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The announcement earlier this week that bookstore giant Barnes & Noble is for sale is important to city planners for two reasons. First, however the deal comes together, the sale will almost certainly result in the closure of some of Barnes & Nobles' 720 U.S. stores. Closures could begin even before there is a sale, as the company tries to increase its appeal by shedding its weakest outlets. Second, and more importantly, the troubles that Barnes & Nobles is experience provide another example of the changing nature of retail sales, and one more warning about basing land use plans or developments on specific uses or businesses. How Americans buy things, and even what we buy, is evolving almost as fast as planners can process development applications. When I was in downtown Seattle last week, I came across an honest-to-goodness newsstand. Tall racks located right next to the sidewalk offered hundreds of mainstream and esoteric magazines, local and out-of-town newspapers, racing forms, puzzle books and even a few paperbacks. It was exactly the sort of operation that used to attract crowds in any large or mid-sized downtown. But the newsstand I saw in Seattle struck me as quaint, almost anachronistic. Is the full-on bookstore going the way of the newsstand? Quite possibly. Independent bookstores have been shutting down rapidly since the 1990s, partly because of competition from the likes of Barnes & Noble, but mostly because reading – and buying – habits are changing. You don't need me to tell you that people read things online all day long. You're doing it right now. And you don't need me to tell you that people buy things online all day long, too. Last year, Barnes & Nobles' biggest competitor, Borders, closed all its stores in the United Kingdom. Borders has barely staved off bankruptcy in this country. I'm not going to bury Barnes & Noble just yet – the business wires report the company has at least two serious suitors – but there's no denying the company is struggling. With the big movement to electronic books, people are likely to buy even fewer printed books in the future. It's a story familiar to any recorded music retailer. Forrester Research analyst James McQuivey told the Los Angeles Times , "It's really starting to be clear that bookstores are, if nothing else, a very valuable way to promote e-readers and e-books." As recently as five years ago, nearly every proponent of downtown redevelopment, a lifestyle center or a mixed-use development fought to get a bookstore. They couldn't contain their glee if they managed to snag a Barnes & Noble or Borders. But if the analyst quoted above is correct, the bookstore that was so prized only a few years back may continue to exist only as a marketing tool for sales consummated elsewhere. I recognize that retail trends come and go. Heck, I'm old enough to have slurped a milkshake at a Woolworth's lunch counter. But retail trends used to hang around for a generation. Now a big trend might last seven years. My point is this: Basing a specific plan, redevelopment plan, or development project on certain retail uses is a very dicey proposition. The bookstore that was a lynchpin 10 years ago may not exist after this Christmas shopping season. Who really knows how other segments of the retail market will evolve over the next few years, let alone over the next 20? I probably sound like I'm advocating form-based zoning. Maybe so. What I'm really advocating, though, is a focus on making great places – the sort of places that remain vital even while uses evolve and adapt. When you're building and rebuilding a city, what matters are the bricks and mortar, the public plazas and landscaping, the circulation systems, the architecture – the stuff that will survive while numerous retail trends rise and fall. I think most people who have studied cities and city planning understand this fundamental concept. But I also think that people can get distracted by the latest shining object. – Paul Shigley

If you are at all involved with urban planning in Los Angeles you were probably either in the audience or on the panel at last night's "The Future of the Los Angeles City Planning Department (and the City of Los Angeles)" event, sponsored by AIA, APA-L.A., ULI, and Cal Poly Pomona's College of Environmental Design. I suppose a third option is that you were stuck in traffic and couldn't make it.    Those of us in the room at Southwestern Law School in Koreatown were treated to perhaps the most far-ranging, sincere, and sometimes entertaining discussion about planning in Los Angeles in recent memory. It was, to an extent, a master class for new Planning Director Michael LoGrande , who attended fresh off his confirmation by the Los Angeles City Council. The event was organized before Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa nominated LoGrande, and his attendance was not promised. But how could he not attend, and how could he not share a few words, given that the entire two hours was dedicated to the equal measures hope and desperation that surround the years to come at the L.A. Department of City Planning? By the looks of things, LoGrande has not exactly picked a cushy job for himself. His own brief introductory remarks, while replete with the requisite visionary rhetoric, focused on the department's financial challenges and his eagerness to partner with outside firms and organizations to help craft the city's plans. Moderated by Planning Commissioner Michael Woo, the 10-member panel represented some of the region's most astute practitioners and observers of planning in Los Angeles, ranging from architects to developers to journalists to former members of the Planning Department staff. They amounted to an unusually candid bunch, whose expertise centers not necessarily on planning per se, but rather on that unquiet beast known as planning in Los Angeles.  If no other lesson emerged -- for LoGrande or anyone else who would dare imagine what the city should and could look like -- it is that Los Angeles is sui generis, in its form, geography, demographics, history, and politics. Jane Blumenfeld -- the recently retired consigliere to Lo Grande's predecessor, Gail Goldberg -- said it most bluntly by calling it "the most politicized planning land use development city in the world."  The discussion did little to contradict that stereotype. It's an amazing thing when a dozen experts get together and generally agree on goals: We want Los Angeles to be more pleasant (i.e. pedestrian-oriented); we want to preserve distinctive neighborhoods and respect community members' wishes; we want to take advantage of new and existing transit projects and we love the 30/10 plan; we want to provide more housing. To a lesser extent, we want to reach out to under-served communities and we want to stoke the city's economy.  Restoring the L.A. River would be a fabulous thing to do.  All well and good.   (Notably absent, however, was so much as a whisper of rhetoric about sustainability. I have two theories on this: The first is that everyone has grown weary in the process of hoping for, and not achieving, a mythical "green future" -- especially in this economy.  The second, more hopeful theory is that sustainability has become implicit, especially to the extent that, thanks to legislation like SB 375, it has become synonymous with density. Indeed, now that L.A. is built out and that the transit system keeps growing, it's arguable that almost every new development will be sustainable by some measure.)   How, though, to achieve those goals?  Suggestions ranged from "enjoy the recession" as a time to think and plan to "Metro should take all the land surrounding transit stops by eminent domain." Some encouraged LoGrande to align himself with Mayor Villaraigosa's vision (whatever that may be; "elegant density" is still being batted around five years after the mayor first picked it as his slogan) while others were already talking about the next mayor and arguing whether the city charter even made the mayor relevant. Almost everyone agreed that having to serve 15 councilmembers, plus a mayor, is no way to plan a city. Baron Haussmann and Robert Moses would surely concur.   If there was a single point of consensus about how to move forward with high-quality development, it was articulated most clearly by Forest City Sr. Vice President Renata Simril: "For me as a developer, the notion of by-right speaks volumes to my ears. Time is money. I'm more apt to be able to built a project that yields that (desired) result because there's clarity, there's certainty in that plan. And, by the way, I know I'm not going to get challenge by the community because the community has bought into that specific plan."  Bill Fulton followed up that assertion, saying: "You prove to (councilmembers) that by doing a planning process that results in a consensus that people can buy into that developers will have more clarity…and a roadmap. If you can prove to the politicians that there's some kind of a plan in place that makes it easier for developers to get to the end and built stuff that the neighborhood wants, that's how you prove to councilmembers that good planning is good policy." In other words, Los Angeles needs good plans and public officials who will enforce those plans. Beyond that, the panel offered LoGrande an abstracted, highly intellectualized version of what he will experience in L.A.'s neighborhoods and halls of power: passionate, articulate, and often contradictory sentiments. Some highlights from each speaker include the following:  Planning Commissioner Michael Woo (moderator):  "The City Planning Department and the planning director operate in a political culture in which it is more customary than in other cities for elected officials to intervene in the planning process. Also, the Planing Deparmtment and planning director operate in a city in which private property interests have very strong influence over what goes on….and where NIMBYism was not exactly born in Los Angeles but certainly moved here at an early age." Jane Blumenfeld, former Acting Deputy Director, L.A. City Planning "If you revise the community plans, a lot of casework is eliminated.  We need to get rid of that so that the people who are there…can function efficiently and effectively without having everybody be forced to do casework. Know what is expected in a neighborhood, you won't need to review the color of paint and roofs.  There's a lot of work involved, and it's needless and stupid in a lot of ways.  They won't have those project-by-project fights."   Bill Boyarsky, former L.A. Times City Editor "The biggest obstacle to moderate-priced housing are the land developers, property owners, Central City Association, and the building trade unions. They control planning in LA. I wrote many stories about neighborhoods where Moderate-priced apartment buildings were torn down for more expensive condos...the only thing that saved these people was the recession. When this recession ends, you're going to have to go back. The mayor is going to have to take a chance." Vaughn Davies, Director of Urban Design, AECOM "The rulebook is there to protect and safeguard us from poor development. It doesn't really promote great development.  Sets a minimum standard.  All the great places we travel to in the world are illegal to build in Los Angeles.  The more opportunities to create traffic and chaos in this city.  Sidewalks and the public realm. Make the pedestrian the priority. We need to move swiftly and we need to be as nimble as possible.  We can't wait for Planning to unveil some big vision for the city." Bill Fulton, Mayor of Ventura; CP&DR Publisher "Duking it our at the community level is better than duking it out at the project level. But given the history of LA, nobody believes that. They all think they can duke it out at the project level and get a better deal."  Emily Gabel-Luddy, Past Director, L.A. City Planning Urban Design Studio "NIMBYs play an essential role in the public discussion because they raise things that would otherwise not be raised. People have insights into the local area that none of the planners have because they do not live there."  Christopher Hawthorne, L.A. Times Architecture Critic "There's no city even close to its size that faces so many fundamental questions about what it's going to be in the coming decades." "It's a question of whether development is going to guide planning or whether planning is going to guide development.  There are a lot of vested interests who really like things the way they are and that they like piece-by-piece planning and duking it out. I think if we can agree that's as an ideal to have planning guide development, then the tricky question is politically how do we get there?" John Kaliski, Principal, Urban Studio-L.A.; Past President, AIA/LA "The divide seems to be between those who believe these conversations are useful and those who believe they're useless.  Neighborhood council process that's advisory.  That's a huge cultural shift in the city that hasn't been recognized yet for all that it could be." Renata Simril, Sr. Vice President, Forest City "As we continue to move forward, I think the future is going to be bright as it relates to TOD. Coupled w/ the 30/10 plan and the effort to focus on key TOD projects throughout the city.   "(There's a) battle between density and preserving the single-family house. If we can agree where density occurs, it's not an either/or.  Focusing on TOD gives you not an 'or' but an 'and.'"   Martha Welborne, Executive Director of Countywide Planning, Los Angeles Metro "We've known for some time that we really cannot build our way out of the transportation problem.  If you want to solve mobility issues, a link of land use and transit planning is critical. The MTA controls no land use planning; we just do the transit side. An increased  dialog among the 88 cities in the county and the MTA, is critical if we want to build our way out of the problem." Elva Yanez, Coordinator, L.A. Collaborative for Environmental Health Policy and Justice "It's not just the responsibility of the city to create those mechanisms. There is no intermediary in the city of LA that's funded by foundation funds to educate people about planning and do advocacy in an appropriate and constructive manner. We don't need developer front groups muddying the water." So that's some of what the panel said. Perhaps the more salient question, though, is who heard it?  The "Louis XVI Room" (not kidding) at Southwestern Law School was filled to capacity with acolytes, employees, and even peers of the folks on the panel. It was like old home week for the cognoscenti. But there is a difference between knowing about planning and having an interest in planning.  And who wasn't there? The other four million residents of Los Angeles.  I don't say that to be flippant, but I do mean that for this discussion to matter, it must, by necessity, reach the people who have not yet heard it. Millions of people in Los Angeles don't know what planning is, much less what "do real planning" means. Many haven't considered the pleasures (or not) of density and walkability, or if they have, they don't believe that L.A. could ever be a dense, walkable city. Many would not feel comfortable attending an event (even one free of charge) under crystal chandeliers in a restored Art Deco palace.   As the discussion went on, I kept thinking about all the cars, buses, cyclists and pedestrians passing outside (and about the straphangers passing beneath) the Southwestern Law's Bullocks Wilshire Building in the twilight.  And I wondered if any of them had any idea that, in some small way, the future of their city was being discussed – or if they even knew that the future of the city was up for discussion at all.  If it's true that the recession will, as Renta Simril said, give LoGrande and other L.A. planners some unintended leisure time, then more meetings like this have to take place, both with official department sanction and though the efforts of APA, AIA, ULI, and the like. And they should take place throughout the city in front of mixed audiences, so that residents of different communities can mix and undo some of the atomization that clearly fascinates and troubles Christopher Hawthorne and others.  Los Angeles embodies Jeffersonian democracy at its most absurd, with detached, diverse residents believing that they can control their own fiefdoms – however small – or resigning themselves to having no power whatsoever. And yet, from the city's architecture to its physical environment, Los Angeles strives for greatness even while acknowledging its own shortcomings. Last night's event proved, as ever, that nowhere else do ambition and ambivalence coexist with such intensity.  -- Josh Stephens

As CP&DR's Senior Editor Paul Shigley pointed out last week in his blog , retiring Chief Justice Ronald George of the California Supreme Court gained a well-earned reputation as a centrist and a unifier.  Now it will be up to his presumed successor, Tani Cantil-Sakauye, to carry George's approach forward at a time when significant planning and development litigation is likely to emerge. Schwarzenegger's climate change law, AB 32, is likely to meet some serious challenges in court over the next few years, especially as it is applied through the California Environmental Quality Act. SB 375, the regional planning sidekick of AB 32 that provides a streamlined CEQA process for certain projects, may also generate litigation in the years ahead.  Cantil-Sakauye's record as an appellate judge suggests that she is, as advertised, a moderate – careful, non-ideological, tending to deal with the specific facts of a case rather than broad legal theories. Like so many California judges lacking civil litigation experience, she has struggled with CEQA, which may be one of the reasons she has focused on the factual elements of CEQA cases. Read as a whole, her body of work on these cases suggests she might give a slight advantage to property owners over the government in a CEQA case, all other things being equal. George served as chief justice longer than anyone in the last century, and his calm and centrist approach was a welcome change from the rollercoaster of the previous 20 years, when the court was dominated by super-liberal Chief Justice Rose Bird, who was eventually voted out of office, and then by super-conservative Chief Justice Malcolm Lucas, who was appointed by Ronald Reagan and ascended to the chiefship when Bird was ousted. The Bird court expanded governmental land use powers dramatically, especially in interpreting the CEQA, and the Lucas court subsequently pulled those powers back – most notably in Citizens of Goleta Valley v. Board of Supervisors , 52 Cal.3d 553 (1990), which put local judges on notice that CEQA was not to be used to kill projects.  Cantil-Sakauye had little experience practicing law before Gov. George Deukmejian appointed her to the bench in 1990– just about the time the Citizens of Goleta Valley case was handed down. Coming out of law school at UC Davis – which has a strong program in natural resources law and has produced many CEQA experts – she worked for a few years as a prosecutor in the Sacramento County District Attorney's Office before becoming a deputy to Deukmejian's legal affairs secretary, Vance Ray.  She was a trial judge in Sacramento for 15 years before Schwarzenegger elevated her to the Court of Appeal in 2005. Deukmejian, a former attorney general, appointed a lot of prosecutors to the bench and more than a few of them have struggled with all areas of civil law and planning and development law in particular. Land use law is highly specialized and CEQA in particular is a complicated and peculiar animal – so much so that state law requires each county to designate "CEQA judges." Cantil-Sakauye was never designated as a CEQA judge by the Sacramento County Superior Court; for most of her 15 years there, her colleague James T. Ford held that distinction. Prosecutors tend to be conservative, yet their experience teaches them to trust the government's judgment. Therefore many former prosecutors have tended to side with the government agencies that are the defendants in CEQA cases, rather than the environmental groups that are so often the plaintiffs. Cantil-Sakauye doesn't quite fit this definition. Since her ascension to the Third District Court of Appeals, she has written four opinions that have captured CP&DR's attention. Unsurprisingly for an appellate court whose territory covers the Central Valley, three of them dealt primarily with natural resources issues. And three of the four – though not the same three – were CEQA cases. Her record in these cases shows her to be highly case-specific, focusing on the facts in each case and steering clear of opportunities to score ideological points. Perhaps the best example of her non-ideological approach was her ruling in the only non-CEQA case whose opinion she wrote – a quirky takings case called Herzberg v. County of Plumas , 133 Cal.App.4th 1 (2005), which was issued in her first year on the appellate court.  If ever there was an opportunity to show pro-property rights zealousness, Herzberg was it. In the 1980s, Plumas County has passed an ordinance making it illegal for property owners in certain "open range" grazing areas to seize an animal that had strayed onto their property unless their property was fenced in. Represented by strident property rights lawyer Ronald Zumbrun, property owner Jack Herzberg sued, arguing that the ordinance required him to build a fence and, among other things, was an unconstitutional taking of his property because the cattle wandering onto his property created a physical occupation. Herzberg lost in the trial court and appealed to the Third District.  But Cantil-Sakauye didn't bite. She noted that the ordinance didn't require Herzberg to fence in his property and that he had other legal recourse besides confiscating the stray animals. She also knocked down the takings argument by citing cases all the way back to the granddaddy of them all, the 1978 U. S. Supreme Court ruling in Penn Central. She c oncluded that Herzberg had not been robbed of all economic use of his property, as takings law requires, because "the only potential economic burden of this ordinance is the occasional use of and damage to property caused by wandering cattle as they move on. Plaintiffs have not shown, nor can we perceive how plaintiffs could show, this limited burden interferences with their reasonable investment-backed expectations in buying this particular property within a traditional open grazing area when plaintiffs can always avoid it by fencing their property."  In other words, far from requiring Herzberg to fence in his property and trampling on his property rights, the ordinance protected Herzberg by allowing him to built a fence to keep stray animals out in an area otherwise designated for open grazing. In all three CEQA cases, Cantil-Sakauye had to deal with the typical problem: a lawsuit filed to deal with a political, rather than a legal, difference. In one case, a city tried to shoot down a CEQA plaintiff opposed to a local Walmart based on standing. In a second case, local enviros pushed the envelope in arguing that an initial contract over the possible sale of water was subject to CEQA. In the third and most interesting case, the California Farm Bureau Federation fought a state effort to turn agricultural land into wetlands and habitat by arguing that the action was subject to CEQA. The Walmart case, Citizens for Open Government v. City of Lodi , 144 Cal. App. 4th 865 (2006), was pretty straightforward. Citizens for Open Government had sued Lodi over the EIR on a local Walmart, but the city challenged the group's standing because the group had appealed based on issues raised by a different organization in the administrative hearing. Cantil-Sakauye disposed of this one quickly by noting that even the city's own notice to the group had stated it could appeal based on somebody else's issues.  The water contract case involved one of the most controversial natural resource issues in far northern California in recent years – the 2003 decision by the McCloud Community Services District (in Siskiyou County) to sell up to 1,600 acre-feet of water per year to a bottled water company owned by Nestlé. (Nestlé sells dozens of brands of bottled water, including Calistoga and Arrowhead). Local residents sued, claiming that the contract between the McCloud and Nestlé was subject to CEQA. In the Third District ruling , Cantil-Sakauye disagreed, saying that execution of the contract was conditional on many future steps, including CEQA analysis. In so doing, she relied on a pretty well-known CEQA case from nearby Shasta County, Stand Tall on Principles (STOP) v. Shasta Union High Sch. Dist . (1991) 235 Cal.App.3d 772, in which the Third District ruled that the selection of a site for a high school was not subject to CEQA so long as CEQA analysis was completed before the project was constructed. It is interesting to note that in the '70s and '80s the STOP case easily could have gone the other way, but the Third District's ruling in STOP came down less than a year after the California Supreme Court's ruling forceful in Citizens of Goleta Valley, telling lower courts to rein in the environmentalists – and less than a year after Cantil-Sakauye was first appointed to the bench in Sacramento. The third CEQA case is by far the most interesting, because the Farm Bureau – not always the biggest defender of CEQA – went to court to force the state to do a CEQA analysis on conversion of farmland to habitat. Despite this somewhat manipulative use of a CEQA lawsuit, Cantil-Sakauye agreed with the Farm Bureau – and read the law and the CEQA guidelines very narrowly in order to do so. California Farm Bureau Federation v. California Wildlife Conservation Board , 143 Cal App.4th 173, was decided a month after the Lodi case and three months before the Nestle case. It involved an agreement between the Wildlife Conservation Board and a Colusa County farmer named Leroy Traynham for the WCB to buy a conservation easement on 235 acres of Traynham's property to expand a wetlands and riparian habitat corridor in the Lower Colusa Trough, an area important to waterfowl.  A plan to restore the wetlands and habitat was approved – including, quite literally, the construction of new wetlands – and the Department of Fish & Game approved a CEQA exemption for the project. (Most of the property in question would be flooded as a seasonal wetland.) The Farm Bureau Federation sued, claiming the land conversion should not be exempt from CEQA. In a long and very detailed opinion, Cantil-Sakauye agreed with the Farm Bureau, interpreting four potential CEQA exemptions narrowly along the way. The most important exemption the state had put forth as a rationale for skipping CEQA was a so-called Class 13 Categorical Exemption, contained in the CEQA Guidelines, which provides an exemption for "the acquisition of land for fish and wildlife purposes including (a) preservation of fish and wildlife habitat; (b) establishing ecological reserves … and (c) preserving access to public lands and waters where the purpose of the acquisition is to preserve the land in its natural condition." In her opinion , Cantil-Sakauye interpreted these provisions quite literally, concluding that the conversion of farmland to wetlands and habitat with the help of heavy construction equipment did not constitute preserving existing habitat, preserving land in its natural condition, or establishing ecological reserves. She even quoted Webster's Dictionary for a definition of "preserve:" "The language simply does not stretch to cover acquisitions for the purpose of physically constructing or creating and activity managing new wildlife habitat." After dispensing with a couple of less-strongly-argued exemptions, she even rejected what is commonly known as the "common sense exemption," which permits a CEQA exemption if "it can be seen with certainty that the project will not have a significant effect on the environment." Though the state asserted that converting farmland to wetlands and habitat quite obviously meets this criterion, Cantil-Sakauye did not agree. "In fact, this project is not a mere passive change in use, a cession of farming on the property," she wrote. "This project involves the physical reshaping of the land to create wetlands and upland for habitat." She then went into detail about how this reshaping would occur and how it might alter the environment. If you ran across this kind of reasoning in a decision by somebody like the dense-but-reliably-conservative Samuel Alito , you'd conclude that he had burrowed deeply into the facts of the case in order to justify his conservative bias without actually revealing it too obviously. But with Cantil-Sakauye, it's hard to come to the same conclusion. Maybe she is fundamentally pro-landowner and will find any way – even rejecting CEQA exemptions – to get the government out of the way. More likely, like so many Republican-appointed judges these days, she's a case judge, focusing on the facts of the case and often interpreting the underlying laws almost too literally to reach a conclusion. Of course, Cantil-Sakauye has not written a takings or CEQA decision in the last 3½ years; all four of the decisions described her came in her first two years on the bench. So perhaps her thinking has evolved. And it may be that over time she – like so many Supreme Court justices – will grow in a direction we can't predict and take the court with her. I'm betting that she won't. I'm betting that she will get the California Supreme Court to stick to the knitting on CEQA and takings cases, and not lift her head up very far out of the facts of the case at hand. That's likely to add up to a court that respects precedent and doesn't push too hard in one direction or the other in the years ahead. -- Bill Fulton

So you're sipping your coffee and reading the news on your web-enabled phone as you glide along the Expo Line, idly shutting it off as you descend into the downtown connector en route to Union Station. Your bullet train to Sacramento leaves at 9 a.m., but you're not feeling too pressed for time, because as it turns out, that train isn't departing for several years. If you can't quite see yourself in that picture yet, a coalition of urban planners and architects has an exhibit for you.  Through the month of August, railLA is hosting LA Beyond Cars, "a multimedia experience showcasing concepts, ideas, and musings from around the world on the future of Los Angeles." Formed by members of the Los Angeles chapters of the American Planning Association and the American Institute of Architects, railLA aims to build awareness of and enthusiasm for the benefits of high-speed rail in California.  LA Beyond Cars represents the organization's first foray into helping car- and plane-dependent Angelenos wrap our minds around what a transit-oriented city and state could look like. Among the installations featured are James Rojas' famous interactive models of Los Angeles, the recently released Piggy Backyard plan to turn an outdated Union Pacific rail yard into an LA River wetlands and park, as well as numerous transit station design concepts sent in from as far away as Italy and the Netherlands. At the gallery opening on July 29th, railLA Chair Gunnar Hand and Vice Chair Gerhard Mayer focused on the importance of integrating high-speed rail into a multi-modal transit system in Los Angeles that emphasizes rail, buses, and bicycles (i.e people over cars).  An urban planner and architect respectively, the two also discussed how transit hubs can serve not only as centers of mobility, but also as venues for rich civic and social interactions. In a poignant conclusion, Mayer expressed the hope that railLA could facilitate the process of "stitching together the wounds of infrastructure dedicated to the automobile" in Los Angeles. To this author, the individuals behind railLA came across as genuine in their ambitions to improve mobility, sustainability, and quality of life in Los Angeles through careful planning and human-oriented designs.  That said, a quick scan of their sponsors (AECOM, Siemens) alludes to the powerful interests that attend any "capital D" developments in Los Angeles. Indeed, railLA finds itself at the crux of a common planning and development challenge: to work on behalf of the public interest, while harnessing the power and resources of profit-driven developers. Like trying to water a garden with a fire hose, the trick is to hold on tight (to one's principles) and aim high. Exhibit Details: LA Beyond Cars: A Global Perspective on Rail and Public Space Opening on July 29, the exhibit will run through the month of August in the Jewel Box at City National Plaza (525 S. Flower Street). http://railla.org/vision/exhibition

In a case involving the City of Stanton's "sensitive use ordinance," the Fourth District Court of Appeal has ruled that the city's handling of an application for an adult business was flawed.  On December 1, 2008, Musa Madain submitted tenant improvement plans for a proposed adult cabaret on Katella Avenue. At the same time, he allegedly also attempted to submit the appropriate application and fee for an adult business. However, Madain claims he was told by city staff at the planning counter that the application and fee were not necessary. Two weeks later, Madain received a letter from the city manager stating his tenant improvements were rejected on the grounds his application was incomplete and that it was proposed within 300 feet of a "planned" church.  Madain learned that, in those two intervening weeks, city staff had purportedly encouraged the church to file an application promptly so as to preempt Madain's application under the sensitive use ordinance. Madain appealed the city manager's decision to the City Council on the grounds that the city improperly applied the sensitive use ordinance and that he had been unjustifiably deterred from filing his application and deprived of an opportunity to establish priority over the church. At the City Council hearing, the council took testimony from Madain and the city manager, but no other city staff members with direct knowledge regarding the submittal of the application officially appeared. The council closed the hearing and denied Madain's appeal. He filed a lawsuit in Orange County Superior Court, lost there, and filed his appeal with the Fourth District Court of Appeal. The court considered whether the City Council proceeded without or in excess of its jurisdiction, whether there was a fair hearing, and whether the council abused its discretion. The court never answered the question as to whether the council erred in interpreting the city's sensitive use ordinance as providing protection to the church (or any other religious institution) from the moment it applies for a permit to operate in a particular location. Instead, the court focused on whether the council properly considered Madain's allegations that city staff members had manipulated the process to ensure the church's application was given priority over Mr. Madain's application. Pointing to Sierra Club v. City of Hayward, (1981) 28 Cal.3d 840, 859, the court held that the City Council should have considered Madain's assertions of wrong-doing and resolved the question of whether Madain had in fact attempted to file a complete application on December 2, 2008. On these facts, and because the proposed activity enjoys First Amendment freedom of expression protection, the court held that the city abused its discretion by failing to make findings as to which application had priority. The court ordered the city to vacate its denial of Madain's application, and to reconsider his application and his contention that he was ready to file an adult business application on December 2, 2008. Presiding Justice David Sills wrote an illuminating concurring opinion. Sills wrote that the court's endorsement of the rule that whichever land use proposal is first in the door should have priority, with a few minor conditions, was merely an observation – and not law. Sills also cautioned two things. First, he said, the majority opinion should not be read for the proposition that the application for a permit means that land use is now "planned." Such an interpretation would run contrary to well-established land use law, he wrote. Second, the case should be limited to its facts, Sills wrote. The record does not concern the city's general plan nor the extent to which the sensitive use ordinance could operate as a de facto amendment to the city's general plan, he noted. The key point of this case is that applications for activities protected by the First Amendment are entitled to extraordinary protections. Specifically, when rejecting on a procedural basis an application for a protected activity, a city or county should make additional findings over and above those otherwise required in anticipation of judicial review.  The Case: Madain v. City of Stanton, No. G042218, 2010 DJDAR 9539. Filed June 23, 2010. The Lawyers: For Madain: Roger Jon Diamond, (310) 399-3259. For the City: Ralph Hanson, Burke, Williams & Sorenson, (949) 863-3363

Today marks the launch of the "Los Angeles Cleantech Corridor & Green District Competition," an event sponsored by the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc) and The Architect's Newspaper. This call-for-entries seeks submissions focusing on clean technology infrastructure improvements in the Cleantech Corridor, an industrial area just east of Downtown Los Angeles that straddles the Los Angeles River. This cluster-based strategy – spearheaded by Mayor Villaraigosa and the Community Redevelopment Agency – has experienced an impressive wave of attention over the summer, propelling it to the national stage and broadening support for LA's case as the home of clean technologies. More cities than you can count are trying to fashion themselves into the "cleanest, greenest city in the nation." Silicon Valley is hailing itself as the new cleantech capital because it lured Tesla Motors, an electric vehicle company, into taking over Toyota's defunct NUMMI plant  in Fremont, CA. But Los Angeles is going about its cleantech push in a more deliberate fashion, through "CleanTech Los Angeles"  and its Cleantech Corridor. Initially the Corridor was launched as an attempt to save and promote industrial land quickly being converted to residences. The area is located within two redevelopment project areas of the City of Los Angeles, Central Industrial and Adelante Eastside.  While it qualifies for a variety of place-based economic development incentives (Federal Empowerment Zone, Community Renewal Zone, State Enterprise Zone), many of those incentives have expired. The incentives only apply to existing businesses that may obtain tax rebates for previously designated years. Thus, the primary way that the city can entice development is through exposure, connections, and a push to hype the benefits of a so-called "Porterian cluster." In May the Urban Land Institute brought a team of experts to Los Angeles to participate in a Technical Advisory Panel on the Cleantech Corridor. Sponsored by CRA/LA and LADWP, the group interviewed stakeholders, conducted site visits, and created renderings for their recommendations in the corridor. The official report is expected to be released in September.  Concurrently, the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc) took an interest in the ULI project and decided to plan a competition piggybacking off ULI's recommendations. SCI-Arc's open ideas competitions are yearly events open to professional and student designers, focusing on a specific initiative in Los Angeles.  Through this year's contest SCI-Arc is soliciting ideas as to how architects, designers, planners, and builders can foster environmentally friendly solutions to upgrade the area's infrastructure. The competition panel is looking for a focus on how to integrate clean technology with the built environment in this proposed green district. Recently announced judges include architect Ming Fung, LA. Metro environmental manager Cris B. Liban, L.A. Deputy Mayor Romel Pascual, and former Metro Board Member Nick Patsaouras.  These ideas will complement the efforts of the Mayor's Office and CRA/LA, who are primarily focused on business attraction. LADWP and CRA/LA are making strides towards building cleantech incubator and research space in the heart of the Arts District. While an architect still has yet to be selected to design the campus-like location, CRA/LA has contracted a cluster strategy development company to produce a business plan for the site. When completed and opened, engineers and entrepreneurs will be able to work in the incubator space, eat at new cafes and restaurants, and live in new lofts nearby.  So keep an eye out for the results of SCI-Arc's open ideas competition, the next nudge in the right direction for CleanTech LA. The exposure that will come from an internationally renowned institution is sure to continue Los Angeles' quest to become a global capital of clean technology.  -- Nat Gale Nat Gale is a planner in the Mayor's Office of Economic and Business Policy and is a primary contact for clean technology issues.

Whether or not Prop 19 passes, the Oakland City Council is already considering legalizing marijuana for fiscal reasons .  A local owner of industrial sheds claims that if he fills 172,000 square feet of marijuana-related uses, such as growing plants in otherwise empty warehouses, the city could scoop up a cool $38 million annually. That's every year.  (Note to municipal auditor/controllers: Wouldn't an additional $38 million sound good right about now?) The very best part of the story in the L.A. Times, however, is the comment by the real estate owner, Jeff Wilcox, to city officials. "My idea," he said, "is of a cannabis based business park." Whatever one's opinion on the merits of this proposal, one must admire the sublime word magic afoot in this short sentence. Here is a culture re-creating itself by bringing the older, sacral values into new lines of work. By interpolating words that we like, such as business park, with a legitimizing half-euphemism like cannabis (as opposed to "marijuana"), we enact the cultural shift in attitudes toward pot growing from that of hippy moonshining into a kind-of-OK industry, like "gaming," "adult entertainment," and so on. And these "sin-dustries," like 'em or not, and their associated business parks with their lush, suburban style landscaping and their parking ratios of four spaces for every 1,000 feet of leased floor area, are not to be scorned, for they help fill the yawning public purse. As the book says, "the Lord moves in mysterious ways."        But how do you go about explaining this vote to the rest of the nation, including places where people are still being tossed in prison for possessing this particular verdure, which is just naturally bad, like snakes, tarantulas and beetles large enough to be frightening. Maybe it has to do with Original Sin. I'll have to Google it.      Here, published for the first time anywhere, is an actual record of the inner workings of the mind of an unnamed Oakland official, who happens to be fictitious, but is otherwise credible.      "Hard to explain my vote for this. What to say to the reporters from the national news networks, from National Public Radio, from Fox News…" (a wave of nauseating fear comes over the person).     "On the other hand, why not?  Is lightning going to strike us? Lightning would be progress here."     "But how do I explain this to my church-going mother, who believes that government should never condone bad behavior? (Not that I officially hold a position on the near-infinite benefit to be had from cultivating this particular cash crop, if these inflated, absurd numbers are to be believed!)"     "My private life? I have a card, of course. Plus, my insurance pays for it, which they never would for martinis, which is also capable of a medicinal effects, believe you me. But who's to argue?" --Morris Newman

After nearly a decade of conflict, Adam Bros. Farming, Inc.'s quest to receive compensation from the County of Santa Barbara has finally come to an end with a Ninth Circuit ruling in favor of the county.  In 1999 the county had ordered Adams Bros. to cease farming on 95 of its 286 acres near Orcutt because those 95 acres had been designated as wetlands. Adam Bros. originally brought suit in California Superior Court claiming that the wetlands designation was faulty, that it decreased the value and usefulness of their farmland, and that it violated the federal Equal Protection, Due Process and Takings clauses. Adam sought damages and declaratory and injunctive relief.  The Superior Court found the takings claims were not ripe, and Adam amended its complaint to eliminate those claims. At trial, the jury found that the county had in fact conspired to designate a 95 acres as wetlands in an attempt to suppress the value of the land. The court awarded Adam Bros. declaratory and injunctive relief and a jury awarded Adam Bros. $5.6 million in punitive and general damages ( CP&DR Vol. 20, No. 1 ).  The county then appealed, and the appellate court eliminated the damages. It did, however, uphold the declaratory and injunctive relief, holding that the wetlands delineation was contrary to law. In an effort to obtain compensation from the county, Adam Bros. then went to federal court alleging violations of the federal Takings Clause. Adam Bros. lost at the district court based on procedural issues and appealed. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal also ruled against Adam based on procedural issues in this case, thus effectively exhausting Adam Bros.'s legal options. According to the Ninth Circuit, Adam Bros.'s takings claim was barred by the doctrine of res judicata. Res judicata bars a plaintiff from re-adjudicating claims that have already been decided by another court. In this case, the Ninth Circuit found that the claims adjudicated by the state court involved the same underlying facts, and the fact that Adam decided to amend its complaint by eliminating the takings claims did not bar the application of res judicata to those claims. Therefore, Adam will not be receiving compensation for the county's faulty wetlands delineation. CASE: Adam Bros. Farming, Inc. v. County of Santa Barbara (2010) 604 F.3d 1142 LAWYERS: For Adams Bros.: J. David Breemer, Pacific Legal Foundation For Santa Barbara County: Lisa A. Rothstein, Deputy County Counsel Cori M. Badgley is an attorney with the firm of Abbott and Kindermann, LLP .

Like any visionary railroad baron, Leland Stanford hung on to some of the land at the end of the line -- in his case, the original Transcontinental Railroad. Stanford might not have imagined, however, that the ultimate fate of much of his land would depend not on the iron horse but instead on frogs, salamanders, and trout.   In the century since the Governor Stanford first deeded land to the university that bears his name, several of its native species have qualified for protection under the federal Endangered Species Act, thus restricting Stanford University's ability to develop or otherwise use the land to fulfill its academic mission. The Stanford Habitat Conservation Plan is intended to ensure the land's long-term protection even as the university grows.  Developed in collaboration with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the HCP would preserve, via conservation easement, key components of roughly 5,000 acres of open space in the foothills above Palo Alto while permitting potential development or other disruptive uses on up to 180 acres.  "Targeting the high-quality areas for the five covered species that we have in the plan…puts a comprehensive structure to it and expands the conservation work we've done," said Catherine Palter, Stanford's associate director of Land Use and Environmental Planning. Those species include the red-legged frog, tiger salamander, steelhead trout, western pond turtle, and San Francisco garter snake.  For opponents, though, 180 acres of developable acres is too many, even on a campus as large as Stanford's.  Critics of the plan are particularly concerned about its vague description of where development might take place. The permanently protected acres include riparian corridors and oak-studded hillsides within roughly 300 feet of San Francisquito Creek and tributary streams, which provide key habitat for the endangered species; the plan also includes a tiger salamander preserve that is off-limits to all development.  The plan is intended to preserve and enhance habitat for endangered species and provide an "umbrella of protection" for other species on the land. The plan outlines monitoring and restoration activities that the university will conduct and commits the university to long-term stewardship of the land. In return, the university gets federal permission to "take" -- harm, kill, or otherwise disrupt -- endangered species on up to 180 acres that could be sprinkled almost anywhere on wide swaths of land, deep into the foothills and relatively far from the main campus.  This lack of specificity troubles Brian Schmidt, legislative advocate for the Committee for Green Foothills.  "Nobody knows where they (the developable acres) are," said Schmidt. "They could potentially be extremely important."  Schmidt added that the HCP provides for more developable acres than Stanford's own "Sustainable Stanford" plan calls for and therefore opens more habitat than is necessary. That plan, however, has only a 25-year time horizon, as opposed to the HCP's 50 years.  "They seem to make a projection that they're still going to be developing between 1 and 3 acres of habitat a year," said Schmidt. "I think they're overestimating the amount of impact that they're anticipating and are trying to get permits for." Schmidt said that he would prefer to see Stanford identify a smaller and more defined area for potential habitat disruption.  The plan's architects insist, however, that giving the university a single, blanket clearance to disrupt those 180 acres is preferable to a more haphazard alternative.  "It puts down a comprehensive and cohesive strategy to conserve endangered species," said Sheila Larsen, senior staff biologist with the Sacramento Office of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service "Otherwise, they would be coming in on a project-by-project basis." Larsen said that without the HCP, development – or lack thereof – in the foothills would take place on a "piecemeal" basis.  The draft HCP was completed in July 2009 and the draft Environmental Impact Statement was released in April 16, 2010. A 90-day public comment period on the EIS was to have ended July 15 but has been extended to Aug. 30. The federal permissions to disrupt endangered species do not, however, preclude local regulations or the need for analysis mandated by the state or counties.  "This plan does not, for instance, absolve them of their responsibilities under CEQA to do their appropriate CEQA documents the construction of any buildings," said Larsen.  Stanford's Palter said that potential development governed by the HCP should not be confused with the university's long-term development plans for its main campus. The university intends to concentrate virtually all new development within the existing campus footprint. However, she said that the university wanted to reserve the right to disrupt habitat either for the purpose of development or even for academic projects that might be so disruptive as to require a permit.  "On the one hand, we don't have anything planned," said Palter. "But on the other, but if something should be proposed in the future and receives its local land-use approvals we know how it would be mitigated under the HCP for Endangered Species Act compliance." Larsen insisted that by keeping the riparian corridors off-limits, any development or academic activities would have relatively low impacts.  "The plan provides for a certain amount of…avoidance and minimization, which includes siting most of those 180 acres outside of environmentally sensitive areas," said Larsen.  Palter admitted that the university has no specific plans for those acres –- many of which are not contiguous with the main campus -- but noted that with a 50-year plan the university wanted to maintain a degree of flexibility.  Regardless of whether the university will exercise its right to use those acres, the HCP calls for the university to oversee conservation efforts on the entire 5,000 acres. It mandates the establishment of a land trust but does not include specific details regarding the administration or independence of the trust. Critics of the plan contend that anything short of an independent board might enable the university to shirk its obligations to preserve the land properly.  "There's no detail about how that land trust would be organized and how it would maintain its independence and its ability to enforce easements against Stanford, especially if Stanford is the body that's organizing it," said Schmidt. Schmidt called on Stanford to establish an independent board and to give the trust sufficient financing for it to be able to bring lawsuits against the university if needed.  The HCP does not lay out those details, but Palter said that the HCP would require the trust to submit annual reports to Fish and Wildlife to ensure compliance.  One of the more controversial issues that has arisen in the discussion of the HCP is actually not in the HCP itself. The environmental group Beyond Searsville Dam, headed by environmental consultant Matt Stoecker, is concerned about the fate of the obsolete Searsville Dam, a 65-foot high, 275-wide dam that dates back to 1892. Impounding the waters of San Francisquito Creek, the dam serves no useful purpose, and the lake behind it is now 90 percent sediment.  The university has agreed to dredge the lake and to study options for fish passage so that steelhead trout can surmount the dam, but Beyond Searsville Dam has called for the university to take stronger action. Stoecker ultimately wants the university to remove the dam entirely. Stoecker said that he sees the drafting of the HCP as an opportunity to get the university to commit to its removal, especially because the HCP covers land and riparian features that are surrounding and affected by the dam.   "What we're really asking for is a collaborative process and doing a study just to see if dam removal is feasible and how best to do it," said Stoecker. "You'd think one of the world's leading institutions would be interested in having all the data." Stanford's Palter, however, said that dam removal is simply too complex and costly for the university to commit to anything of the sort at the present time and therefore is not included in the HCP at all.  "It's unrelated, but we're hearing the comments because the HCP is out for public review," said Palter. "It's not in the HCP because the HCP needs to have very definite plans for what's called covered activities."  Contacts and Resources Stanford HCP Draft Environmental Impact Statement Stanford HCP Official Site Sheila Larsen, Senior Staff Biologist. Sacramento Office of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, (916) 414-6600  Catherine Palter, Associate Director of Land Use and Environmental Planning, Stanford University, (650) 723-0199 Brian Schmidt, Legislative Advocate, Committee for Green Foothills , (650) 968-7243 Matt Stoecker, Beyond Searsville Dam , (650) 380-2965 -- Josh Stephens

Jamboree Road might not become the next Park Avenue, but a new vision plan recently completed by the City of Irvine signals a major shift away from the suburban lifestyle of Orange County. One of the early cities to pioneer the strict segregation of office-park style commercial development from master-planned residential areas, Irvine will be allowing thousands of new residential units into its business core in the coming decades.  The Irvine Business Complex vision plan calls for increasing residential density and creating mixed-use neighborhoods throughout a 2,000-acre swath along the 405 freeway and south of John Wayne Airport. The area is currently occupied almost exclusively by commercial and industrial uses. Prior to the adoption of the vision plan, up to 9,000 units had been slated for the area, many of which have already been built or permitted.  The plan increases that number by 6,000, to 15,000 total. The plan also provides for 6 million square feet of office, industrial, and retail space that will be interspersed among the residential development, thus breaking down the strict segregation of land uses that have long characterized Southern California cities.  Nearly 90,000 jobs and over 4,500 businesses makes it one of Southern California's largest employment centers. The city claims that it has a stark jobs-housing imbalance, with three jobs for every one residential unit. The vision plan aims to provide housing for workers to live near their jobs and provides for neighborhood amenities including parks and retail.  Upon full build-out � in an estimated 20 years � the area will be one of the most densely populated in the county. What it may not be, however, is a cohesive, walkable community, according to its most outspoken critic on the Irvine City Councilmember, Christina Shea.  Shea said she is concerned that haphazard development within the IBC might not knit the community together but instead create residential pockets without effective internal connections.  "The plan is really not a complete overlay plan. You're going to have many businesses and older residential that aren't participating in this plan," said Shea. "If it was completely redesigned and everything was going to be new and blending�I think it would be marvelous." Thus, the IBC faces the increasingly common challenge of retrofitting an already built-up area with infill.  "It's going to be almost a mish-mash of new and old," said Shea.   To some, that "mish-mash," translates into the flexibility to develop incrementally and to gently wean Irvine off its history of greenfield development.   "In a planning area that's as diverse as this, where you have very industrial areas in certain places and emerging mixed use cores in other areas�a plan needs to be specific enough to last through the environmental process but also flexible enough to apply equally across the entire planning area," said Patrick Strader, an attorney who collaborated with the city on drafting the vision plan.  Moreover, the very age of the IBC all but requires the introduction of new development. Chris Lynch, vice president of Business and Economic Development Irvine Chamber of Commerce, said that much of the current inventory in the IBC area is "from a different era" and nearing the end of its useful life. "It's going to give an impetus to re-landscape this area without having to go through the formality of a redevelopment district," said Lynch.  Culminating a planning process begun in 2005, the Irvine City Council approved both the environmental impact report for the IBC and a general plan amendment with a mixed use overlay zoning code. Both resolutions were read twice, on July 13 and July 26, and passed without opposing votes.  "In the early 2000s we were seeing more pressures for development in the IBC," said Tim Gherich, manager of Development & Planning Services. "As opposed to dealing with developments on a case-by-case basis, the council decided to put a hold on (development) and look at a larger vision for that area." The approved general plan element replaces a former density cap of 52 residential units per acre with a new density floor of 30 units per acre. Ultimately, the plan does not create a net gain in intensity because the newly approved residential development was offset by an equivalent reduction in approved commercial and industrial development.  "It's a trade-off between residential and non-residential," said Gehrich. If developers pursue density bonuses for affordable housing, per SB 1818, the number of residential units could increase by another 2,000 units.  The IBC may also help Irvine meet housing goals assigned to it by the Southern California Association of Governments' 2004 regional housing needs assessment. SCAG has called for the city to add 35,000 units, including 21,000 affordable units. The city has vehemently contested those numbers and sued SCAG over them ( CP&DR Vol. 22, No. 9 ). The city claimed that the SCAG numbers represent a disproportioned burden on the city in light of its population � with 40 percent of the assigned housing burden but only 6 percent of the county's population. However, in October a Superior Court judge ruled in favor of the regional planning agency.  While Lynch said that the vision plan has garnered praise from the city's business community, Shea said that she is concerned that the IBC places an undue burden on the area's residential developers. The plan calls for infrastructure retrofits and other expenses that will be passed on to developers at a rate of roughly $75,000 per unit.  "I just do not think it's fair that the residential developers have to pay the entire $80 million exaction," said Shea. "Why aren't they having to chip in for this overlay plan?" Some of that expense stems from opposition from neighboring cities of Tustin and Newport Beach.  Both cities sued Irvine on the grounds that traffic from IBC would put undue strain on those cities' roads and other infrastructure. The city has already paid $3.6 million in impact fees to Newport Beach and has agreed to give Tustin between $4.5 and $6.5 million.  Plans for high-rise office and apartment buildings also gave the John Wayne Airport Land Commission pause shortly before the ordinances came before the council. However, the plan was altered to keep taller buildings away from flight paths.  "The city put in the plan that no buildings would penetrate the imaginary obstruction surface," said Kari Rigoni, executive officer of the Orange County Airport Land Commission. "That's calculated based on FAA regulations. That satisfied the commission."  Strader said that two industrial occupants of the IBC � Allergen pharmaceuticals and paint manufacturer Deft -- had expressed reservations about the placement of residential development close to their factories. In response, the plan was altered to create 1,000-foot buffer zones.  For many of those companies' neighbors, the vision plan represents a chance to attract and retain a new generation of employees that are not necessarily looking for suburban single-family homes.  "We have a lot of video gaming companies here and their employees are very much interested in live-work areas," said Lynch. Paradoxically, the emphasis on residential development may "enhance the city's identity as a jobs center."  As a result, Lynch said that the IBC vision plan represents a major step in the city's maturation, away from the days when brand-new buildings were sprouting on virgin ranchland.  "There's still some greenfields left in the city, but really it's Phase II" of the city's maturation, said Lynch. "It's no longer so much filling things out, it's concentrating things, making them a little bit more dense, and combining living and working."  Contacts & Resources City of Irvine IBC Official Site and Planning Documents Chris Lynch, Vice President of Business and Economic Development, Irvine Chamber of Commerce (949) 660-9112  Kari Rigoni, Executive Officer, John Wayne Airport Land Use Commission, (949) 252-5170 Christina Shea, City Council Member , City of Irvine, (949) 724-6000 Patrick Strader, The Law Offices of Patrick Strader, (949) 622-0422 -- Josh Stephens

Mere conclusions and assumptions do not amount to substantial evidence to support a finding of physical blight, an appellate court has ruled in upholding a challenge by the County of Los Angeles against the City of Glendora.  In this case, the county challenged blight findings adopted by the City of Glendora, including the Glendora Redevelopment Agency. Upholding precedent set by Evans v. City of San Jose (2005) 128 Cal.App.4th 1123, 1131, in which the judge ruled that "a finding that a project area is blighted is the absolute prerequisite for redevelopment," the court found that the blight findings were not supported by substantial evidence, and therefore, Glendora lacked any eminent domain authority in this instance. Over the years, Glendora's redevelopment area had grown from one to five project areas. In 2006, Glendora adopted an ordinance approving the redevelopment plan for four of the five project areas. As required, the ordinance concluded that blight existed in all four project areas. This conclusion was generally based on a report by consultant Robert Miars concerning blight data in Project Area 3, and reports by GRC Redevelopment Consultants completed in 2004 and 2006 concerning Project Areas 1, 2 and 5. The county opposed the adoption of the ordinance during the administrative process, and shortly after the ordinance was adopted, the county filed this lawsuit challenging Glendora's blight findings. After the trial court found in favor of the County, Glendora appealed. On appeal, the court focused on the second of four statutory element needed to make a finding of blight, namely "the area must be ‘characterized by' one or more conditions of physical blight, as statutorily defined" as established in County of Los Angeles, 185 Cal.App.4th at 832. As to the other three elements, the court found that the area was clearly urbanized (the first element), and the court found it unnecessary to address the third and fourth statutory elements of economic blight and community burden because the required finding of physical blight under the second element was not substantiated. Government Code section 33031, subdivision (a) outlines four conditions that constitute physical blight. Those four conditions are the following: (1) Buildings in which it is unsafe or unhealthy for persons to live or work…; (2) Factors that prevent or substantially hinder the viable use or capacity of buildings or lots…; (3) Adjacent or nearby uses that are incompatible with each other and which prevent the economic development of those parcels or other portions of the project area; (4) The existence of subdivided lots of irregular form and shape and inadequate size for proper usefulness and development that are in multiple ownership. (Gov. Code, § 33031, subd. (a).) The appellate court emphasized that each of the blight findings, including the physical blight conditions, requires that the agency show a causal connection between the evidence and the actual finding. For example, merely showing a code violation does not equate to a finding that a building is unsafe. Instead, there must be evidence in the record showing how the code violation results in an unsafe building. After going through each of the possible physical blight conditions, the court concluded that Glendora failed to show any causal connection between the actual evidence – such as code violations, sewage problems, roof and exterior building damage, defective design, and building age – and the four physical conditions that constitute physical blight. In once instance, Glendora asserted that the buildings could possibly contain asbestos and lead-based paint and may have substandard wiring issues based on the year they were built. Regarding such claims, the court stated, " ost of these blight claims do not rest on evidence; instead, they rely on assumptions based on building age" (County of Los Angeles, 185 Cal.App.4th at 842). Assumptions and presumptions do not amount to substantial evidence of unsafe or unhealthy conditions.  Based on the lack of causal connection, the court held that the blight findings in Glendora's ordinance were not supported by substantial evidence, and therefore, Glendora was not authorized to exercise any eminent domain power. This case acts as a reminder that mere conclusions and assumptions do not amount to substantial evidence in any administrative decision. The actual connection between the evidence and the findings is necessary. More specifically, this case provides practical examples of how to craft the blight findings and the evidence that should be included in the record. CASE: County of Los Angeles v. Glendora Redevelopment Project (2010) Cal.Rptr.3d ___ Cal.App.6th ____. LAWYERS: For the City of Glendora:  Allison E. Burns, Jennifer Yu, Stradling Yocca Carlson & Rauth, (949) 725-4000David S. Ettinger, Jeremy B. Rosen, Horvitz & Levy LLP, (818) 995-0800 For the County of Los Angeles:  Raymond G. Fortner Jr., County Counsel Robert E. Kalunian, Acting County Counsel, Elizabeth Cortez, Assistant County Counsel, Thomas M. Tyrrell, Principal Deputy County Counsel, Kathryn Reimann, Law Offices of Kathryn Reimann, (213) 974-1811 Cori M. Badgley is an attorney with the firm of Abbott and Kindermann, LLP .

More than a decade ago, when I was writing my book The Reluctant Metropolis , I became so fascinated by the political changes in the so-called Hub Cities of southeast Los Angeles County that I wrote a chapter about them. Over time I came to love these towns – Huntington Park, Bell Gardens, Bell, Cudahy, Maywood – because they had a proud working-class history and an all-American optimism that had been renewed when their population  shifted from mostly white to mostly Latino. There was both a modesty and a pride in these towns that seemed to me to represent all that was wonderful about the American spirit. When it came time to write the chapter, however, I chose to call it "Suburbs of Extraction." This was a play on longstanding political science theory, which makes a distinction between "suburbs of consumption" (where people live) and "suburbs of production" (where factories are located). As the Hub Cities had gone downhill after the Watts riots of 1965, it seemed to me, the primary economic activity in these communities was not consuming things or producing things, but extracting what little wealth remained, as a mining company might extract coal or copper. Apartment builders, casinos, scrap-metal recycling companies – all were in the extraction business. So too, I suspected, were some of the politicians, especially those with close relationships with these other businesses. The main lesson of the chapter was that even though the ethnicity of the politicians had changed during a volatile political upheaval in the 1990s, their basic method of doing business had not.  As one resident of Huntington Park told me with a sigh, "We thought when we elected Latinos they would help us." I hoped I was wrong, of course. Or at least I hoped that extraction – legal or illegal – was maybe just a phase, and that eventually the Hub Cities would grow out of it. In time, some did. In some cities, such as South Gate,  corruption was rooted out, new faces were swept into office, and life was much improved. However, as we've seen in the current scandal in Bell – with its $800,000 city manager, its $450,000 police chief, its $100,000 councilmembers, and its more or less hostile takeover of neighboring Maywood – it's still possible to do well in the political extraction business in southeast L.A. County. Much of the blame, of course, lies with the individuals involved, who have taken a highhanded approach with taxpayer funds and, at least so far, seem pretty unrepentant about it. But much of the blame also lies with California's Byzantine system of local government, which gives officials in a small, poor city – elected and appointed – what detectives might call opportunity and motive to misbehave. The motive lies in California's squeaky-clean, progressive-era approach to local elected service, which assumes that you can, as it were, de-politicize politics. Elected officials are supposed to act like a board of directors, not like political hacks. Governmental managers are supposed to be highly trained professionals, not political cronies. Managers should be well-paid for their efficient, productive work; and electeds should be viewed essentially as volunteers, as if they were serving on a nonprofit board. Viewed as a reaction against corrupt political machines of a century ago, this approach makes some sense. But the truth of the matter is that you can't de-politicize politics. The councilmembers in Bell are almost always referred to in the Times as "part-time," and the expectation is that their base pay – like their colleagues in other cities, including me – should be a few hundred dollars a month. But in truth there is no such thing as a part-time politicians, even if you are a politician in a small town. Politics will take as much time as you want to throw at it, and in order to stay in touch with your constituents you have to make the endless rounds of meetings and coffees and community events, which sometimes start at breakfast and last late into the evening, with little respite on the weekends. Devoting yourself to this task and having a job at the same time can be punishing indeed, and many don't even try to have a job, no matter what the consequences. I once knew a small-town mayor who got divorced when his wife finally said: "I never see you, okay. You make no money, OK. But I can't put up with both." Most of us who run for local office know that we're buying this situation and we buy it willingly, along with the divorces, financial pressure, and strain with our day-job employers that inevitably follows. We do it for the power, or for the glory, or just because we want to help make our communities better. (Usually it's combination of all three.) But there's always a temptation to ease the burden by finding some way – legal or illegal – to extract some extra money out of the system because the base pay is so poor. As for professional governmental managers, the Bell situation is a farcical manifestation of the reasonable expectation that they should be well compensated for the difficult task of running fairly large and complex organizations in a businesslike manner. A good city manager is hard to find and usually worth what he or she is paid. But there's a fine line between demanding good compensation as a matter of professional pride and insisting – as Bell's Robert Rizzo did in defending his $800,000 compensation package – that he could make just as much or more in private industry, which simply isn't true. So that's the motive, which is an understandable – if somewhat ugly – reflection of typical human feelings and emotions.  But the real scandal, if there is one, lies in the way the supposedly "clean" California system provides the opportunity for public servants to shield their activities from public view. There are almost 500 cities in California, most of them small. (In the "Hub Cities" area where Bell is located there are eight cities in an area that's about one-sixth the size of the San Fernando Valley.) Californians like all these cities, and believe that the existence of small cities protects them from the corrupting influence of big-city political machines. That's true – if the constituents are paying attention. But the progressive-era system in California often discourages them from taking a closer look. All local elections in California are nonpartisan and most take place in March or April; in many cities as well, the mayor is a rotating position, kind of like the chairman of the board. The obvious result is a low turnout. I have been elected to the Ventura City Council twice in typical low-turnout elections, each time having received about 8,000 votes in a city of 108,000 people with 60,000 registered voters. In cities like Bell, the problem is even worse. So many residents are immigrants ineligible to vote that the election is controlled by a very small number of people. Bell has 40,000 residents but only 9,000 registered voters because so many residents are not eligible to vote. In the last City Council election (in March of 2009) only about 2,000 people voted and the winners received about 1,200 votes each. (Several times, Bell hasn't even scheduled an election because nobody challenged the incumbents. Cities can cancel elections if they are uncontested.) Such low turnouts mean not only that most people are not engaged in the question of who runs their city, but that city leaders know they don't really have to be accountable to most of their constituents. Most of the Hub Cities were controlled by white politicians for decades after the whites had fled, simply because the only voters were the few whites who stayed behind. The California system also discourages constituents from being watchdogs in that both the governmental and financial system is cumbersome and bafflingly complicated. Different city governments provide services in all kinds of different ways. Some have a police department, some contract with the sheriff; some run fire departments, libraries, and parks, while others are located in a special district where the city has nothing to do with providing fire, library, or parks service. So it's hard to know what your city does or where your tax money goes. And all California cities are subject to thousands of laws that even the most assiduous city attorney has a hard time keeping up with. A complicated system belongs to those who understand it and, frankly, makes it possible for the insiders to game the system. The best example of this in the Bell situation was the 2005 election to become a charter city. Under California law, "general law" cities are governed mostly by state law while cities with charters have more independence. For local residents, living in a charter city is usually a good thing, as it gives their city more flexibility to respond to local circumstance rather than slavishly adhere to state law. That's how Bell's 2005 charter vote was sold to the voters, but it wasn't the real reason why the city pursued the vote. The real reason was that the state had passed a law limiting city council pay in cities like Bell to $400 a month. At that time the Bell councilmembers were making something like $60,000 a year, mostly by paying themselves additional compensation for serving on various boards the city had created mostly for the purpose of increasing the councilmembers pay.   As it turned out, of course, the city didn't have to do much persuading. The special election to create a charter city was held on the Tuesday after Thanksgiving – a month before the new law went into effect – and only 336 people voted. By the way, everybody's pay went way up after the charter vote. Since that vote, the City Council's overall pay has increased 50%, and the compensation for the City Manager and other top officials – which had been, up to then, on the high side of normal – moved into the stratosphere. So democracy only works, even in small cities, if people pay attention, and oftentimes people aren't paying attention. But one of the most disturbing aspects of the Bell situation – at least to me, a former journalist – is how hard it is to figure out what's happening even if you are paying attention. In spite of the state's vaunted Brown Act open-meetings law, California governments are still not particularly transparent.  This is especially true when it comes to compensation for top managers. It can be really hard for the average person to find out for sure how much their city manager makes. Sometimes you can find a range if you look in city documents, but that doesn't always tell the whole story. If you don't believe me, try calling up your city and asking; you're almost certain to get a pause and a cough on the other end of the phone. In the case of Bell, Bloomberg News reported that, in 2008, an average citizen innocently inquired about the city manager's salary was given a one-page information sheet that  indicated his salary was $185,000. Which, apparently, was true. It wasn't until journalists from the Los Angeles Times showed up, knowing how to work the Public Records Act, that the full truth came out. (Here in Ventura, our city manager's salary is $174,000 per year – well below his peers and about the same as it was when he was hired in 2004.) What's disturbing about the Bell situation – and whatever other Bells that haven't uncovered yet – is the insidious and systematic way the system was gamed. At least in places like Lynwood, the politicians engaged in old-fashion corruption – bribes, steering business to certain companies, the good old-fashioned stuff anybody from Chicago would understand. The constituents have the satisfaction of seeing their mayor arrested, convicted, and sent to jail. But odds are that when the District Attorney completes his investigation in Bell, he's going to find that no laws were broken. The system – which is mostly set up by the state – has a lot of exploitable weaknesses. Clever and unscrupulous people, operating in a town where nobody was paying attention, found the weaknesses and exploited them all. How do you fix that? There are two ways. First, change the system. Second, make sure somebody's paying attention. Attorney General Jerry Brown has talked about capping local government salaries, but it's hard to imagine how this would work. Who would cap them? At what amount? How and when would they be changed? Capping salaries would be emotionally satisfying to the electorate, but it's pretty easy to see the unintended consequences coming. It's probably better simply to require full disclosure. In the past two weeks, much has been made of the fact that you can find out any corporate CEO's compensation (through Securities & Exchange Commission filings) far more easily than the compensation of your local city manager. It would not be difficult to pass a law requiring all cities (and counties) to report the total compensation of their top managers to the state, and/or publish those figures on the web site. There's precedent for this. The entire public pension debate in the state has been transformed by the simple fact that the California Pension Reform web site has a searchable database of all state and local retirees whose pensions exceed $100,000. More than any other single factor, this website database has put political pressure on state and local governments to reform pensions. (If you think local government isn't very transparent, try figuring out how the California Public Employees Retirement System works. It's almost impossible.) Just imagine if this website – or one like it – made the compensation packages for all high-level local government managers available in the same fashion. The Bells of the world would be embarrassed into falling into line. The thing about most extractive industries is that they aren't very sustainable. Sooner or later, the mine is played out, or all the developable land is gone. But tax revenue goes on forever. It may go up or down over time, but the revenue stream is always there – available to those clever and unscrupulous enough to grab a piece of it. It was sad enough to see the wonderful little towns in southeast Los Angeles County turn into suburbs of extraction through a series of economic and political upheavals a generation ago. It would be sadder still to see many more California cities turn into suburbs of extraction because so many governmental managers become industrious miners when nobody is paying attention. -- Bill Fulton