LOS ANGELES - Hasan Ikhrata, executive director of the Southern California Association of Governments, began this afternoon's general assembly session by saying that the organization's 2012 - 2035 Regional Transportation Plan and Sustainable Communities Strategy "isn't perfect, but it's good." In some circles, that sort of candid modesty would probably get Ikhrata fired, or at least booed off the stage. Instead, he got applause from general assembly members, and none of roughly 20 speakers who offer public comments offered lodged any major objections.  In a room full of public policy wonks and elected officials representing six counties and nearly 200 cities, "good" is good enough.  "It is going to change the way we do business an the way we think about the urban form," said Ikhrata. "It's going to provide choices for people to move around." Shortly after Ikharta's introduction, the general assembly adopted the RTP/SCS on a unanimous vote of its 83 members. The age of climate-friendly, smart-growth regionalism has official begun in Southern California.  "Today's approval of the 2012 – 2035 RTP/SCS was a historic decision made by Southern California elected officials on SCAG's Regional Council.  This action establishes a roadmap to welcome four million new residents and 1.7 million new jobs into our region by 2035," commented Pam O'Connor, SCAG President.  SCAG's is the second RTP/SCS to be adopted under California's 2008 landmark climate change and smart growth law, Senate Bill 375. The San Diego Association of Governments adopted its plan in November, but that plan is facing legal challenges under the California Environmental Quality Act. So far, no one has raised legal objections. The Sacramento Area Council of Governments is soon expected to adopt its SCS and Metropolitan Transportation Plan update.  As CP&DR reported in December, the RTP/SCS is based on a decidedly "bottom-up" approach. The plan does not ask jurisdictions to swallow growth or transportation strategies that they are not already willing to take. And, notably, the plan allows for some subregions to create their own alternative SCS's so that they can meet the greenhouse gas targets of SB 375 as they see fit.  Implementation of the RPT/SCS is now a looming challenge. It is expected to cost $524 billion over 25 years. The plan dedicates 54 percent of funding to transit and non-highway options, more than triples the funding for bike and pedestrian projects, and reduces traffic congestion overall and per-capita delay by 24%--despite the addition of 4 million residents in the 6-county region by 2035. It would locate 87 percent of all jobs and 82 percent of all housing within a half mile of rail stations and bus stops. Apartments and condominiums would account for 68 percent of all development, up from 39 percent in the previous plan. Some environmental highlights of the plan include the following (noted by NRDC's Amanda Eaken on her blog ):  Increases funding for biking and walking by over 350% from $1.8 to $6.7 billion; Spends $246 billion—nearly half the plan's total revenue-- on public transportation; Reduces congestion 24% per capita despite adding 4 million residents; Brings 12 key transit expansion projects to Los Angeles in the next 10 years under Mayor Villaraigosa's 30-10 plan; Creates 60% more housing near transit than is currently available; Creates 4.2 million jobs in the region, 87% of all jobs will be ½ mile from transit; Achieves a 24 % reduction in pollution-caused respiratory problems, resulting in $1.5 billion per year in health care savings' and; Saves over 400 square miles of open space--more than a third the size of Yosemite--from development by shifting to a more walkable land use pattern for the region. Supporters contend that this investment could yield savings of $3,000 per resident because of savings in fuel, electricity, and water. These savings are based on the premise that more compact development patterns will eliminate expenditures on laws, cars, and heating and cooling.   "We can expect a reduction in per capita emissions, supporting the construction of new homes and businesses but with a plan to connect the dwellings with multiple transportation options, preserving the natural beauty of the California landscape for today's recreation and our future generations enjoyment, and ensuring that businesses remain in the Golden State and prosper," said Ikhrata in a statement.

According to Randall Arendt, a renowned planner and fellow of the Royal Institute of Town Planners, the effective planner must have four basic skills: observing, recording, communicating, and self-educating. Given the essential nature of urban planning, it's assumed that most of these skills play out in the real world: streets, buildings, parks, and the like. Unfortunately, many planning jobs keep planners cooped up in offices staring at desktop monitors. Smartphones, however, can reverse this trend, allowing planners to do much of the work they do on computer – researching, analyzing data, and even sketching – in the field, where, ideally, they ought to be. While even planners can get distracted by Angry Birds and Pandora, we can now choose from a host of mainstream and industry-specific apps that can help uphold Arendt's time-honored principles. For example, on the job with Los Angeles County Parks & Recreation, I can use mapping and data analysis apps to evaluate and determine the suitability of potential new sites for parks while out in the field.  Smartphones and apps also come in handy in meetings when I need to quickly research and answer questions about our parks, such as how many residents are within a half-mile of a certain park or which schools are within walking distance of the park.    For planners who haven't yet spent much time in the App Store, here are a few of the most useful apps, many of which are smartphone versions of software and websites with which many planners are already familiar. ArcGIS ( http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/arcgis/id379687930?mt=8 ) While it is not possible to do full blown GIS work on a smartphone, this app allows you to: find and share maps from ArcGIS Online (ESRI's online GIS); use tools to search, identify, measure, and query; and collect, edit, and update GIS features and attributes. Business Analyst Online (BAO) ( http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/bao/id380484178?mt=8 ) BAO allows you to get key demographic and market data about any location in the U.S.  It is a great tool for planners who need to evaluate an area on-site. Users can get up-to-date facts about the people at a location, e.g. age, income, education, home ownership, lifestyle, spending habits; compare one address against another or against the county, state or U.S.; and share facts about a location with others.  Additional features are available for subscribers. Cyurbia ( http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/cyburbia/id446645799?mt=8 ) Cyburbia is the internet's oldest social networking site for urban planners and others interested in shaping the built environment.  The Cyburbia Forums message board allows you to discuss and possibly find solutions to the issues facing your communities, share your knowledge, and enjoy conversation and camaraderie with other planners, architects, students, and other like-minded people. Google Earth ( http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/google-earth/id293622097?mt=8 ) Everyone should be familiar with Google Earth by now. This app offers the same global satellite and aerial imagery available on the desktop version of Google Earth, including high-resolution imagery for over half of the world's population and a third of the world's land mass. Planetizen  ( http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/planetizen/id328082077?mt=8 ) Planetizen is intended to be a one-stop source for urban planning news, commentary, interviews, event coverage, book reviews, announcements, jobs, consultant listings, and training.  This free app allows you to browse Planetizen's daily news summaries, job listings, feature stories, and blog. (Disclosure: Planetizen's parent company manages CP&DR's website.) Planetizen Courses ( http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/planetizen-courses/id483028462?mt=8 ) Planetizen Courses provide online video courses related to the field of urban planning.  With this app, you can learn tools like mapping, Photoshop, and SketchUp, and about topics like pedestrian planning and planning ethics.  This app enables you to view sample chapters (usually the introduction) of urban planning courses available.  Full courses can be viewed in the app when you subscribe on the Planetizen Courses website. SimCity Deluxe ( http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/simcity-deluxe/id380017992?mt=8 ) The idea of building a city from scratch is exciting, especially when compared to the incremental, piecemeal approach to planning most of us have grown accustomed to.  With this app, you can build your dream city, test your ability to handle multifaceted scenarios, and guide your city through seasonal catastrophes. It just may sustain your passion in planning and may even help you gain some useful insights for real life city planning.    All of these apps are available on Apple's App Store and most can be found on Google's Android Market.  Unfortunately, there are no CEQA or post-redevelopment apps yet.  But one can always check out CP&DR's website on a smartphone for the latest news coverage on both topics.

Loath as I am to make grand pronouncements, I think Bay Meadows, the 83-acre project in San Mateo, is possibly the best plan I've seen for a transit oriented development. This mixed-use proposal brings an unaccustomed level of clarity and order to the design of mixed use-neighborhoods near transit stations.  Bay Meadows, in fact, makes most other TODs look almost slipshod and disorganized by comparison. The desire to achieve density, rather than instill a sense of order, often prevails at TODs. The much praised Contra Costa Centre, for example, appears casually planned and suburban compared to Bay Meadows, while others look like dense business parks. But is high-density urban design really incompatible with pedestrian activity? Bay Meadows' site plan, however, is as easy to understand as a diagram. Yet, the irregular and flexible parts of the plan may be equally responsible for its success. Planned for the former site of the Bay Meadows horse racing track just south of the San Mateo County fairgrounds, Bay Meadows is entitled to build up to 1.25 million square feet of office space, 90,000 square feet of retail space and 1,170 apartments and condos.  (The same developer, Wilson Meany Sullivan, was earlier responsible for conversion of the Ferry Building in San Francisco into office space and retail.) As in most other TODs, the biggest buildings are closest to the transit station, in this case a future Caltrain stop (which will replace the current Hillsdale station). Also familiar is the strategy of scaling down development the further one gets from the station. Rather than invention, it's the straightforwardness of the design, prepared by Cooper Robertson of New York, is what makes Bay Meadows a model for other TODs. If I were an academic, I might say that Bay Meadows has lifted the klutzy phenomenon of transit-oriented development to a recognizable building type. (Architects, who seem to love opacity in language, might call it a "typology.") Let's start with the obvious features of the design. Rather than blurring the difference between residential, retail and office buildings, the designers here have made each building type as distinct as possible. Each of the building types–office buildings, retail boxes, apartment clusters—has its own identifiable size, shape and location on the map. Here, the notion of mixed use is more horizontal than vertical, with different kinds of buildings sitting side by side, rather than stacking housing atop storefronts atop one another. Equally important, each building type is arranged in long rows that run down the width of the plan, with the regularity of rows of beads in an abacus. Nearest to the station is a set of five office buildings, known collectively as "The Station." This is Bay Meadows' gesture toward the noble if elusive goal of jobs-housing balance. Immediately east of the big-footed office buildings is a neighborhood-serving shopping street, which appears relatively narrow and pedestrian friendly plan. This is the place for residents to pick up the dry cleaning and a quart of milk, and it provides some eating places for office workers. Large-scale, multifamily housing starts on the eastern edge of the shopping street. Moving further east, the housing is interrupted by a linear park that parallels the almost rigid arrangement of buildings. The park is formal and French-looking, like a silk tie on a white shirt. The park looks small, active and inviting for dog walking and bicycling. One sign of refinement of the Bay Meadows plan is that the landscaping tends to be active, as is only secondarily used as a buffer or negative space.  The major recreational site is a 12-acre park on the north edge of the plan, which looks like a scoop of ice cream atop a piece of apple pie. The park also provides a buffer (see above) to the immense parking lot for the fairgrounds on the immediate north. Flexibility is important to Bay Meadows. Although the plan is set up on a grid, the pie-shaped site does not allow the designers to use a strict, unvarying grid. Instead, the grid is soft-edged, allowing lot lines tend to stretch, contract and sometimes take on irregular contours. Slight irregularities in the shape of individual blocks grow more pronounced as we head east, toward the shift to the diagonal streets. The flexibility, whether "suburban" or not, also makes it possible for the developer to develop the land efficiently, with a minimum of awkward, triangle-shaped spaces left over in the transition from the square grid to the diagonal street. Also, the soft-edge nature of the plan allows the designers to provide a pleasant concave edge to the southern boundary of the big park, rather than an ugly, arbitrary straight line. Nothing in life or urban design is perfect. The designers of Bay Meadows cannot entirely avoid the awkwardness of the site, with the parking lot to the north and a large industrial parcel to the east. In this setting, Bay Meadows may look like a stand-alone suburban island of medium-density development amid big empty spaces. The next place to plan is that parking lot, where hopefully some future developer can extend the orderly urban fabric created at Bay Meadows. Bay Meadows site plan.  An earlier version of this article listed Bay Meadows in Santa Clara County, not San Mateo County. It has been corrected accordingly.

CP&DR is pleased to co-host a launch party for Next American City's new online magazine, Forefront. This event will take place in conjunction with the American Planning Association's Annual Conference in Los Angeles.  What: Next American City's Forefront launch party When: 5pm - 7pm, Sunday, April 15 Where: Wuho Gallery, Hollywood RSVP: RSVP@americancity.org We hope to see you there!  For more information, please see flyer:

You know when you're driving east on Interstate 10, past downtown Los Angeles, and all you can see ahead of you is the jumbled horizon of rooftops, trees, and overpasses? That is, according to the latest Census figures, the true face of density. Don't let any skyscraper-dwelling, subway riding Chicagoan, New Yorker, or Philadelphian say anything different.  Today the US Census released a slew of city-related data from the 2010 Census, and it includes some figures about California that will be startling to anyone who hasn't been paying attention for the past few decades. It reveals that, contrary to 20th century images of shuffling hoards that populate eastern cities, the West now has by far the most dense urban areas in the country. Nine of the top ten densest urban regions are in the west, and the top four are all in California:  Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim ("about 7,000" people per square mile).   San Francisco-Oakland (6,266) San Jose. (5,820)  Delano, Calif. (5,483)  New York-Newark comes in at is fifth, with 5,319 people per square mile.  Setting aside Delano's unexpected star turn, none of this should come as a surprise to planners in California (which also happens to be the "most urban" state, with 95% urban residency). Density is what happens when you build freeways all over the place and everyone gets to live all over the place. For all the objective connotations of these figures, there's no doubt that there's plenty of room for interpretation, which can have deep implications for public policy.   Measures of Density Seven-thousand people per square mile. Does that mean that I'm sharing my particular square mile with 6,999 other people? Of course not. These Census numbers, like almost all statistics, are crude, insofar as they refer to entire urban areas. Moreover, measure of density depends on where demographers draw the line around the "urbanized area." For instance, Manhattan tops out at an astounding 560 residents per acre. San Francisco's central city comes in second place nationally, with 260 per acre. Los Angeles' center city density is 70 per acre. Meanwhile, though Chicago's residental densities are simliar to those of Los Angeles, its central city has 2,200 jobs per acre, compared to L.A.'s 1,200. The moral of the story: the Los Angeles region's density is high on average but evenly spread. New York, Chicago, and the Bay Area have much greater densities in their central places, but then they peter out into more bucolic places like New Canaan, Buffalo Grove, and San Rafael.  Sprawl vs. Density This is one of the bigger non-debates in urban planning. It was stoked a few years ago by Robert Brugmann in his book Sprawl: A Compact History. In short, he argued that the definition of sprawl--i.e. his definition of sprawl--precluded density. This definition implies that sprawl exists only where development has used greenfield land inefficiently, to create spread out houses on the urban fringe. But Brugmann was disingenuous. Density is a demographic measurement. Sprawl refers to the form of land use. That's why CP&DR publisher Bill Fulton has long referred to the Los Angeles area as "dense sprawl," because the built up area spreads out to the horizon despite the fact that it is dense. After Southern California's initial phases of leapfrog development, cities filled in the empty spaces, resulting in a density gradient that is remarkably uniform throughout the region.  Interestingly, this pattern continues in the developing world. A recent study sponsored by the Lincoln Institute for Land Policy found that cities in Latin America are growing larger not by consuming more land on the urban fringes, but rather by filling in undeveloped patches. This pattern means that urban land cover is increasing at surprisingly high rates, because the consumption of infill land is, according to the authors, harder to perceive than is the consumption of urban land. In the Los Angeles area, "dense sprawl" means that residents are living at high densities and yet are spread over a wide geographic area and often in places that don't offer convenient local services. The result: traffic.   Crowding vs. Density In the popular imagination, I gather that there is little distinction between crowds and density. But the two could not be more different. Los Angeles seems like it's not dense because it has few crowds - no Times Square or Michigan Avenue (and no Union Square or Delores Park, for that matter). We rarely experience what P.J. O'Rourke refers to as the "jostle and squash" of urban life (he was talking about the grandstand at the Kentucky Derby, but same difference). So Los Angeles doesn't feel dense because it's not crowded. Until, that is, you enter the Santa Monica Freeway at 5pm.  The Culture of Density The more I visit other cities and the more we discuss the Red State/Blue State divide (which you can extrapolate to Red/Blue counties and even Red/Blue neighborhoods), the more I believe that urban life depends as much on attitude as on demographics or even urban form. Los Angeles has a long history of pretending not to be dense - because for a while, it wasn't.  But even though apartments have replaced single-family homes and we've now hit 7,000 people per square mile, I've always felt a palpable longing among many L.A. residents for the old days of privacy and disconnection. You see it when homeowners protest against apartment developments and when they rail against anything that would bring more cars to a given neighborhood. L.A. does not have a tradition of strolling about or spending afternoons in the park. We look at fellow Angelenos with suspicion, as if each one of them is a competitor for the last open parking space on earth. By contrast, a city like Portland, Oregon, embraces walking, biking, and riding public transit even though the urban area is not nearly as large or dense as those in California. That's a cultural choice that Portlanders have made. Meanwhile, down south, the backyard, the fence, and the swimming pool dominate the city's mentality, no matter how many thousands of neighbors you have.  Density and Urban Form Generally, progressive planners and smart growth advocates seem to like density. In its crudest form, greater degrees of density probably can lead to more functional, pleasant cities. But it's not the numbers that matter. The L.A. area could have a density of 7,000, 14,000, or 1,000. As I told the L.A. Daily News' Dakota Smith for her article on this very subject, what matters is how a city carries its density.  Some dense cities (NYC, San Francisco) have great transit and appealing streets. For instance, according to the University of California Transportation Center, the combined percentages of commuters who walk or use public transit in New York is 36%. In SF-Oakland, it's 20% and in Washington, DC, it's 18%. Los Angeles? 8%. Meanwhile, some sparsely settled cities (Salt Lake, Phoenix) have wide, fast boulevards that, if not pleasant, at least make them easy to get around. Then there's Los Angeles, which offers the worst of both worlds: it's too dense for traffic to flow, but not quite dense enough--and not designed well enough--to foster the street life that makes other big cities so wonderful.  The Future of Density: Smart Growth & SB 375 The relatively uniform density that has arisen in Southern California, thus far, is largely the result of a relatively free market for development and the relative dominance of the automobile. In this land rush, quantity overwhelmed quality, and the result is the land use equivalent of a television tuned to static. It's busy, uniform, and incoherent. More entropic than organized.  For about the past few years, however, planners in California have been trying to figure out what do with all this density now that we have it. The solution--or so some hope--is Senate Bill 375. While full implementation is still a long way off, the intent of SB 375 is to do exactly what California's major urban regions have not done in the past: it focuses density into places that can best accommodate it. Public transit offers the most obvious accommodations, and SB 375 encourages cities to nudge dense development towards light rail stops, major bus routes, and the like. It also promotes a better mix of residential and commercial, so that one day residents can walk around the corner for that quart of milk rather than drive to the Super Walmart.  If cities implement the tenets of SB 375's Sustainable Communities Strategies--regional plans being drawn up by the metropolitan planning organizations of San Diego, Sacramento, the Bay Area, and Southern California (Los Angeles)--then density may no longer be hidden. It will be plain to see in the streetscapes. And if California residents can accept the fact that we are, indeed, an urban state, maybe, by the time we hit 8,000 per square mile, we'll look like one too.

Perhaps more quickly than anyone would have thought, the California Legislature is already considering a collection of bills designed to both smooth the process of dissolving redevelopment agencies and to introduce new tools that cities can use in redevelopment's absence. For supporters of redevelopment, Senate Bill 1585 (Perez) is the Holy Grail. Or, if not the Holy Grail, at least a big help. It both cleans up some of the challenging aspects of Assembly Bill X1 26, thus making the dissolution process clearer for successor agencies, and expands the definition of enforceable obligations. The other bill that has gotten significant attention is SB 654 (Steinberg) which would restore some funds for low- and moderate-income housing. That bill has received support from nearly every housing advocacy group in the state, most of which decried the loss of redevelopment's 20% set-aside for affordable housing. With the Legislature's spring recess upcoming, from March 29 to April 9, several bills have been making progress. SB 654 (Steinberg) – Affordable Housing SB 654 modifies provisions relating to the transfer of Low- and Moderate-Income Housing Funds (LMIHF) and responsibilities associated with dissolved redevelopment agencies. SB 654's provisions modify the scope of the term "enforceable obligation" and require that any unencumbered amounts on deposit in the LMIHF of a dissolved redevelopment agency be transferred to specified entities. Status: Passed out of Senate, 34-1. SB 986 (Dutton) – RDA Bond Funds SB 986 provides that all bond proceeds that were generated by a former redevelopment agency shall be deemed to be encumbered and prohibits a successor agency from sending these proceeds to the county auditor-controller. The bill requires that these bond proceeds must be used by the successor agency for the purposes for which the bonds were sold pursuant to an enforceable obligation that was entered into either by the former agency or its successor agency by December 14, 2014. Status: Heard in Senate Governance and Finance Committee March 21. SB 1151 (Steinberg) - Accounting for Properties This bill would require the successor agency to prepare a long range asset management plan that outlines a strategy for maximizing the long-term value of the real property and assets of the former redevelopment agency for ongoing economic development and housing functions. The bill would require the successor agency to submit the plan to the Department of Finance and the oversight board by December 1, 2012, and would require the approval of the plan by the department and oversight board by December 31, 2012. Status: Will be heard in the Senate Governance and Finance Committee on April 18. SB 1156 (Steinberg) – Community Development SB 1156 would enable cities and counties to establish a "community development and housing joint powers authority" to assume successor agency responsibilities and create an additional sales tax to fund sustainable economic development and affordable housing. Status: Will be heard in Senate Transportation & Housing Committee on April 10. SB 1220  (De Saulnier) – Affordable Housing SB 1220 titled the "Housing Opportunity Trust Fund Act of 2012," would establish a permanent source of funding for affordable housing.  The funding would come through the imposition of a $75 fee on the recordation of each real-estate document, and such funds would be used to support the development, acquisition, rehabilitation, and preservation of affordable housing. Status: Referred to committees on Transportation & Housing and Governance and Finance. AB 1585 (Perez) – AB X1 26 Cleanup/Enforceable Obligations AB 1585 also expands the definition of "enforceable obligation" to include any loans between the agency and the host city or county within two years of the date of creation of the redevelopment agency or within two years of the date of the creation of a project area if the loan is specific to that project area. Other loans may be also be deemed enforceable obligations provided that the oversight board makes a finding that the loan was for legitimate redevelopment purposes. There are other provisions clarifying the functions of successor agencies and oversight boards. Status: Passed Appropriations Committee, 11-3; passed Assembly, 58-7. Will be heard in the Senate after April 9.

As cities wrestle with the process of dissolving their redevelopment agencies, Assembly Bill 1585 (Perez) has been advancing through the state legislature. AB 1585 is designed to clean up many of the holes and ambiguities in AB X1 26, the budget bill that mandated the dissolution of redevelopment agencies and includes the provisions for liquidating their assets.  On Wednesday, the Assembly Local Government Committee heard and passed AB 1585, which is an urgency bill. Earlier today the measure was heard and passed by the Appropriations Committee at a special meeting. It could be heard on the Assembly floor as early as Monday and then, if approved, sent to the Senate before the end of next week. The Legislature goes on a two-week recess Friday, Mar. 30.  Many supporters of the bill have hailed the bill for making the dissolution process more clear and, importantly, for expanding the definition of enforceable obligations to include the repayment of loans made by cities to former redevelopment agencies. Opponents contend that this provision, among others, goes too far. Representatives from Los Angeles and Santa Clara counties testified against AB 1585.  At a recent speech in Los Angeles, County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky said that the bill "carries water for redevelopment" and attempts to undermine the transfer of funds to state and county coffers. Meanwhile, it has broad support from affordable housing advocates and from local agencies.

UCLA professor Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris was perhaps ahead of her time when she said in 1995 that "the ever-changing urban form and social ecology of neighborhoods calls for a flexible rather than rigid park design and for spatial layouts that can be easily changed in response to future needs…One can even think of mobile parks-spaces whose equipment and furniture can be transported to other parts of the city if the need arises."   As a park planner, I know firsthand how expensive and time-consuming it is to acquire land and build new parks.  It typically takes years before new parks can be provided due to bureaucratic, financial, political, and other constraints.  Portable parks and mobile gyms may sound strange at first, but they may be entirely appropriate given the urgent need for additional recreational opportunities in underserved areas and the high costs of developing new permanent recreational facilities. Portable Parks Portable parks can bring the experience of nature into unexpected locations in urban neighborhoods.  Recently, I witnessed how Portable Parks IV, a public art exhibit by artist Bonnie Ora Sherk, transformed a mall site and raised awareness of ecological sustainability and urban agriculture. This ten-day display at Santa Monica Place included mini-gardens of drought-tolerant plants and edible organic landscape consisting of fruit trees, flowers, herbs, and vegetables.  It was also accompanied by a series of art installations, artistic/interpretive signage, performances, and public programs that addressed sustainability and consumption.  While building parks in needy neighborhoods can take years and cost millions of dollars, portable parks—set up in parking lots, lawns, playgrounds, and other open spaces—can provide temporary and inexpensive relief for park-starve inner city residents.  Mobile Gyms Gaining traction in cities like Los Angeles, Atlanta, and Cleveland, mobile gyms are typically privately operated facilities that provide opportunities for residents to work out.  Because they may be parked at any location where vehicles are allowed they can serve marginalized communities with not access to private health clubs or to proper public facilities. While most mobile gyms target adults and offer modern exercise equipment, there are a number of companies that operate vehicles specifically for children.  For example, the Gymagic Bus (Pennsylvania) is a mini-gym on wheels equipped with: bars, beam, incline mats, barrel mats, a zip line, monkey bars, mini-tramp, and rock climbing wall for kids. New York City has even experimented with mobile pools made from repurposed garbage dumpsters.  Park Avenue was shut down to cars on three consecutive Saturdays last summer so that people could spread out to bike, walk, play, watch live theater, and swim.  Each 8-by-22 foot "dumpster pool" is surrounded by a wrap-around deck and has its own built-in water filtration system.  These portable pools can be used in any city, and are relatively inexpensive and easy to transport to different neighborhoods.  Also, it is significantly cheaper to use dumpster pools than to build and maintain permanent pools and the parks where they are typically found.  Mobile pools could be used in underserved communities in California, especially during the hot summer months when the demand for these facilities could be high. Challenges and Solutions • \t Regulations: It is unclear how and whether planning and/or health departments would regulate mobile gyms. If cities choose to regulate mobile gyms, they should do so by establishing a clear approval/permitting process for such temporary uses. One model is the letter-grading system that Los Angeles County uses for mobile food vendors to indicate whether a truck made the grade according to public health inspectors. • \t Operation and Funding: Mobile gyms are typically privately operated, although a few cities have "parks on wheels" vehicles.  An important policy question is whether local governments should operate their own mobile gyms or offer funding and/or incentives to private operators to serve underserved communities.  Without some government subsidy or support, private operators may not venture into park-poor areas even if the need is great.  Funding may be available through public health-related grants as both federal and state governments have committed funds to promote healthy communities.    • \t Coordination: Creating and accommodating portable parks will require different stakeholders to work together.  They may include public artists, urban farmers, florists, operators of shopping malls, the local parks department, and organizers of farmers markets.  The success of the Portable Parks IV exhibit proves that effective collaboration is possible regardless of how diverse the group of stakeholders is.   Conclusion As Dr. Loukaitou-Sideris suggested, planners and decision-makers must explore innovative strategies to meet the growing and evolving recreational needs of California's underserved communities.  Portable parks and mobile gyms are new and exciting ways to bring in outside recreational resources to needy neighborhoods.  Of course, there would be some challenges, but they should not stop us from trying out alternative ideas with the potential to yield great benefits.     A portable park art project at the Santa Monica Place mall.   Clement Lau is a planner with the Los Angeles County Department of Parks and Recreation.

For many jurisdictions that are part of California's "Big Four" metropolitan planning organizations, Senate Bill 375 has ushered in new, unprecedented degrees of collaboration. But whereas SB 375 makes a regional planning revolution for many, for the jurisdictions of the Sacramento Area Council of Governments, the SCS is business as usual. Having pursued so-called "Blueprint" planning since 2004, and having built its 2008 Metro Transportation Plan (MTP) around it, the Sacramento region's efforts inspired some of the tenets of SB 375 in the first place. The SACOG SCS, released in November and scheduled to be voted on next month, is no novel concept but rather more of a revision of existing plans. It has been met with broad support in part because the heavy lifting was done years ago. "It's been a nudge. It's not like it was a revolution," said McKeever. "The revolution happened when the Blueprint was adopted." Thus far, developers, environmental groups, and member cities alike have hailed the plan. In fact, the enthusiastic support is a far cry from the response to San Diego's SCS, which was hit with a lawsuit at the same time that SACOG released its draft. That lawsuit claims that the SCS favors highway too heavily and increases sprawl in the region. In addition to the environmental groups that filed the suit, Attorney General Kamala Harris recently joined the suit. No such complaints have been lodged in the Sacramento area and scarce opposition has arisen. The SCS responds in part to estimates for population growth that have recently been revised downward. Those residents who do move to, and are born into, the region will, as is typical in smart-growth planning scenarios, have a greater selection of high-density housing stock. The SCS assumes that the region, currently at 2.2 million residents, will grow by roughly 871,000 residents— 400,000 fewer than the 2008 MTP assumes – translating to 361,000 new jobs and just over 300,000 new housing units. The SCS calls for all of this new growth to consume only 56,000 acres of greenfield land. As SACOG executive director Mike McKeever noted, that amounts to a 40% population increase while increasing the region's development footprint only 7%. As a result of this more compact development pattern, the region is expected to meet its goals for greenhouse gas emissions. SACOG's models estimate that vehicle miles traveled per household will decrease by 6%. Traffic congestion is expected to decrease 7% by 2035, as compared to an increase of 22% projected by the 2008 MTP. These reductions in traffic stem largely from new investments in a range of transportation modes. The MTP/SCS calls for the expansion of metro Sacramento's two light rail lines, the introduction of a streetcar in West Sacramento, and a host of bus improvements, including bus rapid transit. It also calls for spending on new arterial roads. Notably, the plan also calls for $2.8 billion in investment in bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure, which is projected to spur a 32% increase in the hose of those modes. "We've really turned a corner on what's happened in the Sacramento area since about 1980," said Matt Baker, habitat director at the Environmental Council of Sacramento. "We feel it can be improved by developing an implementation plan for a comprehensive network for active transportation – bike and ped – in alignment with the transportation network." McKeever said that the SCS/MTP also projects an increase in transit ridership and, notably, a farebox recovery rate that will increase from today's 24% to 38% in 2035. "That may seem like a boring number to people, but that's a huge difference in terms of having an economically viable transit region in this region," said McKeever. He said that, at those rates, the region would have an extra $1 billion to re-invest in transit. Single-family large-lot housing is planned to grow by 29% while single family small-lot and attached housing is planed to grow by 71 percent. All of this is projected to result in a far smaller growth footprint than that created during the previous few decades, when subdivisions of single-family detached homes spread across former farmland. The SCS approaches land use and new development from three different perspectives: that of community type, Blueprint principles, and Transit Priority Areas. The region's five community types range include (1) centers and corridors (i.e. major employment centers); (2) established communities; (3) developing communities; (4) rural residential communities; and (5) lands not intended to be developed. The plan attempts to focus growth on the more dense, established places. As well, it overlays the concept of Transit Priority Areas (TPA), which are defined as areas within one-half mile of transit service with at least 15-minute headways. This would include the region's light rail lines and certain high-capacity bus lines, both existing and planned. The SCS intends for developments in TPA's to take advantage of SB 375's relaxation of CEQA requirements, thus promoting infill development that will reduce per capita vehicle miles travelled. These predictions come from what McKeever describes as an innovative "activity-based" modeling methodology. The land-use modeling uses I-Places, an industry standard. He described the transportation model as unusually precise—measuring trips on a per-parcel basis—and accounting for the "tours" that drivers take during the day as they travel not only between home and work but also to intermediary locations along the way. McKeever said that this sort of modeling did not necessarily bias the projections towards more trips or fewer trips; rather, he said, it is simply more precise than methods used in the past. "It's not that there's a bias in the model one way or another," said McKeever. "It's more that it's just a more precise way to estimate travel behavior." McKeever offered the example of a transit oriented development: "(Without) a parcel-based ability in both your land use and transportation models…wou lose your ability to figure out whether putting that TOD in that particular place would have any meaningful impact on travel behavior or not." The RTP also calls for the expanded transit service to reach 150,000 residents and 240,000 employees who do not currently have easy access to transit. Between 1988 and 2005, SACOG estimates that the region grew by approximately 657,000 people while consuming 200,00 acres of farmland. The new MTP/SCS calls for 800,000 new residents to consume only 36,000 more acres of farmland. Unlike those in other the three regions that are implementing SCS's, the SACOG SCS takes pains to preserve farmland, as agriculture is to the Sacramento region what tech is to San Francisco and entertainment is to Los Angeles. "It's a particularly big deal to us because our farm economy is a big deal in this region," said McKeever. "Farm products is one of the few things that we actually make in this region and export to the world. We get a lot of extra multiplier value and we want to save as much of that dirt as we can." This avoidance of developing on farmland is complemented by the region's Urban-Rural Connection Strategy. This program seeks to analyze the relationship between agricultural areas and urban centers with respect to issues such as local food supplies, transportation routes, infrastructure demands, and irrigation. Despite this sensitivity to the agriculture industry, some in the region's rural counties are wary of the SCS's prescription for compact growth. "A lot of elected officials don't like to tie themselves to a plan that might limit their ability to do business with developers," said Yuba County Supervisor Mary Jane Griego, a member of the SACOG board. "I think the hangup might have been that this plan felt to some like it was stepping on their land." Griego said, however, that public officials in Yuba County are content with the plan. "We're a small agricultural county and wanted to make sure that growth is in appropriate areas," said Greigo. "We wanted to preserve our farmland and make sure that we kept that business for a long time." Griego added that many pro-development officials in rural counties may be dreaming that the boom of the early 2000s will rise again. Greigo called such predictions "unrealistic." "Content" generally describes the mood of the environmental community. However, the Environmental Council of Sacramento has raised a few concerns about the amount of ecologically sensitive areas that could be impacted by the SCS upon build-out. Baker noted that the Rural-Urban Connections program includes meticulous research about the impact of urbanization on the agricultural community but that the SCS's analysis of ecological impacts is not as deep or conclusive. As well, they believe that the SCS allows land to be wasted on housing types whose time has come and gone. "We do applaud reduced growth footprint, but we also feel that there is too large of a percentage of large-lot, single family residences in the plan," said Baker. "The plan's proportion of large-lot single family housing does not reflect the oversupply that we already have in the area." One crucial constituency that embraces the SCS is that of SACOG's member cities. There seems to be an unusually strong symbiotic relationship between cities and the MPO in that cities in the region have been updating their general plan with the Blueprint in mind. To the extent that the SCS reflects the Blueprint, it is very much in line with what cities are already anticipating. "From the city's perspective, the planning work that we've done to-date – we updated our general plan three years ago – and we did that consistent with the smart growth and blueprint principles that were already laid out," said Erik de Kok, senior planner with the City of Sacramento. "You can't just paste those general plans together and say, ‘this is our regional plan,'" said McKeever. "That being said, our land use pattern is largely consistent with the general plans." This sort of synergy is a reason why Eliot Rose, deputy director of UC-Berkeley's Center for Resource Efficient Communities, considers the SACOG SCS a standout among its peers. Rose praised the plan for clearly describing and explaining the changes in land use that it recommends, for using demographic data in a sophisticated way, and in reflecting cooperation between the regional body and its member jurisdictions. "SACOG distinguishes really clearly between the roles that local land use plans, demographic, and economic trends that sometimes often are best analyzed at the regional level play in shaping land use change," said Rose. In doing so, Rose said that SACOG may have avoided some of the problems that are plaguing SANDAG. "They've taken a lot of steps to demystify this process and be transparent about it rather than rolling a lot of different local decisions and independent policies and programs together and presenting them as part of a package that may not actually be that cohesive behind the scenes," said Rose. Rose might get some disagreement from supporters of the Tea Party movement. Over the past year, Tea Party supporters have voiced strong opinions in public meetings concerning SCS's throughout the state. Many of them object to centralized government planning and contend that SCS's are designed to limit residents' freedom of choice and to socially engineer a less free lifestyle. McKeever said that Tea Party opposition has not been as strong in the SACOG region as it has been in the Bay Area, but he noted that the region's rural counties are strongholds of Tea Party sentiment. In light of the Tea Party's outspokenness, McKeever said that SACOG has been prepared with responses to their concerns. "We try to explain that much of what we try to do is in some ways consistent with what they're saying," said McKeever. "They talk about freedom and variety and options and choice and those are all things that are central to what we're trying to do." Contacts & Resources:  SACOG SCS/MTP  (PDF) Matt Baker, Habitat Director, Environmental Council of Sacramento, 916.444.0022 Erik de Kok, Sr. Planner, City of Sacramento, 916.264.5011 Mary Jane Griego, Yuba County Supervisor, .530.749.7510 Mike McKeever, Executive Director, SACOG, 916.321.9000 Eliot Rose, Deputy Director, UC-Berkeley Center for Resource Efficient Communities, 510.642.0779

In San Diego County, a dispute involving a long overdue application for a conditional use permit has resulted in the closure of a church that had been essentially squatting in a trailer park for over 25 years.  The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held that a church's claim that a land use permit regulation violated the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000, 42 U.S.C. § 2000cc ("RLUIPA") was not ripe for judicial review because the church had not completed the requirements for the use permit, and therefore the courts could not determine the particular burden that the church would have to shoulder under the challenged regulation. In 1986, the Guatay Christian Fellowship moved to a recreation building on the grounds of a trailer park in an unincorporated portion of San Diego County. The park was zoned "rural residential." While use permits are not required for religious assembly in five of the county's twelve commercial zones, and in one of the County's residential zones, the building in question was not located within such a zone.  Soon after the church moved into the building, a county employee informed the church secretary that the church would have to submit a use permit application. The secretary then prepared and attempted to submit an application in person to the county offices, but after speaking with several people at the county offices, ultimately did not turn in the application.   A new owner bought the property shortly after the church began using the building in 1986. In March 1988, the owner submitted an application to the county for a minor deviation from the approved use permit in order to relocate six of the park's RV trailer sites.  The plot plan submitted with this application labeled the building as a recreation hall and did not mention a church. The County Planning Department disapproved the proposed minor deviation plan, in part because the existing recreation hall was being used as a church. A county employee again informed the church that "it seemed that the church would probably require a major use permit."   No use permit application was ever completed. Nonetheless, the church continued to use the property for religious assembly for the next 20 years. The County issued a Notice of Violation (NOV) to the Park via the owner in April 16, 2008, which identified numerous violations, including the recreation building being "illegally converted for use as a church."  The NOV required that the church stop using the building for religious assembly.  The county separately informed the church that because the property was not zoned for religious assembly and no permit had been obtained to allow such use, the continued operation of the church for that purpose was illegal.   The church ceased all religious assembly on the property and brought an action in U.S. District Court, alleging claims that the county enforced a land use regulation in violation of the church's constitutional and statutory rights under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and RLUIPA. The District Court granted summary judgment, holding that the church's claims were not ripe for review.  The church appealed.  The Ninth Circuit affirmed.   The court first disposed of the church's argument that the principles of equitable estoppel should spare the church from completing the use permit application process.  The church failed to satisfy several elements of estoppel under California state law.  The county had never expressly stated that the church's use was permitted, and the church could not rely on lack of county enforcement to support its estoppel argument. The court then held that the church's claim was not ripe for judicial review.  As a matter of first impression, the Ninth Circuit applied that ripeness rule to RLUIPA claims because, in land use contexts, the final decision requirement (1) aids in developing a full record; (2) is the sole means by which a court can know precisely how the regulation at issue would finally be applied to the property; (3) might provide the relief the landowner seeks without requiring the courts to engage in unnecessary constitutional analysis; and (4) accords with principles of federalism because, by encouraging resolution of land use disputes at the local level, it evinces the judiciary's appreciation that land use disputes are uniquely matters of local concern.  Here, the Court was unable to determine if the church has suffered a "substantial burden" under RLUIPA until the church had submitted at least one use permit application to the county.  The Ninth Circuit did not consider, and left for another day, the church's argument that the costs of complying with the county's use permit requirements (a) is a "substantial burden" under RLUIPA because such costs are "unreasonable and unattainable" for a non-profit organization in its position, and (b) implies that the county has deliberately imposed these requirements to quash the church's religious exercise.   The Case: Guatay Christian Fellowship v. County of San Diego , ___ F.3d ___, 2011 U.S.App. LEXIS 25581 (9th Cir. 2011) The Attorneys:  Peter D. Lepiscopo, Lepiscopo & Morrow, San Diego, California, for the appellant Thomas D. Bunton, Senior Deputy, County of San Diego, San Diego, California, for the appellee

As the adage goes, they may not be making any more real estate these days. But, for some bargain-hunters, the death of redevelopment may be the next best thing.  In the coming months, successor agencies and their oversight boards will be deciding which in-progress redevelopment projects will go forward and, conversely, which assets will be disposed of. Presumably, all of those assets that are not placed on respective agencies' lists of enforceable obligations will be sold and their proceeds dedicated to local taxing entities. Uncertainty about the fate of those properties—both the prices they will fetch and, perhaps more importantly, the developments that could result—are adding to cities' anxieties during the wind-down of redevelopment.  Properties held by successor agencies fall generally under a few categories:  • Larger, developable sites that need no unusual preparation or environmental remediation. • Small parcels that had been intended to be merged with others to form viable development sites. • Contaminated sites awaiting publically financed remediation. • Dilapidated historic structures awaiting publically or privately renovation. • Sites acquired and designated for affordable housing.  • Sites acquired and designated for infrastructure and public services.  The number of such holdings ranges from zero in some cities to roughly 400 in Los Angeles. The former Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Agency holds around $300 million in property that was intended to be leveraged into roughly $3 billion in investments, according to CRA/LA spokesperson Richard Bloom. But those numbers do not necessarily have anything to do with the values once properties are liquidated—that figure is unknown even to the agency itself.  The city is hoping for a few blockbusters, at least in high-profile former project areas such as Hollywood.  "It's location, location, location," said Bloom. "Some of these properties are going to be extremely attractive to developers." Renata Simril, managing director at real estate services firm Jones Lang LaSalle and formerly a developer with Forest City Enterprises, said that many former RDA properties will be inherently unattractive to developers, if not because of their site characteristics then because of their locations.  "I think it's important to note that redevelopment's function was to help provide tools in blighted or underserved," said Simril. "So by nature of them being RDA project areas, the majority are very depressed areas." Bloom said that the agency is currently putting together a list of its assets, but even the most detailed list will not reveal the properties' market values.  "There's a conflict between expeditiously selling this stuff and selling it at the highest value," said Bloom.  Riverside Mayor Ron Loveridge put it even less diplomatically. "The instructions are to sell them ‘expeditiously,'" said Loveridge." "I'm not quite sure what that phrase represents." Loveridge estimated that Riverside has about 160 properties that could be liquidated. He said that figure is comparable to those of neighboring cities in the Inland Empire, which has been famously hard-hit in the recession.   "Across the state, you multiply ours and a lot of properties are going to be on the market at a very down time in the economy," said Loveridge.  A notable foil to Los Angeles and its large Southern California neighbors is San Francisco. Tiffany Bohee, interim executive director of the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency, said that the city has relatively few un-contracted properties on its books. San Francisco is often considered an anomaly in the redevelopment world because the city and county are one in the same; therefore, the city had less incentive to shield tax monies through redevelopment.   Cities are, of course, hoping that these properties fetch top dollar from developers who are eager to carry out the cities' redevelopment plans. But that's a best-case scenario. The process and timelines by which these sales may take place have yet to be determined. Timing could drastically affect the value of certain assets, as California's real estate market remains soft and successor agencies may be forced to take relatively low bids unless they are permitted to wait until more opportune moments. Meanwhile, certain properties may find few, or no, bidders no matter when they go on the market. Statewide, redevelopment held countless marginal properties and even properties that would be considered useless to anyone but the agencies themselves. Agencies acquired slivers of real estate with the intention of folding them into larger assemblies, and they own untold acres of contaminated properties that many of them were intending to remediate with funds provide by the "Polanco" brownfields program. (The Polanco program, created by AB 3193 in 2005, provides some immunity from liability for redevelopment agencies and successor property owners of contaminated sites.) While small agencies may have no trouble cataloging their holdings, some larger agencies are struggling just to figure out how many properties they own and what those properties are like.  "Part of the challenge of compiling the list of things you're going to sell is not only figuring out the properties but also tracking down all the funding sources...and the strings attached in that regard," said Bloom. "Are there environmental remediation issues or anything else that might affect the value of a piece of property...and then look at the market value?  It's sort of hard to know until you put it on the market."  Many of the properties that are likely to catch developers' eyes—and therefore fetch the highest prices—are also those that cities considered crucial for their redevelopment plans. In downtown San Diego, the former Centre City Development Corp. may have to liquidate properties that had been set aside for such crucial facilities as parks and fire stations. Though those projects were in only the early planning stages, CCDC had acquired properties with the express purpose of securing them before developers did.  CCDC contends that selling those properties—and thus losing the opportunity to build parks and fire stations—imperils the robust residential development that is planned for the area. Intended high rises and their thousands of would-be residents will have inadequate fire protection and limited access to open space, both of which, planners say, are crucial for creating a viable community there.  "If downtown continues to build out and absorb up to 90,000 people by 2030 with no new parks and no new fire stations, at some point it's just not going to be a livable place anymore," said Graham.  Many cities fear that developers who acquire former RDA properties will have little incentive to build anything resembling that which the redevelopment plans had envisioned.  "One of the uncertainties about this is that if you have five people want a property and the one who bids the most money is the worst of the five, do you go to the highest bidder?" said Loveridge. "If you're the highest bidder and you're not selected, do you go to court?"   Moreover, without redevelopment agencies will no longer be around to negotiate for other ancillary community benefits.  "The agency was able, in its day, to not only get projects built, but also to get other community benefits in exchange for the agencies subsidies they were able to extract various commitments from developers to help get these projects built....a whole lot of that stuff obviously goes by the board," said Bloom.  Zoning controls may thus offer cities their only remaining means of controlling land uses in former project areas. Graham said that the City of San Diego is considering a zoning change that would make its intended fire station and park sites for "public use." The city had not previously done so because CCDC controlled the properties already.  "There are some controls available to a city to help maximize some of the more marketable properties because they have the ability to impose zoning/land use planning controls," said Iris Yang, at attorney with Best Best and Krieger, who specializes in redevelopment.   Of course, the potential for selling properties, no matter how attractive or marginal they may be, first depends on the decisions of successor agencies' oversight boards and the state Department of Finance. Cities are intensely wary of the process by which both entities will decide properties' fates.  "There's absolutely no direction on how the oversight board conducts its meeting, how it liquidates assets, there are no procedures in place to standardize any of that," said Graham, echoing common criticisms of Assembly Bill X1 26, the bill that guides the dissolution process. "It appears that each county and city will be crating its own process as it plods along." Cities are particularly anxious about what will happen in the event of disagreement.   "We don't know how forcible the Department of Finance is going to be in reviewing the decisions of 400-plus oversight boards throughout the state," said Graham. "How fair is that?"  Contacts:  Richard Bloom, Spokesperson, Community Redevelopment Agency of Los Angeles, 213.977.1600 Jeff Graham, Spokesperson, Centre City Development Corp. (San Diego), 619.235.2200 Ron Loveridge, Mayor, City of Riverside, 951.826.5311 Renata Simril, Jones Lang LaSalle, 213.239.6000

Though most cities maintained full-time redevelopment teams, not all the work was done in-house. That would be hard to do in a $5 billion annual industry, with countless moving parts in hundreds of agencies across the state.  As with many public sector entities, redevelopment agencies retained consultants for a wide range of services and special projects and services. Consulting firms often to helped to devise plans, draw up deals for market rate development and affordable housing, and identify project areas in accord with redevelopment law.   When Gov. Jerry Brown announced his intention to shut down redevelopment agencies early last year—and then when the California Supreme Court handed down a nightmare ruling for RDAs—consulting firms were as surprised as anyone else was.   "Many assumed that ‘worst case' translated into ‘least likely,'" said John Oshimo, of RC Associates, of the Supreme Court's ruling.  Whatever the aggregate benefit of the shutdown of redevelopment may be, the abrupt cessation of a six-decade-old industry has taken a tremendous human toll, not just among redevelopment staff but also among the dozens of consulting firms whose practices depended, in part and sometimes in whole, on contracts with redevelopment agencies.  "Some of the consulting firms are going to shrink – of course they are!" said David Rosen, principal of David Paul Rosen & Associates. "You've easily got a couple of billion in cash flow that's gone."   Rosen said that, because his is a national firm, it is large and diversified enough to weather the loss of redevelopment-related business. But others are not so secure.  Oshimo, whose employs only five consultants, said that the disappearance of redevelopment came abruptly, even with projects underway.  "(Dissolution) has been tremendous. It eliminated all the projects that we were scheduled for," said Oshimo. "We were in the middle of a few projects that got put on hold." Oshimo said that he has not had to let any of his staff go. The same cannot be said for Kathleen Rosenow, principal of the Rosenow Spevacek Group, Inc. of Santa Ana. Rosenow said she has laid off roughly one-third of her staff in the past year.     Rosenow said that most of their work was on a project-by-project basis. All projects that did not already have construction projects are unlikely to be approved as enforceable obligations by successor agencies' oversight boards. As such, any project that was still being evaluated by consultants is unlikely to make the cut.  "How we have dealt with that is through layoffs and attrition," said Rosenow.  The Feb. 1 deadline did not of course eliminate all redevelopment-related work in California. To the contrary, successor agencies are working as intensively as ever on their wind-down. But former redevelopment agency staff are clinging to their own jobs, and the budget for the wind-down does not necessarily enable successor agencies to call for consulting help, no matter how badly it may be needed.  "There's a lot of trying to figure out how to administer a lot of paperwork," said Rosenow.  Successor agencies are, however, seeking legal advice.  Unlikely their consultant counterparts, lawyers who specialize in redevelopment law have found themselves with plenty of new business – at least those who have quickly developed expertise in the new world governed by Assembly Bill X1 26.  "We're very busy right now and have been probably for the last year because of the threat of dissolution, the ups and downs of what bills would be passed, and trying to help agencies work through all the various issues during that time," said Iris Yang, an attorney with Best Best and Krieger.  Short of earning legal degrees in a pinch, consulting firms are holding out for a new version of redevelopment to arise. By then, the decimation of city staffs may create a greater demand than ever for consulting services. May think that affordable housing is likely to be revived relatively soon, especially with a bill pending in Sacramento that would restore the equivalent of the 20% set-aside.  "I think that everyone feels that at least the affordable housing or the set-aside funds will eventually come back," said Oshimo.  Not everyone is so optimistic, however.  "I don't really have a lot of hope for those companies," said Larry Kosmont, whose firm, The Kosmont Cos., performs a wide range of land-use consulting services. "They are going to have to retool dramatically. Many of these companies have been involved in the arcane business for a long time."  Contacts:  Larry Kosmont, The Kosmont Companies, 213.417.3300 John Oshimo, RC Associates Inc., 626.331.6373 David Rosen, David Paul Rosen & Assoc., 510.451.2552 Kathleen Rosenow, Rosenow Spevacek Group, Inc., 714.541.4585