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If you've ever shopped around for securities or mutual funds, you've heard the caveat that past results are no guarantee of future performance. The same warning apparently applies to California's water system. A report released by the White House this week makes clear that climate change is very likely to alter precipitation patterns. Essentially, the mountains will get more rain and less snow, and arid areas will experience longer droughts. Much of California's water system — the federal Central Valley Project, the State Water Project and the Colorado River system — is predicated on capturing and redirecting snowmelt during the dry months of late spring, summer and early fall. We need to rethink this system, according to "The Scientific Assessment of the Effects of Global Change on the United States." "Although U.S. water management practices are generally quite advanced, particularly in the West, the reliance on past conditions as the foundation for current and future planning and practices will no longer be tenable as climate change and variability increasingly create conditions that are well outside of historical parameters, eroding predictability," the report states. The report continues: "Across North America, vulnerability to extended drought is increasing as population growth and economic development create more demands from agricultural, municipal and industrial uses, resulting in frequent over-allocation of water resources. Examples of vulnerable U.S. regions include: the heavily used water systems of the West that rely on capturing snowmelt runoff, such as the Colombia and Colorado River systems; portions of California …" The 271-page report — which the Bush Administration released only under court order — does not present new science. Rather, it is a comprehensive summary of federal and independent research concerning human-caused global climate change. Give credit to the California Department of Water Resources, which — as we reported in 2003 — has been grappling with the implications of climate change for years. A climate change technical advisory committee is assisting with an ongoing update of the California Water Plan . The White House report says that predicting climate change's impact on particular cities or regions is difficult because of climate variability. Still, the report is packed with findings of particular relevance to California. Among those findings are these: • Sea level is expected to rise between 7 and 23 inches by the end of the this century — and could rise even more depending on ice melt in Greenland and Antarctica. This higher sea level combined with expected larger storm surges will increase coastal erosion and cause damage farther inland. • During the last three decades, fire season in the West has lengthened, and burn duration has increased, partly because of climate change-caused insect outbreaks and tree mortality. "These trends are very likely to continue." • "Many plants and animals in arid ecosystems are near their physiological limits for tolerating temperature and water stress, and even slight changes in stress will have significant consequences." Riparian ecosystems in arid areas are particularly vulnerable, as are "iconic megaflora, such as saguaro cacti and Joshua trees" that are not adapted to cycles of fire. This finding makes one wonder about the long-range habitat conservation plans prepared for San Diego County, western Riverside County, the Coachella Valley and the Mojave Desert. • Coldwater fisheries will suffer in the southern portions of ranges, a finding that raises questions about the survival of salmon and steelhead in California.   • Water quality will diminish because of higher surface water temperatures, intrusion of saltwater into groundwater aquifers, and the introduction of more sediment, nutrients, pathogens and toxics caused by increased intense rainstorms. "These water quality changes could impose enormous costs on water treatment infrastructure." • Population growth is shifting toward coastal regions most vulnerable to the effects of climate change. Hello L.A. and San Diego. • Flooding and landslides are "very likely" to interrupt road, rail and sea transportation systems. "The crucial connectivity of the transportation system means that the services of the network can be threatened even if small segments are wiped out." The good news? Agricultural growing seasons should continue to lengthen, demand for wintertime heating will decrease, and wintertime road maintenance should be less of a concern. But those limited advantages or overwhelmed by the negatives. - Paul Shigley

Westwood Village sits in the middle of a rare constellation of commercial districts. To the east lie Prada, Spago and the extravagance of Beverly Hills. To the south, Century City offers a resplendent new multiplex and every imaginable upscale chain store. To the west, Santa Monica's Promenade ranks as the paragon of L.A. urbanism. Further afield, the ersatz streets of The Grove and CityWalk attract "destination" shoppers from all over the region. By the unusual standards of West Los Angeles, Westwood Village could be cited for blight. Yet even as other pockets of the Westside become ever more upscale, the city's new focus on "elegant density" and strategic infill might leave Westwood behind. Westwood Village � an extraordinary jumble of short streets, odd angles, mixed use, and Spanish revival architecture next to UCLA � has for the past 20 years wheezed between two lives, neither Berkeley nor Beverly Hills. Today, a genteel tug-of-war continues between density and seclusion, youth and wealth, complacency and vibrancy. "The demographics of Westwood Village are outstanding," said Laura Lake, co-president of Save Westwood Village. "It's strange that it's become the Bermuda Triangle of retail. But the potential is tremendous." The latest and biggest attempt to realize Westwood's potential opened last month in the form of the Palazzo, a neo-Tuscan complex of 350 apartments, 1,200 parking spaces, and several storefronts. Its original design, critics say, tried to shoehorn nearly all of Florence into a city block. Countless meetings, revisions, and reinterpretations of zoning laws later, the Palazzo is now welcoming residents who, it is hoped, will stimulate the businesses outside their front doors. "It is overly dense but may bring more life to the Village by having a residential population," said Lake. "The use was never the issue, but rather, the scale." Rounding out what passes for a building boom in an area unaccustomed to new construction, a smaller mixed-use project, Plaza Lorena, is under The Palazzo is the largest new project in Westwood Village in many years. way just south of the Palazzo. Both developments hearken to a vision of smart growth and density that L.A. public officials, most notably Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, have been promoting. City Councilmember Jack Weiss, who represents Westwood, said he welcomes "green, sustainable projects that encourage pedestrians and support transit." City Hall has not, however, put forward a cohesive strategy for the Village to promote growth � smart or otherwise � despite the Village's ready-made streetscape. The city, in fact, still relies on a prescriptive, 19-year-old specific plan for Westwood that encourages cars and discourages restaurants and bars. The Palazzo's more discerning neighbors may yet decide whether a trend is afoot. "I don't think there is such thing as �elegant density,'" said Sandy Brown, president of the Westwood-Holmby Homeowners Association. "The infrastructure in Westwood Village will not accommodate that kind of excessive development." But the Palazzo is not merely big. Billed as a "catalyst for the Village," it combats blight with bling. With two-bedrooms starting at $3,700 and amenities that include concierge service and Pilates, few Palazzo residents are likely to be students. The high-end housing continues a trend, as UCLA Student Body President Gabe Rose said that condominium conversions have been eating up cheaper apartments and pushing the Village away from its buoyant past. "I have this feeling that Westwood is becoming less of a college town," said Rose. Old urbanism Conceived during the 1920s as a commercial center for the university, the Village occupies a trapezoidal plot between Wilshire Boulevard and UCLA. Movie palaces and some of the city's best shopping attracted such large pedestrian throngs that by the 1960s cars were often banned. "The bones are great," said UCLA Planning Professor Don Shoup. "A lot of what the new urbanists are recommending is what Westwood Village had from the beginning: a variety of densities, a village at the center, an interesting street layout." "It's not new urbanism�it's old urbanism," said architect Stefanos Polyzoides, who co-founded the Congress for New Urbanism and designed Plaza Lorena. But with history comes baggage. By the mid-1980s the Village's weekend crowds had grown increasingly large, diverse, and unruly. Bloods and Crips shared uneasy streets with Bruins until an undiscerning bullet struck 27-year-old graphic artist Karen Toshima on a January evening in 1988. Almost overnight, crowds receded and Westwood became a forlorn enclave serving a local clientele. "We hit rock-bottom," said Lake. "The merchants got hurt badly." Toshima's story is cited so often it is easy to imagine that her ghost has been stifling Westwood. Lake said that to this day "residents don't want it so vibrant that gangs come in and problems happen." But, beyond the shock, more prosaic forces may have been undermining Westwood Village. "I don't think that any of the problems that occurred in the past are what's keeping it from being successful today," said Paul Geigner, president of Topa Management, which manages 200,000 square feet of retail in the Village. "Those were anomalies." Though its streetscape may be the stuff of Jane Jacobs's dreams, other aspects of the Village belong to planners' nightmares: chaotic parking, geographic constraints, the Westside's infamous traffic, and many stakeholders unconcerned about economic development. With Bel Air to the north and corporate offices to the south, there are few places in the world where the interests of freshman and tycoon are so entangled. "One of Westwood Village's great strengths is the diversity of individuals, homeowners, students, merchants, and property owners," said Weiss. "This strength also presents challenges because each group � has a different vision." The closest thing the Village has to a consensus is embodied in the Village specific plan, which represents the hopes, fears, and planning strategies of a bygone era. Adopted, in a gruesome concurrence, on the one-year anniversary of Toshima's murder, the plan's stated goals include historic preservation, a "balanced mix" of businesses, and mitigation of impacts on local residential areas. Amended once, in 1991, the plan imagines a contrived reality in which particular stores serve just the right patrons. In particular, the plan promotes retail at the expense of eateries. It allows no more than one fast food restaurant per 400 feet of street front, and conventional restaurants are limited to one per 200 feet � notwithstanding the fact that Westwood's appetite rivals those of many cities' downtowns. The plan also forbids stand-alone bars, and it puts upscale fast food in the same category as McDonald's. The plan does nothing to ease the Village's chaotic parking scheme, which requires redevelopment to provide a net gain of parking spaces amid a patchwork of private lots and 50-cents-per-hour street parking. Though Lake called it "a visionary plan, particularly because of its incentives for historic preservation," it has presided over a commercial district that "has been kind of standing still while everything around us has been upgraded and improved," according to Geigner. "This is not a clear-minded, simple plan," said Polyzoides. "It's about EIRs, obstructions, and nonsense." "The absence of a great planning document bespeaks the fact that there isn't a discussion going on," said Polyzoides, who added that "second-rate towns" are adopting the sort of plans that Westwood needs. (Despite repeated solicitation, representatives of the L.A. Planning Department were not available for comment.) Isn't there a college around here? At the same time, attempts to unite the Village under a marketing plan and leasing strategy have met with disaster. Several years ago, an attempted business improvement district "was badly managed," according to UCLA's Shoup, and became "one of the few BIDs in the country that's ever been disbanded." And despite its heft, UCLA traditionally stays out of land-use issues beyond its campus. "I think it takes a concerted effort with the city, the local resident population, and the commercial property owners," said Gienger. "It's been very hard to get everyone on the same page." A purposeful discussion may not arrive until 2012, when the specific plan is scheduled to be updated. In the meantime, the Village continues to surrender to nondescript eateries, beauty supply stores, and undistinguished chains. There is little discussion about the potential economic gain of student traffic. The Village has two student-oriented bars for the 36,000 undergrads and graduate students who study within walking distance. Homeowner Brown said, "The bars certainly are in excess." Yet among many students, the Village's quietude is a running joke. "Westwood's offerings are sub-par, to put it extremely diplomatically," said Sierus Erdelyi, president of the UCLA Law Student Association. "This does not make economic sense for what could be a bustling college town." Other districts, such as downtown L.A. and Hollywood, are welcoming bars and clubs with bright new plans and outspoken boosters. In the Village, however, bars must primarily serve food and are therefore subject not only to liquor laws but also to the specific plan's limits on restaurant density. Nightspots cannot allow dancing, and the community often objects to such amusements as billiards and happy hours. But in the effort to interpret the specific plan's elusive "balanced mix," Rose, the student body president, admitted that "apathy usually reigns off campus" and that students rarely assert their concerns in public processes. This isn't to say that, there aren't bright spots in the Village for residents and students alike. Ralph's established a welcomed grocery store in the shell of a former department store, and Whole Foods followed soon thereafter. The Gap has left, but Urban Outfitters persists, and Trader Joe's is moving into the ground floor of the Palazzo. Hollywood premiers take place at the Village Theater, and hookah bars have thrived absent competition from alcohol. And yet, just as the Palazzo's floors were being polished, the National Theater, a remarkable brown single-screen blob from the 1970s, met with a wrecking crew. A single story of retail, crowned by rooftop parking, will replace it. Contacts & Resources: Los Angeles Councilmember Jack Weiss, (213) 473-7005 Stefanos Polyzoides, Moule & Polyzoides, (626) 844-2400 Paul Geigner, Topa Management, (310) 203-9199 Westwood Village specific plan: http://cityplanning.lacity.org/complan/specplan/sparea/wwdvillagepage.htm Palazzo website: www.palazzowestwood.com/home.htm

The Inland Empire needs a better-educated workforce, more jobs and greater political participation by Latinos and Asians, according to a recent report by the Public Policy Institute of California. The PPIC researchers estimated that the Riverside-San Bernardino metro area's population will increase by 1 million from 2005 to 2015, to 4.9 million people. They also found that about 30% of workers commute to jobs in Los Angeles, Orange and San Diego counties. The majority of Inland Empire residents will be Latino by 2015, yet if current voting patterns persist, whites "will make up the majority of voters even though they will constitute little more than one-third of the adult population," according to the PPIC. The PPIC estimated the pace of job growth in the Inland Empire would exceed population growth, but warned about low educational attainment. The report found that of 51 metro areas in the country with more than 500,000 jobs, the Inland Empire ranked second to last in annual average wage at $36,924 — about $6,000 less than the next lowest California metro area, Sacramento. Shortly before the PPIC report was issued, Forbes magazine listed the City of Riverside as one of the top 10 cities for jobs because of its 4.3% annual increase in jobs and 4.9% increase per year in income over five years. Riverside was the only California city on the list, which was topped by Cape Coral, Florida. The PPIC report, "The Inland Empire in 2015," is available at www.ppic.org . Incorporation of a new city is not subject to California Environmental Quality Act review, a Monterey County Superior Court judge has ruled. Judge Lydia Villarreal determined that potential environmental impacts of creating the Town of Carmel Valley were either too speculative to study or not directly tied to incorporation. "There is no substantial evidence in the whole record of any potential effect on the physical environment," Judge Villarreal wrote in a decision issued in May. She determined that incorporation of Carmel Valley is not a "project" for purposes of CEQA. The Monterey County Local Agency Formation Commission and incorporation proponents have battled over whether an environmental impact report is required. Proponents say such a document is unnecessary and they now hope to get incorporation of the community southeast of Carmel on the ballot in the near future. The incorporation ruling was not the only news from Carmel Valley in May. A different Superior Court judge rejected the water analysis in the EIR for the long-planned and controversial September Ranch subdivision. In 2001, an appellate court rejected the water analysis for what was then a 109-unit project ( Save Our Peninsula Com. v. County of Monterey , 87 Cal.App.4th 99; see CP&DR Legal Digest , April 2001 ). In late 2006, the county approved a revised, 95-unit subdivision, but opponents returned to court. Judge Susan Dauphine ruled that the revised EIR's analysis of cumulative water demand was faulty. Bond measures to fund seismic safety projects for two public hospitals have failed. Voters in the Sonoma Valley Healthcare District provided 61.8% support for a $45 million bond that would have cost property owners $9.23 per $100,000 in assessed value. Meanwhile, 65.3% of voters in Stanislaus County's Oak Valley Hospital District backed a $27 million bond, which would have provided partial funding for a $110 million hospital replacement project. However, neither measure received the required two-thirds approval. The Sonoma Valley district may return to ballot with a new bond measure as soon as November.

A three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit has dismissed as moot an animal rights group's challenge of the environmental review documents for a program in which the National Park Service eradicated feral pigs on Santa Cruz Island. A group called In Defense of Animals (IDA) argued that the co-owners of the island, the park service and The Nature Conservancy (TNC), violated the National Environmental Policy Act and the California Environmental Quality Act in a variety of ways. The group conceded the introduced pigs were a hazard to historical and natural resources on the island, which is part of Channel Islands National Park. But the group argued for a non-lethal method of eradicating the pigs. The park service and TNC adopted a restoration plan in 2003 that called for shooting the pigs. Two years later, IDA sued, but a district court judge ruled for the park service and TNC. On appeal, the Ninth Circuit said the case was moot because all of the pigs already had been killed. "Because we cannot resurrect the pigs, nor retroactively remedy any pain that they might have felt from being shot, or take any other action to prevent or undo the eradication at issue here, we lack the power to grant any effective relief," the court ruled. The case is Feldman v. Bomar , No. 06-55675, 2008 DJDAR 389. It was filed January 10, 2008 and modified March 3, 2008 at 2008 DJDAR 3092.

A Ninth U.S. Circuit of Appeals ruling striking down San Diego County's ordinance regulating cell phone antenna location and appearance has been set aside, and the case will be reconsidered by the court. In March 2007, a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit ruled the county's ordinance violated the federal Telecommunications Act of 1996 because the ordinance's discretionary review provisions could prohibit wireless communications services. However, the court did little to explain how exactly how the ordinance ran afoul of the federal statute (see CP&DR Legal Digest, May 2007 ). San Diego County and local government organizations including the National League of Cities contended that the Telecommunications Act actually preserves the local zoning authority the county was exercising. They sought an en banc hearing in which a much larger panel of Ninth Circuit judges would decide the case. Fourteen months after the original decision came down, the majority of Ninth Circuit judges voted for an en banc hearing. The larger panel may still rule for the cell phone company and could even keep the original ruling. But at this point, the three-judge panel's decision may not be cited as precedent. Interestingly, the state Supreme Court earlier this year dropped its review of a Fourth District Court of Appeal decision upholding the San Diego County ordinance (see CP&DR Legal Digest, August 2006 ). The state Supreme Court said the state court case was moot because of the Ninth Circuit ruling striking down the ordinance — a ruling that is now in jeopardy. The federal court case is Sprint Telephony PCS v. County of San Diego , No. 05-56076.

The owner of an affordable apartment complex in Sacramento may pursue a breach of contract lawsuit against the state Department of Housing and Community Development over a rent increase that the state rejected, the Third District Court of Appeal has ruled. The unanimous three-judge appellate panel overruled a Sacramento County Superior Court judge, who had tossed out the lawsuit because of technical uncertainties in the suit. The for-profit developer 300 DeHaro Street Investors acquired the 67-unit Castle Garden Apartments in the unincorporated Arden-Arcade area in 1989. The following year, the developer received a $1.9 million, low-interest loan from Housing and Community Development (HCD) to fund apartment rehabilitation. The loan agreement requires DeHaro Street to provide 54 units to low-income households, and permits HCD to set rents for those units based on a formula. In 2002, the property owner sued HCD, arguing that HCD had breached the contract by not approving a requested rent increase. The sides went back and forth over technical aspects of the suit before Superior Court Judge Loren McMaster finally dismissed the suit. McMaster's decision was based on Code of Civil Procedure § 1094.5, which concerns challenges of administrative orders and decisions. The state agency contended that statute applied to this case because HCD denied the proposed rent increase after conducting a "paper hearing." However, the Third District determined that § 1094.5 did not apply here. " ven assuming the department's review of plaintiff's request could be characterized as a hearing, it does not trigger § 1094.5 review unless the hearing was required by law, which was not the case here," Justice Richard Sims wrote. Instead, the court ruled that 300 DeHaro Street may press forward with its breach of contract claim because the property owner "does not challenge a mere administrative decision, but an administrative decision concerning a provision of a contract," Sims wrote. "That the contract incorporated statutes and regulations does not strip it of its contractual nature, because all contracts necessarily and implicitly incorporate all applicable laws in existence when the contract is entered." The Case: 300 DeHaro Street Investors v. Department of Housing and Community Development , No. C053033, 08 C.D.O.S. 4233. Filed April 10, 2008 The Lawyers: For 300 DeHaro Street: Jay-Allen Eisen, (916) 444-6171. For HCD: Teri Ashby, attorney general's office, (916) 445-9555.

A general plan that does not address the issue of climate change appears to be an endangered species. Numerous cities and counties in the process of updating their general plans are addressing climate change with policies for mitigating greenhouse gas emissions and, to a lesser extent, adapting to changing conditions. Some localities have adopted climate action plans that affect the general plan and other long-term planning documents, while others have written specific general plan policies and implementation measures. There is plenty of motivation for cities and counties now, and there may be more in the near future: • State Attorney General Jerry Brown insists that cities, counties and regional planning agencies consider climate change in long-term land use and transportation plans. • The California Air Resources Board appears headed toward adopting mandates for emission-reducing land use plans and development projects. • The Legislature is considering a bill that would require six of seven mandatory general plan elements to include policies aimed at reducing the emission of greenhouse gases. Most everyone involved says that the desire to reduce California's carbon footprint will force local government, to varying degrees, to approve "smart growth" policies and urban development patterns — and to reduce automobile-dominated suburban development. "There is a lot of enthusiasm among planners to deal with this issue," said Janill Richards, coordinator for global warming initiatives in the attorney general's office. "This is an opportunity for planners to do things they have wanted to do for a long time. This issue of climate change has given us an opportunity to talk about land use issues we've wanted to talk about for the last 20 to 30 years." The attorney general's office got everyone's attention last year when it sued San Bernardo County for not addressing a newly adopted general plan update's impact on global warming. The county got the attorney general's office to drop the lawsuit when the county agreed to adopt a general plan policy outlining ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions attributable to discretionary land use decisions, and to prepare a greenhouse gas reduction plan (see CP&DR In Brief , September 2007, July 2007). Since then, the attorney general's office has made a regular practice of telling cities and counties that they need to provide similar attention to greenhouse gas emissions and climate change. Although the AG's office has used threatening letters, representatives are willing to talk informally and provide guidance to cities and counties, Richards said. "We're trying to engage in discussion and collaborate with agencies," Richards said. Local planners offer mixed reports on the attorney general's involvement, with some clearly feeling threatened. But the City of San Diego's experience, said General Plan Program Manager Nancy Bragado, was positive. Although the AG's office did not enter the process until near the end, it did so in a "cooperative and helpful" fashion, Bragado said. The AG's representatives worked with city planners on strengthening and revising policies already in the draft plan that addressed greenhouse gas reductions, she said. In the end, San Diego incorporated a climate change matrix into the general plan's conservation element. The matrix essentially lists in one spot all policies related to climate change that are sprinkled throughout various elements of the plan. Although the AG initially insisted that San Diego prepare a separate climate change element, there was no point in writing a separate element, Bragado explained, because all general plan policies have equal weight. Eventually, the AG's office accepted the matrix. "We felt we were addressing climate change through our smart growth strategies, but it became clear we needed to focus on climate change," Bragado said. So the city refined and tightened up policies regarding urban design, green building, water management, transit, urban runoff and other issues that essentially fall into a "sustainability" rubric. The City Council voted unanimously to adopt the new general plan in March. Key to the city's approach is the "City of Villages" strategy, which, according to the general plan, "focuses the city's growth into compact, mixed-use centers of various scales that are linked to the regional transit system and preserve open space lands" (see CP&DR Insight , August 2002). Woodie Tescher, a vice principal for PBS&J who assisted with San Diego's plan, said that he has begun recommending cities and counties use the matrix approach. If a local government has employed sustainability policies, it will be "80% to 85%" of the way toward providing what the AG's office wants to see, he said. For Sacramento's general plan update, planners used the matrix as the first appendix in the general plan, he said. In San Diego and Sacramento, planners were well into general plan updates before climate change became a central issue. Thus, the matrix approach was one way to avoid greatly changing draft plans after years of public input, environmental analysis and planning. But Tescher said he recommends the matrix approach even to jurisdictions just beginning an update because a separate sustainability or climate change element would likely be redundant. The bigger issue, though, is the policies themselves. In March, the AG's office released a guidance document that suggests 30 climate change policies, programs or goals for conservation elements, nine for land use elements, 12 for circulation elements, eight for housing elements, five for open space elements, three for safety elements and four for energy elements. Some of the suggestions are fairly simply and noncontroversial, such as targeting grant funds to assist affordable housing developers with energy-efficient designs, promoting a range of housing choices near jobs, services and transit, and protecting existing trees. Other suggestions get to the very heart of community planning, such as: "Enact policies to limit or discourage low-density development that segregates employment, services and residential areas." Another suggested policy: "Give funding preference to investment in public transit over investment in infrastructure for private automobile traffic." Richards insisted that the document only provides suggestions and that her office remains sensitive to different contexts. In the Central Valley, for example, emissions from confined animals and trucks may be a bigger issue than the urban form, she said. "Urban infill is definitely part of the solution, but it is not the only answer," she said. "We're all kind of learning as we're doing it right now. What my office is looking for is a good-faith effort." Tescher, however, sees conflict coming. Suburban communities that have slow-growth policies, whether adopted by initiative or the city council, are likely to reject mandates for substantial increases in housing in already developed areas as a means of combating global climate change, he said. "In a lot of communities where the backlash already exists against any kind of infill development or growth, this is going to set off some serious debate about whether the city is going to address greenhouse gas emissions or not," he said. Soon, they might not have much choice. Senate Bill 375 (Steinberg), last year's blockbuster bill that stalled at the last minute, remains alive in the Legislature. The bill would use transportation funding as leverage to require local governments to make sustainable land use decisions (see CP&DR, September 2007). More directly, AB 2093 by Assemblyman Dave Jones (D-Sacramento) would require that greenhouse gas reduction policies be included in a city or county's next general plan update, or when cities and counties update their housing elements after 2009. It's unclear whether either bill will pass this year, especially with the Legislature focused on the budget. But many people expect such legislation to pass before too long. Jones and supporters of AB 2093, chiefly the Health Officers Association of California, contend that what they are looking for in general plans is easy to identify and incorporate. Cities and counties could simply pick and choose from policies that have already been written by other local governments, state agencies or the federal Environmental Protection Agency, they say. The legislation, they say, is not prescriptive. But Bill Higgins, a lobbyist for the League of California Cities, contended that AB 2093 in fact is prescriptive because it requires inclusion of policies in six general plan elements. Yet the broader question of whether climate change should be addressed in environmental review documents or long-term planning documents themselves has not been settled, he said. Even if the Legislature does not act, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) intends to. By the end of June, the board is scheduled to adopt a "scoping plan" for implementing AB 32, the state's greenhouse gas reduction law. That scoping plan is going to address planning and development, possibly in a very top-down fashion. The scoping plan's land use and transportation planning sections will apparently be based on three primary documents — two brief recommendation papers developed at an April symposium, and one detailed report prepared by the Land Use Subgroup to the Climate Action Team (see sidebar.) All of this is aimed at achieving the goal in AB 32, namely reducing California's greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, and reducing emissions to only 20% of 1990 levels by 2050. In the meantime, cities and counties are headed toward the goal in a variety of ways. The City of Alameda, for example, adopted a local action plan on climate change earlier this year. Two of the plan's top four priorities involve land use — adopting green building standards for private development, and implementing alternative transportation strategies. While some cities are amending local action plans into their general plans, Alameda intends to keep the action plan as a stand-alone document, said Cynthia Eliason, supervising planner for the city. "There isn't a lot that needs to be added to our general plan. One of the things that's already in our general plan is a de-emphasis on the automobile, and an emphasis on mixed-use on the northern waterfront," she said. But the City of Albany, which is just beginning work on a climate action plan, does intend to incorporate the document into the general plan, said Nicole Almaguer, an environmental health specialist for the city. Although the process is still very young, she said the plan would likely encourage open space preservation, mixed-use development, redevelopment and green building. Increasingly, long-range planning documents are encouraging or even mandating green building principles, such as proper building orientation, environmentally friendly stormwater management techniques and deceased water consumption, noted David Javid, a senior planner with RRM Design Group. "Most of the specific plans we have written in the last year have contained a sustainability chapter," he said. Although some cities find public resistance to infill, higher densities and putting transit ahead of new roads, planners report there is overwhelming interest in the broader issue. "There's great public interest in climate change," said San Diego's Bragado. "We heard from environmental groups, we heard from some our community planning activists, and just from people who felt compelled by this issue." Contacts: Janill Richards, state attorney general's office, (510) 622-2100. Nancy Bragado, City of San Diego, (619) 533-4549. Woodie Tescher, PBS&J, (310) 268-8132. Cynthia Eliason, City of Alameda, (510) 747-6880. David Javid, RRM Design Group, (415) 331-8282. Attorney general's global warming website: http://caag.state.ca.us/globalwarming/ City of San Diego general plan: www.sandiego.gov/planning/genplan/index.shtml Land Use Subgroup of the Climate Action Team: www.climatechange.ca.gov/luscat/index.html Action Plan, Declaration Guide State Air Board At the California Air Resources Board's Haagen-Smit Symposium — an annual, invitation-only affair in April at the Seascape Resort in Aptos — participants prepared two documents intended to provide land use and transportation policy recommendations for the board's AB 32 scoping plan. The scoping plan is scheduled to be complete in June and will address land use and transportation, as well as numerous other areas related to greenhouse gas emissions (GHG). One document from the symposium is called the Seascape Action Plan and the second is the Haagen-Smit Declaration. The two documents are available on the CARB website at www.arb.ca.gov/planning/hsmit2008/hsmit2008.htm . The action plan says that the state will provide public outreach "to discuss the link between land use and transportation planning decisions, and GHG reductions" and will "support" local and regional planning efforts. The plan further promises to implement AB 857, the long-ignored law that requires the state to plan and invest in a way that focuses growth into developed areas, limits outward development and preserves natural resources. The action plan goes much further, though. In a section titled "Define Regional Land Use and Transportation GHG Targets," the plan says the state, and regional and local governments will define greenhouse gas emissions reductions targets, which will be implemented through comprehensive regional plans and transportation plans. "Local governments will adopt either a climate action plan or similar policies in their general plans that are consistent with the regional blueprint," the action plan states. The plan calls for revising the California Environmental Quality Act "to support greenhouse gas efficient growth" and asks the Governor's Office of Planning and Research to convene a strategic growth council "to examine ways to improve land use coordination and goal attainment." Here is the Haagen-Smit Declaration in its entirety: These are priority actions needed to meet AB 32 goals by reducing greenhouse gas emissions associated with transportation and land use and are recommendations from the Haagen-Smit Symposium for ARB consideration as it develops the AB 32 Scoping Plan • Set Targets. Establish quantitative targets on a regional or local level. Targets will be emissions based considering population (i.e., per capita). • Use the Blueprint Framework with Local Accountability. Implement the blueprint model in the major urban areas. Encourage development of local climate action plans and local targets. Link these local plans and targets back to regional blueprints. • Promote High-quality, Low-impact Communities. Establish a variety of mechanisms that support building large-scale, low-carbon footprint, livable, innovative projects and communities. These mechanisms could include regulatory actions, targeted incentives, and targeted funding to demonstrate the market for these types of projects and communities. • Secure Funding. Secure new and continuous funding. Make better use of existing funds. Funding is needed to support the enabling infrastructure to make the blueprints happen and incentivize the desired high-quality, low-impact projects. • Use CEQA to Mitigate Greenhouse Gas Emissions. Establish statewide significance thresholds and improve the CEQA process to support low-impact development. • Adopt Proven Measures. All levels of government pursue proven emission reduction strategies, such as indirect source rules and other measures. Strategies with co-benefits should be a high priority. • Rethink Zoning. Remove the barriers to mixed-use projects in California's existing zoning and eliminate the incentives for sprawl. • Improve Measurement through Partnerships. Develop local government quantification protocols, improve VMT estimation tools, and develop more refined land use and transportation models that reflect the benefits of high-quality development. Use these tools for planning and to measure progress. • Exert State Leadership. The state builds, operates, and coordinates across all levels of government in a way that promotes low-impact development and reduces greenhouse gas emissions.

What's the next big thing? The last big thing was housing, and it's over. So what's next? We may be in a real estate slump, but as California communities and planners begin mapping out their futures, it is not too early to start thinking about what the next big thing will be in the world of real estate development. The question is more important to the future of California's communities than you might think. There is a lot of talk these days about how the state is becoming a more urban place – not only more people and more traffic but also higher densities, more transit, more walking, and a general departure from California's suburban past. But greater urbanity – as opposed to simply more congestion – does not happen on its own. It requires long-term planning, and it requires leveraging short-term trends in the real estate development business, so that new projects can serve as catalysts for the new urbanity. And one thing is for sure in the development business: The next "up" cycle will be different from the last one. We tend to think of real estate recessions as cyclical – and they are. The market goes up and down, and development activity spirals up and then down. But what often gets lost in the shuffle is the fact that real estate development is faddish. The "hot" development product – the one investors want to invest in and developers want to build – is always changing. So the catalyst for the next round of urban development – the next lever that planners will use to create more urbane cities – is always changing. Back in the 1980s, when California Planning & Development Report was first published, the hot development project was the office tower. From the 72-story Library Tower (now US Bank Tower) in downtown Los Angeles to the multistory office buildings constructed in outlying business centers such as Orange and Contra Costa counties, office buildings were the favored investment in the real estate business. So cities and planners took advantage of dense office clusters in their placemaking. Think, for example, of downtown Walnut Creek, especially around the BART station. Office space was decentralizing during the '80s, and the BART station provided an organizing principle for office density to occur, transforming the downtown area in the process. Of course, the office market got overbuilt and eventually the entire real estate industry crashed, partly because office developers took advantage of relaxed banking rules to gain control of savings and loans. After a deep real estate recession, the new hot product was the entertainment retail center – and, in particular, the multiplex movie theater. As with office buildings during the '80s, real estate investors poured billions of dollars into entertainment retail, and cities leveraged that investment into signature revitalization efforts. The multiplex theaters and other entertainment venues stimulated a whole new generation of walking-oriented places in California – some of them in downtowns, some near existing retail areas, and some adjacent to the office high-rises built during the '80s. But it is worth noting that very little new office development has occurred in the last 20 years. Entertainment retail didn't get stuck in the typical overbuild-crash-burn cycle that office buildings got caught in. Rather, the movie theaters tapered off somewhat as the movie industry itself leveled off, and entertainment retail petered down during the mild recession that followed 9/11. At about that time, however, the housing market began to take off. The housing boom of the early 2000s was similar to the office boom of the 1980s in one important respect – it was fueled by easy money. The boom didn't necessarily lead to overbuilding, but it did lead to overvaluation of housing. And while we are currently experiencing the downside of overvaluation – the inevitable correction – the upside was a surge in high-density urban housing projects that simply did not "pencil" back in the '90s. Again, cities and planners leveraged this boom in construction to help create and strengthen an emerging set of urban places that simply did not exist 20 years ago. As cities and planners in California look to the future, three things about this history stand out. The first one is that there is always another real estate boom. Real estate booms are usually the result of wealth creation – all that capital has to be invested somewhere – and since the early '80s we have seen unprecedented wealth creation throughout the world. We will likely see more wealth creation worldwide in the future and a good portion of this wealth will be re-invested in American real estate. The second thing that stands out is that tomorrow's boom is never based on the same thing as yesterday's boom. Right now, for example, practically everybody involved in the planning and development business in California is waiting for the real estate recession to pass so that they can get back to the business of building urban condos and mixed-use projects. But history would suggest that urban condos won't be the hot product in the next boom simply because they were the hot product in the last boom. It's true that California will always have a strong housing market if the population is growing, and the trend toward more urban living appears to be permanent. But it's also possible that urban condo prices won't rebound enough to make a lot of the hoped-for projects financially feasible. So it may be something other than condos that drives the next boom. It's impossible to know what that something else might be. Office buildings are experiencing a bit of comeback these days, while the retail development business is struggling. The last striking point from the history is that the strongest places that have been created over the last 20 years – mostly inner suburbs with strong downtowns or commercial centers – have benefited from all three booms. They got offices during the '80s, entertainment retail during the '90s, and urban condos during the 2000s. They've emerged as great places today not just because they've gotten lots of investment, but because they've gotten different kinds of investment, during different boom times, so they have become interesting, varied, and successful places. There will be another boom sooner or later. The boom will focus on specific types of real estate development products, but we can't yet predict what those products will be. However, if cities and their planners play their cards right, they will learn – as they have in the last three booms – how to leverage whatever the hot product is into further improving California's emerging urban places.

Restoration of Alameda Creek in the East Bay reached a milestone this spring when what appeared to be hundreds of steelhead trout hatched in a tributary to the creek. If the young fish are indeed steelhead — experts should know soon — they would mark the first natural reproduction of steelhead in the creek since the 1960s. While the return of steelhead to Alameda Creek's lower reaches is being celebrated as a success story, the battle over how to manage the creek for the rare fish is ongoing. The coming fight is over the San Francisco Public Utility Commission's rebuilding of Calaveras Dam, which holds back waters feeding the upper portion of Alameda Creek and its tributary Calaveras Creek. Environmentalists and, recently, the National Marine Fisheries Service, insist the SFPUC must construct and operate the dam in a way that aids steelhead. Thus far, the SFPUC and the Army Corps of Engineers have declined to consider steelhead as part of the dam reconstruction project. Still, Alameda Creek has come a long ways during the past decade. Four small dams have been removed, fish screens have been installed at diversion points, and habitat at the mouth of the creek in San Francisco Bay has been upgraded. And more restoration projects are on the way. "We're looking at getting steelhead into Sunol Valley by 2012," said Jeff Miller, who heads the Alameda Creek Alliance. That would mean the rare fish could navigate more than 20 miles of waterway that for decades was inhospitable. At about 670 square miles, the Alameda Creek watershed is the third largest in the Bay Area and includes portions of Alameda and Santa Clara counties. Historically, the creek and its tributaries supported anadromous fish such as steelhead and salmon that reproduce in freshwater but spend most of their adult lives in the ocean. Since the 19th century, however, Alameda Creek has been managed in a fashion detrimental to the fish. Dams were erected to create reservoirs and diversions were installed to provide municipal water supplies. After flooding during the 1950s, the Army Corps built a sterile channel for the lower 12 miles of Alameda Creek through Fremont and Newark. During the 1970s, a 9-foot-high cement weir was built to protect a BART line. And for many years, salt production ponds on the edge of the bay eliminated wetlands habitat. By the 1970s, wildlife officials had essentially given up on steelhead and salmon in Alameda Creek. But things began to change — albeit slowly — when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service listed the Central California Coast steelhead as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act in 1997. That year, environmentalists formed Alameda Creek Alliance, which succeeded an earlier group that had called it quits. The biggest player in the Alameda Creek watershed is the San Francisco PUC, which diverts most of the flow from the upper watershed into Calaveras and San Antonio reservoirs. Although controlled by San Francisco, the Commission provides water to cities and agencies that serve about 2.5 million people in San Francisco, San Mateo, Alameda and Santa Clara counties. In recent years, the SFPUC has vowed to be more environmentally friendly, and in 2006 it removed the Sunol and Niles dams on Alameda Creek. Although the dams were relatively low (about 10 and 15 feet, respectively) they were impassible by fish. The dams were also obsolete and had been since the SFPUC completed its Hetch Hetchy water project during the 1930s. The SFPUC also joined 16 other public agencies in agreeing to collaborate on studies of stream flow and fish habitat needed for Alameda Creek steelhead restoration. While those studies are ongoing, several projects are planned or under way. Alameda County Water District and the Alameda County Flood Control District plan to build four fish passages, including a ladder at the BART weir. The water district also plans to remove a rubber dam; in May, the district installed fish screens at water diversion points. In addition, Pacific Gas & Electric has agreed to bury a pipeline that now acts as a barrier in the creek. Plus, agencies continue to convert old salt ponds into tidal marsh that are vital for salmon and steelhead fingerlings. Once the creek projects are completed over the next three to four years, fish will be able to swim many miles upstream from the bay into potential spawning grounds. This winter, biologists rescued two fish (whom they named Bonnie and Clyde) that were stuck just below the BART weir and transported them upstream into Niles Canyon. Biologists believe Bonnie and Clyde successfully spawned the fry that were found swimming in Stonybrook Creek in late April. But the big fight is coming over Calaveras dam. State inspectors in 2001 deemed the existing, 83-year-old earthen dam seismically unsafe and ordered the SFPUC to limit storage to 40% of capacity. The SFPUC intends to replace the dam with a new earthen structure just downstream of the existing dam. The project is part of a 20-year, $4.3 billion upgrade to the Hetch Hetchy system (see CP&DR Public Development , April 2002). A draft program EIR for the overall project found that the Calaveras dam replacement would have no impact on steelhead. The Alameda Creek Alliance and other environmentalists rejected that conclusion. They contend the SFPUC should guarantee minimum flow rates in Alameda and Calaveras creeks to ensure a coldwater fishery can survive, and they want to see a fish ladder around the dam so that steelhead and possibly salmon could reach the upper portion of the watershed. They gained an ally in the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), which in April told the SFPUC and the Army Corps to consult with NMFS on conserving fish and wildlife resources. In a letter to the SFPUC, Richard Butler, supervisor of NMFS's Santa Rosa office, said that anadromous fish could reach the Calaveras dam site as soon as the construction stage. Thus, dam replacement "will affect steelhead by blocking access to historic headwater habitat and altering flow regimes in both Calaveras and Alameda creeks," Butler wrote. Environmentalists also want a 32-foot-tall diversion dam, which directs water from Alameda Creek into Calaveras Reservoir, removed. Thus far, SFPUC has resisted that request. The dam reconstruction EIR remains under review.

JOIN US IN BEAUTIFUL CONTRA COSTA COUNTY! Contra Costa County is one of nine counties that comprise the San Francisco–Oakland Bay area, and is located directly east of the City of San Francisco.  The current population of Contra Costa County is just over 1,000,000, and is the ninth most populous county in the State of California. Contra Costa boasts one of the fastest growing work forces among Bay Area counties, with growth in its employment base driven primarily by the need to provide services to a growing local population. We offer excellent benefits such as: Competitive Compensation Packages, Education Reimbursement, Professional Development Allowance, Health and Life Insurance Options, 13 Holidays and 2-3 Weeks Vacation, Retirement and Deferred Compensation, Employee Wellness Program, Credit Union and More! A great place to live and a great place to work, make Contra Costa County your employer of choice! Job title: Planner IIAnnual Salary Range: $58,152-$70,680 The Contra Costa County Department of Conservation and Development has an excellent career opportunity for individuals interested in a Planner II position. The Department currently has two vacancies, one each in the Solid Waste/Recycling and Water Agency Units of the Community Development Division, and both positions will be located in Martinez. If assigned to the Solid Waste/Recycling Unit, the incumbent will be responsible for various tasks related to the Department's waste reduction, reuse, and recycling functions. Duties will include but are not limited to: oversight of the County's solid waste and recycling collection franchise agreements with several private haulers serving various unincorporated areas; oversight of existing land use permits and related implementation/mitigation monitoring programs for solid waste processing and disposal facilities located in unincorporated areas; act as project planner for land use entitlements to establish new or allow modifications to existing solid waste facilities located in unincorporated areas; assistance with development and implementation of North Richmond Waste & Recovery Mitigation Fee Expenditure Plans involving multiple strategies intended to reduce illegal dumping and blight; and assistance with implementation of waste reduction and recycling programs, including public outreach. If assigned to the Water Agency Unit, the incumbent will be responsible for a number of tasks and programs associated with the Department's habitat conservation functions. Duties will include but are not limited to: reviewing requests by project proponents for authorization to impact endangered species habitats; assisting with land preservation, restoration and management programs; coordinating with local, state and federal agency partners on habitat conservation related issues; and tracking and monitoring conservation and development actions. Applicants should have knowledge and interest in the topics of conservation biology, restoration ecology, land use planning, hydrology and environmental policy. For application instructions and to find out more about the requirements for this position, the County, and other employment opportunities, please visit our website at www.cccounty.us/depart/hr . You may also visit our office location at 651 Pine Street, 2nd Floor, Martinez, CA, 94553 or call us at (925) 335-1701. We will begin accepting applications for this position on May 27, 2008 and the final filing date is June 13, 2008. Contra Costa County is an Equal Opportunity Employer Please do not apply via this website-please visit our website for application instructions

Almost 30 years ago, an ambitious young developer named Rob Maguire created an audacious proposal for the greatest development project never built in downtown Los Angeles. Responding to a request from the Community Redevelopment Agency for a development plan atop Bunker Hill, Maguire put together a magnificent team – including most of the leading architects and planners of the day – and proposed combining a reconstruction of Bunker Hill's historic urban fabric with a few tall office towers. Everybody agreed "A Grand Avenue" was a spectacular plan for urban redevelopment – but nobody believed Maguire had the financial wherewithal to pull it off. The CRA instead gave the project to Metropolitan Structures, then a leading developer of high-rise offices. Met Structures proceeded to build the more prosaic California Plaza – and, of course went bankrupt in the process. But no matter. Maguire had made his presence known – and it wasn't long before he set the tone for big-time development in L.A. during the 1980s. In a decade when nobody could envision The Grove or the condo-rich mixed-use projects that have characterized L.A. in recent years, office buildings were king. And Maguire – who was ousted from his real estate empire by his own board this month – gradually mastered the art of the complex urban development deal by building strong relationships with corporations in need of big office space. Maguire began as a builder of routine offices for typical corporate clients. But he always understood how to leverage his clout. When I was a student at the UCLA architecture and planning school, I was selected as a "Northrop Corporation Fellow." Why the Northrop Corporation had any interest in urban planning was beyond me until many years later, when I realized Maguire was a big donor to the school and had strong armed Northrop – his first office building client – for a donation. After "A Grand Avenue," however, Maguire and his then-partners Jim Thomas and Ned Fox set out to build the best urban development projects in L.A. using corporate offices as their base. And they did. Later in the decade, Maguire Thomas Partners pulled off the ultimate '80s development deal – the Library Tower project. At 70-odd stories, Library Tower (now US Bank Tower) was the tallest office building on the West Coast when it was built. But the tower itself was the least of it. Under ordinary zoning rules, such a tall building would not have been permitted. But the city was thinking about tearing down the landmark Central Library across the street. In exchange for permission to build Library Tower (and the nearby Gas Company tower as well), Maguire coughed up $140 million (in 1980s dollars!) for the library. The CRA used the money not only to renovate the Central Library but also to create a distinguished addition that has made the library one of Los Angeles's great landmarks. He also hired the great landscape architect Lawrence Halprin to create Bunker Hill Steps, the landscaped stairway between the flats of Fifth Street on the south and Bunker Hill on the north. Eventually the office boom of the '80s came to an end, and for the past 15 years the glitz in the real estate business has gradually shifted away from corporate offices, which simply are not needed today the way they once were. Maguire was gradually pushed away from the real estate limelight to be replaced by such latter-day retail and mixed-use superstars as Rick Caruso, who built The Grove on the Westside and the Americana on Brand in Glendale. Maguire wasn't able to pull off his version of Playa Vista, for example, and eventually had to give that project up too. So perhaps it was inevitable that Maguire would be shoved aside by his own board. Even though he's now in his 70s, Maguire will undoubtedly be back in some form. After all, wily developers have at least nine lives – and they usually go bankrupt between each one. But he deserves a lot of credit for pioneering the office-based urban development in Los Angeles way back when. The next time you're descending the stairs between McCormick & Schmick's and Starbucks – gazing at the expanded Central Library – think of Rob Maguire. The office building will go condo sooner or later, but the Bunker Hill Steps and the Central Library will forever be monuments to his dealmaking genius. This piece appeared in the Los Angeles Times .

Do cities have tourniquets that can be used to stop the subprime mortgage bleeding? They like to think so, but the answer appears to be no. Instead, cities are increasingly focused on two things: First, increased code enforcement to make sure that abandoned houses and neighborhoods aren't rundown. And second, finding a silver lining in the dark cloud by helping first-time homebuyers purchase repossessed houses. That, at least, was the take-home message from the Regional Housing Summit in Riverside last week, put together by the Southern California Association of Governments . The Inland Empire – with its plethora of starter homes – has been especially hard-hit by the subprime mortgage crunch. No surprise in the era of $4 gas , considering how far the Inland Empire is from the major employment centers in L.A., Orange, and San Diego counties. "We've had meetings to try to talk people out of walking away from their homes," said Riverside Mayor Ron Loveridge . But he admitted it may not do much good. Loveridge did say that the city is retooling its first-time homebuyer program to try to get houses out of bank "repo" as quickly as possible. Only repossessed houses may be bought with first-time homebuyer funds. Both Loveridge and Rialto Councilmember Deborah Robertson said their cities are adopting new ordinances to crack down on problems with abandoned homes and make sure that the current owners – even if they are banks – maintain those houses so that neighborhoods don't become rundown. Loveridge acknowledged, however, that it can be hard even to determine who the owner of the property is because the subprime mortgages were bundled and sold as securities on Wall Street. Cities with redevelopment agencies may yet wind up bailing out subprime borrowers. AB 2594 , which would give redevelopment agencies the power to provide subprime refinancing, has passed the Assembly and is now pending in the Senate. The bill wouldn't mandate that redevelopment agencies bail out subprime borrowers, however. -- Bill Fulton