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The Humboldt County district attorney cannot sue Pacific Lumber Company for allegedly submitting false information during the state's processing of an environmental impact report and sustainable logging plan, the First District Court of Appeal has ruled. The court ruled that the district attorney's lawsuit was blocked by a section of the state Civil Code and by the Noerr-Pennington doctrine, which protects lobbying and petitioning activities. The court did not rule on the legitimacy of Pacific Lumber's allegedly fraudulent statements. Pacific Lumber Company has been involved in an enormous amount of litigation since financier Charles Hurwitz acquired the logging company in 1986. (The company is currently in bankruptcy proceedings in Texas. See CP&DR Environment Watch , November 2007.) However, the suit filed by Humboldt County District Attorney Paul Gallegos in early 2003 was different. Gallegos contended that Pacific Lumber submitted false information downplaying the potential for logging to cause landslides in the Bear Creek, Elk River and Jordan Creek watersheds. The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CDF) relied on this information to certify an EIR and approve a "sustained yield plan" that permitted logging, according to county prosecutors. They sought a civil penalty of $2,500 for every illegally harvested tree, or about $250 million all together. Even though Humboldt County has been the scene of logging protests and litigation for many years, the district attorney's suit appeared to take the controversy to a higher level. Pacific Lumber poured $300,000 into an effort to recall Gallegos, who was first elected in 2002, but 61% of voters backed the district attorney in a March 2004 recall election. While it lost in the political realm, Pacific Lumber had much better success in court. In May 2004, Humboldt County Superior Court Judge Christopher Wilson rejected the prosecutor's request to prohibit Pacific Lumber timber harvesting, but he allowed the district attorney to amend the lawsuit. Gallegos did so, but Superior Court Judge Richard Freeborn ruled in June 2005 that the company was immune from the lawsuit. The district attorney appealed, but a unanimous three-judge panel of the First District upheld the lower court. The trial court ruled that Civil Code § 47, subdivision (b) provides absolute immunity to communications made as part of a judicial or quasi-judicial proceeding. The idea is that citizens should be able to communicate with government agencies without fear of litigation over what they say. "Pacific Lumber's communications, whether fraudulent or not, fall squarely within the scope of the litigation privilege," wrote Alameda County Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Horner, sitting by assignment to the First District. The district attorney argued that § 47(b) was inapplicable because his lawsuit was brought under the Unfair Competition Law (Business and Professions Code § 17200 et seq. ). The Unfair Competition Law forbids "any unlawful, unfair or fraudulent business act or practice." The district attorney contended that Pacific Lumber's actions were fraudulent because the company submitted false information after the close of the 90-day public review period, and then submitted a correction at the last minute to the wrong government office. The First District, however, found that the § 47(b) immunity does not "evaporate merely because the plaintiff discovers a conveniently different label for pleading what is in substance an identical grievance arising from identical conduct as that protected by § 47(b)." The federal Noerr-Pennington Doctrine provides similar immunity for any petitioning activities before the courts and government agencies. But there is a "sham exemption" to Noerr-Pennington. The district attorney argued that Pacific Lumber's activities fell into an area covered by the sham exemption. The First District disagreed. For the sham exemption to apply, Pacific Lumber had to believe that there was no way it could prevail in the government process, and that it was using the government process to interfere with a competitor. Neither was the case here, the court found. Not only did Pacific Lumber believe it could prevail, it in fact did, the court noted. " ven if we were to recognize an expansion of the sham exemption for fraudulent conduct in adjudicatory proceedings," Horner added, "we would nonetheless conclude that the fraudulent conduct alleged here is not actionable because the state has failed to adequately allege that it deprived the CEQA proceedings of legitimacy." Besides, the court noted, CDF adopted a restrictive logging plan as a result of the CEQA process. Only after intense lobbying by Pacific Lumber in early 1999 did CDF modify the plan to permit more logging — and that is the plan of which the district attorney complains. Pacific Lumber's lobbying is "a classic form of political expression" that is immune from liability under Noerr-Pennington, the court concluded. After the decision came down, District Attorney Gallegos said he disagreed with the ruling but probably would not seek state Supreme Court review. That does not mean, however, Pacific Lumber is in the clear. In 2007, former CDF Director Richard Wilson and former CDF forestry regulator Chris Maranto filed a whistle-blower lawsuit that alleged a computer model used to support Pacific Lumber's logging plan was intentionally flawed to exaggerate the rate of tree regeneration. In addition, the state Supreme Court currently is considering an environmental group's challenge of the sustained yield plan, the EIR and a habitat conservation plan. That case is Environmental Protection Information Center v. California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection , No. S140547 (see CP&DR Legal Digest , May 2006; Environment Watch , March 2006). That state Supreme Court case has been extensively briefed, but no date for oral argument has been set. The Case: People v. The Pacific Lumber Co. , No. A112028, 2008 DJDAR 361. Filed January 10, 2008. The Lawyers; For the People: Christa McKimmy, Humboldt County district attorney's office, (707) 445-7411. For Pacific Lumber: Edgar Washburn, Morrison & Foerster, (415) 268-7860.

Jerry Brown likes to do the unexpected. So it should not have been surprising that Brown turned up unannounced at the Planning and Conservation League's annual symposium on Saturday, January 12, in Sacramento and vowed to sue cities and counties that do not account for climate change in their next general plan. Brown insisted that the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) requires local governments to consider how land-use plans and development projects could contribute to climate change. And he warned that attorneys in his office are reviewing and commenting on environmental impact reports for the plans and projects. "My office is looking, and we're going to send you a comment. And you should look at it or we're going to sue you," Brown said to any local government official who may have been in the audience of about 250 people. The former governor conceded that he could not litigate all of the 120 general plans that currently are in some stage of update or "they'll run me out of town." Rather, he said, "We're looking at people who are flagrant, egregious and vulnerable." Brown was not even listed on the symposium's program. Lunch was billed as a talk about water by PCL Executive Director Gary Patton. Instead, Brown walked into the room just as servers were distributing plates of vegetarian lasagna, and he proceeded to steal the show with his usual mix of bold statements, self-righteousness and self-depreciating humor. Brown made headlines last year when he sued San Bernardino County over that county's failure to adequately address climate change in a comprehensive general plan update. Brown settled the lawsuit months later when the county agreed to adopt a policy that outlines ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions attributable to discretionary land use decisions, and to prepare a greenhouse gas reduction plan with targets through 2020 and mitigation measures. On Saturday, Brown said his office also is focusing on regional growth blueprints adopted by councils of government. Brown said he has learned that global warming is not at the top of COGs' agendas, but said he believes it should be. These blueprints need to be far more aggressive, and then cities need to implement the plans, he said. The friendly crowd gave Brown a standing ovation for his blunt, rambling and often humorous lunchtime speech. "Every time you applaud, that's one more lawsuit I will file," Brown joked as he left the stage. Of course, there are alternative viewpoints. Unfortunately, not everyone who cheered Brown's speech heard attorney Stephen Kostka, co-author of Practice Under the California Environmental Quality Ac t, provide a counter-argument. During a breakout panel discussion after lunch, Kostka said people expect land use planning to provide more greenhouse gas emission reductions than is likely. For decades, planning and zoning emphasized exclusion, which caused the type of development that people now decry. "I'm not sure how far you can roll the film backwards," Kostka said. It is only an assumption that new development will increase greenhouse gas emissions, said Kostka, who frequently represents the building industry and developers. Most new buildings are far more energy-efficient than old ones, he noted. And, he asked, how do you prove that residents of a new development will drive more than they would have had the development not been built? Kostka conceded that planners must consider the consequences of plans, but he argued that CEQA is the wrong tool for addressing the issue. Land development does not cause greenhouse gas emissions; it's economic growth, population growth and human activity that cause the emissions, he contended. Kostka drew a rebuttal from fellow panel member Terry Roberts, who heads the CEQA clearinghouse in the Governor's Office of Planning and Research. She said the greenhouse gas reduction law passed in 2006 (AB 32) and last year's AB 97 make clear that climate change is a CEQA issue, even if CEQA is not the ideal tool. What's most important is not who's right and who's wrong, but the speed at which climate change has taken over the agenda. Yes, the PCL event was packed with greenies. But not even many of them were talking about this stuff as recently as two or three years ago. Now, it's all that anyone talks about. Concern about climate change is the reason that green building is becoming commonplace. And it's one of the big reasons the post-war suburban growth model is falling out of favor . The conversation has changed. As Jerry Brown noted, Arnold Schwarzenegger has made it permissible even for Republicans to talk about climate change. Planners have a new issue , and this one appears to have all the political traction in the world. - Paul Shigley

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

A late-added change in proposed final guidelines for California's new cap-and-trade grant program might broaden transit-oriented development sites. The Strategic Growth Council (SGC), which heads the interagency project to design and run the Affordable Housing and Sustainable Communities (AHSC) program, posted the proposed texts January 9 in the form of attachments to its January 20 agenda. On January 20 the council will be invited to adopt guidelines for both the main AHSC program and its $5 million offshoot, the Sustainable Agricultural Lands Conservation Program (SALC). New as of January in the draft guidelines was a definition of "Qualifying High Quality Transit" that would allow transit-oriented development projects to be located one mile away from a transit stop – as opposed to the half-mile previous proposed. An "affordable housing development" (possibly funded by other means) would still need to be within half a mile of the transit stop. The half-mile definition is common in state law. The new definition looks to a looks requirement for peak-hour headways of 15 minutes or less and seven-day-per-week service, but otherwise requires relatively flexible "dedicated right-of-way" or Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) characteristics. The prior September 2014 draft had emphasized specific transit modes: rail, BRT or "express bus". These criteria will help determine eligible projects in the transit-oriented development (TOD) grant category, which is to receive at least 40%, and as much as 70%, of total AHSC grant funds. The change might be a concession to housing and equity advocates, who argued that the program as originally conceived would favor transit-oriented development (TOD) in areas that were already well served by major transit systems, to the disadvantage not only of less dense areas but also of less transit-favored (likely poorer) parts of large cities. Also new are promises of technical assistance, both immediately for 2014-15 applicants and in a less defined longer-term effort. Technical assistance had been an issue in workshops and comment letters; advocates had argued that without it, success would beget success for well-budgeted big-city nonprofits, edging others out. The new draft reweights the competitive criteria to give greenhouse gas (GHG) "emissions reductions per... dollar requested" the greatest significance, contributing 55% of the total score. Otherwise "project readiness and feasibility" would contribute 15% of the total and all other criteria, grouped under "policy considerations," would contribute 30%. The prior full version of proposed guidelines, as circulated in September , would have weighted scores 35-40% for "feasibility and readiness", 40-45% for "connectivity and improved access" and 15-20% for "community orientation". The SALC program grant applications would be scored primarily based on need (40%), "integration of entities and existing resources" (25%) and "community involvement and participation (20%). Lesser scores would go to organizational capacity (10%) and "disadvantaged community impacts" (5%). The AHSC program was allocated $130 million for the 2014-15 fiscal year (for the main program and SALC together). It has been promised 20% of the cap-and-trade proceeds placed into the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund in each future year. Governor Jerry Brown's new budget proposal , also released January 9, assumes the AHSC program will have $200 million for the following 2015-16 fiscal year. The posted materials include 82 pages of public comment letters on the SALC guidelines and a five-page table of contents for the much larger volume of AHSC comments, which were not posted as of this writing. Comments from organizations in the agricultural easement field included recommendations to connect the AHSC and SALC programs more closely together and objections that the proposed 50% matching requirement on easement acquisition grants would be too high for some organizations. The proposed final guidelines provide for consideration of "compelling applications which include a lesser match". A number of changes that SGC first circulated for informal review in December appear in the January 9 proposed final version. Notably, the new draft removes minimum criteria for project size and reduces minimum unit densities to a range of 15 to 30 units per acre, as proposed in December. It drops a requirement for a public agency to be a co-applicant unless the agency has a direct "interest or stake" in the project; allows award size limits by place or developer to be lifted "if needed to meet statutory affordable housing or disadvantaged community set-asides," and allows up to 30% or $500,000 of an award to be spent on "program uses". On the other hand, planning costs are limited to 15% of the requested amount or $250,000. As proposed in December, "Anti-Displacement Strategies" would be part of all scoring criteria. However, scoring in that area would affect only one point out of 100. That one point would be part of the 30% of scoring given to "policy considerations." Others would include 6.5% for service to lower and moderate-income households and 3% for promotion of bicycling. The new draft makes a rule more prominent that also appeared in the September proposal: making projects with "Qualifying High Quality Transit" eligible only for TOD grants and ineligible for ICP grants. The distribution of grants between the two categories retains the originally proposed leeway: 40% must go to TOD projects and 30% to ICP projects; the rest can go to either. An "affordable housing development" is still defined as one with 20% of the units "affordable". As initially proposed in December, the guidelines call for quantification of GHG reductions using the California Emissions Estimator Module (CalEEMod) for most projects and the Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Improvement (CMAQ) guidelines projects serving a large area or otherwise falling outside the expectations of the CalEEMod approach. As also proposed in December, metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) would have rights to review proposals and make recommendations, but in a role firmly defined as advisory. Having more time to public review than was originally calendared, the AHSC and SALC programs are now jammed against the part of their timetable that calls for the SGC to review and select grant applications by the end of the 2014-15 fiscal year in June. The SALC timetable would circulate the solicitation for grant applications on the very next day after the scheduled January 20 approval meeting, and the AHSC program the following week. The January 20 meeting will be available by webcast with free registration .

I went to brunch a few Sunday mornings ago at Louie's, a place that I will unironically describe as a gastropub. My Sunday rituals usually consist of visits to the farmers market and worrying about deadlines. So I was surprised to find, bellied up to the bar at the ripe hour of 11 a.m., a line of folks dressed in jerseys of the New Orleans Saints.  Who dat? indeed. Louie's is one of many L.A. bars that on Sundays look like they've been airlifted from other cities. I'll be damned if I know anyone in L.A. from New Orleans. And yet, if you look hard enough, you'll find a bar for every team. Actually, you don't have to look hard at all. Here's a list  (it's a partial list at that -- some teams have more than one local "headquarters"). Such is life in a city that is a) full of transplants; and b) bereft of its own team. I grew up in the Los Angeles of the Raiders and Rams. My father and I even made a few intrepid journeys to the Coliseum each season to see the Raiders beat up on someone and to watch Raider fans beat up on each other. But then 1995 came and the teams went and, to be honest, I wasn't exactly crushed. Neither were many other people in Los Angeles. Among L.A.'s many oddities is its relative indifference to pro sports rivalries. I'd no sooner wear a Ravens jersey in Pittsburgh than I would a meat vest in a wolverine lair. But I'd wager that L.A. is the only city in the country where you stroll down the street unmolested and unnoticed wearing a hat or t-shirt of any major league team in the country (excepting, perhaps, the San Francisco Giants). It's just one (superficial) example of our famed diversity. Of course, as everyone in Los Angeles knows, many rich and powerful people have been trying to correct our football deficiency for quite some time. At last count, at least five stadium projects -- the Coliseum, the Rose Bowl, something in Irwindale, something at Dodger Stadium, and the fictional Farmer's Field at the L.A. Convention Center (snarky commentary by Morris Newman here and myself here ) -- have been proposed by different developers. No one has yet proposed a floating stadium off Santa Monica, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's in the works.  This week we got the most promising news  of all: Stan Kroenke, owner of the St. Louis (nee Los Angeles) Rams, bought part of the former Hollywood Park racetrack in Inglewood last year. On Monday, he announced a partnership with Stockbridge Capital, the owner of the rest of the former race track site, to develop an NFL stadium. Stockbridge is already developing a roughly 200-acre mixed use master-planned fantasia (it was the subject of one of my first articles for CP&DR , when the project was owned by  Wilson Meany Sullivan ). The stadium would be, to Kroenke's and Stockbridge's credit, privately funded.  The entire project must be approved via a city ballot measure, for which Kroenke and Stockbridge are gathering signatures. Folks in Inglewood, a blue-collar city whose star is already on the rise , are giddy about it. Adding a football stadium would be a natural fit. It would be roughly the size of the racetrack and, though the uses would be more intense, it would likely have fewer events than the racetrack did. This plan seems realistic one yet because, unlike the others, it has the advantage of being attached to an actual football team.  I'm just not sure if I, or L.A., wants that. Our city's culture has evolved endearingly in the NFL's absence, embracing all those other teams and becoming very good at yoga. To our collective credit, we have refused to pay the extortionate amounts of money that other cities have paid in order to appease their teams. I love civic pride and I respect the excitement of football. That's all good. But the people of Inglewood, and football fans around the L.A. metro, need to remember that huge institutions that promise local economic development -- think Walmart, which Inglewood voters  thwarted in 2007 -- do not conjure revenues out of thin air. Proponents cite $1 billion in economic development if the Rams move to Inglewood. But these things can easily be zero-sum games, especially when profits ultimately get shipped out of town.  Many of the dollars that would go to the L.A. Rams will be dollars that don't go to Louie's, Bru Haus (Steelers), Mom's (Packers), Sonny's (Patriots) and O'Brien's (Giants), to mention just a few places that are a lot cozier than anything that will be built in Inglewood. Even St. Louis fans have a watering hole: Malecon. We can do better than to wear the same jerseys and cheer in lockstep so that some magnate or company, be it Stan Kroenke or AEG, can reap tens of millions of dollars each year. We can have our fun, eat our brunches, and drink our bloody Marys in places that seat fewer than 60,000 people. In other words, I'd rather give my money to a local barkeep than to a global brand that pretends to be a nonprofit. Unfortunately, if the Rams don't come to L.A., Missouri may still lose, fiscally at least. Four days after Kroenke cryptically announced his Inglewood deal, Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon conveniently presented a plan for a new 64,000-seat stadium on the banks of the Mississippi. Of the estimated $900-ish million cost, 40 percent would be borne by the state. But that's Missouri's problem. Ultimately, I'd rather let St. Louis have its team and its stadium. "Build it and they will come" -- one of the most overused cliches in land use -- referred to apparitional baseball players, not to football fans or to anyone else. We in L.A. have plenty other places to go and other things to do. Rams fans, I'll see you at Malecon some Sunday morning.

There is, perhaps, no place on Earth so supremely well suited for high-speed rail as the leeward side of the island of Formosa. Sheltered from the Pacific winds, all of Taiwan's major cities hug the island's western coastal plain, unbroken by the mountains that characterize the interior. Running in nearly a straight line, the train covers the 214 miles from the Taipei to Zouying in two hours. It now carries 44 million passengers per year. Intercity air travel has been halved since the line's opening in 2007. California is not Taiwan. For all the years that California has debated high-speed rail (HSR), I have wavered between excitement and dread, optimism and resignation. My visit to Taiwan two years ago, when I learned that getting from one end of the island to the other is almost as easy as stepping into an elevator, made me fall in love with the technology and, simultaneously, convinced me that it would never arrive in California. Taiwan's system , at a little less than half the length of California's proposed system, cost $18 billion. We are bigger than Taiwan, and our cities, though they are nominally coastal, do not line up obediently, like schoolchildren on a playground. They hide behind mountains and in bays. They have built battlements in the form of freeways, aqueducts and conventional rail lines, bringing people (and water) in but crowding out anything new. They are surrounded by proud agriculturalists and rabid lawyers. The alignment is a shapeless mess , with a less-populated midsection that makes the line an all-or-nothing proposition. The state's estimate is now $68 billion, and counting. It doesn't sound good, does it? And yet...Anyone who has taken a Shinkansen, TGV, AVE, or any of China's 12,000 miles of HSR knows the wonders that await California if we get it done. This vision is the most optimistic justification I can think of for the groundbreaking that took place Tuesday in Fresno. There are reasons to support HSR other than mere transportation, of course. Construction unions want the jobs created by the $68 billion investment. Gov. Jerry Brown wants his legacy. Fresno wants to be noticed. The feds want their money spent. Only a fraction of the system has been funded, but it's plain to see that the groundbreaking is meant to lend an air of inevitability to the project. The only thing more embarrassing than giving back $10 billion in bond money and $3.2 billion in federal money (if either was legally possible) would be to spend the money and end up with $13.2 billion of useless track. So, supporters hope that, by hook or crook, the digging that began today will not cease until the shovels reach San Francisco and Los Angeles. It's the Golden Spike in reverse: start in the middle and work your way out. The cities in question now face their own inside-out propositions. It's up to the California High-Speed Rail  Authority to bring trains to the cities, but it's up to cities to decide what to do with the trains once they arrive. The one major shortcoming of Taiwan HSR is that its stations are located like airports, on the outskirts of their respective cities. California HSR has been sold to cities as a driver of urban revitalization, with stations -- many of which already exist -- in the centers of cities. Stations include Los Angeles' Union Station and San Francisco's Transbay Terminal (currently being rebuilt), as well as downtown stations envisioned for San Jose, Fresno, and Bakersfield. Between now and the line's scheduled opening in 2029, these cities now face a planning challenge of generational proportions. Imagine tens of millions of people annually spilling into and out of trains fresh from the far ends of the state? They'll need hotels and restaurants. Businesses will want offices nearby so their executives can speed up to meetings with Google up north or with Disney down south at a moment's notice. They'll want to beef up their public transit systems to distribute HSR passengers throughout the metro area -- and help HSR stations realize their selling point as anti-airports. This is transit-oriented development on the largest imaginable scale. Of course, you can't not plan for high-speed rail. And yet... what if it doesn't happen? What if those tracks end in an almond grove and the $13 billion runs out? What if future cap-and-trade funds, earmarked by SB 862 , aren't supplemented? Can cities reasonably invest untold amounts of time and money devising plans based on some seed money and Gov. Brown's convictions? Will developers spend a dime until build-out is 100 percent certain? In short: can HSR-related plans survive if the train never arrives? In some instances, probably. San Francisco doesn't have much planning to do in the first place, since downtown is already dense and transit-rich. Los Angeles Metro is already pursuing a redevelopment of Union Station anyway (where HSR might turn out to be an inconvenience, depending how you read the plans). But then there's Anaheim, Fresno, Bakersfield and the others. Merced, where passengers would transfer between Bay Area and Sacramento branches, promises to become the Constantinople of the Central Valley. How long can these cities waver between "if" and "when"?I suppose the good news/bad news is that, even if it goes according to schedule, HSR may not arrive in our lifetimes. Planners not yet born will have plenty of opportunities to gauge its progress and plan accordingly. If we were on Taiwan's coastal plain, I'd say it's a done deal. As I think about the Tehachapis, San Gabriels, and the Coast Ranges -- not to mention the $55 billion yet to be raised for the project -- I say, not so fast.

Look up the El Camino Real BRT project online, and the first impression is one of cheerful support. But that's from transportation advocates such as the TransForm organization, which has given it extensive promotion, and materials posted by the lead sponsoring agency, the Santa Clara Valley Transit Authority (VTA), which would build the route from Palo Alto to South San Jose along an old arterial south of I-280. Those talk at length about making the South Bay's famously abrasive six-lane commercial artery safer for pedestrians and bikes, better for public health, and more efficient as a travel conduit for a denser, less car-dependent population. It could seem startling from a distance that in December VTA saw a need to post a rebuttal answering "Ten Myths" about El Camino bus rapid transit (BRT). Closer in, it's evident that the project has become a symbolic focus of worries about the South Bay's uneasy transition from quasi-suburban to fully urban. From just north of San José up to Palo Alto, the old Spanish "royal road" takes the modern form of Highway 82, a broad commuter artery and commercial strip. To create BRT transit at the maximum level of efficacy, the project would have to punch a clear path each way through the six very popular existing lanes, reserving two BRT-only "dedicated lanes" on the main street of an area with high growth in housing and office uses. In keeping with the larger-scale Grand Boulevard Initiative , related streetscaping would seek to protect bicyclists and pedestrians. BRT vehicles in dedicated lanes would function almost like trains, moving at their own pace among widely spaced stops without usually having to wait for other traffic. A VTA promotional video describes the future BRT vehicle as a 60-foot, WiFi-equipped "giant Prius". The plan would speed BRT vehicles along the narrower San José part of the route by means of bulbouts at stops and signal priority at traffic lights. ( CityLab posted a further analysis in November with the help of TransForm's Chris Lepe.) Seven alternatives are under review, ranging from a "no build" choice, to varying combinations of "mixed flow" with dedicated lanes of various lengths along the route. The maximum dedicated lane alternative, known as 4c, would run dedicated lanes for 13.9 of the 17.6 miles. Per the DEIR/EIS executive summary , the 4c choice would have the highest price in capital costs, some $232 million, but would have lower operating costs than other alternatives. (See Page ES-3 of the summary for comparative maps of the alternatives.) According to VTA projections the 4c maximum dedicated-lane alternative, compared with the no-project alternative, would reduce BRT travel time along the route from 87 to 48 minutes while lengthening car travel time along the same route from 41 to 44 minutes, and local bus travel time from 102 to 109 minutes. That may sound attractive if enough people use transit. And transit use has almost nowhere to go but up in Santa Clara County: VTA staff said only 3% to 4% of the county's population uses transit. But critics worry that even if denser transit is needed, dedicated BRT lanes may not serve the area's present needs, given that many people do still travel in private cars. Cars that, if they can't find space on El Camino, will filter into the adjoining residential streets; that need to be parked; that carry people farther off the central commercial strip into suburban-style neighborhoods not easily served by transit. Organizing Web sites are less visible for opponents of dedicated lanes. But online comments sections and letters to the editor fill up with arguments over the project's merits; news reports and supporters of the project say the opposition is solid and successful. Opponents have organized more privately, largely at the level of local city governments, six of which have jurisdiction along the route. (VTA in early January became the first public transit agency to join the Nextdoor neighborhood social network, which in some parts of the U.S. has provided hubs for neighborhood organizing.) Comments are due January 14, 2015 on the draft Environmental Impact Review/Environmental Impact Statement (DEIR/EIS) for the proposal , which was released in November 2014 after a four-year process including 2012 conceptual review by city councils. And then around March the VTA board will select a preference among the seven project alternatives currently under review. It wasn't clear if the six cities would state formal choices among the seven proposed project alternatives, and in any case the choice of project alternative will be up to the VTA board. Among the jurisdictions, San José hasn't debated the plan much because its part of the route is too narrow for dedicated lanes anyway. The city of Santa Clara, which would receive dedicated lanes under several project alternatives, appears to favor the plan. More opposition has been expressed in the more suburban cities of Sunnyvale, Mountain View, Los Altos and Palo Alto. Both Mountain View and Palo Alto were expected to send letters of concern about the project to VTA. The local Mountain View Voice reported public commenters at the December 16 Mountain View City Council meeting supported the dedicated-lane approach but the Council voted 4-0 to send a letter expressing concern on issues including diversion of traffic to side streets and the possible cutting of trees in the median. A fierce, sophisticated, impolite readers' debate raged through the rest of December in that article's comments section. A draft of the Palo Alto letter has been posted ahead of a scheduled January 12 Council meeting on the matter. VTA's proposal is in cooperation with the Federal Transit Administration (FTA), with plans to seek federal MAP-21 funds after the VTA board selects a preferred alternative this spring. Caltrans approval is required as well. TransForm's Chris Lepe wrote that "some local businesses" including auto dealerships "have coalesced with residential NIMBYs" and are "trying to effectively kill the project." That wouldn't necessarily mean opposing all the alternatives -- just the more substantial ones. He wrote: "The problem is that if all the cities go with mixed flow, the project will not generate much ridership and time savings benefits, which in turn will likely attract little or no federal funding. As a result of the limited benefits and significant costs, VTA may decide not to move forward with a mixed flow project. ... If nobody jumps on board, if nobody supports dedicated lanes within the cities, then that means the project is most likely not going to go forward." "Mixed flow" results aren't much to write home about. VTA's "Ten Myths" document said the existing 522 bus along the El Camino Real route would run at 12.2 mph under the "no build" alternative" and a BRT vehicle would run at 13 mph under a "Mixed Flow" alternative," but under a "Dedicated Lane" alternative it would run at 22 mph. Asked if it would be worth the trouble to increase bus speeds from 12.2 to 13 miles per hour, BRT Project Manager Steve Fisher labeled his comments as made from a staff perspective but said, "I think you're picking up on key data points... I agree with your statement." And Bernice Alaniz, VTA's marketing and public affairs director, noted as Lepe did that the project would have to compete with other projects for federal funding so it would need to show strong ridership and economic impact figures. A portion of the CEQA analysis (p. 25) shows projected weekday transit ridership on the corridor increasing from the present weekday ridership of 12,512, to 14,588 under the "no build" alternative, increasing across the other alternatives to 18,616 riders daily under the maximum Alternative 4c. Opponents, like supporters, tend to focus on discussion of the maximum dedicated-lane alternatives. Mark Balestra, owner of the Pearson Buick-Pontiac-GMC dealership in Sunnyvale, commented at a November 11 Sunnyvale public study session (at 54:28) on behalf of the El Camino Coalition, which he described as "a group of concerned Sunnyvale citizens and small business owners." He said, "We're not opposed to BRT. Our concern is that despite the multiple options supposedly under consideration here... it's clear that the only option that VTA senior management is interested in is the dedicated lane plan and the cost of this plan is far too great." Balestra argued the project would cause more congestion and expense than it was worth to provide "only a few minutes" of faster passenger travel across Sunnyvale. He said it didn't include north-south transit options (i.e. crossing El Camino at right angles) and suggested it wouldn't serve "the overwhelming majority of sidehill residents that don't live within walking distance of the four stations." (Balestra responded to a query by writing, "the coalition of residents and business owners opposed only to the BRT 'Dedicated Lane' plan is far broader than the auto dealers and the concerns are far beyond the turn lanes." He offered to elaborate but had not done so as of press time. VTA has not yet posted texts of public comments.) About the auto dealers, Fisher said they hadn't participated much directly in meetings with VTA but "they are working their own city councils very hard." William Cranston, an individual Mountain View neighbor who spoke at a recent meeting of his City Council, wrote afterward, "I have seen no passionate support for any option," but that people in Mountain View only expressed "enthusiastic opposition" toward the two options that would place dedicated lanes in their town: Option 4b, with dedicated lanes from Santa Clara through Mountain View, and 4c, with dedicated lanes from Santa Clara all the way into Palo Alto. Cranston focused on the difference for his area between 4b and the less drastic Option 4a, which would include dedicated lanes only across Santa Clara and Sunnyvale. He noted that the 4b addition of dedicated lanes across Mountain View would add 852 more daily riders (see p. 25 of the CEQA analysis.) He focused on a 2018 projection in the CEQA analysis (p. 29) showing daily traffic volumes east of Bush Street in Mountain View would be 53,865 under Alternative 4a but 48,561 under 4b. He wrote: "Where do the drivers go? They are not saying that the 5300 trips stop, they go somewhere else ... like the smaller small neighborhood streets with kids and cyclists. The neighborhood I live in already has a problem with cut through drivers. (They through stop signs, whip around corners and go well over the 15 mph speed limit.) It doesn't take many cars on small side streets to make it a problem..." "Does it make sense to negatively impact more than 53K driving trips to get 850 riding trips? Do we want to push traffic onto small neighborhood streets where kids are walking/riding to school and playing? Do we want more cars on side routes that we are advocating for cyclists? The city council was asking the same kind of questions." To concerns of this generic type, Fisher responded that projections showed cars displaced off of El Camino by BRT dedicated lanes would spread out evenly among parallel residential streets without overloading them. And he said "if the cities are with us" on the dedicated lane alternative, then VTA would be happy to work with them on traffic calming projects for neighboring streets. There is also, of course, the prospect that some drivers would forsake their cars to ride the BRT system. The Traffic Operations Analysis Report in the DEIR/EIS, at p. 75ff, predicts that delays from the dedicated-lane BRT alternatives as of 2040 would mainly not be extreme. The maximum Alternative 4c is shown sometimes raising the LOS rating by one letter grade, but producing modest increases in delays except at intersections that are already rated "F". Other concerns include whether different transit priorities would suffer, especially north-south transit routes where El Camino runs east-west across Sunnyvale. (Transit advocates have said the best economic benefits would follow from building both). To the suggestion that VTA should just spend the BRT money on more ordinary buses, VTA media spokesperson Brandi Childress said, "Adding more buses doesn't make them go faster." Another recurring concern is how drivers may respond to losing midblock gaps in medians that currently allow left turns. Fisher said a dedicated lane would require every spot allowing a left turn to be a signalized intersection, but VTA was willing to work with the cities on adding new signals at left-turn areas now without them -- and Caltrans might want to "control" such areas anyway as traffic increases on El Camino.   And then, hovering, there's the usual trickily double question about who rides transit: is the bus a disadvantage-driven last resort or a voluntary choice? And does promoting a transit system depend on identifying it with prosperous commuters -- or does a system still deserve public resources if it does seem likely to serve and attract a less prosperous public? Childress presented the future BRT riders as those who "choose not to drive," such as "students who are looking to not own cars". Fisher said amid the growth on El Camino, "Who you see moving into those new developments" would be typically "younger people" working in tech. "Those folks are looking for a good transit alternative. Their natural inclination is to look to transit." He mentioned the famous long-distance "Google buses" as an example. "We know that market is there for us if we can provide them with a good transit alternative." Childress wrote: "The future generation of riders (Millenials) don't want the hassles and expense of owning a car. They want good quality, efficient transit service they can depend on to take them where they need to go." She wrote, "We are looking to capture future riders of this mindset," rather than try to change those who "prefer their car no matter the circumstance." But at the November 11 Sunnyvale event, businessman Brad Clausen, whose enterprises include a motorcycle dealership, said his 25 employees had told him none of them would use a BRT system to get to work. He asked if VTA had surveyed who rides the bus and why, suggesting: "My guess is the majority of those people don't have driver's licenses or have no other means of transportation." He said he doubted BRT would "impact" the people using El Camino and suggested it would hurt businesses, congest side streets, and worsen offstreet parking in front of people's houses. "It's gonna be a mess." Meanwhile Lepe said participants in public meetings on the BRT proposal had included disproportionately fewer people who were young, low-income, recent immigrants or people of color compared with the actual demographics of the cities involved. (He found it significant that Sunnyvale is the second-largest city in Santa Clara County.) He wrote that TransForm had begun a survey and other outreach projects to "engage a larger slice of the population."

The Strategic Growth Council (SGC) released a semiformal response on Friday to critiques received in October on its proposed design of the new Affordable Housing and Sustainable Communities (AHSC) program. Phrased as an informal memorandum, the six-page document listed proposed changes to the September draft AHSC guidelines . It created a limited, informal second chance for the public to comment on the program creators' changing approaches -- something that had not definitely been promised as of the formal public comment period's ending on October 31 . The December 19 text said no formal public comment period would follow the memo's issuance, but it asked any informal commenters to "focus on the proposed revisions and updates" and said comments could be sent to ahsc@sgc.ca.gov . It said a proposed final version of the guidelines would be posted January 9, 2015 in preparation for the January 20, 2015 Council approval hearing. The changes included some concessions to advocates, notably with the California Coalition for Rural Housing, which had argued that the September draft of program rules would disfavor projects in suburban or rural settings. Several more proposed changes addressed housing, but it seemed unlikely they would satisfy housing advocates who had suggested the AHSC program might live up to the second part of its name more than the first. Among the housing revisions, the most prominent were decreases in required densities and total numbers of housing units. The September proposed requirements had imposed minimum base densities in program-funded "housing developments" of 60 units per acre in a "large city downtown," 40 in another "urban center" or 20 elsewhere. The revisions proposed reducing the minimums to the default density standards for affordable housing under existing housing element law: 30 units per acre in urban areas, 20 in suburban ones and 15 in rural ones -- in other words, a 50% reduction in urban and suburban density standards. The revisions also called for lifting requirements that housing developments to be funded by the program each create or preserve 100 residential units in metropolitan areas or 50 units elsewhere. Groups including the Rural Smart Growth Task Force coalition had asked for an increase in the minimum percentage of affordable units in AHSC-funded projects, but the term "Affordable Housing Development" still appeared to mean a project where at least 20% of total units are "affordable". The revisions did strengthen the rules on both replacement of affordable units and anti-displacement strategies, extending them to all AHSC-funded projects rather than specific housing and disadvantaged-communities categories. At least one commenter at the October 6 SGC meeting had asked for this change. A further proposed revision reads: "The $15 million maximum for a single developer may be waived, if necessary, to meet statutory affordable housing and Disadvantaged Community set asides." Several commenters had asked for more discussion because the September draft left some specifics to be filled in later, and also because some viewed its program requirements as insufficiently explained. As of late November , SGC expanded the time for discussion by moving back its approval meeting from December 11 to January 20 but did not immediately say how it would use the extra time. (Prior presentations and partial videos of discussion workshops are on the SGC's page for AHSC program design , though written public comments have not yet been posted.) The new program, created by a June 2014 budget bill , will have $130 million to allocate in the 2014-15 fiscal year and after that has been promised 20% each year of the Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Reduction Fund of proceeds from the state's cap-and-trade carbon auctions -- presumably a much larger amount. Since then a multiagency team of state officials, led by the SGC, has been hurrying to build a three-dimensional program out of a legislative mandate that was stronger on aspirations than specifics -- with the goal of making initial grants by June 2015. The September draft had acknowledged it was leaving several kinds of business unfinished. For example, it left specifics for later on how to measure projects' successes in reducing greenhouse gases (GHGs). Although it proposed a point-based scoring system, it left specific point values to be filled in. The draft had few specifics about the roles of Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs). And during all but the last few hours of the comment period on October 31, the draft was lacking an important piece of context: the Air Resources Board (ARB) decision on which census tracts would count as "disadvantaged" for purposes of set-asides under the AHSC and other cap-and-trade programs. The December 19 memo didn't clarify the scoring numbers but it did help to fill the other gaps: The final page of the new memo contained an "Update on California Air Resources Board Interim Guidance on Greenhouse Gas Reduction Quantification." It suggested the guidance would continue to rely heavily on estimates of vehicle miles traveled (VMT) and promised more detail in the January 9 final AHSC proposal. In the meantime it said the interim guidance "will use components of the California Emissions Estimator Model," linking to the model at http://www.caleemod.com/ . For projects that are larger or have other special features, it said the guidance would borrow from VMT reduction metrics "originally developed for Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Improvement (CMAQ) projects." For those it referred to the document, " Methods to Find the Cost-Effectiveness of Funding Air Quality Projects ." On October 31, the last day of the AHSC guidelines comment period, the ARB issued its decision on the definition of disadvantage for purposes of cap-and-trade set-asides. It was a politically cautious choice , designating the most disadvantaged 25% of census tracts as rated by CalEPA's CalEnviroScreen 2.0 metric. That decision helps commenters to understand which census tracts will be eligible for set-asides as "disadvantaged" -- but it doesn't resolve whether a project in a geographically defined "disadvantaged community" necessarily serves local residents who experience disadvantages. For the MPOs, the revisions stated more definitely that they would allow the MPOs notice and an opportunity to make recommendations on both "concept applications" and full applications for grants, but the memo repeated that the MPOs' role is only advisory. It added that councils of governments "were erroneously included" in a definition that suggested they could be eligible applicants for AHSC funds, whereas in fact councils of governments were not eligible. The revisions also would include "Intercity Rail" among forms of transit used to qualify projects, would allow grants to cover up to three years of operational costs as well as start-up costs for programs, would cap "Program Uses" at 30% instead of 10% of a total funding request, and would remove a requirement that no more than half of a Capital Use Project grant could be for transit, transportation or "green infrastructure". A provision treating the public agency with jurisdiction over a project as a required applicant would be removed unless the agency itself had "an interest or stake" in the project, including as a landowner.