One of the more startling bits of advice I have heard recently came from a financial planner on television who said: “Don’t marry anyone you wouldn’t want to divorce.” The advice, of course, is to marry only someone who is rational and has the ability to cut a deal, if and when the time comes to part. In urban planning, this advice could be translated as: “Don’t build anything you do not want to tear down.” That statement would perhaps shock developers and architects who believe they are building something of permanent value, just as much as the advice on divorce would shock starry-eyed kids in love. Even so, just as many marriages fail to last forever, real estate development is often a temporary condition — especially in the swirling vortex of cultural change and land-use speculation of present-day California cities. The concept of tearing down buildings has special application to shopping centers, which have the shortest useful life of any type of commercial real estate. Why? To start with, fashions generally change faster than buildings. Supermarkets replace the corner grocer, and the volume discounter replaces supermarkets. In other cases, “anchor” merchants may go out of fashion (remember Montgomery Ward?) and become living fossils long before the lease runs out. And, as in the case of Rancho Cordova, shifting land values can play a role in dooming shopping centers, particularly when the housing market is hot and the value of the underlying land starts to spiral. Cordova City Center, a residential and office complex in the recently incorporated City of Rancho Cordova in Sacramento County, is an example of a moribund shopping center being replaced by a medium-density apartment complex with 208 units. Built primarily during the 1960s and ’70s near the now-closed Mather Air Force Base and huge Aerojet aerospace complex, Rancho Cordova is an archetypal California suburb, with an underdeveloped urban form made up largely of tract housing and endless, ugly retail strips on major corridors. The site of the former retail center is an odd shape that does not lend itself easily to housing, at least the kind of row housing and stacked flats planned by the Lily Co., a Sacramento-based, family-owned apartment developer. On the positive side, the developer and the architects at Notestine Mogavero of Sacramento have 10 acres to work with. Even better, the development is located across the street from a Sacramento light rail station. The location triggers the benefits of the city’s transit-oriented development ordinance, including a waiver for about a third of the parking normally required. About 5% to 15% of future residents are expected to commute to work via transit, mostly to downtown Sacramento, the regional job center. The most refreshing part of the plan for Cordova City Center is the developer’s decision to build a low-rise neighborhood, rather than a monolithic apartment complex. The oddest part of the plan, at least at first glance, are the skewed angles of the individual housing blocks in relation to one other. The buildings look as if they had been laid out originally on a square grid that was subsequently shaken. (I can imagine an architecture student who has been up all night designing an apartment complex, tosses the cardboard model in the back seat and drives hurriedly to school just in time for the design jury, only to realize, when she has arrived, that she forgot to glue the buildings to the board.) In actuality, the askew arrangement is the resolution of a difficult formal problem, to wit: What is the best way to maximize the number of units on an oddly shaped site, while maintaining the rigid straightness of row housing? In a simple but inspired idea, the architects have made a big plus out of the trapezoidal green spaces between the blocks, which now become socially active little green spaces. In more conventional, less conscientious hands, the green spaces could have become hedges or something else equally idiotic. Architect David Mogavero says these little green spaces are a kind of homage to Tony Guzzardo, a landscape architect who planned many of the suburban divisions of the 1960s and ’70s in Northern California. Guzzardo made a point of integrating parks directly into neighborhoods, and, where possible, connecting the parks with green strips. It is the connectivity of those green strips that Mogavero seeks to emulate. In its layout, Cordova City Center reflects the city around it, particularly the heavy traffic on Folsom Boulevard, one of the city’s main commercial streets. The architects locate a commercial building directly on Folsom, which is both contextual and defensive, insofar as the long, horizontal building will screen much of the residential site from the busy arterial street. Apartment buildings lie immediately adjacent, while the streets that border the project area on either side lead to older residential neighborhoods. The city has yet to approve the project, and designers are still bickering with the fire department over on-site turning radii. But there is reason to believe that, beyond wanting to create some desirable density in suburban Rancho Cordova, city officials view Cordova City Center as the first piece of a future town center. “We are hoping to establish a precedent for the rest of the district,” said Mogavero. The project represents “the first time anyone is doing a suburban retrofit project in this city,” he added. For Mogavero, the town center idea offers an interesting artistic challenge of being true to the look of the existing community while introducing some unfamiliar elements. In his formulation, his design represents “three places,” the first being the traditional American street with separated sidewalks, retail on the street and human-scale street lighting. The second is the visual look of the 1970s, which is the “authentic” look for this young city. The third place, Mogavero said, is the future, represented by density, public life and transit. Unlike retail, housing probably has the longest life of any building type. That is one reason why housing can be considered the template for building cities. I don’t know how long Cordova City Center will last, and I don’t want to see it torn down. When it does eventually go the way of all buildings, however, this project will leave order, not awkwardness, in its wake. In the placelessness of suburbia, city building has started.

A locally written plan to preserve habitat for the endangered Sonoma County tiger salamander has been accepted by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in lieu of designating critical habitat. The plan, termed the Santa Rosa Plain conservation strategy, aims to protect 3,400 to 4,200 acres of the salamander's most important remaining habitat — about 25% of the salamander's current range, or 3% to 4% of its historic range. Biologists and environmentalists question the voluntary nature of the conservation strategy and ask why more habitat cannot be preserved in light of the species' protected status. The state's other tiger salamander populations, notably in the Central Valley and Santa Barbara County, which are genetically distinct from those in the Sonoma County population and from each other, are also imperiled, having lost 75% to 99% of their historic ranges. The Santa Rosa Plain strategy "seeks to create a long-term program to mitigate potential adverse effects on listed species due to future development on the Santa Rosa Plain." The plan aims to protect the tiger salamander and four federally endangered plant species. The Fish and Wildlife Service first recognized the need for federal protection of the tiger salamander in 1994 but concluded the agency had neither the time nor the resources to address the matter. As a result of a lawsuit brought by the Environmental Defense Center and others, Fish and Wildlife in 2000 granted the Santa Barbara population segment endangered status. The resolution of a similar lawsuit filed by the Center for Biological Diversity in 2001 granted the Sonoma County population segment endangered status in 2003, and also led to the threatened listing of the Central California population in 2004 (see CP&DR Environment Watch , July 2004). But when Fish and Wildlife finally listed the Central California population segment, the Service also decided to disregard the genetic distinctions between the three segments. The agency also downgraded the status of the Santa Barbara and Sonoma County populations to match that of the Central California population. In August 2005, U.S. District Judge William Alsup vacated the agency's decision, calling it arbitrary and capricious. As a result of the court ruling, the listing status of the Santa Barbara and Sonoma County populations reverted to endangered. The Fish and Wildlife Service then designated 199,109 acres of critical habitat for the tiger salamander throughout the state, but none in Sonoma County. The agency's policy is to not designate critical habitat in areas where the agency finds that a local plan can adequately address the threats to an endangered species, said agency spokesman Al Donner. The agency is confident that the Santa Rosa Plain strategy will adequately achieve the agency's objectives, he said. Usually, the replacement for designated critical habitat comes in the form of locally driven habitat conservation plans (HCPs), which are becoming common throughout the state. The Santa Rosa Plain strategy is not an HCP. Rather, it is an admittedly novel process originally conceived by local developers and municipalities worried that the designation of critical habitat might hinder future development. The strategy was proposed as a way to protect the salamander's most critical habitat and streamline development. "The Service wanted us to start from scratch," said Charles Carson, of the Home Builders Association of Northern California, "And we've come up with a locally developed process that I think has worked out very well." Under the conservation strategy, two acres will be preserved within one of the region's eight proposed conservation areas for every acre of habitat developed within 1.3 miles of known breeding areas – a region that encompasses much of the plain. Five of the salamander conservation areas lie to the west and south of Santa Rosa, and three lie to the west and south/southeast of Cotati. All of the conservation areas lie adjacent to urban growth boundaries, with some portions inside the boundaries. For projects lying within potential salamander habitat, but more than 1.3 miles from known breeding grounds, a mitigation requirement of 0.2:1 will apply. The ratios were developed based on the expectation that the next ten years worth of growth will generate enough credits to achieve the overall conservation goals. The cost of the mitigation is intended to include financial endowments for ongoing land management. However, participation in the program is totally voluntary, an aspect that concerns environmentalists. They also say it is unclear that federal officials have a right to accept the strategy at all. Brendan Cummings, an attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD), pointed to a case in which his organization defeated an attempt by Fish and Wildlife to substitute local management plans for millions of acres of critical spotted owl habitat in Arizona and New Mexico. In that case ( Center for Biological Diversity v. Norton , 240 F. Supp. 2d, 1090 (2003)) a U.S. District Court judge ruled that other habitat protections are not an acceptable substitute for designating critical habitat. The CBD has also contested in federal court the use of HCPs in lieu of critical habitat to protect California's endangered arroyo toad. Cummings expects that case to be decided in the next couple of months. No suits have yet been filed opposing the Sonoma County plan, and nobody involved thinks that a locally driven process is a bad idea. There are concerns, however. "The strategy addresses the core habitat areas fairly well," said Kassie Siegel, another CBD attorney. "But we have serious concerns about how it will be implemented." The tiger salamander breeds solely in vernal pools, and adults can travel up to 1.3 miles between pools and their homes, which are usually abandoned boroughs in nearby oak woodlands and grasslands. "Adequate protection means protecting continuous stretches of habitat," said Dave Cook, a local water agency employee who wrote his masters thesis on tiger salamanders. "The best science available suggests that, as a rule of thumb, it takes 500 acres or more to ensure the necessary components of tiger salamander habitat." "There is no mechanism in the plan that ensures the preservation of viable preserves" said Cook, a sentiment echoed by Siegel. They are concerned that the resulting pattern of land conservation could resemble a checkerboard. To further protect the tiger salamander, CBD and other environmental groups have sued the California Fish and Game Commission to get the species listed under the California Endangered Species Act. A decision is expected by summer. Contacts: Charles Carson, Home Builders Association of Northern California, (925) 820-7626. Al Donner, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, (916) 414-6566. Dave Cook, salamander expert, (707) 591-9727. Kassie Siegel, Center for Biological Diversity, (760) 366-2232. Santa Rosa Plain Conservation Strategy website: www.fws.gov/sacramento/es/santa_rosa_conservation.html

All California governors try to turn into Pat Brown sooner or later, so it’s not surprising that Arnold Schwarzenegger has now done the same. What’s surprising is not that Schwarzenegger is using Pat Brown’s legacy, but that he’s using nearly the same suburban model as Pat Brown did almost a half-century ago. Schwarzenegger’s “Strategic Growth Plan” – his proposal to spend $222 billion on infrastructure construction during the next decade – is clearly meant to be the centerpiece of his political reinvention and the key to his re-election next fall. If he succeeds, Schwarzenegger’s plan will probably be the state’s roadmap for planning and development during the next 20 years, just as Pat Brown’s roadmap for highways, water projects, and higher education was used during the 1960s and ’70s. The stakes couldn’t be higher, because California has long since exceeded what might be called its “design capacity.” The Pat Brown building boom (which really had its roots in the administration of a Republican governor, Earl Warren) set the table for a mostly suburban state of 20 million people – essentially, the California of 1980. Twenty-six years later, California is an increasingly urban state of 37 million people, with a population of 45 million likely by around 2020. The state’s planning apparatus is gradually adapting itself to this new reality, but no new comprehensive vision has ever emerged from the state’s leadership on the scale of the Warren-Brown vision. And now Schwarzenegger has reached back to the Wonder Years to appropriate the Warren-Brown vision of a half-century ago: Freeways. Shiny new school campuses. Levees to protect new subdivisions. In fact, the only indication that it’s 2006, not 1960, is how Schwarzenegger plans to pay for everything. He proposes no tax increases. And while there are a few new fees (especially a fee on water hookups), his proposal mostly suggests rearranging revenues and bonding capacity that already exists. In this sense, Schwarzenegger has not really “gone Democrat.” Instead, he looks a lot like a moderate Republican, which is to say a lot like Pete Wilson. Schwarzenegger has always been close to Wilson, and there is irony in the fact that Wilson’s failed growth management strategy in 1993 was called the “Strategic Growth Plan,” exactly the same moniker Schwarzenegger has chosen for his infrastructure plan. There are three ways to look at Schwarzenegger’s plan: One is the revenue. The second is spending. And the third concerns vision. On the revenue side, Schwarzenegger couldn’t be more Republican. He has not proposed any new taxes, nor has he proposed much “new money” (as they call it in Sacramento). Instead, the $222 billion Strategic Growth Plan involves a lot of rearranging. It is built mostly from capital funds the state will get anyway, along with new bonds that voters would probably face at some point, and some bonding against existing revenue sources (meaning that other spending priorities will be pushed aside). Here’s how it breaks down: • Almost half ($100 billion) consists of revenue that the state and local governments will get anyway to build transportation, education, and flood control projects along with a few other things. This includes federal gas tax and Proposition 42 transportation funds, as well as state school bonds that have already passed and local school bonds that would have to pass in order for local districts to qualify for state matching funds. • About a third ($68 billion) is essentially a pre-emptive proposal on how to expend the state’s bonding capacity over the next decade. State bonds don’t require tax increases; they simply pre-allocate the general fund. And while $68 billion sounds like a lot, in fact the voters passed $35 billion in infrastructure bonds (plus the $15 billion economic recovery bond) from 2000 to 2004 alone. Voters would likely see between $40 billion and $50 billion in new bond proposals over the next decade even without Schwarzenegger’s plan. • The remainder ($53 billion) is advertised as “new funding,” but a lot of it is iffy. The governor includes $9 billion from the presumed passage of local transportation sales taxes and $14 billion in matching funds and mitigation money from the port and freight sector. He also includes $3 billion in GARVEE bonds (bonds against federal funds), and $14 billion in bonding against gas tax and weight fee funds, which is permissible under the state constitution. In each of these cases, the state is bonding against revenue streams that would flow anyway. Then there’s what Schwarzenegger would spend the money on. Here he straddles the middle somewhat more, though still with a rightward tilt. Schwarzenegger suggests throwing a huge amount of money into public education facilities, both K-12 and higher ed. But every governor of California paints himself as “the education governor,” and Schwarzenegger must sop the education constituencies after last year’s viscous campaign over the his pro-business, anti-union initiatives. Most of the rest of the money would be thrown at transportation and flood control – and most of the transportation money would be for highways, not transit or alternative transportation. As far as water and flood control goes, the persistent rumor in Sacramento is that “there’s a Peripheral Canal hidden in there somewhere.” And there’s no money for open space or housing – both of which have been the subject of successful bond campaigns during the last few years. The governor’s approach has alienated housing advocates, who have been living on Proposition 46 funds the last couple of years, as well as open space advocates, who have been planning their own 2006 bond act. All this sets the stage for an interesting legislative debate on Schwarzenegger’s plan over the next few months. On the one hand, you can see how a partisan shootout is shaping up, with the Democrats blocking the governor because he’s not paying attention to transit, affordable housing, and open space. The legislative battle could turn into a grand compromise, or it could degenerate into partisan bickering over the summer, once the Democratic nominee to oppose Schwarzenegger is selected. You can expect more partisan bickering if the nominee is Phil Angelides, who sells bonds as state treasurer, has the backing of the unions, and is a nationally recognized advocate of smart growth. Which brings us to the governor’s vision. At best, Schwarzenegger has recycled Pat Brown’s Wonder Years vision of California’s. That may help drive more funds into infrastructure construction – a worthy outcome in itself – but it’s questionable how much headway such a vision can make against the problems of a rapidly changing and intensely urban state in the 21st Century. More money for highways is fine, but in most urban areas it’s both geographically and politically impossible to expand the freeways. Vast amounts of money for new schools is great too, but there’s hardly anyplace to put them either, unless the governor is willing to lead the charge to rethink what school campuses look like, how they function, and how they interact with the communities around them. It is worth remembering that there is a law on the books that is supposed to guide the California state government’s actions, including infrastructure investment, in a visionary way. That’s AB 857 from 2002, which calls on the state to protect farmland and natural land, promote infill development, and encourage greenfield development to be compact in nature. It’s not a bad set of guiding principles for re-designing California in the future. Of course, it was passed by a Democratic legislature and signed by a Democratic governor, so we haven’t heard about it lately from the administration. But that doesn’t mean AB 857 can’t form the basis for a bipartisan vision of the future – or even a Republican vision for that matter. The of infrastructure investment hasn’t changed in the last half-century – it’s to help elevate people into the middle class. But who those people are has changed, and so have the conditions they are up against. It’s time for a 21st Century vision to go along with the $222 billion plan.

Civic leaders in the Orange County town of Stanton hope that the reuse of a failed commercial strip for medium-density housing and small shops will start a local trend. Developers of the Renaissance Plaza propose 175 townhouses, 25 live-work units and about 18,000 square feet of commercial space on approximately 12 acres. Although the first phase of the two-phase project is not scheduled to break ground until this spring, city officials believe Renaissance Plaza may quickly become a model for development elsewhere in Stanton. “Stanton has always struggled with its identity. It’s a place people pass through on their way to Disneyland or somewhere else,” said Wendy Grant of The Planning Center, which helped prepare a specific plan for the 14.9-acre site on Beach Boulevard. The plan is intended to help provide suburban Stanton with an identity, and to provide something of a downtown gathering site, which the community now lacks. Unlike many of its neighbors in northern Orange County, Stanton, a city of 40,000 people on only 3.2 square miles, has no downtown of any sort. In fact, while other cities in the area have been revitalizing old downtowns, building new ones and generally riding the real estate wave, Stanton has remained frozen in time. The real estate boom that began during the late 1990s largely passed over Stanton, conceded Steven Harris, the city’s community development director. Now, with many of northern Orange County’s “easy” infill sites spoken for, and with real estate prices continuing to rise, Stanton is getting a fresh look. Stanton’s predominant feature may be Beach Boulevard, a six-lane arterial that actually is a state highway. Every day, Beach Boulevard carries about 55,000 vehicles, many of them making their way quickly through Stanton. Commercial strips line most of the high-speed boulevard. Stanton Plaza is one of those strips, but the center and neighboring commercial strips have underperformed for years, Harris said. In hopes of revitalizing that stretch of Beach Boulevard, the city in 2002 adopted a specific plan that called for improving the aesthetics of existing commercial buildings and developing commercial infill. However, the multiple property owners could not agree on what to do, the city’s staff turned over and, as a result, nothing happened. When Harris came aboard in 2003, he urged a fresh look. That was fine with Brandywine Homes, an Irvine-based infill developer that said the site was prime for housing development, not new commercial projects. “I had my eye on that property for about seven years, and it took me about five years to tie it up,” said Brandywine President Brett Whitehead. “This is kind of our niche — the older parts of Orange County that people have overlooked.” Recognizing that the 2002 specific plan would not work, The Planning Center, the city and Brandywine went to work on a new plan. The city did what it could to gather public input, but Stanton’s residents are not engaged in land use planning. In early 2005, the city adopted a mixed-use specific plan that permits between 200 and 300 housing units and up to 35,000 square feet of commercial uses. The plan also contains extensive design criteria. Last fall, the California Chapter of the American Planning Association gave the new Stanton Plaza specific plan a small jurisdiction planning award. The specific plan envisions something of a small, self-contained district. The plan calls for new internal streets that serve residents of the new housing units while being friendly to pedestrians and bicyclists. There also will be a new link to an existing mobile home park, permitting those residents to walk to new shops in the specific plan area. Beach Boulevard will not be the focal point. “We wanted to create this little main street area off Beach Boulevard,” Harris explained. The specific plan is more ambitious that Brandywine’s initial idea, which was a three-acre residential project. But Whitehead said he is pleased with how the project has evolved. Brandywine has acquired 10.5 acres, and the city’s redevelopment authority is negotiating to get another 1.5 acres for Brandywine’s project. A second property owner hopes to pursue a mixed-use development on a 2.9-acre plot (known as Area D in the plan) just north of Renaissance Plaza. The city has approved tract maps for the 100 townhouses and six live-work units in the first phase of Renaissance Plaza. Under the specific plan, the city’s community development director has authority to provide site plan and design review approval so long as the project complies the specific plan. The idea behind that streamlined administrative process was to motivate developers to abide by the specific plan, Grant said. The city Planning Commission has been involved through study sessions, she added. Another streamlining measure concerns environmental review. The city certified an environmental impact report for the specific plan. As long as development proposals comply with the specific plan and cumulative traffic from the specific plan area remains at less than an average of 6,500 vehicle trips per day, the city plans to require no additional environmental review. The 6,500 average daily trips (ADT) figure was derived from the 70,000 square feet of commercial space that was on the specific plan site. That amount of commercial space would typically generate 6,500 ADT, Harris said. As long as the new development stays below that traffic threshold, there is no traffic or air quality impact, and no mandate to prepare a congestion management plan, he said. With its first phase entitlements in hand, Brandywine intends to complete building demolition this month. New housing units could be open by the end of the year, Whitehead said. Renaissance Plaza is Brandywine’s first mixed-use project (Whitehead calls it “multi-use”) but more could follow. People want to be in the center of activity, Whitehead said. “There’s a lack of new homes in the older parts Orange County, especially at an affordable price — if you call $400,000 to $500,000 affordable,” he added. Grant said Stanton Plaza could be a catalyst for more small-scale, mixed-use, reuse projects. “This has been that stepping-off point for the city,” she said. “It’s a major corridor, and it’s always been commercial. Now, the city is thinking about how best to use it. Strip centers are not an efficient use of land.” The city already is eyeing development of a 10-acre site farther north on Beach Boulevard that now has a kiddie fun park known as Hobby City. The park’s owners want out after 50 years in business, and the site would be ideal to replicate some of the mixed-use concepts in the Stanton Plaza specific plan, Harris said. “We’ve had a lot of people come in and talk about Beach Boulevard and high-density. And that’s what we want to see,” Harris said. Additionally, the city recently received a $200,000 grant from the Orange County Council of Governments to plan for a transit-oriented development around a potential transit station. When transit does come — there is no firm plan yet — the city will be ready, Harris said. Contacts: Steven Harris, City of Stanton, (714) 379-9222. Wendy Grant, The Planning Center, (714) 966-9220. Brett Whitehead, Brandywine Homes, (949) 296-2400.

Two reforms of state redevelopment law — both carried by Assemblyman Gene Mullin (D-South San Francisco) — advanced at the Capitol during January. The Assembly voted 72-0 for AB 782, which removes antiquated subdivisions as a basis for establishing a redevelopment project area. Also, two Assembly committees passed AB 773, which increases in smaller jurisdictions the time available to qualify a referendum of a redevelopment ordinance. Mullin is a former member of the South San Francisco City Council. The antiquated subdivision bill would eliminate redevelopment agencies’ ability to base project areas on the existence of lots of “irregular form and shape” and “inadequate size for proper usefulness.” Instead, under AB 782, an agency would have to make the usual findings that an area is blighted physically and economically, and is predominately urbanized. Attention has focused on the antiquated subdivision provision of redevelopment law ever since California City a few years ago expanded a redevelopment project area across 15,000 acres of empty desert because of parcel size and lack of infrastructure (see , May 2004). Legislation regarding referendums emerged from recent hearings regarding redevelopment and eminent domain (see , December 2005). Redevelopment opponents said that 30 days — the current time permitted — was not long enough to gather signatures to force an election on redevelopment ordinances. Jurisdictions larger than 500,000 people already provide 90 days to submit referendum petitions on redevelopment ordinances; AB 773 would make the 90-day rule uniform. The bill appears likely to pass the Assembly. While lawmakers approved the two measures by Democrat Mullin, a bill by Republican state Sen, Dennis Hollingsworth of Murrieta went nowhere. His SB 1099 would limit instances in which agricultural property may be taken by eminent domain. The bill failed in the Senate Judiciary Committee. Many more bills regarding redevelopment and eminent domain are alive in the Legislature. Loma Linda voters will make multiple growth decisions in June. The City Council in the small city near San Bernardino placed separate referendums regarding the University Village and Orchard Park projects on the June ballot. The projects, which are next to one another between Redlands Boulevard and Mission Road, would bring 2,400 housing units and 1 million square feet of commercial development to 300 acres (see , December 2005). Additionally, backers of an initiative that aims to limit development on hundreds of acres in the South Hills appear to have enough signatures to make on the June ballot. Monterey County voters again will decide on proposed development at Rancho San Juan, a stretch of unincorporated farmland and hillsides just north of Salinas. Opponents of the 1,147-unit Butterfly Village project qualified a referendum for the June ballot. Last November, county voters overwhelmingly rejected a specific plan allowing for 4,000 housing units and extensive commercial development on the 2,500-acre Rancho San Juan. Included in the specific plan was the Butterfly Village project. However, the day before the November election, the Board of Supervisors approved amendments providing only for Butterfly Village development. Those changes are the subject of the latest referendum. A revised study of water availability for the 2,300-unit West Creek project in unincorporated Santa Clarita has passed muster in Superior Court. Three years ago, an appellate court rejected an environmental impact report for Newhall Land and Farming’s project because the EIR’s water analysis relied too heavily on deliveries from the State Water Project (see , December 2005, April 2003). Los Angeles County adopted a revised EIR in 2005 and again approved West Creek. Project opponents sued a second time, but Santa Barbara County Superior Court Judge James Brown upheld the new environmental study. A different Santa Barbara County judge had upheld the first EIR, a decision overturned on appeal. Another appeal appears likely. The City of Stockton has settled a lawsuit filed by the Sierra Club over the city’s 5,600-acre sphere of influence expansion north and west of Stockton’s current boundaries. The city agreed to levy a fee of $3,250 for every acre of farmland that is developed in the new growth area. Fee revenue will fund conservation easements. The settlement approved by the Stockton City Council in January marks the third such settlement of Sierra Club litigation. Developers in Manteca, Tracy and Lathrop also will have to pay farmland preservation fees. In Stockton, the City Council further agreed to decide within six months on a citywide farmland preservation fee. Grupe Co. President Kevin Huber told the that the Sierra Club’s lawsuit was “litigation terrorism to exact money from developers.” Grupe plans to build 7,000 housing units on about 1,800 acres in Stockton’s new sphere of influence area. Marin County’s losing streak regarding the proposed rebuilding of death row at San Quentin continued in January, when a Marin County Superior Court judge rejected the county’s lawsuit challenging the EIR for the project. The county had argued that the state Department of Corrections had failed to consider alternative sites. Last year, the county lost a lawsuit that contended Corrections needed the Legislature’s approval to change the size of death row. Marin County officials would like to see the 432-acre, bay front site of the prison redeveloped for use as a transit hub, housing and parks.

The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has dealt another blow to housing developers who sued the City of Fresno, an individual city councilman and twelve citizens because the city refused to approve tax-exempt bonds for an apartment project. Not only did the Ninth Circuit upheld verdicts by a jury and District Court Judge Oliver Wanger, the appellate panels also awarded attorney fees for the trial and appeal to the citizens. Considering that the litigation originated in 1997, those fees could be considerable. The dispute centers on a 324-unit low-rent housing project called Wellington Place and proposed by Affordable Housing Development Corporation (AHDC) near Herndon and Polk avenues. AHDC made various arrangements to move forward on the project on the assumption that $30 million in tax-exempt bonds would provide the ultimate financing. However, the Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act, 26 U.S.C. § 147(f) (TEFRA), requires the local government to approve such “private activity bonds.” After an outpouring of opposition to the project from area residents, the Fresno City Council voted 5-2 in March 1997 to deny the bonds. The council cited the project’s potential impact on existing single-family homes and questioned the need for more rental units. AHDC then sued, claiming it suffered $9 million in damages. Essentially, AHDC contended that the city, then-Councilman Chris Mathys (who led the opposition) and the citizens violated fair housing and non-discrimination laws. Judge Wanger issued summary judgment for the citizens. A jury found in favor of Mathys but produced a mixed verdict for the city. Wanger later entered judgment for the city, finding that AHDC had failed to persuade the jury that discrimination caused AHDC any damages. The judge, however, declined to award attorney fees to the winning parties. All parties appealed. In its relatively short decision, the Ninth Circuit made clear that it had no patience for AHDC’s arguments. The court ruled that Mathys’s activities organizing the opposition were protected by legislative immunity and by the doctrine, which upholds free speech rights when petitioning the government. “Mathys made and distributed flyers encouraging his constituents to oppose the Wellington Place project. He urged the executive director of the Fresno Housing Authority to oppose it. He organized a neighborhood meeting in opposition,” Justice John Noonan wrote for the three-judge Ninth Circuit panel. “As the district court found, no evidence was presented that Mathys intimidated anyone or threatened violence to anyone. His activities amounted to petitioning the city council. The activities were protected by the right to petition the government for redress of grievances, and by a government official’s right to seek to affect governmental action.” The court dealt in some detail with AHDC’s argument that the decision was discriminatory because it disproportionately impacted minorities and families with children, in violation of the Fair Housing Act. But the court ruled that the statutory scheme did not impose automatic liability. “We hold only in this case of first impression under TEFRA that if an elected representative authority declines to approve TEFRA housing bonds for a legitimate non-discriminatory reason, the defense is good,” Noonan wrote. “A decision motivated by hostility to race, ethnicity or family size would have been illegal under California law. The jury found that the city’s decision was not so motivated.” The court then reached the issue of attorneys fees. Here, the court made its thoughts clear. Because AHDC alleged that the citizens violated California’s Bane Civil Right Act, the defendants could have been liable for treble damages, or $27 million. “A lawsuit seeking this sort of damages against each citizen casts a cloud over his or her credit,” Noonan wrote. “As AHDC could not have expected to recover these amounts from the citizens, the inference may be drawn that the claims against the citizens were advanced , to scare off anyone who would resist AHDC’s demands on local government. That inference is strengthened by the testimony of Michael Schulte of AHDC as to how the individual defendants were selected: ‘the number of times essentially that the person protested.’” The citizens were exercising their First Amendment rights, and those rights supercede the fair housing law, the court noted, pointing to , 227 F.3d 1214 (see , November 2000). In , the Ninth Circuit held Department of Housing and Urban Development officials liable for damages for chilling the free speech rights of three citizens who opposed a housing development for disabled and homeless people in Berkeley in 1992. “What was true as to the lawless actions of federal officials in 1992 is equally true of the attack launched by AHDC on the constitutional rights of the citizens of Fresno in 1997,” the court ruled. The Case: , No. 04-15625, 06 C.D.O.S. 283, 2006 DJDAR 455. Filed January 11, 2006. The Lawyers: For AHDC: William J. Davis, (213) 253-5939. For the city: Douglas Sloan, Dowling, Aaron & Keeler, (559) 432-4500. For Chris Mathys: Nancy Jenner, McCormack, Kabot, Jenner & Watson, (559) 734-6729. For 11 citizens: Howard Sagaser, Sagaser, Franson & Jones, (559) 233-4800.

In an unprecedented effort at regionalism in California, a task force appointed by Gov. Schwarzenegger is attempting to address the many problems troubling the San Joaquin Valley. The governor has assigned no fewer than eight cabinet members to the California Partnership for the San Joaquin Valley, of which Business, Transportation and Housing Secretary Sunne Wright McPeak is the chair. On the partnership’s agenda for the eight-county region are economic development, transportation, land use — especially housing and agriculture, air quality, water, education and workforce development, social services and telecommunications. The group is scheduled to start conducting public forums around the region in March. As a spin-off of the partnership project, the eight councils of government in the San Joaquin Valley have agreed to work together on a land use blueprint. Caltrans announced in late January that it would provide a $2 million grant for the blueprint project. The San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District has offered a $500,000 match. Also, local economic development officials have gone together as a group seeking a $15 million federal grant to address employment issues. “The San Joaquin Valley has some of the biggest challenges in the state,” McPeak said. “We’ve got a region at risk that we need to address.” Nick Bollman, president of the California Center for Regional Leadership, called the effort “very much an experiment in action.” The partnership is both a policy and a program group, and it is unique in state history, said Bollman, who helped put together the governor’s executive order. But whether the partnership forces changes in urban development patterns and the regional economy is uncertain. The basis for the entire project is that “business as usual” is no longer acceptable. In recent years, the San Joaquin Valley has become known as the “Appalachia of the West.” In fact, a report released in December by the Congressional Research Service found that per-capita income in the San Joaquin Valley is lower than in Central Appalachia — while federal spending per capita is greater in Appalachia. Residents in the valley’s eight counties (San Joaquin, Stanislaus, Merced, Madera, Fresno, Kings, Tulare and Kern) are less educated than other Californians. And the valley’s deteriorating air quality is the second worst in the nation. Those problems are compounded by the San Joaquin Valley’s rapid growth. The population is projected to double by 2040. Schwarzenegger created the partnership last summer when he signed an executive order creating the 26-member organization and appointed eight cabinet members, nine local government officials and nine representatives of the private sector. Tulare County Supervisor Connie Conway and Stockton-based developer Fritz Grupe serve as deputy chairs. Since then, the group has met twice, and a number of committee meetings have been conducted. “The basis of the partnership really is economic development,” Conway said. “We’ve been given an opportunity that we have wanted for a long time, so we better make the best of it.” Although the partnership is new, a great deal of background work has already happened. The Modesto-based Great Valley Center has continually pushed public officials, academics and the public to think of the San Joaquin and Sacramento valleys as a regional entity. The Public Policy Institute of California has examined the valley as a region. A federal task force originated by the Clinton Administration continues to address economic development and workforce issues. Four years ago, the Speaker’s Commission on Regionalism recommended formation of a state entity that would focus on the San Joaquin Valley’s needs. The region’s first public research university — UC Merced — opened last fall and has begun a working relationship with the Great Valley Center. “This is a region that has not had resources, that people have not looked at, and that is starting to get a sense of itself,” said Carol Whiteside, the Great Valley Center’s president and founder. “There is a lot of background work going into this and a lot of people working on it.” The partnership’s first two meetings have attracted scores of public officials and members of the public. McPeak said she expects the partnership to produce a very specific action plan. Among the highest priorities, she said, is improving the Highway 99 corridor to meet the needs of the shipping and tourism industries, improve safety and create a high-tech corridor. Additionally, McPeak said the group will probably recommend a set of actions to reduce air pollution and pick a preferred scenario for land use. The action plan should lay out programs for the next five to ten years and contain metrics so that progress may be measured, she said. McPeak endorsed as complementary the regional blueprint project that the councils of government (COGs) have proposed. Air quality, transportation and economic development are regional issues, she said. “I think that it’s remarkable that the San Joaquin Valley as a region has joined forces. There are eight councils of government and they came together and submitted to the state for a grant for a regional blueprint,” McPeak said. “The magnitude of the challenges for economic prosperity in the future transcends jurisdictional boundaries.” Whiteside said she would like the blueprint project to address the questions of whether urban development should move into the foothills, whether development within existing boundaries should become denser, and whether low-density development should continue to swallow farmland. The blueprint project could be similar to recent regional planning projects in Sacramento, the Bay Area, Los Angeles and San Diego. However, at 275 miles in length, the San Joaquin Valley is larger, while the $2.5 million budget is smaller. Moreover, even those involved concede there are huge differences to consider. In the south, Kern County remains dependant on oil, agriculture and mining while at the same time it forges more ties with Los Angeles. In the north, San Joaquin and Stanislaus counties may almost be considered part of the Bay Area. Already, the eight COGs have worked together to implement a valley-wide geographic information system, they have talked about air quality issues, and have addressed both Highway 99 improvements and a proposed high-speed rail line. “We’ve been talking to each other, but we haven’t had this type of comprehensive planning,” said Marjorie Kirn, deputy executive director of the Merced County Association of Governments. The COG leaders are still working on the process. Each COG will receive a portion of the money to fund its own visioning process. Darrel Hildebrand, Kern Council of Governments assistant director, said his agency plans to conduct workshops in nine sub-areas to gather as much public input as possible. After going through their own processes, the COGs will come together and, ideally, endorse a single blueprint for growth, Hildebrand said. Then, it will be up to cities and counties to use the blueprint in making land use decisions. “This will simply act as a vision. The cities and counties will be able to have confidence that it was developed at the grass roots level,” Hildebrand said. Whiteside, a former Modesto mayor and Wilson administration official whose organization provides staff support for partnership committees, said that she actually cares little about the outcome of the partnership effort. What matters most is that people are having the conversation, she said. The partnership “will be successful if in five or ten years the valley is a more livable place and we are approaching parity with the rest of the state,” she said. Otherwise, the valley’s air pollution, congestion, poverty and low educational attainment will continue to be a drain on the state, she said. “Ultimately,” added Bollman, “whether this works depends on changing attitudes in the valley itself.” McPeak said that everyone should be watching. “I think the rest of the state would want to build on this experience in the San Joaquin Valley and have the sort of cooperative relationship with the state that the valley is having,” she said. The executive order signed by Gov. Schwarzenegger assigns the following tasks to the Partnership for the San Joaquin Valley: • Identify projects and programs that will best use public dollars and most quickly improve the economic vitality of the valley, especially projects and programs that leverage federal, state, local and private resources. • Work with members of Congress and other federal officials, including the federal Task Force for the Economic Recovery of the San Joaquin Valley, to gain federal support for projects identified by the partnership. • Work with universities, community colleges, other research and education institutions, and private foundations to provide guidance and encouragement in support of studies of particular interest to the valley. • Review state policies and regulations to ensure they are fair and appropriate for the state’s diverse geographic regions, including the valley, and determine whether alternative approaches can accomplish goals in less costly ways. • Recommend to the governor ways to improve the economic well-being of the valley and residents’ quality of life. • Develop by October 31, 2006, a strategic action proposal that recommends ways to improve economic conditions in the valley. This report must focus on state government strategies for economic growth, improving environmental quality, empowering local communities and encouraging entrepreneurialism. The report is to be delivered to the governor, as well as boards of supervisors and city councils in the valley. Contacts: Sunne Wright McPeak, Secretary of Business, Transportation and Housing, (916) 323-5400. Carol Whiteside, Great Valley Center, (209) 522-5103. Marjorie Kirn, Merced County Association of Governments, (209) 733-3153. Darrel Hildebrand, Kern Council of Governments, (661) 861-2191. Nick Bollman, California Center for Regional Leadership, (415) 445-8975. California Partnership for the San Joaquin Valley website: http://www.bth.ca.gov/capartnership/sanjoaquinvalley.asp

A San Diego historical society’s lawsuit over a housing development on a site the society considered historical has been dismissed by the Fourth District Court of Appeal. The appellate panel upheld a lower court, which dismissed the case because the historical society had neither submitted the administrative record nor filed an opening brief. The lawsuit concerned the fate of four early-20th-Century buildings on J Street in San Diego’s East Village. The buildings were once owned by Lillian Grant, a pioneering black businesswoman and one of the first black women to own property downtown. In 2002, the city’s Historical Resources Board designated the Grant properties as historic. However, the City Council overturned that decision the following year. Soon thereafter, the city approved demolition of the structures and development of the 74-unit Lillian Place Apartments, a low-income project proposed by the nonprofit Wakeland Housing and Development. The Black Historical Society sued the city and Wakeland in March 2004. The society argued that the city failed to implement the city’s California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) guidelines, that the project violated the city’s development code and that the project improperly used funds from the Horton Plaza redevelopment project. The Society asked the city to prepare the administrative record. The city requested a $2,000 deposit for preparation of the record, but the society refused to pay. On August 24, 2004, San Diego County Superior Court Judge Linda Quinn ordered the parties to meet and confer on three things: the cost of the administrative record, an expedited briefing schedule and whether the society had brought the case under CEQA. On September 2, the city said the administrative record was complete and ready for review. That same day, the court ordered the society to pay for the record’s preparation and file an opening brief by September 21, a deadline the court later extended to October 12, 2004. When the society missed the October deadline, Wakeland asked the court to dismiss the lawsuit. The historical group responded that it had been prevented from filing its opening brief because the city would not provide the administrative record without payment. Quinn dismissed the lawsuit on October 28, 2004, noting that the society had never asked her to modify the September 2 order. Things had proceeded quickly because Wakeland faced the loss of low-income housing tax credits if development did not begin by November 15, 2004. (Wakeland met the deadline, and the project is scheduled to be complete this summer.) The society appealed the dismissal. The group’s opening brief was due in February 2005, but the Fourth District granted an extension because the society said it was in negotiations likely to result in a settlement. However, Wakeland then protested that it was not negotiating and had no intention of settling. So the court rescinded the extension in March 2005 and directed the society to file its brief within five days. The society responded by filing an emergency petition with the California Supreme Court seeking a change of venue. The Supreme Court denied the society’s request, and the group filed its opening brief the next day, April 19, 2005. The society contended that the lower court could not dismiss the lawsuit, that the society had been prevented from filing its Superior Court brief because the city was holding the administrative record hostage, that the record should have been released and that the society had to pay for the record’s preparation only if it lost the lawsuit. The Fourth District quickly disposed of all of the arguments. Usually, there is a 45-day notice period before a court will grant a motion to dismiss. Judge Quinn acted quicker, though, because Wakeland contended it would be harmed if it missed the November 15, 2004 deadline. “ he record contains a showing of immediate harm,” Presiding Justice Judith McConnell wrote for the Fourth District, Division One. “The court was entitled to conclude the construction deadline presented sufficient urgency to support both an expedited briefing schedule and expedited resolution of Wakeland’s motion to dismiss after the society had failed to file the administrative record or to file an opening brief.” As to the society’s contentions regarding the administrative record, the court pointed out that the law generally requires the petitioner — the society in this case — to bear the cost of record preparation. Second, McConnell noted, Judge Quinn made an explicit order for the society to pay, and the society never asked Quinn to release the record without prepayment. Additionally, the society never sought alternative means of obtaining the record, such as preparing the record itself, McConnell wrote. Wakeland asked the Fourth District to sanction the society for filing a frivolous appeal, but the court declined. The Case: , No. D045481, 05 C.D.O.S. 10124, 2005 DJDAR 13820. Filed November 4, 2005. Ordered published December 1, 2005. The Lawyers: For Black Historical Society: Kenneth N. Hamilton, (619) 337-8491. For the city: Deborah M. Smith, city attorney’s office, (619) 533-5500. For Wakeland Housing and Development: Jenny Goodman, Sullivan, Wertz, McDade & Wallace, (619) 233-1888.

The Pleasant Hill Redevelopment Agency’s subsidies for a housing project did not make the project a “public work” that required the payment of prevailing wages to workers, the First District Court of Appeal has ruled. The court based its decision on the definition of “public works” in effect in 1999, when the city and a developer signed a contract. Since then, the Legislature has expanded the definition of public works. The First District’s decision relied largely on the state Supreme Court’s ruling in , (2004) 34 Cal.4th 942 (see , February 2005). In , the Supreme Court ruled that the city’s contribution of $1.5 million to the development of a SPCA animal shelter did not make the shelter project a public work because the money was expressly limited to preconstruction expenses, such as architecture, project management, surveying and legal counsel. Both the Long Beach animal shelter project and the Pleasant Hill housing project were governed by the longstanding definition of public works in former Labor Code § 1720, subdivision (a). Lawmakers changed the statute in 2000 and again in 2001. The Pleasant Hill project involved development of 134 townhouses on the 7.5-acre “Cleaveland Triangle” in the Schoolyard redevelopment project area. In November 1999, the city’s redevelopment agency executed a disposition and development agreement (DDA) with the DeSilva Group, which owned 20 of 29 parcels in the Cleaveland Triangle. DeSilva then assigned its portion of the DDA to Greystone Homes. Under the DDA, the redevelopment agency agreed to provide a parcel it owned worth $161,000, pay a traffic impact mitigation fee of about $209,000, and reimburse the developer up to $2.5 million for land acquisition. The agency would make reimbursement payments out of annual tax increment revenue. In June 2002, trade unions requested a determination from the Department of Industrial Relations (DIR) as to whether the project was a public work. Seven months later, the DIR director determined the project was a public work. He found that the agency’s contribution of the parcel, the payment of mitigation fees and the reimbursements were for “activities integrally connected to the construction of the project,” making it a public work. Greystone appealed, but the director in July 2003 affirmed the determination. Greystone sued, and Contra Costa County Superior Court Judge David Flinn upheld the DIR. Flinn based his decision solely on the DDA’s provision that the redevelopment agency would provide $240,000 of tax increment housing set-aside revenue as incentive for the developer to sell 12 units at less than market rate. Greystone appealed, and a unanimous three-judge panel of the First District, Division Two, overturned the lower court and the DIR. The First District noted that — issued after the DIR and Judge Flinn made their decisions — distinguished preconstruction costs from construction costs under former § 1720, subdivision (a). The DIR determination incorrectly lumped everything together. “The director made the legal determination that payment for construction under former § 1720(a) meant a payment for any activity essential to the completion of a construction project,” Justice Paul Haerle wrote. “This interpretation and application of the governing statute is erroneous under . The court was persuaded that the term ‘construction’ in former § 1720(a) ‘meant only the actual physical act of building the structure,’ and it expressly rejected the DIR’s contrary claim that this term encompassed ‘pre-building’ phases of a project.” Thus, the question in the Pleasant Hill case was whether public funds would pay for actual construction. The court said no. “The real property involved in the parcel conveyance became part of the land upon which the project was built; it was not used to pay the costs of construction. Nor was the traffic mitigation fee a cost of actual construction,” Haerle wrote. “We also find that the agency reimbursement was not used to pay for actual construction of the project in this case. The agency’s express obligation was to reimburse the developer for the costs of acquiring the land.” As to Judge Flinn’s ruling, the court found that payment of money as an incentive was irrelevant. “ he behind a payment of public funds is simply not determinative of whether the funds paid for . Here, the DDA provided that the agency would reimburse the developer for land acquisition costs, not for construction costs,” the court ruled. The Case: , Nos. A107763 and A107769, 05 C.D.O.S. 10773, 2005 DJDAR 14729. Filed November 22, 2005. Ordered published December 21, 2005. The Lawyers: For Greystone: Andrew Sabey, Morrison & Foerster, (925) 295-3300. For Department of Industrial Relations: Christopher Frick, DIR, (415) 703-4240. For Pleasant Hill Redevelopment Agency: Juliet Cox, Richards, Watson & Gershon, (415) 421-8484. For IBEW Local Union No. 302: Scott Kronland, Altshuler, Burzon, Nussbaum, Rubin & Demain, (415) 421-7151.

When the Army closed the doors at Fort Ord in 1994, Monterey County was presented with an unparalleled opportunity to create a new town out of prime real estate overlooking the Pacific Ocean. The 28,000-acre base is nearly the size of San Francisco and is located in an area that has attracted tourists for years. Local leaders, such as U.S. Rep. Sam Farr (D-Carmel), envisioned cutting edge urban planning that would provide affordable housing and walkable communities for the workers who staff much of the county’s tourism and agricultural industries, and who cannot afford to live in some of the state’s most expensive towns. Twelve years later, the big plans for Fort Ord are mostly gone or unrealized. What is slowly taking shape is a typical California beach town revival, with hotels and single-family housing tracts winning out over innovative planning and affordable housing. Some new buildings have sprouted on the base, including part of the campus of 4,000-student California State University Monterey Bay (CSUMB). Much of the open space remains, including beaches that will be opened by the state when it finds the money. Two-thirds of the base’s inland territory will be preserved. “It’s a poster child for success, and a poster child for failure” Farr said of Fort Ord reuse effort. “I think some things have been done very well, and some things done with mediocre vision.” What remains from the old Fort Ord is a significant number of boarded-up buildings awaiting environmental remediation of asbestos and lead paint before the structures can be torn down. Some of the older buildings have been converted into offices and classrooms, but many more stand empty and decaying. It may be another eight to ten years before Fort Ord looks significantly different than it does today. The educational changes on the site of the former base are most noticeable in the new library and sciences building at CSUMB. In addition to CSUMB, the University of California, Santa Cruz, was given 1,100 acres. About half of UC’s land is being used for a research center and for an incubator for new businesses; the other half is being kept as open space. Elsewhere at Fort Ord, Monterey Peninsula College plans to build an emergency training facility that should attract public safety officials from across the state, and Golden Gate University and Monterey College of Law have opened campuses. The most significant changes on the old military base thus far are within the city boundaries of Seaside to the south and Marina to the north. The two former military towns divided 5,200 acres of the base land. Businesses in the cities were hit hard by the closure, and development has tended towards efforts to make the cities some money. Land that the cities received in large part for free from the federal government was sold to housing developers. Sale tax generating activities such as shopping centers are planned for other sites. Marina has already taken over the former airport at the base, while Seaside bought the base’s two golf courses. The first major housing development, Seaside Heights, a 380-unit complex, is built out. Local governments have given approval to several more, including: Marina Heights, with 1,050 units; the University Village project, with more than 1,000 homes; and Seaside Resort, a 330-room hotel on a golf course with time-share units and single family homes. The most unusual proposed development is East Garrison, a 244-acre mixed-use development that is proposed to have 1,400 residential units, a town center and an arts district in about two dozen renovated Army buildings. During World War II, the buildings housed German prisoners of war. The project will be built on unincorporated county land and has been approved the county’s Board of Supervisors. About 20% of the estimated 6,000 units to be built on base land will be affordable. State redevelopment law mandates that 15% of the units be affordable, but supporters of affordable housing had hoped to see as much as 50% of the units earmarked as affordable. Congressman Farr gave up that dream in 2004 when he realized that the Fort Ord Reuse Authority (FORA), made up of local government officials, would not buy into that goal. Farr had hoped that the base would get rebuilt as a model for the rest of the country. Instead, he said, “They’ve approved a bunch of shopping centers and golf courses — what you’re seeing in urban sprawl in the rest of the state.” Farr said that FORA simply went along with whatever local city and county governments decided to do. “The lesson learned here is California needs to really have a vision for the planning of the state,” Farr said, noting the state is one of only a few among industrial states that has no major land use plan, other than coastal zoning. “People need to spend a lot of time on details, particularly here where you had a clean slate with no prior zoning.” One local official sees it differently. “What we have opposition to is our cities are being asked to bear the burden of providing affordable housing for the entire county,” said Lou Dell’Angela, community development director for Seaside. “We are a blue collar town. We are not a Carmel…or Carmel Valley.”’ Dell’Angela said projects like a hotel resort and a proposed regional shopping center on base land will help Seaside get the revenue it needs “to provide services to our residents.” Farr said the most attractive and innovative low-cost housing at the former base is being developed by the military, which is using 44 different architectural styles to create new rental housing. The military, which still uses about 750 acres of Fort Ord, also is building community centers and recreational trails. The housing program is called the Clark Pinnacle Project and was authorized by federal legislation to upgrade military housing nationwide. Under the program, 2,000 housing units will be built for military families in the Monterey area by the year 2013. Many of the residential projects approved on the base did not come without a fight. In November, a lawsuit filed by a citizens group against the City of Marina and the developer over construction of Marina Heights was settled after the developer, Cypress Marina Heights, agreed to pay $1.75 million to support low-cost housing. Contacts: Congressman Sam Farr, (202) 225-2861. Linda Stiehl, Fort Ord Reuse Authority, (831) 883-3672. Lou Dell’Angela, City of Seaside (831) 899-6724.

Making a public park out of a Superfund site is a rarity. If Maywood, a city in the old industrial belt of South Los Angeles County, ultimately succeeds in creating a 7.3-acre park along the Los Angeles River, the result would be inspirational: A working class city will have turned one of the nation’s most contaminated sites into a greenfield. For the time being, however, the proposed conversion of poisoned land to playground looks more like a cruel irony than a cause for celebration. To expunge the witch’s brew of carcinogens and heavy metals in the soil and drinking water, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has proposed a technology known as vapor extraction. This method involves heating the soil up to 1200 degrees Fahrenheit, which volatilizes much of the crud into the air. Opponents say the method is inappropriate for a city that already suffers from very poor air quality. With 28,000 people living in a city a square mile in size, Maywood is the most densely populated city in California, according to Trust for Public Land. “Nobody knows what happens when you heat up those chemicals. There’s been no study,” said Councilman-elect Felipe Aguirre, referring to the unique cocktail of chromium, arsenic, THC and vinyl chloride, among the 29 identified “hazmats” in the soil of a former chemical plant, an adhesive factory, and their neighbors. The site ranks high on the list of priority Superfund sites. The issue grew so controversial, in fact, that local voters ousted Mayor Sam Pena in November, electing two anti-vapor extraction candidates — Aguirre and Sergio Calderon — while returning to office incumbent councilman Thomas Martin, another foe of the remediation process. The three councilmen are now the majority of the City Council, and they are looking for ways to convince EPA to use a less hazardous method of remediation. Aguirre said the city was consulting with the National Academy of Sciences to find an alternative technology to clean up the Superfund site. But, he added, “It’s difficult to get EPA to change its mind after it has approved a plan.” “We want a park, but we want the area cleaned up first,” Aguirre said. In questioning the proposed method of remediation, Aguirre cited a clean up project in the nearby city of Alhambra. Under orders from the state Department of Toxic Substance Control, Southern California Edison has attempted to clean up a similarly contaminated site in Alhambra using the same technology proposed for Maywood. “They said it would take six months,” Aguirre said. “It’s taken three years.” To understand why feelings run high in Maywood, one need realize that the Superfund site is only one of several problems that qualify the city as one of the most environmentally messed up areas in Southern California. A short list of existing conditions gives meaning to the word “impacts.” An enormous intermodal shipping container yard, the second largest in Southern California, is located to the north, near Commerce. A Dunn & Edwards paint plant operates across the street from one of the city’s two small parks. An incinerator operates across the city border in Commerce. The 710 Freeway, which carries an endless parade of antiquated, particulate-spewing diesel trucks, is located directly to the east, across the concrete-line Los Angeles River. The city’s aquifers, which are the source of its drinking water, are sullied by a toxic plume. “Maywood is a hotbed of contamination,” concluded Aguirre. Fashioning a new park in Maywood has been a long-time goal of Trust for Public Land, the national organization best known for preserving large wilderness areas. In recent years, the trust has become increasingly active in helping create parks in cramped, inner-city neighborhoods. The Los Angeles River has been a particular focus for the trust. To date, the trust has helped purchase land at three different points along the channelized waterway, according to Larry Kaplan, the trust’s Los Angeles field director. Perhaps the trust’s most remarkable coup came during 2001 with the purchase of 32 acres of former industrial land in downtown Los Angeles known as the Cornfields, which had been targeted for development by the county’s largest developer, Majestic Realty (see , April 2001; , September 2000, January 2000). The environmentalist’s victory was all the more remarkable for defying the wishes of then-Mayor Richard Riordan. In Maywood, the trust conveyed a total of five acres in 2001 and 2003 toward the creation of the future Maywood River Park, while also helping the city and its consultants design the park, according to Kaplan. Both the city and land trust are contributing another stretch of land for what the trust hopes will become a continuous greenbelt extending, in a giant Y shape, south along the riverfront from the San Fernando Valley and Pasadena through some of the poorest cities in Los Angeles County until the river empties into the ocean at the Port of Long Beach. Aside from all of that environmental and political drama, the park itself might seem an anticlimax. In the scheme by AAE Inc. of Brea, the park is designed for active play, while minimizing the space devoted to purely esthetic items like flowerbeds or waterfalls and the like. The majority of the trees are arranged to provide a visual and sound screen from surrounding streets, with a large soccer field and basketball court in the middle, as well a tot lot, riparian areas with native flora and picnic areas. The park does seem low on trees (at least to this landscape non-expert) although existing trees would obviously grow out. The park does not seem to provide anything for skateboarders, which will not prevent skateboarders from rocketing everywhere. In all, the park looks like a very good place to escape the heat-sink of the city. And at a time when so many brownfields are returned to service by being “encapsulated” — that is, paved over — it is good to see a very dirty site returned to grass. If we can accomplish this feat without further searing people’s lungs, all the better.

The environmental impact report for a proposed Highway 50 interchange that would serve an El Dorado County Indian casino has been invalidated by the Third District Court of Appeal. The decision could have impacts beyond El Dorado County because the Third District rejected Caltrans’ usual method of determining air quality impacts. In the EIR, Caltrans had concluded that the interchange and hotel-casino project would not have a significant impact on air quality because emissions were in conformity with the regional “mobile source emissions budget.” Essentially, Caltrans decided that the project would not have a cumulative impact on air quality. However, the court said that Caltrans should have disclosed the amount of reactive organic gases (ROG) and nitrogen oxide (NOx), which are precursors to ozone, that would result from the project itself. “ he specific traffic-based ROG and NOx emissions of the interchange/hotel-casino are known (or have been estimated) but are never disclosed,” Justice Rodney Davis wrote for the unanimous three-judge panel. “ e have no idea (1) what the interchange/hotel-casino’s specific traffic-based ROG and NOx emission (or estimates) are; (2) what their specific contributions to the emissions budgets are; and (3) whether these emissions and contributions are significant (one example of this may be how these emissions and contributions compare to a range of samples from other transportation projects in the region that make up the transportation conformity analysis). This is no small moment, given the enormous size and scope of the interchange/hotel-casino project.” Caltrans officials declined to comment on the ruling, but in court filings, Caltrans essentially argued that it does not have technology to provide the area-specific analysis the court wants. The decision appears to be forcing a change in how any entity that deals with capacity-increasing transportation projects studies air quality impacts. Michael Zischke, an attorney who represented Caltrans in the case, called the air quality ruling “significant” but declined to go into detail pending final disposition of the case. Although the Third District in December rejected requests from all parties for a rehearing, it appeared a request for state Supreme Court review was likely to be filed — and the case might be important enough for the high court to accept. “The court departed from the norm and did not defer to Caltrans’ determination that the air quality analysis was adequate,” Zischke said. The Third District’s decision is only one of the latest events in a long-running fight that El Dorado County and a number of residents have waged against the Shingle Springs Band of Miwok Indians. Since the 1990s, the tribe has sought to build a casino on its 160-acre rancheria in a low-density residential area approximately nine miles west of Placerville. Access to the rancheria, however, is very limited, so the Shingle Springs Band has pressed for a new Highway 50 freeway interchange to serve the site. Eventually, the tribe and its financial backer, Lakes Entertainment of Minnesota, offered to pay for the $40 million interchange. The tribe and Lakes Entertainment propose a 240,000-square-foot casino with multiple restaurants, a five-story, 250-room hotel, and a 3,000-space parking garage. The resort would employ as many as 1,900 people and generate approximately 10,000 car trips per day. The National Indian Gaming Commission and the Bureau of Indian Affairs prepared an environmental assessment (EA) for the project but not a more detailed environmental impact statement (the federal equivalent of an EIR) because the agencies determined the project, with mitigations, would not have a significant impact. The county contested the adequacy of the EA in federal court but lost a January 2005 ruling. That case is now at the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Caltrans, meanwhile, received the task of preparing an EIR for the interchange project. The study was complicated by the fact that the interchange and casino were really one project, yet the federal agencies with jurisdiction over the casino had already approved the environmental analysis for the hotel, casino and parking garage. Eventually, Caltrans approved the interchange based on a combined EIR/EA that incorporated the federal study. This time, the county and two neighborhood groups sued in state court, arguing that the EIR was deficient in many ways. Sacramento County Superior Court Judge Lloyd Connolly upheld the EIR in all respects — except for its handling of air quality impacts. Connolly ruled that Caltrans must measure the project’s ozone impacts based on state standards, not based on more lenient federal standards. Everyone appealed. The Third District approached the air quality issue differently but reached the same result that Connolly did: Caltrans’ study was inadequate. What’s more, the Third District ruled that Caltrans’ EIR should have analyzed a smaller casino as a project alternative — a contention raised by the neighborhood groups. In studying air quality impacts, Caltrans relied solely on a regional transportation conformity determination. Under the federal Clean Air Act, transportation projects in “nonattainment regions” such as Sacramento must conform to a mobile source emissions budget established in a regional plan for meeting federal air quality standards. Caltrans concluded that the interchange/hotel-casino project would not have a significant impact on air quality because the project’s operation would fall within the mobile source emissions budget. The Third District ruled that Caltrans’ exclusive reliance on conformity with the collective emissions budget was improper. “The regional conformity approach does not tell us what the interchange/hotel-casino project is specifically contributing in terms of ROG and NOx transportation emissions. The ‘forecasts of regional mobile source emission levels’ in this regional conformity approach comprise the ROG and NOx emissions for all existing and planned transportation projects, including the interchange/hotel-casino project, in the Sacramento nonattainment-ozone region,” Justice Davis wrote. “ he EIR in effect used only a cumulative air quality analysis to evaluate project-specific impacts.” As for evaluating project alternatives, the court agreed with neighborhood groups that Caltrans should have considered a smaller hotel and casino. Caltrans rejected such an alternative because the state agency has no jurisdiction over the tribe or its activities on the rancheria. “Caltrans,” the court ruled, “cannot rely solely on this legal blanket to insulate itself from considering the alternative of a smaller hotel and casino. … In short, alternatives may not be rejected for consideration merely because they are beyond an agency’s authority.” Stephan Volker, the neighborhood groups’ attorney, said Caltrans should have considered a smaller casino that generated less traffic. Caltrans does have authority over highway design and congestion, he noted. “Caltrans clearly had the ability to approve a smaller interchange project or could have rejected the project all together,” Volker said. Zischke, Caltrans’ attorney, disputed Volker’s contention and the court’s ruling. “Caltrans doesn’t have authority to order a smaller casino. Caltrans has authority over an interchange,” Zischke said. While pleased with the Third District’s decision regarding alternatives, Volker said the court made a “fundamental error” in permitting Caltrans to rely on the federal EA for examination of off-site impacts of the proposed casino. The “cumulative impacts of the casino outside the rancheria’s boundaries” should have been studied in the EIR, he argued, adding that he hoped the state Supreme Court would consider the question. The Case: , Nos. C046372 and 048141, 05 C.D.O.S. 9666, 2005 DJDAR 13190. Filed November 8, 2005. Modified December 6, 2005 at 2005 DJDAR 14015. The Lawyers: For El Dorado County: Edward Knapp, county counsel’s office, (530) 621-5770. For Caltrans: Michael Zischke, Morrison & Foerster, (415) 268-7000. For Shingle Springs Band of Miwok Indians: Nicholas Yost, Sonnenschein, Nath & Rosenthal, (415) 882-5000. For Voices for Rural Living: Stephan Volker, (510) 496-0600.