The Swiss Army knife is the ideal present for boys, especially those from nine to eleven years old. That's the age when every boy believes that all he needs to be a consummate survivalist is his natural pluck and one of those elegant, red, compact tools bouncing jauntily on his belt. Far from a mere blade, even a fake version of the Swiss Army package contains a pair of scissors, a nail file with a screw-driver tip, tweezers and a toothpick. With a tool like this, you could fight off an assailant, clean a fish or even assemble a desk from IKEA. Without one, you're a wallflower among the Webelos. If any building has earned the right to be called the Swiss Army Knife of urbanism, it would be the ingenious, five-level structure in downtown Burbank known as Media Village. Under a single roof, the building combines a low-income senior housing complex with 147 apartments, a public parking structure for 500 cars, a popular nightclub with live music, a ballet school, a Brazilian restaurant, and a store that sells golf equipment. Additionally, architect Mark Gangi — vice president of design of the development firm, Gangi Development of Glendale — has carved out several sensitively-scaled plazas just off the sidewalk that should fill up with people when the area has enough pedestrians. In short, the Media Village building is a "city in the box" that contains damn near everything you need for a lively downtown area. Media Village is a centerpiece of the restoration — perhaps creation is more accurate — of downtown Burbank. Making downtown happen in Burbank has been slow and difficult; Johnny Carson's infamous jibes at "beautiful downtown Burbank" were inside jokes. Everybody in the NBC Studios knew that Burbank had virtually no downtown at all, except some diners, a retail strip and a few civic buildings. The main retail attraction was the Golden Mall, which had the novelty of being a pedestrian-only shopping street. Like the old Third Street mall in Santa Monica, it failed from a lack of foot traffic. In his Los Angeles: The Architecture of Four Ecologies, the late Reyner Banham predicted the mall would fail because it was a single, linear strip, rather than an entire urban district; perhaps the mall seemed too anomalous or too inconvenient in a landscape of park-in-front retail. Even without the Golden Mall's unique problems, making a downtown for Burbank meant overcoming extraordinary obstacles. The map of Burbank is radically decentralized; the city has at three different grids. Interstate 5 and the Metrolink commuter-rail line plow through the center of town, disrupting much of the street continuity, except for a small number of major thoroughfares, most of which change direction several times. (The present writer, who is dyslexic in way-finding and easily disoriented in the car, actually refused to drive in Burbank for many years.) The city's business culture is also split. The film studios are located to the south, and the aerospace industry and the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport to the west. The civic center is not close to either business cluster. Worse, Interstate 5 isolates downtown from much of the rest of the city. Visitors must cross a freeway overpass to reach downtown, which feels of isolated. If downtown is isolated, the city has had both the tax base and the active civic leadership to hang in there with a quixotic project like making a downtown nearly from scratch. Burbank is one of a number of self-made California communities that could be called "redevelopment cities." (San Jose, Long Beach and Anaheim also fall into this category.) These are cities that have big dreams of being important places. Sometimes such cities have big chips on their shoulders; they feel slighted for being seen as industrial, or outdated or otherwise unglamorous. They seem almost hell-bent on making something happen in their downtown areas and tourist destinations. Burbank's downtown is an early case history of entertainment-driven redevelopment. After the failure of the Golden Mall in the early 1980s, the city in the mid-1980s opened one of the first multiplex cinemas in the region, which became a "destination" and which has added screens incrementally ever since. By the late 1980s, the city had won voter approval to build a regional mall to compete for what the city perceived as lost sales-tax revenue flowing to malls in nearby Glendale and Sherman Oaks. The second phase of downtown redevelopment, equally commercially but friendlier to people on foot, was a power center anchored by IKEA and Virgin Records. While obviously designed for cars, this power center also had sidewalks and tried to approximate something like a shopping street. The third phase of downtown (I am simplifying the sequence here somewhat) has been the transformation of the Golden Mall into an eight-block, mixed-use district known as Burbank Village, which is the setting of the Media Village building Located immediately east of the power center, the village is built on the vestiges of the original downtown Burbank, and, as such, has the built-in advantages of a traditional street grid and existing commercial structures. Cartoon Network, for example, occupies a four-story building originally used by the telephone company. Ironically, Burbank officials made the area more attractive to pedestrians by re-introducing vehicular traffic to the formerly vacated streets, and supplying public parking, most notably in the present project. Parking, the bane of urbane design, once again becomes an engine of pedestrian activity. Media Village itself has a rational design that some people find hard-edged and lacking in charm. It is a large building, covering most of a city block with 55,000 square feet of retail space on the ground floor alone, yet it is not out of scale with its multi-storied neighbors. For all its many uses, the building feels very much like one building. If anything the architecture is too unified. Still, Media Village, which opened in 1999, has a number of architectural features that are praiseworthy: Built on the former site of a Pic 'N' Save store, the project avoids boxiness. As mentioned above, the building shrinks back at certain points from the sidewalk to provide open air plazas. In other areas, the architect provides towers that lend a distinctive form to the housing portion of the project. Even in the alleys, the developer showed creativity by locating a ballet school at the rear of the project and providing floor-to-ceiling glass walls that allow passers-by to watch girls at their barre exercises. A small crowd is gathered in front of the window at most times of day. If Media Village could be more charming, the project has proven to be a catalyst for pedestrian movement and, possibly, for further investment in the area. The project has been a versatile tool for activating downtown Burbank. Perhaps a good mixed-use building is not quite as glorious as a Swiss Army Knife, but it still makes a great gift for the right city.

A Pacific Gas and Electric proposal to auction its hydroelectric assets could bring about a new land rush in the Sierra Nevada, the southern Cascades and the coastal mountain ranges. If the sale goes forward as proposed, as many as 20 different owners could assume control of PG&E's 99 reservoirs, 174 dams, 110 electricity generating units — and 140,000 acres of land, much of which is pristine. State and federal land managers, advocacy groups and a draft environmental impact report make clear that the proposed sale — which is driven by state's energy deregulation plan — has the potential to greatly alter the landscape. The sale could invite large-scale timber and surface mining, and could induce urban development in areas that have remained largely untouched, especially along the Interstate 80 corridor east of Sacramento. In sworn testimony to the California Public Utilities Commission, U.S. Forest Service Lands Officer Carol Efird said, "Auctioning the PG&E facilities and land has a great potential to fragment habitat, increase the risk of negatively impacting water quality, disturb or destroy cultural resources, increase the development of land within National Forest boundaries and reduce the Forest Service's ability to properly manage forest resources across a landscape or watershed." The Forest Service is only one member of a state-federal "Hydro Working Group" that is reviewing the proposed auction and preparing comments on the 4,100-page DEIR that the CPUC released in late November. Other entities involved in the Hydro Working Group include the Bureau of Land Management, National Marine Fisheries Service, the state Resources Agency, the Department of Fish & Game, California Department of Forestry, the Department of Parks and Recreation, and the State Water Resources Control Board. The working group's charge is to protect environmental values associated with PG&E's hydroelectric assets, said Jim McKinney, the working group project manager for the Resources Agency. "These assets have been under PUC regulation for more than 80 years, and there are a lot of public interest environmental values that have accumulated over that time," McKinney said. Now, there is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for PG&E to transfer ownership of those assets and greatly reduce government oversight, he said. The working group contends — and the DEIR appears to agree — that licenses granted by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which regulates nearly all of PG&E's generating facilities, do not contain strong enough provisions to protect environmental resources if the ownership changed and new management practices were implemented. The working group and some environmentalists believe the proposed auction creates an opportunity to impose additional conditions on dam operations and land use, and gives the state the chance to take ownership of some sensitive areas at least temporarily. But PG&E is wary of additional regulation. The CPUC ultimately will decide on the proposed sale of assets, and there are serious questions about how far the CPUC can extend its jurisdiction, PG&E Spokesman Jon Tremayne said. The CPUC has mostly stuck to rate-setting in the past, while FERC — not the CPUC — has regulated power plant operations, he noted. So it remains unclear whether the CPUC can impose some of the mitigations suggested in the DEIR, such as conservation easements, parameters for stream flow and reservoir levels, and even the dismantling of some facilities. The auction In September 1999, PG&E filed an application with the CPUC to auction its hydroelectric assets. A year earlier, PG&E had announced that it did not intend to keep its hydroelectric assets within its regulated utility. Instead, PG&E wanted to transfer ownership of the hydroelectric system to an unregulated subsidiary, which could charge market rates for electricity. PG&E shopped this idea to the state Legislature but could not strike a deal, even though it offered a number of pot-sweeteners, such as conservation easements, guaranteed water releases and money. Noting that the state's deregulation legislation calls for establishing the market value for all of PG&E's non-nuclear generating facilities by the end of 2001, PG&E then filed the application to auction its hydroelectric assets to the highest bidders. Undoubtedly, the auction would determine the market value. The proposal divides PG&E's assets into five watershed bundles that include all hydroelectric facilities and equipment, water rights and land interests. These five watershed bundles could be broken down to a total of 20 smaller bundles. Some observers say — but PG&E denies — that the proposed auction is only a bluff intended to get the Legislature to look favorably on PG&E's original plan to transfer the hydroelectric system to a subsidiary. Under this scenario, the environmental and electricity market consequences of the auction would appear so severe that state officials would have to reject it. The utility did offer a "proposed settlement" that was similar to the deal it pitched to the Legislature in 1999. However, PG&E has withdrawn the settlement because it valued the hydroelectric assets at $2.8 billion, and PG&E believes the value has risen considerably during the electricity shortage of recent months, PG&E's Tremayne said. At this point, the proposed auction remains a live project. The DEIR The CPUC ruled that the proposed ownership transfer was a project under the California Environmental Quality Act. After a month-long scoping phase, Aspen Environmental Group commenced a six-month review that resulted in the nine-volume DEIR released in late November. An untold number of public employees, consultants, environmentalists and PG&E experts are now reviewing the report. The document identifies a wide range of very specific impacts, said Tim Duane, a University of California, Berkeley, City and Regional Planning professor with a background in energy policy. The DEIR specifies areas where development is likely to occur and identifies concerns related to the potential development. The DEIR also makes clear that possible changes in forest management practices could have a substantial impact on the region, said Duane, who reviewed the document for the CPUC. The proposed auction would have 49 significant adverse impacts, including two that could not be mitigated: changes in operation of dams would harm some endangered species of fish, and development of lands around hydroelectric facilities would adversely affect air quality in local air basins. " sale to new owners could produce changes in the rate and timing of water releases," according to the DEIR. "A sale could also produce changes in other areas, including forestry or grazing practices on watershed land; recreational access and use of waterways, reservoirs and land; and land development opportunities." The DEIR also makes clear that the auction is not the most environmentally friendly option of the 16 studied. "Nine of these alternatives would be environmentally superior to the auction," the DEIR states. "The best of these — having Pacific Gas and Electric Company retain its hydroelectric facilities under CPUC regulation — would avoid all of the auction's significant environmental effects." Environmentalists and public officials have promised to file extensive comments on the DEIR's findings and recommendations. PG&E itself has assigned a number of people to study the document. Said PG&E's Tremayne, "There are some analytical flaws that need to be corrected and some factual errors that were made." Staff and consultants of the CPUC have scheduled 26 public hearings from January 29 through March 5 to accept testimony on the DEIR. The sessions will be spread among 13 locations from Burney to Porterville. The Concerns The proposed auction includes 88,000 acres of land that is outside boundaries of any project regulated by FERC. Generally, these are undeveloped lands adjacent to reservoirs. These lands, plus about 7,000 acres inside FERC boundaries, are of great interest to state and federal land managers, planners and environmentalists. (A good portion of the remaining "FERC lands" is under water.) According to the DEIR, up to 10,226 dwellings could be built on these 95,000 acres, including nearly 4,000 homes in portions of Placer and Nevada counties. Because most of these lands now have few improvements and lie in remote regions, there is a strong possibility of conflicting land uses, according to the DEIR, which recommends extensive use of conservation easements to offset significant impacts. Nancy Ryan, a consultant to Environmental Defense (formerly the Environmental Defense Fund), said that the potential for extensive land development — and the secondary affects of that development, including inducement of other growth —is one of the principle environmental threats of PG&E's proposal. McKinney, of the Resources Agency, suggested that the DEIR understates the extent of potential development. Depending on the particular county board of supervisors that is involved, the auction presents "a ripe situation for wholesale land use changes," he said. "It just takes one vote to change the zoning on a piece of land in California," McKinney said. "You just look at the development pressures in Placer and Nevada counties, and look at how highly popular recreation is in that area." The U.S. Forest Service has expressed similar concerns. In comments to the CPUC, the Forest Service pointed to an earlier sale of 160 acres in the rugged South Yuba River watershed by PG&E to Manasha Corporation. Manasha logged the land, then sold it to a developer, who convinced Nevada County supervisors to amend the general plan to allow construction of a resort that could accommodate more than 100 visitors at a time. "What goes on on PG&E land greatly affects how we manage our lands," said Christine Nota, the USFS regional forester's representative in Sacramento. In general, PG&E has managed its land similarly to the Forest Service and made its property available to the public, she said. Those stewardship values are especially important in areas where PG&E property and federal holdings form a checkerboard pattern. The DEIR "assumes a new owner would have an economic incentive to develop this land." The analysis found that development on PG&E lands in Shasta, Butte, Plumas, Nevada and Placer counties could induce further growth by introducing roads, utilities and other public services into remote regions. The Bureau of Land Management is worried about the likelihood of many more people building homes and cabins in woods. A bunch of new landowners can hinder federal land management techniques and reduce public access to federal land, said Duane Marti, a BLM realty specialist. "One thing that we're really concerned about is the wildfire — the urban-wildland interface," he said. "It's just getting harder and harder to fight a wildfire because of all the houses." On PG&E lands in the Feather River watershed of Butte and Plumas, in Shasta County's Pitt River watershed, and in portions of the upper Eel River watershed in Lake and Mendocino counties, logging appears to be a greater concern than urban development. A large portion of PG&E's lands are heavily forested, so they will be attractive to logging companies, said Nota of the Forest Service. Laurie Wayburn, president of Pacific Forest Trust, which advocates sustainable logging, commended PG&E's past forest stewardship. But in the past decade, she said, PG&E has increased logging on its land, and has sold thousands of acres to Sierra Pacific Industries. The state's largest private landowner, Sierra Pacific's aggressive clear-cutting of its property in recent years has been criticized by environmentalists and some state regulators. Most people expect Sierra Pacific to bid on PG&E property. The analysis in the DEIR and PG&E's recent track record provide backing for the CPUC to impose a conservation program and allow the state to purchase some sensitive lands, Wayburn said. The CPUC could work with the Resources Agency on a package that would adequately compensate PG&E, said Wayburn, who called the DEIR's alternatives too limited. "They just have some critical watersheds," Wayburn said. "This is a particular point in time that we have a chance to get some people to coalesce around this." The Resources Agency's McKinney agreed that the auction presents a unique opportunity to look for means of enhancing the environmental aspects of PG&E's hydroelectric system. Besides the land, of course, are the actual power generating facilities. The DEIR specifies numerous potential problems if a new owner, including PG&E's subsidiary, would change operations to maximize energy output, of if a new owner would maximize water storage. Such changes would alter dam releases, harming endangered fish and affecting water quality and availability, according to the DEIR. Moreover, PG&E currently provides 90% of the 200,000-acre-feet of water consumed annually by Mendocino County's Potter Valley Irrigation District, the Nevada Irrigation District and the Placer County Water Agency. PG&E's contracts with these three mostly agricultural agencies end at different times during the next 22 years. "If the new owners do not renew these water contracts when they expire, this water could be used to support the consumptive needs of about 1.3 million people elsewhere, possibly producing growth-inducing impacts," the DEIR states. The Prospects While the auction is uncertain at this point, in part because of the volatile electricity market, most interested parties believe the extensive environmental analysis is not an academic exercise. "PG&E has indicated it does not want to continue to operate these generating plants," said UC's Duane. "The PUC clearly needs to address the impacts of that, especially in light of the electricity crisis that has hit the state." Tremayne said PG&E is moving ahead with the auction application. "Obviously, there is a much larger crisis looming, but we still need to move forward and value these assets by the end of 2001," he said. The Resources Agency's McKinney said, "Nobody has ever looked at Pacific Gas & Electric's and Southern California Edison's hydroelectric assets in their entirety." Such an examination makes, he said, because nearly all of PG&E's system drains into the Bay Delta, which serves as the center of California's water universe. Plus, the growth inducements and cumulative effects of new ownership and asset management extend across the entire system. Contacts: Jon Tremayne, Pacific Gas & Electric, (415) 973-5930. Jim McKinney, Hydro Working Group, (916) 654-3999. Duane Marti, Bureau of Land Management, "(916) 978-4675. Nancy Ryan, Environmental Defense, (510) 658-8008. Christine Nota, U.S. Forest Service, (916) 498-5901. Laurie Wayburn, Pacific Forest Trust, (707) 895-2091. CPUC PG&E Hydropower Project Website: http://cpuc-pgehydro.support.net

It's not every day that a city places a full-page newspaper advertisement demanding a larger sphere of influence. Yet that is just what the City of Santa Clarita did last fall — on the same day it placed another full-page ad in the Los Angeles Times complaining about a gravel quarry proposed outside the city limits. The splashy advertisements are just one part of the latest round in the City of Santa Clarita's long fight with Los Angeles County over control of one of the fastest growing areas in the county. When Santa Clarita incorporated in 1987, it became a city with no sphere of influence. The city filed applications in 1989 and 1991 with the Los Angeles County Local Agency Formation Commission to establish a large sphere of influence, but LAFCO said no both times. In January 2000, the city filed another application with LAFCO, this time seeking to place 116 square miles of the Santa Clarita Valley and its hillsides into the city's sphere of influence. The city of 151,000 residents now covers about 47 square miles. Once again, Santa Clarita faces opposition from the county and from builders — who do not want the city to get between them and the development-friendly Board of Supervisors. This time, however, Santa Clarita is gathering as much political support as it can muster. The city has lined up endorsements from Assemblyman George Runner (R-Lancaster) and U.S. Rep. Howard McKeon (R-Santa Clarita), who served on the original Santa Clarita City Council. Several schools districts and a number of business and civic organizations also support the city's proposal. The newspaper ads and a mass mailing generated about 10,000 response cards, 95% of which endorsed the city's sphere request, said Planning and Building Director Jeff Lambert, who is leading the city's efforts. "This is a full-court press," Lambert said. "We're going up against Newhall Land & Farming, and they are much more persuasive downtown than we are." Newhall has been responsible for much of the development in the Santa Clarita Valley and still owns tens of thousands of acres in the area. The developer opposes Santa Clarita's proposal to reach across Interstate 5 to Newhall holdings west of the freeway. That area includes the site of the proposed Newhall Ranch, where the developer plans what would essentially be a new town of 21,800 homes and 1,000 acres of commercial and mixed-used development. (See CP&DR , January 1999, July 2000.) Los Angeles County has approved a specific plan and zoning changes for Newhall Ranch, but the project is mired in litigation brought by neighboring Ventura County over the development's water sources. Publicly, Santa Clarita does not want to block the giant Newhall Ranch development. The city, in fact, is not part of the lawsuit against the project. Still, there are lingering questions. Santa Clarita has raised a fair number of slow-growth activists since becoming a city and some of them have lobbied against Newhall Ranch. "We are opposed to the sphere of influence west of the 5 freeway on our property. We are not opposed to the sphere of influence request for our property on the east side of the 5 freeway," Newhall spokeswoman Marlee Lauffer said. "We've always seen the 5 freeway as the dividing line between the city and the county. … There are no city services in that area and it's isolated from the rest of the city." Currently, the city's boundary coincides with the Interstate for several miles. To the west lies Newhall Ranch, the 6,000-unit Stevenson Ranch, which is partially approved and built, and Six Flags' Magic Mountain theme park. All of those interests want the city to remain on the other side of the eight-lane freeway. But Santa Clarita officials complain that they have no control over development that is greatly affecting their city. "Over 40,000 new housing units are approved or pending for development in the unincorporated (non-city) Santa Clarita Valley," said the city's newspaper ad, which featured a picture of children taking a number to play on a swing. "This will seriously impact our schools, traffic, emergency service, natural environmental resources, water availability and other urban services. Right now, the City of Santa Clarita has no formal voice in new development approvals outside City boundaries where the majority of development is occurring, and no voice in the adequate provision of schools, parks and roads." The second ad, regarding a proposed quarry in the hills east of the city, contained even stronger language. The advertisement said the Transit Mixed Concrete proposal would worsen traffic, affect groundwater, lower property values and threaten children's health. The county has scheduled a public hearing on the quarry this month. The newspaper advertisements were not popular in the office of Los Angeles County Supervisor Michael Antonovich, who has represented the area for 20 years. Antonovich Policy Deputy Conal McNamara called the ads "offensive." He said they unfairly painted the county as the villain, and he questioned their timing. "I think city-county relations are a lot better than they used to be, to the credit of some people at the City of Santa Clarita," McNamara said. McNamara, a former Santa Clarita planner, said the city does not need a sphere of influence to have a say on area development. Antonovich requires developers to meet with city officials and work out details before seeking county entitlements, McNamara said. "I don't know what it's going to get them that they don't already have," he said of the sphere of influence. In fact, the city and county have even embarked on a joint general plan for the area. "The sphere doesn't give them control over the land." said LAFCO Executive Officer Larry Calamine, "But it does give them a seat at the table." McNamara and the area's big developers say future residents, some of whom will not arrive until houses are built 20 years in the future, should determine who governs their communities. "It is premature and inappropriate to say to future Newhall Ranch residents that this is your only option for jurisdiction," Newhall's Lauffer said. They should have the opportunity to form their own city or even incorporate with the nearby community of Castaic, which opposes Santa Clarita's proposed sphere of influence, she added. City Planner Lambert recognizes that the county does provide the city opportunities to influence development of unincorporated lands. But the city wants a formalized review process. Moreover, there should be only one agency that decides on development for the entire valley, he contended. Lambert endorsed the joint general plan effort. If both the city and county agree on guiding principles, they should go ahead with specifics for a new general plan, he said. But that does not mean the city's sphere of influence effort will end. The Los Angeles LAFCO will likely conduct a public hearing on Santa Clarita's application in February or March, Calamine said. He said the city's request is more reasonable than its previous two filings, and it is unusual in that it seeks residential areas, not only revenue-generating commercial strips. "They make a good case for much of the property they want to add," said Calamine, who declined to say what he would recommend to the LAFCO board. Lambert said the proposed sphere is not as expansive as earlier proposals and that it closely matches community college and high school district boundaries. Contacts: Jeff Lambert, Santa Clarita Planning Division, (661) 255-4330. Marlee Lauffer, Newhall Land & Farming Co., (661) 255-4000. Conal McNamara, Office of Supervisor Michael Antonovich, (213) 974-5555. Larry Calamine, Los Angeles LAFCO, (213) 974-1448.

A lawsuit that has already reached the state Supreme Court is again making its way up the legal ladder. In mid-December, San Joaquin County Superior Court Judge Bob McNatt upheld the San Joaquin Local Agency Formation Commission's approval of the Califia project (formerly called Gold Rush City) in the City of Lathrop. Last year, the state Supreme Court allowed the case to go forward after McNatt and the Third District Court of Appeal ruled that project opponents did not exhaust their administrative remedies as required under an obscure procedural rule. The state's high court said the "Alexander rule" was not applicable and reinstated the lawsuit. (See CP&DR Legal Digest, October 1999, August 1998.) McNatt ruled that LAFCO need not prepare a supplement EIR. But project opponents said they were asking LAFCO to exercise its independent judgement and to adopt its own findings and mitigation measures — not to prepare a supplement EIR. They contend that the project EIR improperly defers an analysis of water availability, and they promised to appeal the ruling. Califia proposes building about 5,800 homes and several theme parks on 6,000 acres in the Bay Delta that Lathrop annexed. In November, city voters changed the development agreement to allow Califia to build the houses before constructing the theme parks and other commercial developments that were projected to provide thousands of jobs. The case is Sierra Club v. San Joaquin Local Agency Formation Commission, No. CV001997.

The California Supreme Court has accepted a takings case that threatens the viability of San Francisco's Hotel Conversion Ordinance. The court has decided to hear San Remo Hotel v. City and County of San Francisco, C.A. 1st Div. 5, No. A083530 (see CP&DR Legal Digest, September 2000, October 2000). In an opinion published in two portions, the First District Court of Appeal ruled that the "heightened scrutiny" test applied to the hotel conversion ordinance, meaning there must be a close relationship between the exaction and the project's impact. The court ruled that a lawsuit filed by owners of the San Remo Hotel should proceed in trial court. The hotel owners had argued that the city's ordinance violated state and federal constitutional provisions against taking private property without just compensation. The City's law bars the conversion of residential hotels to tourist use unless the hotel owner replaces the converted units with new affordable housing or pays a substantial mitigation fee. Both sides agreed that imposition of the Nollan/Dolan "heightened scrutiny" test could mean the end of the hotel conversion ordinance. The city would have to provide an "essential nexus" between the permit conditions and the impact of the proposed hotel conversion, as well as a "rough proportionality" between the exaction and the project's impact. Property rights advocates say such a standard is required to prohibit uncompensated takings; the city argues that land-use laws of general applicability need not meet the standard. The Fifth District also remanded to the trial court the factual issue of whether the San Remo was a nonconforming use. If the hotel were a legal nonconforming tourist hotel prior to passage of the hotel conversion ordinance, a $567,000 mitigation fee that the city has tried to impose would seemingly not apply. The Fifth District made clear it thought the San Remo was a tourist hotel at all times and there was no "conversion" involved. Five of seven state Supreme Court justices voted to hear the case. No date for oral arguments has been set.

The Fourth District Court of Appeal has upheld Orange County's environmental impact report for expansion of the James A. Musick jail. In an unpublished opinion, the court overturned a trial judge's ruling in a lawsuit brought by the City of Lake Forest. (City of Lake Forest v. County of Orange, G023884.) The county wants to expand the existing jail, which is bordered by Lake Forest, Irvine and El Toro, from 1,250 beds to nearly 8,000 beds. However, the county has indicated it would pursue a smaller facility to end various lawsuits over the project.

California's system for generating and distributing electricity — which has attracted little attention from the public and most policymakers in the past — became topic number one in December and January when extraordinary efforts by the state and federal governments were needed to keep the lights on. But the electricity concerns is only the latest in a series of recent efforts that focus on the state's infrastructure Transportation planners are wrestling with daunting growth projections for Southern California: another 7 million people in metropolitan Los Angeles by 2025, including 3 million in Los Angeles County alone. The Southern California Association of Governments released a draft transportation plan in December that painted a bleak picture for the region and all but begs for tax increases. One month later the Metropolitan Transportation Authority produced its Long Range Transportation Plan for Los Angeles County that emphasizes additional carpool lanes, bus service and other new transit options. Meanwhile, the California High Speed Rail Authority continues its work, with 15 town hall meeting scheduled across the state in February and March. At the state level, many people are anticipating the report from the Commission on Building for the 21st Century, commonly called the Governor's infrastructure commission. The report originally was due last December 1. But the group — which is headed by Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante and Business, Transportation and Housing Secretary Maria Contreras-Sweet — asked for more time so it could take the most comprehensive look possible. The final report will urge better coordination of land-use planning processes and infrastructure planning, said commission Director Audrey Noda. Jobs-housing balance, brownfields redevelopment and infill development will all be addressed, said Noda, who expects the commission to complete the report this spring. Such a comprehensive approach would be new to the world of state-sponsored infrastructure planning in California. David Dowall, a professor of city and regional planning at University of California, Berkeley, hopes the commission will go even farther beyond conventional thinking. Last year, Dowall authored a report for the Public Policy Institute of California that insisted the state move toward infrastructure management and policymaking, and away from provision of facilities. In "California Infrastructure Policy for the 21st Century: Issues and Opportunities," Dowall argued for prioritizing projects based on how much consumers are willing to pay for services, shifting infrastructure responsibilities to private and nonprofit entities, and using long-term financing rather than pay-as-you-go mechanisms. Dowall has seen a draft of the 21st Century commission's report and said it contains many of the concepts he advocated. Some people realize the state cannot simply build itself out problems, he said. "At the same time," Dowall added, "I think there is a lot of resistance on the part of the governor's office and labor unions and some of the commissioners over the dreaded P word — privatization." Dowall and others are continuing their work through the PPIC and plan to release a detailed look at infrastructure planning and delivery this spring. In the area of transportation, SCAG's Draft Regional Transportation Plan — and statements by SCAG leaders — suggest that the jig is up in Southern California. The plan calls for a more efficient regional transit system, a high-speed train from Los Angeles to the Inland Empire, bigger airports and new highway lanes dedicated to truck traffic. "We've reached the point in time where we can't build ourselves out of trouble with new freeways. We just don't have the room to construct them," SCAG Spokesman Jeff Lustgarten said. According to SCAG, the region during the next 25 years will fall about $10 billion short of the amount needed to maintain the existing system and build short-term projects that are already programmed. So SCAG officials recommended generating another $40 billion by: o Increasing the gas tax by 5 cents in 2005 and a penny a year until 2025; o Extending sales tax overrides that will sunset in within 10 years in San Bernardino, Riverside and Orange counties; o Adopting a dedicated sales tax for the first time in Ventura County; o Imposing new taxes on alternative fuel vehicles o Continuing Gov. Davis's plan from last year of reallocating more state funds for local transportation projects. All of those measures entail inherent political risks, but they would provide $30 billion for long-term projects. "That, honestly, is not anywhere close to what we really need, but it's a step in the right direction," Lustgarten said. The MTA paints no prettier picture than does SCAG, although some of MTA's plans could be more financially realistic. While the MTA calls for building more carpool lanes on nearly every major freeway, it emphasizes an increase in transit alternatives, such as expanding "rapid-bus" service and adding Metrolink trains. The rapid-bus routes have fewer stops and buses have the ability to hold lights green. Recognizing that Californians are reluctant to give up the convenience of their cars, both SCAG and MTA discuss creating some sort of shuttle service that would take people from their homes directly to train stations or bus stops. Planners at SCAG would like to see something completely new for the region — a high-speed magnetic levitation transportation system, or "Maglev." SCAG hopes that federal officials choose the region for a demonstration project, although SCAG might pursue such a system even without extra federal funding, Lustgarten said. The 200-mph train would run from Los Angeles International Airport to downtown to Ontario Airport to a destination in the Inland Empire. Such a system would cost an estimated $6 billion, but it is enticing because it is inexpensive to maintain, Lustgarten said. Plus, because the trains create so little noise and air pollution, lines could be built with minimal setbacks. A more far-reaching high-speed rail plan is the hands of the High-Speed Rail Authority. Although two years ago Gov. Davis dismissed the concept as "Buck Rogers technology," the commission lives on and appears to receive more respect all the time. Engineers are studying routes that would link the Bay Area to Merced, Sacramento to San Diego via Bakersfield, Los Angeles and Orange County, and Los Angeles to San Diego via Riverside County. An environmental impact report is underway. A late-January announcement from the Authority said the town hall meetings are a way "to seek the opinions of the communities along the identified corridors regarding what transportation concerns they have, where stations are most needed, how the high-speed train system should connect and compliment existing modes of transportation and more." Contacts: David Dowall, University of California, Berkeley, (510) 642-2223. Audrey Noda, Commission on Building for the 21st Century, (916) 321-2892. Jeff Lustgarten, Southern California Association of Governments, (323) 466-3445. SCAG RTP website: www.scag-rtp.govconnect.org/ High-Speed Rail Authority website: www.cahighspeedrail.ca.gov Public Policy Institute of California website: www.ppic.org

While slow-growth advocates won the majority of ballot measure contests in California this November, the pro-growth side claimed victory in three major statewide contests elsewhere in the West. In both Arizona and Colorado, voters defeated statewide initiatives aimed at creating urban growth boundaries around most cities by 70-to-30 ratios. Both Arizona Proposition 202 and Colorado Amendment 24 would have required voter approval of development outside the growth boundaries. Also in Arizona, voters narrowly rejected Proposition 100, which was aimed at permanently conserving about 270,000 acres of open space and agricultural land. While the Arizona and Colorado decisions leave the status quo in tact, voters in Oregon struck a huge blow against their land use regulatory system. The Oregon electorate voted 53% to 47% for an initiative that requires the government to compensate landowners for every state or local regulation that diminishes property value. An impartial, pre-election analysis determined that Measure 7 could cost state and local government in Oregon more than $5 billion a year. Opponents have vowed to challenge Measure 7 in court. The election was a major victory for property rights advocates who contend that many laws and administrative rules amount to "regulatory takings." Santa Clara County supervisors approved a Stanford University growth plan that was designed as a compromise between the school and area residents who want to preserve Stanford's foothills. Under the plan approved in late November, Stanford can build 3,000 housing units for faculty, staff and graduate students, and 2 million square feet of other facilities, including a basketball arena, performing arts center, classrooms and laboratories. Development will be centered in the core campus area. The plan requires Stanford to protect 2,000 acres in its western foothills for 25 years and abide by a county plan for protecting about 400 acres of environmentally sensitive property. A last-minute proposal from Supervisor Joe Simitian to prohibit development on about 1,000 acres for 99 years was strongly opposed by the school and lacked adequate support on the Board of Supervisors. Possibly the largest private landowner on the Peninsula, Stanford has largely had land use autonomy for its 8,180 acres in the past. (See CP&DR Local Watch , February 2000.) The new Community Plan, which is scheduled for final approval December 12, is the most detailed and most public planning document devised for Stanford. Assembly Speaker Robert Hertzberg has appointed 29 people to his new Commission on Regionalism. Nick Bollman, president of the Oakland-based California Center for Regional Leadership, will serve as chair. According to Hertzberg's office, the commission will "study and recommend changes to state policies and governance structures to help regions address issues that tend to leapfrog city and county boundaries." A complete list of members can be found on the speaker's website, http://democrats.assembly.ca.gov/members/a40 The Southern California Association of Governments has formally rejected state housing figures. The Department of Housing and Community Development mandated development of 504,000 housing units by 2005 in the five-county SCAG region, down from 625,000 units HCD originally proposed. Instead, SCAG said the region could accommodate only 438,000 new units. How SCAG and the state will resolve the apparent impasse was unclear. Local governments in the SCAG region are suppose to complete housing element updates by December 31. In a stunning setback for the developer, the California Coastal Commission voted unanimously to limit development at the controversial Bolsa Chica site to only 65 acres. Hearthside Homes sought permission to build about 1,200 homes on 183 acres at Bolsa Chica, a 1,200-acre coastal wetlands and mesa in unincorporated northern Orange County. Various developments have been proposed over the last three decades for Bolsa Chica, but environmentalists fighting to save one of the region's last large wetlands have prevailed in most rounds of the protracted regulatory and legal battle. Few observers expect the Commission's vote to end the struggle. Cisco Systems intends to build a 3.4 million square foot campus in Fremont's recently approved Pacific Commons office park (see CP&DR Economic Development , November 1999). Fremont approved the 8.25 million square foot Catellus project along San Francisco Bay earlier this year. Cisco could employ up to 10,000 workers at the site, making Cisco Fremont's largest employer. The campus would be in addition to a facility twice as big that the City of San Jose recently approved for Cisco, which makes Internet hardware. The Navy has signed an agreement with San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown to clean up Hunters Point Naval Shipyard and give it to the city in phases during the next four years. The 500 acres of land along the Bay has gone mostly unused since the Navy shuttered the facility in 1974. The city could acquire an 88-acre tract as soon as February 2001. The shipyard has long been seen as a potential site for housing and commercial development in the Bayview-Hunters Point District, which is one of San Francisco's poorest. Some area residents, however, call the site a public health menace and have little faith in the Navy. The shipyard was placed on the Superfund list in 1989 and the Navy has yet to fully clean it up because various parties could not agree on cleanup levels. A judge has upheld Kern County's year-old ban on the spreading of sewage sludge on farmland (see CP&DR Environmental Watch , July 2000). A number of Southern California agencies that have trucked sludge to Kern County sued last year, claiming in part that Kern County could not adopt the ordinance banning sludge without an environmental review. Tulare County Superior Court Judge Paul Vortmann ruled against nearly all of the wastewater agencies' claims. An appeal is likely.

The Department of Energy could sell 47,000 acres in an area with five endangered species to Occidental Petroleum without consulting the Fish & Wildlife Service, the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal has ruled. The federal legislation authorizing the sale of land outside Bakersfield allowed the sale to go forward without an endangered species consultation, and without Occidental applying for a new "take" permit under the Endangered Species Act, the court held. National Petroleum Reserve – 1, also called Elk Hills, lies about 25 miles south of Bakersfield. It is one of the nation's biggest oil fields, but it also contains at least four endangered animals and one endangered plant. Pursuant to Congressional direction, DOE has extracted oil from the field at a high rate since 1976. During that time, DOE consulted with FWS three times. Most recently FWS issued a "biological opinion" in November 1995. The FWS established several mitigation measures (but did not require participation in a habitat conservation plan) and issued an "incidental take" permit under section 10 of the ESA, which allows development that could otherwise threaten a species' survival. In February 1996, Congress passed the National Defense Authorization Act (DAA) of 1996, which directed DOE to sell Elk Hills within two years. In October 1997, DOE accepted a purchase offer from Occidental. The Tinoqui-Chalola Council of Kitanemuk and Yowlumne Tejon Indians, and the Southwest Center for Biological Diversity sued. They claimed DOE violated section 7 of the Endangered Species Act (16 U.S.C. 1531 et seq.) by not consulting with FWS prior to completing the sale, and by failing to ensure the sale would not jeopardize continued existence of endangered and threatened species. District Court Judge Oliver Wagner ruled the suit was moot because the sale had been completed. Alternatively, he determined that Congress waived Section 7 with regard to the Elk Hills sale. The Southwest Center (but not the Indians) appealed. A unanimous three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit ruled the case was not moot but held that Congress overrode Section 7 to allow the sale to proceed quickly. A key point for the court was the Defense Authorization Act's provision allowing the Secretary of Energy to transfer DOE's incidental take permit to the Elk Hills purchaser. "Because the incidental take statement is generally nontransferable, this provision reflects Congress's intent to permit the purchaser to continue operations under the same terms and conditions applicable to the DOE without requiring the DOE to reinitiate consultation with the FWS and without requiring the purchaser to first obtain a permit pursuant to section 10 of the ESA," Judge David Thompson wrote for the court. The court further noted that the DAA allowed the purchaser to operate under the incidental take permit only if its activities were identical to those of the DOE. Thus, DOE fulfilled its Section 7 obligations to protect the rare species because a change in activities would require Occidental to seek a new take permit, the court held. The Case: Tinoqui-Chalola Council of Kitanemuk and Yowlumne Tejon Indians v. U.S. Department of Energy, No. 99-16384, 00 C.D.O.S. 280, filed November 20, 2000. The Lawyers: For Southwest Center for Biological Diversity: Daniel Rohlf, Portland, Oregon. For DOE: Greer Goldman, Department of Justice, Washington, D.C.

A federal appellate court has overturned a land exchange between the Bureau of Land Management and a private company that hoped to develop a regional landfill in Imperial County. A unanimous three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals said the BLM grossly underestimated the value of its land where the landfill was proposed. The BLM relied on an appraisal that said the "highest and best use" of the 1,745 acres in question was open space or mine waste storage. The appraisal did not consider the property's value as a landfill, even though a number of agencies had issued permits for the proposed landfill. The difference in value could be in the tens of millions of dollars, the court suggested. "The government must not wear blinders when it participates in a real estate transaction, particularly if the result, as here, is the transfer of a flagrantly undervalued parcel of federal land to a private party," Judge Procter Hug Jr. wrote for the court, which ordered the land exchange set aside. In 1992, Arid Operations Inc., a subsidiary of Gold Fields Mining Corp., submitted an application to Imperial County to construct the Mesquite Regional Landfill on the BLM's 1,745 acres. As that permit went through the review process, Gold Fields pursued a land swap with BLM. In June 1994, the private firm of Nichols & Gaston determined the property's highest and best use was open space or mine support for the Mesquite Mine, which Gold Fields operates next to the site. Nichols & Gaston valued the land at $610,914. In early 1996, the BLM completed the deal, trading the Imperial County land for 2,642 acres of private property in the Santa Rosa Mountains Wilderness and National Scenic Areas in Riverside County, and in the Little Chuckwalla Mountains Wilderness Area in Imperial County, and $919 in cash. Environmentalists led by a group called Desert Citizens Against Pollution challenged the land exchange administratively but got nowhere. In November 1996, Desert Citizens and two other groups filed a lawsuit seeking to set aside the deal. District Court Judge Rudi Brewster, however, ruled that Desert Citizens had no standing because the group alleged an environmental injury without challenging the government's compliance with an environmental statute. He also ruled there was no causal connection between the alleged injury — loss of aesthetic enjoyment of federal lands — and the purported undervaluation, and he threw out the suit. BLM and Gold Fields consummated the land exchange the next day, although the landfill still has not been developed. On appeal, the Ninth Circuit determined Desert Citizens did in fact have standing. "The recreational or aesthetic enjoyment of federal lands is a legally protected interest whose impairment constitutes an actual, particularized harm sufficient to create an injury in fact for purposes of standing," Judge Hug wrote. "The district court constructed a novel rule by stating that injuries of an environmental or aesthetic nature can be shown only where plaintiffs allege noncompliance with an environmental statute or regulation. … Nothing in our jurisprudence requires citation of a so-called ‘environmental' statute as a prerequisite to standing." Moreover, Hug wrote, the Federal Land Policy and Management Act (FLMPA), 43 U.S.C. §1701 et seq., which governs vast tracts of federal land, is an environmental statute. Getting to the merits of the case, the Ninth Circuit had little good to say about the Nichols & Gaston appraisal or the BLM's reliance on it. The court held that the appraisal did not meet Uniform Appraisal Standards for Federal Land Acquisitions, 43 U.S.C. §1716(f)(2), because it ignored market demand and land use trends in the vicinity. "The appraisal determines the highest and best use to be utilization in conjunction with Gold Fields' current mining operation. Yet the appraiser well knew that Gold Fields and the BLM fully intended to utilize the land for the Mesquite Regional Landfill, and had taken substantial steps to do so," Hug wrote. The court noted that an environmental impact report and an environmental impact statement were prepared for the landfill. Imperial County amended its general plan to allow the project, signed a development agreement with Gold Fields, and issued a conditional use permit. The Regional Water Quality Control Board issued discharge requirements and the BLM granted a right of way for rail access to the site. All this occurred before the land transfer. "Here, the use of the land as a landfill was not only reasonable, it was the specific intent of the exchange that it be used for that purpose," Hug continued. "There is no principled reason why the BLM, or any federal agency, should remain willfully blind to the value of federal lands by acting contrary to the most elementary principles of real estate transactions." The court pointed out that a different landfill site in Imperial Court was valued at $46,000 an acre for tax purposes, while the BLM valued its property at $350 an acre. Although the valuation standards are different, there was a potential a discrepancy of $80 million. Furthermore, the Nichols & Gaston appraisal was too old when BLM used it as a basis for the Record of Decision, the court ruled. The BLM handbook says approved values are good only for six months, and the BLM in California typically presumes appraisals to be valid for one year, according to the court. Yet the Nichols & Gaston appraisal was 20 months old when the BLM issued its Record of Decision. The Case: Desert Citizens Against Pollution v. Henri R. Bisson, No. 97-55429, 00 C.D.O.S. 8896, 2000 Daily Journal D.A.R. 11827, filed November 6, 2000. The Lawyers: For Desert Citizens: William Curtiss, Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund, (415) 954-4400. For BLM: Ellen Durkee, Department of Justice, (202) 514-2000. For Gold Fields, Charles Kaiser, Davis, Graham & Stubbs, (303) 892-9400.

Cognitive science has taught us that a human being cannot keep more than seven things in its mind at any given time. That figure, of course, does not apply to local governments in California, which appear unable to focus on more than one thing at a time. Perhaps we should set up a charitable organization for cities suffering from the condition known as Single-Purpose Agenda Syndrome (SPAS). I can see television ads right now featuring a bureaucrat, in short sleeves and pocket protector, looking balefully into the camera, as the voice-over says, "A city's mind is a terrible thing to waste." One city that will not be featured in the Single-Purpose Agenda Syndrome ad campaign, however, is Vallejo. The Solano County city has been able to juggle three agendas — military base reuse, promotion of home ownership and neighborhood preservation — without dropping any of them. The case in point is Roosevelt Terrace, a complex of 600 two-bedroom apartments formerly used by Navy personnel stationed at Mare Island. (The city is the base reuse authority for the former Navy installation, which closed in 1995.) By converting the military housing into market-rate condominiums, the city did a bunch of things at once, in addition to reusing a Navy base: It created home ownership possibilities in a mature city with limited opportunities for new housing; it lowered the density of the complex, making it more compatible to a middle-class neighborhood; and the city even cut itself a share of the profits. Most of the truisms about military housing do not apply to Roosevelt Terrace. We tend to think of military housing as isolated on bases; Roosevelt Terrace, like much of the other housing for Mare Island, is located in a middle-class neighborhood. (Much of the neighborhood, in fact, originated as military housing, most of which has been demolished and replaced with conventional subdivisions.) We also tend to think of military housing as flimsy stuff that is usually too dilapidated to save. The Vallejo project, however, is made out of poured-in-place concrete, eight inches thick. For that reason, the developer, De Silva Group of Dublin, chose to rehabilitate the units rather than demolish them. Despite the almost glacial pace of Pentagon decisions, Vallejo has acted rather quickly and efficiently to convert Mare Island. Although the EIR/EIS was completed more than three years ago, the Navy decided to convey the base to Vallejo only in late 1999, and only in November did the city and the Navy come to an agreement about the schedule for remediating the contaminated sites on the former Navy installation. Notwithstanding, the city has gone forward on Mare Island and has leased a total of 2.5 million square feet of industrial space to 50 tenants, including the U.S. Forest Service. Roosevelt Terrace provides another example of the city's aggressive strategy for reusing the old Navy base. "The city's approach on Mare Island has been to put available properties on the market as quickly as possible, so we went for a negotiated transaction shortly after the base was closed," said Alvaro da Silva, the city's director of community development. (Nearly everyone in this story is named Silva, and none of them are related.) The homebuilder and the city agreed on a deal three years ago but had to wait until the Navy conveyed title to the city, which only happened in May. At that time, the city went into a fast-track mode to approve the various entitlements for the project. The city conveyed title to the property to the developer in October, when construction began on the project now to be known as Villages at Terrace Park. (Well, at least it's not in French.) The deal features incentives for the developer on the front end and a reward for the city on the back end. The city sold the 19-acre, 50-building development for a very modest $1.57 million. In turn, the city receives a share of net profits on a sliding scale: For the first $3 million in profit, the city will take a 20% share; for the second $3 million, the city's portion increases to 33%; thereafter, the city takes 50%. "In the final analysis, the city gets about 40% of the profits," said Peter Silva, project manager for De Silva Group. He was philosophical about the city's big cut, and said the payments to the city are analogous to the share that a developer would pay to the land-owning partner in a real estate development deal. The actual profitability is unknown because the developer would not disclose its costs and has not finalized the prices. Under current per-square-foot market rates, prices would start at about $85,000 and go up to about $180,000. In comparison, prices for single-family homes in Vallejo are now in the high $200,000-range. The development plan calls for the demolition of seven buildings and the construction of a new, centralized sports facility and common area. The buildings, formerly made up entirely of two-bedroom units, will now become a mix of 314 condominiums of two-, three- and four-bedrooms with all new finishes and appliances. And although the Roosevelt Terrace is reasonably well maintained, the units are architecturally uninspiring, insofar as they resemble a row of shoeboxes. To dress up the homes, the developer has hired PDF building design of Suisun City to provide new porticos, or projecting front doors, and to alter the roof lines so the projects seem less monolithic. The entire complex is being fenced in and gated. As with many of the deals I examine, the development of Villages at Terrace Park represents a constellation of special circumstances not easily replicated elsewhere: An unusual developer who was willing to wait years for the project (albeit one with tremendous upside); a city that was given a promising property; and, of course, the overheated housing market of the Bay Area. Still, Vallejo was able to match its assets with the needs of its community. Real planning, as opposed to single-issue planning, is the ability both to pursue and to coordinate different goals at the same time. Vallejo was able to keep its eye on the ball, or on several balls, all at once. As for other cities with Single-Purpose Agenda Syndrome, I'm taking up a collection for them. As the voice-over on the public-service announcement says, "Only you can help."

Planning for a long stretch of rural lands on the fringe of suburban San Diego County continues to be a roiling controversy played out in the courts, the election booth and the Board of Supervisors chambers. The county lost the latest round in the courtroom recently when Superior Court Judge Judith McConnell ruled that the environmental impact report for the general plan amendment covering 191,000 acres was inadequate. The ruling pleased environmentalists and the state Attorney General's office, but the county has appealed. As the San Diego regional economy expands and the real estate market continues to blaze, the pressure for urban development is mounting. At the same time, San Diego County has one of the world's widest arrays of plants and animals, several of which are protected under federal and state law. While only portions of the land involved in this controversy are subject to intense development pressure, and no endangered species live in the immediate area, the land contains some of the best grasslands and oak woodlands remaining in Southern California. "It's really a rural sprawl type of problem," said Dan Silver, executive director of the Endangered Habitats League, which has weighed in on the environmentalists' side. "It's a ranchette issue, which is a severe problem in San Diego County." At issue are 191,000 noncontiguous acres that stretch almost the length of the county from north to south. The county has placed the land in its land use designation known as "(20)," or "agricultural preserve." The area is the western portion of what is often called San Diego County's "backcountry." In 1994, the county amended its land use element to establish an eight-acre minimum for all of the (20) lands. Environmentalists sued, and Judge McConnell ruled in 1996 that the plan was inconsistent with the county general plan's agricultural goals and that the county needed to prepare an environmental impact report. The county appealed the ruling but lost an unpublished appellate court decision in 1997. Away from the courtroom, environmentalists took to the ballot box in 1998 with an initiative to downzone 600,000 acres of the backcountry to 40- and 80-acre minimums, excluding several unincorporated villages. County voters, however, rejected the Rural Heritage and Watershed Initiative by a 60-40 ratio. (See CP&DR, September 1998, December 1998.) In April of this year, the Board of Supervisors adopted general plan amendment 96-03 for the 191,000 acres. The amendment designated the agricultural preserve lands that lie inside the County Water Authority boundary for 10-acre minimum parcel sizes. This amounted to about 10% of the 191,000 acres. The remaining 90% was given 40-acre minimum lot sizes. The county then asked Judge McConnell to remove her 1996 order blocking imposition of new general plan policies for the area — a request opposed by environmentalists and the state Attorney General's office. In an opinion that quoted singer Joni Mitchell, Judge McConnell ruled that the county's EIR was inadequate under the California Environmental Quality Act. "It has been said — and sung — that ‘you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone,'" McConnell wrote. "Yet where CEQA applies, the opposite is true: Citizens and decision makers must, in fact, be informed of what they have before, and not after, it is gone. While the environmental effects of GPA 96-03 are unknown, they are not, as the County insists, unknowable." McConnell said that the proposed general plan designation would allow agricultural grading to proceed without any further county review, potentially harming flora and fauna. And, she noted, the county proposed to implement no mitigations for this potential impact. In a follow-up order, McConnell directed the county to prepare an EIR specifically addressing the impacts on biological, zoological, botanical and hydrological resources, and to identify feasible mitigation measures. The judge's decision hit hard at the issue of "intensive agriculture," which could devastate important habitat with wide-scale grading, said Rachel Hooper, an attorney for environmentalists. Deputy Attorney General Sally Magnani Knox said that the county must analyze impacts of wide-scale grading — and establish feasible mitigations — at the general plan stage. "The problem with this project is they assumed it would allow clearing of native vegetation for agricultural projects without any additional review," Knox said. Senior Deputy County Counsel Laurie Orange, however, argued that McConnell and the Attorney General's office are incorrectly holding the county to a project-specific standard of environmental review. The county would scrutinize subdivisions and other developments subsequent to the general plan amendment at the time they are proposed. And, Orange said, no more grading would be allowed under GPA 96-03 than is already permitted. "The project is not proposing any development … It's actually more environmentally sensitive than the prior plan," Orange said. "This is a continuation of all the uses that have been ongoing for decades." Environmentalists and county planners differ on the likely outcome of imposing 10-acre and 40-acre zoning. Environmentalists say 10-acre lots, expensive water and, in some cases, poor soil combine to discourage farming and invite ranchette-style development. Planners and the San Diego County Farm Bureau say the proposed zoning encourages the county's $1.2 billion-a-year agricultural industry. They say 66% of they county's farms are on 9 acres or less, and the industry has shifted to high-value, labor intensive crops such as cut flowers and bedding plants that do not need huge parcels of land. Duncan McFetridge, chairman of Save Our Forest And Ranchlands (SOFAR), said that protecting these 191,000 acres is key to maintaining the integrity of the rest of the backcountry. Descanso-based SOFAR has headed up the litigation and was behind the failed 1998 initiative. McFetridge rejects both GPA 96-03 and a larger, ongoing general plan update. The county should use the County Water Authority boundary as an urban growth boundary and prevent most development east of the line, he said. He suggested that the political winds may have changed since the rejection of the Rural Heritage and Watershed Initiative two years ago. Urban growth boundaries are seen as promoting efficient development, urban renewal has gained momentum in San Diego, El Cajon and Lakeside, and the county keeps losing in court. "We all know the only way to get out of this impasse is with an initiative … We're always thinking about it," McFetridge said. "We have some incredible stuff to save. We're not L.A. yet." Meanwhile, county planners have begun public hearings on what they call "Alternative 3," which is a draft land use distribution plan on a macro scale, according to Joan Vokac, the county's chief of advance planning. Alternative 3 is a "density-based" plan, rather than a traditional "parcel-based" plan. The county's proposal sets desired population densities for areas, then allows for design flexibility. The county based its proposed densities on input from 26 planning groups spread around the county, which planners queried regarding preferred population levels, Vokac said. Thus far, people have had a difficult time grasping the density-based plan. They do not yet see the benefits, such as protection of farmland and open space, and more efficient use of infrastructure, she said. The Board of Supervisors hopes to complete the general plan update by mid-2001. But few people expect a new general plan to end the litigation and threats of initiatives regarding San Diego County's backcountry. Contacts: Duncan McFetridge, Save Our Forests And Ranchlands, (619) 445-9638. SOFAR website: www.sofar.org Rachel Hooper, Shute, Mihaly & Weinberger, (415) 552-7272. Sally Magnani Knox, Attorney General's Office, (916) 322-1802. Dan Silver, Endangered Habitats League, (323) 654-1456. Laurie Orange, San Diego County Counsel's Office, (619) 531-5799. Joan Vokac, San Diego County Department of Planning & Land Use, (858) 694-3765. County general plan website: http://www.co.san-diego.ca.us/cnty/cntydepts/landuse/planning/GP2020/