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The First District Court of Appeal determined that the California Environmental Quality Act exemption for infill development applies only to projects within the limits of an incorporated city. Abiding strictly by rhetoric in the CEQA guidelines referring to "city limits" rather than a broader conception of urbanized area, the court rejected Alameda County's use of the infill exemption for a small housing project in an area bordering Hayward that is urbanized but not incorporated. In 2006, developers YT Wong and SMI Construction filed an application with the Alameda Planning Department to merge two parcels in the unincorporated Fairview area into a single parcel of approximately two acres and then to subdivide the two-acre parcel into 12 lots. Single-family homes were proposed for each of the 12 lots. The Alameda County Planning Commission approved the development based on the exemption in CEQA Guidelines § 15332. Fairview residents Fred and D'Arcy Tomlinson argued the county should prepare an environmental review of the project, which was within a half-mile of Interstate 580, because of concern over cumulative traffic impacts. They appealed the Planning Commission decision to the Board of Supervisors. The board affirmed the approval and the Tomlinsons filed a lawsuit. The Alameda County Superior Court rejected the Tomlinsons' claims. The appellate court considered two issues: 1) whether Public Resources Code § 21177 required the Tomlinsons to exhaust their administrative remedies before filing suit; and 2) whether the project at issue qualified as in-fill development for the purposes of Guidelines § 15332. The appellate court concluded that the Tomlinsons were not required to exhaust their administrative remedies because the exhaustion requirement in Public Resources Code § 21177 does not apply to exemption determinations. In so holding, the court said its function was to interpret the statute, and the meaning of the statute affects more than just the county. The appellate court next considered the meaning of Guideline § 15332, which categorically exempts infill development if, among other things, the "proposed development occurs within city limits on a project site of no more than five acres substantially surrounded by urban uses." The Tomlinsons argued the project, proposed for the unincorporated area of Alameda County, could not qualify for the infill exemption because it was not proposed within "clearly demarcated (and commonly accepted) legal boundaries of a municipality" and thus was not "within the city limits." The county claimed the subdivision was proposed for an "established urban area" because it was in an obviously urbanized area within one-half mile of Interstate 580, and § 15332 had to be read more broadly to promote infill within urbanized areas. Reading the statute to give independent effect to both the requirement that a project occur "within city limits" and that the project be "substantially surrounded by urban uses," the appellate court found that a project had to be within established city boundaries to qualify for the exemption. The appellate court further found that the phrase "urbanized area" is defined in the CEQA guidelines, so if the secretary for resources wanted to use that phrase, he could have and would have. Instead the guidelines specify "within city limits." According to the court, this strongly suggests the secretary intended a different meaning for "within city limits." The county argued that such a narrow reading frustrated the goal of the exemption. The court however, refused to place the policy of promoting infill ahead of the explicit requirements of CEQA, finding such policy judgments are outside the purview of the court. The Case: Tomlinson v. County of Alameda , No. A125471, 2010 DJDAR 9247. Filed June 18, 2010. The Lawyers: For Tomlinson: Sabrina V. Teller, Remy, Thomas, Moose & Manley, (916) 443-2745. For the county: Manuel F. Martinez, associate county counsel, (510) 272-6700 For the developers: Richard K. Abdalah, (408) 252-5211

At a press conference at City Hall this morning Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa introduced Michael LoGrande, his nominee to success Gail Goldberg as the city's planning director. At some moments the rhetoric of the mayor and fellow speakers -- including LoGrande, City Council Member Ed Reyes, and Planning Commissioner Bill Roschen, and affordable housing activist Jackie DuPont Walker -- sounded as if they were building the world's next great city. Other times, their emphasis on customer service made the city sound more like a Nordstrom store than the writhing metropolis that it is.  The nomination of LoGrande comes a only three weeks following the announcement of Goldberg's resignation.  Goldberg had been the popular planning director in San Diego before arriving in Los Angeles and ushering what many hoped would be an era of smart growth and progressive planning in the original home of sprawl.  Though Villaraigosa said that the department conducted a national search the mayor instead dug deep into the department's existing talent pool to tap LoGrande, a 13-year department veteran who has most recently served as chief zoning administrator.   If confirmed by the Los Angeles City Council, LoGrande will become one of the only -- if not the only -- planning director in California not to hold AICP certification. Nevertheless, Villaraigosa said that LoGrande's name came up continually when stakeholders both in and outside of the department were consulted.   It's worth noting that while LoGrande had clearly braced himself for his introduction to the spotlight, the mayor has rarely looked more relaxed. Villaraigosa recently suffered a nasty bicycle accident that left his right arm in a cast, so he appeared with shirt untucked and partially unbuttoned as if he was the mayor of Key West. He joked about the need to make the city more bicycle-friendly and offered kisses in lieu of handshakes (no one took him up on that one). Hanging loose is, perhaps, a fitting attitude for a mayor who has endured his share of indiscretions and literally taken his lumps, not the least of which is the replacement of a planning director who had, four years ago, embodied his highest hopes for the city.   Not surprisingly, much of Villaraigosa's rhetoric about the city's future has remained consistent. The motto of "do real planning" has been around long enough to have gone from inspiration to albatross. Even so, the mayor today once again presented the city's challenge as that of walking a "tightrope between boundless ambition of the city's stakeholders to build a new urban paradigm…..brimming with mixed-use, transit-oriented development to create a more dynamic skyline."   At the same time, Villaraigosa introduced LoGrande as "the person most qualified to reform the department from the bottom up."  "Michael will be able to hit the ground running on the first day," said Villaraigosa. "Nobody knows the inner workings of the department, the different neighborhoods of LA, and city bureaucracy better than he does."  In brief prepared remarks, LoGrande acknowledged the convergence of architecture, urban design, and outreach but otherwise did not lay out a broad vision for planning in the city. Instead, he emphasized, transparency, collaboration, predictability, and completion of the city's 35 community plans. He praised the department's staff and expressed optimism that the department's crushing budget cuts would not impair their ability to streamline case processing and reach out to stakeholders.  "We want to show Los Angeles that we're open for business," said LoGrande. "So whether you're doing an addition to your house and need to come across the counter and talk to a planner or you have an issue with maybe a business that needs to be talked about...we're here to work with you and the other city departments to make them happen." Most notably, he will be expected to implement the city's "12 to 2" system, by which Planning will serve as a single point of contact, thus enabling developers to avoid trips to multiple city departments. This had been a goal of Goldberg, whose enthusiasm brought new public attention to the formerly low-key department. LoGrande made it clear that his first priorities would center on in-house reform.  LoGrande briefly responded to criticism that his bureaucratic background did not prepare him well for the political tumult and that his desire to create more certainty for developers would equal hasty approvals.  "People may think because of my past title as chief zoning administrator think that I'm somehow really tied into the entitlement process and the status quo, which is really far from the truth," said LoGrande. "I'm a consensus builder, I like to reach out to people."   A rough transcript of LoGrande's prepared remarks:  "I'm looking forward to collaborating with the city and various communities and stakeholders throughout los Angeles to make sure that we have a really vital planning department that looks at architecture, urban design, quality plans, and make sure that there's a contract with the community and the development community to ensure that when developers come to neighborhods, they know what to expect. They've shaped them and actually worked with the departments and the city family to make sure that we have a credible process but also an engaged process where people are informed, can roll up their sleeves and work in collaboration with the department to make sure that we grow the city for the next century." "I'm very excited for this position. One thing I'm really, really proud of is the staff we have in the planning department. We have some of the best staff in the nation. That staff is ready to engage with our neighbors and our diverse group of people we have in Los Angeles to move us forward. We have to have dialogs in various communities to see what they want to see in their neighborhoods and we have the tools inside to bring those forward."   "We've got some very, very tough budget years. A lot of the staff is on furloughs. There's been early retirement program. But we want to show Los Angeles that we're open for business. So whether you're doing an addition to your house and need to come across the counter and talk to a planner or you have an issue with maybe a business that needs to be talked about about some of the conditions they have to operate to coexist well within the community. We're here to work with you and the other city departments to make them happen." -- Josh Stephens

The day after Spain won the World Cup in Johannesburg, I met Monday with architects David Turnbull and Jane Harrison, a husband-and-wife team who put together a demonstration project at the Port of Los Angeles in San Pedro called "Pitch: Africa." The project sounds downright prosaic: It's essentially about low-tech strategies for capturing rainwater to support impoverished farmers in Africa, who have poor access to water of any kind, let alone drinking water but great enthusiasm for soccer. (The location of the demonstration project in California may have been a nod to the local Annenberg Foundation, which sponsored Pitch Africa; the large asphalt parking lot of Berth 87 at the port allowed a large area in which to stage the project free of cost.) The conversation I had with Turnbull and Harrison--he currently teaches at Princeton, she at Columbia--was one of the most stimulating and far-ranging conversations I have had in months. "Pitch" in this context means playing field. The pitch is a small, temporary soccer stadium, elevated about 10 feet off the ground, with conventional bleachers on either side. The smaller-than-regulation size soccer field measures about 80 by 64 feet. The size of the stadium is meant to reflect the dimensions of the water-collection tank housed beneath the playing field. (The current construction was actually a scale model of a proposed soccer field-plus-water collection and purification plant in Africa, which could hold  1 million liters of water.) The choice of a soccer stadium hints at the designers' concerns about making the water collection system compatible with existing structures. In the loose-knit urbanism of rural, agrarian Africa, a soccer field makes a good fit in a market area, without introducing any foreign-looking infrastructure into traditional contexts.  The playing surface is floored in permeable plastic tiles that allow water to percolate to the holding tank below. The reservoir gravity-feeds the water to a group of five-gallon tanks containing sand located directly beneath it. With the help of several other low-tech filtering devices, the rainwater can be made fit to drink. One of the many extraordinary gadgets, which can be virtually anywhere in the world with native materials is a filter made of clay and sawdust (!). When fired in a kiln, the sawdust burns away, leaving a very fine system of pores throughout the clay matrix; some of the pores are small enough to sift out potentially lethal contaminants, such as E. coli bacteria. Another clever clay gadget is a bowl glazed on one side only; the water in the bowl is attracted to the porous, non-glazed side of the bowl, which induces evaporation, cooling the walls of the clay pot along with the water inside it. A related clay gadget is a primitive refrigerator, that consists essentially of two or more clay vessels, one nested inside the other like babushka dolls. This device creates a multiple cycle of evaporative cooling, that can keep food fresh for a day or two. Granted, Africa probably needs these technologies more acutely as anyplace else. But the simplicity and cheapness of this technology (simple in its outcome, that is, not in the underlying research) has meaning for us in California. Los Angeles County has proposed an ordinance for all households and businesses to capture their storm runoff. Business interests have predictably pushed back against the proposed regs, claiming that capturing runoff would add an onerous cost to small business. Turnbull's and Harrison's demonstration project shows how an unintrusive, inexpensive technology can help Los Angeles County, which, like many places in sub-Saharan Africa, has adequate rainfall but captures almost none of it.  How, then, to incorporate the water works in a way that will not make the filtering apparatus one more piece of clunky, anti-social, neighborhood-destroying infrastructure? Well, hide it inside of public buildings, schools, hospitals. Or build a soccer field next to the traditional marketplace, so people can collect drinking water in 1 gallon jugs, rather than walk 25 miles, in some cases, to the nearest drinking water. Provision of water is thus an urban planning issue that can be sensitive to local culture and context.   The availability of water where previous unavailable can also have a huge impact on education in Africa. One example: the ready availability of water for personal hygiene would make it possible for adolescent girls to attend school. (Because of the lack of toilets and water, girls often must skip school when they menstruate – if they go at all.) So water is a feminist issue too. In addition, all of us by now are aware that rivers that supply water to entire nations are diminishing, while population continues to spike worldwide. I believe that our children will witness resource wars, including wars over the mountains (i.e. Himalayas) that provide the headwaters for important rivers. So providing a new source of water becomes a geo-political issue, as well. To say I was inspired would be overly mild. I was radicalized. To hell with "star-chitects." This is what architects should be doing: Using design skills to solve real problems. Amen, and pass the potable water. Here's a video of the demonstration project.  Annenberg Foundation Pitch:Africa page . --Morris Newman

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is reportedly set to announce his selection of Michael LoGrande as the city's next planning director. A 13-year veteran of the department, LoGrande currently serves as its chief zoning administrator. He replaces Gail Goldberg, who had served as planning director for four years before announcing her retirement three weeks ago.  LoGrande's path to the directorship contrasts with that of Goldberg, who arrived in 2005 to a department far different from the one she is leaving. LoGrande has spent more of his career at the department and rose up the internal ranks via the relatively low-profile office of zoning administration. Goldberg went to planning school relatively late in her professional life but quickly rose up the ranks in the San Diego Planning Department to become its director. She was appointed much fanfare in the midst of the mid-2000s real estate boom, and she immediately pledged to revamp the city's numerous community plans and to support Villaraigosa's vision for a more dense, more livable city. Many of those ambitions were hampered by severe budget cuts and an entrenched bureaucratic structure that Goldberg inherited. The debate surrounding Goldberg's replacement was whether he or she would attempt to revive Goldberg's desire to "do real planning" or whether case processing and internal reorganization would take precedence.  LoGrande now takes over a department that has been depleted by layoffs and early retirement and that has been the subject of a recent scathing city audit that faulted the department for not implementing reforms quickly enough. In particular, the planned "12 to 2" streamlining program, in which the Planning Department would handle approvals that used to require the attention of ten other city departments, remains to be fully implemented.  Villaraigosa will make a formal announcement of LoGrande's selection on Monday. He must still be confirmed by the City Council.  -- Josh Stephens

Some thoughts on the LA Times' Christopher Hawthorne's r ather brutal drubbing of the recently completed Robert F. Kennedy Education Center (three schools encompassing K-12) on the former site of the Ambassador Hotel near downtown Los Angeles. Hawthorne contends that the Los Angeles Unified School District has given the city the worst of both worlds. The new school complex tries to preserve some of the most historic aspects of the old hotel, which had been empty and closed for more than 15 years following the Northridge earthquake of 1994. After a bitter battle with preservationists, LAUSD's decision-which was handed on to its architects-was to preserve certain historic aspects of the hotel, while demolishing others. The constraints imposed by the preservation project, in turn, held back the new project from being something original and impressive, according to Hawthorne. So, in Hawthorne's assessment, the new project is successful neither as preservation nor as a new, stand-alone project. I can see his point about preservation, but I think he is beating up the school complex (and by extension the district and its architects, Gonzalez Goodale Architects) needlessly to make his point. Hawthorne's argument is strongest on the hodge-podge approach to preservation. In an analysis I wrote for CP&DR a few months ago, I praised the approach for preserving most important urban design aspect of the original hotel: The deep Wilshire Green front lawn of the hotel shored up the four-story fa-ade of the new high school, which closely follows the dimensions of the original hotel fa-ade.  Inside, a coffee shop by Paul Williams has been turned into a teacher's lounge, while the original Cocoanut Grove nightclub has been restored to something close to its 1940s appearance. More importantly, the school provides hillside views and green spaces to students in a neighborhood with very little open space. This campus is a pleasant place to be for 4,200 school children who were formerly bused out of the neighborhood. As a placeholder for the memory of the Ambassador Hotel, the RFK Education Center probably falls short. It's not really a preservation project, but a brand-new structure that, for better or worse, wants to make a gesture toward the past. If Hawthorne thinks that the gesture is half-hearted and unsuccessful, that's his privilege. If we examine the school outside of preservation issues, however, the RFK Education Center is a handsome, utilitarian group of buildings. Although not a masterpiece, it symbolizes the positive force of public investment in a poor neighborhood, and provides good-looking elevations on all four sides.  True, the glamour is gone and another piece of LA history has largely vanished. That said, a living school campus is better than a dead hotel. --Morris Newman Editor's note: Correction appended.

California Supreme Court Chief Justice Ronald George is probably most widely known for his 2008 majority opinion striking down the state's prohibition on same-sex marriages, and for his 2009 opinion begrudgingly upholding voters' ability to ban same-sex marriage and effectively reverse the court's earlier ruling. But in land use planning and development circles, George's legacy is one of centrism and consensus. Time and again, George has corralled all of his colleagues into unanimous decisions on sticky land use regulatory issues. In light of George's announcement last week that he will not seek re-election this November, a quick review of the George court's land use decisions is in order. In 2003, a state appellate court ruled that the method of choosing Coastal Commission members was constitutionally flawed because members appointed by the Assembly and Senate served at-will terms of office. The ruling had the potential to devastate the c`ommission's ongoing regulatory activities. State lawmakers responded by changing the system to provide their appointees with fixed four-year terms. The state Supreme Court in Marine Forests Soc'y v. California Coastal Comm'n , 36 Cal. 4th 1 (2005) overturned the appellate panel's decision. Although the high court questioned the original, at-will terms for appointees, the court focused its ruling on the amended, fixed-term appointments. The new version was just fine, the court determined. What's more, George went out of his way in his opinion to confirm the legitimacy of past Coastal Commission decisions. George's decision angered property rights activists who had battled the Commission for decades, but what the chief justice did was prevent chaos. A less-clear ruling could have opened the commission to all sorts of legal and administrative challenges. In 2007, the court issued a ruling for planners and, one could argue, for community control. The case involved a City of Hanford zoning regulation that prohibited most furniture sales in a planned commercial (PC) zoning district. The regulation was intended to help preserve the economic viability of downtown Hanford, which had nice collection of furniture stores in its mix of uses. A retailer located in the PC district challenged the ordinance as an unconstitutional limit on economic activity and won at the Fifth District Court of Appeal. But George led the state high court's unanimous reversal. "In the present case, it is clear that the zoning ordinance's general prohibition on the sale of furniture in the PC district — although concededly intended, at least in part, to regulate competition — was adopted to promote the legitimate public purpose of preserving the economic viability of the Hanford downtown business district, rather than to serve any impermissible private anti-competitive purpose," George wrote in Hernandez v. City of Hanford , 41 Ca. 4th 279 (2007). Again, the court headed off chaos, as the Fifth District's decision could have been used as a basis to challenge all sorts of Euclidian zoning regulation. During recent years, the state high court has taken an unprecedented interest in the fine details of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). The court has issued nine CEQA decision during the past four years (including one case dealing more with timber harvest plans than CEQA), and eight of those nine decisions were by 7-0. One ruling had a single judge's concurring opinion, and one ruling brought a lone dissent. It's true the court hasn't had a real wildcard from the left or right since Janice Rogers Brown departed in 2005. Still, only through the chief justice's leadership could the seven-member court find unanimity on nearly every CEQA issue. And, taken as a whole, the CEQA decisions carve a path right down the middle. Neither environmentalists nor developers are on a big winning streak at the court. This isn't to say the George court hasn't had sharp disagreements on land use law. On issues of due process for property owners and the taking of private property, the court has often split 4-3 or 5-2 in favor of regulators, with George in the majority. In general, though, those rulings upheld the regulatory system devised by voters or legislators, and implemented by various agencies. The rulings were conservative in that they did not significantly depart from legal precedent or well-established practices. One final point: Some recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions on land use matters have provided very little useful direction for planners, developers or anyone else involved. In the most recent decision, involving the rather bizarre notion of "judicial takings," it's difficult to figure out even who won. At the California Supreme Court – at least during the George years – there has been little need to parse tea leaves or ask law professors to select the winner. Decisions may be fairly narrowly drawn, but they are clear and often useful to practitioners. Let's hope such decisions keep coming under the state's next chief justice. – Paul Shigley

The Vision California modeling exercise, however meticulous in its calculation methods, still relies on a slate of assumptions that call for some vigilant critiques. Calthorpe & Associates, which devised Vision California based on previous work, have stated elsewhere that the key to the global warming crisis lies in curbing "sprawl," that pejorative term for low-density suburban development. To the extent that a large lot, single-family home with a multi-car garage represents a choice, it is in Calthorpe's view neither a preferable nor sustainable one. To gain traction in the public consciousness, the rationale for a smart growth alternative is always carefully constructed around the public policy issue  du jour . Recently, it has been about global warming. Now a plethora of research linking sprawl to the obesity crisis has provided additional ammunition to the smart growth cause, as have the economic and housing market crises. The report's greener scenarios may indeed present a multi-benefit package that can be justified on many policy grounds, but the ubiquity of smart growth as a solution to every environmental or social crisis has had the effect of diluting its intellectual credibility. When it is applied generically, smart growth becomes less an inventive response to specific problems and more of a fixed idea. The Vision California "Rapid Fire" model is intended to be used by localities as they see fit. Even so, to label the development scenarios in  Vision California  as "options" – and to imply that ever family across the state will be $6,500 richer for them – is misleading on another level, as if land use planning in California were not an utterly decentralized affair, resistant to orchestrated regional efforts. Judging from the recent defeat of California Senate Bill 1445, which would have added a mere $1 to vehicle license registration fees for SB 375 implementation this approach is still a non-starter in California. Of course, to worry over the political feasibility of a smart growth future is somewhat of an easy target. The lack of an implementation strategy is actually less troubling than some of the assumptions and claims underlying the report itself. For one, studies on the relationship between household densities and VMT have proven to be inconclusive about the VMT-reduction benefits of "compact" development. Proximity to transit may encourage less driving in some instances, but the rate of vehicle ownership does not necessarily decrease. Though the correlation between car ownership and driving is complex at best, the fact remains that some residents may commute to work via public transportation but still opt to use their cars for leisure and personal trips. If we dig deeper into report's assumptions, VMT reduction is premised upon "increased transit service and/or new … development" in transit-oriented districts. This, in turn, requires additional infrastructure.  On this point, the report claims that the costs of urban infill (in terms of infrastructure) are significantly less than those of greenfield development, based on the "efficiencies of providing service to higher concentrations of jobs and housing." In reality, the retrofitting of sewer/water systems and the construction of new transit/road systems necessary to accommodate smart growth levels of densification can be extremely expensive. Moreover, the report focuses only on the capital costs of infrastructure and "does not yet analyze the costs for operations and maintenance." As any urban planner knows, the cumulative ongoing costs to local cities and agencies of operating and maintaining a transit system can very well exceed the original capital costs, even in present value (discounted) terms. This omission in the infrastructure cost comparison skews the results decidedly in favor of urban infill in this initial report. Project officials say that future generations of the Vision California modeling tool will account for these operational costs – and many other factors – so planners should keep a close eye on those numbers. The Smart Growth coalition has made for some strange bedfellows. Environmentalists are excited about the potential to preserve land and consume less. Developers like the concept of higher densities, as long as market prices can support them. The investment in transportation and infrastructure needed to support TOD is by definition capital-intensive, ensuring a steady supply of lucrative contracts for the construction and financial services sectors, especially with the burgeoning trend toward public-private partnerships. This alliance has come together in the Vision California report, with the CHSRA leading the charge for an 800-mile, high-speed intercity passenger rail corridor stretching from Sacramento to San Diego. In light of that project's estimated $42 billion price tag, we can only hope that Vision California is right – that the benefits of Smart Growth and transit-oriented development are rich enough to justify the enormous costs of building the infrastructure required for a Green Future. Adam Christian is an urban planner and is currently working on LA Metro's public-private partnership program.  He is the author of a 2009 Harvard Kennedy School case study on California High-Speed Rail.

Of the many raps on urban planning post-World War II, one of the biggest was that it was led by the head and not by the heart. Engineers made precise calculations that yielded efficient highways but not much by way of soul. Though that trend has largely been abandoned, the release of a new, ambitious study may usher in a new approach to empirically based planning.  The Vision California project attempts to assess the stakes of different growth scenarios that may develop across California by 2050. Commissioned jointly by the California High Speed Rail Authority and the state Strategic Growth Council and created by the Berkeley planning firm of Calthorpe & Associates, the $1.5-million first phase of Vision California estimates dollar value of potential growth patterns – most notably, the compact development promoted by SB 375 . In its broadest strokes, Vision California's model suggests that, over the next 40 years, a deliberately compact development pattern will consume only 1,800 square miles of land instead of 5,400 and will save individual households up to $6,400 annually in 2050. It also compares a cumulative infrastructure investment of $183 billion versus one of more than double that amount under the status quo. That is according to the most optimistic of the four growth scenarios that the report presents. Those scenarios range from a "business-as-usual" approach to a "green future," which assumes that a combination of policy interventions and trends have spurred compact development statewide. The report also predicts related outcomes such as greenhouse gas emissions, transportation costs per household, and residential energy use. It does not, however, estimate the cost of maintaining infrastructure or of operating transit. These conclusions are similar to conclusions of similar regional studies done by Calthorpe and others in Portland, Salt Lake City, and other western metros over the past decade. These calculations come from Vision California's "Rapid Fire" modeling tool, a spreadsheet-based calculator that enables planners to plug in relevant data for their localities and calculate the costs associated with a range of possible land use decisions. The Vision California model is intended to go beyond the regional boundaries of blueprint planning and instead provide information on statewide growth scenarios including, but not limited to, those that surround the stations of the state's proposed high speed rail network. In unveiling the model, planners essentially treated the entire state as a single scenario, with hundreds of billions of dollars at stake. The project's ambitious scope may carry with it inherent uncertainties. (See sidebar "Vision California: Science or Value Judgment?" ) "They are very, very difficult to model with any degree of certainty particularly over extended periods of time," said Richard Lyon, vice president for governmental affairs at the California Building Industry Association. "They certainly can provide kind of a pedagogic exercise....but in the end these systems modify themselves and they are in many cases incapable of being modeled with any degree."  Despite the variables, Vision California and the Rapid Fire spreadsheet tool, however, are designed to inspired dialog among planning agencies and across regions. The partnership between HSRA and SCG arose a year-and-a-half ago, when HSRA had already commissioned Calthorpe to design a model to help guide development around potential stations on the state's proposed 600-mile high speed rail network. At the time, SCG was also interested in developing tools that localities could use in order to assess the value of collaborative and regional land use planning.  "Vision California started off as more of a mode-centric -- in this case high speed rail effort -- but the same principle needed to be applied multimodal and across the geographic boundaries of the state," said Gregg Albright, Deputy Secretary for Environmental Policy & Integration at the California Business, Transportation & Housing Agency. Albright is a member of SCG's multi-agency team.  "Fifty years ago those weren't built to do what they're asked to do….they were built initially to design roadways," said Joe DiStefano, project lead. "We've set out to build a model that can hopefully see through some of the differences in the models and provide a common framework, if you will, for reviewing or assessing how varying regions and the state as a whole would perform under varying land use scenarios."  The next generation of Rapid Fire modeling tool that the Vision California team will be developing over the next year or so will be map-based. It will allow planners to visualize the effects of different land use patterns as they appear in the built environment, rather than as a gross number on a spreadsheet.  In many ways, the modeling suggests benefits that will accrue to localities as a result of efforts to implement AB 32 and SB 375. But the "green future" scenario would likely require the state, regions, and localities to go above and beyond the incentives and regulations that accompany those laws.  "We're trying to contextualize what has become a climate change debate and hopefully informing a deeper understanding...that it's not just about climate change. It's about costs, it's about energy, it's about public health," said DiStefano.  "SB 732 made it clear that the Strategic Growth Council needs to look for ways to provide information -- modeling, data -- to help local decision-making," said Albright, referring to the 2008 law that gave rise to the SGC. "What can we do to equip and empower localities to help them recognize they don't have to be fearful of these (policies) coming down from the state."  Although the report largely confirms the "double-bottom-line" economic and environmental benefits that planners and environmentalists have long touted regarding smart growth, even the suggestion that a single model could capture all the complexities of regional land use strikes some as hubristic.  San Diego County Supervisor and Air Resources Board Member Ron Roberts said shortly after the report's release in late June that ARB staff members were already citing its conclusions without offering much by way of context.  "I thought that was a pretty preposterous number, and it turns out that that number is their expectation in the year 2050," said Roberts. "I thought for our staff to just throw it out there ...was misleading.  What you're going to save in 2050 just is not of much interest to me." "I think when we draw figures like that it's an attempt to overhype the benefits, and that concerns me because I think ultimately that calls into question any legitimacy that there is for the concept," added Roberts.  Moreover, even if the results of the Rapid Fire model are internally valid, their applicability to the real world remains hazy for some.  Lyon, of the CBIA, said that the biggest variable that the model may not be able to capture is simply the preferences of California residents. Lyon said that many homeowners decide where to live primarily according to safety and decent schools – regardless of how much they could save by living in a green neighorhood. "That's the challenge: to address issues of safety, schools, that's where they need to focus their time and attention," said Lyon. "Any notion that government or state government or modeling scenarios is going to somehow transform development patterns or convince people to move back to urban areas is fanciful." The report's authors contend that the Rapid Fire model employs peer-reviewed assumptions and metrics regarding the dollar value of greenhouse gas emissions, air pollution, fuel, building energy, land consumption, and infrastructure. The goal, they say, is not to replace traditional fine-grain transportation models but rather to provide broad analyses. This would allow planners to compare the outcomes of different scenarios at almost any scale, from the neighborhood to the region.  Despite the dramatic difference in developed land between the two scenarios, DiStefano cautioned that "we would not become Manhattan." He suggested that the "green future" scenario might instead resemble the mixed use community of 10,000 residents that has been developed on 4,700 acres at the site of Denver's former Stapleton Airport.  "For the most part the greener scenarios….the majority of development does not occur in tall multifamily developments," said DiStefano. "The benefits that we see are simply in a more compact version of what people are used to today….organized in a way that allows people to walk and bike, and take shorter drives."  Though the results of this initial would seem to provide unequivocal endorsement of compact planning and heightened investment in transit and other alternative forms of transportation, its authors are quick to note that the report and any subsequent calculations using the Rapid Fire model are intended solely to provide local officials with food for thought and perhaps reveal costs and benefits that were heretofore invisible. They are not intended to drive policy in a particular direction. "I don't think it stands for any particular way of making decisions or looking at decisions," said Bryant. "It's a tool that will develop that will allow …planners and anyone interested to plug in their own information and their own assumptions and draw their own conclusions on decisions they're making." Vision California indicates that the public sector would be plugging in a tremendous amount of money to facilitate more compact development. However, it also implies that the relative benefits of transit investments – as well as savings in fuel and other auto-oriented costs – far outweigh those of, for instance, highways. "It's not an issue of cost. You're going to grow one way or another. If you grow in this way…you're not changing how we are; you're changing how you're going to grow," said Leavitt. "That would be there either way. In order to grow you either build additional freeways or you build in ways that reduce subdivisions."  Leavitt said, however, that realizing the green future scenario does not necessarily depend on build-out of the estimated $40 billion high speed rail system.  Ultimately, the benefits of even the relatively modest investment in Vision California may be elusive. Whatever dollar value the model assigns to compact development, ultimately this may be one trend that has already taken root.  "I don't think we need Vision California telling us about smart growth," said Roberts, the San Diego supervisor. "I think the local communities get it with respect to smart growth – it's apple pie and motherhood. There aren't that many people who are proponents of stupid growth."   Contacts & Resources:  Vision California Official Site  R. Gregg Albright, Deputy Secretary for Environmental Policy & Integration; Business, Transportation & Housing Agency, (916) 324-7502  Cynthia Bryant, Chair, Strategic Growth Council ; Director, Office of Planning & Research, (916) 322-2318 Joe DiStefano, Project Lead, Calthorpe & Assoc. , (510) 548-6800  Dan Leavitt, Deputy Director, California High Speed Rail Authority , (916) 324-1541 Richard Lyon, Vice President for Governmental Affairs, California Building Industry Association, (916) 443-7933 Ron Roberts, Supervisor, San Diego County, (619) 531-5544

It doesn't matter which superlative you pick: 25 Los Angeleses. 100 San Joses. 2,000 Poways. Nearly three Californias. That's how many people will be added to the United States population by the year 2050. They are not all going to live in Los Angeles, San Jose, or Poway, but a great many of them are going to live in California, thus pushing the state's population to about 60 million, according to the state Department of Finance. In his latest book, The Next 100 Million: America in 2050 , Los Angeles-based author and urbanist Joel Kotkin discuses who these 100 million new Americans are going to be, where they are going to live, and what type of lifestyles they will lead. They will, according to Kotkin, be more diverse than ever, but they will also drive familiar land use patterns by filling out suburban areas rather than flocking to larger, denser urban cores. CP&DR Editor Josh Stephens spoke with Kotkin about how these trends may play out in California. What proportion of America's 100 million more people are going to end up in California? Migration to California is nothing like what it used to be, that's for sure. The projections of California's population have been ratcheted down a bit in recent years. If you have a weak economy, if housing prices on the coast remain prohibitive, if you have a planning regime that makes it difficult to build single family homes, it's conceivable that people will go elsewhere. Are the state's planners and policy makers ready for that influx? I think the planners to a large extent have been drinking the same Kool-Aid and they think they can force people to live in higher densities than they have generally wanted to do. I think there's very little concern about the economic development aspects. Just like a lot of, if you will, "cowboy developers" built huge tracts but didn't think about jobs and amenities, you have planners who are thinking about design and amenities but aren't thinking about jobs. I think there's a market for high-density. I don't think it's huge, and as the millennial generation gets older they will want a townhouse or single-family house, and if they can't find it in California they'll find it somewhere else like Texas. Is it OK for California if people want to move to Texas? If you already have your money and you're comfortable, having more people in California probably doesn't do much for your life. But if you're building a business and you depend on the migration of workers into your areas as part of your workforce, then it's probably a negative. As somebody who came to California and always found it to be an exciting environment, I don't see the same excitement and same level of dynamism as I did 20-25 years ago. I hear my students talking about moving back to St. Louis or Texas. Maybe this is California going into its late middle age, and maybe that's just an evolutionary step. When I go to a place like Houston, Austin, or Dallas the upward trajectory is very strong. In California, I don't feel that as much as I did before. Is there a place for further density in urban cores? There's certainly a place for it, but I think the market for the density was vastly exaggerated. If you look at the condo buildings that are in trouble or have gone rental, I would not exactly call it a great success. There's a role for density, but it should be market-driven, not planning-driven. It's the plain vanilla neighborhoods that are going to be the people who stay, who belong to the synagogues and churches, who are going to vote, who are going to live in that neighborhood for 20-30 years. A lot of the young people who live in the high-density housing are transitory. You're not going to build your community as much on those areas. What places in California are you most optimistic about? In the San Gabriel Valley the Arcadias and places like that are fascinating laboratories. And Ontario. What I like about Ontario is that is has the airport, transportation connections, a strong job market. It's the connecting point between LA County and the Inland Empire. I like Burbank. Downtown Burbank is in many ways livelier than downtown Los Angeles. You see people on the street and a mix of movie theaters and shops and restaurants, and it's really in a human-scale space. Irvine has a very high percentage of its population living and working in the same area, and that's a direction we're going to have to go in to achieve sustainability with a growing population. The one thing we can do is try to get people to do more at home or close to home. Which places are you most concerned about? By far the biggest worries would be South LA, Oakland, and of course all the outer-ring suburbs: San Bernardino, Moreno Valley, the parts of the Central Valley that are close to the Bay Area but have an insufficient job base. If the Port of LA declines along with what's left of the industrial economy, those areas could be in serious trouble. The Santa Monicas, San Franciscos, and Palo Altos of the world will do fine. They're attractive and have strong economic institutions. But Oakland is a very different story from San Francisco. People will pay for density in exchange for lots of amenities, but if there's not much amenity, then what's the point of the density? As the state and its cities mature, what should the center cities do? What should they do to avoid being just "luxury" cities? I look at what LA could do, and the first and foremost thing is to improve the climate for entprenhurship and encourage poeple to start and grow companies. Right now, that's not happening. Our losses in Los Angeles County are much deeper than in most of the other urban areas of America. We need to build up our infrastructure and have a much better economic climate. Our economy is getting weaker and weaker, so our ability to invest and build up is also weaker. Arnold and Villaraigsoa talk about green jobs, but to have green jobs you have to have jobs. You can't get people to retrofit their houses for energy savings when you don't have any money. You're generally bullish on suburbs. Which suburban areas are going to have trouble as the population grows? The ones that don't have jobs. The high unemployment in the Inland Empire is made up in part by people who used to work in LA and have lost their jobs. Places that have not generated economies to support their housing are really vulnerable. How does diversity play out in California these next 40 years? It's a real advantage. California is a leader in all the things you associate with diversity. There's been enormous growth both in Southern California and in Silicon Valley tied to immigrant networks from India and China, and also other countries like Israel. These are great strengths because those ethnic groups are probably willing to pay a little more and deal with a little more hassle to be in a place where there are cultural institutions, restaurants, and connections. The immigrant economy is something we have and can build on. But you have to invest in skills education and infrastructure. And one thing is certain: many of those immigrants are going to want single-family homes. Take that out of the equation, and they're going to start looking elsewhere. This interview has been edited and condensed.

Legislators in Sacramento are currently considering an assembly bill that, though it originated with the City of Los Angeles in mind, proposes some significant changes in California Redevelopment Law (CRL).  AB 2531 , sponsored by Felipe Fuentes (D-Los Angeles) is an important step forward for the state economy for a variety of reasons. The bill's language would alter current law by allowing redevelopment agencies to focus their interest on both the physical removal of blight – through traditional brick-and-mortar redevelopment projects (already allowed in current redevelopment law) – and the more intangible economic development aspects of job creation and development. In other words, RDAs would be free not just to facilitate development but also to support businesses that would operate in redevelopment areas. Furthermore, RDAs could once again assist in economic development through the creation and facilitation of small business incubators. This bill has received support from a broad range of interest groups, from the Los Angeles County Business Federation to the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. Its passage looks promising. However, opposing arguments should be properly addressed and placated. The primary argument against AB 2531 is that of mission drift. Some bureaucrats believe that expanding the scope of RDAs beyond physical construction projects will amount to a fundamental change in the purpose of redevelopment law. But remember, RDAs were established to eliminate blight and all its effects. Some of the most apparent manifestations of blight are vacant, unused, or underutilized buildings. Neighborhoods with these types of characteristics often lack jobs or employment centers. Any economic development that improves these elements and fills these buildings also helps remove blight. The second main concern about AB 2531 has been voiced by the Statewide Federation of Counties, who view this extended scope as a threat to county tax revenues. However, the California Legislature has deemed this a "nonfiscal" bill because it does not expand any agency's traditional fiscal toolbox (tax increment financing, debt extension, etc…). AB 2531 will simply broaden the scope of activities that RDAs can fund from their existing revenue sources – it would not increase those resources and it would not decrease counties' receipts. Even if these explanations do not convince opponents of the bill, they should rest easy in knowing that AB 2531 has a built-in sunset clause. If the proposed amendments prove unsatisfactory to legislators and their constituents, the bill will repeal itself in 2018. Of course, Sacramento can always pass legislation to extend the bill if it is successful. AB 2531 also includes a promising amendment for the City of Los Angeles. Currently, the Community Redevelopment Agency of Los Angeles (CRA/LA) is limited in its reach to  redevelopment districts  that are both non-contiguous – the city has over two dozen of them – and that of course do not encompass all areas that might be considered blighted or under-developed in the city. By contrast, most redevelopment authorities are part of the city government, and they can nimbly split their time between redevelopment areas and citywide projects (using tools other than those reserved for redevelopment areas). Because CRA/LA is an independent agency, it cannot focus any attention outside of project areas. The proposed amendments would allow CRA/LA, when directed by City Council, to apply for state or federal economic development grants and apply these monies to projects anywhere within city boundaries. Obviously tax increments must and should remain within redevelopment project area boundaries, but that doesn't mean that the expertise of an organization like LA/CRA must as well. While AB 2531 is an attempt at fixing this acute problem in the City of Los Angeles, the bill will allow other RDAs across the state to focus their efforts on projects that may or may not need new construction. Currently, if Business Owner X is located in an economically disadvantaged redevelopment area and needs to purchase new equipment, a RDA cannot provide funds because X isn't proposing any new construction. If AB 2531 passes, Business Owner X (along with owners A through Z) can turn to RDAs for a variety of project assistance, as long as it helps the economy through job creation and increased tax revenue. If the economy improves by 2018 (fingers crossed), and this expansion of an RDA's scope is no longer viewed as necessary, AB 2531 will fade into the sunset. Until then, given the current economic climate, legislators should be applauded for expanding these definitions. CP&DR contributor Nat Gale is a planner in the Los Angeles Mayor's Office of Economic and Business Policy. The foregoing opinions are his alone.

An agreement between the County of San Diego and the state Department of Corrections to site a state prison reentry facility does not require the county to conduct environmental review prior to entering into the agreement because it did not constitute a commitment to a definite course of action, the Fourth District Court of Appeal has ruled. In the agreement, the county identified potential locations for the reentry facility in exchange for preference in the award of state financing for county jails. San Diego County entered into the agreement with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation in September 2008. Under the agreement, the county identified two potential sites for placement of a reentry facility for state prisoners: county-owned land in Otay Mesa and state-owned land at the state's Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego. If the Department of Corrections were to select one of the sites, the county would be given preferential access to $100 million in assistance to finance the construction of County jail facilities.  Before either location was chosen, the City of Santee sued San Diego County, arguing the agreement constituted a project for the purposes of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) because it committed the county to a particular site for the reentry facility, and committed the county to expanding the Los Colinas Detention Facility, a county jail for women that is located within Santee's city limits. The county demurred. The San Diego County Superior Court sustained the demurrer, and the appellate court upheld the lower court's ruling. Writing for the unanimous three-judge appellate panel, Justice Patricia Benke explained that CEQA requires an environmental impact report (EIR) when a public agency proposes to approve or to carry out a project that may have a significant effect on the environment. "Approval" means a decision by a public agency that commits the agency to a definite course of action in regard to the project. Citing extensively to the state Supreme Court's decision in Save Tara v. City of West Hollywood , (2008) 45 Cal.4th 116 (See CP&DR Legal Digest, December 2008 ), Benke discussed the "balancing of competing factors" involved in determining when in the process an EIR or negative declaration should be prepared. An agency "must not ‘take any action' that significantly furthers a project in a manner that forecloses alternatives or mitigation measures that would ordinarily be part of CEQA review of that public project'" before conducting CEQA review, Benke wrote, citing Save Tara. An agency, however, is not deemed to have approved a project within the meaning of Public Resources Code, § 21100 and § 21151 unless the proposal before the agency is well enough defined to provide meaningful information for environmental assessment. In Save Tara, the state Supreme Court found that the development agreement at issue constituted a project because (1) the city had announced that it was determined to proceed with the development at issue, (2) the city had acted in accordance with that determination, (3) the city had substantially contributed to the project, and (4) the city was willing to bind itself, by a draft agreement, to convey the property. The Fourth District compared Save Tara with Sustainable Transportation Advocates of Santa Barbara v. Santa Barbara County Assn. , (2009) 179 Cal.App.4th 113 (See CP&DR Legal Digest, November 2009 ). In the latter case, the court determined that the adoption of a transportation financing plan did not constitute a commitment to any of the transportation projects listed in the plan. The Sustainable Transportation Advocates court found the financing plan was not a commitment, because the construction of the projects was dependent on obtaining further financing from other agencies, the projects themselves were only described in general terms, the list itself was subject to later amendment, and the projects were subject to CEQA review prior to construction. The Fourth District considered both the face of the agreement between San Diego County and the Department of Corrections for siting a reentry facility as well as the surrounding circumstances before determining the agreement did not represent a commitment that triggered CEQA review. On its face, the siting agreement did not select a particular location for the reentry facility, nor did it make any reference to the LCDF. Citing Save Tara, Benke wrote that because the face of the agreement does not identify a site for the reentry facility and has no unconditional or certain impact on the LCDF expansion, the agreement "does not describe any project which would be subject to any meaningful CEQA analysis. Rather, the face of the agreement places it squarely in the realm of preliminary agreements needed to explore and formulate project for which CEQA review would be entirely premature." Looking at the circumstances surrounding the siting agreement, the court considered the fact that the Department of Corrections had identified water and infrastructure improvements that would be necessary for the Otay Mesa site, had determined the cost of the site, and had prepared a grading plan and vicinity map for the project. The court found these actions were only preliminary, exploratory steps for which environmental review cannot be required. Because nothing in the record "suggests the signing agreement has from a practical perspective foreclosed consideration of alternatives to any project or mitigation measures for those projects, the trial court properly sustained the county's demurrer," Benke wrote. The court further denied the City of Santee's request to amend its lawsuit to allege that, if the Department of Corrections chooses the Otay Mesa site, the state will proceed with the project notwithstanding any environmental review. Such "double-barreled speculation" does not require environmental review, the court concluded. The Case: City of Santee v. County of San Diego , No. D055310, 2010 DJDAR 10129. Filed June 7, 2010. Certified for publication June 29, 2010.  The Lawyers: For City of Santee: Michelle Ouellette, Best, Best & Krieger, (951) 686-1450. For San Diego County: C. Ellen Pilsecker, deputy county counsel, (619) 531-6229. For California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation: David R. E. Aladjem, Downey Brand, (916) 444-1000.

(Editor's Note, in regard to the following blog post: The California Planning & Development Report disclaims any belief, credence or even any wish-it-were-true feelings in regard to spiritualims, ghosts, spooks, spectres, poltergeists and similar phenomena—even if one of our correspondents of longest standing, Morris Newman, seems to be crediting his most recent work products to the honored dead. If he's just in a temporary funk, we can try to overlook it. If this line of supernatural thinking continues however, an exchange of memos may be in order, if you know what we mean.) Dear readers, I understand, and even anticipate your skepticism when I try to tell you, as gently as I can, that I was driving my daughter's 1999 olive green Dodge Neon southward from Berkeley on the Monday of the July 4th weekend, after fetching my oldest boy from school. It was about that point in the afternoon that I began to feel even more fuzzy headed than usual. As if instructed by a Sixth Sense, I glanced sidelong at the passenger side, where No. 1 Son had been sitting, and there was an old man with a flowing, snowy white beard, who bore a striking resemblance to the immortal Bard of Camden, N.J. After exchanging a few pleasantries about the weather and the extraordinary mileage on the Neon, the gentleman recited the following poem to me, as we drove down the length of Interstate 5. I enjoyed his company, because the ride is usually so monotonous. He recited the following to me; I took careful notes.  You have taken me by storm, O Interstate! Tho' I didn't want to yield myself so easily to the blandishments of the vile road, O the crassness, the money grubbing! The naïve wonder of urbanites for the commonplace: Grape vines, cattle, stone fruit orchards, McDonalds! We will someday stop at every McDonalds Between Stockton and San Diego, if it kills us,  That's one Youtube video that'll go viral, for sure! Yes, I love Interstate 5. The snob in me dies. This is the Main Street of California. This is small business and farmers repositioning, Fruitstands side by side the shrieking corporate signs: "We're from Nowhere's-ville, baby, and You're coming with Us." Interstate 5 is all about travel, So interesting, so energetic, so American.   Little travel villages popping up everywhere!  We stopped at Petro just north of the Grapevine,  There are actually two (!) Petros in the same roadside location,  Each with its own gas station! I love America, land of invention!  The Petro itself is a work of art, Tho' I suspect it is a corporate product To be cloned mercilessly across the heartland: A general store with sundries, liniments, Christian hoodies,   A Subway sandwich shop, a mini-cinema With movies to watch while you launder your duds. O wondrous hybrid of Little America and 7-11,  O Petro, thou fostereth the love of trucker culture and the road, For millions of Californians motoring through  – zip, zip, zip! Who on the whole are well behaved, diverse, fascinating,  The millionaire in a sleeveless tee from Banana Republic Standing in line with the farm worker at the In N Out.  O the 5 is the great equalizer in an unequal state. Interstate 5 is the Great Strip, the Back Road of California, The 5 is not the 101, with its coastlines, hillsides, picturesque towns,  Interstate 5 is good, old-style California hucksterism, Fruit stands, corn mazes, antiques, trucks full of garlic, Merle Haggard, Tom Joad, Indian food, last gas for 25 miles, All of which we feel a grudging affection for, And which the corporate Nothingness, Heaven forbid, threatens to blot out. Vulgar, plebe California – You are us, and we are you.  (At this point, we dropped off the ghost of the venerable poet at the Beyond Baroque building in Venice, and the recitation went no further. Scholars wishing to anthologize this piece will have to take our word for it.)  -Morris Newman