In 1909 the City of Los Angeles annexed San Pedro and a narrow corridor connecting the port to downtown. Now the city wishes it had included the industrial land on both sides of the corridor too. Large developable industrial parcels are an endangered species in portions of the City of Los Angeles, and the fact that they are at the bottom of the real estate market food chain makes them a hot commodity for speculative developers in a slumping market. The City of Los Angeles has big plans for its industrial land — but no one can agree on what those plans are. Since Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa issued a directive in December 2005, the Department of Planning and the Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA) have conducted a two-year Industrial Land Use Policy Project (ILUP) and recently released recommendations on what to do with the city's industrial land. Applications for conversions for the large, less-expensive manufacturing parcels through zone changes have inundated the planning department. The mayor and ILUP team are weary of parcel-by-parcel land use decisions that often result in parcels too small to permit companies to re-locate or expand and that create conflicting uses between residents and — oh, say — the cement factory next door. Live-work adaptive reuse conversions in the Toy District and the new Arts District (previously known as the Warehouse District) have spurred internal concern about the eroding industrial base and the permanent loss of jobs. The city needs more middle-class jobs and commercial tax increment and is hoping to attract high-tech and green-tech companies to these parcels in the future. It's a common issue throughout urban California . The ILUP report recommends affirming existing industrial preservation policies and explicitly calls to preserve 80% of industrial land as employment protection districts, while permitting an industrialized version of a mixed-use district on 9%, and transit focused development on another 8%. Many believe the ILUP team's 17% concession isn't enough and a parcel-by-parcel battle over the final categorical geographies could be brewing. If the mayor's team has it way, bygone will be the days of plan amendments and zone changes. The new vehicle of change shall be the community plan process as 12 community plans are being updated now to include the recommendations. The CRA and the Planning Department have devised new zones based on four industrial categories that correspond to a land use inventory and other criteria such as infrastructure and accessibility. The community plan program would implement these zone changes and other ILUP recommendations during the plan updates. The report and recommendations have raised a stir among the development community and some members of the City Council. Some, like the Central City Association, see this process as a crafty method to implement a policy without having to approve it. Not surprisingly, property rights advocates want to build residential and mixed-use on industrial parcels because that's what the market demands. However, very few vacant industrial parcels remain around downtown, in Hollywood and on the Westside; therefore, many companies choose to locate inland and northward up into the San Fernando Valley rather than purchase and recycle an already improved site. The problem with this, according to Steve Andrews, of the CRA, is the migration of centralized industries not only hurts jobs-housing distribution, but also increases distribution costs of some heavy, hard-to-ship manufactured goods such as granite countertops. But perhaps most problematic to the city's plans for industrial preservation is the by-right commercial development on these parcels. On the Westside big-box stores and mini storage companies comprise significant tracts in the "employment protection district." While these retail uses generate more general fund revenue for the city than residential uses, these businesses do not generate the middle class jobs an industrial base provides. Planning says it will make a list of uses not permitted in the new zones. But will the cash cows of big-boxes be blackballed? Only time will tell. The next three years of the community plan program and subsequent plan updates looks to be exciting and emotional, with showdowns between blue-collar companies and residents, between the CRA/Planning team and housing developers, and between the mayor and the council, all over the fate of some of LA's last large parcels. - Aaron Engstrom

Anybody interested in green development, the affect climate change is having on planning, and environmental advocacy should get their fill this Saturday, January 12. That's when the Planning & Conservation League will conduct its annual legislative symposium , an event that starts with breakfast and schmoozing at 8:30 a.m. and doesn't conclude until 12 hours later with dinner and awards. I haven't been to the PCL symposium since 2000, partly because the 40-year-old environmental organization seemed to run out of both energy and political currency. But, for those who haven't noticed, the PCL has roared back to life, maybe stronger than ever. Why? Gary Patton is in charge. A former Santa Cruz County supervisor, former PCL general counsel, and former state and Monterey County smart-growth activist , Patton is a firebrand who accepted the PCL executive director job in 2006. It would be polite to say that he is not universally loved. In fact, he is not loved at all in the development community and by some people in local government. But he's a smart guy with a ton of energy who likes to get in the game. He definitely has returned the PCL to prominence, as the organization is once again a legislative insider. Patton's energy and connections are reflected in the marathon-length symposium scheduled at the Sacramento Convention Center. Lt. Gov. John Garamendi opens the event, and state Sen. Darrell Steinberg provides the evening keynote. In between are panels on, among other things, how land use policies can reduce greenhouse gas emissions , CEQA litigation , and green building . Most panels appear heavily environmental and Democratic, but not all. The development and Republican side of things are represented. I'm not here to flog the PCL or its gathering. But, according to organizers, the event is going to fill to its capacity of 340 people. That kind of interest — on a Saturday, no less — is further evidence that the PCL matters again. - Paul Shigley

Along with the collapse of the housing market, here in California climate change was the biggest land use story of 2007 . But is there any doubt that the greening of the planning process will be the No. 1 story in 2008 – and maybe No. 2 and No. 3 as well? Environmental issues are never far from the forefront of concern in the land use arena, especially here, where the California Environmental Quality Act forces environmental review of everything from huge master-planned communities to tiny infill projects. But climate change is pushing the environment to the front burner in the planning world faster than the you can say Al Gore. Planners are talking a lot about global warming – and, frankly, they're not talking about much of anything else . Local governments with a strong environmental consciousness, like Marin County, are beginning to make environmental sustainability the cornerstone of their planning efforts . But that's just the tip of the quickly melting iceberg. 1. AB 32. land use, and SB 375 The big question in Sacramento this year is whether and how the state will apply AB 32 – the greenhouse gas emissions reduction law – to the land use arena. The Governor's Climate Action Team has said from the beginning that "smart growth" and related concepts will have to account for 10% to15% of required emissions reduction by 2020. As Joan Sollenberger, Caltrans's chief planner, told CP&DR recently , "You can't reduce VMT without addressing the land use question." At the core of the AB 32 land use debate during 2008 is the fate of one bill, SB 375, carried by Darrell Steinberg, a Democratic state senator from Sacramento. The bill came within a whisker of passing last year. At its core, Steinberg's bill uses transportation funding as a big carrot to get local governments to create more efficient land use patterns. Under the bill, regional planning agencies around the state would create "preferred growth scenarios" meeting AB 32 emissions reduction targets and then dole out transportation funds to local governments whose plans and projects conform to those scenarios. Endorsed by environmental lobbyists, SB 375 also contains a wide range of other growth management requirements, such as the identification of permanent open space areas. These heavy ornaments were one of the reasons why this particular Christmas tree didn't get passed during 2007. The legislative debate in 2008 is likely to revolve around SB 375's approach. Will AB 32 drive land use reform – or will it be an excuse to promote longstanding growth management ideas? 3. CEQA and climate change The big news during 2007 was that San Bernardino County reached a settlement with Attorney General Jerry Brown to incorporate climate change considerations into its general plan and future planning efforts. But the big news during 2008 will be how the state will institutionalize climate change as part of CEQA practice. Having just finished a relatively noncontroversial update to the CEQA guidelines, the Governor's Office of Planning and Research is now charged with a new update – one that takes climate change into account in CEQA analysis as required by AB 32. OPR has been mum on the approach so far. But CEQA practitioners face a fundamental challenge in approaching climate change. CEQA is generally designed to make sure the worst thing doesn't happen and by law it can force local governments only to adopt feasible mitigation measures. (This is what the AG's settlement with San Bernardino County calls for.) Yet the mandate of cutting emissions 20% in 12 years will clearly require some actions that would be considered infeasible under current conditions. Just last week, the California Air Pollution Control Officers Association (CAPCOA) issued a lengthy white paper laying out possible methodological approaches to dealing with climate change in CEQA analysis. The core question in the CAPCOA paper is what the threshold for significant impacts should be – the trigger for an environmental impact report. Should it be zero? Should it be some other number? Should there be no threshold? When the goal is to cut emissions rather than limit their growth, what's significant and what isn't? 4. Green building Even while planners debate the land use implications of climate change, developers anad builders are moving much more quickly into the green world. Most local governments don't yet mandate green building practices – and many don't even allow green building as an option. But developers are way ahead on this , claiming that green building adds no more than 2% to the cost of construction and is likely to become standard practice over the next few years no matter what.  But the process for getting a building certified as green by the U.S. Green Building Council isn't easy – and represents of the one major costs of "green building." 5. Stormwater runoff rules There's one more looming giant out there in the world of environmental planning in California, and that's stormwater runoff regulations. Stormwater's a water quality problem, not an air quality problem, but it's also a huge issue that regulators are getting tougher on all the time. Especially in the coastal parts of the California, regional water quality control boards are in the process of implementing new rules that will cost millions – perhaps billions – of dollars to comply with. Local governments keep suing to block these rules, but without much success. Meanwhile, advocates are promoting green ideas like "stormwater gardens" as part of public works projects. It seems likely that, in the long run, local governments in California will find a way to embed "green infrastructure" ideas into both the development review and their capital construction practices. Green land use. Green building. Green infrastructure. Yup, 2008 is going to be the year of environmental issues in planning. What will planners do? As usual, they'll be in the trenches – the policy implementers and technicians trying to make these new directives work. -- Bill Fulton

UCLA Extension's annual Land Use Law & Planning Conference is a leading source of information for attorneys, planners, public officials, consultants, developers, real estate professionals, and others involved in planning and development issues in California. This year's conference presents an update of important new legislation, case law, policies, and trends in the fields of land use and environmental law and planning – presented by several speaker experts. Topics include updates on: planning, zoning and development law; food systems planning; the new storms water quality/MS permits; CEQA 2007; general plans; habitat conservation planning; U.S. and CA supreme courts decisions impacting land use; climate change and land use reform. For more information: Call: 310 825 7885 Online: www.uclaextension.edu/landuse Fees and Credits: Reg # T4721 $350 (if enrollment is received before January 11 2008, $375 thereafter) Minimum Continuing Legal Education (MCLE) 7 hours NEW: Certification Maintenance Credit for APA planners now available

In planning and development these days, everything's green. For years, the issue was housing — specifically prices and the lack of affordable places to live. No more. Now, global climate change is taking over every discussion of land-use planning in California. And climate change – along with a variety of related environmental issues – is likely to take over every issue of California Planning & Development Report from here on out. The current edition of California Planning & Development Report is devoted to all things green in the planning and development world. Turns out, though, that green means different things to different people. To some, it means environmentally conscious construction techniques, such as those embodied in the LEED program . To others, it means "sustainable" (another squishy word) development, and that usually means something other than suburbia . To some, it means additional government mandates and regulations. To others, it means an opportunity to improve how and where we build . All of this is indicative of the fact that we don't yet know how climate change will affect land-use policies and decisions in California. The regulatory framework is barely in its infancy , the case law has yet to be written, and planners admit that they are still casting about. The Schwarzenegger administration and state lawmakers show plenty of willingness to act, though. And did we mention that Attorney General and 2010 gubernatorial frontrunner Jerry Brown has strong opinions on the subject? Many planners appear to be comfortable with the climate change issue's sudden prominence, which is no surprise. Many planners have contended for years that we need to find "greener" methods of development. But, as Bill Fulton writes in our current edition , professional planners are more likely to do the dirty work in the trenches than to carry the climate change flag. 2008 already feels like the year of the never-ending political campaign. Governor Schwarzenegger has declared 2008 the year of education. The state's $14 billion-plus budget deficit suggests 2008 may be the year of budget cuts and tax increases. But 2008 might also be the year that we finally start to wrap our arms around the connections between land use and climate change, and how each affects the other. And that might be just fine. With the housing market in the tank and a general economic malaise slowly spreading, no one is building much of anything right now. It's as good a time as any to revisit our land-use policies and practices. - Paul Shigley

All too often, local politics in America is parochial, narrow-minded, and faction-ridden – if not crudely partisan. This is too bad, because the issues confronting local government in America are usually regional in scope and require far-reaching coalitions of unlikely allies. That's why John Parr was one of my heroes. Parr knew how to get parochial local politicians – and parochial neighborhood activists and profit-driven business leaders – focused on the big picture and working together for the regional good. And as Curtis Johnson, president of the Citistates Group, wrote the other day , "he knew how to do it without raising his voice." (John and I were both affiliated with the Citistates Group, a watering hole of regional thinkers founded by columnist Neal Peirce.) Tragically, just before Christmas Parr was killed – along with his wife, journalist Sandra Widener, and one of their two teenaged daughters – in an auto accident on an icy Wyoming freeway. He was only 59. It's telling that shortly after the accident an impromptu crowd of some 500 people held a vigil in a Denver park near their house. The accident occurred only two months after one of California's prominent regionalists, Nick Bollman, died a similarly untimely death in Florida. Most obituaries referred to Parr as a "Democratic political consultant". I guess this is true, in the same way that calling Yogi Berra a baseball player is true. Yogi was a baseball player, but describing him that way kinda misses the point. In the '70s Parr was among the young reformers who worked for Colorado Gov. Dick Lamm. Later he was a key policy advisor to Denver Mayors Federico Pena and John Hickenlooper . In between he ran the National Civic League and helped found the Alliance for Regional Stewardship . One was a venerable organization and the other was new; but both are dedicated to the idea that the government has to work together with business and nonprofit institutions in order to tackle big regional problems. Though he spent almost his whole career in Denver, while I've been a thousand miles away, I feel his influence every day in the regional civic organizations we have here in California – as well as the regional "blueprints" that are emerging from the regional planning agencies around the state. Nick Bollman, who worked at The Irvine Foundation and founded the California Center for Regional Leadership , was the midwife of all this stuff in California; he laid the foundation for these efforts and directly funded a lot of them. But the concept of creating a nonprofit entity devoted to the well-being of a region – like Joint Venture Silicon Valle y or the Great Valley Center -- was more or less a John Parr idea. That's why he took on the task of starting the Alliance for Regional Stewardship, an organization made up of these entities, so they could trade information and learn from each other. He wasn't afraid of NIMBYs, or developers, or greedy corporate types, or even provincial politicians. He was a big-tent guy, who believed that if you got them all in the same room and got them talking to each other – facilitated, perhaps, by somebody like himself, who could do it with a lot of grace and humor and no meanness at all – the regional good would emerge. The Parr legacy will stretch far and wide, but I like to think that the greatest accomplishments are just coming to fruition in Denver. That's largely because of Parr's old friend, brewpub owner John Hickenlooper, who was elected mayor of Denver in 2003 – not least because Parr leaned on him to run for the office. In Hickenlooper, Parr seemed to find an elected official who embodied what Parr believed: smile a lot, keep talking to everybody, find common ground, park your ego when necessary to get things done. Using these qualities, Hickenlooper – among many others, including Parr – helped pass a regional sales tax to fund a $5 billion transit system. When I saw Hickenlooper give a talk a few months ago, I wrote a blog saying that Denver's mayor was the master of "brewpub regionalism" – a style focused on personal interaction and helping others. As with regionalism in California and Nick Bollman, Hickenlooper was the midwife of brewpub regionalism – but John Parr was its godfather. So hoist one for John Parr the next time you're in Denver. -- Bill Fulton

If California is truly going to reduce — in a meaningful way — its emission of the gases that contribute to global climate change, the state must change how it uses land. That is the inescapable conclusion of virtually everyone who has analyzed the situation. But nearly every detail regarding how, when and who decides remains extremely uncertain at the start of 2008. That uncertainty could begin to change this year as experts learn more about the connection between development patterns and greenhouse gas emissions, and as state agencies start to roll out guidelines and targets. In fact, the planning and regulatory landscape is evolving with remarkable speed, to the point that nearly every discussion of land use policy now includes some consideration of climate change. "There are so many factors that come into play in land use," observed Pete Parkinson, vice president of policy and legislation for the California Chapter, American Planning Association (CCAPA). "If we were to have a conversation 12 or 18 months ago about what drives land use, we would have been talking about housing. That's not true today." Now, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are starting to drive the debate. Where the GHG issue will take the debate remains to be seen, but there is a feeling — perhaps even a consensus — that it will take planning and development further and further away from the post-war suburban model that has predominated in California for 60 years. Why? Low-density, segregated-use development in outlying areas forces people to rely on automobiles, and automobiles account for about 40% of California's greenhouse gas emissions. "The traditional sprawl, greenfield development model is falling out of favor," said Parkinson, who is also director of the Sonoma County Permit & Resource Management Department. "It's being replaced with infill, dense development. You're not going to implement that overnight in one RHNA or one regional transportation plan cycle. But there is a sea change that's happening, and we're right in the middle of the wave." At the heart of the discussion about more environmentally friendly development is AB 32, the 2006 law that requires the state to reduce its emission of GHG to 1990 levels by 2020. Global emissions at 1990 levels are commonly seen as the maximum permitted for climate stabilization. Although experts are still trying to decide precisely how to measure emissions in California from 1990, most people accept that AB 32 requires a 25% reduction from present day emission levels. The governor's Climate Action Team concluded that about 12% of the total reduction must come from changes in land-use patterns. A detailed report prepared for the California Energy Commission reached the same basic conclusion: "New land use/transportation policies, initiatives and actions at all levels of government in California could provide major energy and greenhouse gas emissions reductions." Similar discussions are ongoing around the country, especially in urbanized and fast-growing states. During a conference last fall in Boston on climate change and land use, Armando Carbonell, chair of the Lincoln Institute's Department of Planning and Urban Form, said, "It may be useful to think of cities as great carbon-reduction machines. We've got to fix the cars, but we've also got to address VMT growth, and that is done by providing environments where one can walk or take transit. Planners are on the supply side of the problem, providing places for people to live with lots of amenities and diversity in housing — and, by the way, such attributes are increasingly in demand anyway." The Urban Land Institute sounded the same theme when it published the book Growing Cooler: The Evidence on Urban Development and Climate Change last fall. The book's researchers found that, even after accounting for increased vehicle efficiency and more use of low-carbon fuels, motor vehicle tailpipe emissions would increase 41% from 2005 to 2030. "Curbing emissions from cars depends on a three-legged stool: Improved vehicle efficiency, cleaner fuels and a reduction in driving," said Reid Ewing, a professor at the University of Maryland's National Center for Smart Growth and the lead author of the ULI book. "The research shows that one of the best ways to reduce vehicle travel is to build places where people can accomplish more with less driving." Compact, mixed-use infill development and re-use projects can have climate change benefits besides reducing VMT. Such projects frequently contain smaller living spaces, so less energy is needed for heating and cooling. In addition, they do not chew up tracks of farmland and open space that would otherwise absorb carbon. It appears that climate change considerations will affect California planning and development in three ways: First, analyzing a plan or project's contribution to climate change — and climate change's impact on a plan or project — is going to become a routine part of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) process. Second, infrastructure dollars provided by the state are likely to be more and more closely tied to land uses that minimize emission of greenhouse gases. Third, and possibly most radically, there could be some diminution of local land use authority as regional and even state land-use plans and policies start to grow teeth. The CEQA Impact The CEQA portion of the equation is already making an impact. Under Jerry Brown, the state attorney general's office has made clear that environmental review documents must address climate change — and include "feasible mitigation measures." Not only has Brown's office sued (and since settled with) San Bernardino County over the county general plan's handling of climate change issues, but it has also become a routine commenter on regional transportation plans (RTPs). The thrust of those comments has generally been that the plans do not do enough, if anything, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions because the plans are too accommodating of the single-occupant automobile. In addition, environmental organizations, including the ultra-aggressive Center for Biological Diversity, have started filing lawsuits over the climate change impacts of plans and projects. The CBD has already sued San Bernardino County and the cities of Banning and Perris. A law approved in 2007 (AB 97, Dutton) confirms that climate change is a subject for CEQA analysis, and charges the Resources Agency with adopting "guidelines for the mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions or the effects of greenhouse gas emissions" by January 1, 2010. The Governor's Office of Planning and Research (OPR) has begun work on those guidelines and is due to make recommendations to the Resources Agency in 2009 (see CP&DR Environment Watch , October 2007). A key part of the guidelines is likely to be some form of thresholds of significance, which the state's air pollution control officers and the Air Resources Board are working on. According to OPR, only about 5% of CEQA documents submitted to the State Clearinghouse from April through October of 2007 contained a discussion of greenhouse gas emissions or climate change. The way the documents address the topic is all over the map because there is no official guidance or standards of measurement. Some of the documents have included mitigation measures, ranging from the planting of riparian areas to offset carbon emissions, to requiring delivery truck drivers to turn off idling engines, to requiring preparation of a local climate change action plan. Other documents have concluded a project's potential impact on climate change is simply too speculative to try to mitigate. The flip side — climate change's impact on projects — is even less well documented and understood. The idea is that potential effects of climate change, such as rising sea level, greater flood flows because less precipitation will fall as snow, prolonged droughts, more intense wildfires and loss of habitat, should be considered in plan and project reviews. So far, virtually no agency is doing this. That's understandable, according to Gary Jakobs, a principal in the Sacramento office of consulting firm EDAW. "You're talking about blowing the doors off what we have done in the past," Jakobs said. "Do you want to strap a project with a mitigation measure that could be very expensive to implement when the effects could be 50 years off and are based on a model?" Carrots, Sticks and Mandates Environmentalists and proponents of "smart growth" have complained for years that the state funds infrastructure — especially roads and highways — in a way that promotes car-dominated sprawl. Those days may be winding down. Increasingly, regional transportation agencies are linking transportation plans and funding with land use, and Caltrans is headed in the same direction. The Climate Action Team urged Caltrans to implement a climate action program, along with the governor's strategic growth and infrastructure investment plan and regional growth blueprints. To move some of this forward, Caltrans has funded a "blueprint network" in which 16 of the state's 18 metropolitan planning organizations (MPO) have participated. The basic idea is to closely coordinate transportation and land-use planning because the state needs to reduce VMT. A second round of blueprint planning is coming, and some MPOs are already talking about how to account for GHG in the new blueprints. "You can't reduce VMT without addressing the land use question," said Joan Sollenberger, who is in charge of planning and modal programs for Caltrans. "It's recognized by everyone that we will never achieve the goals that have been set for greenhouse gas emission reductions unless we change how we grow, because of the carbon footprint involved." "We want to make sure our investments pay off in a way we need them to," said Sollenberger. Bob Leiter, land use and transporation planning director for the San Diego Association of Governments, added, "The whole idea of addressing regional climate change planning though the RTP makes sense." With the RTP, regional officials can figure out how better to move people and freight and, therefore, reduce emissions, he said. And in San Diego and other regions, the RTP is closely tied to the regional growth blueprint. Caltrans' climate action program calls for "transportation strategies, plans and projects as a whole contribute to the state's GHG emission reduction targets." Precisely what that means for funding decisions is unclear, although the California Transportation Commission, which makes most funding decisions, appears headed in the same direction with proposed land use criteria. The result is almost certainly going to mean more money to move people and freight in urban areas, and less money for additional freeway capacity on the suburban fringe. And this is where things get truly interesting. Last year, the Legislature came close to approving SB 375, which would have moved some of these concepts into law. The bill would have required every MPO to adopt a "preferred growth scenario" that would show how a region would hit emission reduction targets set by the Air Resources Board. Future transportation funding would then be tied to the preferred growth scenario. The bill's author, Sen. Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento), argued that this was merely an extension of the regional blueprint planning that Caltrans has subsidized. All of these blueprints emphasize infill and minimizing outward urban expansion. Steinberg's idea was that if a city or county made land-use decisions in conflict with the preferred growth scenario, the city or county would not get transportation funding. Local government officials countered that Steinberg was trying to shift land-use authority away from cities and counties to regional agencies. Steinberg dismissed such arguments — yet many people concede that land use decisions need to be made in a regional context, something that almost never happens. Part of the problem, said the CCAPA's Parkinson, is that California does not have the governance model to carry out these notions. Regional agencies are not used to — and don't have the capacity to — do detailed land use planning. And local agencies are not about to let a regional agency make project-level decisions. Steinberg's bill will return in 2008, and it may not be the only bill on the subject. Other legislation may propose a "cap and trade" system in which cities or regions are given a GHG maximum, and if they do not use all of their GHG allotment, they could trade carbon credits to other jurisdictions. In its Integrated Energy Policy Report adopted in December, the California Energy Commission (CEC) went farther than Steinberg. Finding that "decisions affecting land use directly affect energy use and the consequent production of greenhouse gases," the CEC urged: • Adoption of "a unified statewide growth management plan, based on local and regional plans, aligning state planning, financing, infrastructure, and regulatory land-use policies and programs." • Requiring "regional transportation planning and air quality agencies to adopt 25-year and 50-year regional growth plans that provide housing, transportation, and community services for projected population increases while reducing greenhouse gas emissions to state-determined climate change targets." • Determining how state and local tax policies "encourage growth that is inconsistent with the state's growth management plan." • Ensuring future federal highway programs "include energy reduction and climate stabilization considerations." Ultimately, the Air Resources Board is responsible for most of AB 32's implementation. But the air board is not going to act in isolation, as is evidenced by the depth of policy analysis at the CEC, Caltrans and numerous other agencies. The Schwarzenegger administration wants it that way. Where next? Clearly, California's planners know the ground is shifting under their feet. At least some of them see this big shake up as an opportunity. "Those of us who are planners and environmental planners are finally seeing an opportunity for the things we have been talking about for so long to come into the marketplace," said Jeff Goldman, a planner for EDAW. His colleague Jakobs agreed, adding, "We've been using this term ‘smart growth' for a while. Now people are getting religion. … We're seeing it even in some of the more conservative cities, which is nice." The CCAPA recently issued a policy paper that, in a way, recasts the smart growth argument as a greenhouse gas reduction strategy. Among other things, the paper recommends local governments approve plans and codes that "encourage mixed land use, higher densities (especially around transit), affordable housing, compact form, non-motor vehicle circulation, water and energy conservation, microgeneration of electricity in a manner compatible with surrounding uses, and low-carbon resources for building materials." If the smart growth movement didn't make these things commonplace, maybe the concern over climate change will. "In my 20-plus years in the industry," said Sydney Coatsworth, who manages EDAW's Sacramento office, "I have never seen anything grab the profession with such gusto, and seen so many people thinking creatively." Contacts: Pete Parkinson, California Chapter, American Planning Association, (707) 565-1925. Sydney Coatsworth, Gary Jakobs and Jeff Goldman, EDAW, (916) 414-5800. Joan Sollenberger, Caltrans, (916) 653-1818. Bob Leiter, San Diego Association of Governments, (619) 699-6980. Governor's Office of Planning and Research, CEQA Guidelines and Greenhouse Gases: http://opr.ca.gov/index.php?a=ceqa/index.html Caltrans Climate Action Program: http://www.caltrans.ca.gov/climateaction.htm Governor's Climate Action Team and Climate Action Initiative: http://www.climatechange.ca.gov/climate_action_team/index.html California Chapter, American Planning Association Climate Change Task Force: http://www.calapa.org/attachments/contentmanagers/711/ClimateChange.pdf

Has climate change lit a fire under California's professional planners? The answer, in a word, is yes. Not since the early days of new urbanism 15 years ago have we seen such passion from planners in California about something new. They're talking about it and thinking about it all the time. Reversing climate change is the latest in a long line of idealistic notions that planners have glommed on to, dating all the way back to garden cities more than a century ago. Since that time, we've seen the planning profession "go passionate" over all kinds of semi-faddish topics, ranging from Jane Jacobs' recipes for urban revitalization during the 1950s to social equity planning during the 1960s to Ian McHarg's "design with nature" philosophy during the 1970s. About once a decade a new idea or philosophy sweeps the profession. And this particular issue is one that's got huge traction. It's the most important environmental issue in the history of humanity – or, at the very least, most people believe it is the most important environmental issue in the history of humanity. Either way, you would think climate change is a great opportunity for planners to have an impact. But remember that planning is a profession made up of idealists who work, by and large, as technicians. So, as is often the case, California's planners are teetering on the brink of advocacy but, mostly, not jumping off the cliff. They are hoping that new laws get passed and new practices get put into place that will allow them to attack climate change; and the more aggressive planners are tackling the issue under existing procedures, especially within the context of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). So how much impact, exactly, will California's professional planners have on the climate change debate? From the 30,000-foot policy level – which, frankly, is where I spend a lot of my time – the answer is probably not much. Planners may be passionate believers but often do not advocates even if their job gives them the leeway to do so. When it comes to lobbying, planners often step back and allow advocates who embody their beliefs, such as environmentalists and affordable housing proponents, to carry the ball. This is partly the nature of their job; and partly the nature of their soul. Indeed, one of the ironies of the current debate in California over implementing AB 32 – the greenhouse gas emissions reduction law – is this: Local government lobbyists are adamantly resisting strong mandates that will require them to alter their land use policies to comply. But a lot of planners – all the while grumbling publicly about having to take on climate change as an issue – are secretly hoping that their local government employers lose in the Legislature, so that planning departments will be given license to take on the challenge. That's because professional planners typically have the greatest impact not by advocating for policy change or shaping policy, but down in the trenches where they slog through the plans, the environmental analyses, and the development reviews day after day. Already, environmental impact reports and other CEQA documents are being supplemented with some kind of "global warming" or "climate change" section. Planners may soon be dragooned into greenhouse gas emissions reductions efforts in a more direct way, depending on what kind of implementing legislation is adopted for AB 32. For example, a bill such as SB 375 – which may yet pass this year – would basically require or induce local governments to engage in smart growth efforts to help meet greenhouse gas reduction targets. All these efforts to use land-use planning as a means of going after climate change come down to one target very familiar to planners: driving. The main greenhouse gas is carbon dioxide, and carbon dioxide is emitted by motor vehicles when they are running. Although a lot of greenhouse gas emissions reduction will come from cleaner fuels and more energy-efficient vehicles, the general presumption is that California won't be able to hit the AB 32 target without more alternatives to driving, which means more investment in public transit and an aggressive approach to different land-use patterns. Does this mean that planners – given the chance – will use climate change as just another excuse to promote their ideas of "good planning," which often include less driving and more concentrated development in communities? Sure. Just as they have used lots of other trends and challenges over the last half-century to try to accomplish the same goals. Planners have attempted to leverage concerns about sprawl, vanishing farmland, traffic congestion, endangered species, a lack of water, even previous problems with air pollutants into changes in the pattern of urban growth, usually with middling success at best. But that doesn't mean the problems of urban development aren't real, and that the planners' preferred approaches aren't part of the solution. In the case of climate change, it's worth noting that a technological fix probably won't be enough. In California, a 40-year effort to reduce tailpipe emissions of carbon monoxide have been wildly successful in one sense because emissions from each tailpipe are a tiny fraction of what they were during the 1960s. Overall, however, the result has been a wash – more tailpipes and more driving have offset the decrease in emissions in each tailpipe. Clearly, something else has to give. The truth is that the solution to most major environmental problems involves less driving. Planners may or may not be able to use emissions reduction to drive land use change. But they're certainly going to be confronted with the consequences of global warming – and soon. Rising sea level and a dramatic decrease in the Sierra snow pack appear to be happening much faster than we anticipated only a couple years ago. The latest science says the Arctic could be ice-free within seven years. That means – especially in a coastal state like California – adapting to climate change will be an issue by the time the projects that are currently going through the entitlement process will be built. All of a sudden, this stuff is not abstract. Adaptation will inevitably involve large-scale engineering solutions – dikes and breakwaters in the ocean, more reservoirs inland, and so forth. But there will have to be land-use solutions too. Should more coastal development be permitted? How do you handle more growth if there are likely to be more droughts? These are questions that planners are well-equipped to deal with, especially California planners, with their CEQA-driven orientation toward impacts and mitigations. An old joke about planners is that if they believe passionately in something they're not likely to lie down in front of a bulldozer, but they are more than willing to spend all week figuring out whether you have complied with the code or your project may create a significant impact. This may make planners seem like little more than bureaucratic cogs — which is at least partly true — but is not the worst thing in the world. It is likely the way planners will embrace the issue of climate change, and it just might make a difference.

For decades, especially in the period following passage of Proposition 13 in 1978, school districts provided additional classroom space by slapping up portable buildings on parking lots and play fields. Some campuses evolved into mazes of nearly windowless, flat-roofed, "temporary" buildings that housed more students than the main building of the original school. Those days appear to be over. State bond money and local tax dollars are flowing into new school construction at record rates, and school officials are learning that a "green" campus is both better for students and teachers and is less expensive to operate. In the last few years, a collection of state agency officials, school district leaders, architects, contractors, product manufacturers, and utility representatives have put together the Collaborative of High Performance Schools (CHPS). The CHPS has established criteria similar to that of the United State Green Building Council's LEED program for commercial and residential construction (see Environment Watch, Page 3). Twenty-six school districts, including Los Angeles Unified and other large districts, have adopted CHPS standards. "I think it's going to be big," said David Thorman, who, as state architect, is responsible for overseeing all public school construction. "We're just starting. The CHPS program is all-encompassing." Indeed, CHPS covers indoor air quality, thermal, visual and acoustic comfort, energy and water efficiency, indoor fixtures and materials, site development and stormwater control, architecture and even the way the facilities integrate into a neighborhood. There are two primary reasons the program appeals to districts: Both students and teachers perform better in CHPS-certified schools, and plant operating costs are decreased. "They have found that when schools are built to CHPS standards, kids are better learners and are healthier," said Thorman, who believes that studies completed to date are credible. So does Guy Mehula, chief facilities executive for the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD). "The two biggest pieces that affect the production of the kids is daylighting in the classroom, and the acoustics in the classroom," Mehula said. "And the third piece, I would say, is the indoor air quality, especially here in Los Angeles." Ted Rozzi, assistant superintendent for school facilities in the Corona-Norco Unified School District and chairman of the Coalition for Adequate School Housing, agreed that alternative design and project delivery are hot topics in the school business these days. "It's been a subject in our district as we were planning a sixth comprehensive high school," Rozzi said. Although the project has slowed because of site availability issues, district officials envision a school with sustainable architecture and technology, which could then serve as a laboratory for students. "It just seemed to be the right thing to do. From a curricular aspect, it makes sense," he said. Skeptics contend that school officials are "greenwashing" ordinary projects. The skepticism may arise because some of what CHPS involves is very basic: Orientation of the school building so it makes the best use of natural light, skylights, windows that open and provide cross-ventilation, shade trees in appropriate places, low-water landscaping and drip irrigation. Not exactly high-tech stuff. Other features of CHPS-certified schools, however, can be more involved: high-efficiency and extraordinarily quiet heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems and ducts, downsized cooling systems where appropriate, recycled or sustainable building materials, carefully selected furnishing and fixtures, abundant insulation, pitched roofs with solar panels or photovoltaic cells, or low-sloped roofs with a white mineral cap sheet to limit heat retention, and — especially in polluted areas — heavy-duty air filtration systems. These schools also often feature highly automated lighting and HVAC systems that rapidly adjust to room conditions. "From the beginning of the design process," the CHPS literature states, "each of the building elements — windows, walls, building materials, air conditioning, landscaping, etc. — is considered part of an integrated system of interacting components. Choices in one area often affect other building systems; integrated design leverages these interactions to maximize the overall building performance." That approach is a significant departure from covering the ball field with portable classrooms. Among the most committed to green school facilities is the LAUSD, the nation's largest school district. For about 30 years, the district built no new schools and invested little in the facilities it did have. But in 2001, the district embarked on a gigantic, $20 billion construction program that is scheduled to result in 132 new schools and the overhaul of dozens more by 2013 (see CP&DR Public Development , December 2002). The district has completed 68 new schools, for which CHPS criteria has been applied to 42. The district has used CHPS for 15 existing school upgrades. All 20 new schools scheduled to open during the next two years will be CHPS-certified, according to an LAUSD spokesman. "Green" schools do cost roughly 5% to 10% more to build. "The additional cost is in energy-efficient mechanical systems," explained Thorman. Yet CHPS proponents contend such systems help schools save 30% to 40% on energy bills. Mehula, of the LAUSD, said that when the green features are integrated into the design of a school up-front, construction cost does not have to cost more. Besides construction techniques and building operations, CHPS criteria also include site selection, land development and neighborhood compatibility. The CHPS best practices manual recommends selecting sites near public transportation and within walking distance of a majority of students to decrease energy use and local traffic congestion. Some school districts are bringing back bike racks and working with other government entities on bike lanes and paths that serve school campuses. CHPS also provides instruction on capturing stormwater in cisterns, ponds and vegetated areas. The LAUSD designs new schools to promote community use of the facilities, said Mehula. Playgrounds are available as public park and recreation space, and buildings are designed so that sections can be locked off while community members use other sections, he said. "We know that schools need to be centers of the community," he said. Thorman's big emphasis is on energy independence for schools. Photovoltaic cells may be installed on existing schools, he said, and solar panels may be designed into new facilities, even serving as shade structures in a parking lot. Contacts: David Thorman, state architect of California, (916) 445-8100. Guy Mehula, Los Angeles Unified School District, (213) 241-7000. Ted Rozzi, Corona-Norco Unified School District, (951) 736-5045. Collaborative for High Performance Schools: http://www.chps.net/

Many things have improved in the past 30 years. Examples are the quality of digital cameras, the design of camping tents and the critical standing of comic books. Others have gotten worse, such as gasoline prices, the narrowing separation between church and state and the reputation of postmodern architecture. But has sustainable planning gotten better or worse? Mere drift seems unlikely: The world of planning has been in an uproar for much of the past quarter century. Urbanism and the repair of aging cities, rather than the endless replication of car-centered suburbia, has become the main thrust of the planning profession. The new urbanism has made a splash and given rise to a pushback in certain quarters. Above all, concerns about the future viability of human life on earth have become a central preoccupation of the culture at large, rather than the concern of a few sky-is-falling nut jobs nattering about rigid insulation and the angle of the sun in late October. The good news is that widespread worry about Spaceship Earth has made sustainable planning a mainstream product. Developers, including homebuilders, are tripping over their LEED certifications to prove their goodwill towards mankind, not to mention their moral superiority to other developers (those despoilers). Green community planning is widespread, and will probably become the norm. Once the applause of self-congratulation dies down, however, the question is whether the current fashionability of green planning represents an advance over the quality of work done when sustainability had granola in its collective beard. For the sake of argument, I have selected a project from the late 1970s – the famed Village Homes in Davis – and a recently approved scheme for Windsor Mill Housing in the Town of Windsor. The choice of these two schemes out of many others entails a long list of disclaimers. Yes, sites differ in topography, biology, climate and cost, and the same designer, working in two dissimilar places, might come up with two very different schemes without any self-contradiction. That said, let's look at what is good and bad, advanced and regressive, in both of these schemes. Village Homes Designed and developed by Mike and Judy Corbett in 1977, Village Homes remains a radical experiment that has weathered well. Landscape, rather than the built environment, seems to dominate and becomes the vehicle of communal life in the form of common gardens, orchards and vineyards. A system of open drainage channels collects stormwater, sparing the developer the need to build conventional storm drains. It's a brilliant innovation if communities are prepared to manage the safety risk of open water. The orderly site plan arranges houses in rows, while public spaces and retail are concentrated on the west (lower right in the illustration). With primacy given to planting, rather than construction, the non-show-offy houses of Village Homes look like adjuncts to a large garden, rather than the other way around. For children in search of exercise and adventure, the development may well look like heaven. But do people want to open heaven to outsiders, or to allow change? In a monograph about Village Homes by Mark Francis (Landscape Architecture Foundation, 2003) the Corbetts reported that some homeowners opposed the construction of the retail space during the 1980s, even though those facilities had been part of the original plan. Windsor Mill Housing The more recent plan is Windsor Mill Housing, designed over a period from 1997 to 2007 by a team led by Lois Fisher when she was principal at Fisher and Hall Urban Design of Santa Rosa. (She is currently principal of Fisher Town Design. Other members of the design included JZMK Group, Ripley Design Group, Carlenzoli & Associates and KTGY Group.) Their site plan for Windsor Mill achieves a fine balance between new urbanist formality and tract-building ingenuity. Faced with a very awkward site—imagine a row of mountains drawn by a child—Fisher has made lemonade by locating a park in the center of the largest triangle and arranging the streets around it. Although streets are almost all different lengths, and intersect at different places, the final result is order, not developer spaghetti. Almost every part of the site looks and feels different from every other part, so residents would always know exactly where they are. Although approved by the Town of Windsor in 2005, no homebuilding has started yet at Windsor Mill, presumably due to the weak housing market. The sustainable bits at Windsor Mill include preservation of existing oak trees, which will form part of a linear park along the banks of Windsor Creek; beyond the creek are disused freight rail tracks. A long row of houses, fronted by porches, face the water and the tracks. Fisher says the plan is intended to "celebrate the public realm," and the houses along the water are dressed for promenade. Is This Progress? Is Windsor Mill, then, an advance on Village Homes? I admire both projects, and would be happy to live in either. The big difference is the notion of public space. In the near-utopian setting of Village Homes, the line between public and private seems intentionally blurred: One visitor complains of feeling self-conscious because he wasn't sure if he was trespassing into somebody's back yard. By not making an explicit distinction between public and private, the designers may have created the unintended consequence at Village Homes that nothing seems completely public. At Windsor Mill, in contrast, the new urbanist plan draws clean lines between public and private, and arguably adds some drama and importance to those areas that are intended for all. Village Homes may win in terms of enchantment, but the cost of that magic spell may be a fully inclusive sense of a public realm. Given the high land values in California, Village Homes, with its low densities and high ratio of open space to housing, seems an isolated experiment, albeit with lessons to share. Windsor Mill, on the other hand, is urban infill designed to plug into the surrounding city. Village Homes taught us how to live amid a living landscape with respect and stewardship; Windsor Mill updates that lesson with urban values and a clear sense of public space. If Village Homes offers a desirable way of life, Windsor Mill gives us a plan of action for a viable urban future. In a world of increasing scarcity, that counts as an improvement.

Marin County has adopted a new general plan that emphasizes "sustainable communities" and reflects a strong concern about global climate change. Although the Board of Supervisors adopted the Marin Countywide Plan only in November, there is already evidence the plan could serve as a model for other jurisdictions in California and across the country. Rather than prepare a separate green building element or sustainability chapter, Marin County planners made an overarching environmental ethic the basis for nearly every goal, objective and policy in the plan. "We opted not to have a sustainability or green chapter, but to have sustainability as an underlying theme throughout the plan," said Marin County Planning Director Alex Hines. "The idea is that it would be a recurring thread throughout the entire document." According to Hines, the plan is the first local comprehensive plan in the country to calculate the ecological footprint of the average resident and to include extensive measures intended to reduce that footprint. The plan has been an "Internet hit" since before adoption, said Hines. In December, the American Planning Association named Marin County's sustainability program that is the basis for the new general plan as the winner of a national award for excellence in planning implementation. The planning process in Marin was long — seven years from start to finish — and included all of the usual "blood and guts" battles over where development should occur, Hines said. In the end, seemingly everyone found something to dislike. Affordable housing advocates said the plan did not offer enough places and policies to encourage homes that poor and working-class people can afford in a county where the median price is about $950,000. Neighborhood activists argued against development in their backyards. Environmentalists decried the amount of commercial development potential. Business interests and landowners complained about what they see as overly burdensome regulation. But what nearly everyone agreed on is the plan's sustainability theme. In Marin County, people do not dismiss global climate change as an Al Gore-inspired conspiracy, and the "Three Es" of sustainability — environment, economy and equality — as mere political correctness. (Marin County, after all, is the home of Senator Barbara Boxer.) Because of this social and political dynamic, Marin County's plan may not be of use everywhere. Larry Mintier, a Sacramento-based general plan consultant, said most cities and counties right now fall into one of two categories: The true believers in sustainability such as Marin County, and the "rest of the world" that simply wants to avoid getting sued over the climate change impacts of their plans. One problem is that climate change has become a local issue late in the process of many general plan updates, Mintier said. Still, even late in the process, it is not a subject to ignore. "These days, in terms of environmental review and looking at the obvious considerations in a general plan update, climate change and water are at the top of the list," Mintier said. What would help planners is coordinated guidance from the Air Resources Board, the attorney general's office and the Governor's Office of Planning and Research, Mintier said. Those agencies need to define sustainability, provide a set of principles for sustainable development, and discuss sustainability in the context of the larger issue of climate change, he recommended. "Everybody concedes that we're still making this up from month to month because we don't have very much guidance," Mintier said. In Butte County, sustainability is one of the guiding principles in a effort to update a 30-year-old general plan, said Development Services Director Tim Snellings. "The board understands it. Everybody understands it to some degree. But we're really just really getting into what sustainability means," Snellings said. Indeed, sustainability can mean different things to different people. In Marin County, the concept of sustainability clearly means decreasing human kind's negative impact on the local and global environment. But, Hinds emphasized, "It isn't just about people buying Priuses and slapping solar panels on their roofs." Sustainability means making strategic planning choices and encouraging needed, responsible development, he said. "We took the principles of sustainability and strategic planning, and we combined them," Hinds said. To this end, he added, the countywide plan encourages infill and redevelopment projects that "recolonize the asphalt — that take underutilized, unattractive development and create some community gathering places, and transit, and housing next to the transit, and jobs. That's all part of caring about the land. You can't just buy conservation easements." "Green" mixed-use infill can improve community vitality and decrease the use of fossil fuel, Hinds contended. To this end, the plan calls for 1,700 new housing units within about 15 housing overlay designations and on mixed-use sites. These are basically locations within or near a commercial core area. These infill units amount to nearly half of all additional residential units the plan permits at buildout. If those numbers seem low in a county of 606 square miles (87% of which is unincorporated, and, therefore subject of the countywide plan) and 255,000 people, consider that the county has long directed growth into the 11 incorporated cities. Three previous general plans all provided some basis for the county's latest plan. The 1973 general plan sliced the county into three north-south corridors — a coastal recreation corridor composed primarily of federal parklands, farmland and very small communities, an inland rural corridor composed of farmland and small communities, and a city-centered corridor along Highway 101. The plan essentially shifted potential development away from the coast to the strip of cities along Highway 101 in the eastern part of the county. The 1982 plan identified growth areas around the cities. The 1994 plan added agricultural, park and recreation, and economic elements. The new plan keeps the three corridors and adds a fourth for areas between Highway 101 and San Pablo Bay. The plan generally discourages development in this baylands corridor because of the desire to enhance wetlands and because of worries about sea level rise. Although the policies are not entirely new, they were not universally popular because some sites in the corridor have been considered for development. One such site is known as the St. Vincent's and Silveira lands — 1,230 acres just north of San Rafael. The property owners for years have discussed extensive housing development. The countywide plan permits development of only a senior care complex on about 30 to 40 acres. Besides adding the baylands corridor, planners reformatted the new plan into three sections: • The natural systems and agriculture element focuses on biology, water, environmental hazards, atmosphere and climate, open space, agriculture and food. • The built environment element addresses towns and development, design, energy and green building, housing, transportation and public facilities. • The socioeconomic element focuses on the economy, child care, public safety, community participation, education, environmental justice, public health, historical resources, and parks and recreation. Within these three sections are the seven required general plan elements (conservation, open space, land use, circulation, housing, noise and safety) and five optional elements (agriculture, community facilities, parks and recreation, trails and economic). The plan calls for assessing greenhouse gas emissions and setting targets to reduce those emissions. The art, said Hinds, is to set benchmarks that are simultaneously aggressive, achievable and flexible. Marin planners included indicators so they and the public could measure how the county is doing. Strict benchmarks, however, could be setting yourself up for failure, warned Hinds, who recommended planners seek legal counsel. Marin County did not wait for the new general plan to begin implementing a green building program. The program requires new large houses to be ultra-energy efficient and provides incentives for green construction. The larger the development, the more green measures the county requires. Because building codes are dictated by the state, the county enforces its green measures through the discretionary planning process, explained Alec Hoffman, who heads the county's green building program. The result is that the average new residential house in Marin County is 20% more energy efficient that required by California standards. That matters because the built environment contributes about 44% of Marin County's generation of carbon dioxide, including 17% that comes from the unincorporated area, according to the plan. This is in the context of an "ecological footprint" (the amount of land required to sustain the current lifestyle, including natural areas to absorb carbon dioxide) of 27 acres per capita — which is more than the national average of 24 acres, and two to three times the amount of European countries. What is considered "sustainable" worldwide is roughly 4 to 5 acres per capita. In other words, although Marin County residents have a strong environmental bent, they have not been living within their ecological means. Contacts: Alex Hinds, Marin County Planning Department, (415) 499-6278. Larry Mintier, J. Laurence Mintier & Associates, (916) 446-0522. Tim Snellings, Butte County Department of Development Services, (530) 538-6821. Marin Countywide Plan: http://www.co.marin.ca.us/depts/CD/main/fm/index.cfm The following is an excerpt from the introduction to the Marin Countywide Plan: Planning sustainable communities is the overarching theme of the Marin Countywide Plan. Marin County government is committed to lead by example, promote public participation, and work in community partnerships to protect the natural systems that support life and improve our quality of life. To design a sustainable future, we — the larger Marin community — will strive to accomplish the following: 1. Link equity, economy and the environment locally, regionally and globally. 2. Minimize the use of finite resources. 3. Reduce the use and minimize the release of hazardous materials. 4. Reduce greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global warming. 5. Preserve our natural assets. 6. Protect our agricultural assets. 7. Provide efficient and effective transportation. 8. Supply housing affordable to the full range of our members of the workforce and diverse community. 9. Foster businesses that create economic, environmental and social benefits. 10. Educate and prepare our workforce and residents. 11. Cultivate ethnic, cultural and socioeconomic diversity. 12. Support public health, safety and social justice.

San Francisco may soon have the country's most stringent environmental building standards. Under a plan endorsed by Mayor Gavin Newsom and almost guaranteed to be approved by the Board of Supervisors, the city would require all new residential buildings over 75 feet tall, all new commercial buildings of more than 5,000 square feet, and renovations to any building of at least 25,000 square feet to meet minimum LEED standards established by the United States Green Building Council (see Environment Watch , Page 3). "We've got to stop playing within the margins and get serious about addressing our reliance on fossil fuels," Newsom said in a prepared statement. Meanwhile, during the first half of the year, San Francisco is likely to adopt solar panel installation incentives worth $3,000 to $5,000 per residence, and up to $10,000 per business. While other cities, including Los Angeles, offer larger incentives, San Francisco property owners are also eligible for Pacific Gas & Electric solar incentives of up to $8,900 for residents and $10,000 for businesses. The combined incentives would cover roughly half the $30,000 the cost of a three-kilowatt solar system. California's "million solar roofs initiative" that gained so much attention when Gov. Schwarzenegger signed it in 2006 appears to have had something of a rough first full year. The California Solar Initiative program is supposed to result in 3,000 megawatts of new solar-produced electricity by 2017. Through the first nine months of 2007, the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) received more than 5,000 commercial and residential applications for a total of 160 megawatts of new solar power. The PUC has cast the figure positively, saying it demonstrates "enormous new interest in solar." Critics, however, note that the megawatts reserved through the applications are not the same as megawatts actually generated. A number of applicants dropped out of the program during processing, and new installations were generating less than 10% of the 160 megawatts in applications. Consulting firm SunCentric called the results of the program "extremely disappointing" and said the PUC's switch to a new way of awarding incentives to solar system owners has been a "nightmare." SunCentric and others noted that the number of residential installations fell sharply during 2007. Apparently recognizing that problems existed, the PUC has streamlined some aspects of the program and, based on new legislation, altered rate structures. The Oakland Planning Commission in December approved what would be one of the largest LEED-certified buildings in state — a 23-story downtown office tower. Besides a number of environmentally friendly construction materials and techniques, the 500,000-square-foot tower will be right next to a BART station, and will feature bicycle lockers as well as showers for tenants. Covering the entire block bounded by 11th and 12th Streets, Jefferson Street and Marin Luther King Jr. Way, the tower will be one of the tallest in the Oakland skyline. Retail space is planned for the ground floor, and an underground lot will hold 200 cars. The project is a joint venture of Shorenstein Properties and MetLife Real Estate Investments.