… And that's the end of the fairy tale: Prince Nokia came to Princess Downtown Sunnyvale, providing the city with new jobs, plus helping complete the long-unfinished office building that had annoyed Sunnyvale for years. And the prince and princess lived happily ever after …. Oh, Gramps, I love that story! Tell it to me again. It's past your bedtime, swee' pea, and it's even getting late for me…. I'll scream. You'll be in trouble with Grandma. Oh you would, would you? Well, pipe down, here goes: It started in the Seventies, before your mother was born, in the City of Sunnyvale, currently a burg of 135,000 souls located, in its own words, in "the Heart of Silicon Valley."  Does Silicon Valley have a heart, Gramps? I'm not sure, angel, but it certainly has a lot of jobs, with 118,000 people working here daily. So keep in mind the city's an established employment center. So they don't need redevelopment, Gramps? Oh no, every city needs redevelopment, sugar cookie. Sunnyvale has a single redevelopment project area, which is downtown Sunnyvale. For many years, the single largest project in the redevelopment area was Sunnyvale Town Center, a regional mall built in 1979 by the late, great Ernie Hahn. Can we go visit the mall? Well, not exactly, my green-eyed girl. The mall doesn't exist anymore. But let's not get ahead of ourselves. The agency helped the mall developer assemble about 34 acres in the city's sparsely developed downtown area. The redevelopment agency committed $16.8 million in tax allocation bonds to buy the property and demolish the existing on-site structures, plus another $22.3 million in lease revenue bonds to build an adjoining parking structure.              That was nice of the city. That's what cities do for big money makers like Sunnyvale Town Center, which operated profitably for nearly two decades before the original partnership sold, in 1998, to American Mall Properties. The new owner--let's call him Suitor No. 1 to Princess Sunnyvale--had an expansion plan, including a public parking structure. After finishing the parking, however, the rest of the expansion came to grief early in the current decade, when American Mall Properties found itself beset with both a high vacancy rate in the mall and the bankruptcy of its lender, Finova. That's sad, Gramps. Real estate is not for the meek, little one. Anyway, a few years later, in 2002, San Diego National Bank--otherwise known as Suitor No. 2--bought the loan and served American Mall Properties with a default notice shortly after. Sunnyvale Town Center ended up in the hands of a receiver, and not for the last time. A little while later, AMP defaults on the Mello-Roos bonds (I guess you still have to pay your taxes even when your project is losing money.) That‘s unfair.  Rules are rules, honey cake. Anyway, the Mello Roos bond holders started to foreclose on the mall. Unsurprisingly, American Mall filed for bankruptcy protection shortly after that. This is a long story, Gramps. And it's not over, honeybun.  In 2003, another investor, this time an affiliate of Lehman Brothers--Yes, Suitor No. 3--bought the bank loan. The mall property was now shuttered and an adjoining parking structure declared unsafe by city officials. The city put out a request from proposals for a master developer from the various landowners in the mall area. Lehman Brothers-- Oh. That's a scary story! Don‘t tell me that one again! Don't worry: this happened way before all that. Anyway, Lehman's partner was a Georgia-based developer, Forum Development Group, and together they put forward a proposal to demolish both the mall and the dilapidated parking deck. To replace the mall, Lehman-Forum proposed a mixed-use center with 500,000 square feet of retail, 292 residential units and 275,000 square feet of office space, plus 5,651 parking spaces. They also asked to extend public streets through the property--a worthwhile move to integrate the former mall property back into the downtown street grid. In return, the city agreed to pay for the demolition of the old parking structure, while also agreeing to give the developer up to $4.05 million annually in tax increment generated by the project.              Oh, I love happy endings! Not quite yet, darling. Lehman-Forum was unable to get financing for the project by a December 2004 deadline. Lehman bought out Forum (we're not done with them, however) and asked the city to push the deadline back to May 2005. As master developer, Lehman solicited proposals from developers, including Forum, and in April 2005, Lehman sold the entire mess back to Stanley Thomas, the principal owner of Forum. I think I'm getting sleepy. Forum went to work on the expansion plans later the same year, tearing down the old parking structure, but was late getting started on construction. The city told Forum that the latter was in breach of its agreement. By 2006, the city told the developer that it intended to exercise its right, under the redevelopment agreement, to buy back the mall and find yet another developer. "No, no!" said the developer. "Let me find a new buyer!" Gramps, why didn't the city just blow up the mall with dynamite and make it into a pumpkin patch? Well, that's a good question, sweetheart. By 2007, Forum sold the property to a partnership between RREEF Properties and Sand Hill Properties--Suitor No. 4, let‘s call them--who wanted to build the earlier project, while adding a hotel and a grocery store. Fine, why not, said the city, "Just build  something !" So Sand Hill and RREEF built the beginnings of the project, including three office buildings, which were about half finished in 2009. At that point, the latest developers announced a slowdown as they sought a new round of financing. They were sued that same year by their building contractor, who alleged that Sand Hill and RREEF were behind on payments. By October 2009, yet another receiver was in place. Is this project occupied by evil spirits, Gramps? I think so. The current receiver is Jerry Hunt, a principal of Quattro Realty. He marketed the half-finished office buildings to various parties. By some lucky stroke, Nokia, the Finnish cell-phone maker, decides in May 2010 to lease an entire five-story, 156,000-square-foot office building, and consolidate three of its Silicon Valley offices into downtown Sunnyvale. It was a stroke of rare luck for the city, because Sunnyvale's office buildings were competing with tons of vacant office space left over from the Tech Wreck nearly a decade ago. Will Princess Downtown Sunnyvale be happy at last, gramps? I hope so. With the lease signed, the bank gives the receiver the money to finish the building, and Nokia takes occupancy in December.  Everybody's happy. Why is this lease so surprising? It's surprising because high tech companies in Silicon Valley often prefer suburban, stand-alone campuses, or sometimes tall office buildings. The company's decision to lease in downtown Sunnyvale might be seen as an expression of interest in urban things, such as places to walk during lunch, and maybe get your dry cleaning done, too. Plus, the project stands two blocks away from a Cal Train station, so it's transit-friendly. So, Gramps, this means if I get good grades and go to the Wharton School and become a developer I can do the same thing when I grow up? Don't count on it, sweetness. The Nokia lease was a stroke of extraordinary good fortune. Of course, in my opinion, many more high-tech firms would be happier in downtown areas, which, unlike suburban campuses-- (Z-z-z-z-z-z.)  --Morris Newman

Mike Winn, president of Sacramento-based land development and planning firm Michael Winn Associates, assumes the chairmanship of the California Building Industry Association at a challenging time, to put it mildly. The ravages of the recession and their relationship with the housing market are of course well known, and they have struck at the heart of thousands of developers, contractors, and architects who were deluged with work only a few years ago. As CIBA contemplates a year of dwindling membership and new priorities, CP&DR spoke with Winn about the organization's outlook on a changing California. What are your goals this year as CBIA chair? Our industry has gone through quite a crisis really. Membership in CBIA is down so we've had to pick and choose our battles pretty carefully.  Going into 2011, the focus is pretty much around the implementation of SB 375 and the various regional plans related to the greenhouse gas targets.  We want to make sure they're as reasonable as they can be for the healthy growth of each of the regions.  School financing is another big priority for us in 2011. We're doing everything we can legislatively and with the regulators to see that adequate state funds are there for new school construction.   Construction defect reform is likely to gain some steam next year.  About 5 years ago SB 800 provided for the right to ask homebuilders to repair construction defects and all types of customer service issues.  We're concerned about loopholes that still need to be closed by legislation and abuses that are still going on statewide. How important are public-sector projects going to be in the coming years? Very important. The membership of CBIA is very diverse: architects, engineers, builders, developers. Particularly those with the ability to design and build in the public sector--or on public funded facilities--there's definitely a gravitation in that direction. For the conventional homebuilder, those opportunities really aren't too realistic. What kind of shape are conventional homebuilders--the type who might have been doing subdivisions in the Inland Empire five years ago--in now? How are they riding out this crisis? Those who are still standing aren't doing much volume. Even the big publicly traded companies � the Pultes, the Lennars, the KBs aren't either. But the large private companies have worked through their debt issues and probably learned how to shrink and be more effective.  They're tackling business plans that might show 50-100 homes per year whereas in the past it might have been 500-600 homes per year. Probably more importantly, their focus is now on infill or in what I might characterize as the inner suburbs or metropolitan areas. Right now there's not a great deal of new master-planned development being initiated. What's that been like for your members to adapt to this new business and regulatory landscape? It's interesting that this is all happening at one time: the industry is contracting, the rules for land use development are changing, and commercial banking capital is scarce. So the adaptation has probably been expedited by that combination. The companies that are still standing in the major metropolitan areas are aware that they're going to have to be more diverse and build different product and do infill. I'd say on the whole they're welcoming that. It might be the only opportunity that they have.  Does that require a totally different attitude towards their business, or can a greenfield developer shift their focus to infill without disrupting what they consider their business to be? Some have done it very well. I can't say that uniformly the large-scale greenfield builder is going to jump at infill opportunities. Some have made the jump very adeptly and are till working in both types of markets with very distinct products in each. I've seen some hybrid examples too where some of the best examples of greenfield architecture have been brought into infill situations. On the coast, infill has been big for a while. How are these trends playing out in Sacramento? The regional planning agency certainly is. Between the Blueprint that was adopted five years ago and the metropolitan transportation plan, there's a high percentage of homes over the next couple of decades that will be attached and in infill locations. There now are a couple small-scale developments happening � eight homes, twelve homes, sixteen homes on infill lots. That was the type of thing you didn't see at all during the boom. What would you pursue if you had more latitude to push other policy agendas? There's a limit to what the state agencies or legislature can do with local building permits or impact fees, but that's always going to be near the top of our list to the extent that we can find equity in the way public agencies charge impact fees. That has an awful lot to do with how affordable houses can be. In some jurisdictions it got to be where $100,000 in impact fees alone was not extraordinary. On the building materials side and on the labor side, it's just an unusual period. Costs of construction materials may be down and labor is plentiful.  Are you surprised that we haven't hit an equilibrium whereby the cost of construction has dropped and construction would be viable again? We hoped that that would be the case. Some of the bigger public builders have tried mightily to drive their hard cost of construction down to a point where they reached that equilibrium on sales price that they begin to attract new buyers. But in some cases that involves writing their land cost down to zero if they're able to do so.  That's quite an advantage over a conventional real estate company. Now that ARB has announced the SB 375 targets for the different regions, what would you like to see happen with SB 375 implementation? We were part of the 375 collaboration, so I think CBIA on balance is looking forward to implementation but is very concerned that it be done in a realistic way. The targets, depending on the region, are very aggressive. It's our hope that a second look can be taken or other benefits of implementing those targets can go into effect without slowing things down more than they already are. As these regions begin to roll out their metropolitan transportation plans and sustainable community design strategies�it's really going to be incumbent upon us, the builders, to stay engaged.  It frightens some people and it's confusing. But it's the new rules of the game. Is there a silver lining to SB 375? Is it going to promote things that are going to be good for builders? Two elements of that silver lining are important. Local jurisdictions that had been reluctant to approve higher density housing seem less so, with the advent of 375 and the blueprint regional plans. And then of course there are some CEQA benefits that could realistically cut a year off the process at a point where that year makes a huge difference. I think there's real benefit to the way the legislation came out of the mill. We just have to see how it behaves once it hits the ground. Who are your core members now, what are you doing to reach out, and what are you doing to help them keep their spirits up? That's probably our number-one objective here. The reorganization is really our focus over the next few months. It's going to be an interesting year whether we have 3,000 members or 4,000 members. As much as legislative and regulatory matters, we're reorganizing internally. We have a new president, Liz Snow. We're trying to get the organization down so that it's primarily a government-affairs association and we can afford to be as active as possible. That's going to be a big change for the builders who benefited from CIBA's efforts through the revenue that came through our big trade show, the Pacific Coast Builders Conference every June in San Francisco. That model is broken. We can no longer rely on revenue from one trade show. Builders have to reach into their pockets and look at the value benefit of CBIA. We are down in membership, from 5,000 members a few years ago to just under 4,000 now. Are you perceiving different issues bubbling up in different parts of the state? It's a good relationship. We have a mission between the local chapters, the state, and the national chapter. The communication is very good. We meet and collaborate a few times a year within California. And whenever one of our local chapters has a real issue of statewide significance, it boils up pretty quickly. If you're building in San Diego or Redding or the Bay Area or Los Angeles, the big issues seem to be common to all of us. Occasionally there's going to be an issue � water, for instance � in which you'd have a Northern and a Southern California perspective.

A world away from the Gaslamp Quarter and the Hotel del Coronado, eastern San Diego County is often described as California's own outback. Its roughly 3,600 square miles of unincorporated county territory encompasses mountains, farmland, and deserts � and includes only 16% of the county's 3 million residents. For the past 12 years, county officials and stakeholders have been trying to decide how to marry an ardently rural area with 21 st  century planning principles. Now, after countless hearings and an estimated 500 stakeholder meetings, a general plan update for unincorporated San Diego County will soon be voted on by county supervisors. A vote was expected as early as October, but the number of requests to speak before the supervisors overwhelmed the agenda. Public hearings have been continued to the Dec. 8 meeting, and a vote will likely take place no sooner than January. The plan update relies on growth projections by the San Diego Association of Governments, which expects the county's unincorporated areas to grow to from 443,000 to 627,000 residents by 2050. To accommodate that growth, the plan would discourage development in the county's eastern reaches and instead concentrate it in roughly 30% of the county's unincorporated territory. Meanwhile, it would protect up to 393,000 acres of sensitive habitat from development. Most of the territory designated for higher densities lies in the western portion of the county, hugging inland boundaries of the county's coastal cities. The plan encourages greater density around the county's existing villages � such as Fallbrook, Julian, and Ramona � but strives to keep the backcountry nearly as rural as ever in part through minimum densities and conservation subdivisions.  If the current version is adopted it will be considered a victory for environmentalists and smart-growth advocates, especially those who see San Diego County as microcosm for the rest of the state. "It's a plan of statewide significance, because San Diego has important natural resources, important farmland, and it has countryside," said Dan Silver, executive director of the Endangered Habitats League and member of the General Plan Interest Group. "This is a watershed for smart growth and good planning. San Diego is a county that has not really either in the past committed itself to smart growth pattern of development or to complete destruction either � it's been kind of an in-between county." "In-between" does not, however, mean that the county has reached a harmonious balance. Many residents of the backcountry remain concerned that the cosmopolitan forces in the county are imposing a plan that will be too restrictive. A white paper entitled "Fixing the Fatal Flaws" was published in August by a coalition of agricultural and business groups concerned about downzoning and the relationship between the general plan and the community plans. And many of the speakers at those 500 stakeholder meetings have been landowners who are furious about the changes that the plan portends. The white paper contends that "large swaths of the County are proposed for severe downzoning, a downzoning that is arbitrary and excessive and will result in regressive economic impacts to rural communities." The challenge of striking the right balance is one reason why the process has taken longer than a decade. Another is its radical departure from the existing general plan, which was adopted in 1978. Now considered legally deficient, the 1978 plan promotes what Silver described as "checkerboard" development, and pays relatively little heed to crucial constraints such as roads, water, sewage service, and the area's considerable environmental resources. Critics say that if the general plan update is not adopted, any number of inland hamlets could turn into the next Temecula. If projected growth were to occur undirected, Silver estimates that the roads alone to serve dispersed populations would cost up to $5 billion over 40 years. "It was important to do that because the current general plan from the late 1970s is a complete disaster," said Silver. "It maximizes fire risk, depletes groundwater, maximizes infrastructure costs and greenhouse gas emissions." "Update" is thus a loose term for a plan that essentially wipes out the old one. "We decided to use new land-use designations," said Devon Muto, the county's chief of advanced planning. "We're not even using the old terminology. That requires us to re-map the entire unincorporated area. We're not changing density on 70% of our parcels. 10% will increase density, 20% will decrease." The three general designations are 1) rural, which will include one unit per 20-80 acres; 2) semi-rural with one unit to 0.5 -20 acres; and 3) village, with up to 30 units per acre. Those densities would put the unincorporated county in line with other coastal counties. For comparison, the general plans of Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties include densities as low as one unit to 320 acres, while the least dense areas of Los Angeles and Orange County are prescribed for one unit to 40 acres. "Backcountry development is something they want to move away from an infrastructure perspective�services are not there," said San Diego County Planning Commissioner Bryan Woods. "Good planning says you plan where infrastructure is already developed, and that's where San Diego County is going." San Diego County planning staff produced a Draft General Plan Map representing these designations several years ago. However, landowners demanded the production of a Referral Map, which treats individual parcels differently according to landowners' individual concerns. The new plan also establishes a system of conservation subdivisions. That system would discourage the division of properties into larger, dispersed parcels and would instead set aside a relatively large parcel for conservation while creating smaller, clustered parcels for development. Unlike in many California land use battles, stakeholders are not arguing over environmental protection. Silver said that environmental groups are happy with how the plan addresses ecological resources, and Woods said, "I don't even think that's an issue." This downzoning has raised inland residents' ire not because of its effects on the environment but rather because of its potential economic impacts. Group such as the San Diego County Farm Bureau contend not necessarily that the new density limits would thwart future developers but rather that they could decimate values of existing farms. Farmers claim that their assessed values are based on the provisions of the current general plan and that a radical departure would rob them of equity. "Like it or not, the value of land in San Diego County is in large part driven by how you can divided it up and sell it as residential lots," said Eric Larson, executive director of the San Diego County Farm Bureau. "We've been asking since Day One for an equity program, which would be a means of compensating the famers if there is a real loss of value of their land." The Board of Supervisors may yet explore such a mechanism. As well, some farmers may be compensated for setting aside habitat through the plan's Purchasing Agricultural Conservation Easements program. However, planners caution that these landowners may be overestimating the value of their land. The county commissioned a study by Keyser-Marston Assoc. that found that the downzoning would have a negligible effect on the value of individual parcels. And just because they can develop their land without constraints does not mean that the demand for such development exists � or that the opportunity would be available to more than a handful of landowners. "I sympathize with those in the backcountry that feel that they're losing their development potential," said Woods. "But on the other hand I don't think they had what they thought they had from the beginning." Moreover, this loss of value may not in and of itself warrant compensation � nor is it necessarily planners' concern. "Ultimately it's up to the Board of Supervisors as to whether they want to try to compensate those land owners," said Muto. "When we up-zone people and they receive a benefit, we don't really ask for things back. It's the same when you look at downzoning. Ultimately, it's a policy decision." On the macroeconomic scale, the San Diego County Regional Chamber of Commerce has voiced concerns that the plan could hurt the entire county's economy. The chamber contends that the plan's housing element will never be realized, in part because communities will resist the densities that the plan calls for. Moreover, they contend that the plan assumes an unrealistically high per-unit density. As a result, they say that the county's workforce will be stifled and regional businesses will suffer for lack of employees. "I don't have confidence that that density is actually achievable," said Donna Jones, vice chair of the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce Public Policy Committee. Muto rejects this interpretation of the plan, noting that current densities in unincorporated communities are 2.92 persons per unit and that the projections are for a modest increase, to 3.02 persons per unit. "The general plan update provides sufficient housing to accommodate growth beyond 2050," said Muto. "That's a 40-year timeframe and more capacity than most general plans provide. During this timeframe, the unincorporated county would grow at 41.7%, which is higher than the entire region, which would grow at 40.0%." The Chamber of Commerce and other groups behind the August white paper are also concerned about how the plan treats the county's villages. Stakeholders have demanded the chance to maintain control over the character of their respective communities. Critics worry that that wording in the general plan update is so weak � referring to language that "encourages" certain densities rather than "ensures" them � that community plans could end up superseding the general plan. County officials question that characterization. "They can't really supersede the general plan," said Woods. "But they specifically can define parts of the general plan relative to their community character." Moreover, Muto said that giving communities flexibility and a certain degree of discretion is crucial for the plan's viability. "Having the communities' plans be able to provide this additional level of direction on how policies are implemented is very important especially given the size of our jurisdiction and how diverse our individual communities are," said Muto. "It's impossible to have a one-size-fits all policy for a jurisdiction like ours." Contacts & Resources San Diego County General Plan Update (Official Website) Donna Jones, Vice Chair, San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce Public Policy Committee, 619.544.1300 Eric Larson, Executive Director, San Diego County Farm Bureau , 760.745.3023  Devon Muto, Chief of Advanced Planning, County of San Diego Department of Planning and Land, 858.694.2960 Dan Silver, Executive Director, Endangered Habitats League , 213.804.2750

The management of the Planning Grants and Incentives Team at the Department of Conservation announced today its recommendations for the next round of Prop. 84 Sustainable Communities Planning Grants (see CP&DR Insight Vol. 25, Nos. 5-6, March 2010 ) which is administered by the Strategic Growth Council to support the climate change goals of AB 32 and SB 375. The council received 189 applications and has recommended 44 awards totaling roughly $23 million in funding.  The primary goal of the grant program is to help develop and implement plans that reduce greenhouse gas emissions and achieve objectives including infill development, public health, equity, natural resource protection, and urban revitalization. Grants are awarded in four focus areas: 1) local sustainable planning grants for cities and counties; 2) regional SB 375 grants for metropolitan planning organizations; 3) regional planning activities with multiple partners, and 4) economically disadvantaged communities. Awards of $10.3 million, $5.7 million, and $2.2 million $4.6 million have been recommended for each of these respective focus areas. Competition was particularly fierce among cities; SGC received is recommending 24 awards out of 100 applications, many of which were clustered in Los Angeles and Orange counties. Recommended grants range from $139,000 to $1 million.  For a full list of recommended projects, please download the PDF of the  full report  to the Strategic Growth Council.

Deep in the heart of John Steinbeck country, city folks, rural folks, farmers, businesses and everyone in between are still waging dubious battle over control of Monterey County land. After an 11-year process, a general plan update was unanimously approved by the county's Board of Supervisors on October 26. But rather than lay out a vision for a bright new future, the approved update � which focuses growth on existing urban centers, limits growth in some areas with water shortages, and expands farmland � may turn out to be a magnet for lawsuits. Groups are lining up to sue, with several suits expected to be filed by the end of the year. Contentiousness would be nothing new for the county. Two previous versions of the plan had come before the board in 2004 and 2007, only to fall apart. In 2004, the board rejected a city-centered growth plan. In 2007, county voters rejected an environmental group's general plan initiative, and they rejected the county's version of the plan update as well (see CP&DR, Vol. 22, No. 7, July 2007). Monterey County has all the ingredients for classic planning tussles: valuable agricultural land, scenic vistas near the oceans, wealthy residents who don't want to see more development, environmentalists who want growth in its cities, farmworkers who need housing, and chronic water supply issues. Put it all together, and common ground is difficult, if not impossible, to find. "Both sides at the extremes are unhappy" with the latest plan, said Simon Salinas, who is chairman of the Board of Supervisors. Salinas said that many groups in the county do support the updated plan�affordable housing advocates, cities, and developers. But environmentalists and agricultural groups may yet file lawsuits over the latest plan by the end of the year, delaying the plan from going forward. The website for environmental group LandWatch Monterey County, calls the general plan "a deeply flawed document." Its website said "LandWatch opposes new policies which would permit cultivation on steep slopes, a practice prohibited since the 1980s," and claims the county has chosen to postpone dealing with long-term sustainable water supply issues. LandWatch officials declined to comment further for this story. But many concerns about the plan's actual impacts are likely to be ironed out in the coming years. Both Sup. Salinas and Assistant County Planning Director Carl Holm say that implementing ordinances will spell out specifics from the 150-page plan. One thing that the general plan doesn't touch is use of oceanfront property, always a hot button issue. That would get the Coastal Commission involved, explained Holm, who was the county's project manager on the general plan. So the plan looked only at other zones in the county that are located inland or on coastal plains. Two notable parts of the new update are expected to impact parts of the county differently. One provision will limit housing subdivisions in unincorporated parts of the north county where water supplies are limited. This area has drawn particular scrutiny because it is just over the hill from the employment centers of Silicon Valley and therefore is considered ripe for development. And yet, Monterey County is still more oriented to crops than to computers. Another provision allows crops to be grown on slopes of over 25% grade, which is expected to allow more vineyards on hillsides in the foothills that extend south from Salinas. "Compromises were made to development on slopes and on water use," Holm said. The 25% slope issue is part of a long range plan to promote more tourism in the inland parts of the county, which is home to many of the county's vineyards. Tasting rooms, however, are currently clustered on the Monterey Peninsula where tourists to Monterey and Carmel are plentiful, Holm explained. To compel tourists to visit inland areas, the general plan update allows for easier development of bed and breakfast inns and tasting rooms in the Salinas Valley. Supervisor Salinas said the general plan update will also facilitate agriculture-related construction, such as food processing plants, in the region. Although environmentalists are concerned that crops might take over fragile hillsides, but those concerns may be unfounded, Holm said most wine growers do not plan to grow grapes on slopes with more than a 25% grade. And anything beyond that threshold will require a use permit from the county. Holm said the new requirements for slope grading is based on studying what has been done in nearby grape growing regions of San Luis Obispo, Sonoma and Napa counties "Most viticulturists indicated it's not cost effective to go over 25 percent," he said. But one agricultural leader said a blanket slope policy doesn't work for the vast county. "The one-size-fits-all mentality is pretty stone age, " said Christopher Bunn, Jr., who is head of the land use committee of the Monterey County Farm Bureau. Environmentalists, he said, "don't really care about slopes. It's a convenient way to shut down growth." Bunn said that, on the whole, the new general plan is "not friendly to farming" because "a lot of these regulations and policies cost (farmers) more." He said that the Farm Bureau would meet soon to decide on litigation. Several agricultural groups have threatened a lawsuit over the plan's requirement that most new construction include proof of a long-term water supply, according to the Salinas Californian newspaper. They contend that an annual $3 million tax assessment for various water projects already confers on them certain long-term water rights that the general plan update would effectively trump. Finally, Michael Stamp, an environmental attorney in Monterey, represents what he calls "citizen advocacy groups." "We're still evaluating the situation," he said on November 10, when asked if litigation would be filed over the update. "If the general plan is challenged, the challenge could be quite successful," said Carmel Valley attorney Richard Rosenthal, who is counsel for the Save our Peninsula Committee. Rosenthal said two top concerns with the update are inadequacies with traffic circulation and water issues. Rosenthal did not, however, indicate that his group would be filing lawsuits. "The county has a pretty rich history of land use litigation," he said. Bunn, whose family company grows celery and cauliflower, said the 11 years of contention on the general plan update are due to "a very polarized county. It has, he said, "sucked up a lot of time and money that we would have rather put into our businesses." Contacts: Christopher Bunn, Monterey County Farm Bureau Land Use Committee, 831.424. 2067 Carl Holm, Assistant Planning Director, Monterey County, 831.755.5240 Richard Rosenthal, attorney, 831.625.5193 Simon Salinas, Chair, Monterey County Board of Supervisors, .831.755.5033 Michael Stamp, attorney, 831.373.1214 LandWatch

If a new generation of transportation advocates and federal officials has their way, California will soon have miles of brand-new rail lines, strategically sited to enliven cities, increase real estate values, and whisk passengers several whole blocks at speeds of.... nearly 20 miles per hour. High-speed rail, it's not. But $40 billion, it's not either. While the state plans for its proposed high-speed rail network, a raft of California cities are pursuing a more twee type of rail travel. Ubiquitous in the early 20 th  century, trolleys and streetcars are emerging as a newly popular form of intra-city transit. But even the staunchest rail buffs admit that transportation is only part of the benefits that over three dozen cities across the country -- and more than a few in California -- are seeking as they to join the streetcar trend. The streetcar bandwagon, which has picked up dozens of cities nationwide, including Los Angeles, Oakland, Sacramento, and Santa Ana, is fueled not only by nostalgia but also by new attitudes about both urbanism and transportation planning. In transportation terms, streetcars play the same role as downtown shuttle buses: they are "circulators" connecting places in close proximity to one another. Many planners see streetcars not as transportation projects at all and are instead "place-making" devices, according to Maureen Pascoe, capital improvement manager for the City of West Sacramento. Pascoe is in charge of the Riverfront Streetcar Plan, which is being developed in cooperation with the City of Sacramento. "The (transportation) paradigm is changing from mobility to accessibility," said Gloria Ohland, the Los Angeles-based author of  Street Smart: Streetcars and Cities in the Twenty-First Century . "Accessibility is really about things like streetcars, so you can be in one place have access to a lot of things without having to drive from point A to point B." Streetcars have been proposed for downtown Los Angeles' Broadway, which is lined with underutilized historic buildings. The effort is supported with up to $10 million in redevelopment funds and Los Angeles County Metro released a request for proposals seeking firms to conduct an initial environmental study. The City of Oakland would replace its Broadway Shuttle bus with a streetcar that would link Jack London Square to the rest of downtown and at least one BART station. Long Beach and Pasadena officials envision streetcars for their respective cities' historic downtowns. A streetcar has even been proposed for the edge city of Warner Center, in Los Angeles' San Fernando Valley. Meanwhile, officials in West Sacramento see a streetcar as the catalyst that will enable it to share more of its big sister's vibrancy; its 1.2-mile segment would originate at City Hall, cross the Tower Bridge over the Sacramento River and connect with a system that the City of Sacramento is planning. "Too many people (in Sacramento) think that the world ends at the Sacramento River," said Pascoe. "We really see ourselves as the other side of downtown. We are right at the core of the region and we plan to develop." Similarly, Santa Ana's proposed streetcar system would link the city's downtown with a regional transit hub in adjacent Garden Grove. Each of these cities can look to San Francisco for inspiration. There, vintage streetcars have been running along Market Street and throughout the city continuously for over a century. Unlike light rail lines, which dominated rail transit over the past two decades, streetcars travel at grade and usually in the flow of traffic, without dedicated rights of way. It is their integral role in the streetscape that, supporters say, make them sought-after tools for urban development and economic development. "They can catalyze development because of their real and perceived sense of permanence," said Zach Seal, Broadway Streetcar Project manager for the City of Oakland. "Once the developers see the tracks laid in the asphalt they know the streetcar will be there for decades and know they can make large investments in dense, green, mixed use housing along the streetcar line." Long Beach City Councilmember Suja Lowenthal views her city's pursuit of a streetcar as a way to appeal to new transit riders who are attracted to fixed rail: "streetcars serve a different customer than buses, attracting more choice riders and tourists/visitors who are willing to travel on a rail system in an unfamiliar city." By that same token, however, streetcars' most often-cited downside is that by traveling in the flow of traffic they cannot move any faster than the average bus or car. Moreover, transit planner and streetcar critic Jarrett Walker notes in a recent blog post, "Streetcars: An Inconvenient Truth," that for the cost of a streetcar system local businesses, property owners, and redevelopment agencies could invest in pavement upgrades, street furniture, and myriad other amenities that would enhance pedestrian life. Moreover, streetcar systems do not tend to serve regional goals. "It is a fad; it's always been a fad. That doesn't mean necessarily that it's a bad thing," said Lisa Schweitzer associate professor of transportation at the USC School of Policy, Planning, and Development. "Because it's not a commuter system�.it's not really something that's going to change climate or alter air quality." It may, however, change the fortune of local landowners and urban boosters. A 2008 report commissioned by Portland Streetcar contends that up to $3.5 billion had been invested within two blocks of the alignment since the system began operating in 2001. Likewise, residential and commercial densities had increased, with over 10,000 new housing units and over 5 million square feet of new commercial space. The report notes, however, that the streetcar is just one element of a strategy to promote investment in the city's core. "More than streetcars being transit projects, they are really economic development projects with transportation benefits," said Ohland. "They promote the whole local, sustainable, green trend. They would become such groovy neighborhoods with a streetcar." These developments often come right out of the smart growth pattern playbook, replete with mixed use buildings, pedestrian improvements, and even locally owned businesses that are, according to Ohland, sensitive to the unique character of historic urban neighborhoods. Backers say that the investment potential and concentrate benefits enable them to seek private investment from local businesses and landowners who stand to capture the economic benefits of a streetcar line. Streetcar planners say that businesses and landowners have been receptive to ideas for schemes such as benefit assessment districts. LA Streetcar Inc.'s website notes that the private sector funded 30% of Portland's line and nearly 50% of Seattle's; the group seeks similar participation among stakeholders in downtown Los Angeles. "All of the long-term studies of transit show that the main beneficiaries of public investment are the people who own land next to it," said Schweitzer. "And if we know this why can't we find ways of moving some of this�.increase in value up-front and allocating it across the lifetime of the investment?" Streetcars' fate may ultimately rest with the largesse of the federal government, which has of late introduced new policies and funding criteria that embrace circulators and urban livability.  This year the Department of Transportation awarded its first round of Urban Circulator Grants, dedicated to helping cities improve their internal transit (including streetcars), bike, and pedestrian networks. These grants emerged out of a new partnership between DOT, the department of Housing and Urban Development, and the Environmental Protection Agency. This partnership has led to a major shift away from typical transportation grants, which consider the worthiness of a transportation project based largely on its cost-effectiveness, based on travelers' time savings, and towards a method of evaluation that takes into account broader neighborhood benefits. "A few years ago it was very difficult if not impossible to get federal New Starts money for streetcars," said Seal. "Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood tweaked the scoring system for rail projects and put less weight on speed and more weight on things like quality of life and economic development." Sixty-five cities applied for the first round of Urban Circulator Grant funding, which was awarded this summer. $130 million of the total $293 million was dedicated to streetcar projects and Cincinnati, Chicago, St. Louis, and Charlotte, N.C., each snapped up $25 million grants for new lines. West Sacramento and Los Angeles applied in this summer's round of funding but were both shut out. Those and other planned systems in California are estimated to cost roughly $30 million per mile to build, plus several million per year to operate. Seal attributes this competition to the fact that the grants have arrived a moment when there is massive "pent-up demand." "There were 10-20 streetcar projects across the country sitting there waiting for this (funding) change to happen," said Seal. Those projects can still appliy for grants from the Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) federal stimulus program; TIGER II grants are available through Septembers 2012. "There seems to be continued interest at the federal and state level to continue funding these systems," said Lowenthal, who said that her city of Long Beach will apply for federal funds. "That being said, there may be changes to funding priorities as a result of the November 2 election." No matter what, it's likely that new trolleys will be clanging modestly down California streets long before they get out-raced by bullet trains. Contacts & Resources: Julie Gustafson, Portland Streetcar Community Relations Representative,  http://www.portlandstreetcar.org/ 503-823-2900 Daniel Jacobson, The Oakland Streetcar Plan, http://www.oaklandstreetcarplan.com Suja Lowenthal, Long Beach City Council Member, 562.570.6684 Gloria Ohland, Author,  Street Smart: Streetcars and Cities in the Twenty-First Century Maureen Pascoe, West Sacramento Capital Improvement Manager, (916) 617-4535 Lisa Schweitzer, Associate Professor, USC School of Policy, Planning, & Development, (213) 740-3866 Zach Seal, Broadway Streetcar Project Manager, City of Oakland; (510) 238-2937 Streetcar Proposals & Studies: Los Angeles: www.lastreetcar.org/ Santa Ana: santaanatransitvision.com/fixed_guideway_project.html Sacramento/West Sacramento: www.riverfrontstreetcar.com/

Local voters in the Nov. 2 California election were not necessarily "pro-growth" or "anti-growth" but rather seem to have embraced smart growth like never before. They expressed subtle but clear preferences for preserving open space while accepting compact development. Urban growth boundaries were a big hit, and several infill plans and projects were approved while anything that would have led to encroachment on greenfields or urban fringes was shot down. Local election highlights include the following: Smart Growth: Berkeley Smart growth scored a major victory in Berkeley, where the city's historic "no growth" attitude has eased. The approval of Measure R means that the city's downtown core can grow a little more dense and can rise a little higher, with the addition of up to three high-rises that would exceed the city's extant height limits.  The vote embraces what may be a new vision for California cities and, in particular, a new vision of environmentalism. Groups including the Sierra Club supported the measure because it promotes transit-oriented density and a focus on the urban core. Opponents were concerned that it would ruin the city's character and was pandering to developers.  Sustainability: Irvine In a spirit similar to that of the Berkeley vote, voters in historically auto-oriented Irvine approved a new environmental ethos for the city with the ratification of the Irvine Sustainable Community Initiative, which sets environmental goals for both the city and the beleaguered, delayed Great Park. The initiative calls for the city to promote green building, renewable energy, and alternative modes of transportation. The initiative complements the vision for density set out by the recently approved Irvine Business Complex plan (see CP&DR Vol. 25, No. 15, August 2010 ).  Projects & Plans: Menlo Park, Redondo Beach, San Diego, Saratoga In large part, local voters supported specific developments and development schemes. Voters in Menlo Park approved an enormous mixed-use development while voters in Redondo Beach approved a new vision and zoning scheme for the city's harbor area and waterfront. In San Diego, the Pacific Highlands Ranch development will be allowed to develop neighborhood amenities such as libraries and schools even in the absence of a planned highway. Meanwhile, a measure that would have limited building heights to two stories in Saratoga failed by a margin of less than 1%.  Urban Growth Boundaries: Cloverdale, San Ramon, Petaluma, & Santa Rosa Formerly the only city in Napa County without a UGB, Cloverdale embraced the trend and voted in its first UGB. Cloverdale is not known for growth pressures but the UGB may be a formal statement in favor of slow growth. Voters in San Ramon rejected a measure that would have expanded its existing UGB, and voters in Petaluma and Santa Rosa voted to extend the lifespan of their UGBs. UGBs are sometimes considered tools to promote higher-density growth within defined urban areas. However, by virtue of their rural locations, all at least three of the four UGB measures that appeared on local ballots appear to be intended to prevent greenfield development rather than promote urban infill.  Rancho Palos Verdes: College Expansion Perhaps the most contentious local battle the state centered on what was probably the smallest project. Marymount College in upscale, largely residential Rancho Palos Verdes appealed to voters in its quest to build a new dormitory and make other campus improvements. But even as the college spent over $1 million to curry favor with residents, the city's vehement no-growth coalition roused voter sentiment against the college and defeated the measure.  Sutter County: Food Processing, Agricultural, Recreation Combining District A more ambiguous situation in Sutter County led to an anti-growth vote. The county has been saddled with what many consider a white elephant of a parcel for the better part of three decades in the 1,800-acre Food Processing, Agricultural, Recreation Combining District – which for the better part of two decades has done none of the above. Measure V was supposed to give control of the parcel to the Board of Supervisors so that they would have the power to re-zone and redevelop the parcel to a higher and better use than its current vacancy. Sixty-eight percent of voters, however, were not willing to give them that sort of control; opponents feared that the board would eventually approve the development of homes on the parcel, so for now the site remains moribund. Statewide Measures Prop 19: Marijuana And for everyone who wanted a little piece of Amsterdam at his or her corner coffee shop or that 5 x 5-foot plot of green in their backyard (See CP&DR Vol. 25, No. 12, June 2010 )? Take a drag and mellow out because 2012 is only two years away. This means that local governments are off the hook. Prop. 19 would have essentially forced every locality in the state to come up with its own marijuana policy. Many would likely have banned pot outright, but others were wrestling with how and where to permit large-scale cultivation and use. Prop. 21: State Parks While Californians supported climate change legislation, local environments suffered a blow with the defeat of Prop. 21, which would have secured desperately needed funding for the State Parks system via an annual $18 vehicle registration fee. It's unlikely that anyone takes pleasure in the disrepair of California's parks. However, even with the parks' economic value – and even with the sly juxtaposition of vehicles and nature – voters in these fragile economic times simply did not want a new fee and rejected it by a 60-40 margin. Prop. 22: Local Transportation, Redevelopment Funding Local governments scored a dearly sought-after victory with the approval of Prop. 22, which secures local redevelopment and transportation funds against state borrowing or raiding. Groups such as the California Redevelopment Association and almost every transportation authority across the state lobbied vigorously for the passage of Prop. 22, lest this past year's $2.05 billion transfer of local redevelopment funds to the state become de rigueur (see CP&DR Vol. 25, No. 9, May 2010 ). This may be bad news if you're trying to balance a budget in Sacramento, but voters seem to have gravitated towards its spirit of local control and relatively unambiguous allocation of funds.  Prop. 23: Jobs & Climate Change Likewise, with a chorus of planners and environmentalists speaking out against oil companies and others who promoted Prop. 23, Californians affirmed their desire to combat climate change. Whether AB 32, the Global Warming Solutions Act, will create the green jobs that then-Assemblymember Fran Pavely envisioned four years ago or undermine existing remains to be seen. The salvation of AB 32 also erases any concerns about the fate of SB 375. Although SB 375 was written to stand on its own, many have speculated that the defeat of AB 32 would undermine localities' efforts to promote compact development in accordance with SB 375. Prop. 26: Taxes & Fees Finally, Prop. 26, whose supporters sought to close a tax policy "loophole" that allowed localities to impose taxes under the guise of fees, gained approval by tapping into the same anti-tax sentiment that felled Prop. 21. Prop. 26  (see CP&DR Blog Nov. 4, 2010 ) now limits cities' and local agencies' ability to both raise revenue and achieve policy goals by assessing fees that only required a simple legislative majority. Instead, Prop. 26 reclassifies these fees as taxes and thus requires a 2/3 supermajority approval of local voters. Prop. 26 does exempt development impact fees, but is targeted at more generalized fees – possibly fees for general plans – that do not explicitly tie the fee to an actual impact.

What the government builds and where it builds things can have a major impact on a community and on the way generations of people live their lives. The siting of college campuses in California provides a poignant, and depressing, case study.  This obvious truth was reinforced to me by two recent events: Shasta County's annual count of bicyclists and pedestrians in Redding, and the recent completion of a multi-use trail connecting two sides of Redding that are otherwise divided by a river and a freeway. The bike count is a snapshot, not a comprehensive census. And the picture at Redding's Shasta College is nearly devoid of both cyclists and pedestrians. From 7 to 8:30 a.m. and again from 4 to 6 p.m. on a school day in September, 19 cyclists and 8 pedestrians crossed the intersection in front of the community college's primary entrance. Those are about the numbers you would expect to get with one change of the signal at an entrance to UC Davis, Chico State or Pasadena City College. I concede that Shasta College is not as large as those institutions -- but one pedestrian every 26 minutes?! If anyone is going to use their feet or bicycle for transportation, it's college students. The problem is that Shasta College, like most other community college, CSU and UC campuses built during the post-war period, lies on the edge of town in a location accessible almost exclusively by automobile. California's campus construction binge of the late 1940s through the 1960s was ambitious, but overwhelmingly suburban. The assumption was that everyone would drive to and from school. Many universities from that era are still called "commuter schools." Even my alma mater, CSU Sacramento, which is located in the middle of the metropolis, feels remote because the campus is essentially walled off from the rest of town. Sure, most of the post-war campuses enjoy decent bus service, and my old school does boast a heavily used bicycle and pedestrian bridge across the American River. Still, it's worth remembering that the CSU Sacramento administration vigorously – and successfully – fought a proposal to place a light rail station on the college campus because of alleged safety concerns. Sorry kid, I know you don't have any money and are racking up debt faster than empty beer cans, but you'll have to buy a car.  Moreover, the post-war college siting and design decisions relegated a thriving center of activity to a corner of town at the expense of the rest of the community. College kids may not be flush with money, but they are loaded with energy. That's why real college towns such as Davis, Chico and Berkeley pulse with activity. I'm not suggesting that every place needs to be a college town. But many places that are suited for street life become all the more lively with the injection of a few thousand students. Thirty years after the campus construction boom, we hadn't learned much, as evidenced by the CSU Sacramento light rail fiasco. Another example is UC Merced, which the state chose to build on pastures several miles outside of town 15 years ago. Yes, the plan for eventual development of a university community adjacent to the campus is impressive. Yet it's only more greenfield development in a region where cities are starved for investment, and the school will probably be open for 20 or 30 years before the urban village amounts to much. If we had learned anything, UC Merced would instead be UC Modesto or UC Fresno, and the school would be located in one of those cities' downtowns. CSU Channel Islands may be worse. The campus makes good use of the old state mental hospital outside Camarillo, but the planned university village is modest. It's an isolated campus surrounded by farmland and protected open space – bucolic, but an urban planning disaster. Officials at CSU originally proposed building the school adjacent to Ventura's poorest neighborhood; however, CSU gave up in the face of strenuous no-growth opposition. Sorry, but Ventura as a whole and tens of thousands of students, teachers and CSUCI workers would be better off if CSU had jammed the project down the throat of local naysayers. Instead, that part of Ventura continues to struggle, and everyone has to drive to a remote campus. With an ongoing state budget deficit and an aging populace, California is unlikely to build many new college campuses in the foreseeable future. We do continue to build transportation facilities, though, and here's where I have an example of a government project's positive contribution to community livability. In October, Caltrans completed a major upgrade to Highway 44 in Redding. The agency built a new bridge over the Sacramento River, widening the highway from four lanes to six. It rebuilt an intersection, modified a few ramps and built a new onramp. It also constructed a 1.1-mile-long, 12-foot-wide multi-use path along the highway. The path takes people from an existing bike path next to the convention center and the city's biggest museum to the retail center of town. Most importantly, it provides a safe route over the river and under the freeway, both of which pose barriers to cyclists and pedestrians in Redding. People have filled the path since the moment it opened. Much of the use is recreational, but I've also seen cyclists who are obviously commuting, as well as people carrying sacks of groceries. Caltrans recognized the latent demand. If California is truly going to shift to a more sustainable style of development, it needs to review its mistakes (poorly situated college campuses) and its successes (non-motorized paths that provide connectivity), and then build public facilities accordingly. Maybe we could start by hiring some progressive young planners that our public universities are graduating.  – Paul Shigley

A city ordinance effectively banning tattoo parlors oversteps constitutional limits protecting freedom of expression, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled. A unanimous three-judge panel struck down a City of Hermosa Beach zoning code prohibiting tattoo parlors because it violated the First Amendment.  Although it may seem that tattoos are the provenance of modern day subcultures such as rock stars and motorcyclists, tattoos have been part of evolving culture around the globe for thousands of years, the court explained. City of Hermosa Beach, however, perceived tattoos' outlaw air and had adopted a zoning ordinance that precluded the operation of tattoo parlors. Johnny Anderson, a tattooist operating in the City of Los Angeles, wanted to open a parlor in this neighboring beach city and ran headlong into the prohibition. In 2006, he sued Hermosa Beach, but the action was dismissed because Anderson had not availed himself of city administrative procedures for determining whether a tattoo parlor might be allowed as similar to other permitted uses. Following case dismissal, Anderson filed a request with the city for such a determination. The city denied Anderson's request in June 2007. He then filed a 42 USC § 1983 civil rights claim, alleging violation of the First and Fourteenth Amendments. At the District Court level, the city successfully argued that tattooing was not a First Amendment protected activity. District Court Judge Christina Snyder reviewed the ordinance under the rational basis test, and, on the basis of potential health risks, upheld the ban. Anderson appealed. The Ninth Circuit reversed the lower court, finding, "The tattoo itself, the process of tattooing, and even the business of tattooing are … purely expressive activities fully protected by the First Amendment." Accordingly, the scope of city regulation must be limited to reasonable "time, place and manner," the court determined. The court then addressed and rejected each of the city's arguments that the ban amounted to reasonable time, place and manner restrictions. Perhaps the city's best argument was based upon public health. Tattooing involves the injection of ink into a person's skin. The required puncturing of the skin creates the potential for skin infection. State law requires every tattooist to register with county health departments. The Los Angeles County health department had one inspector, and not all establishments operating within the jurisdiction of the county had been inspected. The city asserted that the county's limited resources with which to inspect and regulate tattoo parlors for public health purposes was sufficient justification for an absolute ban.  The court held, however, that the city failed to provide sufficient justification that it could not otherwise accommodate public health concerns while permitting a First Amendment protected activity. In other words, the ordinance was too broad. " lthough a total ban on tattooing might be the most convenient way of addressing the city's health concerns, the city has given us no reason to conclude that these concerns cannot be adequately addressed through regulation of tattooing rather than a total ban on tattoo parlors," Judge Jay Bybee wrote for the court. "Thus, particularly in light of the Supreme Court's historical ‘concern with laws that foreclose an entire medium of expression,' we have little difficulty concluding that the city's ban is ‘substantially broader than necessary to achieve the interest.' The city also argued that there were alternative means of communicating the same protected speech, such as printing on a tee shirt. The court concluded, however, that the permanent nature of tattoo ink carried a different message, and that there were no other equally effective communication media. The Case: Anderson v. City of Hermosa Beach , No. 08-56914, 2010 DJDAR 14319. Filed September 9, 2010. The Lawyers: For Anderson: Robert C. Moest, (310) 915-6628 For the city: John C. Cotti, Jenkins & Hogin, (310) 643-8448

Divine purposes do not give developers a free pass to circumvent local zoning regulations.  The Second District Court of Appeal has ruled that Los Angeles County was entitled to a court order that prohibited a church from operating a school without a required conditional user permit. The Sahag-Mesrob Armenian Church owns two parcels zoned R-1 (single-family residential) in the San Gabriel Valley. In May 2008, the church filed an application for a conditional use permit to operate an 800-student, K-12 school on the property. Four months later, the county received complaints that the school was operating in advance of the issuance of the conditional use permit and without California Environmental Quality Act review. The county conducted an inspection, verified that the school was operating, and issued a notice of violation giving the school 15 days to cease operation. Within this 15-day period, the church applied for a "clean hands waiver" from the county, which would allow the school to remain open during the pendency of the use permit review and processing. The county denied the waiver request. The county then issued a final code enforcement order directing that the school cease operating within 15 days. The church appealed this order, but the county denied the appeal. Following subsequent verification in late 2008 that the school was still operating, the county filed a code enforcement action and sought a preliminary injunction to close the school. Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Jan Pluim granted the preliminary injunction, prohibiting the school from using the property until all necessary permits were in place. Sahag-Mesrob Armenian Christian School appealed. The appellate decision addressed the interface of local zoning regulation with the federal Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA) (42 U.S.C. § 2000cc(a)-(b).) The first issue for the court was whether the county's requirement for a conditional use permit and the denial of the clean hands waiver violated RLUIPA's "substantial burden" test. Reviewing a number of decisions from other states, the unanimous, three-judge appellate panel concluded that the necessity for a conditional use permit and the denial of the clean hands waiver did not coerce or affect an individual's practice of faith and, therefore, was not an unreasonable burden. "No Supreme Court case holds the failure to comply with a neutral zoning application process is a substantial burden on the exercise of religious freedoms," Presiding Justice Paul Turner wrote for the court.  The church argued that the county's denial of the clean hands waiver was improper because the county had granted 50 waiver requests from faith-based and non-faith-based entities. (The county had also denied 23 such requests.) The county successfully argued that it had a sufficient factual basis upon which it could justify approving waivers for other applicants but denying this particular request. For one thing, the granted waivers were for activities in locations which would not have the same level of adverse impacts to surrounding uses as would the school. For another, the county had denied a waiver to a different church next to a residential neighborhood because of traffic and parking concerns.  "Thus, the clean hands waiver application in this case could be denied without violating the act. There is no evidence any other entity seeking to use the property would be treated any differently," Turner wrote.  A civil rights lawsuit filed by the church against the county remains pending in federal court.  The Case: County of Los Angeles v. Sahag-Mesrob Armenian Christian School, No. B216888, 188 Cal.App.4th 851, 2010 DJDAR 14846. Filed September 22, 2010 The Lawyers: For Sahag-Mesrob Armenian Christian School: Richard J. Kahdeman, Kahdeman & Nickel, (818) 597-9996 For the county: Dusan Pavlovic, county counsel's office, (213) 974-1900 --William W. Abbott

If I ever write a book about the crisis of the world's largest cities, this photograph from the Oct. 24 edition of the LA Times should be on the cover: A 27-story, 400,000-square-foot private home (!) built by a Mumbai billionaire Mukesh Ambani, reportedly the world's fourth-richest individual.  According to the Times story, Mr. Ambani's residence has both helipads and 168 parking spaces for a family of six. The home has prime views of both the ocean—and surrounding slums. No image could better distill the extremes of the modern mega-city than this bizarre building—looking like a Dagwood sandwich held together with enormous, diagonal toothpicks. To my mind, this single image hints at all the issues pressing down on the world‘s mega-cities (think Beijing, Jakarta, Sao Paulo). Start with overpopulation and uncontrolled urbanism. Add to that extreme contrasts of wealth and poverty. With the extreme gap in income, the rich feel increasingly vulnerable, and house themselves in bunkers that dramatize social polarization. Then add to that an inflated real estate market and construction without regard for environment (how many tons of greenhouse gases were pumped into the atmosphere from the trucks bringing materials to and from the site of Mr. Ambani's personal residence?). Add to that the "conspicuous consumption" of sheer volume; old-fashioned pashas went in for visual richness and ornament; today‘s fatcat just wants your jaw to drop with the sheer amplitude of private Cartesian space. As for open space and pedestrian friendly streets… fuhgeddaboutit! They're too expensive, and there's no return on the rupee. The slums, ironically, are the reverse mirror image of the Ambani residence: Granted, this has been said many times before, but the form of the modern city reflects labor economics of an industrial society—i.e. a perpetual oversupply of cheap labor, which must be fed and housed as cheaply as possibly, so that people can live on low wages. Hey, the view of these shacks is great from the top floor, from which they appear almost … picturesque (if you ignore the raw sewage running down the street, that is). None of these phenomena are new or surprising: What is remarkable here is the suddenness and the extremity that boom economies have brought to the world's densest cities. But can the exploding cities of the global economy be made into habitable places? What set of incentives must be in place to make cities habitable in the most basic ways? And is there a tension between private enterprise and the effort to "green" the world's most populous cities? In any event, the apologists for the global economy should look at this 27-story home and ask whether superwealth is translating into a better life for people as a whole, or driving an even deeper wedge between rich and poor. --Morris Newman

Refusing to second-guess a decision made by a public agency based on substantial evidence, the First District Court of Appeal has upheld a Sonoma County urban water management plan. The case resembled a great deal of land use and California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) cases in which a plan or project opponent asks the court to scrutinize agency decision-makers by reweighing the evidence, and/or to expansively interpret the duties imposed by a particular statute. In  Sonoma County Water Coalition v. Sonoma County Water Agency , a unanimous three-judge panel of the First District, Division Five, declined to take either approach. The case involved the urban water management plan (UWMP) adopted by the Sonoma County Water Agency (SCWA). The agency is a water wholesaler whose service area covers portions of Sonoma and Marin counties and includes a population of approximately 600,000. Under state law, water providers must prepare or update an UWMP every five years and address the supply of water over the following 20 years. The agency adopted the plan in 2006, and was sued by 14 environmental and agricultural organizations led the Sonoma County Water Coalition. The opponents sued on five general grounds: (1) lack of coordination with required agencies, (2) lack of the required detail within the plan, (3) failure to consider certain environmental factors, (4) failure to address the effect of recycled water on the future water supply and (5) failure to provide reasonable specificity with respect to water demand measures identified to address potential future water shortfalls. Sonoma County Superior Court Judge Gary Nadler ruled favorably for the UWMP opponents. SCWA appealed, and the First District court reversed the lower court, in large part by concluding that Judge Nadler had failed to apply the required level of deference to the agency's decision. A number of the opponents' challenges were constructed around the "possibility" argument. That is, the legal challenge was formulated by assaulting the decision on the possibility that one or more assumptions may not come to bear. For example, the challenged water management plan made certain key assumptions about future approval by the State Water Resources Control Board of additional diversions from the Russian River. The environmental and agricultural groups successfully argued to the trial court that, because this approval was not assured, the possibility existed that the future diversions might be denied. This type argument is frequently raised in land use or CEQA challenges because the contested project involves other agencies with independent regulatory control that influences future project implementation. Here, the appellate court determined that the trial court erred in setting aside SCWA's decision, because there was substantial evidence in the record to support the agency's decision with respect to the future diversion and other future regulatory issues controlled by other agencies. In other words, an agency may rely upon a reasonable set of assumptions if the assumptions are supported by substantial evidence. The appellate court also rejected as a matter of statutory interpretation that the law required the adopting agency to develop the UWMP predicated on a "bare possibility." In recognizing the deference owed to the adopting agency, the appellate court noted that the issue was not whether another planning assumption was more reasonable, but whether there was substantial evidence to support the assumption adopted by SCWA. While the appellate decision does not explain the scope of the administrative record, from a practitioner's perspective it is clear that SCWA did its homework by providing supporting evidence for its key assumptions. Another example of the possibility claim was the opponents' argument that there existed the potential for future groundwater contamination as a result of potential wastewater discharges by the City of Santa Rosa. This possibility was raised after the City of Santa Rosa circulated a request for CEQA scoping for a proposed wastewater project in the Russian River watershed. According to UWMP opponents, this wastewater discharge proposal rendered the UWMP invalid because it failed to account for the risk that wastewater discharges could contaminate the drinking water supply. The appellate court noted that the record before SCWA did not support the conclusion that this risk existed. No specific discharge project had been defined and the project was speculative. Perhaps more importantly, the record contained evidence supporting SCWA's conclusion that its water treatment and natural filtration systems would reasonably assure adequate water quality. "Although others might well assess the significance of the risk presented by DCP differently, it was again error for the court to substitute its judgment for that of the agency," Justice Terence Bruiniers wrote for the appellate court. With respect to the coordination claim, the environmental and agricultural groups argued that SCWA was required to coordinate not only with all agencies that shared the same supply, but also with all agencies whose regulatory authority potentially impacted future supplies, such as the Army Corps of Engineers and Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. The appellate court concluded that none of the agencies identified by the opponents meet the statutory criteria of agencies "in the area" that shared the same water source or otherwise qualified as water management agencies. The fact that these other agencies' regulatory authority might impact future water supply did not bring them within the scope of the statute for purposes of coordination, the court ruled. The appellate court applied an abuse of discretion standard in reviewing the agency's decision not to coordinate with these other agencies. This decision restates and highlights the role of substantial evidence in guiding a court as it reviews challenged agency actions. The court refused to sit in place of agency decision-makers, but, instead, reviewed challenged decisions while recognizing the expertise of the decision-makers and applying the statute as drafted. Although this case involved an urban water management plan, the decision should act as important guidance in the CEQA and land use context as well. The Case: Sonoma County Water Coalition v. Sonoma County Water Agency , No. 124556, 2010 DJDAR 15743. Filed October 8, 2010. The Lawyers: For Sonoma County Water Coalition: Stephan C. Volker, (510) 496-0600. For Sonoma County Water Agency: Stephen L. Kostka, Bingham McCutchen, (415) 393-2000.