This article is brought to you courtesy of the paying subscribers to California Planning & Development Report. You can subscribe to CP&DR by clicking here. You can sign up for CP&DR’s free weekly newsletter here. Bay Area Voters to Decide Fate of Regionwide Transit Funding The Connect Bay Area transit funding measure will officially appear on the November 2026 ballot after election the campaign collected 305,000 signatures, nearly doubling the required 186,000. The tax measure would provide long-term funding for major transit agencies including BART, SFMTA Muni, Caltrain and AC Transit, while helping VTA expand service and giving counties direct funding for transit. A combination of grassroots transit organizing efforts, 80 elected officials and more than 90 labor, business and advocacy groups helped raise over $5.5 million to qualify the five-county sales tax measure. Without more sustainable transit funding, the Bay area could face severe cutbacks including up to 15 BART station closures, elimination of two lines and service cuts of up to 70% on BART alone. Meanwhile, a separate but related measure, Stronger Muni For All, has qualified San Francisco's November 3 ballot, aiming to help close Muni's projected $300 million-plus budget deficit through a parcel tax. If approved, the tax would charge single-family property owners $129 annually, multifamily owners $249, and commercial landlords $799, generating roughly $150 million yearly toward the deficit and $10 million for service improvements over 15 years. It is tied to a separate regional sales tax initiative, the Connect Bay Area Act, which would raise about $1 billion annually for Muni, BART, Caltrain, and other Bay Area transit agencies. Cadiz Receives Approvals to Pump Mojave Desert Water, Faces Lawsuits After over a decade of negotiation, the Bureau of Land Management approved a plan by Cadiz Inc. to repurpose 162 miles of a former oil and gas pipeline to transport groundwater pumped from the Mojave Desert. The agency determined the pipeline conversion "will not significantly affect" the environment and would comply with regulations, while stating that the broader environmental impacts of the groundwater extraction itself fall "outside the scope of analysis" for this authorization. Nonetheless, two environmental groups and two Native American tribes filed separate lawsuits in over the Bureau of Land Management's approval of the use of a decommissioned oil and gas pipeline for transporting the water project. Both suits target BLM’s decision earlier this month approving Cadiz Inc.'s "Northern Pipeline," which the company acquired in 2011. Plaintiffs claim that the project’s aquifer drawdown near Joshua Tree National Park has never faced meaningful review despite extracting far more groundwater than is naturally replenished, roughly 16.3 billion gallons per year for 50 years. The Center for Biological Diversity and the Sierra Club filed in Los Angeles, while the Fort Mojave Indian Tribe, Chemehuevi Indian Tribe, Native American Land Conservancy and National Parks Conservation Association filed in Riverside. Sacramento Investigates EIFD to Redevelop Former Kings Arena Sacramento City Council has advanced plans to redevelop the former Kings arena site in North Natomas. The proposed 171-acre Innovation Park project would include housing, commercial development, regional open space, a future school site, and a California Northstate University medical campus anchored by a hospital. Major construction has yet to begin, and to help pay for public infrastructure the city is turning to an Enhanced Infrastructure Financing District to capture a share of new property tax revenue generated as the site develops, with about 80% earmarked for infrastructure and 20% for affordable housing. Under the plan, tax revenue wouldn't flow until a hospital or similar "catalytic" project promising high-paying jobs is actually completed, a safeguard officials say protects the city's general fund and doesn't raise taxes. San Francisco to Impose Penalties on Stalled Office Projects San Francisco's Planning Department will withhold developers’ Proposition M development allocations if they haven't shown good-faith progress toward construction of stalled commercial office projects. Prop. M is a 1986 ballot measure that caps and regulates the amount of commercial development the city can approve. Director Sarah Dennis Phillips said projects with no demonstrated momentum could have their Prop. M allocation stripped immediately, while those that have delivered on community benefits but haven't pulled permits would get an 18-month grace period. The move targets developers who abandoned office megaprojects in favor of housing but kept their valuable Prop. M allocations in reserve. Prop. M has capped new office space in San Francisco since 1986, but the pool of available allocations has shrunk dramatically since 2020's Proposition E tied replenishment to the city's affordable housing goals, which it is failing to meet. CP&DR Coverage: Evaluating the Surplus Land Act Passed in 2021, and administered by the Department of Housing and Community Development under guidelines adopted in 2024, the Surplus Land Act requires local agencies to prioritize housing on agency-owned land that is being sold or leased. To date, nearly 42,000 homes either have been put on formerly public land or are in the pipeline. David Zisser, deputy director of HCD, calls the number a success. Homes created by the SLA are, arguably, among the easiest to track compared to those created by the many other pro-housing laws adopted in recent years. Development agreements are, by necessity, subject to scrutiny and well documented, by notices of availability, exemptions, and other approvals by HCD. While the state may argue that the 42,000 homes justify the process, many cities consider it burdensome--and not necessarily effective. Quick Hits & Updates San Francisco voters will decide for a third time in four years whether to reopen the Great Highway to weekday car traffic. The highway has been the site of Sunset Dunes Park since 2024 when voters approved permanently closing it to cars. The new measure, backed by over 15,900 petition signatures, would reopen the road to cars on weekdays while keeping it closed Friday evenings through Monday mornings. Opponents say the closure has worsened traffic, while park supporters argue the space has been a success, drawing 1.7 million visits since opening and boosting nearby businesses, and warn that reopening it would cost the city about $10.75 million to remove. A California earthquake expert estimates that The Big One would likely cause around $500 billion and up to $1 trillion in damage. Ahmed Elbanna, the director of the Statewide California Earthquake Center, told the state’s Seismic Safety Commission that a 7.8-magnitude earthquake could become the costliest disaster in U.S. history dwarfing the roughly $200 billion in damage (adjusted for inflation) from Hurricane Katrina, which devastated New Orleans in 2005. San Diego's Community Planners Committee voted to oppose Senate Bill 958, which would exempt the Midway Rising development from the area’s 30-foot height limit by preventing building height from being treated as a significant environmental impact under CEQA. SMART, the North Bay's commuter rail system, is exploring a new station in Geyserville after roughly 1,800 residents successfully lobbied state lawmakers to allow the stop. Local business owners say the station would boost tourism to the area's 100 wineries, outdoor recreation and historical sites including the River Rock Casino, which is being converted into the 100-room Caesars Republic Sonoma County. (See related CP&DR coverage.) A new analysis from Harvard's Joint Center for Housing Studies finds that declining immigration is undermining U.S. population growth, making communities increasingly dependent on domestic migration and natural change to sustain growth. Large metro urban counties, including those in California, are most vulnerable due to steep domestic migration losses. East Palo Alto City Council voted 3-2 to approve the Temporary Housing Development Incentive Program, an ordinance allowing developers to skip the city's inclusionary housing requirements for projects with 20 units or fewer. The policy suspends the city's 1994 inclusionary housing ordinance, which normally requires developers to set aside 20% of rental units or pay an in-lieu fee for residents earning 35%, 50% and 60% of area median income, about $114,000. Developer Align Real Estate submitted revised plans to redevelop the Marina district's waterfront Safeway, reducing the project's two towers from 25 and 22 stories to 22 and 18 stories (roughly 258 and 219 feet) while increasing the total unit count from 790 to 848 apartments, a change the developer attributed to improved building efficiency and optimized floor plans. The revision comes after months of criticism from city leaders, including Mayor Daniel Lurie, who officially opposed the original 25-story tower last year. The San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted 7-4 to approve an ordinance requiring the city to prioritize drug-free permanent supportive housing when it fully funds future supportive housing projects. Under the new policy, residents who use illicit drugs in supportive housing could face eviction or relocation to another housing or shelter option.

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This article is brought to you courtesy of the paying subscribers to California Planning & Development Report. You can subscribe to CP&DR by clicking here. You can sign up for CP&DR’s free weekly newsletter here. Prior to Implementing Alternative Plan, Palo Alto Beset with SB 79 Applications The City of Palo Alto, which has historically favored slow growth, adopted an alternative plan pursuant to Senate Bill 79 that went into effect two weeks after the law’s July 1 effective date. In that window, at least seven projects that would otherwise have been disallowed were proposed and appear likely to be permitted. They include both market-rate and affordable units, including four housing projects by nonprofit developer Minority Television Project; some projects use state Density Bonus Law to go up to seven stories. Applications for some SB 79 projects have been accompanied by letters from developers’ attorneys threatening the city with lawsuits if it attempted to reject projects on technicalities. According to a preemptive letter from law firm Holland & Knight, the city can reject SB 79 applications only for “significant, unavoidable, and quantifiable impact[s] on ‘objective, identified written public health or safety standards, policies, or conditions.However, the Legislature has affirmed its expectation that these types of conditions ‘arise infrequently.’” Palo Alto’s alternative plan went into effect July 16, limiting the size of projects to roughly 50% of what SB 79 would allow. (See related CP&DR coverage.) California Forever Loses $3.2 Billion Shipyard Contract California Forever, the plan to build a new city on roughly 70,000 acres of farmland in Solano County, California, has lost its bid to recruit an industrial tenant for their planned waterfront shipyard on the Sacramento River on the southern end of its land holdings. The area has long been zoned for “maritime industrial uses.” Saronic Technologies, an Austin-based defense startup that builds autonomous watercraft, has selected the Port of Brownsville in Texas over Solano County for its planned $3.2 billion Port Alpha shipyard. California Forever had signed a 40-year union labor agreement covering its 70,000-acre project and backed legislation to speed up environmental review for the shipyard, which could still advance as a budget trailer bill this summer. Texas, meanwhile, approved a $211 million tax-abatement package in June to draw Saronic to Brownsville, where the new shipyard will sit about 20 miles from SpaceX's Starbase facility. Joshua Arce of the California Alliance of Jobs told the San Francisco Chronicle the move will send roughly 10,000 permanent jobs and thousands of union construction positions to Texas instead, faulting state leaders for failing to act quickly enough. CEQA Reform Ballot Measure Gains Strong Voter Support A recent poll from the Public Policy Institute of California shows that Proposition 45, a measure to overhaul CEQA, has drawn support from voters with 73% of likely voters in support, 24% opposed and 4% undecided. The measure would impose a 365-day limit on environmental reviews for projects like housing, transit, reservoirs and renewable energy facilities, and require courts to rule on related lawsuits within 270 days. It is the biggest change to CEQA since it was signed into law in 1970. Renters, younger voters and lower-income households say the reform would cut red tape and lower housing, energy and water costs, while opponents including the Sierra Club, Defenders of Wildlife and Jane Fonda, argue it would weaken environmental protections and enable projects like data centers with minimal public input. Weakening of Federal Endangered Species Act Could Endanger 300 Species in California The Trump administration finalized a rule Friday that narrows the definition of "harm" under the Endangered Species Act, eliminating protections against habitat destruction from logging, mining and oil drilling as long as animals aren't directly killed or injured. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum defended the change, saying the previous definition "interfered with private property rights" and had been abused by federal agencies to obstruct land use; officials said the move follows a 2024 Supreme Court decision limiting federal agencies' authority to interpret environmental statutes. California, the nation's most biodiverse state, is expected to be hit especially hard with roughly 300 of the law's approximately 2,300 protected species found here including condors, sea otters, desert tortoises and gray wolves. The Endangered Species Act has been credited with saving species such as the California condor, bald eagle, southern sea otter and El Segundo blue butterfly from near-extinction, recoveries advocates say resulted directly from habitat protections the new rule removes. (See related CP&DR coverage.) CP&DR Coverage: New San Francisco Planning Director Brings Private-Sector Perspective Shortly after the election of San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie, he nominated Sarah Dennis Phillips to succeed Rich Hillis as planning director. Dennis Phillip was both a conventional choice and an offbeat. Offbeat, because she was coming from over a decade in the private sector, working for mega-developer Tishman Speyer. Conventional because she had previously spent a similar amount of time in San Francisco city government, in planning and community development. Her appointment complemented Lurie's dedication to development and increasing the city's housing supply. A year later, Dennis Phillip has presided over the implementation of the city's "Family Zoning Plan" and is attempting to reform the department amid renewed public enthusiasm--or at least tolerance--for new housing. She spoke with CP&DR's Josh Stephens. Quick Hits & Updates A new economic analysis estimates that Los Angeles's Measure ULA, commonly known as the "Mansion Tax," generates significant unintended fiscal costs by suppressing property transactions, which in turn slows growth in property tax assessments. The study notes that in California and more than half of U.S. states, assessed property values only rise toward market value at the point of sale, so any drop in transaction frequency caused by the transfer tax directly reduces the growth of property tax revenue over time. Environmental groups Earthworks and Comité Cívico del Valle argued before a California appeals court in San Diego on Thursday that Imperial County failed to adequately review the environmental and cultural impacts of Controlled Thermal Resources' Hell's Kitchen lithium project. The project would extract lithium from geothermal brine and require 6,500 acre-feet of fresh water annually. Governor Newsom signed Assembly Bill 179, a new housing affordability law aiming to reduce the per-unit cost of affordable housing by $60,000 to $70,000, remove red tape and boost housing construction. The law features a major reduction in impact fees, or one-time charges local governments impose on developers to support municipal services including schools, public parks and sewage for residents in new affordable housing units. Gov. Newsom characterized the current fee structure as "comical" and prohibitive toward the construction of affordable units. The Riverside City Council adopted a new planning framework aimed at transforming the area around a downtown Metrolink station into a mixed-use hub with housing, jobs and transit access. The item updates preparation of a Transit Oriented Development Action Plan and adopts a resolution required under Regional Early Action Planning 2.0 grant guidelines. It does not approve construction, rezone land or commit city funding, but officials say it lays groundwork for future investment. The Prebys Foundation and Downtown San Diego Partnership are planning to formally ask the city to create a joint powers authority (JPA) with the San Diego Community College District and San Diego Unified School District to redevelop the Civic Center, San Diego's four-block municipal compound plus two adjacent blocks. Modeled after the Bay Area's Transbay Joint Powers Authority, the JPA would have broad legal powers though the city would still need to separately transfer the Civic Center land before the entity could exercise land-use authority. Bay Area transit ridership patterns have shifted significantly by income over the past decade. In 2014 both the poorest and richest workers rode transit at higher rates than middle-income workers; wealthier riders often lived near transit corridors in cities like San Francisco and Palo Alto and commuted to downtown offices. By 2019, as gentrification pushed lower-income residents out of transit-rich neighborhoods, wealthier commuters increasingly turned to BART and Caltrain. That trend reversed again by 2024, as remote and hybrid work drew affluent workers, leaving lower-income workers making up a larger share of transit riders relative to the overall workforce. The Los Angeles City Council approved Fourth & Central, a $2 billion mixed-use development that will replace cold storage facilities, parking lots and warehouses on Skid Row near Little Tokyo and the Arts District. The project, first proposed in 2021, calls for 10 buildings including a 30-story residential tower with 572 condominiums and 949 apartments, including at least 262 affordable units. Real estate firms Jamison and Kennedy Wilson will attempt a $200 million conversion of the L.A. World Trade Center into Sky Castle, a 512-unit affordable housing complex as part of a broader campaign to build 4,000 affordable apartments across Los Angeles. The office will be Jamison's 15th office-to-housing conversion, with work set to begin in August and completion expected by early 2028. Rents are expected to start at $937 for one-bedroom units, with two- and three-bedroom units renting for $1,100 and $1,300 respectively, and the complex will include amenities like a fitness center, co-working space and rooftop tennis or pickleball courts. Eligible tenants must earn between 30% and 80% of the area median income. San Diego City Council, acting as the Housing Authority of the City of San Diego, approved the creation of an $8.5 million Affordable Housing Preservation Fund to slow the loss of affordable rental housing and keep rents low for individuals, families and seniors. The fund is intended to help preserve "naturally occurring affordable housing" by combining its resources with other funding sources and establishing long-term affordability requirements for those units; specific proposals for using the fund will come before the council or Housing Authority in the future. A Contra Costa County Grand Jury issued a report on the City of Martinez's deteriorating waterfront and marina, which spans 67.3 acres along the Carquinez Strait and has fallen into disrepair since being built in the 1960s. The city currently lacks funding to repair the crumbling seawall and docks, dredge the marina, or build a higher seawall to address projected sea level rise, and cannot continue subsidizing the marina without harming core services. The Sierra Club and three other environmental nonprofits filed a petition Wednesday in San Bernardino County Superior Court seeking to invalidate Barstow's approval of the Barstow International Gateway, a $4 billion, 4,500-acre BNSF Railway facility that would become the nation's largest rail yard. The groups argue the city's environmental review was inadequate, citing projections that the project will emit over 550 tons of nitrogen oxide and 134,471 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent annually while burning more than 18 million gallons of diesel a year, and that it failed to properly assess impacts on species including the Mojave desert tortoise and western burrowing owl. El Segundo City Council declined to move forward with a plan to ask voters to make the city a charter city, after two of four council members present at the July 7 meeting voiced opposition, falling short of the three votes needed to place the measure on the November ballot. The proposal was aimed at giving the city more control over land zoning amid state housing mandates.

This article is brought to you courtesy of the paying subscribers to California Planning & Development Report. You can subscribe to CP&DR by clicking here. You can sign up for CP&DR’s free weekly newsletter here. Developer Proposes Building Data Centers on Fairgrounds Statewide Global Stack LLC, a California infrastructure company, has proposed building data centers, multilevel parking garages, and helicopter landing pads on state land generally used as fairgrounds. The company has expressed a desire to utilize the substantial swaths of public land in partnership with private interests to generate revenue year round. Public records reveal discussions with eight fairgrounds so far: Cow Palace Arena & Event Center, San Mateo County Event Center, the Calistoga Fairgrounds, the Solano County Fairgrounds & Event Center, the Tulare County Fairgrounds, the Kings County Fairgrounds, the Antelope Valley Fair and Event Center in Lancaster (Los Angeles County), and the Southern California Fair in Perris (Riverside County). The plan envisions rolling the model out to as many as 70 of California's roughly 80 fairgrounds by 2030, offering site operators 100-year land leases in exchange for a stable revenue stream many fairgrounds sorely need. The proposal for Daly City’s Cow Palace, which is still in early discussions, includes an 8- to 10-megawatt data center, multilevel parking garage, and a helicopter landing pad for emergency response. Critics of the projects across communities cite concerns about noise, pollution, water and power demands. (See related CP&DR coverage.) SANDAG Says San Diego Skimped on SB 79 Upzoning The San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG) determined last week that more than five times the four stops city officials had recognized are eligible for upzoning under Senate Bill 79, opening the city to allow even more new homes than the 367,000 that city officials predicted this spring. On July 1 SB 79 took effect, allowing buildings up to 85 feet tall in areas zoned for single-family housing near qualifying transit stops, with height and density allowances scaling down farther from the stop. It has been unclear which bus stops qualify until this dispute; city officials had counted only stops with bus lanes inaccessible to cars or bikes, while the YIMBY Democrats of San Diego County argued the law's criteria were broader and pushed for as many as 26 stops. Housing advocates estimate the change will push the city's required housing capacity increase from 367,000 units to roughly 467,000, though city planners say they're still calculating a revised figure. Elsewhere in the region, the Oceanside City Council has voted, 4-0, to defer implementation of SB 79 and will seek to “exempt and/or defer all sites that could potentially be exempted or deferred” and “reduce SB 79’s impact to the greatest extent possible.” The city is working on an Alternative Plan, but the deferral of full implementation could extend as late as 2032. The city has a transit center and several rail stations, bringing its full SB 79 capacity to over 50,000. (See related CP&DR coverage.) Environmental Group Sues CARB to Prevent Cuts to Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund Communities for a Better Environment, an environmental justice nonprofit, is suing the California Air Resources Board over an update to the cap-and-invest program, alleging the agency skirted required environmental review under CEQA. The suit is the first major legal challenge to the program since lawmakers extended its expiration date from 2030 to 2045 last year. The suit addresses a manufacturing decarbonization incentive that lets polluters claim up to 118 million new emissions allowances in exchange for decarbonization investments, a move regulators say is meant to keep industry from leaving the state. The lawsuit contends CARB introduced the mechanism roughly six weeks before the vote without updating its environmental impact analysis, and posted the final assessment just two days before the hearing. It also alleges that the change threatens up to $2 billion annually that would otherwise be funneled into the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, which finances housing, transit and clean-air programs, with the heaviest impact falling on low-income communities and communities of color. Lafayette May Upzone to Settle Dispute over Housing Development Lafayette, an East Bay city of about 25,000, has agreed to consider upzoning 130 acres of land as part of a June settlement with the Housing Action Coalition, possibly bringing an end to a notorious yearslong battle over the Terraces of Lafayette, a proposed office space and multifamily housing complex. Since 2011, the project has been downsized, rescinded by voter referendum in 2018, restored, approved by the city council in 2020, and challenged in a lawsuit by the group Save Lafayette that reached the California Supreme Court before the city prevailed in 2023. The development includes 63 below-market-rate units, though eligibility requires household income under 80% of Contra Costa County's area median of $135,750 for a family of four. Save Lafayette, led by resident Michael Griffiths, opposes the project on wildfire and traffic-pollution grounds and is considering further legal action. (See related CP&DR coverage.) State Offers $55 Million in Resilience Planning Grants Applications have opened for Round 2 of California's Community Resilience Centers (CRC) Program, which provides approximately $55 million in grants funded by the 2024 Climate Bond (Proposition 4). The program supports the planning, construction, and renovation of neighborhood resilience centers that provide shelter, cooling, emergency resources, and year-round community services to help communities prepare for climate-related disasters such as extreme heat and wildfires. Round 2 is open to lead applicants that are a public or local agency, nonprofit organization, special district, joint powers authority, Tribe, public utility, local publicly owned utility, or mutual water company, prioritizing communities most impacted by environmental, socioeconomic, and health inequality. Applications opened July 2, with grant applications due in September for review. CP&DR Coverage: Ugly Mayoral Race Highlights Importance of Civic Beauty At one point during his ill-fated campaign for mayor of Los Angeles, former reality TV star Spencer Pratt declared, “ we're going to have L.A. so beautiful. No more of these high-density, SB-79, prison-like structures.” He called out Art Deco in particular as the hallmark of a more attractive city. Pratt was angry and, arguably, loony. But, for a city beset by bad news, we can still take a cue from his optimistic vision. Conventional politicians rarely discuss aesthetics because they are likely afraid of the specters of gentrification or elitism, or they’re wonky enough to know how hard it is to regulate aesthetics. Or -- quite likely -- they simply have no taste and consider aesthetics to be frivolous. Except, writes CP&DR’s Josh Stephens, aesthetics matter. Not as much as poverty, homelessness, or housing--but they still matter a lot. Good plans warrant good design -- and vice-versa. Quick Hits & Updates Modesto will prepare an environmental study to measure the impact of a proposed development and population increase in compliance with their 2050 general plan. The City Council adopted a land use option that would add thousands of acres to the city and potentially grow its population from 220,000 to 324,000 over the next 24 years, bringing up to 38,500 new housing units and 57,300 jobs. While the plan will include mitigation policies to lessen environmental impacts, the city retains the option to approve overriding considerations for impacts deemed too significant to fully mitigate, citing economic or social benefits. San Francisco will introduce the Affordable Grocery Act in November, aimed at combating the city's food deserts and so-called "zombie stores", vacant grocery and pharmacy buildings that corporate chains keep empty to block competitors. The measure would pair tax credits and expedited permitting for businesses that reopen vacant storefronts as groceries or pharmacies with a new tax on corporations that deliberately leave such properties empty, though new stores after January 2027 and housing-conversion sites would be exempt. The San Diego County Board of Supervisors adopted a new inclusionary housing ordinance that requires most new residential developments in unincorporated areas with at least 10 units to reserve 5% of homes for very low-income households or comply through alternatives such as fees or land donations. Other local jurisdictions like Chula Vista and Carlsbad have long required affordable housing set-asides, and San Diego county has met only 28% of its state housing target so far. The county has invested more than $334 million in affordable housing since 2017, but officials noted that limited transit, wildfire risks, and slower homebuilding pose a challenge in unincorporated communities. The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority has sued the Trump administration over withheld funds the agency says will put more than 11,000 at risk of losing housing and other services. LAHSA is seeking a temporary restraining order in order to stop the Housing and Urban Development Department from suspending the funds. The lawsuit comes three weeks after HUD suspended LAHSA over allegations of financial mismanagement, fraud and inadequate conflict-of-interest safeguards, to which the agency argues HUD has produced no formal investigative findings. The Governor’s Office of Land Use and Climate Innovation released a Notice of Funding Availability for Round 2 of California's Extreme Heat and Community Resilience Program, offering $27.5 million total in competitive infrastructure grants. Funding for the program is provided by the Climate Bond and Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund to support projects that reduce the impacts of extreme heat and build community resilience. Funding is split into two tracks: Early Infrastructure Projects and Advanced Infrastructure Projects.

Housing issues again dominated the Legislature’s action on planning and development issues this year. About 30 bills were sent to Gov. Gavin Newsom after the end of the legislative session on August 31. Newsome has already signed two bills and has until the end of September to decide whether to sign the rest. CP&DR will update its legislative coverage once Newsom acts on all the bills, but he’s unlikely to veto many.

A controversial supportive housing project has been relocated out of Old Town Elk Grove – but the city will now be subject to increased scrutiny by the state Department of Housing and Community Development.

The Citrus Heights City Council has rejected a developer’s proposal to revamp Citrus Heights Mall – once the very reason the city was incorporated – to include big-box stores and drive-through restaurants.

The only way to squeeze a generation’s worth of growth into existing urban areas plus 2% more land is with a heavy reliance on infill development. With the Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG) beginning to finesse its density-driven, “2% Strategy” growth vision from policy into action, Solimar Research Group is producing information of use to those planning and executing infill development. In few of the giant metropolitan planning organization’s 13 subregions is this plan for infill-based development as relevant as in the South Bay, a 16-city cluster that is home to Los Angeles International Airport and inner-ring suburbs. Here, where the urban environment approaches full build-out and the population is expected to increase 170,000 by 2025, the South Bay Council of Governments has initiated an intensive examination of two development patterns that SCAG has deemed ripe with infill potential. Since early 2005, Solimar Research Group has guided this study of the functionality of existing “mixed-use centers” and “mixed-use corridors” in the South Bay. Still ongoing, we have already uncovered patterns in the travel behavior of the residents of these districts. Although our study is ongoing, there are signatures of “performance” that offer vital clues about future, high-density infill development throughout Los Angeles. We’ve discovered that those who live or work near these centers will travel to them more frequently than elsewhere, in effect absorbing trips to other destinations. Such residents are also more likely to walk than drive; in fact, at least 20% more will walk to the center than residents of a traditional suburban neighborhood accessing their local services. Overall, residents of mixed-use centers are likely to make fewer total trips, especially auto trips, than their suburban counterparts. By project’s end, we will have evaluated project areas in six communities in order to develop a set of broad, strategic guidelines for creating functional mixed-use districts. After completing a Phase I study of centers in Inglewood, Redondo Beach and Torrance, and a Phase II study of Hawthorne and El Segundo locations, we are currently engaged in a Phase III study of corridors in Gardena and Redondo Beach. Our methodology and results for the Phase II Hawthorne Boulevard project area exemplify the potential of this study. Like other “mixed-use corridors,” the City of Hawthorne’s one-mile Hawthorne Boulevard corridor is dense with commercial uses, is surrounded by relatively high-density housing and carries significant through traffic over a length greater than the typical “mixed-use center.” The corridor is socioeconomically typical of Los Angeles County as a whole. Our analysis of this commercial corridor was designed to reveal linkages between the functionality of mixed-use districts and the travel behavior of the people who use the districts. In addition to an extensive, online travel survey, including detailed “travel diaries” for corridor residents and employees—as well as a series of sidewalk visitor surveys—we undertook an exhaustive examination of a 395-acre “inner” and 750-acre “outer” buffer zone surrounding the corridor. This statistical and GIS-based functionality analysis covered the physical, social, commercial and transit-oriented characteristics of the corridor. We analyzed, among other things, demographic and socioeconomic figures, land use and year-built data, business functionality profiles, bus ridership and pedestrian activity, and parking and traffic patterns. Just a glance at the results reveals lessons for future mixed-use districting. Like nearly all study areas, Hawthorne Boulevard acts very much like a neighborhood shopping center. We found that Hawthorne Boulevard generates $400 million in sales in its “inner” buffer zone and has a total of 1,041 retail/service-oriented businesses. However, survey responses revealed that residents are less likely to walk to, or along, the corridor as compared to users of mixed-use centers. Yet it is also clear that the corridor plays an important role in the daily economy. Our survey results reveal that residents commute out of the area (largely by bus or Metrolink train) in the morning. Yet on their return in the afternoon, they consistently patronize the businesses along the corridor. This is an early indication that these arterial, “mixed-use corridors,” ubiquitous to all of metropolitan Los Angeles, can be transformed into successful mixed-use districts. The results of the ongoing, third phase of this project will allow us to further isolate those characteristics of existing mixed-use districts that affect the travel behavior of residents, employees and visitors. In concert with detailed case-study reports, this analysis will further facilitate the fruit of our efforts: Creating a broadly applicable set of strategic guidelines for developing functional, “high performance” mixed-use districts in the South Bay and beyond. Greg Goodfellow is a research associate and project manager for Solimar Research Group, parent company of CP&DR .

The right combination of zoning changes and decreased parking requirements can make infill projects feasible in some of the state’s most urban settings. That is the conclusion of Solimar Research Group, which continues to investigate land use options for crowded urban areas. Recently, we explored how regulatory changes affect the financial feasibility of infill projects, and then applied our models to the land use surrounding a major rail extension in Los Angeles. The results should prove interesting to any agency that is approaching the issue of rapid growth with a strategy of high density, transit-oriented development. We sought to calculate the degree to which changes in parking and density policy, as well to zoning, will shrink the notoriously stubborn gap between planning ideal and development reality. Our comprehensive pro-forma analyses revealed that while parking policy affects feasibility more than density allowance, reliance on one or the other is politically unrealistic. A combined strategy is essential. On the other hand, key zone changes may prove a powerful, singular tool in getting infill development off the ground. We further explored how these proposed policy strategies would play out in the very real built environment of the planned Exposition Line extension of the Los Angeles Metro Rail system. Our parcel-by-parcel GIS analysis of infill opportunities surrounding proposed rail stations highlights the infill potential of underutilized industrial land along transit corridors. Grounded Analyses To ensure the “real-time” relevancy of our calculations, we consulted local developers to identify actual development models. Five infill prototypes were selected, and examples of each — from an 8-10 unit townhouse to a 100-200 unit mixed-use project — are currently under construction. We then applied an “as is” pro-forma feasibility model to each, one based on current zoning standards and the industry’s minimum expected 15% net margin. With our feasibility baselines established, we analyzed the fiscal impact of incremental increases or decreases in density and parking requirements. The selection of these two policies as regulatory variables was straightforward: one is a powerful determinant of gross revenue, the other a huge booster of project costs. We also calculated the impact on each prototype of building in either industrial or commercial zones. Combined Regulation Our pro-forma for development prototype 2A exemplifies the political near-impossibility of relying on a single regulation to promote infill in Los Angeles. Prototype 2A is a small, mixed-use project of 54 units, with a current feasibility gap of $1.2 million. A 50% density bonus reduces that gap to only $900,000; a 100% density bonus to only $700,000. While feasibility may arrive with 150% bonus, attendant density, height and FAR changes to the C-1 and C-M zones in which this project would be built are unlikely. Construction of prototype 2A also is unlikely without a change in parking requirements. We found that only a 50% decrease in the number of required parking spaces reduces the $1.2 million gap down to $400,000. That is still too much. But a synergy of more modest changes produces a viable alternative. Our study indicates that a 75% density bonus combined with a 25-50% parking reduction provide enough incentive for developers to pursue projects of this size. This outcome repeated itself in our calculations for prototype developments of various sizes. EXPO Application After calculating needed regulatory and zoning incentives, we took our prototypes to a built environment of high infill potential. The Exposition Line is scheduled for completion in 2010. It will serve an almost entirely developed area. We drew circular study zones around the planned La Brea, La Cienega, Crenshaw, Western and Vermont stations. Our GIS “screening” of parcels around the La Cienega stop reveals a repeated pattern of industrial under-use that, as our pro-formas indicate, should be targeted for infill. Nearly 25% of the half-mile area surrounding the station is zoned industrial/light manufacturing, much of that characterized by large parcels. In addition, many parcels are underutilized and ideal for infill redevelopment. Finally, we identified parcels along the La Cienega Boulevard commercial strip that could be assembled into spaces that would increase the feasibility of projects the scale of Prototype 2A. These projects become even more realistic with the regulatory changes identified above. Solimar’s complete fiscal and land-use analysis of infill potential along the Expo line is available at: http://www.solimar.org/pdfs/Expo_Final_3-30.pdf . Greg Goodfellow is a research associate and project manager for Solimar Research Group, parent company of CP&DR.

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