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

How the heck do you plan a city when no one knows what the world of retail sales will look like in 10 years? That's a question I've pondered for some time, and it came to mind again with the recent news that Gottschalks is officially going out of business . Gottschalks' closure closely follows Mervyns' late 2008 shut-down and the more recent shuttering of Circuit City. In a number of California cities, Gottschalks and Mervyns were located in the same mall or shopping district. Soon, those cities will have two 60,000-square-foot boxes sitting empty. The Gottschalks' announcement comes at a time when shopping mall owners across the country are struggling mightily. As evidenced in this story from the Bay Area , General Growth Properties is barely hanging on. General Growth owns more than 200 malls, including some in California that are downright iconic. And, as Bill Fulton has been reporting , auto malls and automobile dealers face a very uncertain future. What's a planner to do? I know, I know, we're all supposed to have gotten past Euclidian, used-based zoning. That's so 20th century. But even if we want to embrace form-based zoning , we still need to have a feel for how people are going to buy food, cars and other goods in the future. It used to be that retail cycles lasted about a generation. By the end of the 90s, however, retail cycles were down to about seven years. That was the length of time it took for lifestyle centers to bypass power centers as the hottest retail properties. The explosion of Internet sales compressed the cycles even further. (It wasn't that long ago that we all made jokes about Jeff Bezos losing hundreds of millions of dollars a year.) Now, the recession is throwing everything into doubt. Some cities have seen their sales tax receipts fall every quarter for more than a year. A recent analysis for the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority forecast that sales tax revenue, after inflation, would be flat through 2036. Local governments have made many questionable land use and economic development decisions since Proposition 13 elevated the importance of sales tax as a local revenue. Cities and counties have not only accommodated, they have subsidized the latest retail trends. Some of those decisions look even more questionable today, but at least most of them literally paid off for a while. The questions remain: Now what? Should we continue to plan as if the retail world of 2005 will return after the recession ends? Do we stick with general plans adopted five or 10 years ago that assume retail growth will continue ever-onward? Are planners wasting their time processing projects that will be obsolete before the developer even breaks ground? What are cities to do with what appears to be a glut of retail space? In a way, we're lucky. We have a period of time to answer these questions, because nobody has money to build much of anything right now. – Paul Shigley

PLANNING COMMISSIONERS TRAINING THURSDAY, APRIL 16, 2009         CALTRANS DISTRICT 7 HQLOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA   The Public Policy Program convenes daylong training sessions designed for planning commissioners from local jurisdictions across the state of California. The sessions provide useful tools to assist commissioners in preparing for planning commission meetings so that they have a better understanding of agenda items. Pertinent and timely information is offered by field experts to support commissioners' efforts to make informed decisions, giving them the opportunity to discuss matters of interest with other commissioners from cities across California.  WHO SHOULD ATTEND? Planning commissioners and those who work closely with planning commissioners. FEES AND CREDIT: $55 REG # U8816      Urban Planning 865.4   0.5 CEU  CEU Noncredit Program   TOPICS INCLUDE: • How to Communicate with the City Council • Local Governments Role in Developing Green Communities • Transportation-Related Air Pollution Exposure • Developing Around Transit DATE, TIME, AND LOCATION: Thursday, April 16, 2009 9:00 am - 3:30 pm Caltrans District 7 Headquarters   SEMINAR SPEAKERS: •  William (Bill) Fulton is President of Solimar Research Group and a Senior Scholar at the School of Policy , Planning, and Development at the University of Southern California. •  Woodie Tescher is a Principal and Director of Urban Planning and Design for EIP Associates, a division of PBS&J. •  Dr. Arthur M. Winer is a Distinguished Professor of Environmental Health Sciences and a core faculty member in the UCLA Environmental Science and Engineering Program, of which he was the Director between 1989 and 1997.  •  Susan DeSantis is President of SDS/Associates a regional and local policy planning consulting firm.   MORE UPCOMING PLANNING COMMISSIONERS TRAINING SEMINARS!! June 18, 2009 – REG# U8817 July 16, 2009 – REG# U9095 Go to http://www.uclaextension.edu/  for more details!

On one block of East 14th Street in downtown San Leandro, Chinese characters fill most of the storefront signs. One block to the north, most signs are in Spanish. A couple blocks farther north, men wearing turbans chat on the sidewalk – near Thai and Greek restaurants. Less than a block off the East 14th commercial corridor lie charming, well-maintained bungalows. A bit farther off the main drag are five-story apartment buildings, a BART station surrounded by a sea of parking lots and, in the other direction, a bustling nine-year-old library with its own parking ocean. Downtown San Leandro is clearly in transition. A working-class city with a large industrial base located just south of Oakland, San Leandro's suburban past and its more urban future are present at the same time. Now, the city has big plans to transform its downtown into a truly urban, pedestrian-oriented place that takes full advantage of the BART station and a planned bus rapid transit line. The city adopted a transit-oriented development strategy for a 500-acre area in 2007, and in March the City Council unanimously approved the first project to implement the strategy – a 100-unit affordable housing complex, with space for programs and services, right next to the BART station. This month, the city is set to approve a larger, market-rate condominium project that will contain 200 housing units and 5,000 square feet of ground-floor retail space. "This isn't transit-oriented development, it's pedestrian-oriented development," San Leandro Senior Planner Phil Millenbah said of the city's overall plan. "If it's not good for walking, it's not going to be good for transit." The city's approach has won plaudits from developers, the business community, environmentalists and transit supporters, while the response has been mixed among homeowners and affordable housing advocates. The recently approved affordable housing project in particular drew opponents who complained the apartments would attract crime and burden schools. Affordable housing advocates, meanwhile, have expressed concerns about gentrification. Thus far, a unanimous City Council has stood behind the development strategy and projects. "I believe it will create a vibrant downtown and help combat climate change. I also believe that the developers have done an excellent job with community outreach," City Councilman Michael Gregory said upon approving the affordable housing project. San Leandro was founded on the east side of San Francisco Bay in 1855 and incorporated in 1872. For decades, it was a predominately Portuguese enclave. Over the years, agriculture and oyster harvesting gave way to heavy industry. Until the 1950s, an Oakland-to-Hayward streetcar line ran through town. The city's flourishing downtown began to fade after World War II, and it nearly died entirely once Bay Fair mall opened on the southern edge of town during the late 1950s. The city created its first redevelopment project area in 1961, but the city's redevelopment efforts were largely guided by suburban priorities, explained Community Development Director Luke Sims. In the early 1980s, for example, the redevelopment agency subsidized development of an automobile-dominated commercial center with a large parking lot right in the heart of downtown. Redevelopment efforts are now headed in a more urban direction, said Sims, and planners see the unfortunate downtown commercial center as an "opportunity site." Momentum for a more vibrant downtown began to build during an update of the city's general plan earlier this decade, according to Sims. In 2005, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission awarded the city a $450,000 grant to prepare a station area plan. After lining up an additional $51,000 grant from the Alameda County Transportation Improvement Authority, the city spent nearly two years in a planning process spanning dozens of public meetings, workshops and field trips. The process concluded in September 2007 with adoption of the "Downtown San Leandro Transit-Oriented Development Strategy." The transit-oriented development strategy's land use plan. (Source: BMS Design Group) The plan covers 502 acres within a half-mile radius of the intersection of East 14th, Davis and Callan streets. The area contains many building blocks for downtown success, including heavily-used AC Transit bus stops, future bus rapid transit stops, a 37-year-old BART station, the civic center, the library, a handful of historic structures, three parks and a fairly tight street grid, as well as demographic diversity, a weekly farmers market, a community theater and numerous churches. At the same time, many sidewalks are narrow, street lighting is poor, there are few good public gathering spaces, vacant lots dot the area, and many retail and office buildings face parking lots rather than the street. The plan speaks to "a new kind of development" that emphasizes medium to high densities, mixed-uses and fewer cars. The plan could accommodate an additional 3,400 residential units, 120,000 square feet of retail space and 718,000 square feet of offices, with the majority of new housing and offices in close proximity to BART. Planners identified 88 acres of opportunity sites within the area, mostly in the form of parking lots, vacant industrial sites and underused parcels. The plan also calls for streetscape improvements to make walking and bicycling more enticing, and for connecting the grid where railroad tracks, expansive intersections and San Leandro Creek now pose barriers. The plan encourages new development by increasing housing densities to upwards of 100 units per acre, permitting taller buildings (the area around the BART station has no height limit) and reducing parking requirements. In fact, said Planning Manager Kathleen Livermore, the city went from having some of the region's greatest parking requirements to some of the leanest. Multiple-family units that used to require 2.25 to 2.5 parking spaces each need only 1 to 1.5 spaces apiece within the plan area. The vicinity of the downtown BART station today (top), and as envisioned in 20 years. (Source: Urban Advantage.) New San Leandro Chamber of Commerce CEO David Johnson, who spent many years working on Oakland economic development, praised the plan for its anticipation of a public shift to transit, for not overdoing the retail component in a way that competes with the existing 14th Street corridor, and for leaving pleasant residential neighborhoods alone. "This city is very good about bringing the community to the table. This dialogue that has been going on is thorough and respectful," Johnson said. The first major project to comply with the plan is Westlake Development Partners' San Leandro Crossings project. It involves a 100-unit affordable housing component called "The Alameda" on a 1.25-acre vacant industrial site next to the BART station. The nonprofit Bridge Housing will develop and operate The Alameda, which is the first non-senior apartment complex approved in more than two decades, according to city officials. Next up is the 200-unit market-rate condo project on a 2.2-acre BART parking lot, which BART is swapping for a piece of Westlake's property. Future phases of the Crossings could include another 400 units, plus office and retail space. A $24 million Proposition 1C grant makes the Crossings project feasible. The grant will fund a $10 million parking garage to replace the lost parking lot and other infrastructure. Westlake has owned its property since the 1980s, but the city's plan and commitment have only recently made development attractive, said Gaye Quinn, a consultant to San Mateo-based Westlake and a San Leandro city planner herself 20 years ago. "We're very fortunate that the consensus around this TOD was there before we proposed our project," Quinn said. "Westlake understood that being a part of a cohesive city plan took a lot of the risk away from the entitlement process they would have to go through." The Alameda, which is receiving a $9 million city redevelopment subsidy, drew opposition from a group calling itself Save San Leandro. Group leaders presented several hundred petition signatures against the project and complained about the subsidy, potential crime and "those people" who will live in the units. The Alameda, however, won the endorsement of environmentalists, the social justice group Congregations Organizing for Renewal and business owners. Jim Hussey, who owns Marina Mechanical, a construction and service company located across town, said he has not heard a compelling argument against any aspect of the Crossings project. "I've got employees who have been with me for six or seven years who rent a bedroom from a family member just so they can live near work," Hussey said. "That land has been sitting there empty for a long time. Taking this empty site and doing something with it will have a positive impact." The battle over the Crossings may be only a preview, as city planners expect the vast majority of new housing units during the next two decades to be built downtown. And once the economy turns around, those units could come on line fairly quickly. "We do have a lot of people getting their entitlements now so they can hit the ground running when the market comes back," Livermore said. San Leandro is not alone among East Bay cities in its desire to build a downtown that takes full advantage of BART and other transit. To the south, both Hayward and Union City have adopted and started to implement similar plans (see CP&DR Redevelopment Watch , December 2007 , March 2007 ). To the north, downtown Berkeley is booming around a BART stop, and developments at the Rockridge and Fruitvale BART stations in Oakland are considered urban models. Contacts: Luke Sims, Kathleen Livermore and Philip Millenbah, San Leandro Community Development Department, (510) 577-3371. David Johnson, San Leandro Chamber of Commerce, (510) 317-1403. Gaye Quinn, Quorum Real Estate Group, (415) 970-9820. Downtown Transit-Oriented Development Strategy: www.ci.san-leandro.ca.us/CDTODOview.asp . San Leandro Crossings: www.ci.san-leandro.ca.us/slcrossings.html .

The City of Walnut has sued the neighboring City of Industry over the environmental study for a proposed football stadium and 560-acre commercial project. Industry last year approved an office and retail development on the site, near the junction of Highways 60 and 57. Since then, developer Majestic Realty has altered the project to include a 75,000-seat stadium for a professional football team and numerous entertainment venues (see CP&DR Places , June 2008 ). Walnut requested a new environmental impact report (EIR) on the revised project. Instead, Industry approved a supplemental EIR. Walnut's suit argues the supplemental document does not adequately address noise, traffic, air, lighting, aesthetic and other impacts. The suit also says Industry should have provided information in languages other than English, because many area residents speak foreign languages. Interestingly, football stadium detractors have started a recall drive against three Walnut officials – Mayor Mary Su and Councilmembers Joaquin Lim and Nancy Tragarz – because they have not opposed the stadium strongly enough. The controversy over two lightening-rod projects in Loma Linda has concluded with the City Council rescinding its approval of the projects. The city in 2005 approved the Orchard Park and University Village projects totaling about 2,500 housing units and 1 million square feet of commercial space on 300 acres of orchards along Mission Road and California Street. Project opponents gathered petition signatures to force referendums on the two projects, but a Superior Court judge threw out the referendums because of technical defects. An appellate court last year reinstated the referendums (see CP&DR , September 2008 ; CP&DR Local Watch , December 2005 ). Instead of placing the referendums before voters, the City Council in March rescinded its approvals. In the meantime, Loma Linda voters approved a slow-growth initiative that would prohibit such high-density projects. More recently, Lewis Group, the University Village proponent, has approached the city about a much smaller project containing single-family houses and apartments. After five years of planning and negotiation, Forest City Enterprises has dropped a proposed 85-acre, mixed-use project in downtown Fresno. The developer said it could not raise the $100 million needed to advance its plan to redevelop 85 acres of industrial land just south of a minor league baseball stadium with an wide range of housing, retail, entertainment venues and offices. Forest City's departure disappointed the city, which granted the developer exclusive negotiating rights in 2004. The Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) has announced the formation of the Climate Law Institute to pursue legal challenges and lobby policymakers on matters concerning climate change. Over the last decade, the Tucson-based CBD has become the country's foremost player in Endangered Species Act litigation. The new climate institute, for which the CBD reports a five-year, $17 million budget, is based in San Francisco. The new institute's website is here . The Schwarzenegger administration and state agencies are taking adequate steps to ensure $42.7 billion worth of infrastructure bonds are spent for their intended purposes, according to a report by the state auditor. Two years ago, the auditor reported there was a "high risk" the state would not use the bond proceeds in the most effective and efficient manner. In the new report, the auditor found that a governor's executive order and new state agency controls should provide assurance that bond funds get used as promised. The report is available on the state auditor's website . A separate report by the state auditor found that agencies have not taken adequate steps to dispose of surplus properties since the release of a critical 2001 audit. Eight years ago, the auditor concluded the state did not carefully evaluate properties' usefulness to determine whether a sale was warranted. The auditor recommended adoption of new procedures and appointing a single entity with broad oversight of state properties. The latest report found the state has taken some steps, but the auditor concluded, "The state still lacks assurance that underused or unused properties are sold to generate revenue or are put to better use. The state continues to operate without having empowered an existing agency or a new commission or authority to oversee and scrutinize the property-retention decisions of individual agencies although we recommended it do so eight years ago." The auditor noted that Caltrans has established goals, performance agreements and reporting mechanisms that have resulted in the sale of numerous unneeded parcels since 2001. But the auditor was critical of the reliability of Caltrans' property database. The new report is available here .