In the third decision in an emerging line of cases regarding antiquated subdivisions, an appellate court has refused to recognize the legality of a parcel shown on a 1909 subdivision map. The First District Court of Appeal ruled the Solano County map did not satisfy the requirements of the Subdivision Map Act's grandfather clause because the law in effect in 1909 did not address the "design and improvement" of subdivisions. The court also ruled that, despite ambiguous statutory language, the Solano County Board of Supervisors had the authority to refuse approval of a certificate of compliance for a parcel shown on the 1909 map. The legal status of lots depicted on old subdivision and parcel maps was unclear for years. Property owners whose land is covered by an old map have used the maps to get certificates of compliance, which verify the legal status of the lots. Until a state law was passed in 2001, property owners would use certificates of compliance in conjunction with multiple lot line adjustments to create subdivisions that would almost certainly not get approved in the present day (see CP&DR , November 2001 ). The state Supreme Court began to clarify the situation when it ruled in Gardner v. County of Sonoma , (2003) 29 Cal.4th 990, that maps recorded prior to the first Subdivision Map Act in 1893 could not be validated (see CP&DR , March 2003 ). Last year, an appellate court relied heavily on Gardner in upholding Sonoma County's refusal to recognize a 1915 subdivision map ( Witt Home Ranch, Inc. v. County of Sonoma , (2008) 165 Cal.App.4th 543; see CP&DR Legal Digest , September 2008 ). The present case builds on Witt . In 2002, Abernathy Valley, Inc., acquired 140 acres in Solano County's Green Valley, west of Fairfield. The property contains part or all of 14 lots depicted on a recorded 1909 subdivision map that divided a 250-acre tract into 25 lots. In 2003, Abernathy applied for a certificate of compliance for only "Lot 12" as shown on the 1909 map, effectively dividing the 140 acres into two parcels. On advice of county counsel, the Board of Supervisors voted to deny the certificate and instructed staff members to recognize lots only on maps approved after 1929. Abernathy sued and Solano County Superior Court Judge Paul Beeman ruled the county must issue the requested certificate of compliance. A unanimous three-judge panel of the First District, Division Five, overturned that ruling. The "central question," according to the appellate court, was whether the 1909 map was covered by the Subdivision Map Act's grandfather provisions. It is generally accepted that maps approved after 1929 are grandfathered today because lawmakers amended the Subdivision Map Act in 1929 to cover the design and improvement of subdivisions. Before 1929, the act was primarily concerned with accurate map drafting, not the subdivision itself. However, the Gardner decision left open the question of whether maps recorded from 1893 – the year of the first subdivision statute – to 1929 establish subdivisions today. Abernathy argued its map qualified for the grandfather provision because the map was recorded in compliance with the law in effect at the time. But the court, citing Witt , rejected the argument because lawmakers in 1943 narrowed the grandfather clause by adding the term "design and improvement." Only maps that regulate the "design and improvement" of subdivisions are eligible for grandfathering, the court ruled. " Witt rejected the argument that the modern grandfather language ‘was intended merely to codify the all-encompassing language that had been a feature of the subdivision map statutes since 1907, without changing its broad scope,' which is essentially Abernathy's argument in this appeal," Justice Lawrence Stevens wrote for the court. "We agree with Witt ." Abernathy argued that refusing to recognize the 1909 map now would amount to an improper retroactive application of the statute because property owners have relied on the map for nearly a century. The court rejected the argument because Abernathy offered no evidence Lot 12 was ever separately conveyed, that the map "altered the legal status of the property" or that application of the current law would alter the property's legal status. Abernathy also argued that under a provision of the map act, specifically, Government Code § 66499.35, subdivision (d), the county could either grant the requested certificate of compliance, or grant a conditional certificate of compliance. The county had no authority to deny the application, Abernathy argued. The court called the statute ambiguous but noted that other courts have upheld the government's right to deny certificates of compliance. " f the county were required to issue a conditional certificate of compliance for Lot 12 rather than deny the application, Abernathy would be able to sell, lease or finance Lot 12 without further compliance with the act; only the development of the parcel would be prohibited until the conditions were fulfilled. … Such a result," wrote Stevens, citing Gardner , "would ‘frustrate the act's objectives "to encourage and facilitate orderly community development, coordinate planning with the community pattern established by local authorities, and assure proper improvements are made, so that the area does not become an undue burden on the taxpayer."' "Our Supreme Court and the courts of appeal have upheld denials of applications for certificates of compliance under such circumstances," Stevens concluded. The court also ruled that denial of the certificate did not violate Abernathy's right of due process. The Case: Abernathy Valley, Inc. v. County of Solano , No. A121817, 09 C.D.O.S. 4684, 2009 DJDAR 5497. Filed April 17, 2009. The Lawyers: For Abernathy: James Corn, Stoel Rives, (916) 447- 0700. For the county: James Laughlin, county counsel's office (707) 421-6140.

In a case regarding a proposed "town center" project in Rancho Cordova, the Third District Court of Appeal has overturned nearly every portion of a Superior Court ruling in favor of environmentalists who oppose the development. The unanimous three-judge appellate panel determined that, on almost all claims, either the City of Rancho Cordova had met the requirements of the California Environmental Quality Act or the plaintiff California Native Plant Society (CNPS) was prevented from litigating certain issues because it had not raised them during the administrative process. The court did rule that the city had violated a provision in its general plan requiring the city to coordinate with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) and the California Department of Fish and Game (CDFG) on endangered species habitat mitigation. The central issue was whether the environmental impact report for the 530-acre project had to identify exact locations where vernal pool habitat would be re-created off-site as mitigation for destruction of 15.6 acres of wetlands. The certified EIR and project conditions permitted the developer – a partnership of Angelo Tsakopolous and K. Hovnanian Homes – to use mitigation banking to ensure there would be no loss in the total amount of wetlands. The Native Plant Society argued the city should have named exact locations and studied the environmental impacts of creating the new wetlands. However, the court found that as long as the city identified the development project's impacts and formulated measures to mitigate those impacts, the city could defer the details. The city, wrote Justice Ronald Robie, "was entitled to rely on the results of a future study to fix the exact details of the implementation of the mitigation measures the agency identified in the EIR." James Moose, the developers' attorney, called the court's CEQA ruling "unremarkable" but a relief. Sacramento County Superior Court Judge Patrick Marlette had ruled the city did have to identify and study the exact mitigation locations – a ruling that had "taken on a life of its own," among CEQA practitioners, Moose said. However, the lower court's ruling was contrary to the no-net-loss standard that practitioners have employed and courts have accepted since the 1980s, he said. "You're not sure what mitigation bank you are going to be using," Moose explained. In this case, the lengthy administrative record identified potential mitigation sites, even though the EIR did not. Although the appellate court accepted the no-net-loss performance standard, Moose added, "It's probably not a bad practice to identify the potential universe of mitigation sites out there." Native Plant Society attorney Keith Wagner has asked the Third District to reconsider its decision. In a request for a new hearing, Wagner argued there was no evidence the off-site mitigation measures would fully offset impacts to wetlands. He pointed to numerous comments and letters from USFWS, CDFG, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) objecting to the project's potential impacts on vernal pools and Morrison Creek, a Sacramento River tributary. " he court has failed to find or identify any competing evidence in the record that supports the city's speculation and unsupported opinions that CNPS, USFWS, USEPA, USACE and CDFG somehow all ‘got it wrong,'" Wagner wrote. The project in question is called The Preserve at Sunridge. It is proposed to contain about 2,400 single-family houses, 300 multi-family housing units, 150,000 square feet of commercial space, an elementary school and a 92-acre open space wetlands area. The project is envisioned as something of a "town center" within the Sunrise-Douglas community plan, which proposes about 20,000 housing units on 6,000 acres of open space and pasture in the Sacramento suburb of Rancho Cordova (see CP&DR Local Watch , August 2002 ). In 2007, the state Supreme Court struck down the EIR for the Sunrise-Douglas community plan because it did not adequately describe long-term water sources and the impacts of using those sources ( Vineyard Area Citizens for Responsible Growth, Inc. v City of Rancho Cordova , 40 Cal.4th 412; see CP&DR Legal Digest , March 2007 ). However, the community plan EIR was still in place during the summer of 2006, when Rancho Cordova certified the EIR for The Preserve and approved that project. State and federal agencies as well as environmentalists opposed The Preserve because it would be located in the midst of a seasonal wetlands complex that provides habitat for vernal pool fairy shrimp and vernal pool tadpole shrimp, both of which are protected by the Endangered Species Act. Although the approved project would preserve a 92-acre open space and wetlands, it would wipe out 15.6 acres of vernal pools and re-route Morrison Creek. The city did require the developers either to preserve two acres of wetlands for every acre lost, or to create new habitat on an acre-for-acre basis. The Native Plant Society sued, arguing the city had violated CEQA and state Planning and Zoning Law provisions requiring that projects comply with a city's general plan. Judge Marlette ruled the city had violated CEQA by (1) improperly deferring mitigation of impacts on wetlands and endangered species, (2) improperly finding that wetlands impacts would be fully mitigated, and (3) failing to disclose effects of water supply plans on migrating fish in the Cosumnes River. Marlette also ruled the city violated the Planning and Zoning Law because the project was inconsistent with general plan policies regarding habitat preservation. The judge rejected some Native Plant Society CEQA contentions because the group had failed to raise the issues – exhaust administrative remedies – during the city's review. Both sides appealed. In overturning Marlette's CEQA rulings for the CNPS, the Third District detected no improper deferral. The Third District said Marlette had confused mitigation deferral with the question of mitigation feasibility; he had rejected the wetlands mitigation as improperly deferred because mitigation measures were not adequately detailed for the city to determine whether they could be implemented. " oncerns about whether it is ‘realistically foreseeable that a mitigation measure will actually be carried out as outlined' do not raise an issue of improper deferral," Justice Robie wrote, citing Marlette's decision. "If the agency has identified one or more mitigation measures and has committed to mitigating the impact those measures address, then the principles forbidding deferral of mitigation are not implicated." Regarding the sufficiency of evidence to support the city's findings, CNPS leaned heavily on the Vineyard decision because the city had essentially tiered The Preserve EIR off the community plan EIR. Because the state Supreme Court rejected the community plan EIR's handling of long-term water supplies and impacts to the Cosumnes River, CNPS argued similar portions of The Preserve EIR were also invalid. The city and developers countered that CNPS had never raised issues regarding water supplies or the Cosumnes River during the administrative process and, therefore, could not raise those issues in court. The Third District agreed. "An objector cannot simply sit back and wait for the earlier EIR to be invalidated, then belatedly assert after the administrative proceeding is complete (as happened here) that the current EIR is defective because it relied on the earlier EIR that has now been invalidated," Robie wrote. Wagner contended the court was wrong. Until the state Supreme Court issued its ruling in 2007 – after The Preserve was approved – CNPS could not know of the defects in the community plan EIR, he argued. The ongoing Vineyard litigation had made the city aware of the environmental review's shortcomings before the city approved The Preserve EIR, he contended. Regarding general plan consistency, CNPS argued the city did not consult – as the general plan requires – with USFWS and CDFG in designing mitigation for endangered species. But the court ruled the city did in fact "consult" with the agencies; the city simply did not accept their recommendations and CNPS failed to show the city's conclusion "was not reasonable based on all the evidence," the court ruled. However, one general plan provision requires that mitigation of impacts to special status species be designed "in coordination" with USFWS and CDFG. The city argued "consultation" and "coordination" were synonymous. The court disagreed, ruling "the mere solicitation and rejection of input from the agencies" was inadequate. This final portion of the ruling means the project will have to return to the city, according to Moose, the developer's attorney. Still, the environmental review process will not be reopened, he said. The Case: California Native Plant Society v. City of Rancho Cordova , No. 057018, 09 C.D.O.S. 3669. Filed March 24, 2009. The Lawyers: For CNPS: Keith Wagner, Lippe, Gaffney, Wagner, (916) 361-3887. For the city: Julia Bond, Meyers, Nave, Riback, Silver & Wilson, (510) 808-2000. For developer Jaeger Road 530, LLC: James Moose, Remy, Thomas, Moose & Manley, (916) 443-2745.

A regional panel of elected officials in the San Joaquin Valley has approved a growth blueprint that calls for increased housing densities in the eight-county region. In approving a plan for a new housing density of 6.8 units per acre for the region, the San Joaquin Valley Policy Council rejected an alternative of 10 units per acre that would have preserved more farmland and cut forecast greenhouse gas emissions. The next step in the process is for the councils of government (COGs) to work with the 62 city councils and eight boards of supervisors in the region on implementing the blueprint through local general plans. Whether the blueprint adopted in April was a significant step toward sustainability, a missed opportunity or simply a compromise that recognizes political limitations depends on one's viewpoint. What is not in dispute is that the blueprint marks the first regional planning document created by a collection of San Joaquin Valley public officials and other stakeholders. "The process was, in my mind, critical in moving forward with planning in a more sustainable fashion," said Kern County Supervisor Michael Rubio, who chaired the Policy Council. The Policy Council's 12-3 vote to approve a blueprint concluded a three-year process funded by Caltrans, the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District and the eight COGs. The process included extensive public outreach and education overseen by the Blueprint Regional Advisory Council (BRAC), modeling by the University of California, Davis, Information Center for the Environment, and selection of a countywide growth blueprint by the COG in each of the eight counties (Kern, Tulare, Kings, Fresno, Madera, Merced, Stanislaus and San Joaquin). A desire to steer valley growth away from large-lot, automobile-dependent development patterns lies at the heart of the effort. The blueprint process is separate from, but complementary to, the state-run California Partnership for the San Joaquin Valley, which has focused primarily on economic matters (see CP&DR Insight , May 2007 ; CP&DR , February 2006 ). In November 2008, the BRAC, a 45-member panel composed of elected and appointed public officials plus a wide variety of advocates, considered three blueprint alternatives: Scenario A was based on the last 5 to 10 years of development, which has produced 4.3 new units per acre. Scenario B was based on the COG blueprints and set a new development standard of 6.8 units an acre. Scenario C emphasized transit alternatives and open space protection while calling for 10 units per acre. The BRAC endorsed the aggressive Scenario C. The Policy Council then ordered the preparation of a B+ scenario that added more inter-county transportation infrastructure to Scenario B. The nearly 600 participants at a Valleywide Blueprint Summit in Fresno during January considered all four alternatives. Scenario C outpolled all three other scenarios combined. According to a UC Davis analysis, Scenario C would result in about 34,000 fewer acres of prime agricultural land converted to urban uses (120,000 acres versus 164,000 acres) by 2050 than the B+ plan, and a 20% reduction in household greenhouse gas emissions, compared with a 6% cut in B+. Despite those recommendations, Scenario C found little support among the county supervisors, mayors and city councilmembers on the Policy Committee. The chosen B+ scenario actually calls for densities ranging from 4.7 units an acre in Madera County to at least 8 units per acre in Merced and Fresno counties. Unlike blueprints in California's four large metropolitan regions, the valley blueprint overall does not place heavy emphasis on high-intensity infill and transit-oriented development. Rubio said Scenario C was a top-down imposition from interests outside of the valley, while Scenario B+ was the result of a grass roots process with thousands of participants. Scenario B+ still moves the valley toward higher densities and more compact communities, and nothing precludes the Policy Council or localities from raising densities further, he said. "This is a very large ship we're attempting to turn here," Rubio emphasized. Dr. Edward Moreno, Fresno County public health director and an advocate for healthier and more walkable communities, seemed to agree. "Densities for a sustainable community are different than densities of housing projects that people think about," Moreno said. "It has taken us generations to get where we are at now. It will take a while for us to take a new direction." Others, however, lamented a lost opportunity. Stockton Mayor Ann Johnston, who cast one of three Policy Council votes against Scenario B+, said, "We should be leaders, we should set the stage in California and not be followers." Great Valley Center President David Hosley said that politics grew heated in the period before the Policy Council vote. "Being more aggressive about growth management is outside the comfort zone of a lot of elected officials," Hosley said. Hosley noted that the blueprint document was the result of varying levels of participation by the COGs. The Merced County Association of Governments, which coordinated the whole effort at first, was very involved and adopted a countywide blueprint calling for 8.6 units per acre. The San Joaquin COG and officials in that county, meanwhile, demonstrated far less interest in the regional project, he said. "I have been interested to note the high level of distrust of Sacramento by the elected officials and in some cases by the professional planning staffs of the counties and cities," Hosley said. That distrust made it difficult to settle on a common approach throughout the region, he said. The effort to take the blueprint to 70 localities may rely heavily on the work of a group of planning directors headed by John Wright, retired Clovis community development director. Exactly how much work each city and county will have to do is unclear, but Rubio said state policies such as SB 375 may have a greater influence than the blueprint itself on local land use decisions. The valley blueprint project began two years before passage of SB 375, which calls for sustainable planning on a regional level in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Some people began to see the valley blueprint as a tool for meeting SB 375's coming mandates. But Barbara Steck, assistant director of the Council of Fresno County Governments, which is now serving a lead role, noted that no one knows what the SB 375 targets for greenhouse gas reductions will be. Hence, it is not possible to know if the blueprint will get the valley all the way to SB 375 compliance, or only one small step of the way. Rubio contended the blueprint puts the valley "ahead of the curve," while Hosley was less certain. "I can't help but feel the process could have been a little stronger," Hosley said. "The opportunity was there to do something to meet the greenhouse gas measures that are coming down." Contacts: Kern County Supervisor Michael Rubio, San Joaquin Valley Policy Council, (661) 868-3690. Barbara Steck, Council of Fresno County Governments, (559) 233-4148. David Hosley, Great Valley Center, (209) 522-5103. Dr. Edward Moreno, Fresno County Department of Public Health, (559) 445-3204. San Joaquin Valley Blueprint: www.valleyblueprint.org .

Last Thursday, the often-nerdy Barack Obama erased all remaining doubt that he is positioning himself as America's "Planner In Chief". In an 11-minute speech , Obama outlined an ambitious plan to build a national high-speed rail system by upgrading existing rail systems and investing in 10 high-speed rail corridors, including San Diego-Los Angeles-San Francisco. In so doing he drew upon the most famous quote in American city planning: Daniel Burnham's "Make no little plans." Based on the reaction I've seen on Facebook and elsewhere, Obama has now won the hearts of America's planners. It remains to be seen whether Obama's rhetoric can be translated into reality – and how much that will benefit California's own long-delayed high-speed rail project. The Thursday speech was classic Obama, combining soaring rhetoric about transformation of the economy with a practical argument that change in transportation is necessary. It was also mostly a photo op/sound bite event, as the stimulus package already contains the $8 billion. The only "news" was Obama's announcement that he might put as much as $1 billion a year for high-speed rail in the federal budget over each of the next five years, making $13 billion altogether. In the speech, Obama stumbled over his statement that "nobody is talking about replacing cars" and pointed to the stimulus' investments in highways. Not surprisingly, he invoked the name of his favorite president – Lincoln – who pursued the transcontinental railroad for "a nation connected from east to west even as he was trying to hold north and south together." And he waited until almost the very last second to invoke the name of Chicago's most famous planner. Obama and Burnham Burnham is clearly on Obama's mind these days, and, he apparently assumes, on everyone else's mind too. In his Thursday talk, Burnham was a throw-away line – "Make no little plans. That's what Daniel Burnham said in Chicago" – as if everybody watching knew who Burnham was and what he was talking about. Maybe it's because the president is thinking about the possibility of Chicago getting the Olympics in 2016 – an achievement parallel to putting on the Columbian Exposition, whose architecture, shaped largely by Burnham, ushered in the City Beautiful movement. Two weeks ago, in making a videotaped pitch to the International Olympic Committee , he again invoked Burnham's famous phrase. Burnham's words, he told the International Olympic Committee, are "being lived out by the Chicago 2016 organizers standing before you, by the people who call Chicago home, and by all those men and women across America who are eager to welcome the world to our shores and who have taken up our city's Olympic dream as their own". This is pretty much the same thing he said about the American people and high-speed rail last Thursday. Having lived on the South Side of Chicago for more than 20 years, Obama would have to know about Burnham. In Chicago, Obama lives just a short distance from the site of the Columbian Exposition and many other civic improvements called for in Burnham's 1909 Chicago Plan .   Burnham's park and parkway system wends its way throughout the South Side. The president clearly feels a connection to the ambitious dreamer of a century ago. There is little question that his imprint on America's built environment will be strong and enduring. Whether it will be as positive as Burnham's remains to be seen. The Impact on California High-Speed Rail Meanwhile, Obama gave every indication that his administration would throw a lot of money at the California high-speed rail project. The high-speed rail project struggled for many years before a $10 billion bond to kick-start it was placed on the ballot last November. Despite the struggling economy, that measure passed , a fact that Obama commended the voters for. In his Thursday remarks, the president said high-speed rail in California hold the potential to overcome "crippling congestion on highways and in airports" and to promote "smart urban and rural growth." Days before Obama's speech, Mehdi Morshed, head of the Caifornia High-Speed Rail Authority, said he hoped to capture half of the $8 billion for California . That's still not nearly enough to build the system – the project could cost as much as $85 billion – but combined with the state's $10 billion it could be enough to get private investors interested. " Private investors are very interested in the project, " Morshed told the Sacramento Bee , "but because it takes so long, they want us to do the initial items, the environmental work, acquisition of the rights of way, building some pieces … so they don't have to wait 10 years to get some return on their investment." No small plans indeed. – Bill Fulton

The Petaluma City Council voted April 13 night to eliminate the city's planning staff because of a lack of development activity and a $4.5 million budget deficit. Elimination of a planning department would be a remarkable turn of events anywhere in California, but the fact that this is occurring in Petaluma is downright shocking. ----------UPDATE---------- Read more about the Petaluma situation in this month's Local Watch story . ------------------------------ As just about every planning student knows, Petaluma was the first city in California where voters approved a growth control initiative . That was in 1972, and land use planning has been a local priority ever since. Petaluma voters have rejected proposals to alter the 1972 limitations, and they approved an urban growth boundary in 1998. More recently, the city has focused on downtown redevelopment, and those efforts are so successful that travel writers are now visiting . I spoke with Petaluma Community Development Director Michael Moore for this month's story about planning department cutbacks . Moore told me his staff had been cut in half, and he was clearly worried about the future. As of June 30, he won't have a job. According to a Press Democrat story , the city's planning functions will be handled by consultants and former city employees working on a project basis. I understand money is short these days, but I have to wonder whether Petaluma residents who are well-versed in land use policy are going to accept a vacant planning department. - Paul Shigley

Oakland civic leaders hope that a proposed new zoning code might help downtown turn the corner. Let's hope they are right. Downtown Oakland is not a great place. It's a district of empty and underused buildings. Surface parking is readily available. The streets are largely deserted , and somewhat threatening, after dark. It doesn't have to be this way. Downtown Oakland has the "bones" that excite planners: A nice street grid, historic structures and interesting architecture, a potentially spectacular lake and park, a BART station, numerous government and civic institutions. One developer is already taking advantage of these assets for the Uptown Oakland project . While the Uptown Oakland project provides a step forward, downtown Oakland in general has suffered for decades from a lack of private investment. One of the culprits is the central business district zoning. Dating from the 1960s, the existing code divides downtown into 12 different zones and imposes all manner of restrictions of uses, lot-coverage and building heights. The code is exactly the sort of thing that cities – especially suburbs – adopted during the 1960s and 1970s. For the past 20 years, a new generation of planners has been trying to undo the harm created by the earlier generation's good intentions. Oakland adopted a new general plan 11 years ago, but it has still not rewritten all of the zoning to comply with the plan. That's unforgivable and probably illegal (you may credit Jerry Brown's administration for the lapse), but the city is trying to make things right now. The general plan's Land Use and Transportation Element, according to a city staff report, "envisions a downtown with 24-hour pedestrian activity, active retail nodes, a strong high-rise office center, urban-density residential neighborhoods, and significant cultural and recreational amenities." Sounds like a city to me. The proposed zoning aims to achieve this vision by allowing densities of up to 300 housing units per acre, encouraging mixed-use projects, raising height limits and doing away with what has been something of an ad-hoc review process for practically anything proposed downtown. The Planning Commission is scheduled to consider the new zoning on Wednesday night. Chip Johnson, the Chronicle 's fine Oakland columnist, endorses the zoning . But as Johnson notes, the Coalition of Advocates for Lake Merritt (CALM) has many objections. This recent op-ed by a CALM member is indicative. If you have some time, go directly to the staff report and read up for yourself. I'm not advocating one way or the other on the zoning proposal. I'd simply like to see downtown Oakland come close to its potential as a great urban place. – Paul Shigley

Last week, driving north from San Diego through Orange County, I engaged in a secret and somewhat twisted pleasure – I ponied up my four-bucks-and-change to get off I-5 and I-405 and traverse the 15 miles from San Juan Capistrano to Costa Mesa on California State Route 73, otherwise known as the San Joaquin Hills Toll Road. It was a beautiful drive along one of Southern California's loveliest routes, up and down the rolling San Joaquin Hills, across Laguna Canyon, with lots of views of high-end subdivisions and a glimpse of the ocean here and there. It was easy, too. Separated from the rest of Orange County traffic by the four bucks, I drove at full speed surrounded by only a few other cars. What made my drive on SR 73 so perverse is that I never really thought the road should be built. I came to this conclusion while writing The Reluctant Metropolis . I devoted two chapters to longstanding environmentalist battles against projects in Southern California. One was the Ahmanson Ranch project, along Highway 101 on the Ventura/Los Angeles County border, and the other one was the San Joaquin Hills toll road. In writing these chapters, I came to the conclusion that Ahmanson Ranch should be built and the San Joaquin toll road should not be built – largely because I thought the environmental damage done by the road would be far greater than the damage done by the housing project. You can't build 3,000 houses without damaging the environment some, but you can cluster and mitigate. On the other hand, there's just no way to build a highway through a place like Laguna Canyon without fouling things up. In the end, however, the San Joaquin toll road got built. Meanwhile, the state paid $150 million to buy Ahmanson Ranch, which had obtained all of its development entitlements and had won all the environmental lawsuits.   Why did I turn out to be wrong? It's partly the consequence of what Southern California really needs as a region. But it's also partly the consequence of how power and money were deployed in each situation. Although the toll road's environmental damage is undeniable, I'll admit that the region probably needs highway lanes in Orange County more than it needs houses near Woodland Hills. Not building housing at Ahmanson Ranch made life a little tougher for a lot of people – commutes are a little longer, houses are a little more expensive. Not building more highways in Orange County makes life miserable for lots of people stuck in traffic. But I don't think that's the real reason things turned out the way they did. The real reason is that, in the end, more power and money went toward building the toll road than toward not building it … whereas more power and money went toward not building Ahmanson Ranch than went toward building it. Orange County has pretty much always been ruled by development interests, so enviros there always have an uphill battle. In the toll road case, they did a better-than-average job of kicking up a fuss and tying the project up in court, but, in the end, the pro-road forces had more money, more public support, and better lawyers. The case of Ahmanson Ranch was different. In Calabasas – just over the hill from Malibu – the money and power of the entertainment industry proved more than adequate to the task, in spite of the fact that the legal arguments were weak. Ahmanson Land Co. – owned by the beloved Los Angeles financial institution Home Savings of America – had gotten all the way to the end, even winning or settling all lawsuits filed by neighboring jurisdictions, environmentalists, and homeowner associations. At that point, however, the Westside glitterati stepped in. Director Rob Reiner and HBO executive Chris Albrecht bankrolled an ongoing campaign to get the state to buy the land. They even got a couple of rallies out of Martin Sheen, who at the time played the president on "West Wing". By this time, Home Savings had been sold to Washington Mutual of Seattle, meaning the whole power equation had changed. Instead of a beloved L.A. savings bank against NIMBYs, this battle was now out-of-town financial sharks against the Wednesday night president. It didn't hurt the development opponents that the governor, Gray Davis, needed their support in his ultimately unsuccessful battle against a recall. Only days before the 2003 recall election, the state announced it would to buy Ahmanson Ranch. So I'm not going to feel guilty the next time I drive up SR 73 – or through scenic Calabasas on Highway 101. No matter what the landscape looks like, it has been shaped by the predominant power and money in the area. And that's OK with me. – Bill Fulton

Where the burgeoning renewable energy industry sees empty spaces and piles of sand, environmentalists see scenic vistas and fragile habitat for rare flora and fauna. These different views of California's vast deserts are leading to a clash over how to use lands owned by the federal government. It's becoming clear that large-scale development of renewable energy sources is not without environmental consequences. Solar thermal projects convert vast tracts of land to industrial purposes and need a lot of water. Windmills chop up birds, including species protected by numerous federal and state laws. Geothermal impacts vary locally. All of it requires new power lines to get the juice to urban areas. But with the development of solar, wind and geothermal energy sources becoming a national imperative, the conflicts are only going to grow more intense. California has mandated that utility companies get 20% of their energy from renewable energy sources by the end of next year. That means they need to expand their renewable portfolios by roughly 25% to 40% in less than two years. Consequently, there's a huge rush to build new plants and transmission lines, as we reported recently . Meanwhile, the Obama administration is encouraging renewable energy development through the stimulus package, which provides about $6 billion in tax credits for solar projects that begin construction by the end of 2010. The industry is eyeing California's expanse of deserts. The Bureau of Land Management has received about 130 applications for development of solar and wind energy projects on hundreds of thousands of acres of federally owned desert lands. This isn't surprising. The sun shines brightly and the wind blows frequently in the desert. While evolving public policy would appear to favor the industry, environmentalists got a boost in March when Sen. Dianne Feinstein announced her intention to carry legislation that protects at least 800,000 acres in the Mojave Desert east of Joshua Tree National Park. The federal government acquired most of the lands from Catellus (Union Pacific Railroad's real estate branch) during the last decade thanks to $40 million from The Wildlands Conservancy, federal appropriations of $18 million and a $5 million discount provided by Catellus. "The former Catellus lands between the Mojave National Preserve and Joshua Tree National Park were purchased by or donated to the federal government so they would be protected forever. I feel very strongly that the federal government must honor that commitment," Feinstein said in a written statement. She urged Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to suspend BLM review of renewable energy projects proposed for the lands. Do we have a no-win situation developing? Not necessarily. In fact, large areas may be suitable for renewable energy development. Those areas appear on a new maps of 13 Western states produced by the Natural Resources Defense Council, the National Audubon Society and Google. The maps identify areas that are legally restricted and areas that provide sensitive habitats. Remove those lands, and you still have a ton of acreage available for power generation and transmission. Really. Have a look for yourself on the Google Earth website or the NRDC website . Maps like these are not going to end the debate, but they at least shed some light on a subject that is becoming hotter and hotter. – Paul Shigley

WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court has given power plant operators in California and around the nation an important victory by upholding the Environmental Protection Agency's power to use cost-benefit analyses in deciding whether to require expensive retrofitting to minimize fish-kills. Environmental groups, however, say they hope the Obama administration EPA will shift policy and take a stricter view of what existing power plants must do to reduce the impact on aquatic life from using ocean or river waters to cool the facilities. In California, an environmental lawyer voiced concerns the ruling could ease pressure on utility companies to overhaul the 17 aging power plants that line the Pacific Coast from San Diego to Humboldt County and reduce the amount of water used to cool the facilities. The California Supreme Court has deferred action on a challenge to the operations of the Moss Landing power plant on Monterey Bay while awaiting the U.S. Supreme Court's decision. The justices' 5-4 ruling on April 1 in Entergy Corp. v. Riverkeeper, Inc. , 07-588, deferred to the decision by the Bush administration's EPA that the Clean Water Act allows cost-benefit analyses in regulating cooling water intake structures at power plants. As Justice Antonin Scalia explained from the bench, the water-cooling systems result in large numbers of fish and other aquatic organisms either being "squashed" against drains or "sucked" into power plant facilities. An EPA rule adopted in 2001 under pressure from environmental groups requires new power plants to use "closed cycle" cooling systems that minimize the impact on aquatic life by reducing the amount of water used. Three years later, however, the EPA declined to impose the same requirements on some 500 existing power plants, which account for slightly more than half of the nation's electric-generating capacity. Environmental organizations, including the Hudson River conservation group Riverkeeper, challenged the EPA decision. They argued that the decision violated the Clean Water Act's provision requiring the cooling systems to use the "best technology available for minimizing adverse environmental impact." The New York-based Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in 2007 agreed and ordered the EPA to redo the regulation. In his opinion reversing the appeals court decision, Scalia reasoned that the statute's "best technology" requirement could refer to "the technology that most efficiently produces some good." And the term "minimize," he continued, does not necessarily mean the "greatest possible reduction." Since the statute did not explicitly prohibit cost-benefit analyses, Scalia concluded that the EPA "permissibly relied on cost-benefit analysis" in setting national standards and in providing for exemptions for individual facilities. Scalia's opinion was joined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., fellow conservatives Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, and Californian Anthony M. Kennedy, a swing-vote on environmental and some other issues. Kennedy, who had appeared sympathetic to a stricter reading of the statute during oral arguments in December, did not write separately to explain his view of the case. In a partial dissent, Justice Stephen G. Breyer agreed that cost-benefit analyses were permitted, but faulted the EPA for failing to adequately explain its decision to broaden the basis for granting exemptions to individual plants. In the main dissent, Justice John Paul Stevens said that Scalia misread the statute. He said the ruling "fundamentally weakens" the provision. Liberals David H. Souter and Ruth Bader Ginsburg joined Stevens's opinion. In a written statement, the Riverkeeper group said it was "disappointed" with the decision, but "pleased" that the ruling left it up to EPA to decide "to what extent, if any" cost-benefit analyses were to be used. Without referring to her by name, the group said that it was "looking forward to working with EPA's new administrator," Lisa Jackson, and said it was "confident" that she would agree that the Bush EPA regulations did not satisfy the statutory mandate. The EPA had no comment on the ruling. Industry representatives had no immediate on-the-record comment, but an industry source noted that the regulations have been suspended since the appeals court decision. The agency would have to follow the notice-and-public comment procedures in promulgating any new rules, the source said. In California, Stanford law professor Deborah Sivas noted that the state Supreme Court is considering rules to require closed-cycle or other alternate cooling technologies and some plants have been moving in that direction. "The worry is that the decision undermines the pressure to do that," Sivas said. As director of Stanford's environmental law clinic, Sivas is representing environmental groups in the Moss Landing case, Voices of the Wetlands v. State Water Resources Control Board , No. H028021 (see CP&DR Legal Digest , April, 2008 , March 2008). Scalia noted in his opinion that the EPA had estimated that installation of closed-cycle systems at all existing power plants would cost about $3.5 billion per year and reduce electricity generation by 2.4% to 4.0%. The agency projected that closed-cycle systems would reduce fish mortality by 98% compared with the goal of 80% to 95% set in the rules as adopted. In his dissenting opinion, Stevens said that cost-benefit analyses are controversial because it is easier to calculate costs than to "monetize" the benefits of environmental protection. He said that the EPA had initially valued the aquatic life to be protected by closed-cycle systems at $735 million, but reduced the figure to $83 million by considering only the value of fish commercially or recreationally harvested. Steven Geoffrey Gieseler, a Pacific Legal Foundation lawyer who filed an amicus brief in the case, said cost-benefit analyses are needed "to know what kind of bang you're getting for the buck." Gieseler, who heads PLF's Florida office, said that utilities could be expected to pass on the costs of "forced retrofitting" to customers in the form of higher rates. Sivas countered that industry and regulatory agencies often undervalue the benefits of environmental protection. "Once economics go into that equation on a site specific basis, the whole thing becomes a kind of a sham," she said. "It just becomes a gaping hole for industry." Contributing editor Kenneth Jost, a former editor of The Los Angeles Daily Journal , is Supreme Court editor, CQ Press, in Washington, D.C.

Significant reductions in general fund revenues and building activity have caused many cities and counties in California to reduce planning department staffs. Numerous jurisdictions have shrunk staff sizes by one-quarter to one-half, and more cuts may be coming during the 2009-10 fiscal year. The tough economy is also hitting private consulting firms. Consultants that typically work for private developers are seeking public-sector jobs, and large outfits are bidding on ever-smaller projects, creating a high level of competition. Attendance at professional conferences and workshops is decreasing, while training opportunities that require no travel, such as "webinars" and audio broadcasts, appear to be gaining popularity. Some local governments have cut planning and building staffs by eliminating vacant positions, encouraging retirements, and moving planners and support personnel to jobs elsewhere in the organization. Other agencies, though, have had to lay off professional and administrative employees. Some jurisdictions have imposed furloughs and reduced salaries. The public planner layoffs are the first widespread layoffs since 1992-93, when the economy was sour and the state balanced its budget by shifting city and county revenues to schools. The size and speed of the current planning cuts relate largely to fee-dependence: Planning departments that receive few general fund dollars have been hit hardest by the decline in development. "I've never been through anything like this before," said Mike Moore, community development director for the City of Petaluma. Last fall, Moore had to reduce his staff of 23 to 12 workers. He found different positions for three workers, but eight employees went out the door. Even with the cutbacks in planning and other departments, Petaluma is facing another major budget deficit for the 2009-10 fiscal year, and additional Community Development Department cuts are likely, he said. "The specifics in each jurisdiction are unique," said Robert Sherry, Sacramento County planning and community development director and the head of the County Planning Director's Association. "It's a little hard to generalize except to say we're all suffering." Sherry has not had to lay off anyone, at least not yet. Four employees have relocated to other county jobs, and three others are on loan to other entities – the state Department of Housing and Community Development, the local air district and another county department – that have funds available. More planners may find themselves assigned outside the county Planning and Community Development Department in the near future, Sherry said. During recent years, Sacramento County's planning department received about $4 million annually in fees, but that amount fell by 75% in only two years, according to Sherry. Because the department refunded fees for some canceled projects, the department netted only $9,000 in fees during January, and Sherry fears the department could face a month when it returns more fees than it receives. The department has been able to rely on the county's general fund to cover up to 40% of expenses, but those days may be ending. In March, administrators estimated the county faced a $186 million hole in its $5 billion budget for 2009-10. "The hit this year was on fees, but next year it's going to be on the general fund," Sherry said. "This is the third downturn I've experienced in my career, and this is the scariest and the deepest I have ever seen. And I still don't know when we will hit bottom." Kurt Christiansen, director of economic and community development in Azusa and president of the California Chapter, American Planning Association (CCAPA), agreed with Sherry that generalization is difficult. Some cities in eastern Los Angeles County, such as El Monte and Pomona, have laid off planning staff because of revenue reductions, while others with essentially flat revenues, such as Pasadena, have been able to hold steady, Christiansen said. Some jurisdictions began cutting fast and deep last calendar year, while others took numerous steps before resorting to staff reductions. Like Petaluma, the City of Marysville began reducing staff last calendar year, when it laid off the community development coordinator. Meanwhile, Yuba County (where Marysville is the county seat) waited until February of this year to slash eight positions from the Community Development and Services Agency. As in Sacramento County, Yuba County reported a fee revenue decline of about 75%. San Joaquin County this year cut eight positions from the Community Development Department, including five that were filled. Last year, the department eliminated nine unfilled positions. The City of San Jose recently laid off 28 planners, building inspectors and support staff from the Development Services Department; however, because the city has about 7,000 positions, the laid off workers found jobs elsewhere in the organization. Fresno County announced in January it would lay off 28 Department of Public Works and Planning employees, mostly planners and building inspectors, by the end of this fiscal year. Because of a slight jump in permit activity, those employees were still at work in March. Planners in private practice are also feeling a pinch. Lance Schulte, a senior community planner for HDR in San Diego, said pre-proposal meetings are packed with consultants these days and competition for jobs has increased. "People are looking at different projects to work on that, in the past, they wouldn't have considered," said Schulte, CCAPA vice president of public information. Some landowners and developers are pushing forward with entitlement activity in anticipation of an economic rebound, which is providing work for consultants, according to Schulte and Christiansen. "Without the small stuff coming in, it's going to be really difficult for cities to keep their planners busy," added Christiansen. He recommended that agencies and their planners study "how to grab a hold of the economic stimulus money and look at a more green way of doing business." He also endorsed the concept of agencies sharing personnel costs and hours. Azusa, for example, is considering taking on half the cost, and getting half the time, of a neighboring city's housing expert. The public agency cutbacks are threatening to eat into long-term planning capabilities and even day-to-day service levels. Numerous agencies have streamlined hours during which staff members are available at the counter or even by telephone. Petaluma's Moore, who chairs the Bay Area Planning Director's Association, said the greenhouse gas reduction mandates of AB 32 and SB 375 could not come at a worse time for cash-strapped local governments. "We do not have any advance planning function at all," a frustrated Moore said of his city. "It simply is not funded. So our ability to respond to the demands of SB 375 is limited." There could be funding available in the future, though. Legislation approved last year (SB 732, Steinberg) provides guidance for awarding $90 million in Proposition 84 grants for local and regional planning. The Schwarzenegger administration's new Strategic Growth Council is currently working on guidelines and timeframes for awarding that money. In addition, the California Association of Councils of Government is sponsoring legislation (SB 406, DeSaulnier) that would permit COGs to impose a $2 surcharge on vehicle license registrations to fund regional planning efforts. There is little reason to believe fee revenues will increase in the near term, however. The Construction Industry Research Board forecast in late March that new home starts would total only 50,000 in 2009 – down 23% from last year's 64,752 starts, which was the lowest figure on record. Christiansen said CCAPA is ramping up its professional assistance to planners. "We put out a survival guide the last time a recession hit, and we're looking to update that and get it on our website as quickly as possible," he said. "We'll make a pitch to city managers in the next few months not to cut training and not to cut professional memberships. With pay cuts and all, they may be the only benefits their employees get." The planning organization is also looking into increased use of webinars, podcasts and other means of providing training inexpensively, said Christiansen, who noted that some American Institute of Certified Planners members are worried about getting adequate continuing education credits. Contacts: Kurt Christiansen, CCAPA and City of Azusa, (626) 812-5236. Lance Schulte, CCAPA and HDR, (858) 712-8304. Mike Moore, Bay Area Planning Directors Association and City of Petaluma, (707) 778-4301. Robert Sherry, County Planning Directors Association and Sacramento County, (916) 874-6141. Strategic Growth Council: http://opr.ca.gov/index.php?a=sch/growthcouncil.html

Wilshire Boulevard is the Main Street of Los Angeles, and the Ambassador Hotel (1921-2006) was its biggest, swankiest, classiest address. Filling 24 acres in one of L.A.'s densest neighborhoods, the Ambassador was a vestige of the age when men wore tuxedoes to dinner, women wore beaded gowns and large hats that nearly covered their eyes, and both drank too much. "Gone with the Wind" swept the Oscars when the Academy Awards were handed out at the Ambassador in 1939. Roosevelt slept here; so did JFK. His younger brother, Sen. Robert Kennedy, was assassinated in the kitchen of the Embassy Ballroom in 1968. � Beyond history, the spacious layout of the old hotel still impresses, even though it has been largely, if not totally, demolished. The Wilshire lawn, nearly 300 feet deep, is larger than many neighborhood parks. At the far end of the lawn, standing nearly at the center of the property, was the hotel "tower," in actuality a long, horizontal fa�ade with a slight inward curve that seemed to embrace Wilshire Boulevard with its broad shoulders. After nearly two decades of false starts and lawsuits � this is not the place to� drag out the stories about a huckster named Trump, his plans for the "world's tallest building," and his protracted court battle with the Los Angeles Unified School District � construction has finally started on the scheme to convert the property into an education center (see CP&DR In Brief , February 2008 ). The undertaking is big: The master plan calls for three separate schools (K-3, 4-8, 9-12) in a working class neighborhood with an expected attendance of more than 4,100 students. And when we reconcile ourselves to the loss of most of the original structures, rightly mourned by preservationists but untenable as the basis of new buildings, we can begin to recognize that the master plan by Pasadena's Gonzalez-Goodale is sensitive and workable, even inspired at certain points.�� � Following design guidelines in the project EIR, the architects preserved several vestiges of the historic hotel, including the large sign on Wilshire Boulevard, the deep Wilshire lawn and the Embassy Ballroom, where the curving ceiling beams overhead� will be restored to their original state, circa 1928. The Cocoanut Grove, which juts in front of the hotel tower like the drawer of an open cash register, has a plain, new wrapper around the flamboyant nightclub designed by the late Paul Williams, one of L.A.'s best-known African-American architects. � At top is a view of the original Ambassador Hotel indicating which historical features architects want to emulate or preserve. At bottom is the school layout that places the high school in the center of the site, with the junior high school at left and the elementary school below. (Source: Gonzalez-Goodale Architects) Although the hotel tower is gone, the architects have honored its memory with a new building nearly identical in both shape and position. This new building, which is the rear of the new high school, has a row of large windows to soak up the northern light. The style of the new building is simpler and less ornate than the original Ambassador tower. The basic effect of the embracing building has been preserved, even if we miss the tawny reddish color of the Ambassador tower. The preserved Wilshire lawn in this scheme becomes a group of sports fields, including a regulation-size soccer field. This is good news for Wilshire Boulevard, a tightly packed street that benefits enormously from the way the Wilshire lawn opens up and provides a great breath of air amid the high-rise and mid-rise buildings on either side. This solution also beats the hell out of an earlier proposal, from different designers, of building a football stadium on the lawn, with a quarter-mile of bleachers facing Wilshire Boulevard. (Pause for a moment and envision that.)� � This rendering shows that the new high school building preserves the size and shape of the original Ambassador tower. The Cocoanut Grove is the building at front left. The design also includes a new park along the Wilshire Boulevard sidewalk. The park is a narrow strip of ground carved out of the Wilshire lawn, which is elevated several feet above the sidewalk. If the boulevard is the least important street in the life of the new schools, pedestrians walking along L.A.'s Main Street will have a more pleasant time walking down the Ambassador block than in the past. In an equally sensitive mode, the architects have helped preserve the original lawn-and-tower gestalt of the Ambassador Hotel by hiding the high school and middle school behind the long replacement building. This configuration of the school buildings allows the architects to exploit the existing slope of the Ambassador site as a means to separate the schools. The high school, located on the site of the original torso of the hotel, stands on the highest elevation of the site. Several yards to the south, the middle school sits on its own level.� The elementary school, on the southern edge of the hotel block, sits on the lowest level. To minimize the crush of cars at the start and end of school days, each school has its own separate "loading zone" located at points where streets dead-end into the Ambassador block.� We will see whether neighbors are annoyed by the traffic or not. At least Wilshire Boulevard will not get backed up with parents dropping off children, which would be harmful to surrounding merchants and office buildings, and might discourage future investment on the faded boulevard. The front entrance to the high school faces west, onto Seventh Street. In architectural style, the school buildings are modern if institutional in appearance. The architects have not gone the route of bright colors and swirling shapes that other designers have recently adopted to "liven up" recent school projects by making them look like casinos or mini malls. The elevations look good on paper; hopefully the buildings will look equally good, or better, on the ground. The architects and their consultants, however, are building schools on a public works budget, not a pleasure dome for Jay Gatsby. The present reality of Wilshire Boulevard is more prosaic than in decades past. If we have lost the Ambassador, this scheme provides an inner-city neighborhood with the schools it needs, while preserving some of the customary elegance, and a great breath of air, on Wilshire Boulevard.

Our friends over at Planetizen are having too much fun today, which happens to be April 1. Some of the stories posted on Planetizen today: " Hardcore New Urbanist Can't Stop Mixing Uses ," " Foreclosed Homes To Be Counted As Race in 2010 Census " and " Resident Demands 'Everything in My Back Yard .'" In these grim times, it's nice to have a laugh and gain a touch of perspective.  - Paul Shigley