In a decision bolstering farmland preservation, the First District Court of Appeal has ruled that Humboldt County can enforce updated land use regulations against a landowner whose original Williamson Act contract predates the regulations. The court determined that unless they are cancelled, Williamson Act contracts renew every year and therefore are subject to newly adopted regulations for agricultural preserves. Thus, Humboldt County regulations approved in 1978 applied to the land in question, even though the original Williamson Act contract was signed in 1977. The property owner argued that the 1978 regulations — which increased the minimum parcel size for some agricultural preserve lands from 160 acres to 600 acres — could not be enforced because the new parcel size restriction would be a unilateral change to the 1977 contract. The court rejected that argument. " s a legal matter, by renewing a Williamson Act contract on each anniversary date, the parties entered into a new contract each year," Justice Mark Simons wrote for the unanimous three-judge panel. The California Farm Bureau Federation praised the ruling, which it said "strengthened and clarified" the Williamson Act. A ruling in the other direction would have converted the Williamson Act into a shield with which property owners could block the application of local plans and regulations, according to the federation. The litigation achieved prominence in Humboldt County because of longstanding controversy over rural land use regulations and because the two sides combined had reportedly spent about $4 million in legal fees. The litigation has received statewide attention because the ultimate outcome could impact Williamson Act implementation elsewhere. About 16 million acres in California, or about half of all privately owned land, are covered by Williamson Act contracts. Under the act, the owner of agricultural land receives a substantial property tax break in exchange for a 10-year commitment not to develop the property. Williamson Act contracts automatically renew every year unless the county or the property owner opts for non-renewal, at which point property taxes gradually increase over 10 years. In 1977, landowner Arthur Tooby signed a Williamson Act contract with Humboldt County covering 12,580 acres of his 13,700-acre ranch near Garberville. The following year, the county adopted new guidelines for land in the agricultural preserve. Among other things, the new regulations increased the minimum parcel size for Class B land from 160 acres to 600 acres to ensure agricultural viability. The Tooby Ranch lies in the Class B agricultural preserve. In 2000, local developer Robert McKee and his Buck Mountain Ranch Limited Partnership purchased 13,340 acres of the ranch from the deceased Tooby's estate. Recognizing the existence of a number of patent parcels on the ranch, McKee soon began applying for lot line adjustments so that he could sell off ranchettes. According to the court, McKee has since sold about 25 parcels to third parties. All of the parcels are at least 160 acres but smaller than 600 acres apiece. In December 2002, the county sued McKee and 47 third-party purchasers, arguing that the land divisions and sales violated the Williamson Act, the Subdivision Map Act, the Unfair Competition Act and posed a nuisance. The county sought to void the sales and halt future transfers. Three years later, Humboldt County Superior Court Judge Bruce Watson ruled the county could not apply the 1978 guidelines because doing so would violate state and federal constitutional provisions regarding contracts. He also ruled against the county on nullifying parcel conveyances. In early 2007, after the county had dropped its map act claim, Judge Watson ruled that McKee had not violated the Williamson Act or the 1977 Tooby contract. At the First District, McKee continued to maintain that the 1978 guidelines applied only to Williamson Act contracts consummated after 1978 and could not be applied retroactively to the 1977 Tooby contract. The county argued that the 1978 guidelines applied to all agricultural preserves, no matter when they were established. The court sided with the county, concluding that McKee's argument "would lead to an absurd result." "The final provision of the 1978 guidelines rescinds the 1973 guidelines, rendering them void and inoperative," Simons wrote. "If the 1978 guidelines were intended to apply only to preserves established from 1979 onward, as McKee suggests, then the passage of the 1978 guidelines would have left the county with no operative regulations for preserves established before 1979." Such a result, Simons continued, would be contrary to the county's intent and state law. After settling the question of the 1978 guidelines' enforceability, the court turned to the constitutional questions. McKee contended that permitting the county to incorporate the 1978 guidelines into the Williamson Act contract would amount to a unilateral amendment that is "unjust and inequitable." However, the court ruled that under the Williamson Act, the parties enter into a new contract every year unless one side provides notice of non-renewal. "Each year, a landowner bound by a Williamson Act contract has a choice: give timely notice of non-renewal, which preserves the current 10-year contract, or decline to give notice of non-renewal, which renews the contract for a new 10-year term. By choosing not to give notice of non-renewal, the landowner gains both the burdens and the benefits of a new 10-year contract," Simons wrote. "Because the parties to the Tooby contract entered into a new 10-year contract on February 1, 1979, all applicable laws and ordinances then in existence, including the 1978 guidelines, became part of the Tooby contract," the court ruled. "In the 22 years after the adoption of the 1978 guidelines, Arthur Tooby and McKee collectively renewed the original contract at least 22 times. The 600-acre minimum parcel size for divisions of Class B preserves imposed by the 1978 guidelines applied to the subsequent divisions of the Tooby Preserve." Not permitting counties to incorporate new regulations into Williamson Act contract renewals "would create substantial uncertainty, among both landowners and local governments, about what regulations apply to land under Williamson Act contracts," Simons wrote. "Land under contract could effectively be shielded from all subsequent efforts to regulate its use." The appellate court did not decide whether to nullify the land divisions and transfers, instead directing the trial court to fashion an appropriate remedy. Three weeks after issuing the decision, the appellate court rejected McKee's request for a re-hearing, setting up a likely appeal to the state Supreme Court. The Case: County of Humboldt v. McKee , No. A117325, 08 C.D.O.S. 10837, 2008 DJDAR 12897. Filed August 15, 2008. Modified September 10, 2008 at 2008 DJDAR 14313. The Lawyers: For the county: Kevin Brodehl, Morgan, Miller, Blair, (925) 937-3600. For McKee: David Blackwell, Allen, Matkins, Leck, Gamble, Mallory & Natsis, (925) 943-5551.

The realization is setting in among planners that climate change is going to affect planning practice – especially environmental review practice – very deeply. As a result, planners at this year's California Chapter, American Planning Association conference are anxiously seeking guidance.   At last year's CCAPA conference, planners embraced the issue of climate change this gusto. They clearly saw climate change as their issue, and the conversation was very enthusiastic, even somewhat heady at times. A year later, cold reality is setting in, and planners are full of questions. How does one actually address climate change in a general plan update? Which policies will truly be effective? How do I keep from getting sued by Jerry Brown? What the heck does my city do with the applications that keep coming across the front counter? How should an environmental review document address a project's potential greenhouse gas contributions? Can I still use a negative declaration? And what about the potential impacts of climate change on a project? This year's conference has numerous climate change sessions, and they are generally drawing upwards of 200 people apiece. But practitioners looking for hard answers are generally having to settle for suggestions and hints. The state of the art is evolving, state officials are still drafting rules and guidelines, and case law is nearly nonexistent. At one panel discussion, Terry Roberts, from the Governor's Office of Planning and Research, and Kirk Miller, general counsel of the Resources Agency, said right up front that they were not going to provide specifics. "It's in the works everybody. I don't have anything to show you today," said Roberts, eliciting both chuckles and sighs. At another panel, Sally Magnani, supervising deputy attorney general for the AG's environment section, emphasized the need to address climate change at the plan – rather than only the project – level. And she urged practitioners to be candid and forthcoming in environmental review documents. Magnani tried to downplay her office's role in climate change litigation, noting that the AG has actually filed only one suit himself – over San Bernardino County's general plan update. One reason the suit was filed, she explained, is that the county ignored a comment letter the AG filed regarding the county's dismissal of the climate change issue in the plan update and EIR. That was obviously a poor strategy. Since then, the AG has filed about 40 more comment letters. The clear implication from Magnani is that your agency better pay attention if it gets one. Anthony Eggert, science and technology advisor to the California Air Resources Board, said that the revised AB 32 scoping plan due out next week will call for more greenhouse gas emission reductions from land use and transportation than were in the preliminary scoping plan. How much he wouldn't say. If there is one thing that everybody agrees on it is this: Agencies may no longer dismiss a plan or large project's contributions to climate change as too speculative to study. "If you're not addressing climate change, you're going to get sued," said CCAPA Vice President for Legislative Affairs Pete Parkinson. – Paul Shigley

Can California and its communities fit together regional plans, local plans, state housing requirements, and new state requirements on greenhouse gas emissions reductions? Probably not, according to panelists speaking this morning at the California Chapter, American Planning Association conference in Hollywood. SB 375 – the regional planning bill designed to implement the state's greenhouse-gas emissions reduction requirements in the land use arena – does create closer ties between transportation planning and planning for affordable housing. But there's still a disconnect between regional plans and local plans – deliberately. The bill, which has passed the legislature and is currently sitting on the governor's desk, would require Metropolitan Planning Organizations to create "sustainable communities plans" that conform with greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets generated by the California Air Resources Board. The bill would then provide transportation funding incentives and truncated review -- or exemptions -- under the California Environmental Quality Act for projects that conform to the sustainable communities plan. There may also be better connections to the state's Regional Housing Needs Assessment process, which will now operate on an eight-year rotation rather than a five-year rotation, partly to match it up to the federally driven Regional Transportation Plan schedule. But local government lobbyists succeeded in including language protecting local land use authority. SB 375 specifically states that the regional planning process created under the bill does not usurp local land use authority. Translation: The regional "sustainable communities plan" and a city's housing element don't need to line up. "The regional plan could contemplate putting units in one location and the local plan could put those units in another location in the same jurisdiction," said Bill Higgins, land use lobbyist for the League of California Cities. Of course, under the terms of SB 375, if an affordable housing project conforms to the regional plan, it may qualify for a CEQA exemption – even if it conflicts with the local plan. And a project that conforms with the local plan may not qualify for a CEQA break if it does not conform to the regional sustainable communities plan.   Presumably, these provisions are supposed to encourage local governments to conform to the regional plan, even though consistency is not required. "We fought really hard to make SB 375 not just another top-down planning process from Sacramento," said Pete Parkinson, CCAPA's vice president for legislative affairs. However, Parkinson warned that local governments cannot simply ignore SB 375. The planning processes created by the bill  "place a huge responsibility on local governments to pay attention to this process," he said. -- Bill Fulton

California's planners are descending on Hollywood this week for their annual conference. Paul Shigley, Bill Fulton, and the rest of the CP&DR gang will be blogging daily from Sunday, September 21st, through Wednesday, September 24th on what's going on. Check it out at www.cp-dr.com/blog ! Begin with Bill's Sunday blog on the history of Hollywood as a real urban place -- as opposed to Hollywood the capital of tinseltown.   And if you're at the conference, be on the lookout for our special offer! Pick up a CP&DR conference postcard and use the promotional code to save 10% on a subscription or any other purchase on www.cp-dr.com !

It' s understandable that California planners will focus at their Hollywood conference this week on "planners in tinseltown" – as evidenced by everything from the conference organizers' spoof of "The Office" to the chapter's "Lights … Planning … Action!" motto for the conference.But Hollywood has a many-layered 120-year history that dates back before the invention of the movies and includes a series of real estate booms and busts that have shaped the urban district that planners will see this week. Most important, Hollywood the place is not the same as "Hollywood," the name used worldwide as shorthand for the entertainment industry. Many years ago, while still working as a journalist, I made an almost fatal faux pas while getting ready to interview a famous studio chief. Chatting with the studio flak ahead of time, I noted that the executive had spent most of his career outside of Los Angeles working on the distribution side of the movie business in places like Buffalo. I asked her whether she thought it changed his perspective that he had not spent most of his career in Hollywood. She looked at me as if I was from another planet. Of course the executive had worked his whole career in "Hollywood". To her, everybody in the movie business worked in Hollywood no matter where their geographical location, just as everybody in the financial business works on "Wall Street". How Hollywood became "Hollywood" is a long story dating back to the first big real estate speculative boom in Los Angeles in the 1880s, when this agricultural area adjacent to the foothills at Cahuenga Pass – warmed by a typical Southern California microclimate – was first subdivided by developer H.J. Whitley A townsite was laid out and, once the inevitable real estate bust had passed, banks and stores were built to serve the local lemon grovers. The name came from a place name his wife had heard near Chicago – "Holywood" – and the religious reference was not an accident. Hollywood's founders envisioned a teetotaling paradise of hard-working farmers. In 1910, Hollywood was annexed to Los Angeles in order to obtain a reliable water supply. (If you really, really care to learn more about this era in Hollywood, go to a library and read an article I wrote long ago on this topic: "Those Were Her Best Days: The Streetcar and the Development of Hollywood Before 1910," Southern California Quarterly, Fall 1984, pp. 242-252. It's not online anywhere.) The movies came to Hollywood right around 1910, when the first makeshift studios were carved out of the lemon groves as moviemakers searched for roomier shooting locations than were available in downtown L.A. In the long run, only Paramount built and maintained a major studio in Hollywood – on Melrose near Gower, where the famous "Paramount Gate" still stands after 96 years. (If you want to see a startling recreation of what Paramount must have looked like when carved out of lemon groves, rent "Chaplin" staring Robert Downey Jr.) Most of the other major studios went over Cahuenga Pass to Burbank and vicinity, or to Culver City on the Westside. Universal Studios was built atop Cahuenga pass and is now easily accessible from Hollywood via the Metro Red Line. Hollywood really became "Hollywood" in the 1920s, when Hollywood Boulevard emerged as the critical business district serving the movie industry. Starting in about 1918, the major movie palaces moved from Broadway in downtown Los Angeles to Hollywood Boulevard, leading to the famous "Hollywood premiere" at places such as Graumann's Chinese Theater (built in 1927). Restaurants along the Boulevard such as Musso & Franks (still in business after 89 years) became movie star hangouts. Hollywood also became a major office center for banks, talent agencies, and the like. The ‘20s office buildings – one of which has semi-precious gems built into the cornice – are still spectacular today. The Hollywood sign didn't hurt – even though it originally said "Hollywoodland" as a promotion for a real estate development and isn't really located in Hollywood. Since its heyday in the 1920s, Hollywood has had an up-and-down history. The radio star Fred Allen once called Hollywood "a place where people from Iowa mistake each other for movie stars". The tourists would come to Hollywood – but, of course, the movie stars were either filming at the studios or at home in places like Beverly Hills. Hollywood did enjoy a bit of a renaissance in the late ‘40s and early ‘50s, when both NBC and CBS broadcast national entertainment programs "live from Hollywood". Even in these days, Hollywood still had streetcars, street life, and the occasional star sighting. One of the most amusing urban legends I ever heard about those days was a woman who recounted walking down Hollywood Boulevard in the ‘50s, only to encounter an enormous crowd standing on the sidewalk. They were outside a barber shop watching Ricky Nelson get a haircut. Despite a variety of well-known promotions – including the Walk of Fame and the Hollywood Christmas Parade – Hollywood languished as seedy and rundown until the late 1980s, when redevelopment efforts began to take shape. The Walt Disney Co. made a major contribution by purchasing and renovating the decrepit El Capitan Theater in 1991, once again making Hollywood a location of movie premieres. The Red Line arrived in 1999, connecting Hollywood to downtown, the Wilshire District, and the San Fernando Valley. With considerable assistance from the L.A. Community Redevelopment Agency, the Hollywood & Highland project – of which the conference hotel is a part – was opened in 2001. Hollywood today is not what it was back in the 1920s, when all that brand-new movie money was invested in the buildings along Hollywood Boulevard. But neither is it the completely faded district I first encountered in the early ‘80s while researching that article about Hollywood's history. It has a subway, several renovated movie palaces, a couple of spectacular redevelopment projects – and, by the way, a newly renovated Hollywood Bowl just up the street as well. In that sense, it's an excellent subject for California's planners to examine this week.  -- Bill Fulton

Only three weeks after insisting that California should encourage dense development near transit lines, state lawmakers have approved a budget that yanks funding from transit and redevelopment. And that might be the nicest thing that anyone can say about the spending and revenue plan approved after last call on Monday night (Tuesday morning, actually). All the budget really does is permit the state to pay its bills a while longer. "All we've done is roll the problem over to the next Legislature," State Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata (D-Oakland) conceded. Among the provisions in the budget is a shift of about $1 billion in the transit fund to the general fund, supposedly to pay for transportation programs. A second provision shifts about $350 million in redevelopment agency tax increment to schools and community colleges. (You can find out how much your local redevelopment agency will lose here .) As best I can tell, these are not loans. The state is simply re-allocating the money. The shifts appear to be one-time acts. Three weeks ago, state lawmakers approved SB 375 (Steinberg) , a complex bill that insists developing dense, mixed-use communities with good public transit will reduce greenhouse gas emissions and make California a better place. Yet public transit requires public money, especially in areas that have grown up without good transit infrastructure. And dense, mixed-use development near transit nearly always involves some level of redevelopment. When SB 375 passed, more than a few people said the measure would be effective only if state spending decisions follow suit. Well, the first spending decisions have been made. Business as usual. – Paul Shigley

Metrolink is one of California's true public transit successes. But it's cobbled together from old freight lines – many of which are out of date operationally. Can we afford the upgrades necessary to make a truly 21st Century system? Can we afford not to make them? I'm a pretty frequent rider on the Metrolink Ventura County line – the line where a Metrolink train crashed head-on with a Union Pacific late Friday, killing 25 riders so far.  Every week or two, I ride all the way from the Montalvo station in Ventura (the end of the line) to Union Station for meetings in downtown L.A. I know the faces on the train and, occasionally, I know the people as well. It's gotten more crowded as gas prices have gone up, because why spent $20-30 on gas and $20 to park downtown when, for just one crisp $20 bill, you can take the train? I'm more than familiar with the sharp left turn coming out of the Chatsworth Station just before the Santa Susana Tunnel where the crash occurred, though I have to admit that I'm not always paying attention. Like most people, I'm usually working on my computer or talking on my cell phone. And that's because, like everybody else on the train –indeed, like public transit advocates everywhere -- I take a safe arrival for granted. Often while driving, I worry about how easy it would be to get into an accident. While traveling on the train, it never occurs to me that I am hurtling forward at a very fast speed in a heavy and enormous projectile, entrusting my life to the engineer. Friday's crash reminds us all of the pros and cons of the Metrolink system and the way it works. Overall, Metrolink really is one of California's most remarkable public transit successes. It was created from a standing start 16 years ago when the five county transportation commissions in Southern California got together and created a joint-powers authority to run a commuter rail system. (One of those five is the Ventura County Transportation Commission, on which I sit as the City of Ventura's representative.) Metrolink isn't cheap; it cost more than a billion dollars just to put together and many millions more in tax money per year to operate. But it's been successful. In recent months, the system has been carrying a million people a month – not as much as a freeway, but not bad. The Riverside, San Bernardino, and Orange County lines often run on 20 or 30 minute headways – remarkable for a heavy-rail system. Daytime and suburb-to-suburb services is so good that I have begun to use it to get to and from business appointments in the Inland Empire. But in order to get this far this fast, Metrolink had to take one short-cut – which was to balance itself on the back of the Southern California freight system, one of the busiest in the country. Metrolink was put together because Southern California was not moving far enough or fast enough to build a comprehensive passenger rail transit system, like BART in the Bay Area. BART currently operates in four counties and is planning to penetrate a fifth. It's a heavy-rail subway system, though it runs above-ground in some places. It operates on its own right-of-way in a seamless fashion. L.A. rail transit system, on the other hand, has been stitched together with a motley combination of rights-of-way and technologies. There's a backbone subway line (the Red Line), but there are also a lot of incompatible light-rail lines. And building new lines to the outlying counties has, up to now, simply not been in the cards. So in order to provide effective commuter rail, Southern California had no choice but to use the freight lines. As L.A. Times' "Road Sage" blogger/reporter Steve Hymon pointed out on Saturday , Metrolink was put together during the late ‘80s and early ‘90s because the freight railroads were interested in unloading their right-of-way. (By the way, Hymon – who in a mid-career break from journalism picked up a master's degree in geography from USC – has been one of the most useful and insightful sources of information about the Metrolink system and the institutional reasons behind the crash.) Today, Metrolink and its member agencies owns a lot of the right-of-way, which allows the agency to gives its own trains priority over freight trains. (This means they don't often pull over and wait forever for a freight train to pass, as Amtrak trains must.) But it also means that Metrolink has huge operational challenges coordinating with freight corridors, which in the Los Angeles area are among the busiest in the nation, thanks to the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. This is especially true because so much of the L.a. rail system -- unlike the Northeast and elsewhere -- is single-tracked. This seems to have been a particular issue in Ventura County. Through the Valley and into Ventura County, Metrolink and Amtrak alike have been plagued with conflicts between trains and cars and trains and people. This is largely because through the Valley and into agricultural Ventura County, the rail line is not a sealed corridor. A few years ago, I was riding on an Amtrak train just short of the Moorpark station when it struck and killed a pedestrian, apparently one bent on suicide. And everyone remembers the 2005 crash in Glendale that killed 11 people, when a suicidal motorist got smashed by trains going in each direction -- one on the Ventura County line, one on the Antelope Valley line. As we were tragically reminded on Friday, the rail line through Ventura County and northward is only a single track in most places. North of Ventura, things get even worse: In many locations, engineers still must get off the train and operate switches manually, just as they did in the 1920s. Upgrading this line will be extremely expensive – hundreds of millions of dollars at the very least. It's more than just putting safety devices. A true upgrade will also require double-tracking huge chunks of Southern California and also making basic improvements in switching and signaling. (In some other parts of the country, the green-red signal is actually received in the locomotive itself, rather than alongside the tracks, making it harder for the engineer to miss it.) Los Angeles has major money for transit and may soon have more if Measure R passes in November, but also has a lot of competition even for rail dollars. And outlying counties may not be willing to put money into the system. In Santa Barbara County, the cost of upgrading the Ventura-Santa Barbara rail line to serve commuters – hundreds of millions of dollars – was one of the things that sunk Santa Barbara's transportation sales tax ren ewal in 2006, which contained major dollars to upgrade the rail line north of Ventura. Ventura County has no transportation sales tax but may go for one at the ballot box in 2010. Even so, the county does not have the tax base of the other Southern California counties, meaning the tax revenue realized will be much less. I'll continue to ride Metrolink whenever and wherever I can. But in the wake of Friday's crash, I will always recognize that there is a risk in doing so. And when I complain about schedules and headways, I will also recognize that unless and until a lot of these operational problems are solved – a very expensive proposition – there's an upper limit to what Metrolink can accomplish. – Bill Fulton

A plan to build what would essentially be a new town 40 miles north of Sacramento may be stillborn. We have a story in the current edition about potential exurban growth north of Sacramento . However, the Colusa County Planning Commission made clear earlier this week that it is not interested in a large development along I-5. (The Colusa County Sun-Herald , which does a nice job of covering land use, reports from the Planning Commission meeting .) Colusa County is sparsely populated and not terribly wealthy. But the people who live there are not unsophisticated Valley hicks, and they are not about to roll over for a developer, especially one from Southern California. Pacific Cascade's project would be a major departure from the Colusa County general plan. On a 4-1 vote, the Planning Commission recommended the Board of Supervisors stick with the plan. The board is scheduled to consider the proposal next week and is unlikely to depart from the Planning Commission's recommendation. The day after the Colusa County Planning Commission rejected the Pacific Cascade proposal, Yolo County released a draft general plan update that calls for dramatic growth in Dunnigan, just south of the Colusa County line. – Paul Shigley

The proposal by Anschutz Entertainment Group to install the equivalent of a football field in signs and lighted billboards in front of the LA Live development near the Los Angeles Convention Center is a glaringly bad idea. AEG's proposal is over-reaching and garish. According to the Los Angeles Times , views of the city from the newest wing of the LA Convention Center would be partially blocked. And the acre of signs would likely create a wall of intense, intrusive light that floods the picture windows of hundreds of apartment and condo-dwellers, especially those who will live in any of the half-dozen high-rises planned within a few blocks of 18-acre sports-entertainment-hospitality-condo-retail extravaganza. Los Angeles has outlawed large outdoor signs in many parts of the city, and placed restrictions on those that remain—as if it mattered.   Watch closely as Phil Anschutz gets what he wants. As the builder of the 54-story convention center hotel, the developer already enjoys favorite-son status. The city used bond financing to acquire the hotel site, just north of the convention center and the Anschutz-built Staples Center sports arena. The city also cheerfully amended the city plan, allowing the developer to take over several downtown streets and create an inward-looking island of development . With a 7,000-seat Nokia Theater, themed night clubs, and a large-scale courtyard lit up by Jumbotrons, the complex has been brilliantly designed to capture the attention—and discretionary spending dollars—of both out-of-town conventioneers and local basketball and hockey fans. It is bad enough that the city chose to subsidize LA Live, which, in my opinion. subverts several goals of downtown planning, such as promoting pedestrian movement  along Figueroa Boulevard. LA Live is an inward-looking fantasy environment, not entirely dissimilar from the echt-urban retail playgrounds developed by Rick Caruso (such as Americana at Brand in Glendale and The Grove at Farmers Market near Hollywood.) At LA Live, a wall blocks the project frontage along Figueroa Boulevard. Message to public: We're having a private party, and you're not invited. The views admittedly are much better from 11th Street, with the convention center hotel on the north  and the Jumbotron courtyard on the south. By that point, however, you're already inside the belly of the beast—an entirely privatized environment, except for the asphalt on the street. One sign that the developer is ready to deal is the initial proposal to devote 25% of signage to promote the Convention Center—a give-away that the city's tourism and hospitality bureau will probably support, to the detriment of the convention center itself. Despite its prosperity, Los Angeles seems perpetually afraid of saying no to developers, especially those who undertake risky redevelopment projects like the convention center hotel. The policy in both the city and its redevelopment agency has been to "give the developer whatever he wants, as long as we get what we want." Sacrificing both public policy and urban design so the city can obtain some tourism-and-hospitality benefits, however, is a cut-off-your-nose strategy the city should have abandoned long ago. The role of government, in my view, is to identify goals for both public policy and urban design, and let the private sector figure out how to make viable projects that fit those goals. The current policy, however, is the opposite: Let the private sector do whatever it wants, mitigate the worst effects, and tack on some public interest (such as a few affordable housing units or public art or open space) as an afterthought. So, get out your popcorn. Phil Anschutz, the largest owner of cinema screens in the country, is about to give us a virtuoso performance in massaging LA City Hall. I predict some big lights are coming to the skies of downtown Los Angeles. For those people who live within a mile or so of LA Live, I recommend some extra-heavy window drapes. – Morris Newman

The state budget stalemate may get handed to the new Legislature that is seated in December. In the meantime, lawmakers could pass a series of emergency resolutions authorizing the state to pay its bills. Last week, people were whispering about this scenario. Now, they are speaking out loud about it. After the 21-13 defeat of the Republican budget proposal in the Senate on Monday, it's clear that lawmakers and the governor are no closer to a budget resolution today than they were in June. The Republican plan contained one truly stunning provision: A grab by the state of $349 million in undesignated and unreserved low- and moderate-income housing monies held by local redevelopment agencies.  The proposal infuriated affordable housing advocates and put redevelopment agencies on the defensive one more time. By law, redevelopment agencies must set-aside 20% of tax increment for low/mod housing. The undesignated and unreserved monies are those in the housing set-aside fund that the agency has not committed to specific projects. Recalcitrant cities will indeed let money pile up in the housing set-aside fund because they have little interest in providing affordable housing. More commonly, the money accumulates while redevelopment agencies put together development deals. The fact that the money has not been legally committed doesn't necessarily mean that local officials don't know how they plan to spend it. Development of affordable housing with multiple funding sources can take many years. The Republican "no tax increase budget" would have allocated this money to the state, killing an untold number of affordable housing projects that are somewhere in the process. The Senate Transportation and Housing Committee estimated the proposal would prevent development of 5,000 to 7,000 affordable units. Among the agencies that could have lost the most were San Bernardino ($11.9 million), Richmond ($14.2 million), Riverside ($11.2 million), Cerritos ($23.6 million) and Pomona ($10 million). Think any of those cities could use additional, decent housing that's affordable to poor families? Maybe even housing for some of the people earning 10 bucks an hour at the 1.3-million-square-foot Los Cerritos Center? The Republican redevelopment revenue shift would apparently have come on top of the governor's proposed shift of $225 million of redevelopment agency tax increment to school districts annually for three years. In other words, the Republicans would take $1 billion from redevelopment agencies. (I should note that Democrats appear to have accepted the governor's $225 million annual shift.) I'm trying not to pass judgment on these budget proposals. I'll only say that they would significantly decrease redevelopment activity in California. That might be fine with some conservatives who fret over government intrusion in the marketplace, although I'd suggest those conservatives might want to talk to their friends in the development, construction and retail sectors before pushing too far. No one seems to know where the budget standoff is headed now. Mike Madrid's California City News offers up these cold hard figures on the budget standoff. Madrid notes that Gov. Schwarzenegger has only 4 months before he must propose a budget for 2009-2010. – Paul Shigley

John McCain had even less to say about cities and planning – absolutely nothing -- in his acceptance speech than Barack Obama did one week earlier . But, like Richard Nixon before him, he's got a vice presidential candidate who's long on local government experience but a short record as a governor. Why do local electeds rarely wind up in the presidential race?  This year's is the first in American history in which both vice presidential candidates are former local elected officials. And because of Sarah Palin, ironically enough, it is the McCain candidacy that has raised the question of whether being an elected official in local government, dealing with zoning and land use and libraries and police officers, is good preparation for being president. Ironic because McCain evinces almost no interest in domestic policy. And despite representing Arizona in Congress for more than a quarter-century, he still comes across as a guy who isn't really from anywhere – the perpetual Navy brat. By contrast, his running mate – and both members of the Democratic ticket – are deeply rooted in the places where they come from – suburban Anchorage, Wilmington, and the South Side of Chicago. One thing is for sure: Local government is rarely a springboard to the presidency. Most politicians start out on their local planning commission, city council or school board. Yet most presidential and vice-presidential nominees bypass local office, starting out either in their state legislature (Obama) or in Congress (McCain). Joe Biden, the Democratic vice-presidential nominee, is such a creature of Washington (with 36 years in the Senate) that it's easy to forget he was elected at age 26 to the New Castle, Delaware, County Council, the office from which he ran for Senate at age 29. His Republican counterpart, Sara Palin, was elected to the City Council in Wasilla, Alaska, at age 28; and served six years as mayor beginning at age 32. The last vice president with experience in local office was a Republican who, in some ways, bears more than a passing resemblance to Palin. That was Spiro Agnew, who had served as Baltimore County executive for four years (and on the Baltimore County Board of Zoning Appeals before that) but had been governor of Maryland for only a year and a half when Richard Nixon picked him as running mate in 1968. Agnew, of course, was best known as Nixon's mudslinger – the guy who went negative against the media, much to the delight of the conservative Republican base. Sound familiar? Of course, Agnew picked up a few habits in local office in Baltimore that proved hard to shake when he became vice president. He eventually resigned amid allegations (probably true) that he had shaken down construction companies as governor and still tried to collect the bribes as vice president. A few other scattered candidates had local experience. Hubert Humphrey, vice president and presidential candidate, was the fiery mayor of Minneapolis in the late 1940s, when he gained national renown for turning around the city's reputation as anti-semitic. Barry Goldwater, McCain's predecessor as Arizona senator, was an heir to a department store fortune who was elected in 1949 to the Phoenix City Council, which he used as a springboard to the Senate. Most of these folks didn't have much of a local record. The one who did was Harry Truman, who served for 10 years as a county "judge" (commissioner) in Kansas City. Truman was affiliated with the Pendergast Democratic political machine, but he had a real record of achievement, including impressive public works programs during the Depression. Truman, Agnew, and Humphrey were all elected to office in big cities. It's been a long time since the former mayor of a small city was president – or vice president. And you can bet that Palin isn't likely to imitate that fellow's style. The taciturn Calvin Coolidge served as mayor of Northampton, Massachusetts, (population at that time about 19,000). Coolidge served as a city councilman, city solicitor, and clerk of courts – and then lost a race for the school board! – before being elected mayor in 1910. Barely a decade after leaving local office, he was elected vice president, and in 1923 he assumed the presidency when Warren Harding died of a heart attack.  -- Bill Fulton

The state and federal governments are throwing a lot of "new money" at the housing market in hopes of stabilizing prices and bailing out subprime mortgage borrowers. For California alone, the total looks to be several hundred million dollars – at least – in the next year alone. But is that anywhere near enough to make a dent in the problem? The federal housing bill was passed at the end of July, and it contains a brand new federal affordable housing program for local governments. Buried in the bill – alongside the subprime mortgage bailout and the possible bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – is a $4 billion program that locals will administer starting this fall. Depending on how the money is allocated, this could mean a half-billion dollars for California. The housing bill also contains a couple of other new funding sources for affordable housing. One is a permanent housing trust fund – funded by contributions from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – that could reach $300 million a year, which would presumably give California $30 million to $50 million more per year. A second is an increase in the low-income housing tax credits, which could add $7 million to the California pot this year. And there's more. The feds authorized the issuance of an additional $11 billion in tax-exempt bonds this year – funds to be used to help first-time homebuyers and to finance rental apartments – and approximately $1.2 billion is likely to be earmarked for California. This funding allowed the California Housing Finance Agency to create a new program earmarking $400 million for first-time homebuyers buying foreclosed properties in areas where the subprime problem is especially bad. On top of that, the Legislature in August passed a bill that would allow local redevelopment agencies to spend some of their money helping subprime mortgage holders (see CP&DR , July 2008 ). And don't forget that the state Department of Housing and Community Development just doled out more than a half-billion dollars for housing projects and infrastructure in infill locations (see CP&DR Insight , August 2008 ). Even all of this funding may not be enough to turn the market around. But it could be enough to change the nature of certain neighborhoods – especially in older cities as opposed to newer suburbs. The federal Department of Housing & Urban Development will be shoveling the $4 billion out to local governments in California and elsewhere this fall, based on a yet-to-be-created formula focusing on the number of foreclosures and the number of subprime mortgages in each jurisdiction. Then the locals will have 18 months to spend the money. Considering that about one-fifth of the country's housing foreclosures are in California, local governments here should receive substantial allocations. What can the locals do with all this dough? Pretty much anything that they can do with any other affordable housing funds, except they have to focus their efforts on properties that are abandoned or in foreclosure. This includes: • Buying and rehabilitating houses • Selling or renting houses • Banking the land • Demolishing blighted structures and redeveloping vacant properties. Yes, it sounds a lot like redevelopment. And, in fact, there may be a match with the state redevelopment program because AB 2594, assuming Gov. Schwarzenegger signs it, gives redevelopment agencies the power (but not a mandate) to use their non-housing funds to help out subprime mortgage holders. But it's not clear how much of a mesh there will be between traditional redevelopment practices and the neighborhoods where this money is likely to go. HUD's distribution formula is supposed to target the funds to areas where there are lots of foreclosures, lots of subprime loans, and lots of houses where payments are delinquent. Stereotypical subprime country includes the Central Valley and the Inland Empire (the Stockton-to-Merced corridor on Highway 99 appears to be the worst-hit subprime area in the nation.) In these areas, cities will probably focus on buying the houses and turning them around to new buyers as quickly as possible. That, at least, appears to be the goal of local officials in those areas. But there's another kind of subprime landscape in California. In older urban areas – southern Los Angeles County, for example – the subprime problem is just as bad. In these areas, the buyers are pretty much the same as in the Central Valley. They are not really creditworthy and they are unable to pay the increasing interest rates. But the houses and neighborhoods are different. Single-family houses they may be, but they are older homes located in tough neighborhoods. It could be hard to find qualified buyers willing to take these houses on – although if the prices are low enough, the bottomless market of first-time Latino homebuyers in Los Angeles will probably help move along these properties. In older cities, however, the new program raises another question: Will the funds be used mostly for rehab and sale write-downs, or will they be used for more classic redevelopment purposes, such as demolishing blighted buildings and buying or redeveloping the land? The program certainly permits the use of funds for classic redevelopment purposes. So it is possible these older cities may simply see the new federal program as another piggy-bank for redevelopment. It is true that the cities may not use the money for commercial purposes. They have to use all the funds to benefit low- and moderate-income residents, including at least a quarter of the money for low-income residents. But will some cities use the money to buy up foreclosed single-family houses, declare them blighted, tear them down, and move on with higher-density projects? This clearly won't happen in Moreno Valley and Elk Grove. But it could happen in Compton and even in parts of Merced. It's worth noting that not everybody in Washington thought throwing $4 billion at local governments was a good idea. President Bush apparently held his nose on this aspect of the bill when he signed it (at 7 o'clock on a Saturday morning with no members of Congress present). Bush's criticism was that the local money was simply a bailout for lenders, because the locals will wind up creating a price floor for the properties. Rep. Pete Sessions, a Republican from Dallas, said the new program will simply "allow local governments to expose themselves to the risks of the market." But local governments will be entering the market with federal dough, not their own. Even a billion or more dollars may not be enough, given the massive size of the California housing market, and the massive size of California's subprime problem (1 million of the state's 20 million housing units at risk of foreclosure). Still, this is shaping up to be the biggest infusion of housing cash since the 1970s. We'll see if it works.