An audit  (pdf) by Los Angeles's controller finds that the city is failing to charge developers millions of dollars in development impact fees -- frequently used to increase police and fire protection, traffic mitigation, and improve public facilities -- and has left millions in collected fees unspent. Comparing Los Angeles to other cities, the audit finds that Los Angeles had $5.3 billion in permitted construction projects in the 2013-14 fiscal year, but collected less than $5 million in impact fees. These numbers compare with San Francisco's $96 million collected off of $3.6 billion in construction, and Portland's $31 million collected off of $1.5 billion in construction. The audit also identified $54 million in impact fees that have been collected but that has been sitting idle various accounts with balances that haven't changed substantially in three years, indicating the city wasn't spending the money. "The city's haphazard application of the fees today is unfair to communities and to developers," Galperin told the Los Angeles Daily News. "Both have every expectation that the city will apply fees consistently and spend them to mitigate the impacts of development on our neighborhoods." EIR for S.F. Arena Wins Key Approval The Golden State Warriors project to build an 18,000-seat, $1 billion arena in Mission Bay gained a key approval as the city's Office of Community Investment and Infrastructure unanimously approved the project's 2,500 page environmental impact report. Additionally, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency unanimously adopted the findings of the transportation aspect of the report, including adding capacity on the T-Third Muni Metro line by purchasing four new rail cars and adding crossover tracks near the arena. All improvements and $6 million of annual operating costs would e funded by fees collected at the arena from special taxes on ticket sales, parking and concessions. The city Planning Commission will now vote on whether to allocate 580,000 square feet of commercial space next to the arena. Bill to Transfer Native Land Unites Congressional Delegates A bill to transfer 80 acres of the Stanislaus National Forest into a trust for the Tuolumne Band of Me-Wuk Indians has brought together an unlikely alliance between Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer and Republican Rep. Tom McClintock. "In what I believe is a first in American history, Sens. (Dianne) Feinstein and Boxer and I all agree on this legislation," McClintock said Wednesday at a House subcommittee hearing. The legislation would transfer the two isolated Forest Service parcels into trust for the tribe, easing management and making it easier to thin overgrowth and prevent forest fires. Gaming operations would be prohibited on the transferred property. $35 Million in Tiger Grants Go to California Three California organizations  received  over $35 million from the U.S. Department of Transportation's  TIGER (Transportation Investments Generating Economic Recovery) awards. Among the 39 winners, Los Angeles Metro  received $15 million for 6.4 miles of its Rail-to River walk and bike path; the Oxnard Harbor District received $12.3 million for its Port of Hueneme Intermodal Improvement Project to strengthen and expand its commercial port; and the San Diego Unified Port District received $10 million for its Tenth Avenue Marine Terminal Modernization Project, which will increase capacity and improve efficiency at the Port. The winners were chosen from 627 applications requesting a total of $10.1 billion. Tribes Sue Caltrans over Highway Bypass Two Mendocino County tribes are suing Caltrans and federal transportation agencies over a Highway 101 bypass currently under construction in Willits. The suit alleges that the agencies allowed cultural artifacts to be damaged without proper oversight from the tribes. The lawsuit, filed by the Coyote Valley and Round Valley Indian tribes, claims that Caltrans and the U.S. Department of Transportation violated the National Environmental Policy Act and the National Historic Preservation Act in failing to properly identify and protect tribal archaeological sites before and during construction. If an injunction is granted, work would stop on the $300 million, 5.9-mile project that is more than 80 percent complete and on which 95 percent of soil-disturbing jobs are done, according to Caltrans. "Caltrans has complied with state and federal laws during the construction of the Willits bypass," officials said in a written response to the lawsuit. The bypass has roused controversy in the area for many years; it is nearly complete. General Plan Update Envisions Larger Half Moon Bay  The city of Half Moon Bay is seeking to widen the geographic scope of its General Plan Update , seeking to include some communities outside of its jurisdiction but which affect the way of life of its citizens. The county has jurisdiction over areas immediately north and south of the city like El Granada, Montara and even the Moonridge apartments just a stone's throw away from the city. The Plan Half Moon Bay update would add the 40-acre Moonridge neighborhood, as well as another 6 acres that run about 2,400 feet east along State Route 92.  "In the case of the Moonridge, the council decided to include the community in its planning document because its residents mostly work, shop, attend school and do business inside the city limits and share concerns with traffic circulation among other issues," Councilwoman Debbie Ruddock told The Daily Journal. Los Angeles to Rescind, Revote on Mobility Plan As a formality, the Los Angeles City Council plans to rescind and readopt its Mobility Plan 2035 in the wake of a lawsuit claiming officials violated City Council procedures in passing amendments during the approval process. Councilmembers noted that the re-vote process will be straightforward and "a simple procedural step that was recommended by the City Attorney out of an abundance of caution," according to Councilmember Mike Bonin. The non-profit Fix the City challenged to mobility plan in court, assertng that the City Council was not permitted to add three amendments pushing for equity and community input during the approval process. (See prior CP&DR coverage .) Oakland Looks at New Coliseum Plan As the Oakland Raiders and Oakland A's both failed to support the recently proposed Coliseum City redevelopment plan for their home stadium, Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf is preparing another stadium plan for the Raiders that she says should be available for NFL review within the next couple of weeks. NFL owners are gathering in December to decide which of three teams -- the Raiders, Chargers, and Rams -- should move to Los Angeles. Schaaf's plan will be sculpted by Mitchell Ziets from Tipping Point Sports of New York and will likely include tax breaks and help with infrastructure for a new stadium at the Coliseum site. South Lake Tahoe Finalizes Airport Plan South Lake Tahoe has determined its final design plan for upgrades at Lake Tahoe Airport, including allowing surrounding land for outside development with hopes for generating revenue. The Federal Aviation Administration, which is funding a $350,000 master airport plan for Lake Tahoe, predicts a modest 1.17 percent growth for the airport over the next 20 years, with the return of commercial airline service unlikely after the last commercial carrier pulled out in 2000. Opponents of Bay Delta Tunnels Gather Signatures Opposition to Gov. Jerry Brown's plans to build twin tunnels carrying water to Southern California from the San-Joaquin Delta have likely gathered enough signatures to put an constitutional amendment blocking Brown's plans on the ballot. Pulling together 933,000 signatures, the initiative would force any revenue bonds for public works involving the state to go to a public vote. Brown's plan to pay for the twin tunnels rests on water users financing bonds to help fund the $15 billion project. The initiative was bankrolled by Stockton-area farmer Dean Cortopassi, who has pumped $4 million into the drive. In other news, four Southern California Water Districts inclusing the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California are working on a joint plan to buy four agricultural islands in the Delta to convert them into reservoirs as a way of moving additional water to Southern California. Anaheim May Lose Streetcar Grant Anaheim's 3.2-mile, $318 million streetcar project is facing the daunting reality that it will likely not receive grants from the Federal Transit Administration to get the project off the ground because it would cater to tourists rather than the impoverished. Without federal funds, the construction costs along with $4.3 million annual operating costs will largely be borne by the local taxpayer. Additionally, a new report from the Orange County Transportation Authority finds that the project probably won't meet its ridership projections by 2035, likely only reaching to 1.25 million riders annually, or more than 2.3 million if high-speed rail comes to Anaheim.

Reversing itself on remand, the First District Court of Appeal has ruled in the Berkeley Hillside case that the proposed home of computer pioneer Mitch Kapor and his wife does not, in and of itself, represent an "unusual circumstances" under the CEQA Guidelines and therefore the  City of Berkeley acted properly in applying a CEQA exemption to the project.  In so doing, the court did not need to move on to the second half of the analysis laid out earlier this year by the California Supreme Court in the appeal of the Berkeley Hillside case, Berkeley Hillside Preservation v. City of Berkeley (2015) 60 Cal.4th 1086, which was decided in May.  In 2012, the First District ruled that the city could not apply two different categorical exemptions under the California Environmental Quality Act to the Kapors' proposed home, which would include 6,400 square feet of living space and a 10-car garage on a three-quarter-acre lot located on a steep hillside accessed by a narrow road. Berkeley Hillside Preservation v. City of Berkeley , 203 Cal.Appl.4th 656, Berkeley contains very few homes and garages of comparable size.  In that ruling, the First District agreed with a local citizen group that the mere size of the project was an "unusual circumstances" that fell under CEQA Guidelines Section 15300.2, which says that a categorical exemption cannot be applied "where there is a reasonable possibility that the activity will have a significant effect on the environment due to unusual circumstances."  The city had attempted to apply a Class 3 exemption, which applies to single-family homes in urban areas, and a Class 32 exemption, which applies to infill development.  On appeal, the Supreme Court laid out a two-step process for lead agencies in interpreting Section 15300.2. First, the court said, when lead agency decides that unusual circumstances exist, the substantial evidence rule applies - that is, a reviewing court must find substantial evidence of the agency's decision. In addition, concluded that once the unusual circumstance decision has been made, the  the categorical exemption can be defeated by a "fair argument" that supports a reasonable possibility that significant environmental effects will result from the "unusual circumstances." The court remanded the case to the First District. Writing for a three-judge panel of the First District on remand, Justice Jon Streeter gave great deference to the city's application of the categorical exemptions. He noted that instead of arguing that the Kapors' home does not meet the requirements for a categorical exemption, the appellants argued instead that it should be subject to Section 15300.2 because of its size.  "What their argument boils down to-here again on remand-is that they presented evidence the proposed home will be "unusual" in the sense it will not be -typical', he wrote. "Even assuming they met their burden of production with this argument, they fail to come to terms with the stringent standard of review that Berkeley Hillside directs us to apply at this stage of the proceedings." Streeter noted. He pointed out that the Supreme Court ordered the First District to "resolve all evidentiary conflicts in the City's favor, indulge in all legitimate and reasonable inferences to uphold the City's finding, and affirm that finding if there is any substantial evidence, even if contradicted, to support it." "To be sure," he added, "Kapor and Kapor-Klein propose to build a home that certainly could be considered unusually large, as that term is generally understood by a layperson.  Our concerns about the size and scale of the proposed project are partially what led us to conclude originally that the dimensions of the proposed structure presented unusual circumstances. But we may not substitute our judgment on this point.  Following the Supreme Court's guidance in Berkeley Hillside, we conclude that the size and scale of the home do not present unusual circumstances, as that term is used in Guidelines, section 15300.2, subdivision (c)." "Having concluded that there are no unusual circumstances," he concluded, "we need not reach the next step in the Supreme Court's analysis." Streeter did devote part of the ruling to the appellants' argument that the city's conditions on the project amounted to traffic mitigations under CEQA and therefore the city could not apply a categorical exemption, The Supreme Court had flagged this issue in the appeal and the appellants devoted a third of their brief in the remanded case to this issue. However, Streeter quoted a memo from the city manager's office specifically stating that the traffic requirements were standard conditions for any single-family project of this type and not CEQA mitigations. This last portion of the ruling may be important as the state implements SB 743, which will mean that future "level of service" traffic analyses will take places outside the powerful legal context of CEQA. The Case: Berkeley Hillside Preservation v. City of Berkeley The Lawyers: For Berkeley Hillside Preservation: Susan Brandt-Hawley, Brandt-Hawley Law Group, susanbh@preservationlawyers.com For City of Berkeley: Zach Cowan, City Attorney, zcowan@ci.berkeley.ca.us For the Kapors: Amrit Kulkarni, Meyers, Nave, Riback, Silver & Wilson, akulkarni@meyersnave.com  The First District's 2012 ruling was written by Justice Patricia Sepulveda. Justice Streeter was not appointed to the appellate court until 2014. However, the other two members of the three-judge panel were the same.

California's High Speed Rail project is finding more hurdles in the way of the intended 2022 finish  of its first phase from Burbank to Merced. A Los Angeles Times analysis finds that the project's first phase from Burbank to Merced will likely overshoot the $68 million budget and will almost certainly not meet the 2022 deadline because of the difficulty of punching 36 miles of tunnels through mountains north of Los Angeles. The analysis finds that contractors will find difficulty boring a 20 mile stretch of tunnel through the rocks of the San Gabriel Mountains, formed over 1.7 billion years ago and lying on numerous fault lines. "Having looked at a number of these long tunnels, plan is aggressive,"  Herbert Einstein, an MIT civil engineer, told the L.A. Times. "From a civil engineering perspective it is very, very ambitious — to put it mildly." T he Associated Press obtained a questionnaire of 36 private companies by the High Speed Rail Authority which found that private companies are skeptical about investing in the project. "The market cannot absorb a single $20 billion contract ... financial institutions would not invest into a project of such unprecedented scale and cost,"  ACS Infrastructure Development Inc. led other companies in writing.  Additionally, the Rail Authority decided to push a restart button on its segment from Anaheim to Los Angeles in order to get more support from local communities. The new plan would involve a "sealed corridor" fenced off from the community. Officials in 2009 asked for a slow-down of the original plan because of concerns about aesthetics, noise, safety, vibrations from the train and the possible need to condemn homes or businesses. L.A. County to Set Aside $100 Million for Affordable Housing The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted to gradually begin setting aside $100 million per year to construct and maintain affordable housing in order to combat growing homelessness in the region. Supported by business leaders, anti-poverty advocates and nonprofit housing developers, the housing fund will start with $20 million next year and expand over the next five years to $100 million to address the area's homeless population of 44,000. The supervisors did not say where the money would come from, but directed the county chief executive to come back with a plan as part of next year's budget process. Supervisor Don Knabe criticized the uncertainty of the funding sources, but Supervisors Sheila Kuehl and Mark Ridley-Thomas said that it is important to begin work soon regardless of funding. "The objective is to get moving and moving now on building more affordable housing, and the formula, the methodology can and will be worked out," said Ridley-Thomas. "... We are not moving fast enough keeping up with the crisis that has enveloped us." Los Angeles Mayor Proposes Linkage Fee for Housing Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti announced his support for a "linkage fee" on market rate development that would create local funding for affordable housing and potentially generate $37 to $112 million annually, and he signed an executive directive to expedite case processing for housing development projects with more than 20 percent affordable units. The linkage fee study would be handled by a new housing policy unit within the City's Planning Department that would also lead the development of new zoning initiatives to encourage the development of mixed-income housing around transit. The fee is intended to complement Garcetti's goal of producing 100,000 units by 2021. He also announced that the city will seek to build or preserve at least 15,000 units of affordable housing from 2013 through 2021. Los Angeles is considered the most unaffordable housing market in the nation.  (See prior CP&DR commentary .) Governor Fast-Tracks San Diego Stadium EIR; Initiative for Alternative Downtown Stadium  The San Diego Chargers stadium saga continues as Gov. Jerry Brown fast-tracked the judicial review process for the city's Environmental Impact Report, forcing courts to resolve any lawsuit challenging the EIR within nine months of the document's certification. The move allows Mayor Kevin Faulconer to assure NFL owners that the new stadium will be able to open at its current Mission Valley by 2019 even if there is litigation. However, Chargers attorney Mark Fabiani, who broke off talks with the city and has instead been focusing on plans to relocate to Los Angeles, said that the nine month period "is unfortunately irrelevant at this point" and the "quickie EIR is fatally flawed." Further serving as a boon to Fabiani's relocation cause, San Diego attorney Cory Briggs filed an initiative to build a new stadium downtown instead, along with expanding the city's downtown convention center and paying for those projects through a 15.5 percent hotel tax. Far from demonstrating to the NFL the city's commitment to building a viable stadium, Briggs' move could allow Fabiani's camp to show NFL owners that the city's efforts to build a new stadium are as dysfunctional as ever. ABAG Agrees to Explore Merger with MTC Backing down from initial opposition, the leadership of the Association of Bay Area Governments agreed this week to explore the possibility of a merger with the Metropolitan Transportation Commission. ABAG had opposed what was originally seen as a "takeover" by MTC. The ABAG vote approves funds to hire a consultant for the purpose of forming an equitable merger plan. The plan is to be completed by June 1. The move seeks to combine the regional planning capacities of ABAG with the transportation planning capacities of MTC, which works in part with local governments; both agencies oversee planning for the nine-county Bay Area.  OPR to Hold General Plan Workshops The Governor's Office of Planning and Research will be holding multiple community outreach events throughout California during the public comment period for the draft General Plan Guidelines update. OPR invites planners, practitioners, and community members are invited to attend and learn about the updated guidelines, ask questions, and share their feedback. Fifteen workshops are scheduled to be held across the state between Nov. 2 and Dec. 9.  L.A. Planning Commission Seeks Strict Billboard Rules Shunning some lawmakers' idea of legalizing hundreds of billboards that currently lack permits in Los Angeles, the Los Angeles City Planning Commission laid out a  stricter proposal for how Los Angeles should clamp down on the proliferation of billboards throughout the city. The proposed regulations reduce the "sign districts" where companies can put new billboards to busy corridors including Los Angeles International Airport and downtown, while keeping them out of single-family neighborhoods and state parks. Additionally, the proposal requires that for every square foot of a new conventional billboard, five square feet of existing billboards must be removed, and for every square foot of a digital billboard that is erected, 10 times as much would have to come down. The ratios would be five times higher than the reduction requirements previously vetted by city lawmakers, who are hesitant to trample the rights of outdoor advertising companies. The City Council would now need a supermajority to adopt its less-stringent rules after the Planning Commission rejected them. (See prior CP&DR coverage of L.A. billboards.) Airbnb Ad Campaign Angers S.F. Residents Short term rental company Airbnb is backpedaling in the Bay Area after residents sharply criticized an ad campaign aimed to influence voters on Proposition F, which would limit vacation rentals in private homes to 75 days a year. The ad campaign was an attempt to demonstrate the company's contribution to the city's hotel taxes, with lines such as "Dear Public Library System, We hope you use some of the $12 million in hotel taxes to keep the library open later. Love, Airbnb." However, the campaign backfired, as many resident perceived the ads as snarky. Some pointed out that Airbnb had already spent $8 million fighting Proposition F by the beginning of October.  San Diego to Break Ground on Major Bicycle Upgrades The San Diego Association of Governments is gearing up to break ground on $200 million of bicycle infrastructure throughout San Diego County over the next decade, officials announced at the California Bike Summit. The bike routes will be paid for by the countywide TransNet half-cent sales tax, through which officials can borrow money to pay for the bike projects now, although Assembly Speaker Toni Atkins said that she doesn't want cyclists to pay special taxes or fees for the projects. Projects include an extension of the Bayshore Bikeway, hugging the eastern side of the San Diego Bay from Imperial Beach to downtown, and a route along to San Diego River, among others. San Diego to Keep 42 Former RDA Properties The City of San Diego will retain ownership of 42 properties formerly owned by its now-defunct redevelopment agency after the California Department of Finance approved its plans for the properties. Included are the historic Balboa Theatre along with 18 properties that will be used for public uses, such as parks, streets, and a future fire station. "Our attorneys devoted more than 1,500 hours over three years to formulating the best strategy for managing these properties within the framework of the redevelopment dissolution laws, and to help protect the properties against state overreach," City Attorney Jan Goldsmith told the Times of San Diego. "We can all be proud of their work on behalf of the city, and to the benefit of some of our oldest urban neighborhoods." (See prior CP&DR coverage .) EIR for Warriors' Mission Bay Arena Released The City and County of San Francisco released the 2,500-page final environmental impact report for the proposed Golden State Warriors arena in Mission Bay, including a $60 million transportation plan to be funded by fees collected at the arena from special taxes on ticket sales, parking, and concessions. The improvements would include among others a light-rail boarding platform, increased transit capacity, and four new rail cars for the T-Third line. However, opposition group Mission Bay Alliance says that the final EIR contains 50 "significant violations of the California Environmental Quality Act," including severe traffic congestion, blocked emergency access and seismic safety threats. The commission of the Office of Community Investment and Infrastructure will vote on whether to certify the EIR on election day, Nov. 3. Berkeley Seeks ‘Green' Affordable Housing The Berkeley City Council endorsed a "Green Affordable Housing Package" that will ease parking requirements particularly for affordable housing built new mass transit, streamlining the approval process for residential buildings with two or more units. The proposal, which one public commentator described as building "housing for people" over "housing for cars," was sent to the Planning Commission and city manager to mold the Council's recommendation into a body of specific rules and precise calculations that councilors hope will deliver affordable housing rather than just provide a windfall to developers.

Report: Wetland Restoration Crucial for Health of S.F. Bay Bay Area officials need to restore 54,000 acres of wetlands in the San Francisco Bay over the next 15 years if they want to stave off billions of dollars of damage from rising seas , surging tides, and extreme storms driven by climate change, according to a new report from 100 scientists and 17 government agencies. While experts have said that some places in the bay need seawalls, the study, titled "The Baylands and Climate Change: What We Can Do," nevertheless advocates working with nature rather than against it, adding that seawalls and levees would destroy many marshes and probably cost taxpayers more in the long run. " start to erode," said Letitia Grenier, one of the report's main authors. "We'll have bigger waves coming in on high tides and storms -- and more flooding. We'll lose our wildlife. And eventually the wetlands will be gone. You'll see levees and concrete seawalls. The water in many places will be higher than the land, like it is in New Orleans." A 2012 study by the National Academy of Sciences found that melting ice and expanding warming water will raise the sea level of the bay by one foot over the next 20 years, two feet by 2050, and five feet by 2100. (See prior CP&DR coverage .) Veterans Administration Drafts Master Plan for West L.A. Campus The Department of Veterans Affairs released the draft master plan for its West Los Angeles campus, proposing to transform the 388-acre campus into a center for permanent housing with clinical services, and to cease leasing VA facilities to private entities. The plan resulted from a legal settlement on behalf of more than 4,000 chronically homeless veterans in Los Angeles, who alleged that the VA was illegally leasing land to corporations, schools, and other organizations without providing adequate care for veterans. "This is a good start and reflects hard effort," Gary Blasi, a professor of law emeritus at UCLA who works with the VA to end veteran homelessness, told the Los Angeles Times . "There is still more work to be done, particularly to make sure all voices of veterans and the most important stakeholders have been heard and responded to." Interested parties will have 45 days to submit comments before a final document is ready in early 2016. Los Angeles Subway EIR Upheld A California appeals court upheld Los Angeles' Final Environmental Impact Report for the Purple Line Extension, rejecting a challenge from the city of Beverly Hills and the Beverly Hills Unified School District over a section of the subway to run under the Beverly Hills High School Campus. The project will extend the subway from its current terminus at Wilshire/Western to Westwood. The first section of the project between Wilshire/Western and Wilshire/La Cienega, is under construction. The second section to downtown Beverly Hills and Century City is in the pre-construction phase and remains on schedule. Coastal Commission Wades into Sea World Dispute; Faces Suit Facing a rising tide of criticism over its treatment of killer whales, the parent company of SeaWorld San Diego has said that it will sue the California Coastal Commission for conditions tied to a land-use permit that would ban killer whale breeding in the theme park. SeaWorld had proposed a $100 million project to expand the enclosure for the park's 11 killer whales, but the commission panel added a condition to approval that would force SeaWorld to stop breeding whales and import no new whales. "It simply defies common sense that a straightforward land-use permit approval would turn into a ban on animal husbandry practices -- an area in which the commissioners have no education, training or expertise," Joel Manby, president and chief executive of SeaWorld Entertainment, said in a statement. SF MTA Endorses 'Google Buses' San Francisco's Metropolitan Transportation Agency will recommend that Google's bus and commuter shuttle become permanent and continue to use Muni bus stops, with some new conditions. Calling the pilot program a success, MTA nevertheless requests in its plan that the buses stay off residential streets, pay a fee of $3.67 every time a shuttle visits a Muni stop and avoid labor disputes by increasing wages. Critics of the pilot program, which mostly transports the city's elite to and from Silicon Valley using existing bus stops, say that the program is exacerbating the city's housing crisis by increasing rent and is worsening air quality in neighborhoods. Housing Costs Leading to Overcrowding in L.A. A new report finds that Los Angeles' steep housing costs are forcing the city's poor -- comprising more that one quarter of residents -- to overcrowd into homes, resulting in health issues, lower student achievement, and psychological issues. The report, issued by the California Housing Partnership Corporation, finds that a household must earn four times the state minimum wage to afford the average asking rent of $2,016 per month, forcing those who cannot meet those costs to pack more people into units. To accommodate low-income renters, the report finds that Los Angeles County would need an additional 527,722 homes, though the loss of redevelopment funds has made affordable housing development more difficult. Train Manufacturer Eyes Sacramento State high-speed rail officials are calling for bids from high-speed rail companies to build about $3.2 billion worth of rolling stock for the system. German company Siemens is currently in a good position for a bid at its Sacramento plant, as it opened a 125,000-square foot manufacturing facility this year on French Road and set up a full-size mock-up of a bullet train car on the state Capital lawn. "It would be fabulous for the region if we could get this additional business,"  Armin Kick, the executive in charge of Siemens' Sacramento bullet train development efforts, told the Sacramento Bee. "It would set up Sacramento as the (national) hub for high-speed technology. And these hubs, like Silicon Valley, don't move around. It would bring additional employment and technology-driven jobs." If Siemens got the bid, it would likely bring along hundreds of jobs to Sacramento. Other competitors may include Bombardier of Canada, Alstom of France, Talgo of Spain, Italy-based AnsaldoBreda, Japan's Kawasaki, South Korea's Hyundai Rotem and two major Chinese companies. The California High Speed Rail Authority will ask for the bids to build the trains in mid-2016. CARB Endorses Shasta SCS The California Air Resources Board has determined that the Shasta Metropolitan Planning Organization's Sustainable Communities Strategy meets the board's greenhouse gas reductions target for the next 20 years. The goals, implemented by the sustainable Communities and Climate Protection Act of 2008, set standards for the state's Metropolitan Planning Organization to meet regional greenhouse gas reduction targets for 2020 and 2035. Costa Mesa to Use Zoning to Curb Vice In order to shut down problem motels that have become hot-spots for drug use and prostitution, the city of Costa Mesa is looking to revise its property zoning rules to allow motel owners to change their zoning from commercial to high-density residential, hopefully clearing the way for large apartment complexes to be built in place of the run-down motels. In doing so, officials hope that the changes would boost property values and incentivize the motel owners to sell their properties. In a 3-2 vote to begin the process of incorporating the changes into the city's general plan revision, the City Council hopes to save more than $100,000 in costs due to mounting police calls in recent years. "We're looking at ... properties that have been a cancer to the city," Councilman Jim Righeimer told the Orange County Register. "This is using the general plan to fix a crime issue." The zoning changes, if approved, would apply to 12 regions, centered around 14 of Costa Mesa's 17 older motels, which are largely remnants of an the 1950s and '60s, when inland families would vacation in a city that offered cheaper rates than Newport Beach. Santa Ana Kills Moratorium on Short-Term Rentals Santa Ana officials surprisingly declined to extend the city's 45-day emergency moratorium on short-term rentals for an additional 10 months and 15 days. City Councilmembers, taking a turn from residents' uproar over an out-of-control short-term rental in West Floral Park neighborhood, instead heard from residents who spoke against extending the ban. Councilwoman Michele Martinez, who brought up the moratorium last month, led a unanimous City Council in moving the short-term regulation issue for consideration by the Development and Transportation Council Committee. "My goal is not to be restrictive, prohibitive and overreaching," Martinez told the Orange County Register. Major L.A. Redevelopment Finally Moves Forward After three decades of false starts and financial woes, the long-awaited Marlton Square redevelopment in Los Angeles is one step closer to coming to fruition as Kaiser Permanente broke ground on its new $90 million, 100,000 square foot community center there. The facility is included in an 8.65 acre property bought by Kaiser in 2012 to build a Baldwin Hills-Crenshaw medical facility. The Kaiser project joins several other redevelopment efforts in the Baldwin Hills/Crenshaw area, including a $2-billion light rail line that will connect Crenshaw to the Los Angeles International Airport is slated to open in 2019. A new residential and retail village is also planned around the Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza. The 22-acre site was first tapped for redevelopment in 1984. SunCal Reported to Look at Oakland Coliseum A new developer is poised to take on a larger role in the development of a new Oakland Raiders stadium. The developer, Southern California firm SunCal, recently met with city officials to discuss closing the $400 million funding gap needed for a new stadium at the O.co Coliseum site. Officials with the team and the city are remaining publicly mute about this prospect.

In 2013, 34 pedestrians died on the streets of Denmark. The city of Copenhagen, roundly hailed as the world's pleasantest city for walking and biking, has about 10 percent of Denmark's population of 5.6 million. We can extrapolate that exactly three pedestrians died in Copenhagen in 2013, for a rate of about 0.5 per 100,000. To be sure, those three deaths deserve due lamentation, scrutiny, and sympathy. On the other hand, they deserve celebration. Copenhagen's pedestrian fatality rate is about as low as it gets. The lowest pedestrian fatality rate of any major American city is 0.76. Copenhagen's rate is a full five times lower than that of the City of Los Angeles, which, at 2.57  (pdf) is towards the high end. If you divide Copenhagen's fatality rate by Los Angeles', you get 19 percent. The question that some in Los Angeles are now asking is, what happens when you divide by zero? Founded in Sweden in 1997, Vision Zero is an international movement dedicated to reducing pedestrian fatalities to nil. Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti supports Vision Zero enthusiastically. He made it is one of inspirations behind the new Los Angeles Mobility Plan 2035 , which I reported on this month. In loose affiliation with a handful of other cities around the world and around the state -- including San Diego, San Jose, and San Francisco -- Los Angeles has pledged to calm traffic, improve sidewalks and crossings, enhance public transit, and do a host of great things that are, directly or indirectly, designed to make walking safer. Safer is admirable and good, just as 2.57 is not good at all. Safer is especially good when it comes with collateral benefits and when multiple goals -- such as placemaking -- are achieved at once. But  zero ? The trouble with Vision Zero is that, from the moment it was devised, it was destined to fail. Even before I covered the Mobility Plan, Garcetti's embrace Vision Zero made me uncomfortable, for its both grandiosity and fantasy. How can Los Angeles -- or any other city in the civilized world -- ever hope to live up to such a stark, uncompromising goal? Accidents are going to happen, even in Copenhagen. Someone is going to bust an inner tube and hit the curb. Someone is going to slip on a carelessly discarded smørrebrød and faceplant into an oncoming bus. Someone will get tangled in his scarf and end up in a canal. Even perfect cities aren't perfect. The fact is, planning can never eliminate all bad things -- whatever the thing happens to be. In the case of pedestrian safety, it can absolutely reduce  deaths. It can, if you go back to high school calculus, approach zero. But this is still a free country. Unless Los Angeles bans cars entirely and replaces all its pavement with compacted marshmallow, it can never reach zero. Not in 2015, not in 2035, not ever. In the battle between absolutes and public policy, policy never wins.  As much as I admire the Swedes' approach to urbanism, Vision Zero strikes me -- in its rhetoric, it not necessarily in its strategy -- as a paternalistic extension of parents' paranoia over germs, dirt, boogeymen, and walking home from school. Should public policy look out for citizens' safety? Of course, but not maniacally so. And, more to the point, not inefficiently so. Planning Commissioner Richard Katz notes that Los Angeles really shouldn't worry about traffic deaths. It should worry about  all  deaths.  There are four million ways to die in the naked city, from lung cancer to drug overdoses to gang shootings. Public policy should be prejudiced only by those cases that will yield the most lives saved. Then again, we can't repeal the Second Amendment, so we might as well fix our streets. Laura Lake, who heads a group that is suing the city over the Mobility Plan, takes the Zero Paradox a step further. She notes that by slowing traffic on certain streets, the plan might impede ambulances that are responding to fires and medical emergencies. For every pedestrian saved, someone else might expire in a gurney on the way to the hospital. Lake's hypothetical is, possibly, a bit out there. But these potential unintended consequences are surely worthy of discussion, especially when the Vision Zero movement is gaining so much momentum. That's a lot of preordained failure. The planning field hasn't had much luck lately with vague, ominous slogans. ( Agenda 21 , anyone?) Let's hope that, unlike Agenda 21, Vision Zero faces not unhinged opposition but rather a more nuanced, thoughtful strategy than its name implies and a willingness to strive for realistic goals.

The state Office of Planning and Research has released a public draft of the update to its General Plan Guidelines for the state, beginning the public review period of the draft. The "general plan guidelines package," when it is completed, will include new guidelines for general plans, along with a GIS data mapping tool that will allow communities to access large amounts of free data in crafting their general plans, and an easily navigable website. The draft does not incorporate any changes from legislation in the current cycle, such as SB 379. These changes will be incorporated after the public comment period, prior to finalizing the draft. The  general plan guidelines document  updated with sections on visioning, community engagement, social equity, resilience, economic development, healthy communities, and climate change, as well as links to data, tools, resources, and model policies throughout. The  general plan guidelines GIS based data mapping tool , currently in beta being updated during this review, will allow all users access to large amounts of free data, organized by elements and by themes, for creating their general plans. Public comment period ends December 5. (See CP&DR's preview of the general plan guidelines.) Affordable Housing Sought for Treasure Island San Francisco Supervisor Jane Kim is pushing the Treasure Island development of over 8,000 residences to include 40 percent affordable and middle-income housing, a significant increase from the currently-approved 27 percent. Kim's proposal hinges on this year's AB 2, which establishes a Community Revitalization and Investment Authorities, allowing cities to invest property tax funds into affordable housing. Lennar Urban, the developer of the site, is unlikely to budge to 40 percent, but it could up the ante to 30 percent if it works out a deal with the state. "We have an existing development agreement in place with specific provisions for affordable housing and community benefits. If we and our partner, the city, mutually determine that this legislation creates additional funding opportunities for the project, we will move toward the 30 percent goal as outlined in our agreement,"  Lennar Urban  regional vice president Kofi Bonner told the San Francisco Business Times. (See CP&DR coverage of Treasure Island's EIR.) S.D. Supervisor Horn Accused of Conflict of Interest Over Development Approval California's Fair Political Practices Commission has advised San Diego County Supervisor Bill Horn to recuse himself from a key vote on a 1,700-home development in Lilac Hills because he has a conflict of interest stemming from a property he owns near the project. The letter could spell bad news for the project, as Horn has received contributions from the developer and could prove the key vote to approval of the project, which would vastly increase the city General Plan's call for little more than 100 homes to be developed. The FPPC letter states that he has a conflict of interest because his property lies 1.3 miles from the nearest boundary of the proposal. "Under these facts, a reasonable inference can be made that the financial effect of such a major development in a relatively undeveloped, rural area would have a reasonably foreseeable material financial effect on the market value of your real property," the letter states. Though he originally stated that he would indeed recuse himself from the vote, Horn has now said that he is seeking clarification of the FPPC letter and a reconsideration of their decision. Sacramento Streetcar Seeks New Life Bouncing back after voters within three blocks of Sacramento's proposed downtown streetcar project rejected the financing plan, officials are now hoping to ask several hundred downtown property members to put in $30 million for the estimated $150 million project. Though the original voting group of about 1,200 within three blocks of the project were not being asked to contribute to the project costs, they had a legal right to make a call on whether to set up the community facilities district at the time. However, under the new structure, a benefit assessment district, advocates must provide a detailed engineer's report to show the project's economic benefit for each property owner along the corridor. The federal government has indicated that it would likely provide Sacramento with a $75 million grant for the 3.3-mile project, and the remaining funds would likely come from the city of West Sacramento, Sacramento County, the city of Sacramento and the state. (See prior CP&DR coverage: here and here .) S.F. Makes Evictions Harder San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee allowed legislation to pass that will make it more difficult for landlords to evict tenants for minor transgressions. Lee had previously indicated that he might veto the legislation because of a provision that would allow tenants to take on more roommates than their lease allows, but his office refused to take a stance on the bill, instead allowing it to pass without his signature. The legislation, drafted by Supervisor Jane Kim, is largely aimed at curbing widespread evictions over lease violations like improperly painting walls. Warriors Complete Purchase of Arena Site The Golden State Warriors have finalized plans to purchase a 12-acre site in San Francisco's Mission Bay neighborhood to build a new $1 billion stadium development within the next two years. The deal, reportedly brokered with owner Salesforce.com Inc for $150 million, shows that the Warriors have a level of confidence to break ground soon even as the project faces a potential legal challenge from the opposition group Mission Bay Alliance. However, Mayor Ed Lee has stated that a complex traffic deal recently cut between the Warriors, the University of California, San Francisco, and the city will undermine the popular arguments of the opposition group. The traffic deal creates an annual $10 million fund fed by Warriors arena revenue for extra traffic control officers, additional light-rail cars and other fixes for potential traffic issues. The Warriors expect to have the arena up and running in time for the 2018-19 NBA season. Report: Segregation in L.A. Declining A new report finds that segregation in the Los Angeles area is is on the decline, as homogenous white neighborhoods and homogenous black neighborhoods have been on the decline from 2000 to 2010. The report from the London School of Economics and Political Science finds that overall the amount of people living in strongly segregated neighborhoods has decreased from 40 percent in 2000 to 33 percent in 2010, while percentages of whites living in homogenous white neighborhoods has declined from 32 percent to 21 percent by gaining significant population shares of Hispanics and Asians. Percentages of blacks living in homogenous black neighborhoods has declined from 15 percent to 11 percent, with many neighborhoods becoming black/Hispanic neighborhoods. The study used geo-computational software EquiPop to create neighborhoods by expanding a buffer around a given location until it encompasses the nearest hundreds, thousands, or tens of thousands neighbors and then computes the demographic composition of the buffer population. L.A. Metro Touts TOD Sites Seeking to dot Los Angeles with " transit-oriented communities " where developments occur within a two-mile radius of transit stations, the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Authority has picked seven locations where it wants to see affordable housing connected to transit. Choosing locations in Burbank, Duarte, Willowbrook, Crenshaw, El Monte, Union Station, and North Hollywood, Metro will now work with local governments, community groups, and private developers to expand its development goals. While it doesn't have the power to change zoning laws or the money to develop the land itself, officials said the program is the beginning of a years-long process to tie together transportation and Los Angeles communities. Port of Los Angeles Falls Short of Pollution Goals The Port of Los Angeles admitted that it has not completed 11 of 52 measures it had agreed to implement a decade ago to reduce air pollution in exchange for expanding the 130-acre China Shipping terminal. A decade ago, community groups settled a lawsuit against the terminal expansion, requiring the port to put $50 million in a fund to offset the effects of more trucks, ships, and cargo equipment on nearby neighborhoods. Environmental groups and the port have pointed to the changes required at the China Shipping terminal as a model for how to reduce air pollution and public health effects at seaports. "This whole time we've been led to believe that this is a much cleaner project than it has been," said Mark Lopez, who heads East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice, told the L.A. Times. Nevertheless, the Port still says that even though it did not complete several of its required measures, it still has met overall air-pollution reduction targets. Port of L.A. Executive Director Gene Seroka told the L.A. Times that the port's air-quality measurements show pollution has declined to "levels that were even better than what we attempted to produce." Judge Strikes Down S.F. Eviction Law A Superior Court judge struck down a San Francisco ordinance forcing landlords to pay evicted tenants the difference between their current rent and the market rate for a similar unit in the city for two years, up to $50,000. In the ruling, Superior Court Judge Ronald Quidachay said the required payment exceed the Ellis Act's reasonable relocation assistance, which he said are those which would offset the immediate costs of eviction, including first and last month's rent, the tenant's security deposit, and moving expenses. He said additional charges to "subsidize the payment of rent that a displaced tenant will face on the open market, regardless of income ... have no relationship to the adverse impact caused by the landlord's decision to exit the rental market." Nevertheless, Supervisor David Campos, the author of the ordinance, said that the city would appeal the ruling. "I think that in the midst of the worst housing crisis in the history of San Francisco, adjusting relocation payments to reflect the crisis in which we are is a reasonable step," he told the SF Gate. L.A. River Greenway Gets Boost The City and County of Los Angeles will provide a joint investment of $6 million in the Los Angeles River Valley Greenway, a project related to the city's ambitious master plan for the river. The greenway will fill in 12 miles of gaps in the Valley portion of the river project to allow Angelenos to walk and bike from Canoga Park to Elysian Valley. The city and county will split the costs evenly, with the city's $3 million contribution coming from funds dedicated to open space preservation and park facilities. "With this investment, we take one more step in linking our communities to each other and to the backbone of our region — the Los Angeles River," Garcetti said in a press release.

OAKLAND, Oct. 4 -- The California Chapter of the American Planning association announced its awards at the 2015 installment of its annual conference.  Opportunity and Empowerment Award of Excellence Courtyard at La Brea, West Hollywood Community Housing Corporation Comprehensive Plan Award: Large Jurisdiction Award of Merit Harbor Mixed Use Transit Corridor Specific Plan, City of Santa Ana Planning Division Award of Excellence Jordan Downs Urban Village Specific Plan, City of Los Angeles Department of City Planning Comprehensive Plan Award: Small Jurisdiction Award of Merit:  National City SMART Foundation, City of National City Award of Excellence: Comprehensive Plan Award: Small Jurisdiction North Bayshore Precise Plan, City of Mountain View Implementation Award: Large Jurisdiction Award of Merit Devil's Slide Coastal Trail, San Mateo County Award of Excellence Glendale Downtown Specific Plan and Mobility Study, City of Glendale Community Development Department Implementation Award: Small Jurisdiction Award of Merit City of Piedmont Rent-Restricted Second Unit Program, City of Piedmont Innovation in Green Community Planning Award Award of Merit City Heights Urban Greening Plan, City of San Diego Planning Department Award of Excellence CAPtivate Western Riverside County, WRCOG's Subregional Climate Action Plan, Western Riverside Council of Governments  Economic Planning and Development Award Award of Merit Salinas Economic Development Element. City of Salinas Transportation Planning Award Award of Merit North Coast Corridor Public Works Plan and Transportation and Resource Enhancement Program, Caltrans District 11 Award of Excellence Measuring Mobility in Pasadena -- Beyond Level of Service, City of Pasadena Best Practices Award Award of Merit Climate Change and Extreme Weather Adaptation Options Pilot Project for Transportation Assets in the Bay Area, Metropolitan Transportation Commission Award of Excellence People Streets, City of Los Angeles Department of Transportation Public Outreach Award of Merit At Home in Encinitas: Developing Housing Solutions, City of Encinitas Award of Excellence Land Use Planning Awareness Project, County of Riverside Department of Public Health Urban Design Award Award of Excellence  Warm Springs/South Fremont Community Plan, Perkins + Will Planning Advocate Award of Exellence James Rojas Planning Agency Award  of Excellence City of West Hollywood Community Development Department Advancing Diversity and Social Change Award (in Honor of Paul Davidoff)  of Merit:  Jurupa Valley Environmental Justice Element, City of Jurupa Valley Academic Award Award of Merit Cultivating Economic Prosperity and Creating Identity along Historic South Main Street in Santa Ana; Kristin Kaczmarek, University of California, Irvine, Planning Policy and Design Award of Excellence Walking and Cycling in San Francisco: Identifying Underserved Locations that are Particularly Receptive to Non-Motorized Transport via the Pedestrian and Bicycling Survey; Rebecca Walters, San Jose State University, Urban and Regional Planning Communications Initiative Award  of Excellence "Visualizing the Code" Video Series, City of Anaheim Planning Department Hard-Won Victory Award  of Excellence Barrio Logan Gateway Sign, City of San Diego Planning Department 2015 Scholarships Outstanding Student Award?? Jessica Medina, USC Outstanding Student Award, Runners Up?? Ryan Sclar, UCLA; Alison Ecker, UCB; Kate Bridges, UCLA Diversity in Planning Award ??Mimi Morisake, SDSU Merit Scholarship? Brenna Callero, UCI; Nicole Bourgeois, UCI; Erick Tucker, SJSU CPR Memorial Scholarship ? ? Cassandra Gutierrez, USC?; Ellen Keating, SLO; ?Paul Donegan, SLO David Wilcox Scholarship ?? Sam Blanchard, UCB Ken Milam Scholarship ?? Logan Philippo, USC; Paul Wack Sustainability Scholarship  ?Andrew Stricklin, UCLA ?Richard H. Weaver Scholarship  ?Michael Shilstone, USC Section Student Awards Central Coast Section Jana Schwartz, SLO; Vivon Crawford, UCSB; Marie Laule, UCSB ?Inland Empire Section ?Nicole Bourgeois, UCI?; David Mach, Cal Poly Pomona ?Los Angeles Section? Nour Chaaban, CSUN; ?Camille Stewart, UCLA?; Cassandra Gogreve, USC?; Joanne Wong, UCLA ?Northern Section? Evelyn Saint-Louis, UCB?; Alexandra Ball, CSUMB?; Jaime Scott, SJSU; Mariaclara Zazzaro, SJSU?; Colleen Courtney, CSUMB  ?Orange Section  ?Joseph Cryer, UCI; Maria Christina Martinez, UCI ?Sacramento Section? Jeffrey Graham, UCD ?San Diego Section Ginger Stout, UCSD; Georgiana Hale, SDSU

The words "pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure" probably cannot motivate the masses the same way an unguarded 8-year-old in a faded crosswalk can. That's understandable. According to the Centers for Disease Control, two-thirds of drivers nationwide exceed speed limits around schools. The result is that one child ages 5-15 per 200,000 are killed as pedestrians each year.  Funding the sorts of safety projects—and neighborhood co-benefits—that would improve those grisly statistics tend to make up a small fraction of transportation spending in the United States. But a safety program aimed at schoolchildren that originated a little over a decade ago in Marin County has found a way to introduce pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure funding into budgets at nearly every level of government. Tugging at the heartstrings of parents while also promoting policies near and dear to smart growth advocates, Safe Routes to School (SRTS) reaches out to school officials, parents, students and local government officials on encouraging more kids to walk to school and making it safer for those who do. While the program is explicitly focused on the safety of schoolchildren, urban planners see it as another way to bolster the case—and get public support—for programs that make neighborhoods more pedestrian-friendly for everyone.  "This program is one of the best leverage points for creating more walking and biking in our communities," said Jessica Meaney, California Policy Manager for the Safe Routes to School National Partnership, a network of organizations focused on implementing Safe Routes to School programs. Two generations ago, walking and biking didn't need advocacy. They were the norm and driving to school was the curious exception. According to Low-Income Schools and Communities Study released last year by Caltrans, as recently as 1980 the majority of children living within a 2-mile radius of a school walked or bicycled to school.  Today, that number has dropped to less than 15%.  Not coincidentally, said the study, 5% of children between the ages of 6 and 11 were considered to be overweight or obese in 1980.  "These statistics point to a rise in preventable childhood diseases, worsening air quality and congestion around schools, and missed opportunities for children to grow into self reliant, independent adults," the study concludes. In recognition of these trends, SRTS caught on in Marin because, according to the Marin Bicycle Coalition, up to 27% of the county's morning commuters consisted of parents driving their children to school in the largely affluent, suburban county. Ironically, this contributed to a higher-than-average carbon footprint for the environmentally conscious county. The coalition then set up nine test cases in a pilot program. The coalition reports that by the end of the program, the participating schools experienced a 57% increase in the number of children walking and biking and a 29% decrease in the number of children arriving alone in a car – all without heavy investments in development or infrastructure. Instead, SRTS attempts to make profound changes through interventions as subtle as signage, bike lanes and routes, sidewalk fixes, and outreach campaigns.  The program went countywide in 2003 and was incorporated into federal transportation funding authorization of 2005.  Ten years since its inception, pending state legislation seeks to make the program even more widespread and to engrain the program in neighborhoods that are not nearly as affluent as those in Marin County.  AB 539 would authorize local governments to double the base fines for speeding in school zones where existing law prohibits local governments from reducing the speed limit. AB 516, sponsored by Manuel Pérez (D-Indio), would help ensure low-income communities are able to bring SRTS programs to their local schools. AB 516 would require that at least 50% of grants go to those communities and it would require greater public participation in the SRTS planning process.  AB 516 has been re-referred to the Committee on Appropriations while AB 539 was passed by the Assembly Public Safety Committee.   AB 516 was prompted in part by the Caltrans study that found that only 44% of state Safe Routes to School grants went to low-income communities. The report notes that community infrastructure in low-income neighborhoods often dissuades children from walking and biking. The report notes that low-income youth are up to three times more likely to be obese than higher-income peers and that these obesity levels are due in part to the lack of opportunities for active recreation in low-income neighborhoods.  "Disadvantaged and rural communities tend to lack the infrastructure -- sidewalks, bike lanes, crosswalks, etc. -- that help to make communities walkable and improve quality of life," said Pérez. "The Safe Routes to School program has been an effective tool to improve walkability and pedestrian and bicyclist safety."  The report notes that the governor's Strategic Growth Council has recommended that investments in personal mobility be targeted at low-income neighborhoods.   Caltrans recently issued a call for projects to fund $42 million in projects over the next two years and has established a new website -- http://www.casaferoutestoschool.org -- to assist cities interested in implementing SRTS programs. That funding depends on the passage of a new federal Transportation Act.  Visually, the program can be summed up by the street signs commonly seen around school zones: two stick figure children carrying books as they walk to class. But in reality, those signs have a decreasing amount of relevance today. The majority of children arrive at elementary school in the back seat of a car. Safe Routes to School's  aims to change that habit. The benefits, they say, range from decreased dependence on autos to the health benefits of walking to greater connections between kids and their neighborhoods.  These statistics are, in part, a legacy of school busing programs that became widespread in the 1970s. While aiming to create more diverse student bodies, those programs also took some students away from local schools, thus forcing them to rely on buses or parents and erasing the traditional walk to school. At the same time, the preponderance of those cars and buses makes many routes less safe and palatable for those kids who can walk.  "15 to 20 percent of morning congestion is caused by parents dropping their kids off at school," said Alexis Lantz, Planning and Policy Director at the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition. "And, I think, of the school-age children in the city of Los Angeles, 25 percent of them are overweight." The dual goals of reducing congestion and improving the health of students are part of the reason the City of Los Angeles recently approved a $1.2 million study to set up a citywide Safe Routes to School program and collision database. It's an effort to streamline the city's applications for Safe Routes to School grant money available through the Caltrans and the U.S. Department of Transportation's Federal Highway Administration. Both of these funding programs are administered by Caltrans.  By collecting data on where collisions are occurring, by what transportation mode, and near which schools, the study and database are expected to help the city identify areas in need of attention before accidents occur. "Before, whenever there was a fatal collision, everybody would race to the site to see how we could have prevented it," said Bruce Gillman, a spokesperson at the Los Angeles Department of Transportation. The city had previously applied for grant money, but always on an ad hoc basis by council district. The citywide program will replace those 15 district applications with one citywide application, a move expected to greatly increase the chances of winning these competitive grants. "It will be an infusion of literally millions of dollars," Gillman said. The funding itself is intended for a combination of infrastructure projects and non-infrastructure efforts. The latter mainly takes the form of safety education campaigns, which are as important as any improvements made to the built environment, according to education advocates. "It's one thing to put a sidewalk out there, and it's one thing if you put out bike lanes, but you really need to, especially with kids, do the safety education. Especially with parents," Lantz said. "Parents have their own fears about walking and biking to school, and that extends beyond just road safety to personal safety in regards to crime and gangs." And being that these education-heavy programs don't necessarily require shovels in the ground, they are able to cheaply achieve some of the walkability goals of the smart growth movement. "It creates an environment of people being out and walking the streets and doing activities that really support place-making and community-building," said Pippa Brashear, project manager at the Project for Public Spaces.   Gail Carlson is the public health program coordinator in Riverside County, where she has been working to implement a Safe Routes to School program at 13 elementary schools. The program's goal is to get more kids walking and biking to school, and for Carlson, that means focusing on education. "Even though sidewalks are being built, kids aren't walking. For whatever reason that is. So we need to complement that with the education and the encouragement and provide that vision that there are alternative modes that kids can get to and from school safely," said Carlson. The Riverside County program runs Safe Routes to School workshops to educate parents, and is encouraging programs in schools like "Walking Wednesdays" and "Fit Fridays." Some schools have upwards of 200 kids participating in these events twice a week. One elementary school has a Safe Routes to School page in its yearbook. In addition to these educational efforts, Carlson said a few infrastructural changes have also been made since the county's Safe Routes to School program started in 2008. Visually striking red curbs and curbcuts are some of the basic improvements they've seen, but there have also been signs posted along some "walking bus" routes – paths used by parents who will walk their kids to school and pick up other kids along the way. But getting more kids walking to school takes more than just preaching the gospel. Often what drives implementation of a program is getting stakeholders to recognize when there are safety problems. "It means working with the teachers, principals, parent organizations, the students themselves to identify the problem areas, do walk audits, do bike audits, and create encouragement programs that don't necessarily take funding, they just take parent and staff involvement, and work with the community to build that support," said Lantz. And once these audits are done and programs are starting to form, cities have higher odds of winning grant money from the state or federal government to continue the work. This is good news for kids trying to get to school safety on foot or bike, but it can also be a boon for cities with few other resources to dedicate to pedestrian and bicycle safety efforts. "If a city has gotten a Safe Routes to School grant, that could very well be one of the few sources they're getting to directly address pedestrian safety and bike safety," said Meaney. At the same time, a SRTS program may depend on the nature of the surrounding environment. Thus, locales that intend to implement a Safe Routes program have incentive to consider the broader implications of place-making.  "It's sort of a chicken or an egg: Place-making supports SRTS (and vice-versa)," said Brashear, of project for Public Spaces. She said it's no good to have "kids walk down an uninhabited street with poor facilities or poor urban design."  Brashear recommends that planners use place-making strategies "by bringing activities to areas around a school and having design for a public space and public rights of way, that not only brings safety but also comfort and excitement. That really goes hand-in-hand with laying out the sidewalk."  Meaney said Safe Routes to School programs have impacts beyond the school zone. They also help cities comply with the stipulations of SB 375, the statewide law that requires regional targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. And by emphasizing safety around schools, the program makes those areas safer not only for kids—and other vulnerable populations—but for the entire community. "I think everybody benefits when we live in neighborhoods that kids can walk and bike to," said Meaney. Contacts: Caltrans Safe Routes to Schools Program Low-Income Schools and Communities Study (.pdf) Pippa Brashear, Project Manager, Project for Public Spaces, 212.620.5660 Gail Carlson, Coordinator, Riverside County Public Health Program, 951.358.7173 Alexis Lantz, Planning & Policy Director, L.A. County Bicycle Coalition, 213.629.2142 Jessica Meaney, Safe Routes to School National Partnership, 213.221.7179

When is $6.6 billion considered pocket change? When you're the state of California and you still have $10.8 billion to go.  Even with a tax windfall based on a better-than-expected economic projections for the next two years, that's where things stand with the budget deficit, which Gov. Jerry Brown is furiously trying to plug with a host of tax and realignment schemes. Land use has featured prominently in Brown's deficit-reduction strategies, and with his budget revise--released Monday--it appears that Enterprise Zones may be spared while redevelopment remains on the chopping block.  Ironically, the roughly $900 million Enterprise Zone program has relatively few friends in the state and has been fiercely criticized by researchers. Conversely, nearly every local official, real estate developer, and planner in the state has, either because of genuine conviction or parochial interests, issued resounding protests against the killing of redevelopment .  Brown reportedly salvaged Enterprise Zones in part because he did not have enough support in the Legislature to kill them. Instead, he proposes a reform that would extend tax breaks only to companies that can prove they are creating new jobs. His redevelopment proposal, however, remains unchanged.  Other elements of the governor's revised budget related to land use:  Closure of 70 state parks < pdf =">pdf"> , for a savings of $33 million Increase in Prop. 1B capital funding from $2.3 billion to $3.3 billion. Reinstatement of allocations for Prop. 1C funding, including 25 million for the Housing, Urban, Suburban and Rural Parks Program; $18 million for the Transit-Oriented Development Program; and $20 million for the Building Equity and Growth in Neighborhoods (BEGIN) Program. Prop. 1C grants had been suspended several months ago.  Elimination of over 40 state boards and commissions. The League of Cities identified several of interest to cities:  State Mining and Geology Board State Office of Gang and Youth Violence Prevention Commission on the Status of Women Governor's Office of Gang and Youth Violence Prevention California Council on Criminal Justice Fair Employment and Housing Commission Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) Standard Board  Selling non-essential properties such as the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, the Montclair Golf Course in Oakland, and most of the holdings of the Capital Area Development Authority in Sacramento.  To the last point, it's understandable that the governor would want to get some white elephants off the state's books. Lord knows, the Coliseum -- a partnership between the the state, the City of L.A., the County of L.A., and its main tenant, USC -- is a hot mess. But liquidation of CADA properties would kill one of the major drivers of development in downtown Sacramento, where CADA acts as the de facto redevelopment agency. Though this move would follow the spirit of the governor's intention to eliminate all redevelopemnt agencies, the difference is that CADA is a zero-sum game, since it's a state entity in the first place.  June 15 is the deadline for the Legislature to act on budget proposals.  --Josh Stephens

With different aspects of the City of Bell scandal continuing to come to light, "Bell" is starting to become short-hand for government corruption. Still, Bell's mess does not displace San Bernardino County from its longtime position at the top of the local government corruption charts. The situation in Bell is easily summarized: A small group of top-level city employees and four councilmembers abused their powers to get rich at taxpayers' expense. According to prosecutors and news investigations, the city officials may have received millions of dollars in excessive salaries. They simply wrote themselves large paychecks. Meanwhile, the corruption allegations, indictments and convictions in San Bernardino County are numerous, complicated and mostly concern real estate development. The latest twist was last week's indictments of former county Supervisor Paul Biane, developer Jeff Burum, former Assistant Assessor Jim Erwin and Mark Kirk, a former chief of staff for Supervisor Gary Ovitt and currently the county's director of governmental affairs. San Bernardino County District Attorney Mike Ramon and the state attorney general's office allege that Burum used campaign contributions, gifts and threats to get Biane, Ovitt and then-Supervisor Bill Postmus to approve a $102 million settlement of a lawsuit that Burum had filed against the county. Biane, Erwin, Kirk and Burum have denied wrongdoing. In 2006, the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors voted, 3-2, to settle the lawsuit filed by Burum's Colonies Partners, which was developing a 440-acre housing and retail project in Upland called Colonies Crossroads. The developer had sued for reimbursement for providing flood control facilities that it said were the county's responsibility. The settlement smelled bad at the time, as the county had already won one appellate court ruling in the litigation, and both the county counsel's office and outside attorneys urged rejection of the settlement. Maybe it was merely business-as-usual. Back in the 1990s, consecutive county administrators, Harry Mays and James Hlawek, went down after running the corner office like a criminal enterprise. Both were fined and subjected to county civil suits to recover ill-gotten riches. Mays spent two years in prison; Hlawek got off with three years probation. A county investment officer and the treasurer/tax collector also did time for taking bribes from a local businessman in exchange for county contract favors. In 2004, then-Supervisor Gerald Eaves pleaded guilty to accepting unreported gifts from a businessman who received county approval to erect billboards on county land. The mayor of Colton and two city councilmen went down in the same bribes-for-billboards scheme. Around the same time, two San Bernardino councilmembers pleaded guilty to accepting bribes from a developer. To summarize: Seven elected officials and three appointed government officials in three jurisdictions were guilty of various corruption schemes from the mid-'90s to the mid-'00s. In March of this year, Postmus, the former supervisor who resigned under pressure as county assessor in 2009, agreed to plead guilty to three felonies for conspiracy to accept a bribe, conflict of interest and misappropriation of public funds. The plea deal included Postmus's agreement to testify in future criminal trials. Two of the felonies to which Postmus copped stemmed from payments and gifts that he and his political operations received from Colonies Partners. (The other felony concerns Postmus hiring people in the assessor's office to do nothing but political work. Postmus aide Adam Aleman had already pleaded guilty to destroying public documents and lying to a grand jury about the political operations on the public's dime; a different aide is awaiting trial.) When the district attorney and attorney general's office indicted Postmus last year, they did not name five un-indicted co-conspirators. However, it was easy to identify Biane (who voted for the settlement and lost re-election last year), Kirk, Colonies managing partners Jeff Burum and Dan Richards, and Colonies PR consultant Patrick O'Reilly as the five. All have vigorously denied wrongdoing, but the indictments appeared to be a matter of time. Erwin was already being prosecuted. Meanwhile, local newspapers have reported that the county has spent $21 million suing the City of Upland, San Bernardino Associated Governments (SANBAG) and Caltrans in an attempt to recoup some of the $102 million settlement cost. SANBAG recently increased its contract with attorneys defending against the lawsuit to $8 million. Upland has spent $3.6 million defending the lawsuit. That's more than $30 million in public funds spent in an argument over a lawsuit settlement that, according to prosecutors, was illegitimate. And there's so much more. In April, the attorney general's office charged county Supervisor Neil Derry with perjury and filing a false campaign expense report. The attorney general alleges Derry laundered $10,000 in campaign contributions, including $5,000 from area developer Arnold Stubblefield, through Postmus's political operation. Rex Gutierrez, a former assessor's office employee and Rancho Cucamonga councilman, is now a resident of Tehachapi State Prison. Postmus hired Gutierrez at the assessor's office as a favor to Burum, whose nonprofit company received a $42.5 million contract from Rancho Cucamonga to maintain affordability covenants at an apartment complex. Former San Bernardino County CEO Mark Uffer last year filed a whistle-blower retaliation lawsuit against the county after the Board of Supervisors voted 3-2 to fire him. Uffer alleges he was dumped because he tried to halt the county-Colonies settlement and reign in numerous other corrupt practices. A trial on Uffer's claims could provide the biggest show yet. John Pomierski resigned as Upland mayor in February, shortly before being indicted for allegedly trying to extort money from a nightclub and medical marijuana cooperative that were seeking city permits. Also indicted was John Hennes, an appointee to the city's building appeals board. District attorney's office investigators and the FBI raided Arrowhead Regional Medical Center, the county hospital in Colton, last fall. Investigators have not explained what they were seeking, but there are allegations that high-ranking county officials received free treatment at the hospital. District attorney's investigators also are known to be asking questions about the county's negotiations, since suspended, with potential developers of 1,200 acres of surplus county land in Rancho Cucamonga. The City of Bell? One simple scheme to take tax money. That's the minor leagues compared with San Bernardino County. – Paul Shigley

Here's some flattering news about the state of urbanism in California: the freeway capital of the world is also, apparently, one of the public transit capitals of the country. A recently released study by the Brookings Institution entitled "Missed Opportunity: Jobs and Transit in America" ranks four California metro areas in the top ten out of 100 metro areas studied, according to at least one metric.  The study ranks metro areas according to the percent of the working-age population with reasonably convenient access to transit. With 97% coverage, Honolulu took the top spot, with a slew of western cities following it. Cities in the bottom ten, many of which are in the South, had no better than 35% coverage.  California dominates the top-10 with these four metros:  No. 2 Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana, with 96% coverage.  No. 3 San Jose-Sunnyale-Santa Clara, with 95.6% coverage No. 5 San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, with 91.7% coverage No. 6 Modesto, with 90.4% coverage Other California cities fared nearly as well: Stockton ranks 15th, the San Deigo area ranks 16th, the Sacramento area ranks 19th, Bakersfield ranks 21st, and Riverside-San Bernardino ranks 23rd. Some of these areas rank considerably lower when frequency of service is factored in.  That's the good news. The bad news is that, in many of these cities, the buses and trains that residents can board so easily won't necessarily take them where they want to go, or get them there in a timely manner. The study places a premium on the ability of commuters to go from home to work in less than 90 minutes. According to this metric, San Jose-Sunnyvale does great with 58.4% and a No. 3 ranking. But L.A.-Long Beach-Santa Ana falls to 69th place, with only 25% accessible. In the Riverside-San Bernardino area, only 6.6% percent of jobs are served by transit, ranking the area 96th.  It's probably not worthwhile to fret about individual rankings all that much. However, Brookings' methodology -- and its implicit statement about what transit planners' priorities ought to be -- is compelling, especially as California regions attempt to reduce their vehicle-miles traveled in accordance with SB 375.  California clearly has a lot of transit, with buses and trains going every which way. But the polycentric nature of all of these areas means that jobs are spread out and optimal routes are hard to come by--hence the "spatial mismatch" that can confound transportation planners. The Brookings research in many ways seems to dovetail with a study put out by the Public Policy Institute of California, which contended in its report "Driving Change" that the success of SB 375 depends in part on orienting transit towards employment centers rather than towards residential centers. It thus implied that TOD should focus more on offices than on apartments.  Put together, these two studies illustrate a concept that most planners have known all along: transit and land use planning must be coordinated for either to be efficient. California's transit agencies have done a great job covering vast amounts of territory. Now it's time for them to serve vast numbers of people.  --Josh Stephens

A state appellate court has ruled that a city and its redevelopment agency's approval of a term sheet for the development of a professional football stadium was not a "project approval" that required review under the California Environmental Quality Act Although the term sheet was detailed, and substantial sums had been spent on consultants leading up to that agreement, it did not commit the city to a definite course of action, the Sixth District Court of Appeal ruled. At issue was a term sheet approved in June 2009 by the City of Santa Clara and the city's Redevelopment Agency (collectively, "the city"). It set forth the basic provisions of a proposed transaction to develop a stadium that would be the home field of the San Francisco 49ers National Football League franchise. The terms included the stadium location, size, financing and operations (see CP&DR Deals, April 2008 ). The property for the proposed stadium is currently a parking lot leased to Cedar Fair, the owner and operator of Great America amusement park. Cedar Fair argued that the term sheet approvals had to be set aside because no environmental impact report (EIR) had been prepared pursuant to the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) prior to the governmental approvals of the term sheet. A Santa Clara County Superior Court judge held that preparation of an EIR was not required because approval of the term sheet did not constitute approval of a project under CEQA. A unanimous three-judge panel of the Sixth District Court of Appeal affirmed the decision in favor of the city. In deciding whether an EIR was required in the Cedar Fair case, the Court of Appeal looked to the seminal decision by the California Supreme Court in Save Tara v. City of West Hollywood, (2008) 45 Cal.4th 116 (see CP&DR Legal Digest, December 2008 ). Under the standard established in Save Tara, the key question in this case was "whether the term sheet, �viewed in light of all the surrounding circumstances,' �as a practical matter,' committed the city or the Redevelopment Agency �to the project as a whole or to any particular features, so as to effectively preclude any alternatives or mitigation measures that CEQA would otherwise require to be considered, including the alternative of not going forward with the project,'" Justice Franklin Elia wrote, citing Save Tara. In the Santa Clara situation, that standard was not met. Cedar Fair argued that, as a practical matter, the city had in fact committed itself to the proposed stadium project in light of the 39-page term sheet's high level of detail, subsequent statements made by city representatives in support of the stadium, and the large amount of money already invested by the redevelopment agency in the process of reaching an eventual final agreement. The Court of Appeal rejected that argument for several reasons. First, the court acknowledged that the term sheet was extremely detailed and that the parties preliminarily agreed to numerous provisions concerning the proposed stadium project. However, the court found that mere detail did not constitute the requisite "approval" under CEQA. The court pointed out that the Supreme Court in Save Tara rejected the idea that "once a private project had been described in sufficient detail, any public-private agreement related to the project would require CEQA review." Second, the court found that the term sheet expressly bound the parties only to continue negotiating in good faith and did not make the terms binding or even conditionally binding. By its very language, the term sheet "memorialize the preliminary terms"; mandated that the parties use the term sheet as the "general framework" for "good faith negotiations"; stated that the City "retain the absolute sole discretion" to make decisions under CEQA, including deciding "not to proceed with the Stadium project"; provided that the term sheet created " o legal obligations � unless and until the parties have negotiated, executed and delivered mutually acceptable agreements based upon information produced from the CEQA environmental review process"; made clear the parties' intent to not "create any binding contractual obligations" with respect to the development of the stadium or to commit any party to "a particular course of action"; and recognized that a no project alternative was still available. "The commitment to continue negotiations pursuant to the term sheet is unlike the commitment in Save Tara, where the City of West Hollywood contractually bound itself to sell land for private development conditioned upon CEQA compliance," Elia wrote.  Third, even though substantial sums were spent on consultants because of the magnitude and complexity of the project being negotiated, and even though such sums suggested that the city was "politically dedicated to the goal of developing a NFL stadium," those expenditures did not establish any legal commitment to any feature of the project that effectively foreclosed meaningful environmental review, the court ruled. Fourth, the court rejected Cedar Fair's arguments regarding the subsequent statements by city councilmembers and city staff members regarding the binding nature of the term sheet. Those statements contradicted the language in the term sheet, because the term sheet "cannot be reasonably construed as creating any contractual commitment on the part of to conditionally approve or undertake any aspect or feature of the stadium project," the court ruled. In summary, the Sixth District held that the allegations of the petition and the judicially noticed documents "do not demonstrate that the term sheet, in light of surrounding circumstances alleged, committed respondents, as a practical matter, to a definite course of action with respect to development of a stadium and effectively ruled out any mitigation measure or alternative, including the alternative of not going forward with the project." Still, Elia acknowledged, "The modern phenomenon of �public-private partnerships' for development makes the time of �approval' under CEQA more difficult to ascertain since a local agency may be a vocal and vigorous advocate of a proposed project as well as an approving agency. But �an agency does not commit itself to a project simply by being a proponent or advocate of the project.'" Santa Clara did approve an EIR for the stadium project last year. Cedar Fair has filed a separate lawsuit challenging the validity of that document.  The Case: Cedar Fair, L.P. v. City of Santa Clara, No. H035619, 2011 Cal.App.LEXIS 506. Filed April 6, 2011. Ordered published April 28, 2011. The Lawyers: For Cedar Fair: Sean A. Cottle and John A. Hickey, Hoge, Fenton, Jones & Appel, 408.287.9501. For the City: Karen M. Tiedemann and Juliet E. Cox, Goldfarb & Lipman, 510.836.6336.