The apportionment of lots in a subdivision is not an "exaction" under the Mitigation Fee Act, a state appellate court has ruled. The ruling stemmed from a Chico City Council decision to alter a subdivision approved by the Planning Commission. The council precluded development on one large parcel and transferred the permissible housing units to an adjacent parcel. The developers argued that this decision amounted to an illegal exaction under the Mitigation Fee Act. But a trial court and the Third District Court of Appeal found that the city's decision fell under the Subdivision Map Act — and that the developer's lawsuit alleging an illegal taking was filed too late to challenge a map act decision. In March 2005, the Chico Planning Commission approved the Oak Valley subdivision of up to 1,300 units on 340 acres in the foothills on the east side of town. The commission authorized 80 to 160 units on "Lot Q." Opponents appealed to the City Council, which in May 2005 affirmed the decision but also approved a motion of intent to limit Lot Q to 80 units. Upon making a final decision on September 20, 2005, the council prohibited residential use of Lot Q and increased permissible development on Lot P by 160 units. The council said Lot Q should remain open space because of its steep slopes, oak woodlands, riparian areas and rare plant species. Developer Tom Fogarty, who has been attempting to sell the project, contended that the City's Council's ultimate decision unconstitutionally reduced the fair market value of Lot Q by $17 million. He filed a lawsuit on December 19, 2005, but did not serve the city with the suit until December 27 — 98 days after the City Council's final decision. Butte County Superior Court Judge Barbara Roberts threw out the lawsuit because the Subdivision Map Act gives plaintiffs 90 days to serve a summons after the date of the public agency's decision. Fogarty appealed, arguing that the Mitigation Fee Act — which gives plaintiffs 180 days — applied. The Mitigation Fee Act (Government Code § 66000 et seq .) permits an attack on fees, dedications, reservations and "other exactions." Fogarty argued that the City Council's decision fell into the "other exactions" category. However, the Third District noted that fees, dedications and reservations all concern either the payment of money or an interest in land — and not land use restrictions. "The interpretation that the plaintiffs champion violates the intrinsic principle of ejusdem generis , under which we should construe general terms following specific terms as embracing only objects similar in nature to the specific term," Justice Rodney Davis wrote for the unanimous three-judge panel. "As the plaintiffs concede, the specific terms in § 66020 all involve divesting a developer of either money or a possessory interest in the subject property. The present land use conditions at issue do not result in either consequence; they are simply a restriction on the manner in which the plaintiffs may use their property." The remedy for a violation of the Mitigation Fee Act is a refund or return of the improper exaction. But in this case, a refund or return would not be possible because nothing was transferred to the city, Davis wrote. Thus, the Mitigation Fee Act — and its 180-day time limit — do not apply, the court concluded. Nothing prevented Fogarty from seeking redress under the Subdivision Map Act (Government Code § 66410 et seq .), the court noted. In May, Fogarty asked the state Supreme Court to review the case. The Case: Fogarty v. City of Chico , No. C052576, 07 C.D.O.S. 2660, 2007 DJDAR 3375. Filed March 12, 2007. The Lawyers: For Fogarty: Douglas Aikins, GCA Law Partners, (650) 428-3900. For the city: James Meeder, Allen, Matkins, Leck, Gamble, Mallory & Natsis, (415) 837-1515.

The City of Poway did not conduct an adequate hearing before issuing tax-exempt bonds for the purchase of a mobile home park, the Fourth District Court of Appeal has ruled. The issuance of tax-free bonds for a housing project requires a public agency to conduct a "TEFRA hearing" (named for the Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1982), at which the agency accepts public input regarding affordable housing needs. However, there was no evidence Poway officials "brought forth or discussed any information on the provision of low-income housing at the park, a critical element in the maintenance of the tax-free status of the bonds," the court ruled. In addition, the hearing and the city's bond resolution were misleading because they did not explain the precise deal the city was contemplating or the uncertain tax-exempt status of the private entity acquiring the mobile home park, the court ruled. The court rejected arguments from mobile home owners that the city had to abide by earlier oral promises that the city would offer to sell the park to the residents. In 1991, Poway's Redevelopment Agency purchased Royal Poway Mobilehome Park with the intent of preserving affordable housing. Four years later, the Redevelopment Agency transferred ownership to the city, which issued $31.7 million in bonds to pay off the debt remaining on the agency's original purchase. The city and contract employees managed the 399-unit park until 2004, when the city hired Wakeland Housing and Development Corporation for the task. In November 2004, the city announced it intended to sell the park to a 501(c)(3) nonprofit housing corporation using tax-exempt bond financing. Members of the Royal Poway Mobilehome Owners Association protested that city officials said in 1999 that if the city ever sold the park, residents would have a chance to purchase it. The association made an offer in February 2005, but the city rejected it and went forward with its plan to sell the park to Wakeland, even though Wakeland's 501(c)(3) status was pending. The deal was this: The city would issue $32 million in tax-exempt bonds and loan the proceeds, plus another $9.5 million, to the Redevelopment Agency. The agency would then loan all of that money to Wakeland, who would purchase the park for $35.6 million and assume all of the debt payments. At the time, Wakeland did not have a determination from the IRS on 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status. If Wakeland failed to get 501(c)(3) status, the city's backup plan was to have the Redevelopment Agency take ownership of the park. The city filed a validation action to get a court ruling on the legality of the financing plan. Meanwhile, the owners association filed their own lawsuit attempting to block the deal. After the legal actions were combined, San Diego County Superior Court Judge Yuri Hofmann approved the city's request for validation and rejected the owners association's various arguments. The Fourth District overturned part of the decision. The appellate court explained that a local public agency may not issue tax-exempt bonds and loan the proceeds to a private business if the bond proceeds are going to be used for "residential rental property for family units." There is an exception, though, for "qualified" projects in which at least 20% of the units are occupied by individuals whose income is 50% or less of the area's median. These are among the things a city must consider at a TEFRA hearing. Poway noticed a TEFRA hearing on June 14, 2005, at which the city and the Redevelopment Agency approved resolutions approving the bonds and related transactions. The owners association argued in court that there was no evidence at the hearing that Wakeland or its subsidiary, Poway Royal Estates LLP (PRE), was a tax-exempt charitable corporation, and that the city did not satisfy the low-income housing requirements. The city countered that the deal was contingent on Wakeland getting 501(c)(3) status. The city also said it was not required to present evidence regarding affordable housing because the agreement with Wakeland called for 20% of spaces to be available to very-low income residents and for an additional 40% to be available to "lower-income" households. The court was not satisfied. The first step of the city's plan was to loan the bond proceeds to the Redevelopment Agency, which is not a 501(c)(3) charitable corporation, the court noted. "The city explains that to take advantage of favorable interest rates and retire existing debt on the park, it sought to issue tax-exempt bonds before Wakeland or PRE obtained a determination letter from the IRS. For reasons not satisfactorily explained, the city did not refinance the debt itself," Presiding Justice Judith McConnell wrote for the court. "Rather it decided to first loan the proceeds of the bond issuance to the Redevelopment Agency for its interim purchase of the park." " t appears that in a rush to take advantage of favorable interest rates, laudable in and of itself, the city put the cart before the horse," McConnell continued. The hearing did not give the public adequate opportunity to comment on low-income housing, and apparently no such discussion took place, the court found. "We conclude that given the contingent nature of step two of the city's divestiture plan, the uncertain status of Wakeland or PRE at the time of the hearing, and the lack of any information on the low-income aspect of the project, the city's hearing was essentially tantamount to no TEFRA hearing at all," McConnell wrote. As for city officials' oral promises made in 1999 about selling the park to residents, the court concluded that such pronouncements are not enforceable contacts. The Case: Royal Poway Mobilehome Owners Association v. City of Poway , No. D048211, 07 C.D.O.S. 4305, 2007 DJDAR 5486. Filed April 20, 2007. The Lawyers: For the owners association: James C. Mitchell, Mitchell & Gilleon, (619) 702-8623. For the city and Wakeland Housing and Development Corporation: Douglas J. Evertz, Stradling, Yocca, Carlson & Rauth, (949) 725-4000. For the city: Lisa A. Foster, McDougal, Love, Eckis, Smith & Boehmer, (619) 440-4444.

The state attorney general cannot recover fees under the Code of Civil Procedure's "private attorney general" provision, the Third District Court of Appeal has ruled in a Tehama County case involving the Subdivision Map Act and the Williamson Act. The attorney general's office sued the county over a lot-line adjustment that the state argued should have been subject to map act restrictions and Williamson Act findings. The attorney general (AG) won the case and a trial court awarded the AG $173,000 in fees. However, the Third District, citing California Licensed Foresters Assn. v. State Bd. of Forestry , (1994) 30 Cal.App.4th 562, 570, ruled, " n award of attorney fees under Code of Civil Procedure § 1021.5 has always served ‘as a "bounty" for pursuing public interest litigation, not a reward for litigants motivated by their own interests who coincidentally serve the public.'" "The attorney general," Justice Ronald Robie wrote for the court, "needs no encouragement to pursue litigation that is in the general interest of the state's population because, put simply, that is his or her job." The case involved Tehama County Planning Director George Robson's approval in 1999 of a lot line adjustment for the 3,300-acre Burr Valley Estates west of Red Bluff. The property owned by KAKE, LLP, is under a Williamson Act contract, which provides property owners a tax break for not developing their land. Robson approved KAKE's lot line application after determining it would not create more parcels than already existed. In recent years, the state Department of Conservation has expressed concern over Tehama County practices regarding the division of land covered by the Williamson Act. Generally, the Williamson Act bars land divisions unless the resulting parcels would still be of sufficient size to sustain agricultural uses. Tehama County has approved such divisions as long as resulting parcels are at least 40 acres in size. In May 2001, the AG, the Resources Agency and the Department of Conservation sued over the KAKE project, arguing that the lot-line adjustment violated the Subdivision Map Act and the Williamson Act. Retired Lassen County Superior Court Judge Joseph Harvey ruled for the state and eventually awarded the AG attorney fees. The county and KAKE appealed both the ruling and award of fees. In a lengthy, unpublished portion of the decision, the Third District ruled that the county had in fact violated the Subdivision Map Act because the lot line adjustment resulted in 29 parcels, which was at least two more than existed prior to the lot line adjustment. Lot line adjustments may not increase the number of parcels. The court reached its conclusion after a detailed examination of early 20th Century land transactions. KAKE had argued there were 37 or 40 pre-existing parcels, while the state argued there were 21 or 24. KAKE argued that the state's figure was based on the forced merger of lots, which Code of Civil Procedure § 1093 prohibits. But the court concluded KAKE read the law too broadly. After concluding the state was correct and the lot-line adjustment was subject the Subdivision Map Act, the court turned to the issue of attorney fees. The discussion of attorney fees was the only portion of the decision the Third District published, meaning it is the only part of the case that may be cited as precedent. Judge Harvey had awarded the $173,000 based on the "obdurate behavior" of a previous county attorney. The state conceded this was not a proper basis for the fee award and instead argued that the case was an extreme situation and that the AG's costs of conducting the litigation were out of proportion to the any pecuniary interest of the state. But the Third District ruled that under the financial burden criterion of § 1021.5, the attorney general does not qualify for fees. " he pertinent question is whether the public entity deserves a reward for pursuing litigation that was in the interest of a greater spectrum of the public than its own constituents," Robie wrote, citing cases involving lawsuits filed by one local government against another. " pplying the traditional financial burden criterion to public entity litigants will not always preclude a fee award under Code of Civil Procedure § 1021.5, except then the public entity litigant is the state itself, acting through the attorney general. Such a case will always be self-serving, in that the People will always be pursuing their own interests through their chief attorney, whose very raison d' etre is to enforce the laws of the state and serve the public interests of the state's population as a whole," Robie wrote. "To reward the attorney general with attorney fees for pursuing litigation it is his or her duty to pursue would stand the private attorney general doctrine on its head," the court concluded. The decision pleased not only Tehama County but city and county organizations that were concerned about costs and the possibility that the AG's office might make decisions based on the likelihood of winning fees. The Case: People ex rel. Brown v. Tehama County Board of Supervisors , No. C049048, 07 C.D.O.S. 2872, 2007 DJDAR 3650. Filed March 16, 2007. Modified April 11, 2007 at 2007 DJDAR 4803. The Lawyers: For People: Richard Thalhammer, attorney general's office, (916) 445-9555. For the county: Arthur Wylene, county counsel's office, (530) 527-9252. For KAKE, LLP: James Wagstaffe, Kerr & Wagstaffe, (415) 371-8500. Corrections . A case involving enforcement of the Williamson Act in Tehama County and the payment of attorney fees to the state has in fact been published in full. A story in the June edition erroneously reported that only a portion of the case was certified for publication. The case is People ex rel. Brown v. Tehama County Board of Supervisors.

A California Environmental Quality Act lawsuit over the City of Fresno's move to metered water rates has been dismissed because attorneys missed a deadline. Attorneys for the San Joaquin Valley Taxpayers Association did not file a request for a hearing on the lawsuit until 91 days after they filed the suit. Under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), a plaintiff has 90 days to request a hearing. The court ruled that dismissal of the case was mandatory and that the attorneys' error was not "excusable neglect." In 2005, Fresno approved an updated contract with the Bureau of Reclamation for continued delivery of 60,000 acre-feet of water from the Central Valley Project. A condition of the contract requires the city to begin charging for water based on usage, rather than continuing the city's practice of charging a flat rate based on the connection. The taxpayers association, which complained the plan would raise water bills, filed a lawsuit contending that the city's environmental review of the contract extension was inadequate. The group filed its lawsuit on August 19, 2005. But not until November 18, 2005, did the group file with the Superior Court a request for a hearing. Three days later, the city requested dismissal of the lawsuit because the taxpayers association missed the 90-day deadline for requesting a hearing contained in Public Resources Code § 21167.4, subdivision (a). The taxpayers association responded that it had filed the request late because the deadline had been inadvertently "miscalendared" and no one realized it until late on the afternoon of November 17. At that point, no one could get the hearing request to the courthouse in time, the association said. Fresno County Superior Court Judge Rosendo Peña ruled the association had failed to show excusable neglect and dismissed the case. The taxpayers association appealed, but the Fifth District Court of Appeal upheld the decision. On appeal, the taxpayers association argued that the city's request to dismiss the case was moot because the association had filed its request for a hearing. The basis for the city's dismissal request "no longer existed when the dismissal motion was filed and served," the group argued. The Fifth District called this argument "wrong on the facts." The court ruled: " violation of the 90-day deadline existed at the time the motion to dismiss was filed and the violation still exists today. The late-filed request for hearing did not cure the violation." The taxpayers association argued that the missed deadline can be cured if a request for hearing is filed before the motion to dismiss, as occurred in this case. But the court rejected that argument, too. The statute "means what it plainly says — the request for a hearing must be filed within 90 days from the date the petition was filed," the court ruled. In an unpublished portion of the opinion, the court determined that the missed deadline was not excusable error because, upon realizing the impending deadline with time to act, the association could have filed the request for hearing by fax or delivered the request to a court drop box before 5 p.m. on deadline day. The Case: Fiorentino v. City of Fresno , No. F050578, 07 C.D.O.S. 4994, 2007 DJDAR 6340. Filed April 5, 2007. Modified and ordered partially published May 4, 2007. The Lawyers: For Fiorentino (San Joaquin Valley Taxpayers Association): Raymond Carlson, Griswold, LaSalle, Cobb, Dowd & Gin, (559) 584-6656. For the city: Lisabeth Rothman, Hatch & Parent, (310) 440-9996.

The City of Alameda's approval of a development and disposition agreement (DDA) with a developer for restoration of an historic theater and construction of a new theater and parking structure was a "project" under the California Environmental Quality Act, the First District Court of Appeal has ruled. The ruling was a loss for historic preservation advocates who did not challenge the City of Alameda's environmental review of the DDA when the city approved the study. Opponents of the Alameda project argued that the city should have conducted new environmental reviews when it approved the project design and use permits after signing the DDA. The opponents argued that a fair argument could be made that those subsequent actions may have a significant impact on the environment. But the court ruled that, because the mitigated negative declaration for the DDA was in place and unchallenged, the fair argument standard did not apply. Rather, the opponents had to show that the project or circumstances had changed, or that new information had become available. The opponents failed that test, the court ruled. The historic Alameda Theatre, a 1932 art deco structure designed by the firm Miller & Pflueger, is what has stirred preservationists. The theater is on the National Register of Historic Places and is important for Alameda's Park Street historic district. However, the building has sat mostly vacant since 1979. In 2000, the city began exploring options for rehabilitating the theater. After finding no interest in reopening the building as a single-screen cinema, the city pursued a larger project that involved restoration of the historic theater, and construction of a multi-screen cineplex and 350-space, six-story parking structure next to the existing theater. After a series of public meetings, the City Council, also acting as the Community Improvement Commission (Alameda's redevelopment agency board), approved a DDA with Alameda Entertainment Associates in early May 2005. Under the DDA, the city would acquire, assemble and prepare all of the necessary real estate, renovate the theater, build the parking garage and provide grants and loans totaling $2.9 million to the developer, which would build and run the new cineplex. In June, the Alameda Planning Board approved the designs of the cineplex and parking structure, and a use permit for the parking structure. Preservationists, calling themselves Citizens for a Megaplex-Free Alameda, appealed the decision to the City Council and urged preparation of an environmental impact report. On August 16, 2005, the City Council upheld the Planning Board and declined to do additional environmental review. On September 29, 2005, the Planning Board approved a use permit for the cineplex. Again, preservationists appealed and, again, the City Council on November 1, 2005, upheld the Planning Board and found no reason for further study. On October 3, 2005, the citizens group sued the city for allegedly violating the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). They argued that, under the fair argument standard, the mitigated negative declaration was inadequate. They also argued that, under the substantial evidence standard, the city had failed to address new information made available at the time of subsequent decisions. Alameda County Superior Court Judge Bonnie Sabraw ruled that the lawsuit was filed too late to challenge the mitigated negative declaration. Sabraw found that the group could challenge the subsequent August and November decisions — but not under the fair argument standard. The judge found that the substantial evidence standard applied, and ruled that substantial evidence supported the city's decision that the project had not changed and no new information warranting further study was available. A unanimous three-judge panel of the First District, Division Five, upheld Sabraw. On appeal, the citizens group argued that approval of the DDA did not amount to approval of a project under CEQA because other land use approvals were necessary. Thus, they argued, they should be allowed to challenge the mitigated negative declaration on which the subsequent decisions relied. The court disagreed. "Citizens' argument misapprehends the definition of ‘project,'" wrote San Francisco Superior Court Judge Maria Miller, sitting by assignment to the First District. "Under CEQA, ‘project' refers to the underlying activity which may be subject to approval by one or more governmental agencies; it does not refer to the each of the several approvals sequentially issued by different agencies. Here, the underlying activity is quite plainly the work agreed to by the parties to the DDA — the restoration of the Alameda Theatre and the construction of the cineplex and parking structure. This constitutes the ‘project' within the meaning of CEQA." Under the CEQA Guidelines, "approval" occurs upon the earliest commitment for funding or land use approvals, Miller continued. The DDA committed the city to acquire and assemble parcels, grant and loan specific amounts of money, perform demolition, grading and remediation work, renovate the theater and build the parking structure. "Our examination of these provisions leaves us with no doubt that the city's execution of the DDA constituted an ‘approval' as that term is defined in the Guidelines," the court ruled. Thus, preservationists had 30 days from the May 3 DDA approval to contest the mitigated negative declaration — a deadline the group missed by four months. Challenges to subsequent determinations by the city are subject to the more stringent substantial evidence standard. The citizens group argued that a report it commissioned by a local historian and testimony at an August historical advisory board hearing amounted to new information that should trigger preparation of an EIR. The court, however, determined that this information could have been known when the city adopted the mitigated negative and, therefore, did not require preparation of a new environmental document. The Case: Citizens for a Megaplex-Free Alameda v. City of Alameda , No. A114941, 07 C.D.O.S. 3376, 2007 DJDAR 4231. Filed March 29, 2007. Modified April 24, 2007 at 2007 DJDAR 5688. The Lawyer: For Citizens: Susan Brandt-Hawley, (707) 938-3908. For the city: Ellen Garber, Shute, Mihaly & Weinberger, (415) 552-7272. For Alameda Entertainment Associates: Donald Black, (707) 576-7850.

The City of Fresno's policy of not requiring mitigations for developments' impact on state highways is illegal, according to the Fifth District Court of Appeal. In an expansive ruling, the court stepped into the middle of the long-running feud between Fresno and Caltrans over mitigation fees. Fresno has refused to impose fees on new development to pay for highway improvements, because city officials said Caltrans could not justify the fees. "The policy is illegal because CEQA does not allow agencies to approve projects after refusing to require feasible mitigation measures for significant impacts," Justice Rebecca Wiseman wrote for the court. The unanimous three-judge panel also rejected the city's baseline for studying the project that brought about the litigation. The project is mix of offices, a shopping center and apartments on nearly 40 acres. In the environmental impact report, the city compared the impact of this project with impacts expected under full build-out of existing zoning for an office park, rather than comparing the project with the site's existing condition as vacant land. The court determined that the EIR was misleading. In December 2004, the Fresno City Council amended the general plan and the Woodward Park community plan, rezoned property and approved Zinkin Development Company's proposal for a 39-acre site at North Friant Road and North Fresno Street, one block off Highway 41. The project called for 274,000 square feet of offices, a 203,000-square-foot shopping center and, tentatively, 20 apartments. The city certified an EIR for the project and adopted a statement of overriding considerations because a variety of significant impacts could not be mitigated. The Woodward Park Homeowners Association and Valley Advocates sued, arguing that the city failed to require feasible mitigation for significant cumulative traffic impacts, performed an inadequate analysis of cumulative air quality impacts and project alternatives, rendered the general plan internally inconsistent and inconsistent with the community plan, and used an improper procedure to adopt the statement of overriding considerations. Fresno County Superior Court Judge Wayne Ellison rejected all of the project opponents' claims. The groups appealed a portion of the ruling, but the Fifth District actually expanded the issues. The court started with the environmental baseline. The city and developer argued that the EIR was adequate because it evaluated the project's impacts in relation to the vacant land and a hypothetical large office park permissible under existing zoning. That approach would have been acceptable, the court ruled, but it wasn't what happened. Instead, the EIR used the comparison with hypothetical development to obscure the project's true impacts, the court found. " he EIR never presented a clear or complete description of the project's impacts compared with the effects of leaving the land in its existing state," the court ruled. "Readers who have been told that the air pollution impact is slight and that the traffic generated will be less than the given benchmark should not have to stop and puzzle it out that these conclusions are based on a comparison with a large office park that is not, in fact, there. Those who did puzzle it out were still left wondering whether the impacts would be slight or major in relation to vacant land." The court found the EIR's required "no project" alternative invalid for similar reasons: The no project alternative was based on full build-out under existing zoning, not on leaving the site undeveloped. The court continued the theme into its consideration of the statement of overriding considerations. The court found that the EIR presented project alternatives as substantially more intensive than the proposed project, yet the statement of overriding considerations dismissed the alternatives as smaller and less economically beneficial. This misled the public, the court determined. The real difference between the project and alternatives was the inclusion of a shopping center in the Zinkin plan. "If the statement of overriding considerations had said accurately that the alternatives proposed ‘no shopping center or a smaller shopping center' instead of inaccurately ‘no development or development to a lesser degree,' it would have made a far different impression on the public. We do not have to look far to find a reason why the city might not have wanted to use the accurate language since many project opponents, especially neighbors, concentrated their fire on the shopping center component of the project," Justice Wiseman wrote for the court. Moreover, the city did not make the statement of overriding considerations available to the public prior to the public hearing at which the City Council approved the project. At that hearing, a city planner "misrepresented the contents of the statement" to a skeptical councilman, the court found. After identifying all of these legal inadequacies, the court considered the issue of highway mitigation. The city and Caltrans had argued about the number of peak hour trips the project would generate and the assessment of fees to fund offsetting Highway 41 improvements. Ultimately, Caltrans insisted on $306,000 to fund the project's fair-share of an $11 million southbound auxiliary lane. City staff members, however, advised the Planning Commission and the City Council that Caltrans had not provided adequate proof of a nexus between the project and the mitigation fee — and that charging such a fee would therefore be illegal. The city imposed no impact fee. In fact, the city has refused similar Caltrans' fee requests since at least 1998. "Simply stated: The city's practice is illegal," the court ruled. "There is no foundation for the idea that the city can refuse to require mitigation of an impact solely because another agency did not provide information. The seed of the city's confusion, as evidenced in the city staff report to the Planning Commission and City Council, is its belief that the city needs to require mitigation of this category of impacts only if Caltrans proposes a mitigation measure and then proves to the city's satisfaction that the measure is legal. This is not how CEQA works." "Here is another way of putting the point. The city may view this matter as a conflict between it and Caltrans. In referring to Caltrans in the context of this issue at oral argument, counsel for the city said it was ‘their issue' and argued that this court should not reach it because Caltrans had not appeared as a party. In reality, the conflict between the city and Caltrans is irrelevant to the city's obligation to require mitigation of impacts. The city's failure to resolve this conflict and require mitigation of these acknowledged impacts only punishes the public. CEQA does not permit this to happen," the court concluded. Although it rejected the EIR, the court did not find the project in conflict with the general and community plans. The Case: Woodward Park Homeowners Association, Inc. v. City of Fresno , No. F049481, 07 C.D.O.S. 3914, 2007 DJDAR 4948. Filed April 13, 2007. The Lawyers: For the homeowners association: Richard Harriman, (559) 226-1818. For the city: Geralyn Skapik, Burke, Williams & Sorensen, (951) 788-0100. For Zinkin Development: James McKelvey, Motschiedler, Michaelides & Wishon, (559) 439-4000.

The Sacramento County Water Agency and the East Bay Municipal Utility District (MUD) broke ground on an historic water project in May. The Freeport Regional Water Project will provide water for growth in South Sacramento County, including the cities of Elk Grove and Rancho Cordova, while East Bay MUD will be able to pump up to 133,000 acre-feet of water during drought years to supplement the district's reservoirs. For three decades, East Bay MUD fought Sacramento interests over the district's attempt to take water from the lower American River. In 2000, the district reached an agreement with the Sacramento County agency, the City of Sacramento and the Bureau of Reclamation, an agreement that led to the Freeport project (see CP&DR Environment Watch , December 2001). Water agencies in the San Joaquin Valley and Southern California, which feared the project would threaten their supplies, sued over the project but lost. Rather than pumping directly from the American River, East Bay MUD and the Sacramento County agency will divert water from the Sacramento River at Freeport, about 10 miles below the Sacramento River's confluence with the American. A pipeline will tie in with East Bay MUD's existing Mokelumne Aqueduct. The project will also provide water to the Cosumnes River during times of low flow in hopes of re-establishing a salmon fishery. Among the areas that will be served by the Sacramento agency is the 20,000-unit Sunrise-Douglas community plan area in Rancho Cordova. Earlier this year, the state Supreme Court rejected a water analysis for the project because it did not adequately describe long-term water sources and the impacts of using those sources (see CP&DR , March 2007). Although the ruling was a victory for environmentalists and a blow against the development, the Sacramento County Water Agency expects to start delivering water from the Freeport project to the community plan area within three years. Flood safety improvements in Sacramento took two steps forward recently. In mail balloting, 81% of Sacramento-area landowners approved a property tax increase of about $35 for a typical house. The tax is expected to provide about $326 million over 30 years as a local match for state and federal flood control spending. In addition, the Bureau of Reclamation and the Army Corps of Engineers in May filed a record of decision approving improvements to Folsom Dam. The $1.3 billion-project includes construction of a new spillway that is intended to improve flood safety. The project also makes a future 3-foot height increase of the dam possible. Sacramento has the worst flood protection of any major American city, but planned projects such as the Folsom Dam improvements and levee upgrades would give Sacramento 200-year flood protection. The Los Angeles City Council has approved a master plan for revitalizing the Los Angeles River. The plan calls for making a 32-mile stretch of the river into an environmental, recreational and aesthetic asset, rather than simply a concrete-lined flood control channel (see CP&DR Places , April 2007). However, plan implementation will cost an estimated $2 billion and the city has identified few solid funding sources. Fresno County Supervisor Bob Waterston resigned from the Fresno County Local Agency Formation Commission two days after the Fresno Bee ran a story raising conflict of interest questions. Waterston voted for six City of Sanger annexations to accommodate subdivisions proposed by RZR Enterprises, even though his pool-building business was doing work for the Orange County-based developer. Pools by Waterston built a pool and other amenities for model homes in one RZR subdivision on which the supervisor did not vote, according to the Bee . Waterston's company also built six pools in two other subdivisions for which he did cast votes in favor of annexation, and the company was listed as the exclusive pool builder for the subdivisions. A county supervisor since 2001, Waterston was appointed to LAFCO in 2003 and was chairman when he quit. In a letter of resignation, he denied that his business interests influenced his vote, but he apologized "for my lapse in judgment creating the perception of a breach of trust." A federal judge has ruled that the U.S. Department of Energy failed to address radioactive and toxic waste at the closed Santa Susana Field Laboratory in the hills between Simi Valley and the San Fernando Valley, an area considered for residential development. U.S. District Court Senior Judge Samuel Conti ruled that the federal government's review of the site was inadequate under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and he barred a transfer of ownership until the government satisfies NEPA. From the 1950s until 1996, the site was a center of nuclear research and test facilities. A 1959 partial meltdown of one of the reactors is considered the biggest nuclear accident in U.S. history, and there is believed to be widespread radioactive and chemical pollution on the 290-acre site. The site is encompassed in a 2,400-acre site now owned by Rocketdyne Propulsion, which built and tested engines there. The Department of Energy remains responsible for all environmental cleanup, however. The case is NRDC v. Department of Energy , No. 04-04448. Four water agencies in the Santa Clarita Valley have reached an agreement regarding the cleanup of groundwater contaminated by perchlorate, a chemical used in making rocket fuel and explosives. Whittaker-Bermite and Remediation Financial, Inc., will pay $100 million for replacement wells and pipelines and for a treatment plant to remove perchlorate from groundwater. Perchlorate contamination has become a public health and water planning issue in the Santa Clarita Valley since the contaminant was first detected in wells seven years ago. Environmentalists have successfully sued over environmental impact reports and water plans that did not adequately account for the contamination (see CP&DR Environment Watch , June 2006; CP&DR Legal Digest , December 2005) and have a pending Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit against the Castaic Lake Water Agency over the agency's plans for addressing perchlorate. The 1,000-acre Whittaker-Bermite site was used for the manufacture of munitions, flares and other explosive devices for at least 50 years until it closed in 1999.

Local governments in the Central Valley are starting to adopt policies that require developers to mitigate the conversion of farmland to urban uses, primarily by acquiring agricultural easements or paying in-lieu fees. San Joaquin County has become a hotbed for the new policies, and farmland advocates are hoping to export those policies to other places. The City of Stockton — which has plans to expand into more than 5,000 acres of outlying cropland and pastureland — adopted one of the most aggressive mitigation ordinances in the state in February. The new ordinance requires developers of projects of at least 40 acres (which is nearly all projects in Stockton) to offset their impacts by acquiring agricultural easements elsewhere in San Joaquin County. Developers must purchase one acre of easement for every acre of farmland they develop, and the protected land must have comparable soil quality to the land being developed. Developers of smaller projects may pay a mitigation fee of $9,600 per acre. For the program's first year, developers of larger projects may also pay the fee; after that, they must locate and buy easements themselves. Stockton adopted its agricultural land mitigation program only three months after San Joaquin County adopted a similar one. Other cities in the county — including Tracy, Lathrop and Manteca — recently started charging mitigation fees for development of farmland. "It's undisputed in my mind that farmland protection policy has picked up serious profile," said Bill Martin, executive director of the Central Valley Farmland Trust, which is administering Stockton's new program. For differing reasons, local government officials, farm advocates and developers are closely studying the new city and county policies in San Joaquin County. The policy discussion definitely has reached beyond San Joaquin County: • Stanislaus County planners are working on an update of the general plan's agricultural element, and they see the San Joaquin County program as sort of a model, said Ron Freitas, Stanislaus County planning director. • In Fresno County, the Fresno Council of Governments has received a $200,000 grant from the California Partnership for the San Joaquin Valley to create and implement a model farmland conservation program. • In Merced County, the local farm bureau and others are pressing for inclusion of agricultural mitigation policies in a general plan update. • Gov. Schwarzenegger's proposed budget contains $10 million from Proposition 84 for the creation and implementation of mitigation programs, according to the Department of Conservation. Under an agricultural conservation easement, which can last anywhere from 20 years to perpetuity, a landowner essentially sells his right to develop, typically for one-third to two-thirds of the existing value of the land. For years, environmental impact reports have specified the loss of farmland as a significant impact of a development or plan. However, unlike mitigation for impacts to animal and plant habitat, mitigation for agricultural impacts has been ad-hoc at best. A few jurisdictions have required developers to buy agricultural easements or set aside farmland, but most mitigation is not based on any definitive policy. A 2003 court ruling threw into doubt whether the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) can be used to require mitigation. In Friends of the Kangaroo Rat v. California Dept. of Corrections , No. F040956, the Fifth District Court of Appeal ruled that it was not possible to mitigate the conversion of farmland with an agricultural easement (see CP&DR Legal Digest , January 2004). The state Supreme Court depublished the decision so it did not establish a precedent, but the ruling still stands. However, other legal activity is at the root of the policy shift in San Joaquin County. The local chapter of the Sierra Club filed and settled three lawsuits — one over Lathrop's approval of the 11,000-unit River Islands project in Lathrop, one over the South San Joaquin Irrigation District's extension of new water service to Tracy, Lathrop and Manteca, and one over Stockton's adoption of a larger sphere of influence. "The ball really started rolling on farmland mitigation when the Sierra Club started suing local governments in the San Joaquin Valley," observed Ed Thompson, California director of the American Farmland Trust. The Sierra Club settled the River Islands lawsuit during late 2003 when developer Cambay Group agreed to provide $200,000 to help establish a farmland trust and pay $2,200 an acre (adjusted for inflation) for every acre it develops in the 4,800-acre project. That deal provided the template for the environmental group's settlement with the irrigation district in which the three cities involved agreed to establish a farmland mitigation program and charge $2,000-per-acre development fees. In 2005, the club dropped its suit against Stockton when the city agreed to adopt a mitigation program. Erik Parfrey, a leader of the Sierra Club's Mother Lode chapter who helped spearhead the lawsuits, gives a great deal of credit to Cambay Group and the local governments for agreeing to fund and implement "real programs." Stockton originally agreed to a mitigation fee of only $3,200 an acre, Parfrey said. However, a study prepared last year by Economic & Planning Systems and ESA Associates found that a fee of $9,000 an acre was needed to acquire easements. Although developers and the local chapter of the Building Industry Association protested, the City Council accepted the study and eventually voted 6-0 to charge a $9,600-per-acre fee. "The legal authority is there, it just takes the political will of these city councils and boards of supervisors to do the right thing," Parfrey said. None of these ideas is new. Since 1995, the City of Davis has had a farmland preservation policy. In 2001, Davis strengthened the policy and now requires developers to preserve in perpetuity two acres of farmland for every acre developed. In addition, the preserved land must be adjacent to the development site. Since 1995, Davis has secured agricultural conservation easements on more than 2,000 acres surrounding the town. But Davis's anti-growth politics are the antithesis of attitudes in most of the Central Valley, where property rights have stood supreme. Attitudes may be changing at least a bit, partly because some well-known property rights defenders — including local farm bureaus — have become advocates for farmland mitigation and partly because recent trends in farmland conversion have people worried about the future of the Valley's $25 billion-a-year agricultural industry. Merced County may have more acreage (nearly 10,000 acres) covered by agricultural easements than any county in the state because of the establishment of a farmland trust in 1991. The trust has since merged with others into the professionally staffed Central Valley Farmland Trust. Local politics in Merced County, however, have been staunchly pro-growth, and the county did not sign up for the Williamson Act (see sidebar) until 2000, said Diana Westmoreland Pedrozo, executive director of the Merced County Farm Bureau. The farm bureau regularly requests four-to-one mitigation of urban development, she said. Most development has been approved with no mitigation at all for the loss of farmland, although the county did require one-to-one mitigation for the new University of California campus and a few other projects. "Mitigation is a way to keep track of our land," Westmoreland Pedrozo said. "It's really hard for the people in ag to compete with the speculative development. What we've become here in the north San Joaquin Valley is the housing market for the Bay Area." Indeed, development — much of it low-density housing tracts — has been swallowing up about 20,000 to 25,000 acres of Central Valley farmland every year since at least 1990. The rate at which landowners are canceling Williamson Act contracts, a precursor to development, has never been higher, according to Brian Leahy, head of the Department of Conservation's Division of Land Resource Protection. And at the current rate and density of development, the Valley will lose about one-seventh of its irrigated farmland by 2040. Organizations such as the Great Valley Center have been shouting about these conversion numbers for years, and it appears that people are starting to listen. During recent public workshops for the San Joaquin Valley Blueprint Process (see CP&DR Insight , May 2007), preservation of farmland often emerged as the top priority. "There is an undercurrent," said Stanislaus County's Freitas, "that we have a finite resource here, and we have a strong agricultural base." Whether the policies being adopted are adequate is a question still being debated. One-to-one mitigation still means that 50% of the farmland is lost to development, Westmoreland Pedrozo pointed out. Martin, of the Central Valley Farmland Trust, called the $2,000-an-acre fee imposed by some cities "woefully low" because agricultural easements often run $5,000 to $10,000 an acre. Thompson, of the American Farmland Trust, argues that mitigation should reflect the use of the converted land. Low-density development, especially the 1.5- to 20-acre ranchettes that sprawl across the Valley, waste land and should provide substantially more mitigation acre-per-acre than a dense subdivision, he said. Parfrey, of the Sierra Club, raised the issue of CEQA and suggested the law be amended to specify that acquisition of an agricultural easement is acceptable mitigation for the conversion of farmland. Those questions aside, the nature of the conversation appears to be changing as farmland mitigation policies start to take root. Contacts: Bill Martin, Central Valley Farmland Trust, (916) 687-3178. Ed Thompson, American Farmland Trust, (530) 753-1073. Ron Freitas, Stanislaus County, (209) 525-6330. Diana Westmoreland Pedrozo, Merced County Farm Bureau, (209) 723-3001. City of Stockton agricultural land mitigation program: www.ci.stockton.ca.us/CD/PlanningDivision.cfm Department of Conservation Williamson Act status report 2006: www.consrv.ca.gov/DLRP/lca/stats_reports/2006%20Williamson%20Act%20Status%20Report.htm Agricultural Land Protection Grows Although some local governments are adopting policies intended to protect farmland, Gov. Schwarzenegger's revised budget proposal released in May eliminates state funding for the Williamson Act, the state's largest farmland preservation program. Under the Williamson Act, landowners who agree not to develop their property for 10 years receive property tax reductions of 20% to 75%. About 16.6 million acres of farmland and ranchland — roughly one-third of all privately owned land in California — are protected by the Williamson Act, according to a Department of Conservation's status report released in May. About 820,000 acres were enrolled in the Farmland Security Zone (or "Super Williamson Act"), which provides even greater tax breaks for 20 years of protection from development. The state backfills property tax revenue lost by counties because of the Williamson Act. However, Gov. Schwarzenegger has proposed eliminating the subvention, saving the state about $39 million during the 2007-08 fiscal year. Gray Davis proposed a similar cut when he introduced the 2002-03 and 2003-04 budgets, but both times he added the money back. Schwarzenegger waited for the "May revise" to cut the Williamson Act subvention. Because Schwarzenegger proposed the cut later in the process, many people are taking it very seriously. During a news conference, the governor said of the cut: "We thought we can use that money for better use." The Sacramento Bee , which opposes the cut, blamed Susan Kennedy, who was Davis's cabinet secretary and is now Schwarzenegger's chief of staff. Others noted that the governor's office released the May revise shortly after Assembly Minority Leader Mike Villines (R-Clovis) had called Schwarzenegger a RINO — Republican in name only. Villines represents Fresno County, which is the largest recipient of Williamson Act subventions. Assemblyman Tom Berryhill (R-Modesto), whose district includes all or portions of six Central Valley and Sierra counties, announced he is "adamantly opposed to his attempt to balance a budget on the backs of rural counties I represent." Local government officials say they may drop out of the Williamson Act program without the subventions. The California Association of Counties, the Regional Council of Rural Counties, the League of California Cities and the California Chapter of the American Planning Association have submitted a joint letter opposing the governor's proposal. "Eliminating the subvention payments is the first step towards a total unraveling of the broadest based agricultural program in the state," the letter states. Top 5 recipients of Williamson Act subventions in 2005: • Fresno County, $5.6 million • Kern County, $4.8 million • Tulare County, $3.5 million • Kings County, $2.7 million • San Joaquin County, $1.9 million

A few weeks ago, I attended an Urban Land Institute event dedicated to hyping Los Angeles's newfound urbanity. It was a panel discussion on the windy roof of an old office building at 3801 Wilshire Boulevard, just across Western Avenue from the historic Wiltern Theater and catty-corner to the Red Line stop at Wilshire and Western. The 23-story building, a modernist building designed by architect Claude Beelman during the early 1960s as the headquarters for Getty Oil Co., has recently been renovated by Forest City Enterprises as condominiums. You can walk across the street to the Wiltern or a block or two to Koreatown stores and restaurants. The Red Line gives you immediate access to Universal City, Hollywood, and downtown. The Urban Land Institute event trumpeted "The Mercury," as Forest City has dubbed the building, as the epitome of car-free urban living. If you can afford it. Forest City is selling the condominiums for about $700 per square foot. That means a nice two-bedroom condomium – featuring windows on two sides and great views – runs about $1 million. A few evenings later, I found myself in the cramped living room of a single-family home in Ventura – one of about 180 moderate-income, affordable units developed a decade or so ago by local developer Lynn Jacobs, now the director of the California Department of Housing and Community Development. Because of the affordability requirements, the homeowners bought their houses at a discount and can sell them only at a restricted sales price of between $300,000 and $400,000. Recently, these homeowners said, the nature of their neighborhood had changed. New homeowners had more people – especially more adults – living in their houses. Four, five, six people were on the mortgage titles in order to qualify for financing. Seven, eight, nine cars were parked on the street in front of these houses. The Southern California real estate market is increasingly driven these days by affluent people who want to live an urban lifestyle and poor people who want to live a suburban lifestyle. No one could have predicted this peculiar trend as recently as a decade ago. Rich people moving to a high-rise condo and riding public transit was simply unthinkable. But this situation is a fact of life today all across Los Angeles. This is the opposite of what planners plan for. Planners generally assume that affluent folks want to live in large houses – mini-mansions – on large lots. They also tend to assume that starter homes will house nuclear families of one or two adults and a few kids who will bring with them maybe a couple of cars. They assume that rich people have lots of cars and poor people have none. But this is where the striking change in the Southern California economy over the last 20 years comes into play. The simple fact of the matter is that metropolitan Los Angeles is no longer a middle-class place. It is a place where some people have a lot of money and most people have relatively little money – the "working poor," as they have come to be known. The affluent folks drive the market. They tend to bid up the price of everything, especially housing that they like or that is trendy. In a place like central Los Angeles, the cost of developing or redeveloping anything is so extraordinarily high – construction costs alone run close to $200 per square foot – that developers have little choice but to target the high end of the market. That's how a condominium in an office building that's been empty for a decade can cost $1 million. Meanwhile, the less affluent folks struggle to keep up. Short-term trends aside, the cost of housing has consistently gone up over the last decade in Southern California while average wages have gone down. The median home price is 10 times the median household income – the historic rule of thumb for a balanced market was 3 – and, in many areas, home prices are more like 15 times the median income income. So the working poor are doubling, tripling, and quadrupling up – not to rent but to buy. And it's not hard to see why. If a $500,000 house requires $100,000 of income to qualify for a mortgage, then it only makes sense that multiple wage-earners making $20,000 to $30,000 each would join together to buy the house – and live in it. They're living in overcrowded conditions, to be sure, but at least the occupants own and control those overcrowded conditions. That's much better,and probably cheaper, than renting a small apartment that they don't control. And even among the working poor, most adults have their own cars, especially if they live in suburban areas, which puts a strain on driveways, lawns, sidewalks, and streets. The garage is usually out of the question, because it's used for living space. This overcrowding trend among the working poor is coming on strong, of course, at the same time that cities and counties are under tremendous pressure to make new housing more affordable to this very same population by cutting parking ratios dramatically. Clearly, one of the many consequences of the current trend is a parking crisis in suburban neighborhoods all over Southern California. But that's only an indicator. Underneath will be considerable social and cultural stress as suburban neighborhoods change. Over the next few years, home prices will level off and incomes – though they've been generally declining – might go up a little. This will relieve some pressure, but there's not much else on the horizon to indicate that this problem will get better. Overall, incomes will remain low and housing prices will remain high. Not very many rich people will want to relocate to large lots on the urban fringe. And the working poor are not going to live in overcrowded apartments – without cars – if they can possibly avoid it. Once again, cultural change is running up against postwar planning assumptions in California. So California's planners will have to rethink once again what good planning means and what a good city – or suburb – is.

California's business community is accustomed to having its plans second-guessed by regulators seeking to determine whether a project or activity will harm birds, bugs, fish and plants. But a recent decision by the Coastal Commission appears to signal a dramatic shift in the state's regulatory environment, adding a global dimension to the list of potential impacts to be assessed. By law, the jurisdiction of the California Coastal Commission is restricted to the state's coastal zone, which extends three miles out to sea and generally about 1,000 yards inland. Within that zone, any activity with the potential to affect the coastal environment falls under the commission's authority, as countless would-be developers of seaside property have discovered to their frustration over the past three decades. But federal law also grants the commission authority to review projects outside state waters, prohibiting federal agencies from permitting projects that affect California's coastal environment unless the commission finds them "consistent" with the Coastal Act's protections. It is this provision that let the Coastal Commission weigh in on Australian mining giant BHP Billiton's controversial proposal to install a liquefied natural gas import terminal in federal waters 14 miles off the Ventura County shore. In reaching their decision in April to reject the project, commissioners and their staff embraced a significant expansion of the panel's sphere of concern. "We feel we have the responsibility to make this recommendation to you, not only for consistency with the Coastal Act, but for the planet," is how Executive Director Peter Douglas put it during his presentation of the staff report recommending rejection of the BHP project. Most of the planet is, of course, outside the commission's geographic purview. But Douglas' comments — and the commission's unanimous vote — were based in part on a novel addition to the process of environmental review in California: evaluation of a project's potential effect on global climate. "The proposed project, including its associated supply chain and end users, would result in emissions of several million tons annually of greenhouse gases, primarily carbon dioxide," the staff report says. "The contribution of these emissions to global warming would result in numerous adverse effects to coastal resources due to sea level rise, ocean warming, and ocean acidification, which lead to secondary effects such as loss of habitat and species, increased coastal erosion, adverse economic effects to California's ports and fisheries, and other serious impacts to the California coast," the staff report says. The decision marked the first time that global warming and greenhouse gas emissions played a lead role in the environmental review process in California, and it may signal a seismic shift in the rules of the game for project applicants up and down the state. It also does not bode well for future proposals to import natural gas into California, nor for generating plants and other energy projects that involve hydrocarbon fuels. The Coastal Commission's rejection was one of several knockout blows dealt over the past two months to BHP's Cabrillo Port project, a floating platform where gas supercooled into liquid form would have been pumped from tankers, stored in tanks and then warmed to covert it back to gaseous form for delivery. Three days earlier, the State Lands Commission had voted 2-1 to deny BHP a lease needed to lay pipeline on the sea floor to connect the floating terminal to the onshore gas transmission and distribution system operated by Southern California Gas Company. Although the State Lands Commission did not perform as thorough an examination of the project's carbon footprint as the Coastal Commission did, the subject was clearly on at least one commissioner's mind. "In the future, I believe every environmental impact statement with LNG or any energy source has to and must deal with total greenhouse gas emissions, and I believe that current state law requires it," Commissioner (and Lt. Gov.) John Garamendi told a local reporter. The law Garamendi referred to was authored by former Assemblywoman Fran Pavley. It requires the California Air Resources Board to develop regulations and market mechanisms to reduce California's greenhouse gas emissions by 25% by 2020. Signed into law last year, the bill is one of several initiatives undertaken in California to address climate change since BHP submitted its Cabrillo Port application in 2003, The Coastal Commission staff report estimates that port operations would emit 346,000 metric tons of greenhouse gases per year. Greenhouse gas emissions from the LNG carrier fleet serving the facility could total nearly 2.4 million metric tons a year, the report says. Neither of the April commission votes was necessarily fatal to the BHP project, one of several proposed in waters off Southern California. The company could have appealed the Coastal Commission's decision to the secretary of commerce, and it could have challenged the State Lands Commission denial in court. But under federal law, an LNG project in federal waters cannot be approved without the consent of the governor of the adjacent state. And on May 18, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger informed the Maritime Administration — which has permitting authority over deepwater ports — that he was denying BHP's project. "Liquefied natural gas can and must be an important addition to California's energy portfolio," Schwarzenegger wrote. "However, any LNG import facility must meet the strict environmental standards California demands to continue to improve our air quality, protect our coast, and preserve our marine environment. The Cabrillo Port LNG project, as designed, fails to meet that test." Schwarzenegger's letter to the Maritime Administration carefully sidesteps the entire issue of greenhouse gas emissions, which is curious given the role he has adopted as a leader in the campaign to battle global warming. Among other actions, he has appointed a global warming task force, negotiated an agreement among six western states to establish a carbon registry, signed an executive order directing the state to develop a low-carbon fuel standard, and criticized the Bush Administration for inaction on climate change. But the carbon-free future is a long way off. And as Schwarzenegger notes in his letter to the Maritime Administration, California remains dependent on natural gas to generate more than 40% of its electricity. And because it imports 87% of the gas it uses, the state is vulnerable to price spikes and energy shortages. California, Schwarzenegger writes, "needs LNG" to diversify its energy supply. If so, then the state appears headed for a showdown between its energy policy and its greenhouse gas policy. Resources: Coastal Commission staff report on BHP project: http://documents.coastal.ca.gov/reports/2007/4/Th7a-4-2007.pdf California Climate Change Portal: http://www.climatechange.ca.gov/index.html BHP Billiton's Cabrillo Port project: http://lngsolutions.bhpbilliton.com/default.asp Cabrillo Port environmental review: http://www.cabrilloport.ene.com/

The California Research Bureau (CRB) has suggested increasing public oversight of redevelopment activities by broadening the use, membership and roles of project area committees. Currently, the law requires a project area committee (PAC) only for a redevelopment project that could displace a significant number of low- or moderate-income households. Homeowners, tenants and business owners elect committee members, and the PAC serves as an advisory body to the redevelopment agency. Although some PACs are tremendously influential, many redevelopment agencies either do not have a PAC or have an inactive committee. The CRB's report is sketchy, but the bureau suggests restructuring the committees to give them more influence and oversight. The CRB report also examines the possibility of using arbitration as a means of public input in redevelopment plans, and to settle disputes over the legal validity of plans. The use of arbitration is an idea backed by Assemblyman Chuck DeVore (R-Irvine). The CRB also suggests giving county local agency formation commissions oversight of redevelopment activities, but the report makes clear that legislative staff members thoroughly rejected this concept. The report, "Rethinking Redevelopment Oversight: Exploring Possibilities for Increasing Local Input," and numerous other Research Bureau reports are available at http://www.library.ca.gov/html/statseg2a.cfm . - Paul Shigley

The California Research Bureau has published a report outlining possible ways to increase public oversight of redevelopment. Read about the report and check out other blog entries by Paul Shigley and William Fulton at The Daily Shig .