Even on a typical day, Las Vegas often seems like an extension of Los Angeles. Throngs of tourists arrive via car on the I-15 each day, and it's not uncommon to walk down the Strip and run into people you know. This week, however, the American Planning Association conference – being conducted at two hotels along the Strip – has often seemed like an extension of Los Angeles as well. Not only is the conference flooded with planners from L.A., but there are so many sessions on L.A. that it could become a whole separate track! Prime-time on the Los Angeles network was a panel Monday featuring Gail Goldberg and Bruce McClendon, who talked about the challenges they've faced in the last two years as the new city and county planning directors, respectively. Goldberg, who had spent her entire career in San Diego before coming to L.A., admitted being overwhelmed when she first arrived. "It took me two weeks to realize L.A. is a humungous city. San Diego, much as I love it, is a baby city," she said. The City of Los Angeles is 450 square miles and 4 million people, while L.A. County is 4,000 miles with 10 million people, including 1 million in the unincorporated area. McClendon, on the other hand, said that his longtime views about how to approach a planning challenge have been reaffirmed at Los Angeles County – including the idea of increasing public visibility and improving the reputation of planning. He told the story of buying something in the downtown Macy's while wearing his employee badge with his title on it. "The saleswoman said, ‘My God, you mean this place is planned?', she exclaimed," McClendon recalled. "Our biggest public challenge has been, how can we market planning in L.A.?" Both planning directors, however, said that they have been fortunate to walk in during a "window of opportunity" that they can best take advantage of by focusing on the creation of community plans for specific neighborhoods because their jurisdictions are so big. Since her arrival two years ago, Goldberg has managed to get significant budget and staffing increases – in spite of a financial crisis that has L.A. cutting almost every other department except for public safety. She's obtained a commitment from the politicians to update each of the 36 community plans on a three-year cycle, meaning that the city will initiate 12 community plan updates each year. The reason for her success? She claims it's because the old system of the city councilmembers interposing themselves project by project isn't working anymore, and developers, councilmembers, and neighborhood groups would rather have plans to fall back on. She also said the new plans will be meatier than the 15-20 page community plans currently in existence. "We will never stop planning," she said. Meanwhile, McClendon said that he hopes to devote more attention to community plans in L.A. County's urban unincorporated areas as well. The County has been updating its general plan for the first time since 1985, but, he said, community plans will be more important going forward. – Bill Fulton

Today, as planners, we are constantly inundated with new ideas and theories, and nowhere can this become more of a reality than a planning conference in Las Vegas. This year's national APA Conference is being held between the Paris and Bally's casinos, quintessential locations for gambling, shopping, dining, nightlife, and, well, apparently planning conferences. Where else can conference sessions be held in banquet halls decorated like extravagant French parlors? As a recent graduate of a planning program and a new practicing planner with Solimar, I found myself caught somewhere between wanting to ingest everything I can about planning and going into Spring Break mode and imbibing in a literal sense. But who says you can't be a professional planner and still have fun in Vegas? My old classmates, planning grad students who are generally good natured, remarked after their forays that the strip was "exhausting," "awful," and "it embodies everything I love to hate about cities." After less than 24 hours in Sin City — not to be confused with a more beloved impetus for modern planning tools, Sims City — they were all "over it." But despite sensory overload, they still managed to learn how not to let their own cherished neighborhoods become epicenters of all things undesirable. But along with these complaints, there were also planning buzzwords like "champion projects," "green infrastructure," and "urban agriculture." I ran into a colleague who is a civil engineer who admitted to coming to the conference primarily to become well-versed in planner-ease so that he could connect with clients who find sustainable development desirable. It seems as if modern planning concepts have become less cliché and more mainstream. Even cities in the Rustbelt are confronting their demons by planning for a shrinking population in a sustainable manner, rather than fighting the tides of change, by incorporating ideas like, well, green infrastructure and urban agriculture. In Vegas, climate change was not the featured topic. Rather, urban revitalization and how to incorporate green infrastructure or open space into urban centers was debated and discussed. I learned how energy codes are becoming stand-alone guidance documents for cities looking to reduce carbon emissions and improve prosperity and quality of life instead of being referenced in general plans per the State of California mandate. During two sessions, I learned more about my new urban neighbor on the West Coast, L.A., than I had in the 10 months since I'd moved to Ventura. Downtown L.A. is getting a facelift thanks to city planners like Jane Blumenfeld who have orchestrated the adoption of implementation tools like the adaptive reuse ordinance. Another city that had a strong presence at the conference was my hometown of Atlanta. Not only is Atlanta now hip, it also has a green thumb. As projects come online like the Beltline, the City will be prepared to take on a growing population that desires housing choices like mixed-income downtown condos and apartments near transit and green space, instead of the typical single-family house on a cul-de-sac in the suburbs. But the question remains: Who will pay for these improvements to our beloved urban centers? Obviously, someone has to pay for the regeneration of decaying urban corridors, the improvement of transit corridors, and retrofitting the suburbs to be more like our cities. But that's where we as planners come into play, aiding in public-private partnerships that can leverage the resources necessary to carry out the ideas and theories that we all are willing to travel to Las Vegas to hear. So I say come join us in Las Vegas, where "transect" is not a four-letter word, at least for a few more days. – Jessica Daniels

The City of Baldwin Park is pressing forward with an extremely ambitious redevelopment project that would convert the present downtown area of mostly single story commercial structures and modest houses into a very high-density, mixed-use district adjacent to a Metrolink station. However, the city's extensive planning and a deal with a developer may be for naught if state voters approve eminent domain restrictions that will appear on the June ballot. City officials say the project would bring much needed investment and wealth to Baldwin Park, a San Gabriel Valley suburb that for years was best known as the corporate home of the In-N-Out Burger chain. (In-N-Out has since moved to Irvine.) But local detractors of the downtown project have begun organizing protests, and managers of the statewide campaign for Proposition 98, which would restrict the use of eminent domain, are citing the Baldwin Park project as a prime example of the government activity they want to halt. Although the project is still somewhat ill-defined, the basics are these: The Baldwin Park Community Development Commission (the city's redevelopment agency) would acquire 125 acres in the middle of town, with master developer Bisno Development funding the acquisitions and any resident and business relocation costs. Bisno would then receive the property and develop it in phases over 15 years with 8,000 housing units, 3 million square feet of commercial space, 750,000 square feet of retail and entertainment uses, a 300-room hotel and a charter school. Public improvements would include a pedestrian promenade, a lagoon and extensive upgrades to the existing Metrolink station. "The project is presented pretty much as a transit-oriented development," explained Marc Castagnola, the community development director who arrived in Baldwin Park in mid-process. "The intent is that the people who are going to live downtown will be able to walk just a block or two and ride the transit." There is a significant obstacle: The 125-acre redevelopment site that centers around the intersection of Ramona Boulevard, Maine Avenue and Pacific Avenue is broken into about 330 developed parcels, most of which are privately owned. Opponents estimate the redevelopment project would displace about 100 households and 300 businesses. "We're just not good enough," huffed Ken Woods, who owns a 54-year-old sewing machine repair and embroidery business in the redevelopment project area. "They don't want our kind of people — working blue collar people." Woods has helped organize a local group called Community Alliance for Redevelopment Accountability (CARA) that started making its opposition to the project known last fall. He does not deny that the area "needs sprucing up." But he and others argue that the city is moving too fast on a plan that lacks local support. "We keep saying back off, get us involved," Woods said. "They want to bulldoze 125 acres and start over." After soliciting proposals from developers, the City Council signed an agreement with Los Angeles-based Bisno in late 2006. Since then, the city, Bisno and consultants have been working simultaneously on a general plan amendment, a specific plan and an environmental impact report, according to Castagnola. A draft EIR is expected to be released this month, with a final EIR and the other documents to follow in a few months, he said. The specific plan "will look a lot like a zoning code," Castagnola said. The specific plan will set land uses and densities, establish architectural and color standards, outline a landscape palate, and provide an open space design, he said. The specific plan will also contain the development entitlements, meaning there would be only minor review of follow-up projects that comply with the specific plan. Castagnola said the redevelopment agency would provide "no monetary subsidies" to Bisno for the project other than making available the 20% housing set-aside fund for affordable units. However, the agreement between the Community Development Commission and Bisno states that if the developer's cost of acquiring land and relocating businesses and residents tops an average of $2 million per acre, the Commission will reimburse Bisno the difference with tax increment. The agreement pledges up to half of the project area's tax increment to make up the difference. In January 2007, CEO Robert Bisno sent the city a letter urging a fast planning process that would be complete before a vote on any restrictive initiative. At the time, the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association was discussing an initiative that eventually turned into Proposition 98, a measure that would prevent the taking of private property from one owner for transfer to another private entity. The rival Proposition 99 would prevent the taking of owner-occupied single-family houses for transfer to another private owner. Clearly, the city is not going to beat the June 3 election date. The city's inability — or unwillingness — to rush the process to beat election day is good, said Marko Mlikotin, a spokesman for the Proposition 98 campaign. That is, it's good for the community and good for the campaign, which has begun featuring Baldwin Park as exhibit A of redevelopment abuse. "You have your greedy developer. You have a dispassionate city council. You're going to have hundreds of people homeless," Mlikotin recited. In recent months, public meetings in Baldwin Park, a 70% Latino city of 81,000 people, have grown more and more tense. Opponents of the downtown project have put the City Council on the defensive and have staged street protests. Councilmembers recently refused to speak to a Los Angeles Business Journal reporter, and Mayor Manuel Lopez did not return messages from CP&DR . Late last year, Lopez told the San Gabriel Valley Tribune that opponents were using misinformation and scare tactics. "We don't even know if this project is even going to occur or not," Lopez told the newspaper. Woods said that if the project goes forward, he'll close his business rather than try to relocate. Ironically, he is in his present location after losing his commercial building during the late 1980s to an earlier redevelopment project that brought a supermarket and other stores to the downtown area. "Now they are going to tear down the area that they redeveloped in the first place," Woods said. Contacts: Marc Castagnola, City of Baldwin Park, (626) 813-5253. Ken Woods, Community Alliance for Redevelopment Accountability, (626) 962-5298. Marko Mlikotin, California Alliance to Protect Private Property Rights, (916) 444-8781. Bisno Development project website: www.baldwinparkfuture.com/index.php

Dave Brown of Calabasas is this year's recipient of the American Planning Association's leadership award for a planning advocate. A member of the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy advisory committee since 1985 and a Calabasas planning commissioner since 1992, Brown has been involved in land use and natural resources issues in the area since the 1970s. He received the award in part for his "overlooked but instrumental" role in creating the 153,000-acre Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area. For 45 years he has been a history professor at Los Angeles Valley College, where he still teaches two classes. Brown spoke with CP&DR Editor Paul Shigley in April. CP&DR : Congratulations on the APA award. Brown: It surprised me. I think there are a lot of other people who deserve it more. I'd trade it all to conserve some more land. CP&DR : How did you get involved in land use planning? Brown: I got involved in planning — not planning directly so much — in midlife, I guess primarily out of an interest in saving and protecting some of the natural beauty and habitat in the area. I first really got interested when I got involved with Malibu Creek State Park. I got some coaching from one guy who was a county planner. The object here was basically to protect the setting of the state park, the area around it, from massive development so that the park itself would remain a place of natural beauty. I first got started working with state parks to determine what areas needed to be purchased to protect the state park. That was 30 years ago at least. How to protect a place like that that is under constant urban pressure is what got me thinking about planning. CP&DR : Did you move from your activities at the state park to the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy? Brown: I got involved with the Coastal Commission, whose jurisdiction extends five miles inland in the Santa Monica Mountains. The Coastal Act is a very comprehensive type of plan. I learned a fair amount about planning from reading the Coastal Act , and attending Coastal Commission meetings and getting up and speaking. The conservancy kind of came logically out of that. Actually, the Santa Monica Mountains Comprehensive Planning Commission came first. That lasted four years. It was supposed to do a plan for the Santa Monica Mountains. It never quite got that far because there wasn't political support. The conservancy grew out of the Comprehensive Planning Commission as the next best alternative to having land use authority. I was appointed to their advisory committee in 1985 and I've been on it ever since. Los Angeles County was almost the antithesis of good planning until about 10 or 15 years ago. When the county's political climate began to change, I was one of a number of people appointed to a citizens committee set up to redo the plan for the area where I live. This area would have been north of Malibu and west of the SF Valley. I was eventually elected chair of that committee. We did the north area plan with the cooperation of Supervisor Yaroslavsky. That was my first effort into really getting involved in land use planning. In 1991, the city of Calabasas incorporated and I was appointed to the Planning Commission. I've been on it every since. CP&DR : Are the Santa Monica Mountains still experiencing urban growth pressures? Brown: Yes. It's not just urban growth pressures. It isn't so much any longer big housing tracts. In the '70s that was still a threat — large hillsides getting scraped clean, and cut and fill. The terrain is so rugged that big developers have given up that sort of thing. What we've had in the Santa Monica Mountains is parceling, and I finally figured out what was really going on. People were buying acreage lots, and being allowed by the county to divide them but not being required to put in the necessary improvements. They could buy a 40-acre parcel and split it into 10-acre parcels without providing much of anything in the way of improvements and then leaving the buyer to figure out what to do with a parcel that did not have adequate street access or anything. A lot of that was done in the Santa Monica Mountains. It messed up a lot of beautiful areas and it messed up a lot of areas that could have been developed. It was planning at its worst in an area that is subject to an extreme fire hazard. One of the things that I've concluded over the years is that we desperately need to plan for fires. When I first started saying that, people just said, ‘What can you do about it?' You can do a lot. If we would pay more attention to setting back a house from the lip of steep slopes, rather than trying to maximize the view, for example, we could design the house to minimize that risk. We've never done that. I'm hoping in my last years of these efforts to get more people thinking in those terms. You can reduce the fire loss with good planning. … There's a danger when people get out of touch with the natural forces around them. They make decisions that endanger their life and property. CP&DR : Do your activities with the conservancy carry over to the city's Planning Commission? Brown: They interface to some extent. I think I've broadened my interest in planning beyond just protecting the scenic environment. Probably the most frustrating thing you can do in the L.A. area is try to protect something in its natural state, and yet we've done it. We've left a legacy of protecting landscapes that hopefully will bring joy to people for decades, assuming we take care of it. In the 30 years I've been involved in this, there has really been a change among citizens that some pieces of land are not made to be cut-and-fill pads. Maybe you should also pay attention to areas of natural beauty with the assumption that someday people will appreciate that. I think of those guys who sat around Yellowstone 100 years ago who decided maybe it would be nice to preserve this beauty for future generations. CP&DR : What can planners learn from a history professor? Brown What you can learn from history is not to make the same mistakes you've made before. We don't always understand the consequences of what we're doing. If we study the past, we would learn better how to plan for the future.

I hate to be repetitious, but sometimes in the column-writing business it's inevitable. Eighteen months ago, I wrote in this space that the debate over Proposition 90 came down to two unfortunately simpleminded campaign slogans – "protect our homes" or "taxpayer trap." Proposition 90 would have greatly restricted the use of eminent domain – hence it would have protected our homes. But it also would have required the government to compensate landowners for virtually any downzoning – hence the taxpayer trip. "Taxpayer trap" won, but not by much. So now we've got Proposition 98 on the June ballot – a watered-down and slightly sideways version of Proposition 90. And for good measure we've got Proposition 99 – a countermeasure put forth by local government organizations that would restrict eminent domain, but only in the case of owner-occupied single-family homes. In campaign terms, it doesn't look much different than it did before. On the one hand, we've got Proposition 98 – the "Protect Renters, Protect Homes" initiative or the "Hidden Agenda Initiative," depending on your point of view. On the other hand, we've got Proposition 99 – the "Homeowner Protection Act" to its supporters. So far, opponents haven't come out with their pithy three-word negative characterization. They've fallen back on the trusty old "Don't Be Fooled" approach. And the campaign rhetoric will likely be pretty shrill and pervasive, because these two propositions will be the only measures on the June ballot – thanks in large part to the fact that California moved its presidential primary (and hence some other ballot measures) from June to February. The whole reason this issue is even on the ballot at all in California is because of the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in 2005 in Kelo v. City of New London . On a 5-4 vote, with Sacramento native Anthony Kennedy as the swing vote, the court upheld a local government's power to use eminent domain for "economic development" purposes. That is, the court ruled the government has the power to take property via eminent domain from one private owner and convey that property to another private owner. Kelo didn't change the state of the law in California, but it provided a political opening for property rights advocates here and elsewhere. Proposition 90 came pretty close to passing, setting up a rematch on the ballot this year. Underneath all the typical political rhetoric rehashed above, what do we really have? Three things: 1. A weaker property rights initiative that does not address the regulatory takings issue. 2. A property rights initiative that – unlike its predecessor – seeks to outlaw rent control. 3. A countermeasure that seeks to limit the damage. Of these three things, only the third is not surprising. The local government organizations got caught flatfooted during the 2006 election, when only a last-minute media blitz – one that was hard to place on TV, given the political competition (see CP&DR Insight , October 2006 ) – averted the passage of Proposition 90. In putting forth Proposition 99, the local government establishment is throwing a bone to the other side. OK, they're saying, we recognize eminent domain has to be limited, so let's limit that limitation as much as possible. The first two items on the list above, however, are something of a surprise, especially the interplay between the two. A pull-back from Proposition 90's aggressive position on land use regulations was probably inevitable if the property rights crowd wanted to broaden its base of support. And rent control is always a favorite target of landowners, even though it affects only a small percentage of rental properties in the state. The addition of rent control – which was not a part of Proposition 90 – augmented Proposition 98's fundraising base. Yet trading land use regulation for rent control as a target doesn't seem to have done the property rights advocates much good. Proposition 98 didn't win the support of the state Chamber of Commerce. And while Proposition 98 popped open the landlord fundraising base, it has fueled opposition from a wide variety of tenant groups. Chief among these are the state's mobile home residents — a mostly older and highly organized group of folks who typically own the "coach" in which they live but not the land underneath it, on which they must pay rent. In dozens of communities throughout the state (including the one where I serve as an elected official), the city government has passed a rent control ordinance restricting the land rents that mobile home park owners charge the residents. The archives of CP&DR are littered with the failed attempts of mobile home park owners to take down these rent control ordinances. So it's not surprising that mobile home park owners are glomming onto Proposition 98 as the solution to their long-time rent control problem. They are important donors to the Yes on 98/No on 99 campaign. In trading the regulatory takings issue for the rent control issue, the property rights advocates clearly traded a large group of landowner and developer supporters who each had a little to gain for a much smaller group of landlords who stand to obtain enormous gains if Proposition 98 passes. Whether that campaign can come up with a winning message, however, remains to be seen. The No on 98/Yes on 99 campaign is engaging in more than its fair share of hyperbole, arguing not only that landlords would win and renters would lose, but also that water projects, land use planning and environmental protection are all at risk, which is stretching the truth at best. But that's nothing compared with the stretches coming out of the Yes on 98/No on 99 campaign. As noted earlier, the advocates have not yet come up with a single, pithy campaign slogan against 99. They are using familiar themes – arguing, for example, that the League of California Cities is not segregating membership funds (which are tax revenues) from Proposition 99 campaign funds. The most amusing argument is that Proposition 99 opens a "back door" to a split roll – a property tax assessment system that would circumvent Proposition 13 by assessing commercial property at a higher rate than residential property. How? By setting the "dangerous precedent" of treating owner-occupied, single-family homes differently from other properties. There is a good argument to be made that houses should not be treated differently because they are rented by the occupants rather than owned. But it is unlikely that Proposition 99 will revise Proposition 13 to allow split roll. Nor does it seem like this is a winning argument in June. But it's probably a pretty good fundraising strategy because the most likely donors to Proposition 98 are income property owners who would fork out big bucks to fight a split roll. The bottom line: Proposition 98 would not have nearly the wide-ranging impact on land use planning that Proposition 90 would have had – even though it would outlaw rent control. And it is fair to say that the Proposition 98 folks still have not figured out their message, even though we have only a few weeks to go.

A bill that would permit the City of Industry to extend its redevelopment plan's effectiveness for 10 years appears to have died when the bill's author, Sen. Gloria Romero (D-East Los Angeles), pulled SB 1771 before a scheduled mid-April committee hearing. Rumors had circulated at the Capitol for months that Industry sought to extend its redevelopment powers without having to make updated blight findings, as required by current law. Industry reportedly sought the extension to help fund construction of a professional football stadium on 600 acres owned by developer Ed Roski Jr. Industry officials and Roski have denied there is any connection between redevelopment and the stadium. However, the day after the Senate Local Government Committee was scheduled to consider SB 1771, Roski revealed stadium plans at a press conference. Originally, SB 1771 was a Sen. Alex Padilla (D-San Fernando Valley) bill concerning credit counseling for homeowners. But the legislation was overhauled on April 10 to permit Industry's redevelopment activities to continue for an additional 10 years. Without the extension, Industry would have to start shutting down redevelopment activities in about four years. Industry's redevelopment agency had revenues of $98 million during the 2005-06 fiscal year, according to the state controller's office. An unusually long bill analysis for the Senate Local Government Committee raised questions about the legislation, which would permit Industry to sidestep existing legal provisions regarding blight findings and funding for affordable housing. "SB 1771 uncouples the half-century-old policy consensus that requires local officials to document blight before they can get their hands on the property tax revenues that ordinarily go to other local governments, especially school districts," the analysis said. In a letter to the committee, Christine Minnehan, a lobbyist for the Western Center on Law and Poverty, wrote, "Current law permits all activities sought in SB 1771 if blight — the justification for redevelopment — remains. SB 1771 eviscerates existing law and invites more public outcry against redevelopment." The football stadium is proposed for 600 acres of vacant land at the junction of the 60 and 57 freeways, a location where Industry approved Roski's proposed 4.8 million-square-foot industrial development in 2004. That project has not gone forward. Now Roski proposes a 75,000-seat stadium, a 5,000-seat concert venue, 1.5 million square feet of office buildings and nearly a 1 million square feet of retail shops and restaurants. The site is not within a redevelopment project area.

A hypothetical or speculative use of property is not a proper basis for determining damages caused by a city's temporary construction easement, the First District Court of Appeal has ruled. The unanimous three-judge appellate panel overturned a jury's decision to award a Fremont homeowner $195,000 in temporary severance damages. The First District ruled that the trial court judge improperly permitted the jury to consider compensation for hypothetical — rather than actual — injuries. Although the First District appeared simply to uphold the decades-old principle that property owners are not entitled to damages for hypothetical loses, the Fremont homeowner has asked the state Supreme Court to overturn the appellate panel. The property owners, George and Elizabeth Fisher, have owned a single-family house on Washington Boulevard for 20 years. In 2004, the City of Fremont offered the Fisher's $14,250 for a temporary construction easement (TCE) on 1,873 square feet of the Fisher's 6,846-square foot lot. The city needed the temporary easement for construction of the Washington Boulevard/Paseo Padre Parkway grade separation project. The city and the Fishers could not reach agreement, so the city filed an eminent domain lawsuit later that year and sought immediate possession of the property rights, which the Alameda County Superior Court granted in January 2005. In July 2006, the city amended its eminent domain suit to seek a small permanent slope easement and extend the temporary construction easement until the end of 2009. Both sides made offers but they could not reach agreement. The Fishers demanded $320,000; the city offered $100,500, plus $1,334 a month from August 31, 2007 until completion of the project. At the trial to determine the value of the taking, Superior Court Judge Harry Sheppard permitted the Fishers' real estate appraiser, Kurt Reitman, to testify that because a temporary construction easement encumbered the property, it could be sold only at a deep discount. Reitman testified that the highest and best use of the property was to demolish the current house and build a new one, which would not be possible with the temporary construction easement in place. Reitman pegged damages from the temporary easement at $207,664. The city's appraiser said the temporary construction easement caused no damage and would actually be used for only a short period at the end of the project so the city could connect the Fishers' driveway to the newly elevated Washington Boulevard. Ultimately, the jury awarded the Fishers $403,513 — $84,352 as fair market value of the temporary construction easement, $195,413 for temporary severance damages caused by the temporary easement, $15,500 as fair market value of the permanent slope easement, and $108,248 for permanent severance damages. Judge Sheppard went on to award the Fishers $125,400 in attorney's fees, $61,696 in expert witness fees and $39,927 for prevailing against the city's motions for either a new trial or a reversal of the verdict on temporary severance damages. On the city's appeal, the case went to the First District, Division Two. In its opinion reversing the lower court, the First District thoroughly reviewed the state Supreme Court's holding in Metropolitan Water Dist. of So. California v. Campus Crusade for Christ, Inc. , (2007) 41 Cal.4th 954. In that case, Campus Crusade sought compensation for seven years of construction by the water district on a pipeline crossing Campus Crusade's property. The court ruled that Campus Crusade was entitled to compensation for the construction period only if Campus Crusade could identify a specific loss (see CP&DR Legal Digest , September 2007 ). In the Fremont case, the property owners presented no evidence that the temporary construction easement would interfere with their planned or intended use of the property. Reitman said that he had no information indicating the Fishers wanted to sell or develop their property, and the Fishers in fact argued that their intentions did not matter. They were wrong, the First District ruled. " he Supreme Court in Metropolitan Water makes clear that the property owner must establish a substantial impairment to the property owner's actual intended use of the property during the period of the temporary encumbrance," Justice James Lambden wrote. "Otherwise, there is no specific loss attributable to the temporary encumbrance." The Fishers, however, "completely failed to identify any actual loss attributable to the delay caused by the TCE because they produced no evidence that they tried to or planned to sell the property during the five years the property was burdened by the TCE. They produced no evidence that the TCE interfered with their actual use of their current single-family home," Lambden wrote. The court reversed the $195,413 award for temporary severance damages, and directed the trial court judge to reconsider the award of litigation expenses to the Fishers. The state Supreme Court has not yet decided whether to accept the case. The Case: City of Fremont v. Fisher , No. A116935, 08 C.D.O.S. 2438, 2008 DJDAR 3032. Filed February 28, 2008. The Lawyers: For the city: John H. Erickson, Erickson, Beasley & Hewitt, (510) 839-3448. For Fisher: Heidi Timken, Timken, Johnson & Hwang, (925) 945-6211.

In a potentially important decision for environmental advocates, the Third District Court of Appeal has ruled that environmental groups are eligible for attorney's fees in a Bay-Delta water lawsuit, even though public agencies won similar litigation. The success of the Central Delta Water Agency and the South Delta Water Agency in their lawsuit against the State Water Resources Control Board does not mean the environmentalists were automatically barred from receiving attorney's fees in a similar suit against the state, the court ruled. "That the success they achieved was the same success the Central Delta parties achieved does not justify a denial of fee award under the private attorney general theory," the court ruled. In 1995, the State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB) adopted the Bay-Delta plan that, among other things, established minimum monthly average flow rates on the San Joaquin River at Vernalis, a few miles west of Modesto. The flow rates were intended to help double the population of Chinook salmon in the river. A few years later, the board completed a water rights proceeding (called Decision 1641) that allocated responsibility for meeting the flow rates in the Bay-Delta plan. Decision 1641 essentially determined how the salmon's needs would impact water rights holders. In 2000, the two Delta water agencies sued the SWRCB over Decision 1641, arguing it conflicted with the Vernalis flow objectives in the 1995 plan. At about the same time, the Golden Gate Audubon Society and a collection of other environmental groups also sued the board, arguing that Decision 1641 was illegal and "ignored" the salmon-doubling objective in the 1995 plan. A trial court ruled for the water agencies and directed the board to comply with the Vernalis flow objectives. However, the court ruled against the environmentalists. After numerous parties appealed, the Third District ruled that the SWRCB had failed to implement the 1995 Bay-Delta plan and that Decision 1641 was effectively an improper amendment of the plan. The appellate court agreed with the environmentalists' contentions regarding minimum flows necessary to double the salmon population. The court directed the board to conduct further administrative proceedings either to assign responsibility for meeting the 1995 flow objective, or to modify the objective ( State Water Resources Control Bd. Cases , (2006) 136 Cal.App.4th 674). Back at the trial court, Central Delta Water Agency, South Delta Water Agency and the environmental groups all sought attorney's fees. Sacramento County Superior Court Judge Roland Candee granted the water agencies 40% of their fee request based on the "partial and limited success" of their litigation. Judge Candee rejected the environmentalists' request, concluding the Audubon Society and other organizations had not proven their role was necessary in light of the water agencies' victory. The environmentalists appealed, and the Third District overturned the lower court. At issue was interpretation of the "private attorney general doctrine" in Code of Civil Procedure § 1021.5. The statute is intended to provide a bounty for pursuing public interest litigation. In 1993, the Legislature amended the law so that a public entity may receive attorney's fees. "In the wake of the 1993 amendment, the purpose of § 1021.5 is to encourage parties — whether public or private — who do not necessarily have adequate financial resources to do so to pursue important public interest litigation for the benefit of the public at large, or at least for the benefit of more than just themselves or their constituents," Justice Ronald Robie explained in the Third District's unanimous decision. There was no doubt the litigation was a private attorney general action because, in fact, the attorney general's office was defending the SWRCB, the court noted. Judge Candee, however, refused to grant the environmentalists attorney's fees because the water agencies were enforcing the same public interest. The Third District, though, said it was impossible under the statute to call either the water agencies' or the environmentalists' roles in the litigation superfluous. " e conclude that where (as here) a public entity receives fees under § 1021.5 for succeeding in important public interest litigation, a private party who succeeded alongside that public entity cannot be denied a similar award of fees simply because the success might have been achieved by the public entity acting alone," Robie wrote. The Third District sent the case back the trial court to determine the amount of fees the Audubon Society and the other environmental groups may recover. The Case: State Water Resources Control Board Cases , No. C055104, 08 C.D.O.S. 3461, 2008 DJDAR 4212. Filed March 26, 2008. The Lawyers: For SWRCB: Mark Poole, state attorney general's office, (415) 703-5582. For the Golden Gate Audubon Society: Stephan Volker, (510) 496-0600.

OK, so everybody's bought into the idea that Sacramento's Blueprint process is a national model of regional smart growth planning. But what happens next in this cooler-than-we-ever-imagined metropolis? Depending on who you talk to the answer is: • Continue to play the "carbon card" for all its worth – while resisting the idea of city carbon budgets. • Try to create an "enlivened democracy" to match the regional vision. • Use public dialogue to have a more "real" discussion about the risks involved in daily life. • Identify the emerging "walkable urban neighborhoods" and get ahead of the curve in investing in them. • And, hey – how about building more stuff around those light-rail stations? These were but a few of the many ideas kicked around Friday at a forum on "the sustainable region" sponsored by the Sacramento section of the American Planning Association's California Chapter . (I was also one of the panelists at this event.) Blueprint mastermind Mike McKeever, executive director of the Sacramento Area Council of Governments , said flat-out: "We're certainly going to continue to play offense." And he said the organization would continue to use reduced carbon emissions as a policy lever to promote implementation of the Blueprint. Asked by architect Bruce Race to envision how life in 2050 would be different than now – when, under AB 32, Californians will have to live with a carbon footprint only 5% the size of today's – McKeever responded by talking about democracy rather than the built environment. He said the Blueprint succeeded because "ordinary folks" participated in shaping the smart growth vision underlying the Blueprint and he predicted that a lively democracy will be required to implement it. West Sacramento Mayor Christopher Cabaldon said that local governments don't do a good job of truly discussing the relative risk of different development patterns and, as a result, often oppose smart growth because of people's fears. "We need to be able to assess whether somebody's more likely to get in an accident driving their daughter to school than the daughter is likely to be abducted walking three blocks to the school," he said. (Cabaldon is currently running for the Assembly.) In a keynote lunch speech promoting his new book, The Option of Urbanism , developer and real estate analyst Christopher Leinberger said Sacramento needs to be more aggressive in promoting "walkable urban neighborhoods," especially around light-rail stops. Leinberger recently came out with a Brookings paper that tries to identify the "walkable urban neighborhoods" in the 30 largest metro areas in the nation. Practically everybody – including bloggers on this web site – has criticized Leinberger's methodology. But he made some good points in his talk. He said the region should be especially aggressive in predicting and planning for where the new "walkable urban neighborhoods" will emerge over the next 10 to 20 years. "You've got three right now," he said.. "You'll have 10 in the future. Where are the others going to be?" He didn't say what the three are, but his paper seems to indicate that they are Downtown-Midtown, Roseville, and Arden – which, if true, really does call his methodology into question!- However, his point – a good one – is that based on national real estate research it is possible to identify where the next "WUs," as he calls them, will emerge. Cities can then plan their future, invest in necessarily infrastructure, and set up management structures such as business improvement districts. And while they are at it, the cities can pick up land in these areas on the cheap at the front end, in order to create a land supply for affordable housing later on. On Friday night, after the event, I tested out the sustainable metropolis by going to the River Cats baseball game at Raley Field in West Sacramento. My companion and I walked the four miles or so from East Sacramento to the ballpark – it was a lovely evening – but decided to transit back. The shuttle bus from Raley dumped us off at the 8th and Capitol station on Capitol Mall a few minutes after 10 – unfortunately just a minute or two after the 10:04 had left. (If only that second-to-last Tucson batter had taken the third strike instead of getting a hit!) With 30-minute headways, we had time to kill, so we walked over to the Archives Plaza station in front of the Secretary of State's office. Still nothing much going on – hardly anything open, nobody around. The 10:34 showed up on time, and we were back at the 39th Street station, near UC Davis Medical Center, in less than 10 minutes. But it looks like Leinberger was right on one thing: Build more stuff around the light-rail stations that are already built. — Bill Fulton

The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has permitted a property owner's defamation lawsuit against a San Diego County supervisor to go forward. A divided three-judge panel overturned a lower court's ruling that Manufactured Home Communities' lawsuit against Supervisor Dianne Jacob was a SLAPP suit. The Ninth Circuit determined that a jury could find some of Jacob's challenged statements were "actionable as provably false assertions of fact." Manufactured Home Communities (MHC), which is now called Equity Lifestyle Properties, is familiar with federal and state courtrooms in California. The Chicago-based company — controlled by real estate investor Sam Zell, who bought the parent company of the Los Angeles Times in 2007 — owns about 300 mobile home parks with 100,000 spaces across the United State and Canada. In California, the company has challenged local mobile home rent control ordinances and their implementation up and down the state. In July 2002, MHC initiated phased rent control increases at three mobile home parks in unincorporated San Diego County by sending 90-day notices to residents. All three parks are in Jacob's district. In November of 2002, Jacob issued a news advisory saying MHC was preying on elderly tenants with fixed incomes. She also told residents of one park that MHC enjoyed forcing old people out of their homes, suggested MHC had engaged in fraudulent actions and said the district attorney was considering civil or criminal action against the company. Further, she sent a letter to Zell complaining of rent gouging, residents being forced to surrender their homes, and rents above fair market rates. In a number of later instances, Jacob told news reporters that MHC had failed to clean up a sewage spill in one of its parks, that the company preyed on older people and that it made a practice of buying distressed properties in order to run out older residents. In late 2003, MHC sued the county, arguing the county had violated its equal protection, due process and First Amendment rights. Later, the company modified its suit to claim Jacob violated MHC's First Amendment rights, defamed the company and interfered with prospective economic advantage. District Court Judge Napoleon Jones rejected all of the claims, ruling for the county and Jacob. With regard to Jacob's allegedly false statements, the court found that MHC's action was a strategic lawsuit against public participation (SLAPP). On appeal, the Ninth Circuit upheld nearly all of the lower court's ruling. However, it determined that Judge Jones erroneously dismissed the action regarding Jacob's statements. Jacob and the county argued that her statements were merely opinion, not provably false assertions that would be subject to legal action — an argument that Jones accepted. But two of three judges on the Ninth Circuit panel accepted MHC's contention that some of the statements referenced specific circumstances or facts and may be proven false. "While the district court may have been correct in its assessment that each of these statements is properly interpreted as an assertion of opinion rather than fact, a reasonable factfinder could disagree with that assessment," Judge Diarmuid O'Scannlain wrote for the majority. "It does not seem unreasonable, for instance, that a jury could conclude Jacob meant as a matter of fact that MHC had lied about the sewage situation, or that she meant it as fact that MHC had a reputation for driving out elderly tenants." " reasonable listener could conclude that Jacob's statements were founded in part on an objective, factual basis, especially in light of Jacob's role as a public servant and her having made some of the relevant statements in response to a new reporter's questions," O'Scannlain continued. The Ninth Circuit sent the case back to the lower court for further proceedings. In a dissent, Judge Consuelo Callahan said MHC's suit was a SLAPP. "Manufactured Home Communities, Inc., is attempting to chill the valid exercise of constitutional rights of freedom of speech and petition for the redress of grievances by filing a lawsuit against county Supervisor Dianne Jacob based on media interviews about an issue of public controversy," Callahan wrote. Furthermore, Callahan wrote, MHC did not "demonstrate the falsity of any underlying facts." The Case: Manufactured Home Communities, Inc. v. County of San Diego , No. 05-56401, 08 C.D.O.S. 2709, 2008 DJDAR 3325. Filed March 6, 2008. The Lawyers; For MHC: David Bradford, Jenner & Block, (312) 923-2975. For the county: William A. Johnson Jr., county counsel's office (619) 531-4860.

The principles of smart growth should also be used as the principles of adapting land use patterns to climate change. That's what Ron Sims, executive of King County, Washington, said in so many words while speaking April 12 at forum on climate change and cities. If we're going to be serious about adapting to climate change — and Sims contends we must be  — then we have to change our land use patterns, he said. With its almost total reliance on single-occupancy vehicles, suburban sprawl is not acceptable. Rather, density, mixed-uses and transit are key because they require less energy consumption for daily life and conserve natural areas needed for soaking up carbon and managing resources. Fortunately, the smart growth approach also produces fewer greenhouse gas emissions than suburbia does. "As a nation, we have not planned for global warming," Sims said. "There isn't a national policy at all on adaptation. … We are devoid of one at our peril." There may be no elected official in the country more passionate about the need to adapt to climate change than Sims, who is in his third term as the leader of King County. During his presentation, Sims said that both reducing greenhouse gas emissions and preparing for climate change are crucial. The King County climate plan adopted in 2007 contains a goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2050. One way of cutting emissions is greatly increasing public transit, which has historically been lacking in the Seattle area. Transit is a priority for Sims. The other side of the coin — adaptation to climate change — is one that many people are missing, Sims contends. But Sims, whose county lies between Puget Sound and the Cascade Mountains, has made adaptation a cornerstone policy. So when scientists predicted that the typical snow level will rise by 1,000 feet in elevation, that torrential rainstorms will hit the region, and that sea level will rise, Sims and other officials went to work rebuilding levees to withstand far bigger floods than the region has seen previously. Sims summarized the King County adaptation strategy as preserve the forest, improve the transit system, and better manage water resources. Land use is a key component of adaptation, according to the King County climate plan, which calls for weaving climate change information into regular updates of the county's comprehensive plan and future capital improvement plans. Sims was speaking at the two-day journalists forum on climate change and cities sponsored by the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, The Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard, and the Harvard University Graduate School of Design. Sims is not the only one talking about adaptation to climate change these days. As Bill Fulton reported yesterday , speakers at recent California Air Resources Board and Boalt Hall Law School conferences said that adaptation is an area where planners and policymakers can make a difference. Following Sims at the Massachusetts event was James Levitt, who is in charge of conservation innovation at Harvard Forest . Levitt said that the discussion of adaptive management of conservation lands is only beginning. And, he suggested, it is beginning very late, as there is an immediate crisis. Levitt cited a Scripps Institute study released earlier this year that said there is a 50% chance Lake Mead will go dry by 2021. Lake Mead, of course, is the primary water supply for Las Vegas, and also provides water to Arizona and Southern California. We all know how long it takes to develop new water supplies. Levitt also told the story of the pine beetle. The pest has decimated forests in the West and, in less than a decade, has killed about half of the pine trees in British Columbia, according to Levitt. Yet, the U.S. Forest Service has no comprehensive strategy for dealing with the pine beetle, said Levitt, who pointed the finger directly at the Bush administration. A tax on carbon emissions and a cap-and-trade system are critical for raising funds to adapt conservation programs to a changing environment, Levitt argued. Levitt's presentation got me thinking about the habitat conservation plans and natural communities conservation plans that are so common in California. The plans are intended to designate and preserve habitat for rare plants and animals for 50 to 75 years. But if Levitt is right and environmental conditions really are changing almost before our eyes, the plans may not be worth the dead trees on which they are printed because changing weather patterns and the arrival of invasive species will doom the very plants and animals we're trying to save. – Paul Shigley

The passage of AB 32 – California's climate change law – has focused the attention of Left Coast policy wonks like a laser beam on reducing greenhouse gas emissions. And as we have reported over and over again on this website , land use patterns are at the center of this debate. But adapting to a warmer world may actually be a bigger land use policy question. Indeed, reducing emissions may not be the most important -- or the most urgent -- or even the most solvable land use policy issue associated with global warming. There's also the issue that experts call adaptation – adapting to the consequences of climate change, including sea-level rise, smaller snowpacks in the Sierras, and changing agricultural conditions that might require different cropping patterns. Experts speaking at two events last week – the Haagen-Smit Symposium sponsored by the California Air Resources Board and a conference in Berkeley sponsored by the California Center for Environmental Law and Policy at Boalt Hall Law School  – raised the adaptation issue as one that is important – and also one that planners and policymakers can actually do something about.  Especially striking were the comments of Deputy Resources Secretary Tony Brunello who showed a schematic at both events depicting the impact of climate change on the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. Rising sea levels will bring salt water intrusion from the San Francisco Bay to the west – and rapid snow melts could bring more fresh water in from the Sierra to the east. The Delta is already one of the most contentious environmental issues in California and climate change could only ramp up the contentiousness. (National Public Radio recently ran a story about climate change and the Delta .) Brunello is currently looking to recruit an assistant resources secretary to deal with adaptation.  There is little question that the adaptation question will soon dominate planning and engineering discussions in beach towns and river towns throughout the state. The threat of rising water levels is probably going to lead to new and very expensive engineering solutions such as levees and sea walls – and, in some cases, calls to move buildings, people, and communities from harm's way.  Adaptation was readily on display at the Haagen-Smit symposium, an invitation-only event named for the first CARB chair, Dr. A.J. Haagen-Smit, who diagnosed the chemical processes leading to smog. The event was held at the Seascape Resort, located up on the cliffs of Aptos. But down on the beach, it was only a short walk to the Rio del Mar seawall – a massive $5 million structure that protects 20 homes depicted in the Google Earth image accompanying this blog. (You can see photos of the seawall on the website of the engineer who designed it.) As an elected official in a beach town, I can tell you that adaptation is not really on anybody's radar screen right now. But it will soon be. "We're not going to be able to save every last square inch," said Michael Hanemann , a professor of agricultural economics at UC Berkeley, during the Boalt Hall event. Adaptation will require both infrastructure and moving people, he said, "and that's going to require consensus." Given the "loosy-goosey structure" of California land use regulation, he predicted, it will not be easy to reach the consensus needed "to literally reshape land use patterns." -- Bill Fulton