The California Supreme Court has agreed to hear two new cases of interest to the planning and development community - the first dealing with water rights and the second dealing with administrative procedures before a Local Agency Formation Commission. In the water rights case, City of Barstow v. Mojave Water Agency (S0971728), the Supreme Court will determine whether a trial judge had the power to sweep aside all existing water-rights doctrines in allocation Mojave River Basin water to cities and farmers in the High Desert area of San Bernardino County. The litigation arose out of an overdraft situation in the fast-growing area. In his ruling, Superior Court Judge E. Michael Kaiser consolidated a series of conflicting water claims and sought to make an "equitable apportionment" of water rights to all water users in the basin. The net result of this ruling is likely to be that alfalfa farmers will be forced to sell some of their water to the cities, which are more able to pay a higher price for it, and therefore go out of business. Earlier this year, however, the Fourth District Court of Appeal overturned a portion of Kaiser's decision, ruling in favor of some of the alfalfa farmers. The Fourth District ruled that the judge had erroneously ignored the farmers' "overlying" water rights. However, the Fourth District stopped short of overturning the entire ruling. Rather, the court called upon all parties to stipulate to a new agreement that recognizes the farmers' water rights. "The trial court did not attempt to determine the priority of water rights, and merely allocated pumping rights based on prior production," the Fourth District wrote. "This approach elevates the rights of appropriators and those producing without any claim of right to the same status as the rights of riparians and overlying owners. The trial court erred in doing so." (CP&DR Legal Digest, July 1998.) In the LAFCO case, Sierra Club v. San Joaquin Local Agency Formation Commission (S072212), the Supreme Court will examine the question of whether environmentalists challenging the Gold Rush City project truly exhausted their administrative remedies at the LAFCO level before they filed suit. Gold Rush City is a large development project proposed on an island in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. In 1996, the San Joaquin County LAFCO approved annexation of the Gold Rush City property to Lathrop and adopted a statement of overriding considerations in certifying the environmental impact report. After the LAFCO action, Eric Parfrey, an environmental consultant who has been critical of the Gold Rush City project, notified the LAFCO that requesting reconsideration and indicating that he would soon submit the required $700 fee. The following day he withdrew the request and then joined with the Sierra Club, the San Joaquin County Farm Bureau, and others in filing a lawsuit challenging the statement of overriding consideration. San Joaquin County Superior Court Judge Bob McNatt dismissed the case, claiming that Parfrey and the other plaintiffs failed to exhaust their administrative remedies because they did not follow through on their motion for reconsideration. The Third District Court of Appeal affirmed McNatt's ruling, relying on a rule first laid down in Alexander v. State Personnel Board, 22 Cal.2d 198 (1943) - even though, the court said, the rule is outmoded. (CP&DR Legal Digest, August 1998). It would seem likely that the Supreme Court is interested in revisiting the Alexander rule, which states that where a rehearing is permitted under law it is a necessary step in exhausting administrative remedies even if it would appear to be a futile step. Reconsideration of the Alexander ruling could have broader implications beyond land-use law.

Federal law pre-empts state and local power to independently review the environmental impact and land-use consequences of construction projects dealing with railroads, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled. A three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit ruled that the King County, the City of Auburn, and several other local governments in the State of Washington can't undertake their own environmental review of the federal Surface Transportation Board's decision to permit reopening of the Stampede Pass railroad line. "State and local permitting laws regarding railroad operations are preempted by the plain language of the Interstate Commerce Commission Termination Act , and the statutory framework surrounding it." The Ninth Circuit also ruled that the STB did not abuse its discretion in permitting the Stampede Pass to reopen without conducting a full environmental impact statement under the National Environmental Policy Act. The panel concluded that the mitigation measures contained in the environmental assessment should address the local governments' concerns about traffic delays at rail crossings, even though STB denied the cities' request for grade-separated crossings. The case began in 1996, when the Burlington Northern Railroad sought approval from the STB to reaquire a portion of the Stampede Pass line, which it had sold in 1986 to the Washington Central Railroad. Burlington is hoping to use the line as part of a third major cross-country train route. As part of the proposal, Burlington proposed a variety of related construction projects such as snowsheds and communication towers. Burlington initially submitted these requests to local authorities but later contended that local review was pre-empted by federal authorities. At the time, however, the pre-emption question was not at all clear. The request came shortly after the passage of the Interstate Commerce Commission Termination Act (ICCTA), which replaced the ICC with the STB. In June of 1996, STB issued an informal opinion that the Stampede Pass line was not subject to state and local permitting requirements. Later that year, King County requested a formal order as to whether ICCTA pre-empted the county's environmental review. STB issued a ruling concluding that the ICCTA did, in fact, pre-empt local environmental review. Later, the City of Auburn sought to intervene in this process; STB denied this request but invited Auburn to file a separate petition for a declaratory order. Auburn and the City of Kent subsequently filed separate requests to intervene, which STB rejected as "a request for reconsideration of the King County petition". STB subsequently prepared an environmental assessment under NEPA but not an EIS. The STB approved Burlington's proposal in October of 1996, and the City of Auburn then challenged that approval in court. In court, Auburn argued that ICCTA did not contain an explicit pre-emption of state and local land-use and environmental laws. However, the Ninth Circuit concluded that the law does contain such pre-emption. Referring to 49 U.S.C. 10501(b), the court noted that the law grants the board "exclusive jurisdiction" over various railroad-related construction projects and states that the legal remedies contained in the section "are exclusive and preempt the remedies provided under Federal or State law". Similarly, the court noted, 49 U.S.C. 11323-25 states that rail carriers covered under the federal law are "exempt from the antitrust laws and from all other law, including state and municipal law, as necessary to let that rail carrier ... hold, maintain, and operate property ... acquired through the transactions." Said the Ninth Circuit: "We believe the congressional intent to preempt this kind of state and local regulation of rail lines is explicit in the plain language of the ICCTA and the statutory framework surrounding it." On the environmental assessment, the Ninth Circuit noted that the EA is more than 60 pages long and that Auburn and Kent were given "ample opportunity to raise their environmental concerns before the board for the requisite consideration." The Ninth Circuit also noted that STB developed three specific mitigation measures: notice of expected train movements, discussion of funding options for crossing upgrades, and spacing of train movements to allow time for crossings to clear. "While the board denied the city's request to require construction of grade-separated crossings," the Ninth Circuit concluded, "there is no showing that this denial alone renders the mitigation measures inadequate." The court also found "no merit in petitioners' claim that the STB failed to properly consider alternatives to Burlington's proposal to re-establish Stampede Pass as a major line." Among other things, the Ninth Circuit agreed with the STB that using trucks to transport the state goods is not a feasible alternative because the railroads "would forgo the expected improved service capabilities and increased operating efficiencies that this proposal is meant to achieve." The Case: City of Auburn v. United States Government, 98 Daily Journal D.A.R. 9588 (September 4, 1998). The Lawyers: For cities in Washington State: Peter J. Eglick, Seattle. For Surface Transportation Board: Evelyn G. Kitay, U.S. Department of Transportation, Washington, D.C. For State of Washington: Christine O. Gregoire, Attorney General's Office, Olympia, Washington. For Burlington Northern: Jeffrey R. Moreland, Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp., Fort Worth, Texas.

For most planners, society's reliance on - and even outright integration - of the car into our social and physical culture is a tough pill to swallow. We believe we are fundamentally concerned with environmental, social, and health issues; and so the car is the machine against which we rage. To counter its evils, we push for neo-traditional urban design that promotes pedestrians and transit and eschews automobiles. We advocate for bicycles. We craft trip reduction ordinances that penalize employers draw loads of cars - or at least we used to until the regulations were rolled back. When we really build up a head of steam, we pull down freeways and bury them under parks and symphony halls, like San Francisco and Seattle have done. When the market allows, we adopt pricing schemes for central city parking lots that discourage driving into downtown. But let's face the facts. These examples amount to mere tokens of resistance. Truth be told, automobiles are our everything. What's more, cars not only rock our world, but they pay for it. Witness, for example, the fur that flew when Assemblyman Tom McClintock (R-Chatsworth) pushed for abolition of the so-called "car tax" last summer. The car tax is an ad-valorem fee charged annually as part of automobile registration. Picking up on a similar push for repeal in Virginia, McClintock railed against it as an unfair progressive taxing remnant of the socialist-leaning 1940s. Though this stunt was viewed by some as just another example of shameless political grandstanding by one of the state's most aggressive anti-tax crusaders, opposition erupted from unexpected quarters. Republican politicos from around the state - many of whose careers began in local government - saw the initiative as another Sacramento-led attack on municipal finance. Cities too came out in strong opposition. That's because car tax proceeds are one of the most important - and reliable - funding sources for local government. Though cars may not be a green transportation mode, they certainly bring in the green. After a threat by McClintock to take his idea to the voters via an initiative, the car tax become a fundamental part of the budget deal cut in Sacramento last month. The deal calls for an immediate to 65% cut, with the shortfall to cities made up by state general fund disbursements. The cut - and replacement subsidy - then is supposed to continue in subsequent years, placing another funding source to cities into the realm of the annual and very political budget negotiations in Sacramento. The car tax is but one of many automobile-related fees that keep cities and other governments running. Consider the others: o Parking fees, collected directly or through leases to operators. o Gas tax revenues, distributed on a per capita basis by the State Board of Equalization. o Moving violations, a portion of which are dedicated to prison-construction. o And, of course, sales tax on vehicles, which has contributed to the "auto-mall-ization" of the freeway strips statewide and is usually the largest component of sales tax proceeds. There are other sources as well, such as developer fees for traffic mitigation and federal funds. In all, revenues from car culture can approach 30% of all funds collected by municipalities in the state. Most of them go right back into satisfying the car culture. Streets, parking lots, and traffic signals commonly are the first or second largest public-works projects in most cities. Consider Sacramento, a diversified city that can even boast a pedestrian friendly center city and a light rail system. Here, where the best of government thinkers craft ways to diminish car reliance, car culture claimed 21% of the capital city's capital improvement plan allocation. Move to the south state, in coastal Ventura. Here, in a mid-sized town of 100,000 with an impressive coastal promenade and a walker-friendly seaside downtown, car culture accounts for 22% of public works expenditures. Car-oriented revenues loom large in the mind of city finance directors. And it places road engineers in a powerful position when it comes to dividing the municipal pie. So if you've ever wondered about why planners haven't made more progress in changing the nature of the discussion about transportation, pull out the municipal budget. Because when it comes to feeding the municipal machine, cars are footing the bill. Stephen Svete, a contributing editor of CP&DR, is a principal with Rincon Consultant Inc. of Ventura.

Lake Tulloch Shores is one of the few large lakes in California where homes can be built on the water's edge, even into the water. While it sounds like a vacation paradise, it's been a planning nightmare. Until recently, the Calaveras County lake was a place where EIRs weren't done and federal infill permits weren't required. The lake, which is located about an hour's drive east of Stockton, was created in the late 1950s behind a dam built by the San Joaquin and Oakdale Irrigation Districts. As part of the negotations to acquire property, landowners were given the right to build on the water. In contrast, at nearby Melones Lake, which is owned by the federal government, the land around the lake is not developed, according to Calaveras County Community Development Director Ray Waller said. In recent years, development around Lake Tulloch Shores has boomed as the area has become a popular weekend retreat. New homes up to 5,000 square feet that can sleep two or three families have sprung up. As part of that construction, new residents put in seawalls to hold back the lake water. They often fill in the land behind the seawalls and plant grass, which makes the lake smaller. The lake has 55 miles of shoreline and can hold 65,000 acre feet of water. The seawalls prevent wildlife such as deers, foxes, and raccoons from getting to the lake. They also created a bathtub effect with waves going back and forth, said Jack Cox, former president of the Copper Cove Homeowners Assocation at the lake. . In addition, the seawalls weren't constructed with Section 404 permits as required under the federal Clean Water Act. The permits are needed to place fill materials in U.S. waters. The Tri-Dam Project, which runs the lake, had never required the 404 permits along with the permits they issued for seawalls. When the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced about a year ago that permits should have been issued, homeowners were upset and confused. The Army Corps announced in May that only homes built after mid-December 1992 needed the permits. That left about 200 homeowners without permits. A few permits have since been granted. The deadline for filing for the permits is November 1. Cox has also complained that the State Department of Fish and Game requires stream alteration permit for building sea walls. But Steve Felte, the new general manager of the Tri-Dam Project, said Fish and Game's concerns will generally be addressed if homeowners simply get the 404 permits. The Fish and Game permits are for streams, Felte noted, and this is a reservoir. In recent months, Cox and others have raised questions about why EIRs hadn't been done at the lake. Most subdivisions on the lake were created prior to the enactment of CEQA, Waller said. Development since that time has been of individual lots on the lake. For the last big development, the 160-lot Connor Estates built during the 1980s, a mitigated negative declaration that included biological and other studies was done, he said. But things are starting to change. Waller said recently that the developer of an 80-lot project, the final phase of a subdivision, has been told he'll need to do an EIR. Cox said a county supervisor also told him that no development will be allowed on the lake without an EIR. The rapid growth has also forced the county to look into the situation. In recent weeks, the Sanguinetti Land Co. pulled plans for a three lot subdivision after citizens began requesting that the County's Board of Supervisors manage growth around the lake better. "Some people are saying this was the straw that broke the camel's back," said Waller. Two homeowners associations--Copper Cove at Tulloch Lake Owners Association and Connor Estates Master Association sent the supervisors an 11 1/2 page letter prior to its August 31 meeting, outlining their concerns. One passage of the letter, written by the Sacramento law firm of De Cuir & Somach, cited two lawsuits: Citizens Ass'n for Sensible Development of Bishop Area v. County of Inyo (1985) 172 Cal. App.3d 1515; Bozung v. Local Agency Formation Comm'n (1975) 13 Cal.3d 263, 283-284. " t appears that by approving successive, related residential subdivisions along the lake with Negative Declarations," the letter said, "the County is improperly piecemealing development, treating what is really one project as a succession of smaller projects, none of which, by itself, may cause significant impacts. This practice violates CEQA." The Supervisors recently set up a local committee to come up with a Community Plan for the lake and the nearby unincorporated town of Copperopolis that will plot a future course for development in the region. Waller said that the citizens committee will examine all development issues regarding the lake, as well as whether to limit jet skis. The committee is expected to provide a report in the fall of 1999. Calaveras County has 38,000 people, and is one of the fastest growing counties in the state. Some local residents blamed Cox, a Los Angeles resident who owns a second home at the lake, for stirring up trouble. "It's not a NIMBY thing," he said. "What we're interested in is proper planning." Contacts: Ray Waller, Calaveras County Community Development Director (209)754-6394 Jack Cox, former president of Copper Cove Homeowners Association. Steve Felte, general manager, Tri-Dam Project (209)965-3996

After a long and contentious effort, the Wilson administration has submitted final revisions of the state's California Environmental Quality Act Guidelines to the Office of Administrative Law. OAL will now review them and decide before the end of October which revisions to approve. The final revisions include some of the most controversial guideline changes, which have been strongly opposed by some environmental groups and Democratic legislators. But the final shape of the revisions is far from over. Maureen Gorsen, general counsel for the Resources Agency, said there's the possibility that the revisions will be withdrawn by the Resources Agency if OAL finds problems. Additionally, lawsuits may be filed over anything OAL approves, and the guidelines could also be changed with the election of a new governor. The revisions have been underway since 1993, with little acrimony on many of the changes. "The overall process was very healthy," said Al Herson, president of Jones & Stokes Associates. Herson said many of the changes were practical and provide more certainty in CEQA work. But over the past two years, some revisions have sparked a flurry of comments and criticism from attorneys and planning groups. State Senator Byron Sher, D-Palo Alto, suggested in a hearing last year that the Wilson administration was trying to change CEQA through regulations after failing to so legislatively, a charge Resources Secretary Douglas Wheeler vigorously disputed. In June, when additional revisions were released by the Resources Agency, Sher wrote that many of the changes still continued to conflict with state and case law. Gorsen said that 7 of the 60 proposed revisions in the latest group were controversial, dealing with such issues as cumulative impact analysis, baselines, and mitigation monitoring and reporting. Gorsen submitted the revisions to OAL on September 11, and few people had seen the submission package before mid-September. Many changes were made to the revisions after the latest rounds of public comment. One particularly disputed area was various parts of Section 15064, which Gorsen described as the section that "assists lead agencies in figuring out just when an impact is significant." William Yeates, an attorney for the Mountain Lion Foundation, had told Sher's Senate Environmental Quality Committee at a hearing last year that he was particularly concerned about section 15064.7, which proposed to change the manner in which agencies are allowed to establish thresholds of significance. It would have created a rebuttable presumption, Yeates explained, which would have made it harder for citizens to sue over projects. But the rebuttable presumption language was eliminated. "The word presumption bothers a lot of people, so I took it out everywhere," Gorsen said. The final version that was sent to OAL, Yeates said, "took care of a lot of my concerns." Yeates was also pleased with the resolution of the controversy over revisions to Section 15064(j)(2), which proposed to allow a lead agency to ignore a cumulative impact if it complied with a previously approved plan, and make other changes regarding cumulative impacts. Under the proposed revisions, the Wilson administration had originally chosen to follow the precedent of a case on cumulative impacts, San Joaquin Raptor/Wildlife Rescue Center v. Stanislaus County 27 Cal.4th 713 (1994). But Yeates said that change was scrapped, and that the statutory definition is instead being followed. "The guidelines with these revisions are closer to what they're supposed to be," Yeates said. "They have tried their best to try to accommodate a lot of public criticism." The Resources Agency had also received complaints over its plans to scrap Appendix G from EIRs. That appendix lists types of projects that "will normally" have a significant effect on the environment. Sher noted in a letter he sent to the Resources Agency in June 1998 that the appendix "serves to implement a statutory requirement and is specifically referenced in statute." Gorsen said that there is now a new Appendix G, which combines some of the language from the earlier Appendix G with the language from the earlier Appendix I. On the controversial issue of the baseline environmental setting, the Resources Agency had first proposed revising Section 15125 to set the baseline at the time an application for a project is submitted. Under the revisions sent to OAL, the baseline is now set at the time of the notice of preparation, Herson said. Herson said that if OAL approves the revisions, new questions will arise over their implementation. He wondered, for instance, how the revisions will apply to current projects. Meanwhile, revisions to Section 15064(I), which sparked criticism in 1996 and 1997, was approved by the OAL on August 24. The new guideline specifies how existing environmental standards are to be used in determining whether or not environmental impacts of a project are significant. The new guideline applies generally to environmental standards, and replaces a provision that applied only to air and water standards, according to Michael Zischke, an attorney representing business groups. "Many lead agencies have adopted their own significance standards, and this new Guideline should give greater legal standing to those thresholds," Zischke wrote in an advisory to clients. "That was a very controversial change and I'm still waiting for the ball to drop," Gorsen said. Gorsen said some environmental attorneys interpreted the changes on 15064(I) to mean an end to CEQA, since they "want to redefine the threshold for each project." Some experts had interpreted earlier proposed changes to Section 15064(I) as requiring the creation of uniform, mandatory significance thresholds statewide. But the Wilson administration appeared to back away from those changes after it received criticism. Contacts: J. William Yeates, Mountain Lion Foundation/California Legal Advocates for Wildlife, (916) 446-5475. Al Herson, Jones & Stokes Associates, (916) 737-3000. Maureen Gorsen, general counsel, Resources Agency, (916) 653-5656.

Expansion plans for Santa Cruz's beach boardwalk amusement park have been on a roller coaster ride for months, with election results in November's city council races expected to offer a public referendum on the city council's recent decision to limit the huge plan. The proposed expansion had divided the coastal town, which has never embraced growth and is known for its environmental, non-traditional bent. When the expansion plan was first introduced, a majority on the progressives on the city council thought they'd found a way to let the boardwalk expand while improving housing for residents and finding additional revenues for the city. But when strong public opposition surfaced, the plans were significantly changed. Under the original proposal, the Santa Cruz Seaside Co., owners of the historic amusement park, planned a 1.4 acre expansion of the 12-acre boardwalk, a 225,000- square foot shopping center, realignment of a street, and construction of a parking garage and a nature center, with the city condemning residential property nearby. The Seaside Co. was supposed to contribute money or land toward construction of affordable housing, and provide public improvements such as bicycle paths. Additionally, a traffic shuttle from downtown was planned. Before the plan had reached the council, the project had already been reduced in size: the shopping center would have only 125,000 square feet, and there would be no parking garage or nature center. But under the plan unanimously adopted by the seven-member city council in October, most of the major commercial components of the plan were dropped. The only items approved was construction of a 275-room hotel conference center and up to 28 units of low-income housing and public improvements such as building rehabilitiation. A traffic shuttle is still planned, but funding for it and other improvements will have to come from other sources. Opposition to the expansion ran 2 to 1 at public hearings, according to Mayor Celia Scott, who criticized the expansion for the traffic it would create and for the removal of homes. "The community had a very strong history of consensus building after the earthquake," which destroyed the city's downtown, said Planning and Community Development Director Eileen Fogarty. But that concensus wasn't reached on the boardwalk plan, and now the Fogarty's department will continue to meet with citizens to develop a plan that meets their approval. One factor that may have galvanized that opposition was construction earlier this year of a power center on the eastern entrance to the city, according to activist Doug Rand, a leader of Beach Area Working Group, which opposed the amusement park's expansion. In many cities, construction of boxy Petsmart and Office Max buildings doesn't ruffle many feathers. But in Santa Cruz, "It's like a Trojan horse coming over the hill from San Jose," he said. The original boardwalk plan would have meant the destruction of 19 apartments in therundown Beach Flats neighborhood. A total of 48 people would have been removed from their homes. The boardwalk is a major source of income to the city. contributing $500,000 in parking and admissions tax revenue each year plus tax increment money for redevelopment projects. It drew 3.2 million visitors last year, making it the 14th most visited attraction in the nation, according to the San Jose Mercury News . Ted Whiting II, vice president of operations for the Santa Cruz Seaside Company, said he was disappointed by the city council's decision, but the company would take "a wait and see" approach. Whiting said each element of the plan would have gotten its own discretionary review before permits were issued. The total plan encompassed 205 acres. "It was an area plan, he said. "No one project was approved. People didn't understand that." The plan was drawn up after numerous public hearings and meetings. But Mayor Scott and others said the meetings didn't take community concerns into account. Rand said that four members of the council who had originally backed the beach plan "betrayed their own electorate." The final decision on the beach plan was made at the council's October 6 meeting amidst talk of a referendum, and bilingual signs raised against the plan. Many of the residents of Beach Flats are Latino. Rand said that opponents was pleased that the boardwalk expansion and realignment of Third Street were removed from the plan. There are "mixed feelings, " he said, on the hotel/conference center, which will have "tremendous impact on the beach area." The new hotel will retain some of the components of the historic Bahia Hotel, which is currently on the site and dates to the 1920s. Rand, a longtime community activist, said that the goals of revitalizing the area "are admirable." But with a plan that wiped out the Beach Flats neighborhood, he said, "we couldn't identify the public benefit here." Election results in November will serve as a referendum on the plan, he said. Three opponents of the plan are running for the city council. He said that opponents of the beach plan are still considering legal action to challenge the plan's EIR. While deciding on the boardwalk's future, the Santa Cruz City Council also voted in October to accept a settlement with the Seaside Co. on some acreage near the boardwalk. Rand said that settlement might also be the subject of a legal challenge. At issue is about four acres of land along the San Lorenzo River, which ends at the boardwalk. The land is currently used for parking, but a portion may be turned into a park under the settlement. An opponent of the boardwalk expansion plan wrote to the State Lands Commission last year that the Seaside Company was using tidelands as a parking lot, and that the land belonged to the public. "The whole area has been underwater and is...public tideland," Rand said. Under the state constitution and the city charter, he said, the land is supposed to be public. The Lands Commission determined that actual ownership of the site was a murky question. Under a settlement which the council approved in October on a 4-2 vote, the state gets 20 % of the land, which will then be leased to the city. Seaside gets clear title to the rest. Contacts: Ted Whiting II, Vice President, Santa Cruz Seaside Company, (831) 423-559. Doug Rand, Beach Area Working Group, (831) 458-3434. Celia Scott, Mayor, (831) 429-3540. Eileen Fogarty, Planning and Community Development Director, (831)429-3555.

Something about the development agreement between Chiron Corporation and the City of Emeryville reminds me of the relationship between Paul Newman and George C. Scott in "The Hustler." In that movie, you recall, Newman was the young and talented pool shark, while Scott was the older, calculating gambler who backed up the bets of people like Newman, in hope of taking a considerable cut if he won. The movie is perhaps not the best analogy. There is nothing dark or underworldly, for example, in the relationship between Chiron Corporation and Emeryville, as there was between Newman and Scott. At the same time, there are parallels: Here, Chiron is in the Paul Newman role, as the rising young star with big earnings potential. The redevelopment agency, in the George C. Scott role, has agreed to reimburse Chiron some of the most expensive and uncertain costs associated with building the corporate headquarters in the city, most notably the remediation of contaminated soil under the project, which alone could cost $30 million. Not every city would be willing to take on that kind of risk exposure on a toxic clean-up job. Emeryville, however, has some compelling reasons to take the plunge. The Chiron headquarters is the kind of deal that city officials daydream about, if rarely achieve: a heavy industrial site, badly contaminated with the industries of previous generations, has been cleaned up and transformed into a stylish campus of a biotech firm with annual sales of $1 billion and growing. Where a Sherwin Williams paint factory, a former Pacific Gas & Electric storage yard and a Shell Oil petrochemical plant all formerly operated, elegant new buildings, designed by renowned Mexican architect Ricardo Legorreta, are rising. In the coming decades, up to 4,200 highly skilled workers will walk serenely through the courtyards and parks that will connect the ochre towers and yellow arcades of the Chiron Life Sciences Center. Besides the city's incentives, certain factors make the site attractive to Chiron. Large-scale sites suitable for corporate campuses are rare in the Bay Area, particularly in urban centers. And while the site is generally more expensive than sites in the suburban South Bay, Emeryville has the plus of being only a mile or so from a major research university. Further, Chiron is already entrenched on the site, occupying 750,000 square feet of new and existing buildings. Adding to a plan devised for the city by Keyser Marston Associates, the city would assist Chiron with "extraordinary" (that is, above-market) costs, including toxic remediation, off-site traffic improvements, mitigation requirements, off-site public utility improvements and demolition of existing structures on the site. In addition, the city would pay Chiron's annual municipal service fee for the property and provide up to $4.7 million for a future parking structure. The rationale for these reimbursements is that Emeryville is a comparatively costly place in which to build, and reimbursements from the redevelopment agency help keep the city competitive. According to Keyser Marston, developing in Emeryville could cost $47 to $67 per square foot, including the cost of land, mitigating EIR requirements and providing new roads and utilities. Those pre-construction costs add up to $22 million. This does not include the potential expense of remediation costs, which could run from $10 million to $30 million. Land-related costs on suburban sites, in contrast, run from $15 to $28 per square foot. Chiron has its own reasons for staying in Emeryville. In 1981, the company was founded by two former UC Berkeley professors in the East Bay city, which is close to the campus but was then a gritty pocket of industry. The company's current employees live in the area. And Emeryville's close proximity to UC Berkeley means that the company is close to a major research institution that can supply many of its future hires. The city's hope of gain depends largely on Chiron's agreement to stay put and grow. Eventually, the company wants to build 14 separate buildings on the campus, encompassing 2.2 million square feet, where 4,500 people may eventually work. The buildings are expected to generate $300 million in property taxes during the next 30 years. Earlier this year, the company completed construction on the first, 290,000-square-foot building of the $1 billion Chiron Life Sciences Center. The city has spent about $2 million in remediation costs on the former PG&E site. Patrick O'Keefe, director of the city's redevelopment agency, downplayed the significance of the Chiron deal as an innovation in the redevelopment of brownfield sites. Typically, he said, cities clean up old industrial sites first, and then afterwards look for a developer, who then looks for a tenant. In Emeryville's case, the city streamlined the process, by lining up a developer in the first place, (in this case, Chiron) and promising to reimburse the developer above an agreed upon amount. Can other cities follow Emeryville's lead? That's hard to say. Emeryville is the beneficiary of a unique set of forces, according to Walt Kieser, principal of Economic and Planning Systems, a Berkeley-based economic consultant. "The city has been blessed by geography and circumstance," he said. Emeryville, he explained, has a very large commercial base and a very small residential population-meaning that the small city is comparatively affluent and has the deep pockets to provide incentives to desirable tenants like Chiron. Further, Emeryville is in the sphere of the extraordinary, technology-oriented building boom centered on Silicon Valley. The city has been among the most aggressive in attracting new high-tech tenants to its former heavy industry sites, including Sybase and a number of major retailers. Kieser credits Emeryville for a number of creative deals that have turned brownfields into fields of gold. Still, "it's easy to be creative when you have a lot of money," Kieser said. Perhaps not many cities have the resources or the nerve to redevelop brownfield sites in the manner of Emeryville. Still, my gut sense is that the city has advanced the science of redeveloping contaminated industrial sites. Instead of waiting for a developer, the city acts like a developer, and cuts a deal that makes a brownfield site as safe to tenants, at least financially, as a virgin site in the suburbs. If you believe that the recycling of industrial areas is important, then Emeryville should be applauded for inventing or refining some techniques for a difficult job. We felt bad when George C. Scott made money on Paul Newman's victory over Minnesota Fats; we felt he was a parasite who didn't deserve the money. But if Emeryville makes a buck or two off the Chiron site, it's been a worthwhile gamble.

Disagreements both petty and profound continue to swirl around the proposed rebuilding of the Bay Bridge. The $1 billion proposal, which is intended to replace the eastern portion of the bridge damaged in the Loma Prieta quake, seems to please no one except officials of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission. San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown is vexed that the proposed design will cast a shadow some prime development sites on Yerba Buena-Treasure Island. In the East Bay, mayors of the cities of Berkeley, Emeryville and Oakland - including Oakland Mayor-elect Jerry Brown - are criticizing MTC's single-tower scheme as lacking in beauty and unbecoming as a civic symbol. Mayor-elect Brown has further alleged conflict of interest among the engineering firms that both consulted and competed to build the bridge. The conflict may not be resolved in November, when voters in four cities -Berkeley, Emeryville, Oakland and San Francisco - weigh in on an advisory measure whether the bridge should be re-designed to accommodate commuter rail. The MTC proposal is for vehicular traffic only. The process of rebuilding the bridge began in an orderly enough manner. In February 1997, MTC convened a panel of technical experts, including seismologists, structural engineers and geologists, to help decide the most appropriate bridge structure. These panels were drawn from the membership of the Bay Conservation and Development Commission and advisory groups put together by Caltrans. Informing the design was the deep silt on the Oakland side of the bridge, which necessitated deep piles. "Geologists on the panel drew our attention to the fact that soil conditions would determine what the bridge would look like above water," said Steve Heminger, MTC director of government relations and public affairs. Eventually, the MTC panel settled on an austere design with a single tower near Yerba Buena, terminating in a ribbon-like causeway in Oakland. Caltrans subsequently issued a request for proposal and selected T.Y. Lin International as the bridge contractor. Although Yerba Buena, which lies within the city boundaries of San Francisco, arguably got the most ornamental feature of an otherwise plain bridge - the tower - Willie Brown is displeased. In turning against the alignment, Brown has been swayed by Treasure Island project director Annemarie Conroy. "When Miss Conroy joined the Treasure Island project, she was shocked to find out the true facts, with respect to the impacts of the proposed span on the economic-development plans," said Brown spokesperson Joan Rummelsburg. What was so shocking? The proposed bridge would pass over the northern part of the island, and the placement of the footings, as well as other construction impacts, would necessitate much of the island to be recontoured or regraded, Rummelsburg said. MTC spokeswoman Marjorie Blackwell, however, pointed out that Willie Brown had in fact endorsed the northern alignment in writing 16 months before. Since that time, "MTC has spent 16 months on this design process," she said. "We feel we gave everyone adequate time to express (his or her) view. It's a little bit late to be coming in and saying that he doesn't like it." At this point in time, she said, "it will be difficult to change." In a June press conference, the mayor danced away from his earlier position because, at the time he endorsed the northern alignment, "there was no physical design actually done that showed where various anchorages would be placed on property we hoped to acquire from the Navy." A more southerly alignment, however, would not be easy to do: such an alignment would necessitate moving an East Bay sewage outfall. Additionally, the alternative alignment might interfere both with existing Coast Guard operations on Treasure Island and the proposed expansion of the Port of Oakland, according to the MTC spokesperson. On a different note, East Bay cities appear chagrined by the barrenness of the bridge design. Outgoing Oakland Mayor Elihu Harris, for example, has called the proposal a "freeway on stilts." Oakland deserves a "signature span," argued Marina Carlson, Harris' policy analyst on planning and public works. "The old bridge was an engineering feat in its day," she observed of the original structure built in 1934. In replacing the picturesque old bridge, "we are taking away something that Oakland had in the way of history. Oakland is asking for something to come back, for something beautiful on our side." She is unimpressed with the mud-is-destiny argument: "If they (i.e. the MTC consulting engineers) wanted to do an engineering feat again, they would have to figure out how to deal with the mud." Mayor-elect Jerry Brown, a man of arguably broader culture, argued powerfully for the value of the bridge as a civic symbol on his Website (www.jerrybrown.org). "As the Golden Gate symbolizes San Francisco, so the new east span of the Bay Bridge should identify Oakland as a city of the future," said Brown, who also went on to cite such civic monuments as the Eiffel Tower, the Sydney Opera House, and the new Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao. Beyond aesthetics, Mayor Harris is disappointed that Caltrans is building only a replacement bridge with exactly the same capacity as the 1934 structure, rather than designing a bridge that could handle more traffic. Jerry Brown agreed with his predecessor that a mere "replacement bridge" was inadequate for current transit needs. Unlike Harris, however, he advocated a train to cross the bridge, recalling the era when the Key trains shared the bridge with vehicular traffic. The proposal is popular enough to have gotten on the November ballot in four cities, as mentioned above. Berkeley Mayor Shirley Dean seemed less concerned with design issues. "Form follows function, I subscribe to that," she said. "I think they (i.e. bridge engineers) need to figure out how this bridge is going to serve us, and then design a bridge that does that." She is more concerned, however, about the bridge's carrying capacity. "The currently proposed bridge is designed for the next 150 years, and it does not carry more than it does today, and that is unacceptable." If the current design goes forward, she warned, the new Bay Bridge "is not a bridge into the future, it is a bridge of congestions and problems." During the era of the Key trains, in fact, "the bridge had a greater capacity that it does today," Dean said. Understandably, MTC's Heminger is not enthusiastic about redesigning the bridge for rail transit. For starters, "which train would run on the bridge?" He pointed at that BART already parallels the bridge, in an underwater tube that links Oakland with the Embarcadero district of San Francisco. More serious, perhaps, are Jerry Brown's allegations of conflict of interests among several of the engineering firms that both advised MTC on the bridge design and competed for the job when Caltrans issued the RFP. Brown further said that two members of a Caltrans advisory board submitted designs, and "that their two were the only designs chosen for serious consideration." MTC's Heminger said that the process has been open, and that firms that consulted with MTC and later competed for the Caltrans work publicly declared their intentions to do so. Further, he pointed out that the firm which had originally proposed the structural type which MTC selected did not win the Caltrans contract. Notwithstanding, Brown is hoping to scuttle the current bridge design, and create an "open process" by holding an international design competition for the structure. Berkeley Mayor Dean predicted that the advisory ballot measure would win easily in Berkeley. At the same time, she stressed the importance of any workable mass-transit solution, not simply rail. "I don't care if it is light rail or if it buses. If they (i.e. MTC) do a feasibility study and find that it is better to put buses on the bridge, that would be fine with me, as long as we have the capability to move efficiently over that bridge over the next 150 years. We've got to move people on mass transit." Contacts: Steve Heminger, manager of legislation and public affairs, Metropolitan Transportation Commission (510) 464-7810. Marina Carlson, spokeswoman, Oakland Mayor Elihu Harris, (510) 238-3612. Jerry Brown, Mayor-elect of Oakland, (510) 893-2684. Joan Rummelsburg, spokeswoman, San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown, (415) 554-6131. Marjorie Blackwell, spokeswoman, MTC, (510) 464-7884. Shirley Dean, Mayor, City of Berkeley, (510) 644-6484.

One of the last undeveloped regions of San Francisco Bay Area land - eastern Contra Costa County - is booming so much that a county supervisor has asked local cities to consider a temporary halt to residential growth. Eastern Contra Costa County, with its rich delta topsoil, is where the Central Valley meets the Bay Area. For years, agriculture was the main industry in this area east of Mount Diablo and south of the Sacramento River-San Joaquin River Delta. The region is made up of the local cities Pittsburg, Antioch, and Brentwood, as well as such unincorporated towns as Byron, Bethel Island, and Oakley. But few of the jobs and regional shopping centers are in the area, and commutes are long. The demand for affordable housing in the high-priced Bay Area market is one of the reasons behind the growth. "Homes are $200,000 less than in the central county or the San Ramon Valley," said Supervisor Joe Canciamilla, who recently proposed the moratorium and who represents the East County area. "A number of jurisdictions out there really want to grow," said John Landis, a professor of city and regional planning at the University of California, Berkeley. In addition, he said, cities like Antioch already have specific plans in place for growth, and large agricultural parcels in the area are attractive to developers. Growth figures tell the story in the East County. Brentwood, a town of 7,500 in 1980, has more than doubled in size since then. The city's general plan, adopted in 1993, calls for an eventual population of 79,000. Antioch grew from 42,683 to 74,900 between 1980 and 1995, a 75.5% increase. In contrast, Orinda, a slow-growth community in the western portion of the county, grew only 2.5% during that same period. In the east county, a total of 17,300 residential units have been approved but not built, and another 25,200 units are awaiting approval. The biggest development is Cowell Ranch, a 5,200-unit development proposed southwest of Brentwood, which may be annexed into the city if built. But the project appears to be on hold, according to Tom Mooers of the open space group Greenbelt Alliance. A vote on whether to incorporate the town of Oakley is on the November ballot. About 21,000 people currently live there, but the county's general plan called for the area to have a population of 50,000 by the year 2005. "People are really unsure what it (incorporation) means in terms of growth and development," Mooers said. But three developments in recent months could have long-term impacts on growth in the East County Region: o Supervisor Joe Canciamilla, who represents the East County, has called for a short-term moratorium on growth until a subregional plan is adopted. Traffic projections prepared by the Contra Costa Transportation Authority predict that within ten years, traffic congestion on Highway 4, the main traffic route in the East County, and other local arterial roads will exceed Level F, the lowest level of efficiency. The moratorium would probably last about a year. o In Byron, an unincorporated east county area north of Livermore, a Municipal Advisory Council recently released a master plan to deal with expected growth. The plan which identified 10,000 acres for residential development and 3,000 acres for commercial development, may never go into effect. That's because there is only five acres remaining within Byron's urban limit line, although growth may be allowed near the town's airport. o Preliminary discussions of an habitat conservation plan may preclude development on some East County land. The area is home to the San Joaquin kit fox, Alameda whip snake, California redlegged frog, California Tiger salamander, and vernal pool fairy shrimp. Only the kit fox is currently on the federal endangered species list. The other animals are either considered threatened or are candidate species for federal listing. Canciamilla said he envisions the subregional plan as working like a joint powers agreement. "It would have whatever force we agreed to," he said. The supervisor plans to meet with officials from each city to discuss his proposal, and hopes to produce a new plan by July 1999. The proposed moratorium would not affect commercial or industrial development, he said. The supervisor's plan meets with the approval of the county's Homebuilders Association. "In a sense, he's right," said Guy Bjerke, staff vice president. "Eastern Contra Costa needs to develop a strategic plan." Most large projects take over a year to win approval, Bjerke said, so it's hard to say if any projects would be affected by a slowdown. Only 1,700 housing units are built in the East County each year, he said, and 17,300 units have already been approved. Supervisor Canciamilla has also called for an update of the county's general plan. Among the items that need to be discussed, he said, are urban limit lines in the current plan that were adopted by voters in 1990. That same year, voters also agreed to a general plan that would urbanize only 35% of the county's unincorporated land. While a study is underway to determine how much of the county's unincorporated land is already urbanized, "potentially we're close to ," Canciamilla said. The supervisor said money doesn't exist for the traffic improvements needed for new developments in the East County. A subregional approach would force cities to look at the impacts of their decisions on a larger area. Canciamilla also has called for an agricultural and open space protection act to protect open space. Countywide, environmentalists have seen victories in recent months, which may translate to new policies for the East County. In one instance, developers withdrew plans for the 5,200-unit Tassajara Valley project proposed near Danville and San Ramon after public opposition. Because of the current anti-growth mood, county planners are advising developers not to invest in plans that the Board of Supervisors are likely to reject, according to the Contra Costa Times. Contacts: Supervisor Joe Canciamilla, (925) 427-8138. Winston Rhodes, associate planner for Brentwood, (925) 634-6905. Tom Mooers, East Bay Field Representative, Greenbelt Alliance, (925) 932-7776. Guy Bjerke, staff vice president, Homebuilders Association, (925) 820-7626. Bob Pine, senior fish and wildlife biologist, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, (916) 979-2728.

Seeking to improve local groundwater problems and possibly expand redevelopment activities as well, the City of San Bernardino has created a joint-powers authority with a water district and an economic development agency to pursue some kind of "water feature" near downtown San Bernardino. The project would cover some 300 acres in the Base Line area north of the current downtown and might involve condemning some 900 parcels of land at a cost of more than $100 million. The San Bernardino Municipal Water District first proposed creation of a large surface reservoir last year when a rising water table in the Bunker Hill groundwater basin under the city increased the risk of liquefaction. Judith Valles, the newly elected mayor, appears receptive to a combination water/redevelopment plan of some sort, which would be undertaken by the San Bernardino Regional Water Authority - a newly formed entity made up of the city, the water district, and the Inland Valley Development Agency. However, Valles opposes the "lake" concept. Local officials in the area are now discussing the possibility of a San Antonio Riverwalk-style project, which would include a series of canals and reservoirs. Architect Jon Jerde has been working on a proposed design, which may include a water connection to the struggling Carousel Mall area in downtown San Bernardino. If the project moves forward, it would be one of the most ambitious redevelopment projects undertaken in California in the last decade - and the latest in a long series of attempts to revitalize one of Southern California's most depressed cities. According to Patrick Milligan, a member of the water agency board and the project's leading advocate, the Base Line neighborhood is among the most economically depressed zip codes in California. Milligan said he hopes that, with the JPA in place, land acquisition and construction on the project will begin within 18 months. Arguing in favor of both quick action and a large project, he said: "This is one of those wonderful political moments....The larger the area we use, the bigger the redevelopment area we can affect." To meet such an ambitious timetable, however, Milligan and other supporters of the water project will have to overcome considerable local opposition - much of which surfaced after the water district released a concept drawing of the "lake" proposal late last year. Among other things, critics have charged that the water proposal is the brainchild of developers, eminent domain lawyers, and engineers seeking a large-scale project from which to profit. In particular, local church and community groups opposed the condemnation of their entire neighborhood. Lawyer Alan Bartleman, chairman of the local section of the Sierra Club, has opposed the lake vociferously, calling it "politically unviable - from a redevelopment point of view, nobody was going to take out that whole community and move all those people." Since local officials have backed off the idea of a single large lake, however, opposition has diminished. Bartleman, for example, said that while he opposed the lake he is not opposed to the idea of bringing some of San Bernardino's underground water to the surface. But he suggested that the real motivation for the project is to make San Bernardino's groundwater available for sale, thus permitting the water district to create a profit. "That's not a bad idea, as long as we don't sell too much of it and we do some decent planning," he said. But critics such as Bartleman also question whether a surface water project would alleviate the environmental problems associated with San Bernardino's underground water aquifer. San Bernardino has always faced high groundwater because of the area's unusual geology. The city sits lies atop fans at the base of the San Bernardino Mountains, while the San Jacinto Fault serves as a "dike" cutting off the underground connection between the city's groundwater and other groundwater sources. According to the city's general plan background documents, groundwater depths have risen from 50 to 100 feet under the city in 1960 to less than 10 feet in some parts of the city today. Flooding in basements and other low-lying areas has been an increasing problem, especially with the heavy rains of the last few years. The high groundwater has created two related problems as well. First is the potential for liquefaction - perhaps the problem most frequently cited by advocates of the water feature. Second is the need to improve the quality of the basin's water, which suffers from low-level contamination the form of perchloroethylene (PCE) and tricholoethyline (TCE). Water-feature advocates - who blame this problem largely on contamination from the area's military bases - argue that bringing the water to the surface will remediate these problems by ventilating the contaminants. But skeptics like Bartleman and James Mulvihill, an urban planning professor at Cal State San Bernardino, question whether ventilation will actually improve water quality. "That's a bunch of baloney," said Mulvihill. However, Milligan said the potential water-quality improvements will strengthen San Bernardino's attempts to obtain federal financial assistance in constructing the water project. The lake proposed by the water district last year would have consumed an entire 30-square-block area along Interstate 215 north of the civic center in San Bernardino. In addition to the land assembly issues, the lake also would have required a major berm or similar obstruction on the south side, adjacent to the downtown, because of the city's topography. "The problem with San Bernardino is it's on a slope," Mulvihill said. The vertical drop from Base Line Avenue to downtown - a distance of approximately six blocks - is about 40 feet, he said. Contacts: Peter Milligan, board member, San Bernardino Municipal Water Authority, (909) 888-5741. Alan Bartleman, Sierra Club activist, (909) 885-8388. James Mulvihill, Cal State San Bernardino planning professor, (909) 880-5522.

The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld the federal government's decision to issue five broad-ranging "general permits" allowing the filling of wetlands as part of the Anchorage Wetlands Management Plan. The general permits had been challenged by several environmental groups in Alaska, which charged that they covered too diverse a range of activities and would not result in "minimal" disruption of the environment, as the federal government claimed. The five permits, which covered projects potentially dealing with 2,142 acres of wetlands, covered the following activities: o Residential site preparation and driveways. o Roads and other "linear development". o Commercial, institutional, and community development. o Industrial development. o Wetlands, habitat, and water quality enhancement projects. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which proposed the permits, estimated that, while 2,142 acres could potentially be implicated, the permits would probably result in the destruction of only 360 acres of wetlands. The Corps has jurisdiction to issue wetlands fill permits under regulations associated with the federal Clean Water Act. The Alaska Center for the Environment and several other environmental groups sued. The environmentalists' major argument was that each individual permit covered activities too diverse to satisfy the requirement that general permits cover activities "similar in nature". For example, the environmentalists pointed out that under Anchorage's zoning ordinances, the residential permit could apply to single-family homes, two-family dwellings, row-houses, rooming houses, and other residential structures - which, the environmentalists argued, encompassed too broad a range of activities to fit under the federal regulations. But the Ninth Circuit rejected this argument. "The conditions stated above illustrate not only similarity in environmental effects, but also similarity in the nature of the projects," the court wrote. "While it may be true that the regulations do not specifically distinguish between such structures as 'single-family housing' and 'two-family dwellings', we are not persuaded that the general permitting process must necessarily require such fine distinctions." The environmentalists also argued that the Corps cannot make "a sufficient public-interest analysis" as required by law when such a broad range of activities is contained in the same permit, but the Ninth Circuit rejected that argument as well. "The permit evaluation shows that the Corps wished to provide predictability for property owners and reduce wetlands processing time while simultaneously protecting higher value wetlands," the court wrote. "Other portions of the evaluation list more specific considerations. For example, the evaluation notes the Corps' consideration of such human-use characteristics as benefits to the local economy, impacts on traffic, and community cohesion. These considerations were clearly guided by the voluminous restrictions placed on the general permits." The Ninth Circuit also rejected the environmentalists' argument that the overall impact - probably filling 360 acres of wetlands and potentially filling 2,100 acres of wetlands - would have more than a "minimal" environmental impact, as the Corps argued. The court noted that the wetlands management plan, with which the general permits conform, was created by the City of Anchorage in conjunction with four state and federal agencies and used an A-B-C rating system to value the quality of the wetlands. This rating system was then used to evaluate the likely environmental impact. For this reason, the court concluded, the Corps did not arbitrarily and capriciously in concluding wetland impact would be minimal. The Case: Alaska Center for the Environment v. West, No. 96-36190, 98 Daily Journal D.A.R. 9997 (issued September 16, 1998). The Lawyers: For Alaska Center for the Environment: Anthony N. Turrini, National Wildlife Federation, Anchorage. For Army Corps of Engineers: John T. Stahr, U.S. Department of Justice, Washington, D.C.

Nineteen ninety-eight will not go down in history as a year when the California Legislature made sweeping changes in California planning and development law. Instead - like most legislative sessions since the passage of term limits in 1990 - it was a year in which legislators who sought minor changes were more likely to succeed. In general, the Legislature passed a series of small bills that made changes on the margins of planning and development law. The big exception, of course, was SB 50, the $8 billion state school bond that will repeal the Mira school-fee doctrine if it is overturned. More typical is the passage of SB 1182, a "farmland security law" that expands Williamson Act-style protections for agricultural land, and SB 2005, which overturns an important but narrow California Supreme Court ruling on the Permit Streamlining Act. Perhaps the sleeper of the group is ACA 10, which would make it easier for adjacent cities to share sales-tax revenue. The constitutional amendment will appear on the November ballot - and may be the first step toward ending some of the retail wars that have afflicted most of the state. Here's a complete rundown: School Bonds/Development Fees SB 50 (Proposition 1A) California voters will decide in November whether to approve some $8 billion in state school bonds - and in the process they will also decide whether to repeal existing case law covering the fees that school districts may impose on developers. Under the proposed reforms, local school districts would have to cover half the cost of new schools, and the state would suspend the ability of cities and counties to levy school fees in excess of state-mandated limits - a power granted by a series of appellate court decisions collectively known as the Mira doctrine. With the Mira powers gone, a statewide cap on school fees of $1.93 per square-foot for housing and 31 cents per square-foot for commercial and industrial construction would be back in force. Local school boards could impose higher fees in order to meet their 50% match requirement if one of the following conditions are met: (1) Attempted a local school bond in the last four years that received at least 50% of the vote but short of the required two-thirds majority; (2) Have passed bonds equal to 15% of bonding capacity; (3) Have 30% of students on a multi-track year-round calendar, or (4) Have 20% of students housed in portable classrooms. After January 1, 2000, districts must meet at least two of those conditions in order to levy fees above the statewide cap. For more details, see CP&DR, September 1998. Sales-Tax Sharing ACA 10 (Proposition 11 When the Legislature re-opened the November ballot, it created an opportunity to move up an election on ACA 10, which probably otherwise would have taken place in 2000. Introduced by Assemblyman George Runner, R-Lancaster, ACA 10 would make it easier for cities to share sales-tax revenues. Under current law, cities cannot share sales-tax revenues without approval from voters in both cities. ACA 10 would permit such sales-tax sharing with approval of a super-majority of the city councils from both cities - thus eliminating the need for a vote. Runner's constitutional amendment is an attempt to remove one roadblock from sales-tax sharing agreements that might help resolve land-use disputes over retailers in adjacent cities. The notion of eliminating the voter-approval requirement has been kicking around Sacramento for a decade at least, but Runner was the first legislator to navigate the idea through the Legislature. Runner promoted the idea as a result of his own experience as mayor of Lancaster, which engaged in many sales-tax wars with the neighboring city of Palmdale. Farmland Preservation SB 1182 (Chapter 353, Statutes of 1998) Under a variation on the Williamson Act signed by Gov. Wilson, some agricultural landowners will be able to receive tax breaks on their property for 20 years at a time rather than just 10. The Williamson Act permits farmers to enter into contracts with the Department of Conservation that commit them to maintaining their property in agriculture for 10 years at a time. In return, county assessors are required to tax their land on the agricultural value, rather than the speculative value, and the state provides the counties with partial reimbursement of the value lost. Under SB 1182, which Gov. Wilson has already signed into law, agricultural landowners will be able to switch from traditional Williamson Act contracts to "Farmland Security Zone" agreements. The Farmland Security Zone idea, which was promoted by Sen. Jim Costa, D-Fresno, will work in the following fashion: o Farmland Security Contracts will cover 20 years rather than just 10. o To qualify, land would have to be identified by the state as prime farmland. o Local Agency Formation Commissions (LAFCOs) will be prohibited from annexing any land in a Farmland Security Zone if it is not connected to infrastructure or if the landowner objects. o School districts are prohibited from annexing any land in a Farmland Security Zone. Permit Streamlining Act SB 2005 (Chapter 283, Statutes of 1998) The Legislature passed Sen. Quentin Kopp's SB 2005, which overturns Bickel v. City of Piedmont (1997), 16 Cal.4th 1040. In that ruling - which emerged from a somewhat muddled set of "facts" about a project pending before the Piedmont Planning Commission - the California Supreme Court concluded that an applicant could unilaterally waive the deadlines imposed by state law under the Permit Streamlining Act. Under SB 2005, the only permissible extension is a one-time 90-day extension agreed in writing by both the applicant and the public agency. Housing Elements SB 256 (Chapter 819, Statutes of 1998.) Costa's SB 256 extends yet again the deadline for cities and counties to revise their housing elements. This deadline has been extended for several years, largely because the state has not provided funds to regional councils of governments to update the fair-share housing "targets" on which local housing elements must be based. This year, however, Gov. Wilson retained the necessary funds. Under SB 256, the deadlines will be: o 2000 and 2005 for cities and counties in the Southern California Association of Governments region. o 2001 and 2006 for cities and counties within the Association of Bay Area Governments region. o 2002 and 2007 for Fresno, Kern, Sacramento, and Monterey Counties. o 1999 and 2004 for San Diego. o 2003 and 2008 for all other areas. AB 438 (Chapter 796, Statutes of 1998) This bill, introduced by Assemblyman Tom Torlakson, permits local governments to meet up to 25% of their regional housing need through rehab of existing units if long-term affordability is assured or through the long-term extension of federally subsidized units in danger of losing their subsidies. Redevelopment AB 1342 (Chapter 635, Statutes of 1998) This bill, introduced by Assemblywoman Grace Napolitano, D-Norwalk, loosens the "sunset clause" on older redevelopment project areas that was contained in the major redevelopment reform bill of 1993, commonly known as SB 1290. As signed by Gov. Wilson, this bill permits older redevelopment agencies to extend the life of older project areas without making a finding of blight. The bill was promoted by the City of Cerritos, which has one of the most successful older redevelopment project areas. In its original incarnation, the Napolitano bill contained somewhat broader loosening of the 1993 reforms as they applied to older project areas. Marks-Roos Bonds SB 147 (Chapter 35, Statutes of 1998) Last summer, Wilson signed SB 147, a bill introduced by Sen. Quentin Kopp, I-San Francisco, which appears to be the first piece of what could be larger reform of the Marks-Roos bond pooling law. The law requires projects financed by Marks-Roos bonds to be located in the jurisdiction of at least one of the local agencies that are issuing the bonds. (Marks-Roos bonds are issued by joint-powers authorities). The bill was intended to correct a perceived abuse of Marks-Roos bonds. Marks-Roos bonds are meant to create a pool of funds available to finance infrastructure for new real estate development projects in the community issuing the bonds, but in many cases municipalities have been using their bonding authority to finance speculative real estate projects that are hundreds of miles away. Metropolitan Water District SB 1875 (Awaiting Governor's Action) SB 1885 (Chapter 781, Statutes of 1998) The MWD was engaged in a high-profile debate over whether San Diego should be permitted to buy water from the Imperial Valley (CP&DR September 1998). However, this issue overshadowed other legislative concerns about MWD - most of which are also related to the somewhat rocky internal situation at the giant Southern California water agency. The San Diego situation has highlighted the power struggles among the agency's 27 member agencies. In hopes of resolving these disputes, the Legislature considered several proposals this year to reorganize the MWD's governance structure, which currently consists of 51 directors from the 27 agencies voting on a weighted basis. The Legislature passed AB 1885 (Ayala), a bill to cut the number of directors to 38 without altering the weighted voting system. The Legislature also passed SB 1875 (Hayden), which would ban MWD from funding personal investigations, create an Office of Ethics, and declare water conservation a higher priority.