Everyone’s favorite factoid about the Golden Gate Bridge concerns its paint job. Crews are endlessly refreshing its orange coat, working from one end to the other throughout the year and then starting all over again. Such are the ravages of salt and fog. It’s a mundane story about the need for constant maintenance of an iconic piece of infrastructure. Another crucial — if less beloved — piece of California’s transportation infrastructure operates much the same way, albeit in a longer time frame. I have flown into and out of Los Angeles International Airport on average once per month for the better part of three decades. Just as the Golden Gate Bridge is always being painted, LAX is always under construction or renovation –in sometimes valiant, sometimes halfhearted , usually halting attempts to spruce up L.A.’s “nine terminals linked by a traffic jam.”  It’s one traffic jam that may finally end. Last week, Los Angeles World Airports released the environmental impact report  for what is the latest, and perhaps final, piece of major upgrades to LAX. The Landside Access Modernization Program (LAMP) includes a consolidated rental car center, two intermodal facilities, and other aesthetic and mobility upgrades. In other words, LAX’s overhaul is about everything but aviation. Previous attempts to comprehensively upgrade and expand the airport have failed every which way for decades. But this one seems serious. It includes a new rail station and people-mover, to tap into and leverage Metro’s Crenshaw and Green lines, and it has a possible 2024 Olympics in mind.  As we ponder the wonders of a consolidated rental car lot, a people mover, and replacement of or massive renovations to those nine (newly renovated) terminals, it’s important to understand that the state of LAX centers on not just aviation, mobility, or even economic development. It is also very much an element of land use, planning, and urban growth.  Most obviously, LAX would not be a global hub were its urban region not itself a global powerhouse. Unlike at the Dubais and Atlantas of the world, many people don’t change planes. More people actually get on and off airplanes at LAX than at almost any other major world airport. Angelenos are blessed to be connected to the world in ways that folks in Chico, Fresno, San Diego — or any other American city short of Chicago, for that matter — can hardly imagine. (I’m drafting this blog on a nonstop flight from Shanghai’s Pudong Airport, whose terminals are massive enough to make LAX’s terminals look like Cessnas next to A380s.) The Los Angeles Economic Development Corp. estimates that this kind of connectivity is good for over economic impacts of over $120 billion per year.  While LAX is a global institution, it is also a hyperlocal one. The new plan has arisen largely because of a settlement between LAWA and its neighbors in Westchester this summer. They and the airport had been bickering and negotiating over heaven and earth for as long as anyone can remember. The last major settlement was in 2006. A community of people living in largely middle-class, single-family homes, Westchester residents are quintessential NIMBY’s, opposing an admittedly concerning land use. The settlement's most important provision is its cap of 79 million annual passengers — a mere 4 million above its current usage. This keeps LAX the seventh-busiest airport in the world for the moment. But it all but ensures that it will soon be eclipsed by the likes of Shanghai, Istanbul, and Hong Kong. And the cap mirrors larger debates about growth in Los Angeles, in which opponents of growth cannot believe that the city can accommodate more residents, no matter what strategies the city lays out and no matter how much new transit is built. "These old ‘NO LAX Expansion’ signs are now officially vintage,” wrote Los Angeles City Councilmember Mike Bonin on his Facebook page. "From now on, everyone is saying yes to modernization and improving our airport and passenger experience, and saying 'hell no' to expansion." Of course, LAX only has such testy neighbors because, at this point, it’s an old airport. The empty land surrounding Mines Field filled in decades ago. Meanwhile, Pudong is a good 25 miles from central Shanghai. It too will get consumed one day.  Ironically, a shiny new LAX will probably be more appealing to travelers. They’ll get a far better first impression of our city, and it’s likely that more than 79 million people will want to fly through LAX. When demand butts up against the cap, it will all but ensure higher fares. Maybe this tension will finally lead to the holy grail of Southern California transportation: regionalization. Westchester residents have always wanted more passengers to use the region’s smaller airports, particularly Ontario, which, unlike Burbank and Long Beach, can and wants to expand. At long last, the City of Ontario took control of l ong-suffering ONT , meaning that expansion may be in the offing.  What of the design for the “new” LAX? Like those of every other modern airport, they are inevitably flawed but also probably fine. Conceptual renderings show sleek, generic people-mover stations and similarly inoffensive designs for the other facilities. I happen to think that many of the new mega-airports, like Pudong, Beijing, Guangzhou, Dubai, and Bangkok are over-engineered and inappropriately massive. LAX will always be intimate by comparison. At least it feels like it was designed by humans and not, say, a self-aggrandizing totalitarian government.  Now that LAX’s future is certain and Ontario controls its own density, there’s only thing left to do: reopen Palmdale Airport and finish that little high-speed rail link we’ve always talked about.  Image courtesy of LAWA.

The Oakland City Council approved  dramatic reductions to its parking requirements last week, undoing regulations established in 1965. The move is meant to make it less expensive to develop housing, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and improve quality of life for residents. The city is hoping to achieve better walkability with the new parking regulations. For instance, in major transit hubs, the required parking is zero and instead a maximum cap is set. Additionally, cost of parking will be separate from rent, meaning residents who do not drive will no longer subsidize neighbors that do. The regulations provide incentives for landlords to developers to offer transit passes and subsidies for car-sharing services to residents. (See prior CP&DR coverage .) Watchdog Group Sues Coastal Commissioners Five California Coastal Commissioners are being sued by Spotlight on Coastal Corruption for 590 alleged transparency rule violations in the last two years. Commissioners Erik Howell, Martha McClure, Wendy Mitchell, Mark Vargas and Steve Kinsey are accused of violating disclosure laws for ex-parte communications and could each face fines of millions of dollars. Ex-parte communications involve telephone calls, face-to-face meetings, emails or other written material related to a pending matter outside official public hearings. These interactions should be reported in writing within a week of the communication and include the date, time, type, location, list of everyone involved in the communication, and description of content. A bill prohibiting ex-parte communications by commissioners was defeated earlier this month. Lake Tahoe, Salton Sea to Receive Federal Funding The U.S. Senate overwhelmingly approved  a measure for $10 billion on water quality projects nationwide over the next decade. This includes $415 million for the Lake Tahoe Restoration Act. The first Act in 2000 provided $300 million in federal money for restoration projects on the lake. This new bill will include money for projects to improve water quality, reduce wildlfire threats, combat aquatic invasive species, and build new public transit systems featuring ecologically friendly roads. The Salton Sea would also receive funding  from the bill as would the Los Angeles River and Sacramento-area flood control. The measure must now go to the House to be voted on. Proposed Development May Run Afoul of Richmond General Plan Richmond residents filed  a lawsuit against a new 13.8-acre bayfront Terminal One development project at Terminal One. The project plan includes 334 condo and townhome units, restaurants, hiking trails and a 0.9-acre park. The five residents that filed the claim are members of the Brickyard Cove Alliance for Responsible Development (BCARD). They allege that the project’s EIR does not comply with CEQA because of traffic congestion, exposure to hazardous chemicals, blocked bay views and altered wind patterns for sailing community. The plaintiffs favor the site’s development, but are concerned with the height and subversion of Richmond’s General Plan 2030. Price Tag for Key L.A. River Parcel: $252 Million The Los Angeles City Council voted in May to allocate $40 million to purchase part of Taylor Yards, a crucial site site along the Los Angeles River to develop into a park space, wetland, and other amenities. City analysts have calculated  that it could cost more than $252 million to develop the 41-acre area into a park. $120 million of the expected costs are for environmental cleanup. UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation is preparing a new Los Angeles River Greenway Guide  and is using Marsh Park as a case study. This 3.9-acare park in the Elysian Valley has trees, green infrastructure, play and fitness equipment, a walking path, picnic tables, open-air pavilion, and a large industrial building that houses a company that takes modular shipping containers and turns them into units for the homeless. The guide includes 14 other case studies that include parks, pathways, access points and bridges along the river. The guide looks at challenges faced in each project and how the obstacles were overcome leading to successful riverside gateways. The 51-mile river has many successful projects on the northern part, but not the same amenities exist in the lower section of the river. (See prior CP&DR coverage .) Listing of Spineflower Could Complicate L.A.-Area Developments The San Fernando Valley spineflower may become listed  as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. The flower, once thought to be extinct, has two known populations located in the Santa Monica Mountains of Ventura County and on the proposed Newhall Ranch development site. However, Newhall Land and Farming has said it has taken steps to protect the plant. For instance, in the Spineflower Conservation Plan approved by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife in 2010 227 acres of Newhall Land are permanently funded and protected for the flower. Updates & Quick Hits The California Coastal Commission accepted  Measure H as a Minor Amendment to the Dana Point Local Coastal Plan, which will now allow the measure to become part of the 2008 Town Center Plan. Supporters say the measure will help the residents with the battle against special interests and developer money. The First District Court of Appeal in San Francisco rejected , 3-0, the city’s attempt to restrict tenant evictions under the state’s Ellis Act. The court said the ordinance would “discourage or penalize Ellis Act evictions” which creates a disincentive to evict. The Southern Nevada Tourism Infrastructure Committee unanimously approved  $750 million in public funding to build a stadium in Las Vegas to lure the Oakland Raiders. The hotel tax in the Las Vegas area will be raised to pay for the 65,000-seat stadium, as well as partially financed by billionaire casino mogul Sheldon Adelson. The governor, legislature and three-quarters of NFL owners need to be won over to make the project a reality. Four affordable housing projects in San Francisco will receive  $310 million in city money to jump start development. The projects will create 529 housing units for seniors, families, and formerly homeless persons. Unite Here Local 11, a labor union representing hotel workers, filed  a complaint to investigate potential illegal use of foreign money in a heated Beverly Hills ballot measure. The ballot measure would allow union-friendly Beverly Hilton to bypass public review to build a 26-story high-rise. Opposing the measure is China’s Wanda Group, which plans to build a $1.2-billion hotel-condominium project adjacent to the 26-story high-rise.

A longtime anti-poverty lawyer and his wife have lost an appellate case against the City of West Hollywood in which they challenged the city’s imposition of inclusionary housing fees on their project. The ruling strengthens the power of local governments to enforfe inclusionary housing policies, partly by reinforcing an appellate court ruling from San Jose last year. Shelah and Jonathan Lehrer-Graiwer sued West Hollywood over a wide variety of fee-related issues on their 11-unit Croft Avenue housing project, including the inclusionary housing fees, which totaled more than $500,000. But the Second District Court of Appeal rejected a wide variety of arguments and said the city had acted properly under the Mitigation Fee Act (AB 1600) in setting out an overall schedule for inclusionary housing fees. Instead, the Second District ruled that the fees were appropriately based on the city’s overall lack of affordable housing. Writing for a unanimous three-judge panel, Justice Victoria Chaney said that “the purpose of the in-lieu housing fee here is not to defray the cost of increased demand on public services resulting from Croft’s specific development project, but rather to combat the overall lack of affordable housing.” Relying on California Building Industry Assn. v. City of San Jose (2015) 61 Cal.4th 435 , she added: “This type of fee is not ‘for the purpose of mitigating the adverse impact of new development but rather to enhance the public welfare by promoting the use of available land for the development of housing that would be available to low- and moderate-income households.’” The Lehrer-Graiwers, operating as 616 Croft Ave. LLC, have sought for many years to demolish two single-family homes just south of Melrose Avenue in West Hollywood and replace them with an 11-unit project. (Jonathan Lehrer-Graiwer was for many years a lawyer with the Western Center on Law and Poverty and later worked on many social justice cases as a lawyer in private practice.) The Lehrer-Graiwers won city approval for the project in 2005 but because of the downturn in the economy did not seek to pull permits until 2011. At that time, the city demanded that they pay higher fees totaling $580,000, including $540,000 for the inclusionary housing fee. The Lehrer-Graiwers paid the fees under protest and sued They challenged the city’s fee ordinance both on its face and as applied to their project. The appellate court concluded that the facial challenge was time-barred because the ordinance was adopted 10 years before the lawsuit was filed. More importantly, the appellate court rejected the as-applied challenge as well. The Lehrer-Graiwers made a wide range of arguments, including the idea that the fees were really taxes under Proposition 218. The court rejected all these arguments. Most important, the appellate court concluded that the inclusionary housing fees did not need to be tied to the impact of the Lehrer-Graiwers’s project but, rather, could be part of an overall effort to tackle the affordable housing problem in West Hollywood. First, the court concluded that the burden of proof that the fees are reasonable lies with the city, not with the developers. The Lehrer-Graiwers had argued otherwise, citing Prop. 218. But citing San Jose , the court said: “The purpose of the in-lieu housing fee here is not to defray the cost of increased demand on public services resulting from Croft’s specific development project, but rather to combat the overall lack of affordable housing.” Among other things, the court ruled on Ehrlich v. City of Culver City (1996) 12 Cal.4th 854, which distinguished between fees charged on a project basis and fees charged as part of an overall city policy. Partly based on this reasoning – and again relying on San Jose – the court said the challenge should not have been based on the application of individual fees to an individual project. “Although the fee must be reasonable, the inquiry is not about the reasonableness of the individual calculation of fees related to Croft’s development’s impact on affordable housing,” the court wrote. “The inquiry is whether the fee schedule itself is reasonably related to the overall availability of affordable housing in West Hollywood.” The Case: 616 Croft Ave LLC v. City of West Hollywood , No. B266660 (September 23, 2016) The Lawyers: For 616 Croft Ave (the Lehrer-Graiwers): David Lanferman, Rutan & Tucker, dlanferman@rutan.com For City of West Hollywood: Michael Jenkins ( mjenkins@localgovlaw.com ) and Christi Hogin ( hogin@localgovlaw.com ), Jenkins & Hogan Never forget to clean your HTML code and double check your content before publishing an article!

Reversing an appellate court decision, the California Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that courts should substitute their “abstract” judgment for the lead agency’s judgment as to what constitutes a “new” project that requires more extensive environmental analysis. The ruling appears to clear up a conflict between appellate rulings from different districts. But the plaintiffs said they still believe they can win the case on remand. The case involved a proposed building program at College of San Mateo, a community college located in the City of San Mateo, that would have involved demolishing some buildings and renovating others. Initially, the college certified a mitigated negative declaration for the building program. Years later, however, the college changed the building program so that some buildings that would have been demolished would be renovated, while the Horticulture Building, which wraps around a horticultural garden, would be demolished. Concluding that the change did not constitute a “new project” under the California Environmental Quality Act, the college issued an addendum to the MND. A group of residents and students calling themselves Friends of the College of San Mateo Gardens sued and won in both San Mateo County Superior Court and the First District Court of Appeal. But in a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court reversed the First District. “When an agency proposes changes to a previously approved project, CEQA does not authorize courts to invalidate the agency’s action based solely on their own abstract evaluation of whether the agency’s proposal is a new project, rather than a modified version of the old one,” wrote Justice Leondra Kruger in an exceptionally clear and well-written argument. “… An agency that proposes project changes … must determine whether the previous environmental documents retains any relevance in light of the proposed changes and, if so, whether major revisions to the previous environmental document are nevertheless required due to the involvement of new, previously unstudied significant environmental impacts. These are determinations for the agency to make in the first instance, subject to judicial review for substantial evidence.” That was the important legal ruling, and it was pretty clear. Sabrina Teller, a lawyer, for Remy Moose & Manley who argued the case for the college, told SFGate : “The court is still urging a deferential standard.” However, Kruger acknowledged that the case before the Supreme Court did not address all issues in the case – including the question of the legal validity of the CEQA Guidelines sections that allow an MND addendum on a modified project rather than an environmental impact report. That’s one reason why the plaintiffs say they are confident of victory on remand. Susan Brandt-Hawley, lawyer for the plaintiff, said she is still hopeful that the lower courts will distinguish the original and revised project in such a way that her client will win. “Here we have an addendum to a neg dec, and the neg dec was for a preservation project. And the new addendum (actually therefore a revised neg dec) is for a demolition project,” she said in an email to CP&DR. The controversy in the case revolves around so-called “Building 20,” the college’s horticulture building and an adjacent garden that students and nearby residents value for its peacefulness. In 2006, the college adopted a building program that called for retention of Building 20 and demolition of other buildings on campus. The college also certified an MND for the project. Five years later, however, the college changed the building program, calling for renovation of the other buildings and demolition of Building 20 and the garden, along with replanting some of the herbs and bushes in the garden elsewhere on campus. The Friends group sued. In an unpublished opinion three years ago, the First District Court of Appeal ruled against the college, concluding that as a matter of law the 2011 building program was a new project rather than a modified project. The First District relied heavily on Save Our Neighborhood v. Lishman (2006), 140 Cal.App.4 th 1288. In that case, the Third District concluded that the question of a new or modified project was a “threshold question of law”. The following year, the Second District issued a somewhat conflicting ruling in Mani Brothers Real Estate Group v. City of Los Angeles (2007), 153 Cal.App.4 th 1385. In that case, the court found that a 3.3-million-square-foot project was a modification of a 2.7-million-square-foot project on which the city had done an EIR 15 years before. The Second District criticized Save Our Neighborhood , saying it undermined judicial deference of agency decisions. The appellate court in the College of San Mateo case acknowledged this conflict but used the Save Our Neighborhood reasoning, saying that “it is clear from the record tha tht enature of the project has fundamentally and qualitatively changed to the point where the new proposal is actually a new project altogether.” In her ruling for the Supreme Court, Kruger rejected the Save Our Neighborhoods reasoning put forth by the plaintiffs in this case. She wrote that this approach “would assign to court the authority – indeed, the obligation – to determine whether an agency’s proposal qualifies as a new project, in the absence of any standards to govern the inquiry.” She added: “ o ask whether proposed agency action constitutes a new project, purely in the abstract, misses the reason why the characterization matters in the first place….A decision to proceed under CEQA’S subsequent review provisions must thus necessarily rest on a determination – whether implicit or explicit – that the original environmental document contains some informational value.” The Case: Friends of the College of San Mateo Gardens v. San Mateo County Community College District , S215061 (September 19, 2016) The Lawyers: For Friends: Susan Brandt-Hawley, susanbh@preservationlawyers.com For College: Sabrina Teller, steller@rmmenvirolaw.com

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors unanimously approved  the largest residential complex in the history of Mission District, 3.5 years after the project was proposed. The development includes 191 market-rate apartments and 100-136 affordable units; the latter will be constructed by the city by land donated by the developer. Residents of this neighborhood, which has become a flashpoint in the city’s gentrification debates, are worried about displacement; in a predominantly working-class Latino community a huge spike in luxury condominiums and new restaurants have replaced the rent-controlled apartments and laundromats. Those opposed to the project say it has a flawed environmental impact report, and that impacts of increased traffic and congestion were not evaluated. Supervisors responded that CEQA was not the appropriate avenue to address displacement concerns and that the city would construct the new affordable units with the $30 million it has set aside. Activists have already indicated that they will sue  to block the project. Chargers Propose Community Land Trust for Barrio Logan Amid debates over a possible new stadium, the San Diego Chargers  have told the San Diego Building and Construction Trades Council that they will help keep land values low and fight gentrification near their new home if the bid for the $1.8 billion convention stadium is won. The team would establish a land trust for Barrio Logan, Sherman Heights, Logan Heights and other neighborhoods that would see high levels of displacement. The trust would be run by a nonprofit group and community members would drive the selection process, however the team would supply the trust with funds that range “in the millions.” A labor agreement between the Chargers and the construction union would require unions to guarantee not to strike and require contractors to hire workers through the union halls. Santa Cruz Zoning Would Create ‘Nodes’ of Density The City of Santa Cruz has released  the first draft of its proposed zoning update its for four main corridors. This new rule-book will help control through these major byways. Developers that meet certain criteria at numerous “nodes” along the corridors may build higher density developments. The new code is part of the city’s vision to increase community walkability. This can include removing on-street parking for right-of-way improvements and bicycle access. The corridor committee also recommends incentives for new affordable housing, “community benefit” exceptions and craft design standards. Opposition has come from residents on the east side of the city who feel the plan encourages is undue density and development on their side of town. The Planning Commission will now begin hosting three public hearing meetings to gather input from the community on the draft zoning code before going to City Council for approval. Humboldt County Agrees to Implement ADA Compliance Measures Humboldt County has three and a half years to correct  violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act according to a new agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice. A similar pact was made in 2008, but the county failed to make all the necessary improvements. The county has started prioritizing and cataloguing disability access projects, but must now find the funding and implement the ruling’s requirements. This Department of Justice program, Project Civic Access, had similar agreements with 220 local agencies across the country; Humboldt County was one of the few that did not comply. The county blames the Great Recession for its inability to fund the ADA upgrades and projects; since the economy has improved, these have become priority. The county has created a new ADA coordinator position and is reviewing potential candidates. The county also has allocated $1.2 million in discretionary funds for ADA compliance. Maps Charts Neighborhood Change in Los Angeles The joint UCLA and UC Berkeley Urban Displacement project recently released  a gentrification map of Los Angeles. Researchers looked at the city from 1990 to 2000, and up to 2015 focusing on neighborhoods near transit stops. These areas saw greater rent increases and more displacement than other areas around the city. The most intense developments have occurred in Chinatown, Highland Park, East L.A., and along the Hollywood red line. Urban planners have been pushing for more transit-oriented development, which includes a half-mile area around a Metro or light rail stop. Professor Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris from UCLA told KPCC that TOD and denser development do not have to be stopped, but more policies need to be put in place to protect affordable housing. Caltrans to Liquidate Properties Surrounding Would-Be 710 Extension Caltrans will begin selling  42 properties, including 39 single-family and 3 multi-family, along the path of the north 710 Freeway extension in El Sereno. Caltrans is considering a variety of projects in the area: dedicated busway, light-rail line, traffic management systems or a 6.3-mile freeway tunnel. These first homes lie outside the scope of all these potential projects. Caltrans has a formula to set the starting price for the property but many worry that this may lead to unaffordable prices for current tenants. Of the properties, 3 are in Pasadena, 6 in Los Angeles, and 33 in South Pasadena. The Santa Barbara Planning Commission Considers Major Coastal Plan At a recent Santa Barbara County Planning Commission meeting, comissioners heard  about the Gaviota Coast Plan, which will set regulations for the more than 100,000 acres of oceanfront property. The plan includes issues such as public trails across private property, streamlined permitting for fire stands and small campgrounds, balance of ranching and farming with protection of endangered species, and whether to allow fracking. The Environmental Defense Center said the plan should include better protection of endangered species habitat in mountainous areas, which makes up roughly 25,000 acres or a quarter of the plan’s scope. Monterey Adopts Specific Plan, Parks & Recreation Plan The Monterey City Council adopted  the Lighthouse Specific Plan and the Parks and Recreation Master Plan. For the Lighthouse plan, referring to a corridor along Lighthouse Avenue, major pieces were parking and traffic and building heights. Most buildings will not be higher than 35 feet. Over 1,000 community comments were heard for the new Parks and Recreation Master Plan, which guides the design needs for the next 20 years. The city plans to construct a teen center, more art and history in the parks, dog parks, and potentially a pickleball field. Monterey Council members also approved a response letter to the county’s 2016-17 civil jury report showing low-income housing is rarely available for homeless women. QUICK HITS & UPDATES The U.S. Interior Department officials signed  the Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan, designed to balance conservation of California’s desert landscapes with the growth in clean energy. The plan puts 9.2 million acres of federal land in California deserts off limits to solar, wind and geothermal development and allows approximately 800,000 acres to be used for renewable projects. 400,000 acres of Development Focus Areas will have a streamlined permitting process. U.S. DOT announced a $1.04 billion federal grant to SANDAG to extend the existing Blue Line Trolley service from downtown San Diego to the growing University City area. The 10.92-mile light rail extension is estimated to serve around 24,600 transit trips every weekday and begin service in 2021.  According to a new survey  by Los Angeles Metro, the Expo Line has seen a ridership surge of 20,000 new rides per weekday since the opening of Phase 2 to Santa Monica. The first two months of service have hit 70 percent of the rider projection made for 2030. Seventy percent of were new to the system; half used to drive alone and 23 percent switched from using the bus. Measure A, the proposed half-cent sales tax in San Diego County, is being challenged  by a group of labor, health and transportation organizations for claiming the ordinance would improve water quality by treating runoff and that it will reduce mass transit fares for seniors, students, disabled people and veterans. The Registrar of Voters, Michael Vu, will make a decision to amend or delete the disputed statements. San Diego is expecting  to reap nearly $49.2 million from developer impact fees over the next five years from the many construction projects occurring downtown. This money will cover the developer’s projects impacts on parks, transportation and fire station needs. The city has a nearly $1.6 billion wish list for projects it would like to complete in the upcoming years.  Yosemite National Park is adding  400 acres of meadows and forests to its western boundary for the biggest expansion in seven decades. The Trust for Public Land purchased $2.3 million Ackerson Meadow from private owners and donated it to the National Park Service. The meadows are home to the endangered southwestern willow flycatcher and a geographically isolated group of 200 great gray owls. The South Coast Air Quality Management District announced  that it will appeal a recent decision in favor of the planned World Logistics Center in Moreno Valley. The 40.6-million-square-foot warehouse has faced nine lawsuits for not adequately addressing air pollution, traffic and other environmental consequences required by CEQA. The Alameda City Council has proposed  permitting 1,843 housing units through 2023 in order to put the city in compliance with state housing needs assessment.

When Does A Wireless Company “Incommode the Public Use”?

Following Gov. Jerry Brown’s signing of two new climate change bills last week, state officials have released two short white papers laying out possible approaches for hitting the targeted 40% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. The papers are a starting point for the Air Resources Board’s new Scoping Plan on GHG reduction strategies.

Wal-Mart’s trying hard to be green. And, despite the arguments of a local citizen group in Ceres, one appellate court has concluded that this isn’t a problem under the California Environmental Quality Act. In this case – involving a Wal-Mart in Ceres – the Fifth District Court of Appeal ruled that the mere fact that a project increases the amount of recycling – or includes biodegradable plastic – doesn’t trigger a requirement for environmental analysis in a project’s environmental impact report. A group called Citizens For Ceres challenged the EIR in court on several grounds. The group was represented by Brett Jolley, a Stockton lawyer who often represents citizen groups opposing Wal-Mart projects in the Central Valley. On the recycling question the Fifth District said: “Unlike traditional waste disposal methods, such as landfilling, recycling is not itself an environmental problem, but is instead a solution to the problems presented by those traditional methods.” Therefore, the issues related to recycling are, by definition, not environmental problems. “ e agree with Wal-Mart and the city that when a project will result in increased demand for recycling services, this often can be treated as an economic rather than an environmental impact and need not be analyzed in the EIR.” The case also dealt with some interesting issues involving the economic rationale for a statement of overriding considerations under CEQA, which is required to approve a project in the face of significant impacts. The citizen group had challenged the statement of overriding considerations, saying the project would not generate increased tax revenue and more jobs as the city and Wal-Mart claimed. But the court said the record contained “substantial evidence of probable benefit” and basically said judges don’t have to be economists. In a followup to a previous appellate ruling, the court overruled the trial court and decided that Wal-Mart should not have been barred from recovering the $48,000 cost of preparing the administrative record in the case. The court also rejected the citizen group’s argument that the EIR did not adequately deal with issues associated with possible urban decay, saying that the city had adequately conditioned the project with requirements that Wal-Mart maintain the store it would be abandoning until a new tenant is found. The proposed development project is a 300,000-square-foot retail center known as Mitchell Ranch Center, which would be anchored by a 190,000-square-foot Super Wal-Mart that includes 56,000 square feet for groceries. The non-grocery portion of the store is comparable in size to an existing Wal-Mart in Ceres that would be closed as a result of this project’s construction. The project’s approval process and EIR dragged out for several years and at one point Wal-Mart bought the property from the underlying developer and became the applicant. Citizens For Ceres brought a very wide-ranging legal challenge to the EIR, but both the trial judge and the appellate court ruled in favor of the city and Wal-Mart on all counts. The appellate court’s ruling on the recycling question may be an important precedent. Citizens For Ceres had argued that the city should have assessed the environmental impact of the recycling created by the project because Wal-Mart uses a biodegradable plastic known as polylactic acid, or PLA, in its packaging. Polylactic acid is sometimes known as “corn plastic”. The city documented that its current recycling facilities had more than enough capacity to handle the additional material from the Wal-Mart. But Citizens’ consulting engineer made the following argument about why the city should have done an environmental analysis on the recycling: PLA can compromise other plastic in the waste stream, which can reduce the opportunity to recycle the other materials, which in turn could threaten the city’s ability to meet the state’s AB 939 recycling targets. The city’s response was that PLA is already in Ceres’ waste stream. The city separates PLA out of the waste stream after recycling is picked up and then sends it to the landfill, where it biodegrades, so therefore there is no environmental impact worth analyzing. The Court of Appeal acknowledged that the amount of recyclable waste would go up because of the Wal-Mart project, but concluded: “This is substantial evidence that the project will cause an increase in recycling; but as we have explained, an increase in recycling in itself is not an adverse environmental impact. It is not substantial evidence that the increase may be more than the city’s recycling contractor can handle. For that reason, it does not support a fair argument that there is a significant impact needing discussion in the EIR.” Regarding PLA, the court noted: “Because of the sorting problem (PLA products cannot be recycled with other plastic and must instead be separated and either composted or landfilled), a major increase in PLA waste from a proposed project could conceivably lead to a reduction in recycling and an increase in landfilling.” However, the court concluded: “There is no evidence of this type of problem in this case, however.” The discussion of the statement of overriding consideration could be important as well, because the Court of Appeal concluded that courts don’t have to second-guess a lead agency’s analysis of the economic benefits of a project. Ceres had hired Bay Area Economics to do an economic analysis. BAE found that the project would increase sales tax receipts by $327,000 per year and increase the number of jobs over the current Wal-Mart fom 375 to 580, in large part because of the other stores and restaurants that would be located in the center. Citizens For Ceres challenged all these numbers and BAE’s underlying assumptions. Among other things, Citizens argued that many of the new jobs would be part-time. Indeed, Citizens submitted as evidence a report from the San Diego County Taxpayers Association, released in 2000, on the subject of Wal-Mart and part-time jobs – but the city submitted a letter from the association three years later saying the report was outdated. The appellate justices decided that it was not their job to second-guess an economic analysis: “It is not our role to make a factual finding about whether the project will truly benefit or harm the job market. It is not enough for a challenger to present some evidence opposed to the agency’s findings, for we do not resolve conflicts in the evidence under the substantial evidence standard. The only question is whether the record contains substantial evidence of a probable benefit. It does.” On the question of who should bear the cost of preparing the voluminous administrative record in the case – often an contentious issue in CEQA cases – the court overruled the trial judge and said Wal-Mart could recover the costs. However, the court remanded to the trial court the question of how much cost Wal-Mart could recover. The administrative record was the subject of a previous appellate ruling on the Ceres Wal-Mart -- Citizens for Ceres v. Superior Court (2013) 217 Cal.App.4th 889. In that case, the court ruled that pre-approval communications between the city and Wal-Mart were not privileged, which of course increased the cost of preparing the administrative record. On the urban decay question – a topic of increasing interest in CEQA lawsuits – the appellate court reaffirmed a trend from other cases and narrowed the issue only to the physical deterioriation of vacant stores. The court ruled that a mitigation measure requiring Wal-Mart to beef up maintenance of its old store while it is vacant was sufficient to take the urban decay issue down to a level of insignificance. The court declined to rule more expansively about the likely impact of the new Wal-Mart on a wide range of other stores in the vicinity. The Case: Citizens of Ceres v. City of Ceres , No. F071600, September 12, 2016 The Lawyers: For Citizens for Ceres: Brett Jolley, Shore, McKinley & Conger, bjolley@smcslaw.com For City of Ceres: Edward A. Grutzmacher, Meyers, Nave, Riback, Silver & Wilson, egrutzmacher@meyersnave.com For Wal-Mart: Edward P. Sangster, K & L Gates, ed.sangster@klgates.com

Several of the smallest pieces in the de Young Museum’s extraordinary retrospective of California artist Ed Ruscha depict abnormally vast western landscapes. Thin strips of prairie stretch just above the bottom edge of the frame. Attenuated horizons separate starry skies from a dark continent. Extreme horizontality makes even Ruscha’s tiniest images appear immense, capturing the grandeur and loneliness of Earth and sky. Upon this template, telephone poles recede achingly into a blue-black dusk ( Let’s Keep in Touch ). Two oil derricks stand at attention on opposite sides of a canvas ( Well, well ). Clusters of tiny lights huddle close under a starry sky ( Two Similar Cities ). In America’s Future , an empty horizon at dusk extends forever with every hue between yellow and taupe looming above. These are the pieces that gave the exhibit its title: “Ed Ruscha and the Great American West.” Though Ruscha depicts landscapes, he is not a landscape painter. For him, the western landscape turns into a symbol of itself, representing all the Americanisms – individualism, freedom, expansion, commercialism – that derive from having so much space on our hands. It also gave rise to a particularly type of urbanism, of which Ruscha is a remarkably astute critic. Even Ruscha’s emptiest landscapes are foils for the peculiar type of city that arose in the West. Raised in Nebraska, he migrated to Los Angeles in the 1960s, to discover the beauties and ironies of this corner of America. He looks with bemusement upon the place to which so many Midwesterners escaped. At age 78, he continues to work there. Most of all, Ruscha is to painting what the team of Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown are to architecture. Both were inspired by roadside landscapes of the West and fascinated by signage. Both balance aesthetic appeal with visual and verbal irony. Not coincidentally, humor for both of them comes in the form of unexpected use of text. “The Great American West” traces Ruscha’s interest in unexpectedly diverse subject matter while keeping a firm gaze on the ties that bind his works: from monumental paintings of gas stations, to silhouettes of coyotes, to raw words, to photographs of the entire Sunset Strip. The work of humans -- power poles, warehouses, streets, and, of course, written language -- inhabit every Ruscha image. But humanity is deliberately absent. Buildings are rendered deliberately sterile and ironic, curious interlopers on God’s creation. His Standard Oil stations recede so perfectly into the vanishing point, they look more like architectural renderings than they do actual structures. Ruscha’s trademark words are disembodied too, appearing as if stenciled on to the canvas by God, every bit as inscrutable as the landscape itself. This effect reaches its apotheosis in Ruscha's series of the Hollywood Sign, in which words and landscape really do intersect. Even Ruscha’s photos are vacant. They reveal not architectural beauty but rather its banality. (The de Young, an earnest work of starchitecture by Herzog and de Mueron , is the opposite of all which fascinates Ruscha.) He captures empty of parking lots and backyard pools with undisturbed surfaces. The same goes for his conventional cityscapes and his Sunset Strip photos, which look as evacuated by atomic blast or urgent Sunday sermon. Ruscha’s West is not a place for people. The second room of the exhibit includes pieces from Ruscha’s most deliberately urban series of paintings. Ruscha’s “city” paintings are not paintings of cities at all but rather are works of abstract expressionism that ostensibly refer to Los Angeles. Ruscha depicts the city as a grey plain of static, like an untuned television, interrupted by lines representing streets, with names that mean something only to veteran Angelenos: Oxford, Beverly, Western; Laurel Canyon/Ventura Boulevard; Sunset, Coronado. In Sunset-Gardner Cross, the entire Los Angeles Basin extends up the canvas to meet with a bonfire of yellows, oranges, and reds. His most haunting cityscapes depict Los Angeles from above at night, with beads of light forming straight lines and right angles on the “Plains of Id,” as Reyner Banham called the working-class flats of the Los Angeles basin. His most nonsensical: the words La Brea, Sunset, Orange and De Longpre arrayed in their proper geographic arrangement against the backdrop of what appears to be Mount Everest. Ruscha reduces the city to cartographic signifiers: lines and names. This is the bureaucratic vision, familiar to thoughtful planners, that has sapped so many American cities of their would-be texture, soul, and joy. Those implacable white dots on the prairie connote our cities in their entirety – they signify locations, but they are not places. Ruscha offers a chance for planners to step away from the trappings of bureaucracy and literally envision cities and landscapes in new ways. You cannot think about cities without thinking the landscapes atop and within they sit. Too often the quality of California cities, especially their pedestrian environments, is inversely proportional with the grandeur of landscape. Los Angeles is not warm, and not always humane, because it was not designed to be warm and humane. The sterile, empty, vacuous Los Angeles that Ruscha depicts is a place of our own making. (The lone exception is San Francisco, which Ruscha has not, as far as I know, ever depicted.) Too many planners of past generations approached western cities the way Ruscha does – but without the humor and without the harmlessness of paint and canvas. They created real places that are inhuman and hew more towards commerce and automobiles than to joy and communion. Ruscha’s lines are the placeless thoroughfares down which we drive. Unlike the abstruse, theory-based creations of many of Ruscha's late 20th century contemporaries (particularly abstract expressionists), his images are aesthetically gorgeous, with the precision of a graphic designer, sense of proportion on par with Renaissance masters, and command of color rivaling Mark Rothko. These images deliberately belie what many of our cities are like. Viewing the west through Ruscha’s eyes offers planners to think about the opposite of roadside America: the vibrancy of center cities so often dismissed as “crowds;” the pedestrian environments so ripe for redesign; the public spaces that we forgot to build as we expanded; and, most of all, the zoning laws, street patterns, and real estate typologies that pretend as if we can expand infinitely, all the way to that long horizon. Ed Ruscha and the Great American West On view until October 9, 2016 Tickets $22 De Young Museum San Francisco Catalog 244 pages FAMSF Publication / University of California Press $55 Hardcover All images courtesy of Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco .

The San Diego Association of Governments is turning to technology to get a detailed account  of San Diegans’ driving habits. The agency is asking 200,000 San Diego households to complete a survey of their transportation habits to help planners figure out regional planning decisions for the region. Some of these decisions are where new developments should go, what highway and rail lines to improve, and other big-picture issues. Survey participants – who make up nearly one-fifth of the county’s population – will be asked to download rMove, a smartphone application that uses GPS technology to track when they commute as well as other details of the user’s transportation choices. Research firm Resource Systems Group has a two-year, $1.75 million contract with SANDAG for the survey. Funding comes from the federal government. Developers Heavily Support Sacramento Supervisor Campaigns A recent Sacramento Bee analysis  finds that development interests account for two-thirds of the contributions and independent expenditures in Sacramento County supervisor races this year. The county has seven candidates running for two seats, raising a combined total of $300,000. The county elections have limits of $1,000 per election period for an organization and $500 for an individual. Of the total sum, $135,000 or 45 percent came from development interests. Josh Wood, executive director of Region Business tells Sac Bee that “Sacramento County has thousands of acres of development that’s being proposed in the next few years.” Planning Commissioners Reined in by L.A. Mayor Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti plans to issue  an executive directive banning private meetings, or ex parte communications, between planning commissioners and developers to “ensure that all dialogue with private stakeholders is on the record.” This comes after city officials plan to stop a planned March ballot initiative that calls for a halt on major building projects that require changes in city rules. Garcetti also promised to make other changes, such as accelerating updates to community plans. Additionally he wants to ensure the city, rather than developers, choose the consultants who assess the environmental effects of projects. Airbnb Contends Most L.A. Hosts Are Not Commercial Operators Amid ongoing controversies about the role of home-sharing in California cities, Airbnb released a report  in September 2015 entitled “Housing & The Airbnb Community in the City of Los Angeles.” The report found 92 percent of entire home listings were rented less than 90 nights per year and that only 0.05 percent of all housing units in the city were rented more than 177 days on a short term basis. The analysis shows that 80 percent of hosts share the home in which they live and 70 percent use part of the money to pay their mortgage or rent. The report concludes that most Airbnb hosts are middle class residents and that guests generate sustainable, local economic activity that supports small businesses. The City of Los Angeles is currently considering an ordinance that would regulate home-sharing and limit the number of nights per year that hosts may rent to guests. Of particular concern are “commercial hosts” who rent rooms and entire units as if they are full-time hotels. HUD to Reconsider Position on S.F. Housing Law The Department of Housing and Urban Development indicates that it will reconsider  its rejection of San Francisco’s neighborhood preference housing law, which San Francisco officials are using to help low-income residents stay in the city during times of rising rental costs. HUD said offering a neighborhood preference violated the 1968 Fair Housing Act and could “perpetuate segregation.” This dispute occurred because the 98-unit Willie B. Kennedy senior housing development in the Tenderloin has caused many older residents to move in with residents or onto the streets. More than 3,500 applications have been submitted for the housing development. Los Angeles Seeks to Reform Developer Fees for Parks Los Angeles City Council voted unanimously to change  how the city collects park fees under the state’s Quimby Act. The new change would now cause the fee to apply to new apartment buildings, as before the developers only paid if the project required a zoning change. While the city collected between $20 and $22 million a year in fees, an additional $30 million will be generated. Developers of apartment complexes will pay $5,000 a unit and affordable housing units would be exempt. Another update to the law will allow Quimby fees to be spent on parks up to 10 miles away. Los Angeles Transportation Measure Overcomes Cities’ Objections A Los Angeles Superior Court judge rejected  a claim from a group of seven cities that said the language for Measure M, which proposes a sales tax increase for tens of billions of dollars worth of transportation projects, would mislead voters. The suited claimed that what was meant to be a half a percent increase was worded as a half-cent increase, implying that the tax would be a single-half cent regardless of the total value of a purchase. The court rejected this claim on a technicality, saying that state law does not require a local measure like Measure M to present the total annual costs associated with it. This suit was filed by South Bay cities including Carson, Commerce, Torrance, Rancho Palos Verdes, Norwalk, Signal Hill, and Santa Fe Springs. However, LA Metro says  it is indeed a half-cent sales tax that will generate $860 million per year. (See prior CP&DR coverage .) Updates & Quick Hits Riverside County Supervisors approved , 4-0, a rezone, general plan amendment, EIR and tentative tract map for subdivision in Menifee Valley. The development includes 511 residential lots with a minimum lot size of 5,500 square feet and 25 drainage basins, park, paseo and open space lots. U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell dismissed  an array of arguments raised by opponents to a casino proposed by the North Fork Rancheria. The ruling allows the developing of a resort with 2,500 gaming devices, six bars, three restaurants, five-tenant food court, 200-room hotel and 4,500 parking spaces on 305 acres to continue. The proposed casino is north of Madera along Highway 99. According to CollegeRank.net, San Luis Obispo is the best college town  in the country. Robinson reviewed communities in 33 states and looked at factors such as outdoor space, number of boutiques and cafes, pedestrian friendliness, culture, nightlife, and the “general vibe.” Santa Cruz was ranked ninth and Berkeley eleventh. Two new studies from research firm Axiometrics found  Bay Area rents are plateauing. The average rent for all apartment sizes in San Francisco, San Mateo, and Marin counties dropped 0.7 percent from July 2015. In San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara area, the increase was only 0.3 percent from July last year. This is the smallest increase since April 2010. This steadying of rents could be attributed to slowdown in job growth and intense apartment construction, 4,600 more units are being put on the market than this time last year. Airbnb is suing  Santa Monica, arguing the city violated federal laws protecting privacy and online speech for its rental restrictions, including outlawing of rentals of fewer than 30 days, and paying a 14 percent hotel tax. The Anaheim City Council voted  to continue with a proposed streetcar project even though it failed to secure federal funding. The city has spent $10 million on the project so far; opponents fear that the $300 million cost is not justified. OCTA is focusing on a streetcar project connecting Santa Ana to Garden Grove. Angels Baseball filed an appeal  with the City of Anaheim challenging the Planning Commission’s approval of the $450 million mixed-use development across the street from the stadium. The development includes condominium and apartment units, 200-room hotel, office and commercial space. L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti launched  a new loan program to support small business owners located near the city’s “Great Streets” proejcts. The Great Streets Great Business partnership has $4 million to jumpstart the program in LA’s first 15 Great Streets corridors. The loans range from $1,000 to $250,000 to qualifying applicants.

Gov. Jerry Brown and the California Legislature have moved the goalposts again on climate policy, meaning the state’s metropolitan planning organizations and local governments are going to have to go into stretch mode again in focusing land use policies and transportation investments on reducing greenhouse gas emissions.  Furthermore, the pressure on the MPOs and the local governments will depend on lot on whether California retains the embattled cap-and-trade program or ditches it. No cap-and-trade will almost certainly mean bigger targets in the MPOs’ sustainable communities programs. In early September, Brown signed two climate change bills: SB 32 , the long-awaited successor to AB 32, and AB 197 . The first bill will put a lot of pressure on the regional sustainable communities strategies by essentially doubling the GHG emissions reduction target between 2020 and 2030. The second is designed to protect low-income communities from bearing too much of the brunt of the cap-and-trade program – meaning the bill could alter or threaten the cap-and-trade program altogether. Up to now, the state’s SCSs have been focused on AB 32’s target of reducing GHGs back to 1990 levels by 2020 – approximately a 20% reduction. And the evidence is that this effort is actually working. The ARB recently reported that the state’s inventory of greenhouse gas emissions dropped from 484 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent (MMTC02e) in 2007 to 441 MMTC02e in 2014. The 2020 target is 431 MMTC02e. There has been a lot of legal wrangling about what the state’s MPOs should do in the years after 2020, with environmentalists arguing that an 80% reduction target by 2050 should be taken into account even though it is contained only in an executive order, not state law. (This dispute is still pending before the California Supreme Court in a case involving the San Diego Association of Governments.) SB 32 moots this argument in part by codifying the goal of a 40% reduction by 2030 – a target that would almost certainly require the state to be on a trajectory toward 80% by 2050, no matter what the Supreme Court rules in the SANDAG case. In the second round of SCSs, as Josh Stephens recently reported , the big MPOs have been focusing mostly on incremental changes, not major shifts that would move toward 40% by 2030 or 80% by 2050. Moving to the SB 32 target will almost certainly require a much bigger shift. How big a shift, however, depends in large part on how the Air Resources Board decides to implement SB 32. In the wake of AB 32 in 2006 and SB 32 in 2008, the ARB implemented a system that required the various MPOs to hit certain per-capita GHG targets in their regional transportation plans. This system has driven transportation investments in the RTPs (which are usually combined with the SCS) and, indirectly, may be affecting land-use decisions at the local level. It is not clear, however, how much of the SB 32 burden ARB will require the SCSs to bear. In June, the ARB issued a concept paper in anticipation of SB 32’s passage, which highlights four possible approaches to hitting SB 32’s 2030 target. The concept paper states that increased emissions reduction will have to come from the sustainable communities strategies but does not seek to quantify that amount. The paper does, however, make it clear that the SCS targets will depend a great deal on the state’s overall approach – and especially whether the state’s cap-and-trade pollution reduction program stays in place. Cap-and-trade is under increasing pressure from both polluting industries and environmental justice advocates. Under the cap-and-trade program, polluting industries – especially those that burn fossil fuels and therefore contribute to GHG emissions -- bid in an auction to purchase “allowances” that permit them to pollute. Cap-and-trade revenues currently fund a wide variety of state programs relevant to planning and development, including high-speed rail and the Strategic Growth Council’s affordable housing and sustainable communities program, which has $400 million for development grants this year. But the fossil-fuel industry is always targeting the program and revenues from this year’s auction were anemic.  Meanwhile, AB 197 could threaten the cap-and-trade program from the opposite end of the ideological spectrum. From the beginning, environmental justice advocates have feared that cap-and-trade could harm poor neighborhoods disproportionately because ARB’s goal is to reduce the overall amount of emissions, not reduce emissions in specific locations. This question is always an issue in cap-and-trade programs. The Environmental Protection Agency’s cap-and-trade program for acid rain pollutants is always running into resistance from specific states that fear they will be at a disadvantage. For example, Ohio’s emissions might actually go up if Ohio polluters can buy pollution rights from locations, such as Florida or Pennsylvania, where pollution is cheaper to build up. Similarly, EJ advocates fear that polluting industries which purchase cap-and-trade allowances in California might choose to distribute those pollution allowances in a way that reinforces existing pollution patterns by focusing on existing older facilities near poor neighborhoods.  AB 197 seeks to mitigate that problem by requiring ARB to take “social costs” into account in setting up the cap-and-trade program. How, exactly, ARB is going to implement AB 197 is anybody’s guess . But it could mean that the cap-and-trade program is changed, reduced, or eliminated. And that will inevitably put pressure on the SCSs. Although the ARB concept paper does not quantify SCS emission reduction under different scenarios, it does generally characterize the degree of difficulty in each case. If cap-and-trade is retained, ARB reports, 2035 SCS targets will be subject to “increased stringency.” The same would be true of the state adopts a carbon tax, which is essentially a different way as the cap-and-trade program to get to the same goal.  Take away cap-and-trade or an equivalent policy, however, and the lift for SCSs becomes bigger. ARB outlined two alternative scenarios without a cap-and-trade program. The first focuses on reducing industrial pollution and requires “more ambitious targets” for SCSs. The second focuses on reducing transportation-related pollution – the other big contributor to GHG emissions – and, not surprisingly, calls for “ambitious stringency” in SCS targets. It’s not clear what “ambitious stringency” means, but it sounds pretty ominous. And that means more SCS fights ahead.