotic. It has no origin and no history. It goes every which way at all times. It seemingly knows no limits, and it cannot exist without infrastructure. It turns all of us into mutual enemies. That’s why, I suppose, I like thinking about the river. I like thinking about its past. I like thinking about its course, determined by axioms of gravity and geology. I like thinking about its connection to nature and about the ways that it forces people to collaborate. I don’t enjoy thinking about dams, canals, or water policy. I don’t enjoy thinking about the drought. But I – and all of us – need to think about them. We need to think about how we can share our resources fairly and how we can prepare for perpetual drought. (Congress recently approved an agreement, miraculously hashed out by all seven Colorado Basin states, to allocate river water in times of drought.) The thing about a fulcrum is, you can find a balance. But you have to consider the load: with too much weight, the rod snaps in half; the scaffold collapses. If California and its neighbors keep consuming at their current rates, the West will face a catastrophe as if the Hoover Dam burst, but so slowly that no one noticed it was happening. It’s easy to forget that accomplishments we consider mostly permanent rely on something ephemeral, nearly invisible, and only partly controllable. Notwithstanding the recent drought agreement, the Colorado Compact isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. Western water policy depends on seven competing entities that all, essentially, have veto power, just as it has for the past 97 years. Water supply, especially the amount that flows past Lees Ferry, depends on the water gods, just as it has for the past five billion years. Photo courtesy of U.S. Geological Survey via Flickr .

SAN FRANCISCO, April 15--As UCLA and UC-Berkeley planning professor Michael Storper contends in his book , the cities of the Bay Area enjoy an unexpected sense of unity. Rather than be divided by the San Francisco Bay, retreating to their own peninsulas, dells, and tidal marshes, the Bay Area cities find common ground – or, rather, common water – in the bay. They can literally see each other, and they all have to cooperate to navigate over, under, around, and through it. Of course, the Bay Area extends far beyond the bay itself. But at this morning’s session at the American Planning Association’s National Planning Conference , held this weekend in San Francisco, the unity of the greater Bay Area was on display. Eight directors of planning (and/or community development) came together on a panel, following a daylong session Friday, convened by the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy , in which they met to discuss, confer, and commiserate with each other.  They hailed from a representative set of cities, from the region’s heavyweights – San Jose, San Francisco, and Oakland – to suburbs and even a semi-rural exurb. Midsize cities like Concord and San Carlos are figuring out how to become more urban without enraging their longstanding residents while traditionally slow-growth cities like Palo Alto and San Rafael are trying to figure out how to be conservative while, at the same time, projecting a progressive image. (The major absence was that of an industrial city, such as Martinez or Fremont, and that of an exclusive suburb, such as Woodside or Orinda.) The discussion centered on some of the region’s agreed-upon challenges, like housing, as well as discussions of cities’ unique situations. Participants included Oakland Planning Director William Gilchrist; former Palo Alto Planning Director Hillary Gitelman (now with Environmental Science Associates); San Jose Planning Director Rosalyn Hughey; San Rafael Community Development Director Paul Jensen; Concord Community and Economic Development Director Andrea Ouse; San Francisco Planning Director John Rahaim; San Carlos Community and Economic Development Director Al Savay; and Dixon Community Development Director Dina Tasini.  Here are a few excerpts:  Local Conditions and Local Character Gilchrist, Oakland: Oakland has been going through a discovery, an epiphany of sorts around real estate for workplace, commercial, retail, and housing. Oakland is a fascinating city in terms of its culture and its history. We have about an even distribution across demographic groups of white, black, Asian, and Latino. Displacement is a concern for communities of color and for the very place-based nature of the culture.  It’s amazing moment of transformation in Oakland. The jury is clearly out on what the city will look like 5-10 years down the road.  Jensen, San Rafael: Marin County is the least populated county in the Bay Area, except for Napa County. It spans about 500 square miles, but the population is about 260,000. I don’t want to offend anybody, but Marin County is very old and very white. It’s not very diverse. It’s very affluent, and very well educated. It’s also very liberal, except when it comes to land development. The county is notorious for anti-growth, no growth policies. So it’s always a challenge to get housing development approved. The one exception is San Rafael. It's the true county seat. 60,000 in population. We do have some level of diversity. Twenty percent of the city is Latino. Gitelman, Palo Alto: It’s a beautiful leafy suburb, and I would characterize the political environment as being conflicted about change, very suspicious of regionalism, and very troubled by the state of California’s efforts to impose solutions to our housing crisis from above.  Hughey, San Jose: We are the biggest city in the Bay Area, I like to remind my colleagues of that. We are over 1 million people and growing every day. Our general plan population projections call for an additional 470,000 new residents by 2040. Last I checked, we are right on track. We are adding about 1,000 new residents each month.  San Jose has, over the years, been the bedroom community for the Bay Area. We had historically built housing for people working up and down the Peninsula and throughout the Bay Area. We built a lot of single-family development. Our land use map is a sea of yellow: low-density development.  Ouse, Concord: There is a transformation going on from '50s postwar suburb with low-density residential to more a urban context. We’re experiencing sort of a conflict between old-time residents who want more of a suburban feel and urban folks who might have been priced out of cities close to SF coming in and looking at the community from a different lens.  Rahaim, San Francisco: The issue that for me overrides all (else) is, how do we grow without displacement? The city is extraordinarily challenged by the displacement crisis. The Mission District is probably ground zero for these issues. It has lost 8,000 Latinos. This is not normal, organic neighborhood change. This is way beyond that. Savay, San Carlos: Many cities in Silicon Valley are going through cathartic and rapid transformation. Twenty years ago, downtown was dead. Everything closed at five o’clock. And there were no kids. It was a graying community. As Silicon Valley’s fortunes rose, so did San Carlos’s. All these young, high tech workers started to figure out San Carlos. These young people started to move to San Carlos and have kids.  We’ll be able to make our housing supply numbers by 2030, but we’re seeing displacement of manufacturing jobs and skilled labor and restaurant workers. With all this pressure, how do we keep our character and our soul? That’s the big question right now, and it’s the big question for the Bay Area. How do we respond to this rapid growth and success and keep our character and soul?  Tasini, Dixon: I thought to myself, how do I fit in with these big, dynamic, sexy cities? Then there’s me, little Dixon, with 19,000 people. Forty percent are white, and 60 percent are Latino. Our zoning map is 75 percent yellow. The other part is a mix of other things that haven’t really driven us to lots of success. Housing Gitelman, Palo Alto: The housing crisis in the region has gotten so severe, even Palo Alto wants to pitch in and do their part. But we want to do it our way: not the way ABAG / MTC says and not the way the state says. Jensen, San Rafael: We have housing stock that is primarily single-family. We have a very progressive, pro-housing city council. We had a retreat to discuss what to do to promote housing. We identified obstacles: we found out that the process was antiquated and difficult. So we made a switch in how we handle our housing review. Now they go to Planning Commission at the front end of a project review to sign off on basic things like density, building height, and environmental clearance. Hughey, San Jose: While we are still trying to attract jobs, we are in the middle of a housing crisis. We committed to building the housing to serve our residents and the whole Bay Area. Rahaim, San Francisco: To give you an indication of why we have the housing crisis we have in the city: the city has grown by 80,000 people since 2010 and 170,000 jobs since 2010. We have built less than 25,000 housing units. This can be replicated across the region and across the state, this imbalance between job creation, population growth, and housing production.  The jobs-housing balance issue has become more acute throughout the region. In the city, we have about 800,000 jobs and 400,000 housing units. It creates this incredible imbalance.  The challenge we all have is the opposition to housing growth and the change of “neighborhood character.” There's this belief that if you don't build housing, people won’t come. That’s just not true. It’s never been true.  Tasini, Dixon: We have one thing that other people don’t have, which is a large swath of affordable housing. You can still buy a home for under $400,000. We have about 1,300 homes proposed for the next 10 years. Commuting, Transit, and TOD Gilchrist, Oakland: We are a hub for the transit system. All the BART lines converge in Oakland. We’re looking at that as an untapped resource that we haven’t taken full advantage of.  Gitelman, Palo Alto: Palo Alto has about 65,000 residents. That triples during the daytime. We’re very job-intensive, about three jobs for every employed resident in Palo Alto. That’s an issue. A lot of traffic, and the community feels that in terms of their quality of life.  Hughey, San Jose: We have a great opportunity to address the imbalance of housing and jobs: Diridon Station is a commuter hub. BART is being extended to Diridon Station. We hope to have HSR one day. This area will be the largest multimodal transit hub west of the Mississippi River. This is obviously a game-changer or the city to have all of this transit investment coming into Diridon and downtown. (See prior CP&DR coverage .) Ouse, Concord: We have a Downtown Specific Plan. The keystone of downtown is Todos Santos Plaza, which is a lovely town square in walking distance of the Downtown Concord BART. The specific plan contemplates enhancing that downtown vis-a-vis additional housing units, in some areas up to 200 per acre, with high rise, high-density. Tasini, Dixon: Sacramento is only 25 miles away and is a wonderful place. Davis is 8 miles away. We haven’t really used our region and the fact that we are in the dumbbell. A Large portion of my population is driving to the Bay Area. They sit in their cars for two hours because we don’t have jobs. I’m trying to address that jobs-housing balance. Development Gilchrist, Oakland: The economics are amazing, just the amount of dollars that are coming in now and the interest the development community has in terms of providing supply of residential. We want to do that in a way that still addresses the elasticity of the development community on the supply side. Jensen, San Rafael: Marin County is notorious for using CEQA to stop or delay projects. I’ve been involved with many lawsuits where people have challenged EIRs for this purpose. We took a chance on two large projects around train station. We brought forward a categorical exemption for both projects: we shocked some of our environmental friends, but our planning commission fully embraced it. (See prior CP&DR coverage .) Hughey, San Jose: We have targeted growth areas primarily in downtown and the Diridon Station area. We have about 68 urban villages throughout the city we’re looking to revitalize, and transform commercial corridors to target growth.  Google will be adding 20,000 jobs at Diridon Station. We are excited that they are placing a number of jobs right at a transit center where the jobs should be. This will be a brand-new urban districts, mixed use, with a host of amenities that will make it an 18- if not 24-hour living environment. We have recently updated our design guidelines for the downtown area. (See prior CP&DR coverage .) Ouse, Concord: Concord is approaching a huge transformation. One of the main drivers is our 5000-acre Naval Weapons Station, which is going to be conveyed to the city and immediately to the master developer within a year or two. 2500 acres for open space. (See prior CP&DR coverage .)  Tasini, Dixon: We have a quaint old downtown. But it has not developed in any commercial manner. We created a priority development area around downtown….to create more density there, to allow people to build second-story residential. Many residents want to age in place. We are looking at a senior community with different levels of income.  Policies Gilchrist, Oakland: We had to put the brakes on the Downtown Specific Plan about halfway through the process because the outcomes were getting seemed to be agnostic about equity.  We are kicking off environmental review for the draft Downtown Specific Plan. It’s been an awakening for how we see the city moving forward and how we can engage communities. This plan has called on us to rethink how we reach out to communities.  Gitelman, Palo Alto: The council did an experiment: In early 2018 they drafted a work plan for housing that gave them a laundry list of activities they could undertake to increase the rate of housing production. It was everything from retooling how we think of 100 percent affordable projects, a little work on our zoning ordinance, an affordable housing overlay. We had a developer interested in developing a housing project that was a mix of affordable, market rate, and housing targeted at the “missing middle." That got entitled.  Hughey, San Jose: Our general plan was last updated in 2011. At that time, it was built around the need for attracting more jobs. Our mayor and council recently approved a Housing Crisis Plan. Coordinating with a host of city departments to develop a work plan to come up with a variety of different tools to preserve affordable housing that we currently have and importantly to produce additional housing units.  We have a goal to build 25,000 new units in the next five years. We’re using a variety of tools: we already have inclusionary housing; we’ve established further protections for renters; an anti-displacement strategy that we’re working on; loosening regulations around ADUs.  Jensen, San Rafael: We’re looking to change inclusionary housing provisions. We had inclusionary housing ordinance in place since 1986. We have gone from an initial 10 percent requirement for below market-rate to 20 percent in the last 10 years. Our developer folks say they can’t pencil. We are going to be bringing forward a recommendation to scale back those percentages. We are working on a Downtown Precise Plan: large projects around transit have difficulty getting through process. We are going to a form-based code, Replacing density with floor-to-area ratio. We are also doing an EIR to support that effort so these projects can tier off that EIR in the Precise Plan. We are the poster child for fire hazard and sea level rise. We’re adding an overlay into our general plan map that we’re going to use not only as a zoning and construction tool but also as a financing tool and an area for adaptation.  Rahaim, San Francisco: San Francisco has this unique provision called Proposition M, which caps the amount of office space approved in a given year at 950,000 square feet. Right now we have 3 million square feet of space in the ‘bank’ but 7 million in the application pipeline.  We are facing this interesting situation about how we allocate this space. Who gets it? Who doesn’t get it? It’s created an interesting, challenging dynamic about how we approve development and who gives us the most goodies as a result of development.  Savay, San Carlos: Ten years ago, we were at a tipping point. We had a financial crisis. The city was ready to turn off street lights and close the library. We integrated Planning, Economic Development, Housing, and Building. We redid the general plan and zoning quickly. We did TOD around the train station. We lowered parking ratios. We increased density a bit. We aimed for 9,000 new jobs by 2030 but only build 1500 units. Everybody said that was OK. Tasini, Dixon: We are in the process of finishing off the general plan. I have decided that we shouldn’t be designating area to the northeast as solely industry. It should include mixed-use and we should look at more dense housing. That’s a bad word in my community, but the council has been supportive.  We have a very interesting problem: a state highway runs right through downtown. It’s almost like a truck route. I want to change the truck route to another street further to the east of the city so we can do some urban design downtown: expand sidewalks, have sidewalk dining, make something happen that people will go to. We are trying to discuss linkage to transportation. We cannot keep driving two hours to go to work. Members of council want to secede from the Bay Area and become part of Yolo and Sacramento counties. Regionalism Gilchrist, Oakland: I’ve been hearing a lot of analogies between what Brooklyn and Manhattan faced over the last couple of decades, where capital and investing hopping the East River and Brooklyn became more of an investment choice around real estate with all the attendant pressures and changes.  We have a common destiny. It’s going to take regional thinking to find the best path forward.  Gitelman, Palo Alto: The city was a leader in housing solutions 10-12 years ago. It was one of the first cities to have inclusionary zoning. In the past 10 years, the pipeline has slowed down. There’s controversy associated with almost every planning proposal. Voters overturned the approval of a 60-unit, affordable senior housing project. It ushered in a whole new wave of folks who didn’t really want to do anything.  Rahaim, San Francisco: I was thinking about the fact that Los Angele County was able to pass a ballot measure for $120 billion for transportation. It happens to be the largest county in the country population-wise. It has 10 million people. So L.A. County alone has more people than all nine Bay Area counties. It really points to the importance of us working together and doing exactly what we’re doing in having this conversation. None of these issues can be solved within the boundaries of our cities. As a region, we don’t spend enough time talking to each other, so it was great to spend a whole day together. Some quotations have beed edited for clarity. Quotations are not necessarily presented in the order in which they were uttered.

When the California Legislature passed Senate Bill 743, Los Angeles’s power plants still burned coal, Newhall Ranch was still defending its EIR, the Clean Water Act still covered vernal pools, and electric cars were less common than Hummers.

The American Planning Association included six California projects among its recipients for 2019 Excellence Awards and Achievement Awards, presented yesterday at the APA National Conference in San Francisco.  Carolina Martinez of the Environmental Health Coalition and the Paradise Planning Partnership in National City won the Advancing Diversity and Social Change award, one of five 2019 National Planning Excellence Awards . The project was recognized for its comprehensive plan to clean up the city's toxic living environment and provide affordable housing near transit. The APA called the Paradise Creek Partnership "one of the largest and most significant developments in National City that has become a catalyst for neighborhood revitalization….the Paradise Creek Apartments shows how fiscal policy can achieve environmental justice by extending investments to the most disadvantaged communities. Most important, Paradise Creek demonstrates community-based planning at its best, with residents working together to create the community they want to live in." Achievement Awards for best practices included the Cottage Home program in Clovis, which boosted the community’s affordable housing and San Francisco’s “Sustainable Chinatown” project, which improved affordable housing projects while also educating communities on sustainable initiatives. An Achievement Award for public outreach went to Southern California’s Go Human Pop-Up Events, which raised awareness of traffic safety and helped communities reimagine new street infrastructure. Finally, an award for transportation planning went to the Lake Tahoe community spanning Nevada and California for its transportation implementation plan which used cell phone data rather than traffic data to create a clearer picture of travelers through the region.  San Diego Sued for Attempt to Reduce Downtown Parking Requirements  An advocacy group sued the City of San Diego for its measure to eliminate parking requirements for future developments, claiming that the measure passed without necessary environmental reviews. The ordinance, approved by the city council in March, removes the typical parking space requirements for multi-family homes built within a half-mile of transit hubs. San Diego mayor Kevin Faulkener touts the measure as a necessary step to drive down housing costs and increase the use of mass transit. But the group that filed the lawsuit, CREED 21, argues that the measure is premature, and that the city should improve public transportation before restricting parking. Mayoral hopeful Kevin Briggs leads this group. “Taking away parking spaces and forcing people to give up their cars so developers can build luxury high-rise condos in every neighborhood is no way to help hard-working San Diegans make ends meet,” Briggs told NBC 7. “It is a recipe for gridlock, air pollution, and gentrification.” Newsom Relaxes Environmental Rules to Prepare for Wildfires  Following two consecutive years of record-breaking wildfires, Governor Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency to waive environmental regulations on 35 forest management projects. The governor cited a February Cal Fire report that recommended streamlining environmental regulations to mitigate future wildfire risk. This would expedite fuel reduction measures such as the removal of dead trees and brush clearance to create fuel breaks and defensible space around communities. Experts refute the notion that logging and fuel breaks will reduce risk of fire, arguing instead for fire mitigation efforts that focus one homes – such as replacing flammable roof material and clearing vegetation around buildings. In total, the projects will cost $35 million. The governor’s office also reported an impending announcement for a $50 million community awareness campaign to protect homes. “The increasing wildfire risks we face as a state means we simply can’t wait until a fire starts in order to start deploying emergency resources,” Newsom said in his announcement, as reported by the L.A. Times. “California needs sustained focus and immediate action in order to better protect our communities.” Sacramento Approves Package to Lure MLS Team, Build Railyards Stadium In advance of Major League Soccer’s upcoming vote to expand its franchise, the Sacramento City Council unanimously approved a $33 million incentive package to build infrastructure around a planned $252 million downtown railyards stadium. This is the latest move in Sacramento's ongoing efforts to lure a team, with Sacramento and St. Louis considered frontrunners in the expansion bid. The incentive package is comprehensive: it includes $5.4 million of development fee waivers and tax rebates, and will create a special financing district around the stadium site to capture tax revenue to pay for its $27.2 million in proposed infrastructure. It also promises that the city would build that infrastructure – including streets, walkways, and sewers – and would then rebate future property taxes to cover the costs. Finally, the city would rewrite its sign ordinance to allow the team to build six digital display boards throughout the city. City officials will present this package to franchise officials in Los Angeles before they make their selection. “We’ve checked all the boxes,” Mayor Darrell Steinberg told the Sacramento Bee. “We have demonstrated to the league that we want this. We are absolutely the right choice for the league.” Study Finds Loss of Thousands of Affordable Units in L.A. County The California Housing Partnership  found that between 1997 and 2018, 5,256 affordable units in Los Angeles County were converted to market rate – making up over one-third of the 15,044 affordable units converted statewide. Many affordable units are built through the federal Low-income Housing Tax Credit program, which grants tax breaks to developers of low-income units. But these tax credits expire after 10 years, and some owners are allowed to convert units to market rate after 30 years. The report estimates that at least 14 Los Angeles developments built in the 1980s and early 1990s have soon-to-expire affordability agreements, putting an additional 12,121 homes at risk of losing their affordability status. Authors of the report urge local leaders to strike deals with developers to prevent the conversion of existing affordable units. Quick Hits & Updates  A poll by Change Research showed that 61 percent of Bay Area respondents support Senator Scott Weiner’s SB 50 transit-housing bill. SB 50, which recently passed its first committee in Sacramento, proposes changing zoning codes to build taller denser structures near public transit and increase affordable housing and tenant protections. The survey, which reached 3,379 Californians, was conducted online between April 6 and April 9. San Francisco’s cap on new office space may delay the construction of the final Transbay tower. The city’s Proposition M, which limits the amount of new large office space approved each year to 875,000 square feet, has created a backlog of office space development in the recent tech boom. If approval of the final tower is delayed, it may take years before construction begins on over 300 units of affordable housing that would come at no cost to the city. The project has been in the works for three years and would include a 190-room five-star hotel, 165 market-rate condos and 325,000 square feet of office space, which has already been leased to Salesforce. The LA County Board of Supervisors voted to extend a temporary rent control measure until the end of the year. The ordinance, which prevents landlords from raising rent by more than 3 percent in most apartments built before 1995, was set to expire in June. County officials hope that the extension to December 31 will give them time to create a more permanent ordinance while protecting tenants. In a special election last week, Alameda residents voted to turn a former federal office site into a wellness center for seniors and homeless people. Voters approved the Measure A homeless center over a competing measure to convert the site to public space. Critics of the opposing Measure B bill, which proposed turning the site into public parks, suggested that the park was an alternative to inviting homeless into the city rather than a legitimate proposal in itself. A Los Angeles City Council committee will vote on two drafts of a proposed ban on donations from those seeking approval on new development projects. This move comes two months after the Ethics Commission endorsed such a ban, and after a year of continuous public investigations of city officials who accepted donations from involved parties before key development votes. The radio show Reveal, from the Center for Investigative Reporting, sued the Beverley Hills School District on behalf of school officials as part of an ongoing battle a planned subway tunnel under Beverley Hills High. The lawsuit claims that the district violated the state’s Public Records Act by failing to release records of public funds used to lobby the Trump Administration against the subway project. (See prior CP&DR commentary .) Following Long Beach Mayor Robert Garcia’s call for a waterfront revitalization project, local businesses proposed construction of an aerial tramway dubbed “The Wave” that connects the city’s downtown to its waterfront. The project’s plan estimates a four-stop Gondola system serving up to 4,800 people per hour. The project team will seek grant funding before asking the city for funds. Should the tramway get approved, it will require a two-year permitting process and one to two years of construction before opening. A Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals panel denied a bid from home-sharing platforms Airbnb Inc. and HomeAway to override liability for illicit housing in Santa Monica. This ruling maintains a city ordinance that holds the companies responsible for booking unlicensed rentals. Both companies argue that the ordinance makes their operations impossible, because it would require them to monitor and remove unregistered listings. The ruling is the latest setback in their efforts to avoid regulation in cities around the globe. Tenants in Los Angeles and Orange counties faced the highest rent inflation in 11 years last month, according to the Consumer Price Index. The 5.5 percent annual inflation rate topped the national increase for rents. It’s also the largest rent increase among the two dozen metro areas tracked by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, ahead of Atlanta’s 5.2 percent and San Diego’s 4.9 percent.  In the latest development in negotiations between the Los Angeles Angeles and the city of Anaheim, the Angels have hired a consultant to assess development opportunities around the stadium. The Angels are particularly interested in acres of parking areas around the stadium for the development of restaurants, hotels, and entertainment centers in a future stadium complex. For the city, this represents a positive move in their efforts to keep the Angels long-term. A recent Apartment List study found that more than 120,000 Bay Area residents spend at least three hours commuting to work. The study, compiled from 2017 Community Survey microdata, compared commutes of workers across the Bay Area. It classified those who commute over 90 minutes one way as “super commuters.” The study found the highest concentration of super commuters on the edges of the Bay: 11 percent of Stockton and Lodi residents travel over 90 minutes one-way. In the more central cities of San Francisco, Oakland, and Hayward, 4.8 percent of workers face three-plus hour daily commutes.   Facing the termination of the 710 freeway extension project, the cities of Pasadena and Alhambra are preparing plans for the development of leftover freeway stubs. Pasadena has hired a consultant to negotiate the release of the 710 freeway ditch from Caltrans for future development. Alhambra city officials hope to covert their 50-acre stub to park land, but many citizens still oppose the closure of the stub, citing traffic concerns. The Long Beach city council unanimously approved a feasibility study for a gondola system to bring visitors to the Queen Mary ocean liner. This comes in response to Urban Commons’ proposed “Queen Mary Island” development project in the 54 acres around the ship, which will include a boardwalk, cafe, bars, and 700,000 square feet of retail space.  President Trump signed the Santa Ana River Wash Land Exchange Act, which will let the Bureau of Land Management trade 327 acres in the wash area for 310 acres owned by the San Bernardino Valley Water Conservation District. This swap advances a land-use plan for the 4,500-acre Santa Ana River wash area, allowing for more mining, boosting water conservation, and increasing protections for natural habitat. Governor Gavin Newsom announced that his proposed penalty to withhold gas tax proceeds from cities that fail to meet their planned housing goals won’t take effect until 2023. Following criticism for what many see as an extreme measure to reach statewide mandates, Newsom released legislation that gives cities four years to amend their processes for setting regional housing goals. If approved, the governor’s mandate would withhold funds for road repairs and public transit from cities that fail to update their plans by 2023. The California Supreme Court declined to review the appeal of San Francisco landlord Anne Kihagi, leaving the landmark 2017 tent abuse ruling in place. In 2017, a state judge fined Kihagi $5.5 million for bullying tactics and abuse in the 50 rent-control units she has purchased throughout the city of San Francisco since 2013. Since the ruling, the state has auctioned many of her properties and told tenants to send their rent checks to City Hall.

Amid rapid changes in the Bay Area and, especially, the increase in housing costs regionwide, the City of Oakland is looking to an updated downtown plan to keep the city both diverse and affordable.

The Senate Housing Committee voted overwhelmingly, 9-1, to support Senate Bill 50 , the controversial measure to promote dense development around transit hubs and job centers statewide. It now advances to the Senate Governance and Finance Committee. In so doing, SB 50 has already gone further than its predecessor, last year’s SB 827, which died amid controversy even before it came up for a vote in committee. (See prior CP&DR coverage .)

The Southern California Association of Governments has identified a 4.3-square-mile are of West Los Angeles as the possible location of the state's first congestion pricing scheme. SCAG determined that a $4 toll for vehicles entering the area during weekday rush hours could reduce traffic delays and overall miles driven by 20 percent. Use of other modes of transportation would rise correspondingly. A number of bureaucratic hurdles would have to be crossed in order to implement the recommendations, including the creation of a tolling authority and updating state law to allow for tolling on surface streets. The area — bounded roughly by the 405 Freeway to the east, the 10 Freeway to the south, Santa Monica’s 20th St. to the west and the Sunset and San Vicente boulevards to the north — was chosen over several other high-traffic areas in Los Angeles because it was determined that traffic is most intense there. Critics of the idea have raised concerns about equity, citing relatively larger tolls for less wealthy drivers.  Study Says State Needs Upzoning to Reach Newsom’s Housing Goal Absent dramatic up zoning statewide, Gov. Gavin Newsom may have to settle for a shortfall of 700,000 of the 3.5 million new homes he envisioned for California. A UCLA study contends that land throughout the state is currently zoned for only 2.8 million homes if fully built out. Much of that land is in unincorporated county territories and therefore not conducive to the sort of dense urban development that many state policies are promoting. Because not all available land is likely to be developed for housing within the governor’s timeline, the study estimates that California localities may have to double or even triple their aggregate amount of land dedicated to housing. The report "shows pretty clearly that it’s going to be a hard slog to actually get 3.5 million housing units built,” UCLA Urban Planning Professor Paavo Monkkonen told the Los Angeles Times. 100 Resilient Cities to Shut Down; Four California Cities Participated The New York-based Rockefeller foundation is abruptly shutting down the 100 Resilient Cities program, a global effort to help cities avoid and withstand challenges, including natural disasters, economic stresses, and other human-included and natural calamities. California had a generous number of cities, with Berkeley, Los Angeles, Oakland, and San Francisco participating. The program funded a “chief resiliency officer” in each city. The foundation will continue to fund resiliency efforts through a $30 million grant to the Atlantic Council. The program spent $164 million in its six years of existence. Staff will be let go as of July. (See prior CP&DR coverage .)

A Robert Wood Johnson Foundation study found that residents in rural counties like Kern in San Joaquin Valley suffer from the poorest health statewide, while wealthier coastal counties – such as Marin in the Bay Area – earned top spots. The study compared counties along two metrics: health outcomes and health factors. Health outcomes included metrics like premature deaths, percentage of people in poor health, and low birth weight. Health factors measured health behaviors, the physical environment, and other social and economic conditions. Statewide contrasts were clear: only 11 percent of Marin County residents were in poor or fair health, compared to 25 percent of Kern County residents.  The study also notes that health outcomes often fall along socioeconomic and racial lines. It points to past institutionalized practices that have contributed to health differences, including “unfair bank lending practices, school funding based on local property taxes, and discriminatory policing and prison sentencing.” The report concludes, " The collective effect is that a fair and just opportunity to live a long and healthy life does not exist for everyone. Now is the time to change how things are done." Greater Appetite for Mobility than Housing in Bay Area  Bay Area residents are more willing to pay to fix traffic congestion than housing problems, according to a Mercury News and Silicon Valley Leadership Group poll . The poll found that 71 percent of respondents supported a 1-cent sales tax increase, while only 43 percent of respondents supported a multi-faceted plan to address high home prices and rent. The response comes despite the fact that respondents ranked housing above traffic as a top concern: 83 percent agreed that housing is an “extremely” or “very serious” issue, compared with 76 percent who said the same about traffic congestion. Lukewarm support for the housing fix may come down to the proposal’s specifics. The report asked about the CASA Compact, which includes zoning changes, tax-backed affordable housing funds, and rent caps for existing tenants – and voters may object to parts of the plan even if they approve of others. Support for the traffic congestion tax measure, proceeds of which would go to measures like expanding transit lines and upgrading roadways, is comfortably above the 2/3 majority needed to pass the tax. “We’re heartened that 71 percent of us are willing to reach into our pocket to address this through a 1-cent sales tax,” Carl Guardino, President of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group told Mercury News. “This is quite a statement and a commitment by Bay Area voters.”  Los Angeles, San Diego Rank among Most Gentrified Cities Nationwide  A National Community Reinvestment Coalition (NCRC) report found that gentrification and cultural displacement is most pronounced in the nation’s largest cities but is nearly absent from many others. Two California cities were among the seven that account for nearly half of the nation’s total gentrification: Los Angeles and San Diego join the ranks of New York City, Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Chicago. Using U.S. Census Bureau and economic data, the study found that rising rents, property values, and taxes disproportionately forced residents to move from these key large cities. By contrast, the study found that many rural areas and small cities nationwide remain without wealth-building investment in amenities that will spark investment and economic growth. The study’s authors point to both an absence of affordable housing projects within gentrifying cities, and a lack of cultural revitalization in poorer areas. “Revitalization of struggling neighborhoods is unevenly distributed,” wrote Jason Richardson in the report. "The big investments that fuel gentrification and cultural displacement didn’t reach most of the nation’s poorest neighborhoods and rural areas.”