Since Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens announced his retirement a few weeks ago, he has been hailed - and reviled - as the Court's "great liberal voice" of the past couple of decades. But especially in land use, Stevens' legacy rests with not only his ardent support of government regulatory power, but also his skill in mustering five votes, on a pretty conservative court, in favor of aggressive use of land use regulation. President Obama's choice to replace Stevens will undoubtedly be "liberal" - but it remains to be seen whether this replacement will be as skilled at building majorities in land use cases.

Was Tuesday's election the turning point in the San Francisco density battles?

The fifteen or so land-use measures on city and county ballots June 6 represent a cross-section of issues that California localities are facing. They include referenda on perennial questions like proposed developments (Pleasanton Measure K),  affordable housing (San Francisco Proposition C) funding for parks and infrastructure (San Francisco Proposition B). and, yet again, State of Jefferson secession (Lassen County).

If building houses were as easy as drafting laws, California would have left its housing crisis in the dust long ago. With rents continuing to inch upward, legislators in Sacramento have introduced a myriad of bills intended to streamline, fund, and otherwise promote the production of both market rate and subsidized housing statewide. Even bills whose titles ostensibly speak to issues like zoning, redevelopment dissolution, and infrastructure development are concerned wholly or in part with housing.

Just when cities thought it was safe to sign on to notices of completion and put their long redevelopment nightmares behind them, a newly proposed bill yet again has put cities at odds with the state.

A typically diverse array of land use measures appears on the November ballot in a handful of localities around the state. Most questions ask voters to endorse or oppose specific developments, from a golf course redevelopment in El Dorado County to a park in San Carlos. Only the City of Modesto has a sweeping, citywide question, billed as a referendum on urban sprawl.

Another Newhall Ranch case goes to the Supreme Court. The winning environmentalists seek a rehearing in the big Newhall lvictorh -- mostly to clarify the nature of their win. And, on another front, an appellate court reheard a groundwater extraction fee case and didn't budget.

Only a few significant planning and development bills made to Gov. Jerry Brown's desk by the end of the legislative session on Sept. 11 -- most significantly SB 774, which requires local governments to cut parking ratios for transit-oriented development.

ULI Los Angeles, in partnership with VerdeXchange , announces FutureBuild 2016 . This assembly of the land-use thinkers and innovators in business and government, local and worldwide, will be Tuesday, January 26, 2016, 7:30 am to 1:30 pm, at L.A. Downtown Hotel, 333 S. Figueroa Street, Los Angeles, CA 90071.

CP&DR Vol. 28 No. 9 September 2013

CP&DR Vol. 28 No. 10 October 2013