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During the early 1990s, an issue of paramount concern to federal forest managers in California was the growing list of rare wildlife species whose old-growth habitat was being transformed rapidly into lumber. Fearing a repeat of events in Oregon and Washington during the late 1980s, when a series of lawsuits on behalf of the northern spotted owl all but shut down the Pacific Northwest timber industry, forest managers launched an ambitious effort to revolutionize agency policies and ensure a future for both wildlife and loggers. The outcome was a widely praised revolution in forest management, dubbed the Sierra Nevada Forest Plan Amendment, also known as "the framework" (see CP&DR Environment Watch , March 2001). Despite its popularity, it survived only about as long as the presidential administration that produced it. Earlier this year, the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) officially deemed the plan unworkable and unveiled a new version. Critics say the amended management plan is a barely disguised gift to the timber industry. Already, environmental groups have threatened to sue if the USFS adopts the plan after the administrative appeal period expires on April 29, and they've been joined in that threat by California Attorney General Bill Lockyer. Even the Republican administration of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has been critical of the Bush administration's retreat from the original framework, which Schwarzenegger had praised during his successful campaign last fall. Caught in the middle of the escalating battle are communities scattered through the Sierra Nevada region, many of which already have begun making the transition from an economy based on timber to one based on trees that remain upright. Recent economic data show that tourism and recreation support as many jobs and provide as much income throughout the Sierra Nevada as all extractive industries combined, and that in several Sierra counties tourism already is the Number one industry. Moreover, some technology and manufacturing companies in the Sierra Nevada use the "pine tree factor" to lure and keep workers. "Studies show some people are willing to take a pay cut to live where there is easy access to places to hike, fish and ski," the Sierra Business Council noted in a recent report. "When businesses can offer an employment package that includes superb quality of life, they can attract top-drawer people without paying top-drawer prices. The Sierra Nevada, renowned for world-class recreation, has a competitive advantage other places cannot match at any price." The forest plan controversy is the latest chapter in a saga that began more than 15 years ago, when environmentalists filed a series of lawsuits over the plight of the northern spotted owl, found exclusively in old-growth forests of the Pacific Northwest. The suits accused the federal government of ignoring the bird's plummeting numbers and helping speed it toward extinction by allowing its habitat to be logged. In 1991, a federal judge in Seattle declared that federal agencies were guilty of "a remarkable series of violations of the environmental laws" by allowing continued destruction of critical habitat for a threatened species. Until the government came up with a plan to save the owl, he ruled, logging would be banned throughout the bird's range in Washington, Oregon and far Northern California. The ruling shut down virtually all logging on 24 million acres in 17 national forests. The amount of federal timber cut in Oregon and Washington fell by nearly 90%, and the take from private and state lands fell by half. More than 20% of the region's timber industry workers lost their jobs. The California spotted owl also prefers old-growth forests. It, too, has seen its habitat dwindle during decades of logging in the Sierra Nevada, as have such other rare creatures as the Pacific fisher and American marten. Stung by the sequence of court rulings that spawned such wrenching dislocations in Oregon and Washington, and facing the threat of litigation over similar circumstances in California, the USFS in 1992 began working on a broad revision of management policies governing 11.5 million federal acres in the Sierra Nevada. The goal was to avoid a similar court-ordered logging shutdown by making sure wildlife populations remained healthy enough to avoid Endangered Species Act protections. The process of developing the new plan involved local community groups, the timber industry, scientists, environmentalists, recreation groups, economists and state and federal agencies. It cost $20 million, involved nearly 200 public meetings and attracted the participation of 47,000 people. The plan that emerged from this process three years ago would have established a protected network of "old forest areas" to maintain suitable habitat for old-growth-dependent species. The plan put large trees off limits to logging, and estimated that 191 million board feet of timber would be available for harvest in each of the first five years. Although Bush administration appointees initially declared themselves supporters of the plan, that swiftly changed. As 2002 dawned, the new regional forester, Jack Blackwell, announced that he planned to overhaul the framework in response to numerous appeals. The revised version unveiled in late January would more than double the amount of timber being cut, to an estimated 450 million board feet a year. It would eliminate the protected "old forest areas" and allow larger trees to be cut. And along the way, the purpose of the plan morphed from saving wildlife into "A Campaign Against Catastrophic Wildlfires." That's the subtitle of the advertising brochure the USFS commissioned a marketing firm to produce. Allowing commercial loggers to cut more and bigger trees, the agency argues, is the only way to offset the high cost of removing brush and small trees that pose the greatest fire threat. The plan also relies on mechanical thinning rather than prescribed fire to reduce the fuel load. "Extremely hot, intensely burning catastrophic fires sweep through overly dense forests destroying old growth trees, wildlife habitat, and wrecking people's lives," Blackwell said in a press release announcing the new plan. "The size and intensity of wildfires are increasing dramatically. They are making the work of our firefighters more dangerous. I cannot let that continue on my watch. It will take years of concerted effort to significantly reduce the intensity of these fires, but the important thing is to get started now." To critics, all the talk about fire danger is a ruse. "The Bush Administration is scrapping a balanced plan with broad support from environmentalists, the state of California, the public and scientific community to reward his campaign contributors in the timber industry," charged Craig Thomas, executive director of the Sierra Nevada Forest Protection Campaign. Contacts: U.S. Forest Service Sierra Nevada Forest Plan Amendment, www.fs.fed.us/r5/snfpa/ . Sierra Nevada Forest Protection Campaign, (530) 622-8718. Sierra Business Council, (530) 582-4800 ( www.sbcouncil.org ).

A community college board’s decision to close and demolish a shooting range, clean up lead contamination at the site and transfer shooting range operations to a new location amounts to a "project" that requires review under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), the Fifth District Court of Appeal has ruled. The court rejected the Yosemite Community College District’s arguments that the actions were not a project under CEQA , were exempt from CEQA and that a lawsuit against the district was moot because the district has completed the actions. "Because CEQA must be construed to effectuate its purpose of protecting the environment, and because a group of interrelated actions may not be chopped into bite-size pieces to avoid CEQA review, we conclude that the closure and removal of the Range, the cleanup activity, and the transfer of shooting range activity and classes to another range are all part of a single, coordinated endeavor," Justice Betty Dawson wrote for the court. "As a result, those activities constitute the whole of the action that we consider for purposes of determining the existence of a ‘project’ for purposes of CEQA." The shooting range in question opened on the edge of Modesto Junior College (MJC) in 1975 and was used by local law enforcement agencies and for the school’s criminal justice training program. As early as 1991, a college master plan contemplated closing the firing range because of campus growth in the direction of the range. On October 15, 2001, the district Board of Trustees adopted a resolution that authorized a lead abatement process, closing the range and donating the salvageable portions of the range to the Tuolumne County Sheriff’s Office. On October 18, an addendum was prepared that said the district had not made a decision on whether to dismantle or demolish the range. In November 2001, a group called Association for a Cleaner Environment (ACE) sued the district for failing to comply with CEQA. Stanislaus County Superior Court Judge William Mayhew accepted the district’s arguments that the actions were not a project, and that the issue was moot anyway. ACE appealed, and the unanimous three-judge panel of the Fifth District overturned the lower court. The central questions in the case were whether the community college district’s actions constituted a project, and, if so, whether that project was exempt from CEQA review. The district contended there was no project and, anyway, the activities were exempt. The court first decided what actions should be considered part of the potential project. The district, pointing to the October 18 addendum, argued that the Board of Trustees did not decide to demolish the range at the same time it chose to close and clean up the facility, so demolition could not be considered part of a project. That argument did not fly. "The record includes the following information to the contrary," Justice Dawson wrote. "First, the board minutes clearly indicate that plans for the removal of the MJC Range have been in place for almost a decade. Second, these plans have been reiterated in correspondence by district personnel. Third, the implementation of the range removal plans has been advanced by the district’s decision to develop the land near the range and by its neglect of range maintenance." Thus, closing the range — along with the cleanup plan and transfer of activities elsewhere — must be considered part of a potential project. Taken together, these are activities "directly undertaken by any public agency" under CEQA. Because the actions fit that definition, the district should have determined whether the actions could result in a direct or reasonably foreseeable indirect change in the environment, which would trigger formal environmental review. The court focused on the possible spread of lead contamination from the site to determine that the activities had the potential for impacting the environment directly. Thus, the district should have prepared an initial study to determine whether a negative declaration or an environmental impact report was required. The district argued for two different exemptions: CEQA Guidelines § 15322 exemption for alterations in educational programs and physical changes to the interior of existing school buildings, and CEQA Guidelines § 15330 exemption for minor cleanup actions costing less than $1 million. The court ruled that the exemptions did not apply because they did not cover the whole of the action that constituted the project. As for mootness, the court pointed to its opinion in , (2000) 77 Cal.App.4th 880 (see , March 2000). In that case, the court required the preparation of an EIR, even though the car wash at issue had already been constructed and was operating. The EIR could still result in project modifications or even removal, the court held in Woodward Park. "Similarly," Dawson wrote, " in this case there is a possibility that directing the respondents to conduct an initial study may result in a mitigated negative declaration or an environmental impact report containing mitigation measures." The court directed the community college district to prepare that initial study but declined to rule on the merits of the project. The Case: , No. F042272, 04 C.D.O.S. 2003, 2004 DJDAR 2931. Filed February 4, 2004. Ordered published March 4, 2004. The Lawyers: For ACE: C.D. Michel, Trutanich & Michel, (310) 548-0410. For the district: Marilyn Kaplan, (510) 845-3500.

A homebuilder’s lawsuit over the City of Encinitas’s fee scheme, which allowed the city building official to implement automatic fee changes, has been allowed to proceed. The Fourth District Court of Appeal ruled that even though the fees took effect years before the homebuilder paid them, the normal statute of limitations did not apply because the city made no provision for public review. " he city’s regulatory scheme allowed the fees to be increased at the whim of its building official without providing any notice to the public of the impending change," Justice James McIntyre wrote for the court. "This scheme frustrates two fundamental purposes of the Act — ensuring that the public receives notice of proposed fee increases and that local government agencies do not charge excessive fees for services they provide." The unanimous three-judge panel sent the lawsuit, filed by Barratt American, Inc., back to San Diego County Superior Court for further proceedings. In 1987, the Encinitas City Council adopted an ordinance requiring building permit fees to be set by council resolution, but authorizing the city building official to assign a valuation (known as a valuation multiplier) to different categories of structures. In 1992, the council adopted a resolution that included a fee schedule, in which the city calculated building permit and other fees by multiplying the square footage of a proposed building by the valuation multiplier. For three developments constructed by Barratt American, the city used valuation multipliers set forth by the San Diego Area Chapter of the International Conference of Building Officials (ICBO) that was effective on August 1, 1995. Those multipliers were not included by the city in the 1992 resolution. Barratt American contended it was overcharged by the city and filed a lawsuit in October 2000 seeking a refund. San Diego County Superior Court Judge Thomas Nugent found that the statute of limitations had expired, and he ruled for the city. Barratt American appealed, and the Fourth District overturned part of Judge Nugent’s decision. The appellate court determined that Barratt American’s challenge to the 1992 resolution was filed years too late because a 120-day statute of limitations applied. But the Fourth District ruled that Barratt American’s claim that the city improperly increased fees should be considered. The developer argued that the fees it was charged were illegal because the 1995 ICBO multipliers were never adopted by City Council ordinance or resolution. Typically, the 120-day statute of limitations begins when the legislative body adopts the fee schedule. But the Encinitas City Council never specifically adopted this fee schedule. The city argued that Barratt American had 120 days from the time it paid the fees to file a lawsuit. But the court rejected that contention, finding that the statute of limitations in Government Code § 66022 "expressly runs from the effective date of the fee legislation." In this case, there was no legislation. The city also argued that the fee change was automatic because the 1987 ordinance gave the city building official authority to change the valuation multipliers. State law allows such automatic fee adjustments, the city contended. But the court ruled that there was a difference between the automatic adjustments allowed by the Mitigation Fee Act and Encinitas’s approach. " hile enactment of both the ordinance and the 1992 resolution satisfied due process, neither expressly ‘provided for’ automatic fee adjustments. (Government Code § 66022, subdivision (a).) Stated differently, nothing within these two enactments put the public on notice that the city would periodically adjust the ultimate fees charged based on some objective criteria such as the ICBO publishing a changed valuation schedule," Justice McIntyre wrote. Moreover, the city must provide evidence that fees charged under the ICBO schedule are related to the cost of providing the actual services, the court noted. "Here, nothing prevented the building official from changing the valuation multiplier, and thus changing the fees, in any way he or she desired," McIntyre wrote. "At a minimum, due process requires a local agency to adopt an automatic adjustment formula based on some readily determinable and objective criteria that are expressly stated." Barratt American has challenged fees for plan checks, building permits and inspections in numerous jurisdictions. The developer even has a case pending before the state Supreme Court, , No. S117590. The Case: , No. D041162, 04 C.D.O.S. 1228, 2004 DJDAR 1510. Filed February 10, 2004. The Lawyers: For Barratt American: Jason Brent, Brent & Klein, (661) 823-1103. For the city: Jeffrey Dunn, Best, Best & Krieger, (949) 263-2600.

Society’s historical pursuit of utopia has resulted in two parallel and sometimes intersecting movements in physical planning: new urbanism and sustainability. These agendas spring from different impulses, but both are reactions to the form and effect of 50 years of suburban sprawl across the national landscape. New urbanism, the now popular name for what was originally called neo-traditional planning, is rooted in aesthetic nostalgia that rose along with post-modern culture during the 1980s. Its focus is recreating the look and feel of early 20th Century America. The sustainable development movement is sourced in the environmental movement that took root in the 1960s. Its focus is on resource consumption and preservation of the natural world. Developers being developers want to capitalize on fresh building ideas. Too often though, when they develop new urbanist projects from scratch, the result invariably has an ersatz, artificial feel. And why wouldn’t it? Recreating an ideal is never is as good as the ideal itself. That is why so many new urbanist communities feel like stage sets for "The Truman Show" or knockoffs of Disneyland’s Main Street. Sustainable developments also carry baggage because no matter how much energy and water is saved compared with conventional projects, new developments consume land and require energy and water. But as humans, we yearn to build. And the search for sustainable building cannot be anything other than noble. A pair of master planned communities – one Tucson and one in Orange County – illustrate distinctions in the way developers have responded to the desire to build green. Civano is a master planned community in Tucson that arose from a civic impulse during the 1970s to address energy consumption . An 818-acre, mixed-use community, Civano endeavors to serve as a model for the next generation of housing and community development. Civano is a planning hybrid: It incorporates new urbanist-influenced neighborhood design by combining southwest vernacular architectural styles with walkable, skinny street neighborhoods. The design themes combine with extraordinarily high standards of resource conservation, including a rigorous use of native plants and water harvesting for landscaping purposes. The community, which lies within and is therefore regulated by the City of Tucson, takes its name from a Hohokum word meaning a period of time when the native people of the Sonoran Desert lived at their greatest harmony with the environment. After years of planning, the project broke ground in 1999 in the southeast urban edge, an area replete with master planned communities. Today, 300 dwellings of the initial 550 are occupied – a slow start by California standards. But the focus on sustainable building has paid off. A pair of independent studies completed in 2002 showed that Civano has delivered the green goods. Dwellings in Civano consume 50% less energy than conventional houses built during the same period in the desert city. Even more impressive, water consumption was found to be 65% less than in other master planned communities in the Tucson. In March, with great fanfare in the real estate press, Orange County’s first "green" master planned community – billed as the largest in the country with 1,260 units planned – debuted. In contrast to Civano, the Terramor Village project turns out to be more the product of highly sophisticated merchandising than a result of real planning initiatives. In fact, when only 28% of targeted respondents said their home choices were motivated by environmental values, the developers chose to use avoid the use of the term "green" and replace it with the inexplicable "360° Living." The community is a sub-unit of the sprawling Ladera Ranch development, which, in turn, is a unit of the Mission Viejo Company. Without a hint of embarrassment, promoters of Terramor admit they are targeting "cultural creatives," a segment of the population identified by market demographers as trend setters with a hybrid of values. A glance at the site plan for Terramor reveals nothing other than the typical spaghetti-style street patterns that made Orange County famous during the 1960s – without the streets. Instead, in a surprising anti-new urbanist swipe, houses face greens. Envision Clarence Stein greenbelt towns with tract homes. Unlike Civano, the home designs have no apparent theme, and all homes are built by standard developers. Terramor does offer a laundry list of energy and water saving devices, and performance standards are required of the merchant builders who construct the projects within the planned polygons. But Terramor includes turf lawns for most houses, a notoriously water–consumptive choice in arid Southern California. So despite the claims about environmental responsibility, Terramor reads more like an experiment in new-age marketing than a exemplar for sustainability planning. journalist Nathan Callahan dismissed Terramor as an example of "greenwashing," misrepresenting a product so as to present an environmentally responsible public image. As a kind of validation of the power of combining the best features of new urbanism with a genuine commitment to sustainable building, Civano won magazine’s "Best New Community" award in January. The accolade is worth noting for planners and developers, for it reinforces the notion that careful planning to promote authentic values will always deliver more than crass merchandising.

There’s no denying it anymore: California has entered the infill age. Suburban development still continues apace, especially in the Central Valley and the Inland Empire. But most of the state is engaged in the process of adding more residents to existing neighborhoods and existing urban areas – and trying to find good ways to add more houses and shops to those neighborhoods as well. What all this means is that design and context are important. In fact, design and context are critical components to successful infill development. And they are important not because designers tell us so, but because the practical realities of making infill work in already crowded communities demand it. Let’s begin with design, which, in the postsuburban era, is necessarily the key to resolving incompatibility among land uses. As I stated in this column in February, traditional suburban zoning sought to solve all problems with distance, essentially eliminating conflict and incompatibility by placing different uses far away from each other. Indeed, the notion of separating incompatible land uses with space is the very legal basis of zoning. But in the postsuburban era, land is expensive. As a result, densities go up, and solving incompatibility with space becomes harder. Some years ago, officials in a suburb that was transitioning to higher densities revisited the city’s zoning ordinance. Because most new homes were now two stories instead of one, the zoning ordinance’s six-foot side-yard setback was no longer adequate. Residents did not want to look out their second-story bedroom window and see their neighbor getting ready for bed only 12 feet away. The Planning Commission’s solution was to increase the side-yard setback by two feet – from six to eight feet – meaning that neighbors would be staring at each other through their bedroom windows at a distance of 16 feet rather than 12 feet. This seemingly logical solution was the result of a system that has always used space, rather than design, to solve incompatibility. The problem arises when land economics do not allow you to use vast amounts of space to fix things. Purely from the perspective of solving the bedroom-staring problem, an 80-foot setback might make sense. By contrast, 16 feet does not make much of a difference when you are in your nightclothes. But in a world where land is expensive and production homebuilders do things a certain way, it’s about all the space you are going to be able to get. At some point you have to design your way out of incompatibility instead. At a "micro" level, this can involve very simple solutions like using townhome party walls or orienting the houses so that people don’t stare in each other’s windows. Or it can involve creating small but private spaces like courtyards and terraces, as Europeans and Asians have done for centuries. At a "macro" level – especially in a mixed-use situation or a situation where commercial and residential locations are in close proximity to one another – design is important as well. A parking lot or tennis court that might be open-air in a suburban situation might need to be enclosed. Most important, the construction items used to create separation – walls, for example – must be attractive and interesting, so that people feel invited to sit or eat or converse near them, rather than get pushed away from them. But design is not the only issue. Context is important too and, in an auto-oriented society like California, context is largely a question of roads. No matter how densely we pack our neighborhoods with new housing, those neighborhoods are not likely to be better for residents unless they can walk to many locations from their residences. This works in old, pedestrian-oriented downtown districts – look at Pasadena, Sacramento, or San Diego – but it is much harder to make it work on arterials. And arterials are where the infill action is. The state is filled with older suburbs that are bursting at the seams and are clearly more than ready for a transformation to higher density and more sophisticated development patterns – the San Gabriel Valley, the San Fernando Valley, West Los Angeles, the South Bay, and north and west Orange County, to name only a few areas in metro L.A. But all are built on an arterial grid system. It is true – as Dick Ramella of The Planning Center and many others have pointed out – that these commercial strips contain vast amounts of underutilized land that will be required to provide housing in the decades ahead. But most of these roads are also very wide, carrying large amounts of high-speed traffic. As they are currently designed, the arterials present a huge impediment to the pedestrian-oriented infill districts, even though the strips contain a lot of land ripe for infill development. Given California’s traffic-choked atmosphere, it is hard to imagine narrowing the streets in a way that will reduce capacity. This pattern – combined with California’s history of high-quality suburban design – often leads to high-density strip development that seems like an attractive and insular fortress. Maybe the best example is the new development projects near Park La Brea and the Farmers Market on Third Street in Los Angeles (see , January 1999). The Grove, a new shopping center by upscale retail developer Rick Caruso, is internally pedestrian friendly, but it does not contain any housing and the project is big and blocky from the Third Street perspective. Across Third Street, The Palazzo – a new luxury apartment complex – faces the street in a more friendly fashion, but the apartment residents can see only The Grove’s back wall. You can’t really blame Caruso and his designers – Third Street is a large and busy arterial street, and most of the customers will not come from The Palazzo. They will enter from the seven-story parking garage attached to the project. From that perspective, it makes sense to shut off the project from the street. The arterial becomes the divider rather than the connector. Something similar is also true at the vaunted Brea Town Center project in Orange County (see , January 1998). An almost European intimacy exists on the narrow side street, but Brea Boulevard – which runs right through the center of the project – is still six lanes wide and carries large amounts of traffic. It is nearly impossible to imagine the urban district of Brea Town Center jumping southward across busy Imperial Highway, even though the property is immediately adjacent and ripe for recycling. How context and design will work together on California’s arterial strips is difficult to predict. Perhaps in some cases the superblocks inside the arterials will become pedestrian havens – as suburban planners originally envisioned – but with higher density and more intense activity. In most cases, the biggest obstacle to this is the existing neighborhood fabric – auto-oriented single-family homes with wide if lightly traveled residential streets. But many of these neighborhoods will change on the edges with high-density housing and mixed-use development. That alone might provide residents with more places to walk within each superblock and create a more pedestrian-friendly environment inside the suburban grid. In other cases, it might be possible to pick and choose among arterials, facilitating some to maintain traffic flow and speed while selecting others for narrowing so that they can become the transit-oriented centerpieces of a kind of "arterial district." That would be a radical change from the deliberate sameness that suburbia originally created. And it would be a big step toward making the transition from suburban to urban in California.

California voters approved $20 billion worth of bonds for school construction and rehabilitation in March. In addition to the $12.3 billion for schools contained in Proposition 55, voters in 52 school districts approved $7.9 billion worth of local school bonds. Since 1998, state voters have approved three school bonds worth a combined $34 billion for everything from kindergarten classrooms to university research facilities. And since voters lowered the threshold for approving local school bonds from two-thirds to 55%, local bonds have passed at an unprecedented rate, with more billions becoming available for school construction every election cycle. The new capital investment in schools has occurred at a remarkably rapid rate. As recently at the late 1990s, funding for school buildings was a difficult question. Now, the system as a whole is close to having the amount of money it needs to keep pace with student needs, said Kim Rueben, a research fellow with the Public Policy Institute of California. "We’re finishing off the backlog, but we’re also building schools for the next decade," Rueben said. The turning point in the school capital improvement system might have been approval of SB 50 in 1998 (see , September 1998). That legislation capped school impact fees that are levied on developers and made local districts responsible for half the cost of new schools. But the legislation also made local bonds a routine part of the process. With the cap on fees in place, the building industry has been willing to support — or, at least, not oppose — state and local school bonds. "Part of the reason there is so much activity on the part of local districts is that to get your state money, you have got to have the local match," Rueben added. The next phase in the evolution of school facility finance was state voters’ approval of Proposition 39 in November 2000, lowering the vote requirement to 55% for nearly all local school bonds. Since then, more than 80% of local school bonds have passed. Under the two-thirds requirement, only about 60% of local school bonds were approved, and there were far fewer bond measures on the ballot than there are these days. Although the focus is often on elementary and high school districts, since April 2001, community college districts have placed 47 bonds before voters. Even though they are often far larger than any other local bond on the ballot, the community college measures have passed all but four times. "If it were a two-thirds requirement, it would be very, very difficult to pass," said Cheryl Fong, a spokeswoman for the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office. Indeed, only 10 of the 47 bonds since April 2001 have received at least two-thirds voter approval. The March 2 election was fairly representative of the school bond picture nowadays, although the total dollar amount might have been the largest ever. School districts placed 64 bonds on the ballot, and voters approved 52 (81%) of the measures. Thirty-six of the measures that passed received more than 55% of the vote, but less than two-thirds, according to statistics compiled by the Coalition for Adequate School Housing. The bonds ranged in size from $3.87 billion in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) to $400,000 in the Washington Colony Elementary School District in Fresno County. Community college districts in March received approval for 10 bond measures worth $2.28 billion. Only two community college bond measures failed. Of course, many eyes were on Proposition 55, the $12.3 billion state bond that succeeded with only 50.9% voter support. Much like Proposition 1A in 1998 and Proposition 47 in 2002, Proposition 55 provides money for new K through 16 facilities, as well as rehabilitation projects. Like Proposition 47, the latest measure also has money earmarked for "critically overcrowded schools," which are primarily in urban districts such as LAUSD. Proposition 55 has $2.44 billion for critically overcrowded schools. The provision for urban school districts helps answer concerns about the equitable distribution of money for school facilities, said Rueben. Prior to 2000, when advocates for LAUSD sued to get some of the Proposition 1A money and the Department of Education changed its allocation system, most money went to school districts in wealthy communities or in areas that were fast-growing, Rueben said. Now, money flows to all sorts of districts, with the state providing hardship grants to the worst-off districts. Proposition 55 contains a total of $5.2 billion for new construction, an amount that should take four of five years for the state to allocate, said Duwayne Brooks, director of school facilities for the Department of Education. The state has nearly exhausted the $13 billion provided by Proposition 47 in only about a year and half. The state and could start awarding Proposition 55 money to school districts as early as this month, Brooks said. Districts have already submitted applications, and districts eligible for $350 million worth of facility modernization money have already had their applications approved, he said. Contacts: Duwayne Brooks, Department of Education, (916) 445-2144. Kim Rueben, Public Policy Institute of California, (415) 291-4400. Cheryl Fong, California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office, (916) 323-5954. 20 Largest Local School Bonds on March 2 Ballot District -- County -- Amount -- Vote Los Angeles USD -- L.A. -- $3.87 billion -- 63% (pass) Chabot-Las Positas CCD -- Alameda/CoCo -- $498 million -- 59% (pass) Sierra JCCD -- Nevada/Placer/Sacramento -- $394 million -- 54% (fail) Riverside CCD -- Riverside -- $350 million -- 60% (pass) Desert CCD -- Riverside -- $346 million -- 69% (pass) Grossmont UHSD -- SD -- $274 million -- 60% (pass) San Joaquin Delta CCD -- Alameda/Calaveras/Sac./SJ -- $250 million -- 57% (pass) Rio Hondo CCD -- L.A. -- $245 million -- 62% (pass) Huntington Beach USD -- Orange -- $238 million -- 58% (pass) Cerritos CCD -- L.A. -- $210 million -- 57% (pass) Orange USD -- Orange -- $200 million -- 48% (fail) Saddleback Valley USD -- Orange -- $180 million -- 59% (pass) Clovis USD -- Fresno -- $168 million -- 62% (pass) Simi Valley SD -- Ventura -- $145 million -- 62% (pass) San Bernardino USD -- San Bernardino -- $140 million -- 60% (pass) Citrus CCD -- L.A. -- $121 million -- 57% (pass) Cabrillo CCD -- Monterey/Santa Cruz -- $118.5 million -- 60% (pass) Gavilan CCD -- Santa Clara -- $108 million -- 56% (pass) Santa Maria JUHSD -- Santa Barbara -- $98 million -- 50% (fail) College of the Sequoias CCD -- Fresno/Kings/Tulare -- $95 million -- 52% (fail)

Neighbors of a Marin County rock quarry, which has been the source of complaints and government investigations for years, have failed in their bid to pursue a class action lawsuit against the quarry for allegedly illegal activities. The First District Court of Appeal upheld a lower court decision denying a request for certification of a class action against San Rafael Rock Quarry, Inc. The court based part of its decision on the fact that no two residents were impacted in the same way by the quarry’s blasting, noise and truck traffic. The quarry has been operating on the edge of San Pablo Bay, near San Rafael, for a century. In 1982, the then-owners submitted a new reclamation plan pursuant to the Surface Mining and Reclamation Act. Based on that plan, the county rezoned the land and the mine has been a legal, nonconforming use ever since. In 1986, Dutra Construction Company purchased the quarry and allegedly increased the scope of operations. In 1996, the Bay Area Air Quality Management District cited the quarry for expanding without permits. In 2000, Marin County issued a notice of noncompliance with the 1982 reclamation plan. The county reported that Dutra Construction had increased the depth of the mining pit, ignored a date for terminating mining and increased truck traffic. Later investigations by the county and the City of San Rafael revealed buildings constructed without permits and violations of air quality standards. In June 2001, the Marin County grand jury issued a report critical of the county’s inaction regarding complaints about the quarry’s dust, noise, blasting and truck traffic. The grand jury urged the district attorney to take action against the quarry. Jonathan Frieman and Jan Brice, who live near the quarry, filed a lawsuit in January 2002. They argued that the quarry’s expansion in violation of state and local laws was an unlawful business practice under the Unfair Practices Act (UCL) (Business and Professions Code § 17200 et seq.). Frieman and Brice — who initially were joined by another individual who has since died and a citizens group that later dropped out of the litigation — also argued that the quarry’s expansion was a public nuisance. In July 2002, the plaintiffs sought class certification for the lawsuit. They wanted to include in the class anyone who resided within a 5-square-mile area of the quarry or Point San Pedro Road for at least 30 days since September 25, 1998 — about 11,000 people. The plaintiffs sought the profits that the quarry realized because of its noncompliance with the amended plan, zoning and various health and safety codes. Marin County Superior Court Judge Vernon Smith rejected the request for class action status. Frieman and Brice appealed, and a unanimous three-judge panel of the First District, Division One, upheld the lower court. First, the appellate panel ruled that Frieman and Brice had failed to show how class certification would benefit the aggrieved parties and the court — requirements for forming a class. According to the court, the plaintiffs sought class status so that they could force the quarry to disgorge its profits. "Plaintiffs argue that forcing the quarry to turn over all profits made during the period that it was in violation of the various environmental and building regulations would be an effective way to prevent future violations under the ‘necessary to prevent’ prong of the UCL. While that may be true, it is not dispositive," Presiding Justice James Marchiano wrote for the court. He suggested the plaintiffs could use the streamlined provisions of the UCL to obtain an injunction against the quarry. The court then turned to the issue of nuisance. Here, the court relied heavily on , (1974) 12 Cal.3d 447, a case involving noise, vapor, dust and vibration from the San Jose airport. In that case, the court refused to certify a class action because members of the class would have had such different experiences. The court in held: "An approaching or departing aircraft may or may not give rise to actionable nuisance or inverse condemnation depending on a myriad of individualized evidentiary factors. While landing or departure may be a fact common to all, liability can be established only after extensive examination of the circumstances surrounding each party. Development, use, topography, zoning, physical condition and relative location are among the many important criteria to be considered. … The result becomes a statistical permutation, and the requisite number of subclassifications quickly approaches the total number of parcels in the class." The same situation applied in Marin County, the First District held. The court pointed to two reports submitted by the quarry. A noise report by Charles M. Salter Associates, Inc., concluded that landscaping, soil conditions, ridgelines, intervening structures, atmospheric conditions, construction types and other factors would affect the noise heard by residents in the vicinity of the quarry. A report by Blast Dynamics, Inc., concluded that no two locations would experience the same vibrations from blasts at the quarry because of variations in rock and soil formations. "The variables that prevented class treatment in are analogous to the variables present in this case," Marchiano wrote. "Rather than mere variations in the measure of damages , these factors are keys to defendant quarry’s liability. Whether each resident even heard or felt the impact of quarry’s operations is subject to separate and differing matters of proof." The Case: , No. A101294, 04 C.D.O.S. 1616, 2004 DJDAR 2409. Filed February 24, 2004. The Lawyers: For Frieman: Patricia E. Henle, (415) 929-3197. For San Rafael Rock Quarry: John M. Taylor, Taylor & Wiley, (916) 929-5545.

A state appellate court ruling that the loss of farmland resulting from development of a prison could not be mitigated has been depublished by the sate Supreme Court. In , the Fifth District Court of Appeal rejected prison opponents' contention that the state should have analyzed an agricultural easement on farmland in the vicinity as a means of mitigating the loss of more than 2,000 acres of farmland due to prison construction and other projects. The court appeared to rule that easements could not be considered mitigation for the loss of agricultural land, leaving local governments with the choice of no project or no mitigation (see , January 2004). Many farming and environmental groups asked the Supreme Court to depublish the decision because the use of easements has become a fairly common mitigation measure. The state high court's decision to depublish the opinion means it cannot be cited as a precedent in other litigation. But the Fifth District's ruling in the case remains in place.

In a ruling directly at odds with a landmark 1995 decision, the Sixth District Court of Appeal has ruled that local government may not regulate the location of timber harvests. The Sixth District disagreed with the decision in , 31 Cal.App.4th 418 (see , March 1998, February 1995), in which the First District Court of Appeal differentiated between the and the of timber operations. In the new case, also involving Big Creek Lumber Company, the Sixth District ruled that there was no difference between conduct and location. Because there is no difference, and because the Forest Practices Act (FPA) prohibits local governments from regulating the conduct of timber operations, local government may not regulate the location of timber harvests, the court ruled. "Local measures that forbid logging in certain locations ‘regulate the conduct of timber operations’ in those places in the most fundamental way imaginable — by prohibiting them outright," Justice William Wunderlich wrote for the unanimous three-judge panel. "Carried to its logical conclusion, the reasoning in allows individual counties to completely circumvent the FPA by the simple expedient of enacting zoning measures that prevent logging altogether." In , the First District upheld a county ordinance requiring a 1,000-foot buffer between timber harvest operations and a residence. During the late 1990s, Santa Cruz County sought to restrict logging because of complaints from residents in forested, rural areas (see , January 1999). Bolstered by the decision in , the county adopted three ordinances and a resolution that, among other things, established setbacks from riparian corridors, restricted the removal of timber by helicopters, prohibited timber harvesting outside certain zoning districts and imposed additional restrictions on proposals to rezone land to "timber production zone." The county treated some of the regulations as amendments to its general plan and local coastal plan (LCP). The Coastal Commission approved the local coastal plan amendments (the commission decides on all LCP amendments) and further required the county to treat all rezonings to TPZ as LCP amendments. Big Creek Lumber and the Central Coast Forest Association sued Santa Cruz County and the Coastal Commission. The loggers contended the new regulations were preempted by the FPA (Public Resources Code § 4511 et seq.), the Timberland Productivity Act (TPA) (Government Code § 51100 et seq.), the Coastal Act (Public Resources Code § 30000 et seq.) and state planning and zoning law (Government Code § 65000 et seq.). Santa Cruz County Superior Court Judge Robert Yonts Jr. found that most of the regulations were preempted by state law but upheld the restriction banning timber harvesting from all but the specified zoning districts. Both sides appealed. The Sixth District found that the FPA superseded the local ordinances and resolution in their entirety. On appeal, the county relied heavily on — a strategy that failed when the Sixth District rejected that opinion. One county ordinance and the resolution limited timber harvesting to lands zoned "timber production," "mineral extraction industrial" or, outside the coastal zone, "parks, recreation and open space." This appeared to be the sort of location regulation specifically permitted by . But the Sixth District found that the TPA "severely circumscribes local zoning authority with respect to timberlands." " ore fundamentally, we question the differentiation between and timber operations take place in interpreting the statutory phrase ‘conduct of timber operations,’" Justice Wunderlich wrote, citing Public Resources Code § 4615.5, subdivision (d). "Given both the language and the intent of the statute, we construe the statutory phrase ‘conduct of timber operations’ to encompass the location of those activities as well as the manner of carrying them out." The court gave similar treatment to the ordinances prescribing riparian setbacks and restricting helicopter logging, finding that the local ordinances were in conflict with the FPA. The court noted that with regard to helicopter logging, the Board of Forestry had even adopted helicopter logging regulations under the FPA that were specific to Santa Cruz County. As for the Coastal Commission requirement that rezoning to timber production zone be treated as an LCP amendment, the Sixth District noted that the trial court invalidated the county’s resolution and ordinance — not the Commission’s decision. Besides, the Sixth District held, the Commission cannot require the county to exercise authority it does not have, and under the TPA, the county must grant requests to rezone land to TPZ if the parcels meet the statutory criteria. (The TPZ designation gives a property owner tax breaks in exchange for not developing the site in a way that conflicts with timber production.) The Coastal Commission argued that removing its discretion over TPZ applications prevented the Commission from carrying out the Coastal Act’s mandate. The Sixth District disagreed, finding that both laws protect the productivity of timberlands. "Significantly, the TPA contains no exception from its provision for lands within the coastal zone. The Coastal Act, on the other hand, expressly addresses timberlands in several provisions. For one thing, it specifically includes the protection of timberlands as one of its Chapter 3 policies. For another thing, the Act’s definition of development excludes timber operations conducted under a State Forestry Board timber harvest plan," Wunderlich wrote. The court also rejected the contention that the Coastal Act required the processing of rezoning applications as LCP amendments. The Coastal Act speaks to changes of land use, and "the act of zoning timberland for timberland production does not change its use," the court ruled. The county has asked the state Supreme Court to accept the case, which appears somewhat likely because the decision directly conflicts with the published opinion of a different appellate court district. The Case: , No. H023778, 04 C.D.O.S. 1365, 2004 DJDAR 2006. Filed February 17, 2004. The Lawyers: For Big Creek: Craig Stewart, Jones Day, (415) 626-3939. For Central Coast Forest Association: Robert Bosso, Bosso, Williams, Sachs, Atack & Gallagher, (831) 426-8484, For the county: Dana McRae, county counsel, (831) 454-2040. For the Coastal Commission: Tara Mueller, deputy attorney general, (510) 622-2136.

A wireless telecommunications service provider may seek damages under the federal Civil Rights Act because a city improperly denied the provider a conditional use permit, according to the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The decision came in a long-running dispute between a homeowner and the City of Rancho Palos Verdes. In about 1990, Mark Abrams erected a 52-foot radio antenna on his property, near the peak of the Palos Verdes Peninsula. Over the years, he apparently installed a second antenna and placed two portable models in his yard. Abrams is a ham radio operator and also runs a for-profit wireless transmission service. In 1999, the city and state sued Abrams to bar him from using the antennas for commercial purposes. Three years later, California’s Second District Court of Appeal ruled that the city could not deny Abrams’s application for a conditional use permit based solely on the commercial nature of the antennas ( , 101 Cal.App.4th 367; see , October 2002). While the state court litigation was proceeding, Abrams sued the city in federal court under the Telecommunications Act of 1996 (TCA). He argued that the city violated his rights under the act and, because of the violation, he was eligible for damages under the Civil Rights Act (42 U.S.C. §1983). District Court Judge Stephen Wilson ruled that the city had violated Abrams’s rights under the TCA, but Wilson ruled that Abrams could not received § 1983 damages because the Telecommunications Act contained its own remedies. Abrams appealed, and a unanimous three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit reversed the lower court. Damages for violations of federal rights are available under § 1983 unless Congress forecloses the opportunity by establishing other remedies, according to the Ninth Circuit. With the Telecommunications Act, Congress established a short statute of limitations (30 days), required expedited judicial review and permitted a plaintiff to file a lawsuit "in any court of competent jurisdiction." These measures are not remedies but are, instead, procedural rights, the Ninth Circuit held. "The procedural provisions are insufficient for us to conclude that the TCA contains a comprehensive remedial scheme that closes the door on § 1983 liability," Judge Thomas Nelson wrote for the court. The court noted that the Third Circuit reached the opposite conclusion in , 286 F.3d 687 (3d Cir. 2002). What the Ninth Circuit considered a "procedural" scheme, the Third Circuit called a comprehensive remedial scheme that foreclosed § 1983 damages. But the Ninth Circuit called the Third Circuit’s reasoning "flawed" and re-emphasized the procedural nature of the Telecommunications Act’s remedies. The Ninth Circuit sent the case back to district court to determine the amount of damages to which Abrams is entitled. The Case: , No. 0255681, 04 C.D.O.S. 353, 2004 DJDAR 496. Filed January 15, 2004. The Lawyers: For Abrams: Wilkie Cheong, Cheong, Denove, Rowell & Bennett, (310) 277-4857. For the city: Carol Lynch, Richards, Watson & Gershon, (213) 626-8484.

In a unanimous opinion, the state Supreme Court has ruled that a community service district’s water connection charge and fire suppression charge are exempt from the restrictions of Proposition 218. The ruling was only the state high court’s second in a Proposition 218 case, and in both instances, the court ruled for local government. The court held that the Shasta Community Service District’s connection charge was neither a "fee" nor a "charge" within the meaning of Proposition 218 (article XIII D of the state constitution) and thus was not subject to the initiative’s majority-protest provisions. "A connection fee is not imposed simply by virtue of property ownership, but instead it is imposed as an incident of the voluntary act of the property owner in applying for a service, connection," Justice Joyce Kennard wrote for the court. Attorney Michael Colantuono, who argued the case for Shasta CSD at the high court, said the decision "provides clear guidance for local governments that utility connection and capacity charges needed to fund services to new development are not subject to voter or property owner approval." Attorney William Ross, who filed an amicus brief for the California Fire Chiefs Association, said the decision "widens the possibility of revenue streams for local government." However, both Colantuono and Ross warned that the case had enough unique facts that the decision was probably not a major precedent for controversies involving Proposition 218 or development impact fees. In fact, the high court ruled that the connection charge was not a development fee, a conclusion with which Colantuono differed. State voters approved Proposition 218 — the Right to Vote on Taxes Act — in 1996. Proponents said it was needed to close loopholes that local governments had opened in Proposition 13. Under Proposition 218, a fee for general government services requires two-thirds voter approval. Additionally, an assessment levied for the benefit of certain pieces of property is subject to a majority-protest process, in which the owners who would pay the majority of the total assessment amount can kill the assessment. Shasta CSD operates a water system and volunteer fire department in the unincorporated community of Shasta, just west of Redding. In 1994, the district adopted an ordinance establishing a "standard connection fee" of $2,000, plus the cost of a water meter. The amount included a capacity charge to fund future improvements to the water system and a fire suppression charge to fund fire department equipment. In 1997, the district hiked the capacity charge to $3,176 and continued collecting the $400 fire suppression charge. The $3,176 was based on the estimated cost of future improvements assigned to new development ($762,300) divided by the estimated number of future connections (240). In March 1998, four property owners filed a lawsuit contesting the fees on three key grounds: The district failed to follow Proposition 218’s requirements for levying an assessment, the fire suppression fee was an illegal fee for general government services under Proposition 218, and the district could not use a resolution to amend the 1994 ordinance. After an eight-day trial, Shasta County Superior Court Judge Richard McEachen ruled for the district, concluding that the connection fee was a "development fee" and therefore was exempt from Proposition 218. He also ruled that the fire suppression charge was exempt from Proposition 218 because it was only the continuation of a charge that existed before the initiative was passed. Finally, he ruled that the district’s use of a resolution was legal. The Third District Court of Appeal upheld the lower court except with regard to the fire suppression charge, which the court said was illegal under Proposition 218 because voters had not approved the charge (see , April 2002). The decision seemed to satisfy neither side. The case then went to the state Supreme Court, which affirmed the trial court decision. However, the Supreme Court specifically ruled that the connection charge was not a "development fee" because a new water connection was not necessarily related property development. Citing language in Proposition 218, the Supreme Court determined that the initiative requires an agency imposing an assessment to identify "all parcels which will have a special benefit conferred upon them and upon which an assessment will be imposed." Shasta CSD, however, "estimated that there would be 240 new connection applications, but the district did not and could not identify the specific parcels for which new connection applications would be made … because many existing undeveloped parcels would likely be subdivided into an indeterminable number of smaller parcels," Kennard wrote. Therefore, the agency could not comply with Proposition 218’s requirement. "Because the District does not impose the capacity charge on identifiable parcels, but only on individuals who request a new service connection, the capacity charge is not an assessment within the meaning of article XIII D," Kennard wrote. But neither was the capacity charge a development fee, the court continued. "It is similar to a development fee in being imposed only in response to a property owner’s voluntary application to a public entity, but it is different in that the application may be only for a water service connection without necessarily involving any development of the property," Kennard wrote. The fire suppression charge was intended to provide money for firefighting and emergency response equipment. Several analysts have questioned whether the charge was legal under Proposition 13, which prohibits taxes for general government services without two-thirds voter approval. But the Shasta CSD property owners did not make a Proposition 13 argument. Instead, they contended that the charge was illegal under Proposition 218 because it was never approved by voters — an argument accepted by the Court of Appeal. The Supreme Court disagreed. For the charge to be illegal under Proposition 218, it must be assessed "as an incident of property ownership." That was not the case here, the court ruled. "The district does not impose the fee on parcels of real property but on persons who apply for a water service connection," Kennard wrote. " e agree that water service fees, being fees for property-related services, may be fees or charges within the meaning of article XIII D," Kennard continued. "But we do not agree that all water service charges are necessarily subject to the restrictions that article XIII D imposes on fees and charges. Rather, we conclude that a water service fee is a fee or charge under article XIII D if, but only if, it is imposed ‘upon a person as incident of property ownership.’ A fee for ongoing water service through an existing connection is imposed ‘as an incident of property ownership’ because it requires nothing other than normal ownership and use of property. But a fee for making a new connection to the system is not imposed ‘as an incident of property ownership’ because it results from the owner’s voluntary decision to apply for the connection." Shasta CSD attorney Colantuono expressed concern over Kennard’s indication that water service charges are subject to Proposition 218. He expects taxpayer advocates will use the opinion to contest routine service charges. But Colantuono further contended that Kennard’s statement was dicta — meaning it was not essential to deciding the case — and that such an interpretation of Proposition 218 conflicted with existing case law. The court further ruled that the district could modify its fees by resolution. The state high court’s only other Proposition 218 ruling came in , 24 Cal.4th 830 (2001) (see , February 2001), in which the court ruled that an annual apartment inspection fee to fund slum abatement was not subject to the initiative. The Case: , No. S105078, 04 C.D.O.S. 1146, 2004 DJDAR 1429. Filed February 9, 2004 The Lawyers: For Richmond: Walter McNeill, (530) 222-8892. For Shasta CSD: David Edwards, (530) 221-0694, and Michael Colantuono, Colantuono, Levin and Rozell, (213) 533-4155.

The long-running Santa Clarita Valley growth war has entered a new phase. The Newhall County Water District (NCWD), which serves territory inside the Santa Clarita city limits and in unincorporated Los Angeles County, has issued a no-confidence vote for the valley’s urban water management plan. Three members of the five-member NCWD board say the plan relies on water from the State Water Project that is unlikely to materialize, tainted groundwater, and "banked" groundwater that is uncertain. "There is not sufficient current supply of water to meet all current and future demands, especially in times of drought or other emergency," states a resolution that NCWD directors adopted on January 29. The response has been swift. The Santa Clarita City Council and area school boards adopted resolutions opposing the NCWD stance. The Castaic Lake Water Agency, which prepared the plan, is standing by the document. Developers are rushing to get water service contracts from NCWD before more-restrictive policies take effect. "Many of us who are water activists have for years said Castaic is overstating the amount of water available from the State Water Project," said NCWD Board President Lynne Plambeck. "We don’t have enough water for all of this development." But Santa Clarita Mayor Pro-Tem Cameron Smyth said NCWD tried to sneak through a new water policy with little public input. "It’s pretty clear that the action by the majority on the water district board is primarily political in nature," Smyth said. "It’s an attempt to use water to control growth." Between 2,000 to 3,000 new housing units go up annually in the Santa Clarita Valley, which straddles Interstate 5 just north of Los Angeles. Millions of square feet of office, retail and industrial space has been built while the valley evolved into an employment center during recent years. Despite the development-friendly attitudes of both the city and county, growth battles have been intense and often have involved the Santa Clarita Organization for Planning and the Environment (SCOPE). NCWD’s Plambeck is the longtime leader of SCOPE. Plambeck, who intends to run for Los Angeles County supervisor, has been a member of the water board since 1995, but until the November 2003 elections, she was in the minority. Now she controls a 3-2 majority. State law requires all but the smallest urban water suppliers to prepare urban water management plans every five years. In 2000, the Castaic Lake Water Agency adopted the water plan for its 192-square-mile service area in the Santa Clarita Valley. Castaic is a water wholesaler, while NCWA and the private Santa Clarita Water Company and Valencia Water Company provide retail service. Los Angeles County Waterworks District 36 also serves lightly developed, unincorporated areas within Castaic’s boundaries. All retailers except District 36 augment the water imported by Castaic with their own groundwater sources. Castaic and the retailers participated in preparing the 2000 plan and adopted the document. Only Plambeck and one Castaic board member voted against the plan. The plan says existing and planned supplies amount to between 103,000 and 181,000 acre-feet of water during normal years. Usage is expected to grow from roughly 80,000 to 100,000 acre-feet annually by 2020. About half of the supply would come from the State Water Project, with local groundwater accounting for most of the rest. The plan says that even more water — as much as 280,000 acre-feet — would be available during dry years because Castaic could tap banked groundwater, and new wells could draw more local groundwater. The Department of Water Resources accepted the Castaic plan. Most people have concluded that the state law is easy to comply with, and DWR has never rejected an urban water management plan, said Randy Kanouse, an East Bay Municipal Utility District lobbyist who helped draft recent water planning laws. Still, Plambeck and growth opponents contend Castaic’s numbers are bogus. Perchlorate left over from heavy manufacturing has forced the closure of several supply wells, and no one has fully identified the pollution’s scope, she said. Thus, the plan should ratchet down the amount of available groundwater. Additionally, Plambeck said the plan should reduce the amount of SWP available by about half. Courts have accepted an estimation that the SWP can supply at least 50% of requested water in eight years out of ten. Other supplies and strategies identified in the plan — water banking, water transfers, desalination and large-scale water recycling — are too speculative, she said. Gordon LaBedz, conservation chairman of the Southern California Sierra Club, said NCWD is right to question Castaic’s figures. That agency should worry more about serving existing homeowners, LaBedz said. "These guys are saying they have lots and lots of water, and it’s a lie," he said. "They are counting polluted water as potable water." Castaic officials counter that the urban water management plan survived a lawsuit filed by Ventura County and Friends of the Santa Clara River. The suit is on appeal, but the county dropped out. The NCWD resolution contains "serious errors and omissions," said Mary Lou Cotton, Castaic water resources manager. Technology exists to treat water tainted by perchlorate, and all valley purveyors plan to implement treatment, according to Castaic officials. As for SWP water, the long-term average of deliveries is 76% of entitlements — far more than NCWD counted, Castaic says. The agency is already banking wet-year water in the San Joaquin Valley and building recycled water delivery systems. The sides have fought similar battles in the courtroom over specific projects. Most recently, a Kern County Superior Court judge found that Newhall Ranch — a 21,000-unit proposal — had enough water to proceed, but only after earlier rounds of the litigation forced the developer to procure new supplies and rewrite an EIR. Last year, an appeals court rejected an EIR for a different 2,500-unit project, saying that the development relied on uncertain SWP water. Since passage of the NCWD resolution, developer Dale Donohoe, president of Intertex Companies, has finagled a NCWD water connection agreement for a small commercial project, but he finds a larger project in limbo. "I’ve got a $6 million land purchase. We’re supposed to close escrow right now, but we need an extension," said Donohoe, who still needs a guarantee of water service for the property. "It puts everybody in an awkward position," Donohoe said of the NCWD stance. "It’s very hard to do any kind of planning when you have this hanging over your head." Mayor Pro Tem Smyth said NCWD could block redevelopment of old Newhall, a planned community center, and new schools. Numerous school districts oppose the NCWD resolution, in part because the districts count on development fees. Plambeck disputed all of those charges. Urban water management plans must be updated during 2005. Plambeck said NCWD might prepare its own plan rather than join a valley-wide water effort, which Castaic officials say would be a mistake. Contacts: Lynne Plambeck, Newhall County Water District, (661) 259-3610. Cameron Smyth, City of Santa Clarita, (661) 255-4313. Mary Lou Cotton, Castaic Lake Water Agency, (661) 297-1600. Dale Donohoe, Intertex Companies, (661) 295-8215. Newhall County Water District: www.ncwd.org Castaic Lake Water Agency: www.clwa.org