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CP&DR was livetweeting extensively from panels at the APA California conference, as you can see by scrolling back to our September 14 and 15 posts at http://www.twitter.com/Cal_plan. Following are some notes filling out those highlights in context, and adding some further notes on issues raised at the conference. How to relate VMT estimates to each other? At a conference panel on the proposed SB 743 changes to traffic impact assessments and SB 375 CEQA streamlining, panelists had few clear answers on whether SB 743 aided or even might hinder the goal of creating simpler, more reliable procedures for project approval. But they had definite concerns about whether work done to study Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) might have to be redone on a different scale, or by a different method, if the calculation approaches weren't coordinated and standardized. Bob Leiter, a consultant who formerly headed land use and transportation planning for the San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG), said the old-school LOS congestion analysis that SB 743 seeks to replace had stopped some projects that met compact development goals of SB 375. Kirk Trost, Chief Operating Officer and General Counsel of the Sacramento Area Council of Goverments (SACOG), said SB 375 provided an explicit exemption from doing regional transportation analysis, but SB 743 obligations might include a duty to perform project-specific analyses. More energetic discussion at the SB 743 / SB 375 panel concerned the many ways to calculate Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT), the multiple approaches that have evolved to date in different programs, and the awkwardness of adjusting one to another. For example, Fred Dock, Transportation Director for the city of Pasadena, said his office had already begun calculating VMT on a citywide level. He wasn't certain, however, how the work already done in Pasadena might fit in with the regional-average standard proposed under SB 743 in the guidelines proposed this August by the Office of Planning and Research. (See http://www.cp-dr.com/articles/node-3576 and http://www.cp-dr.com/articles/node-3560.)  OPR's proposed guidelines document links directly to several different Web pages offering "sketch model" interactive worksheets to calculate VMT. (See http://bit.ly/1kOofPD, Appendix F, starting Page 36.) The panelists said officials and project proponents needed to understand better which calculation methods would be accurate and respected enough to survive legal challenges -- and public agencies would need budgets to put staff time into research on the subject. Leiter recommended a staff report by Peter Imhof of the Santa Barbara County Association of Governments (SBCAG) on ways regional differences might affect the proposed SB 743 VMT guidelines. The report appears as an attachment to a recent SBCAG advisory committee agenda at http://bit.ly/1uFvU4p. Leiter and Trost thought it would be helpful to create provisional VMT guidelines and test them out in a feedback process before enforcing definite rules. CEQA Guidelines discussion with Calfee becomes comment session The presence of OPR Senior Counsel Chris Calfee on the panel turned a discussion on the 2014 CEQA Guidelines Amendments into a comment session to help Calfee take the conference group's temperature on possible CEQA guideline revisions. Calfee told the group that although a comprehensive update to the CEQA guidelines had been in the works for some time, OPR had decided not to publish it during the SB 743 traffic impact metrics debate in order not to "distract from those issues." He called the delay "a blessing in disguise" in that it allowed OPR to continue taking comment and revising the guidelines draft accordingly. (He carefully did not offer clues to any timetable for their release.) Panelist Doug Carstens, of the CEQA petitioners' firm Chatten-Brown & Carstens, praised OPR for publicly posting all comments received on the guideline revisions. Comments and other CEQA regulatory materials are posted at http://opr.ca.gov/s_ceqaguidelines.php. Among three groups of comments linked from the page, the group from summer 2013, indexed at www.opr.ca.gov/docs/word_of_index.pdf, got attention for a City of Los Angeles Planning letter posted there. The letter, appearing on Page 57 at http://opr.ca.gov/docs/CEQA_Guidelines_Public_Comments.pdf#page%3D57, objects to what it describes as the current practice of treating "illegal uses that are already in place" as "part of the existing environmental baseline." It said, "By amending the definition of baseline to include only uses that were legally in place at the time of application, we can require these illegal uses to at least mitigate for the impacts that they create." Or if not, the letter asked that guidelines "include ways to alter the baseline in the record... to catch illegal or unapproved operations." Calfee singled out the case of Neighbors for Smart Rail v. Exposition Metro Line Construction Authority (2013) 57 Cal.4th 439 as "a really interesting one" on CEQA baselines -- "the court gave us a really good policy rationale" -- on when to stick with an assessment of existing conditions as the baseline. (The case is accessible free via search at http://www.lexisnexis.com/clients/CACourts/.) As Bill Fulton explained last year at http://www.cp-dr.com/articles/node-3392, the California Supreme Court held in the Smart Rail case that lead agencies may be able to use a "future baseline" -- a comparison of projected future conditions with and without the proposed project, rather than comparison with the present day. However, a bare majority of the Court found that future baselines are only permissible with carefully documented justifications. Panelist Barbara Schussman of Perkins Coie, however, viewed the case as suggesting that an "existing conditions" CEQA baseline could be read more broadly than some people might think, though a "distant future" baseline such as the rail program's 2030 projection did require a strong showing.  Moderator Curtis Alling, of Ascent Environmental, invited shows of hands to tell OPR the relative importance of issues to clarify in the new guidelines. The conference audience cared intensely about more clarity on standards of review, baseline-setting, CEQA's interaction with other environmental rules, and when it becomes acceptable to defer mitigation measures until later in a project. They showed less interest in clarifications on the feasibility and alternatives process or on the types of public paper and online notices require. Panelists and audience agreed that Internet posting of notices still can't be treated as sufficient to reach the whole public. (Agreement seemed a bit less clear on what Internet posting standard should be met.) Also on the panel, Mindy Fogg, Planning Manager with the County of San Diego, suggested agencies should help their publics to understand and use the alternatives process, as an underused means of improving projects. And Alling suggested OPR could make existing CEQA streamlining methods more accessible to local lead agencies by assembling a "CEQA toolbox" of possible methods to consider. Other insights from conference panels: Jason Uhley, Chief of Watershed Protection for Riverside County, complained from local experience that infill projects could be put at a disadvantage by rules designed to regulate standalone "greenfield" developments: a requirement to treat all new runoff on a newly developed property could make an infill builder responsible for water travelling along streets from existing development. For new projects' water effects, speakers on different panels mentioned pressures toward handling new projects' impacts through off-site compensations: to offset a new demand on local water supply, a developer might be asked to contributed to a regional "water bank"; to compensate for runoff effects, a developer might contribute to an "alternative" mitigation project elsewhere in the region. Bryn Evans of the Dudek environmental consulting firm said if the state water bond passed, to look for more integration between management of water supplies and of stormwater. A discussion of diversity and tourism in Los Angeles County in part explored what former Burbank mayor Emily Gabel-Luddy called "the decentralization of experience" through transit. Panelists said improved transit could help draw tourists, including overseas visitors, into a broader variety of Los Angeles physical and cultural landscapes, and could help residents of low-income neighborhoods travel more easily to opportunities elsewhere in the region. The panel also highlighted some major economic development efforts in LA that may result in shifting travel patterns. Former City Council member Jan Perry, now General Manager of the Los Angeles Economic and Workforce Development Department, discussed downtown affordable housing increases (now hampered by the loss of redevelopment financing), efforts to slow traffic and promote cultural tourism on historic Central Avenue, local-hire provisions in project labor agreements, and economic development around the Martin Luther King, Jr. Hospital project in Willowbrook (see http://planning.lacounty.gov/willowbrook). Glyn Milburn of Mayor Eric Garcetti's office described a major expansion of Universal Studios as planning to add 30,000 jobs, which he said would ideally be reached by daily transit commuters -- for example, from Santa Clarita. (County Specific Plan materials for Universal Studios are at http://1.usa.gov/1qsqSlG.) In a panel on housing issues in areas "where industry is king", Amitabh Barthakur of HR&A Advisors said production/distribution/repair (PDR) jobs were declining in Southern California but demand for industrial real estate was rising, especially inland where larger floor areas could be built. The reason? Demand for warehouse and distribution space for goods produced elsewhere. Lara Gates, Community Plan Update Project Manager with the City of San Diego Planning Department, recounted some of Barrio Logan's history as an industrial-residential neighborhood where residential neighbors have organized to assert cultural and environmental rights; the largely resident-supported creation of the Barrio Logan Community Plan ("I went and walked every single parcel") and its shipyard-backed defeat in two June citywide ballot measures (see http://www.cp-dr.com/articles/node-3510 for prior coverage). Since the defeat of the plan, Gates said the existing "mishmash" of zoning-authorized uses remained in effect, including industrial zoning "completely ringing an elementary school." In the negotiations on what should happen next, she said local industry advocates were asking to reinstate industrial uses in the area that the plan had sought to designate as a transition zone. She predicted litigation would follow. She said lessons for planners included working closely with industrial interests to understand their goals; laying down solid baseline data; concurrently reviewing both land use planning and zoning; and engaging community and political support, including understanding what local elected officials are hearing. In the housing-and-industry panel, and in a separate panel on projects near roadways, planners from dense urban areas talked about the difficulty of imposing any outright ban on sensitive uses, such as schools or housing, near industrial polluters or roadways. (Los Angeles County's ban on affordable housing within 500 feet of freeways has actually been opposed by some activists as shutting out freeway-crossed neighborhoods from housing funds that they need. See http://www.shelterforce.org/article/3346/living_in_the_buffer/.) Connie Chung of the Los Angeles County Department of Regional Planning said in the roadways discussion that many community development and transit-oriented development effort have focused in areas near major roadways (not solely freeways) that create dense air pollution. Realistically, she said, focus for development in buffer areas near big roadways has to be less prohibition in than mitigation. On the other hand, Ian MacMillan, Program Supervisor for CEQA Intergovernmental Review with the South Coast Air Quality Management District, said the 500-foot buffer distance consistently seemed to be the "magic number" for housing. And there are costs to building near freeways with the mitigations that freeway-damaged air quality requires. MacMillan said mitigation in such areas could include use of expensive high-quality indoor air filters that would have to be replaced timely throughout the life of the building -- potentially a cost and maintenance issue for affordable housing. Cathy Fitzgerald of PlaceWorks said especially high-level air filters, above the MERV-13 level, can create problems with air flow resistance, high maintenance costs, and possibly a need for special HVAC systems. For jurisdictions or builders looking to estimate roadway emissions, Leland Villalvazo, Supervising Air Quality Specialist with the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District, offered an online estimator -- not necessarily approved by all jurisdictions, but with data available for all California Counties. He offered links to the District's "Inventory and Modeling Resources" links page at http://www.valleyair.org/busind/pto/Resources/resources_idx.htm, and directly to the estimator at ftp://12.219.204.27/public/Modeling/Final/Roadway/. At the industry-vs.-housing panel, a conference participant from Chula Vista noted a problem with industrial landlords in prime industrial areas who, when demand for industrial uses periodically goes slack, try to fill in their space with non-industrial tenants such as martial arts studios or small churches. The temporary tenants change the character of the area; when heavy industry returns, its effects on the non-industrial tenants create land use conflicts. Laura Stetson of the MIG planning firm said it can be important to set and enforce firm code restrictions against non-industrial uses in such areas. A broad discussion that started from the subject of second-round Sustainable Communities Strategies featured a meeting of powerful regional governance figures: Executive Directors Gary Gallegos of SANDAG, Mke McKeever of SACOG, and Hasan Ikhrata of SCAG, and Ken Kirkey, MTC plan director. Of the four, Ikhrata was best at sound bites. In a comment that quickly drew approval online, he said of the Los Angeles transit network, "Right now we are going back to the future. We are building the system that we got rid of." He said studies showed "Millenials prefer access to ownership." And with an ironic reference to "the Happiest Place on Earth," he talked about families packed into overcrowded housing in Santa Ana, not far from the Disneyland conference site; he said people will house themselves somehow. Gallegos of SANDAG (the San Diego Association of Governments) reported initial success for San Diego's first Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) project with managed lanes; he reported a 40% cost recovery rate from transit fares; McKeever of SACOG (Sacramento Area Council of Governments) said other areas could only aspire to a 40% cost recovery rate. "We're a light year away from that." Gallegos said he had hoped cap-and-trade would fund ongoing transit operations more than it has. Kirkey of the Bay Area's Metropolitan Transportation Commission mentioned a need to use public funding to develop jobs outside the tech sector that don't necessarily require college diplomas. Anona Dutton, vice president of water resources practice with the firm of Erler and Kalinowski, said water supply assessments required by SB 610 "show me the water" rules would be more under scrutiny to the extent they relied on groundwater. She said project proponents and administrators would also need to consider if water supply assessments put forward during 2014-2015, after several years of severe drought, could still be safely based on the Urban Water Management Plans developed in the better-watered year of 2010. (For delays in the plan deadlines and changed provisions see CP&DR's news briefs on the new AB 2067 and SB 1036, both signed since the conference.) Dutton said water supply offset requirements for new projects, such as those now applied by EBMUD, are a trend moving west from inland, e.g. New Mexico. She also said careful conservation and recycling can be used to get projects built. She said one developer of a large project reduced its per capita *potable* use projection to 30 gallons per day. Eric Robinson, the water practice manager with the firm of Kronick, Moskovitz, Tiedemann & Girard, said a good "teaching case" on practical application of the state's water supply assessment rules would be the First Appellate District's Sonoma County Water Coalition v. Sonoma County Water Agency (2010) 189 Cal.App.4th 33. Although Disneyland's fantasy towers and transplanted palm trees formed a viewshed around the conference, news reports of strained natural resources formed its real backdrop: drought conditions, wildfires, and record-setting summer heat. It became routine to hear panelists, especially water and air quality specialists, reporting on pressures imposed by scarcity to acknowledge physical logistical demands, such as depletion of groundwater. As with the questioning of 2010 water plans, many of the experts were warning planners not to presume that formal assumptions could insulate them or the public from jagged facts. For a conference built in part around raising the value of property investments, it gave a great deal of time to the notion that the physical limits of air, water, and transportation systems can and do limit property rights in land.

The Strategic Growth Council has proposed that 40% of its estimated $130 million in cap-and-trade funds be devoted to transit-oriented development (TOD) projects and that another 30% be devoted to a variety of infrastructure-related programs that may include housing. The SGC issued draft program guidelines yesterday afternoon. The week before,  the Air Resources Board (ARB) adopted guidelines on benefits to disadvantaged communities. The newly public documents represent important strands in a braid of agency rules required by prior AB 32 / SB 535 provisions and the new programs set up by this year's SB 862 budget bill. In particular, SGC has begun more definitely to describe the Affordable Housing and Sustainable Communities (AHSC) program, which as of June 2014 brought housing issues into a statutory scheme previously focused on reducing carbon emissions and environmental disadvantage. (See information on SGC's prior workshops asking the public how to create the new program here .) The final strand in the braid, required by the end of the month, will be a definite decision from CalEPA on which of California's 8,000 census tracts to designate as "disadvantaged," most likely through application of the CalEnviroScreen 2.0 environmental/socioeconomic metric. (Prio CP&DR coverage of the "disadvantage" definitions issue can be found here .) On September 18 the Air Resources Board (ARB) approved a lightly revised version of its previously circulated guidelines on defining benefits to disadvantaged communities. The revisions raise the percentage of CAL FIRE urban forestry grants to serve disadvantaged communities from 55% to 100%, and they add, in 26 separate instances, the phrase "direct, meaningful, and assured" as a descriptor for the ways benefits should be provided to disadvantaged communities. The proposed SGC guidelines refer to the September 18 approvals but state the resulting "disadvantaged community threshold requirements" table is "subject to revision to be available by September 30, 2014." SGC's main 82-page non-agricultural guidelines draft recommends "two project prototypes", identified as transit-oriented development (TOD) projects, to receive at least 40% of funds, and "Integrated Connectivity Projects" (ICP), to receive at least 30% of funds. It describes the program as offering "gap financing for rental housing developments that include affordable units, and as mortgage assistance for homeownership developments. In addition, grants are available for infrastructure improvements." In the TOD category each project area to receive an award of $1 million to $15 million with a "Major Transit Stop within a 1/2 mile catchment area." The transit stop can connect to high-speed rail, "commuter or light rail," Bus Rapid Transit (BRT), or an "Express Bus." Each TOD area "must" include both affordable housing and a "capital use" from a list that may include a variety of housing, transportation or greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction programs. The ICP description does not require housing but does require two eligible projects, one of which must be an "Infrastructure-Related Capital Use" that may promote housing, transportation, transit, "green infrastructure," pollution reduction or "planning implementation". It allows for grants of $500,000 to $8 million for project areas. Its transit requirement may be met by an ordinary bus or "vanpool/shuttle" stop but it must increase transit use to "key destinations". (The references to less urban choices such as home mortgage assistance and bus or vanpool transit could be concessions to calls made by rural housing advocates and planners for ways to use AHSC money outside major transit corridors.) Additional requirements and limits on uses apply, in part according to each project's type of existing landscape and proposed use. Housing infrastructure spending is restricted to $35,000 per housing unit or $50,000 per affordable "restricted unit", and program uses are restricted to 10% of each whole grant. Other limits further push projects away from infrastructure-only planning toward mixed purposes that are likely to include housing. The program forbids any grant-assisted profit that "exceeds the commercially reasonable range for other developments of similar size and level of risk". Further "The applicant must show that Program funds are reasonably necessary for Project feasibility and no other source of compatible funding is reasonably available." Rental housing developments must carry 55-year affordability covenants. Projects that demolish or rehab existing affordable housing units must replace them at a level of "equal or greater affordability". This is a key difference from, for example, the SB 628 Enhanced Infrastructure Financing Districts program, which also requires any lost low-rent units to be replaced, but at levels of "affordability" targeted to incomes as high as 120% of area median. The application process is to be managed as separate TOD and ICP competitive processes, each handled according to a point scoring system. "Anti-displacement strategies" are among the factors to be considered in the "community orientation" scoring category, though it's not clear if there would be any requirement to compensate for gentrification effects that do not directly evict existing tenants. Other factors (among many) include housing affordability levels, "affordability factors" of project locations, blocks shorter than 500 feet, sidewalks, bike facilities, green building techniques, electric vehicle charging stations, and maximum limits on parking. "Co-benefits" that earn points include public health and safety improvements, economic and job training advantages to residents, and reduced pollution exposures. After 40% of the funds have been allocated to TOD applicants and 30% to ICP applicants, the remaining 30% goes to "Either TOD or ICP based upon score; and requirements." A cover memo appearing as part of the posted draft guidelines PDF sets out "issues to be resolved prior to Council adoption of the Final Guidelines in December." It lists "coordination and partnership" with regional government entities, "geographic distribution of funds throughout the state," "ARB guidance on GHG reductions quantification" and choices of point values for application scoring. (The current draft leaves point values to be filled in later.) On the roles of Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs) and other regional government entities, SGC states in the draft guidelines themselves that it is "soliciting input and advice from" such entities and "developing a framework for thorough, meaningful consultation with these institutions." It does not suggest a more than advisory direct role for them. The draft guidelines do however require funded projects to be consistent with regional agencies' Sustainable Communities Strategies. The agricultural lands proposal calls for planning grants of $100,000 each to "counties and/or cities in collaboration with other partners," adding up to $1 million; and agricultural easement grants of unspecified individual amounts, adding up to $3.75 million. It calls for spending an unspecified further amount on creating incentives for GHG reduction through land management in cooperation with USDA. The planning grants are to cover purposes such as designing farmland conservation plans or exploring possibilities for agricultural easements. Applicants are to use CalEnviroScreen to determine whether half the proposed project area is in a disadvantaged community or, if not, must show how the proposed project provides "direct, meaningful and assured benefits" to a nearby disadvantaged community. A resource appendix to the agricultural land preservation draft carries a dense collection of links to state and federal agency Web sites on land use, GHG reduction and conservation. The main SGC draft guidelines as released September 23 are here . The workshop notice  currently sets hearings October 23-28 but has yet to announce precise dates or times. It states written comments may be submitted until October 31, 2014 to AHSC@SGC.CA.GOV and the Strategic Growth Council's adoption board meeting will be December 11. The agricultural lands draft from SGC is at http://bit.ly/1wKxcdW. A September 23 email announcement of the agricultural lands draft said "Public workshops for this specific Program will be noticed by the end of September. Public Comments shall be sent to AHSC_AG@sgc.ca.gov." The ARB approval was announced in a press release at http://www.arb.ca.gov/newsrel/newsrelease.php?id=658. The guidelines as approved are at http://bit.ly/1Dm4VPp. Public comments on the ARB and CalEPA elements of the proposed disadvantaged communities definitions are at http://www.arb.ca.gov/lispub/comm2/bccommlog.php?listname=sb-535-guidance-ws. The combined workshop page for the ARB and CalEPA processes is at http://www.arb.ca.gov/cc/capandtrade/auctionproceeds/upcomingevents.htm. The CalEnviroscreen 2.0 metric is at http://oehha.ca.gov/ej/ces2.html.

While CP&DR and lots of our readers were at the APA California conference, land use news continued to appear in the outside world. A few highlights are summarized here. (Coastal Commission coverage to follow in a few days.) Keep watching our Web site as we unpack and follow up more news from the conference, and if you haven't seen our livetweeting stream from some of the September 14 and 15 panels, it's still available at https://twitter.com/Cal_plan. Rominger : tentative subdivision maps are CEQA business The Third District Court of Appeal held in Rominger v. County of Colusa that a proposed subdivision map was a "project" for CEQA purposes where it concerned tentative subdivision maps -- a topic that the Court said was defined in Sec. 21080 of the Public Resources Code as categorically CEQA subject matter. Although the map had been the subject of a mitigated negative declaration certified by the county, the trial court was willing to find it exempt from CEQA on the grounds that it did not count as a "project". The appellate court rejected several of the petitioners' underlying allegations, in an extended point-by-point analysis that Art Coon's developer-side law blog has already identified as worth a careful read for practitioners. The Third District found merit only in one of the petitioners' allegations, over traffic impacts -- but it still remanded the matter for preparation of an EIR. The case is at http://www.courts.ca.gov/opinions/documents/C073815.PDF. Unsuccessful petitioners on SF's Market/Octavia plan stuck with record preparation bill In Coalition for Adequate Review v. City and County of San Francisco , the First District Court of Appeal judged a record costs dispute stemming from an unsuccessful CEQA challenge to the Market and Octavia area planning process in San Francisco. The underlying plan concerned a downtown area that was made more attractive  to developers by removal of the freeway viaduct that formerly crossed Market Street west of Civic Center. The city and petitioners disputed the preparation of the administrative record: the petitioners, who elected to prepare the record, claimed their access to city documents to prepare the record was hindered, and then that the city drove up costs by insisting on supplementing the record with thousands of additional pages. The trial court rejected the petition for writ of mandate, then also rejected a motion in which the city sought more than $64,000 in costs for its work preparing the supplement to the record. On appeal, Justice Kathleen Banke wrote for a panel of the First District Court of Appeal that the city could in fact claim the cost of preparing the supplemental record. It rejected petitioners' argument that a large fee bill would have a chilling effect on future petitioners' willingness to invoke their rights. Banke found it important that the city did not prepare the supplement unilaterally, but instead first obtained a local judge's agreement that the supplemental documents were necessary for a complete record. On the other hand, Banke wrote that under the heading of paralegal time, which formed the bulk of the city's fee bill, the city could only claim time spent actually preparing the record and not time spent reviewing it "for completeness." The case is at http://www.courts.ca.gov/opinions/documents/A135512.PDF. It follows a prior unpublished 2013 ruling, at http://www.courts.ca.gov/opinions/nonpub/A131487.PDF, that addressed more of the underlying issues. For the Market and Octavia Area Plan that was disputed see http://www.sf-planning.org/index.aspx?page=1713. Also in the outside world: As you'll have seen, Governor Jerry Brown signed the groundwater legislation. For Sacramento Bee coverage see http://bit.ly/XdAZ6S. A news feature in National Geographic , just published this morning, welcomes the new requirements but notes their effect is to start planning processes that won't actually restrict groundwater pumping for several years. See http://bit.ly/1pjFC61. Governor Brown also signed a string of measures on Monday, September 15 that included SB 1353 on extension of Williamson Act contracts. See http://gov.ca.gov/news.php?id=18700 for the list. He signed a further group of bills September 16: http://gov.ca.gov/news.php?id=18702 An audit alleged misuse of housing bond funds by the state Department of Housing and Community Development. See http://lat.ms/1ARMfTx for an LA Times report on the audit and https://www.auditor.ca.gov/reports/summary/2014-037 for the audit itself. The LA Times reported Los Angeles began a hotel tax enforcement campaign against AirBnB hosts: http://lat.ms/1qg1lC8 Bloomberg reported the California Oil Marketers' Association was asking State Attorney General Kamala Harris to investigate the legality of the state cap-and-trade program's fuels component: http://bloom.bg/1u09r3h. The "Six Californias" measure failed to qualify for the California ballot: http://bit.ly/1Bz6fN1

The SB 743 roadshow went to Anaheim over the weekend, where the Governor's Office of Planning & Research – along with Ron Milam from Fehr & Peers – faced an overflow crowd and probed deeply into OPR's proposal to dump traffic congestion as a significant impact under the California Environmental Quality Act. And the discussion showed just how much the OPR proposal is turning the CEQA's traditional assumptions about traffic on their head. The Sunday afternoon session at the California Chapter, American Planning Association , conference came only two days after a similar overflow session in San Diego on Friday .  At that session, OPR's Chris Ganson and Chris Calfee acknowledged that their proposed CEQA Guideline amendments might override local general plans on the issue of traffic congestion. But the addition of Milam – one of California's sharpest CEQA traffic minds – gave the Sunday session much more depth in raising questions about how the new guidelines might work. Over the summer, OPR issued a proposed set of CEQA Guideline amendments that would replace level of service with vehicle miles traveled as the main tool to assess the traffic impact of plans and projects under the environmental review law. Since then, local government planners and traffic engineers have been worried that they will no longer have enough clout to extract traffic mitigations from developers. Much of the discussion on Sunday revolved around the question of induced travel created by additional highway capacity – and whether, under CEQA, additional capacity might actually wind up creating a significant impact, rather than serving as mitigation. Under the LOS standard, congestion can be a significant impact and so therefore additional capacity can be a mitigation. But under the OPR proposal, congestion can't be considered a significant impact, while big increases in VMT can be. So, if additional lanes mean freeflowing traffic, and freeflowing traffic induces travel, VMT might go up – and trigger a significance threshold under CEQA. One audience member posted this question: If the Regional Transportation Plan and the Sustainable Communities Strategy has identified the need for a widened road – and the plan-level environmental impact report is done – will project-level environmental review have to look at induced travel? "The simple answer," Milam said, "is yes." But both he and the OPR representatives emphasized that a VMT metric might drive lead agencies in the direction of adding either density or a greater mix of land uses as a mitigation measure to drive VMT down – and this may have some effect on congestion as well.  Regarding the fear that local governments have of losing leverage over developers, Milam acknowledged: "It's as if we're playing golf while taking our seven-iron away." But he added that lead agencies must take a much broader view about how transportation analysis will be changing under CEQA. "We've become dependent on LOS as a way to get ad-hoc mitigation," he added. "Traditionally we want to look through the one lens, LOS, which is largely a traffic operations metric. … What's happened with 743, is we're starting to balance the playing field by introducing accessibility, access to goods and services. Access is not a traffic operations metric … It's helping understand how efficient our networks are." Milam and Calfee both emphasized once again that local governments can still use their police power and their general plan policies to extract increases in roadway capacity from developers. Calfee emphasized that the proposed guidelines are still a long way from adoption. He indicated that based on the comments received at these and other forums, OPR will likely change the proposed guidelines. If the changes are significant, OPR will likely circulate them again informally – and after that turn the guidelines over to the Natural Resources Agency for a formal rulemaking process with yet more comment periods.

The end of redevelopment has never turned into a cash cow for the state, as Gov. Jerry Brown hoped back in 2011. And while the 2012 cleanup law – AB 1484 – has clarified the rules, cities are still losing most lawsuits against the state that seek to retain former redevelopment funds. That was the message from three lawyers at the Nossaman law firm who gave an update on redevelopment at the California Chapter, American Planning Association , conference in Anaheim on Monday. Overall, it was a tale that seemed to suggest everyone is getting less than they had hoped for – not only the locals but the state as well. "The amount of money -- the $1.7 billion that was gonna just come flying in to the state -- has not materialized," Nossaman lawyer Rick Rayl said. "The assets have produced a lot less than anyone ever thought. If you asked Gov. Brown, he might second-guess the whole decision. I don't think it has accomplished what he intended." AB 1484 created a much more constructive relationship between the successor agencies and the Department of Finance and in particular took the pressure off a possible fire-sale of real estate assets by authorizing successor agencies to prepare long-range property management plans subject to state approval. These plans permit agencies to lay out long-term plans for developing or selling former redevelopment agency assets in a way that will maximize value. Many cities have complained that DOF turns long-range property management plans are very slowly, but Rayl's colleague Jeff Stava said DOF is actually picking up the pace and getting faster and more responsive to successor agency requests. Among the other pending issues facing successor agencies: * Disposition of some 180 lawsuits against DOF – most of which seek to permit the successor agencies to retain former redevelopment funds or real estate assets over DOF's objections. DOF has won most of these cases at the trial court level and the cases are only beginning to trickle up to the appellate courts. * How to maintain a good credit rating for both the successor agency and the underlying city when $11 billion in redevelopment bonds have been downgraded to junk status. This is especially important as successor agencies begin refinancing bonds – a practice other taxing entities like but, according to Stava, many successor agencies are not motivated to undertake because the underlying city will only receive 15-20% of the benefit. * Whether and how to spend proceeds from so-called "Mardi Gras" bonds – bonds issued during the hectic period in early 2011 when redevelopment agencies were trying to beat a pending deadline for dissolution. One legislative bill, SB 1129, would actually clarify this issue and allow some of the bond proceeds to be spent.

This week CP&DR is livetweeting the APA California conference in Anaheim.  You can read first impressions from the panels at http:// www.twitter.com/Cal_plan. (No need to have a Twitter account: just close any pop-up windows at the site and keep reading.) We'll have more detailed coverage here later on based on news picked up at the conference.

You think this is going to be another piece about the shortcomings and backfires of the California Environmental Quality Act. It's not. The most affecting moment in Paul Bogard's book The End of Night  describes a Cherokee ritual called "opening the night." Participants sit in a quiet place -- forest, desert, front lawn, mountaintop -- and listen to the sounds within an armspan. Then the radius doubles. It doubles again. It keeps doubling until the listener has beheld the entire spectrum of perceptible sounds, taking in the landscape with an intimacy that those of us in busy, bright places can only imagine. The marriage of silence and darkness is an utterly appropriate bit of synesthesia: they are two sides of the same globe. Both are in woefully short supply in California. Under the Dome Almost everyone reading CP&DR spends half his or her life in a crepuscular third space created by artificial light. Without it, we would see brilliant darkness, unknown stars, meteors, the ballet of the heavens, and a Milky Way true to its name. Bogard, a professor of creative writing at James Madison University, describes the sublimity of the true night sky first and foremost in aesthetic terms. It is a beauty that all people deserve to enjoy. He explains why van Gogh's "Starry Night" might have been more the product of observation than of madness. Crazy or not, that's what a real night is supposed to look like.   The trillions of points of light in the true night sky are no match for the mere billions on the ground. You know the culprits: streetlights; parking lots; gas stations; billboards; preening McMansions; "security" lighting; athletic fields; headlights....and on and on. Parking lots alone can account for up to 50% of a city's outdoor lighting. It all piles up in icteritious "domes" that hover above every urban area in the country. Just as Americans in the 1950s gleefully inhaled smog in the name of progress, Americans now surrender the night for much the same reason. Tablets and smart phones are today's cigarettes, enabling us to further disrupt our eyesight, hormone production, and circadian rhythms. Nocturnal animals don't fare so well either. Bogard is particularly protective of bats, which, he writes, consume insects, rarely carry disease, and are way too good at flying to get tangled in anyone's hair. The Bortle Scale measures the night sky on a scale from 9 (Times Square, the Vegas Strip) to 1 (antediluvian void). If you're reading this at night anywhere in a major city, a Bortle 8 is probably seeping through your curtains this very moment. Bogard numbers his chapters backwards, from 9 to 1, in a march through time and space that begins with the spotlight atop the Luxor Hotel and ends in an empty Moroccan desert. Under a Bortle 1 sky, he writes, even your first glance is revelatory. Then give your eyes an hour or two to adjust. Then you'll see what's really going on up there.  California features prominently in The End of Night. Los Angeles' light pollution is described as second only to that of Las Vegas. At the same time, one of Bogard's many lyrical descriptions of a real night sky (they never get tedious, I promise) -- of which there is little in the western United States and next to none in the east -- comes from the still backroads of Death Valley. It's amazing to think that California was once so dark that some of the world's most important telescopes were here. (They're still here, of course. They're just not important any more.) It's worth reading End of Night just to reach his most inspiring quotation, from the gonzo naturalist Edward Abbey. Referring to nowhere in particular: "this is the most beautiful place on earth. There are many such places." Unlike so many other environmental ravages, light pollution's effects are not necessarily permanent. The depths of Vernon wears the same crown as does Half Dome. The stars are all up there, waiting like cut diamonds to be disinterred.  Planning for Darkness The End of Night is not a book of urban planning, but the role that planners can play is clear as, well, day.  A few cities around the world, primarily in Europe, are already trying to get their light under control. Flagstaff, Ariz., is the only U.S. city that has implemented a comprehensive program to combat light pollution. It has been a modest success. Even Walmart and Target conform to the city's regulations without, apparently, going out of business. Bogard reports that between 2000 and 2010, the city's brightness increased only 17 percent, with a 25 percent increase in population. He isn't thrilled with achieving merely a lower rate of increase, but it's better than nothing.  Ordinances regulating light pollution could be integrated into a general plan, replete with Bortle ratings to set goals and track progress. The International Dark-Sky Association, an admittedly quirky organization to which Bogard makes repeated reference, has model programs that can help cities reconnect their citizens to the sublime. It invites cities to joint its International Dark Skies Communities, taking a vow if not of darkness than of less brightness. A few cities in California have taken this vow (see CP&DR July 2003 ). But, in my many years of discussing environmental issues with planners, the topic has never come up. It's nowhere on the agenda at the California APA conference , going on right now. Of course, the dimming of lights could be an invitation for mayhem. But maybe not. Bogard notes that dark places do not necessarily have more crime than bright places do. As in architecture so in public safety: well lit doesn't have to mean brightly lit. Without lights, the would-be burglars can't see either. Shadows give assailants places in which to lurk. Someone who has adjusted to the darkness is more keen than someone assaulted by glare. Eyes on the stars can also be eyes on the street. It takes generations to construct a build environment. It could take months to retrofit a neighborhood with more sensible lighting, especially in the age of sensors and LED's. Cities could transfer the funds to policing, to calm the paranoid. And, yes, there's an argument to be made that atmospheric light pollution should be covered under the California Environmental Quality Act. CEQA does refer to light pollution, but that typically refers to nuisances in an immediate area (like this ). The entire skyscape might be a tough one for public officials to regulate: it is either immutable or, at a few light years' remove, too far out of their jurisdiction. But surely the health risks of artificial light to 39 million people might justify action?   Why, ultimately, should cities put try to something as amorphous as darkness into their finely tuned plans? Bogard's finest chapter is Chapter 4, midway between light and dark on the Bortle scale and a far piece into the human psyche. In it, he addresses not just literal darkness but metaphorical darkness. He cities English professor Eric Wilson who, in his book In Praise of Melancholy , insists that sorrow, darkness, and contemplation are all crucial elements of, if not happiness per se, then at least of satisfaction -- of the fullness of being human. This ethos runs contrary to the superficial happiness that is ascribed to Californians. And yet, to banish, ignore, or devalue darkness is to lose authenticity, forsake ambiguity, and stunt our souls. But we can get it back. We just have to extend an arm, and flip the switch. The End of Night Paul Bogard Back Bay Books $16.00 (paperback)

The proposed CEQA Guidelines prohibiting lead agencies from categorizing traffic congestion as a significant impact will likely trump any significance finding tied to local general plans that contain a level of service standard, state officials said at a forum on the draft guidelines Friday in San Diego. In response to a question, Chris Calfee, counsel at the Governor's Office of Planning & Research, indicated that General Plan congestion standards won't be counted as significant under CEQA. "Once the guidelines are adopted, then those measures can't be the basis of a significance finding under CEQA," he said. He later indicated that it may be necessary to revise the CEQA checklist to reflect this viewpoint. At the same time, Calfee emphasized: "We are only making changes to the CEQA analysis. Local General Plan policies, zoning codes, things like that, those remain in place. This does not interfere with local police power. Local agencies get to keep their impact fees, their planning processes, as otherwise." Nevertheless, the general impression conveyed by OPR is that the CEQA Guidelines amendments are likely to drive local government policies away from congestion and toward VMT as a standard. The draft guidelines � issued by OPR pursuant to the SB 743 CEQA reform bill passed last year � would replace the congestion-based "level of service" standard with a "vehicle miles traveled" standard. OPR is now taking the show on the road to gauge response. On Friday � as a warmup to the state American Planning Association conference in Anaheim � OPR's Chris Ganson and Calfee presented the proposed guidelines to a crowd of 250 planners, transportation engineers, and advocates at San Diego City Hall. Much of the event consisted of Ganson providing detail on the proposal that has been previously reported in CP&DR . Along the way, however, Ganson provided some interesting detail about why other prospective measures � especially multi-modal level of service � had been rejected in favor of VMT.  He said LOS as a general standard often focuses on the wrong things � moving vehicles instead of people, for example, and solving the program of localized congestion around a particular project without considering the overall impact on the transportation system. "The scale of analysis is too small," he said. "Oftentimes, you relieve a bottleneck and end up with a worse bottleneck downstream, which worsens the whole situation." In other words, he said: "All you did was you moved impact outside of your scope of analysis to somewhere else." Discussing multi-modal level of service � which has often been identified as a possible alternative to vehicle level of service � Ganson said it has many of the same defects as vehicle level of service. "There are a lot of situations in which inserting multimodal LOS could be quite useful, "he said." We found CEQA not to be one of them because it creates some of the same perverse incentives � in infill development it's again going to trigger impacts on transit, bicycling, ped facilities. It looks at crowding and says adding more people is bad but of course what we want is to add more people." Ganson also reiterated that even if congestion itself would not be considered a significant impact, the new guidelines would continue to permit actual environmental impacts of congestion � air quality, for example � to be analyzed, and would also permit analysis of safety concerns, a matter of interest to Caltrans in particular. In a panel discussion after Ganson's presentation, representatives of other agencies discussed the need for additional technical information and better collaboration to make the VMT standard work. Mike Calandra, a senior transportation modeler at SANDAG, emphasized the need for accurate traffic counts in order to accurately estimate VMT and referred interested parties to a SANDAG white paper on the topic. Meanwhile, Marc Birnbaum, senior statewide transportation analysis advisor at Caltrans, said the agency will probably want to work more closely with local agencies in implementing the new standard. "We're not a land use agency, so when it comes to the land use side, we've kind of been beggars trying to seek mitigation, he said. "On the transportation side, we have relied on planning at regional and city and county level to justify our projects. So we're going to have to work a lot closer (with local agencies) to ensure that VMT is addressed earlier."

Advocates for affordable housing and advocates for environmental justice have a lot in common, but their goals and assumptions don't always mesh fully. Now the new cap-and-trade law is forcing them to have a more serious conversation. They're especially having to work out grantmaking guidelines under the new Affordable Housing and Sustainable Communities (AHSC) program. It isn't easy. (For prior coverage of the AHSC guidelines debate see http://www.cp-dr.com/articles/node-3556.) Some of the difficulty was on display at a September 3 workshop in Oakland, held to discuss CalEPA's proposals on how to define "disadvantaged communities" under all of the cap-and-trade programs regulated by SB 535, and related proposals from the Air Resources Board (ARB) on how to define when such communities receive benefits. With comment on these proposals due September 15, the conversations in small-group discussions at the workshop had a note of urgency. Anxiety was especially high in the Bay Area because the whole region tended to score lower in the agencies' proposed statewide rating of disadvantage. A sign-on letter organized by the SB 535 Coalition, with signers from housing, environmental justice, poverty and transit groups, said grants out of cap-and-trade proceeds should genuinely help disadvantaged groups of people in significant ways, with care taken not to actually burden them. They said programs should not simply commit to spend money in geographic areas defined as disadvantaged. (Comments on the proposals are posted publicly on the site maintained for the disadvantage guidelines and workshops at http://www.arb.ca.gov/cc/capandtrade/auctionproceeds/upcomingevents.htm.) Housing advocates also questioned whether the CalEPA approach to defining disadvantage, which emphasizes environmental hazards, might direct additional housing toward areas that are defined as disadvantaged precisely because they are unhealthy to live in. Another question was how directly the funding process should respond to the specific problems of a given disadvantaged place -- linguistic isolation, for example, or toxics from a particular industrial site, or extreme poverty in some far northern areas that have relatively low exposures to industry, agricultural chemicals or traffic. Regional differences on an environmentally-oriented metric At the center of the agencies' approach was CalEnviroScreen 2.0 (CES 2.0), the multiply workshopped, politically honed and visually astonishing mapping tool that CalEPA has developed to show intersections of environmental and social inequity. Available at http://oehha.ca.gov/ej/ces2.html, the tool now rates census tracts' levels of disadvantage according to measures of toxic exposures, environmental degradation, and aspects of public health and socioeconomic disadvantage (e.g., asthma and poverty) that increase vulnerability to environmental hazards. Many Bay Area census tracts known for poverty and environmental hazards tend to score lower on CES 2.0 than areas with similar reputations in other regions of the state. CalEPA's proposed "cutpoint" for defining disadvantage is the worst 20% of statewide census tracts. Officials said that in the Los Angeles workshop some commenters from areas with very high disadvantage ratings actually called for the cutpoint to fall at 15%. In the Bay Area however, many areas with significant problems fell into a borderline area between the worst 20% and the worst 25% of census tracts according to statewide ratings. Hence some Bay Area advocates were calling for the cutpoint to fall at 25%. The Bay Area has some tracts rated very high for disadvantage, especially along the east fringe of San Francisco Bay, toward San Jose and along Interstate 80. But there are some surprising results too. Among the dense downtown neighborhoods of San Francisco, the highest disadvantage rating, of "86-90%", is shown for a tract east of Fifth Street near Moscone Center where many of the residents are seniors living in subsidized housing. Poverty, linguistic isolation, and exposure to environmental hazards are all real problems in that tract, but other downtown areas known for poverty amid gentrification, such as Sixth Street and the Tenderloin, show much lower disadvantage ratings. The Bayview-Hunter's Point neighborhood on San Francisco's southeast waterfront, with its long record of economic disinvestment and toxic exposures, shows up with worse disadvantage ratings than many other parts of the city. But even the highest ratings there fall in the "76-80%" range, i.e. they are within the worst 25% but would not qualify as "disadvantaged" under the 20% cutpoint rule. A similar result was worrying Janet Pygeorge, head of the Rodeo Citizens Association. Her concern is with Census Tract No. 6013358000, which covers the area of Rodeo around the Phillips 66 refinery on the Carquinez Strait. The tract has a CES 2.0 rating of "76-80%" with very high ratings for hazardous waste, asthma and traffic density, but lower concern ratings for some factors such as ozone, drinking water, pesticides and formal educational attainment. (Only agricultural pesticides, not urban ones, are considered in CES 2.0, a circumstance that led at least one commenter to ask if urban burdens were under-measured.) Pygeorge said the area is vulnerable to releases from the refinery and has dilapidated public housing near there that would be first to suffer in the case of a major toxic event. She wrote after the meeting, "Nobody is at fault, but we are here, drowning." Her submitted comment on the disadvantage determination process, describing effects of toxics on her neighbors, is at http://bit.ly/1quGE5p. Regarding the Bayview-Hunter's Point and Rodeo results, CalEPA Communications Director Alex Barnum said, "We are looking at that in the context of all the other comments." A further comment by Nancy Rieser, of Crockett Rodeo United to Defend the Environment (CRUDE), supported a "Method 6" proposed by the Bay Area Air Quality Management District in addition to the five approaches proposed by CalEPA. Her comment, at http://bit.ly/1utoK3k, said "This method, which still relies on the CalEnviroScreen indicator data, ensures that communities with top ranks in a few indicators will be better represented." Her letter also suggested considering added factors including cost of living and urban pesticide use. David Armijo, General Manager of the AC Transit district, which serves Alameda and Contra Cota Counties, also submitted a comment supporting "Method 6" and suggesting disadvantage had been undercounted in areas such as West Oakland and Richmond. See http://bit.ly/1m229Jz. The Bay Area's lower ratings are in part because the region has comparatively clearer air, and it has a relatively small proportion of active industry and industrial agriculture. CalEPA officials noted the designers of the metric chose to weight current exposure indicators, such as toxic emissions from active industrial sites, more strongly than environmental degradation indicators, such as toxic materials buried in a Superfund site. They said the reason is that the exposure indicators are more likely to show a direct impact on health of people than the environmental indicators. As several housing activists noted, CES also doesn't directly consider differences in local cost of living. It arguably under-counts the challenges faced by people who, in addition to the CES 2.0 disadvantages, face high prices for housing and other essentials. Hence it considers the differences in air quality between, say, San Francisco and Bakersfield, but it doesn't directly address the differences in housing or food prices. (For comparison, HUD's map of Qualified Census Tracts, available for 2013 at http://www.huduser.org/QCT2013/qctmap.html, maps disadvantage very differently, noting census tracts where local incomes are exceptionally low compared with area median incomes, with area rent levels a secondary influence in the calculation. The results track CES 2.0 in some areas but diverge in others.) Agency officials said "CalEPA could look into a way of incorporating a cost of living indicator into a future version of CalEnviroScreen." They said the disadvantage definition decision due this month would be based on the current version of the CalEnviroScreen tool with its existing 19 indicators. They said "CalEPA did consider including rent burden as a factor, but plugging it into the tool, it had a high correlation with other indicators," so they decided instead to use unemployment because that added more to the analysis. Agency officials meanwhile noted there is a difference in capacity, in the sense of staffing and experience, between the Bay Area and the Central Valley. They suggested because organizations and local governments in that area often have greater capacity, they are likely to produce more grant applications. People in some other areas of the state have felt slighted as well. Jim Kemp, executive director of the Santa Barbara County Association of Governments, wrote at http://bit.ly/1tQOaZT that the proposed processes "do not appear to recognize any 'disadvanted communities' whatsoever in 33 of California's 58 counties." Why a 20% cutpoint, not 25%? Agency officials said one reason why the department chose 20% as the cut point initially was that many indicators of vulnerability affect about 20% of the state's population: for example, lack of a high school diploma, unemployment (realistically viewed), and lack of adequate health care. Additionally, they felt the focus on these areas should be concentrated, not proportional to the population. For most SB 535 programs, the officials noted, 25% is the minimum proportion of benefits required to serve disadvantaged populations according to current agency positions. So a 25% cutpoint would simply be imposing a fair-share rule that 25% of the funds should be spent on 25% of the population. The SB 535 Coalition's group letter had argued that the requirement for 25% of cap-and-trade proceeds to "benefit" disadvantaged communities should be in addition to the separate requirement that 10% of the funds benefit projects within those areas. Barnum said, "We plan to overshoot that 25%. We plan to maximize the benefits to disadvantaged communities. We view that 25% as a minimum." In the AHSC program, 50% must benefit disadvantaged communities and 50% must provide housing opportunities for lower-income households. Officials said the Fresno and Los Angeles groups spent more time discussing CalEPA's proposed alternative methodologies, which would change the use or weighting of the factors currently used by CES 2.0. They said the strongest focus was either on CES 2.0 as is, or on CalEPA's "Method 4", which would make weighting more similar between socioeconomic and pollution burdens. Major themes at the Oakland workshop were the call for a 25% cutpoint, the concern about cost of living and housing costs, and calls for funding to address the specific types of disadvantage affecting each area respectively. Some commenters who worked in housing also questioned whether the CalEnviroscreen approach, which was largely developed before housing entered the cap-and-trade picture, was properly applied to the new purpose of funding affordable housing, especially in the AHSC program. Felix AuYeung, a project manager with EAH Housing in San Rafael who attended the workshop, wrote afterward: "the other programs under Cap and Trade work well in terms of prioritizing capital directly into Disadvantaged Communities to invest in new infrastructure and transit, because it would directly improve that community. Housing, however, does not directly improve the conditions that make an area a Disadvantaged Community; in fact, many have argued that more housing in Disadvantaged Communities will put even more people directly in harm's way (for example, poor air quality)." Regarding the comment at the workshop that programs should address the particular problems that are worst in a given area, Arsenio Mataka, Assistant Secretary for Environmental Justice and Tribal Affairs, said afterward that the administrative agencies were looking at that goal. He said if, for example, a project is planting trees in an area with high unemployment, it may be a helpful goal to hire unemployed people to plant the trees. While he called it a valuable thing to strive for, he said it might not be possible in every case. Comments are due September 15 on the ARB and CalEPA drafts. They go to an Air Resources Board meeting September 18-19, and a CalEPA decision is due out by the end of the month. For an overview of public documents on the process see http://www.arb.ca.gov/cc/capandtrade/auctionproceeds/auctionproceeds.htm.

For some affordable-housing activists and local governments, SB 628, the end-of-session bill expressing Gov. Jerry Brown's proposal for Enhanced Infrastructure Finance Districts, isn't similar enough to the way redevelopment programs worked when they were shut down as of 2011. (See last week's detailed coverage at http://www.cp-dr.com/articles/node-3563.) But columnist Steven Greenhut in the San Diego Union-Tribune greeted SB 628 by asking, "Redevelopment: Back with a vengeance?" Greenhut's widely circulated commentary warned against potential for "eminent-domain abuse and debt spending." See http://bit.ly/1olyiY2. It also picked up a sidelight on the bill's passage: "It passed by one vote in the Senate, with that coming from Senate Republican leader Bob Huff, whose wife has worked for one of the bill's prominent supporters (City of Industry's Ed Roski, who is pursing an NFL stadium there)." For that association he cites to a 2011 news report on Huff in the LA Times at http://lat.ms/1AxvTPM. Governor Brown is considered likely to sign the bill. EPA sides with critics of the Delta tunnel plan As you've likely heard, the EPA reported in late August that the Bay Delta Conservation Project (BDCP) twin-tunnels scheme may violate federal law by reducing fresh water flow into the Delta. For an account by the Sacramento Bee 's Matt Weiser, see http://bit.ly/1xHxxSS. Bettina Boxall of the LA Times also caught the story at http://lat.ms/1qgQ8RT. Via Boxall and the AllGov Web site, which posted its own account at http://bit.ly/1qEesML, here's a link to the 43-page EPA letter itself: http://1.usa.gov/1pbrCer. The letter is dated August 26. On August 27 the BDCP planning Web site announced at http://bit.ly/1rAodNT that the proponent agencies would publish a partially recirculated draft offering proposed revisions to the environmental impact documents "in early 2015." Editorializing at http://bit.ly/1pOmE7w, the Modesto Bee said it was about time the Delta project was questioned at a high level. The Stockton Record 's Alex Breitler noted that in the September 4 gubernatorial debate, Republican Neel Kashkari said the project should be stopped, while Governor Brown said the plan "isn't cooked yet". See http://bit.ly/1qgR9cB. Breitler has a little more of that debate exchange on his blog at http://bit.ly/1AxG1rS. Water bond ballot argument viewing period closes Sept 12 A 20-day public review period opened on the ballot arguments for the statewide water bond ballot measure. The period's closing date is September 12. For background from the Association of California Water Agencies see http://bit.ly/1orK4Af. For the review page itself see http://bit.ly/1tBSMjQ. The Sacramento Bee was reporting "strong early support" for the measure as of September 10. See http://bit.ly/1lUjoMY. Fresno City Council rejects planning grant rather than favor high-speed rail Fresno's City Council reportedly chose by a tough, close vote at its August 21 meeting to turn down $1 million in planning grants for the city's projected high-speed rail station. The Fresno Bee reported at http://bit.ly/1lSTo4F that while Mayor Ashley Swearengin supported the high-speed rail program, several City Council members opposed it intensely, viewing it as a misplaced use of money alongside local drought-worsened hardships. The August 21 vote was Swearengin's second try to get the planning grant through after a prior rejection. In discussing the issue's history August 10, reporter George Hostetter wrote in the Bee that "station planning in Fresno has turned into a proxy for a bigger fight on the bullet train's life or death." (See http://bit.ly/1wfPsM8.) The Fresno County Board of Supervisors voted to oppose the whole high-speed rail project in July. (See http://bit.ly/1o9zzVd.) Funding comes through for South Bay Area BART extension In August a major round of California transportation funding awards included a crucial $39 million installment to the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority to finish the BART extension through Milpitas and Berryessa stations toward arrival (at last) in San Jose. See http://bit.ly/1lSLd8q for the VTA official announcements. Urban ag gets planning support in Sacramento, arguments in San Francisco Urban agriculture was getting favorable attention in Sacramento -- the Bee reported at http://bit.ly/1lNen8R that the city is working on planning changes to allow more urban farming. But San Francisco's tax incentives for urban farming got slanged in an early-September snark spat of the week: the Atlantic published a commentary this month in which Conor Friedersdorf claimed San Francisco's tax incentives for urban farming were helping to drive up local rents. (See http://theatln.tc/1nWPqmN.) Co.Exist hooted at the idea similarly at http://bit.ly/1qIJv8y. But Eli Zigas of SF's local SPUR organization posted a rebuttal in CityLab at http://bit.ly/1tF5pNA saying San Francico's program "targets land that is unlikely to be developed in the near future" and makes use of places that might otherwise be neglected. Fresno extends General Plan comment deadline Fresno extended the comment deadline on its 2035 General Plan draft until October 9. For city materials and comment instructions see http://bit.ly/1rW40SY. A big-picture view of the Fig bike fight Drew Reed has a detailed look at the Figueroa Street bike-lane controversy in CityMetric at http://bit.ly/1pOpWb8, laying out some of the conflict that unfolded over the summer between bicycle activists and City Council member Gil Cedillo. For more from a bicyclists' point of view, see the "Fig4All" campaign's Web site at http://www.fig4all.org or its more frequently updated @fig4all Twitter account. For a sampling of this summer's arguments about it, and the text of a letter Cedillo distributed last summer, see Streetsblog LA at http://bit.ly/1oOrIMl. Carlsbad campaign forms against vacation rentals The Orange County area's Coast News reported at http://bit.ly/1shDmC7 that a campaign is afoot in Carlsbad (as in many larger towns) to limit short-term vacation rentals. Problems cited include neighborhood disruption and the economic pressure created by higher profits compared with long-term residential rentals. Kern blaming LA for waste dumping again Disputes over waste between Kern and Los Angeles Counties didn't end with a State Supreme Court ruling that sided against LA over its use of sewage "biosolids" as fertilizer on Kern County land. (see http://www.cp-dr.com/articles/node-3561). Now the LA Times reports Kern is trying to fine its richer neighbor up to $895,000 for allegedly dumping 100 tons of yard trimmings near Lebec without observing quarantine rules for agricultural pests. See http://lat.ms/1pC1BVU. Brown likely to sign plastic bag bill; local reactions vary SB 270, the bill by Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Van Nuys, to ban single-use plastic bags, has become, if anything, further politicized since it squeaked through the Legislature in the end-of-session rush. (See http://www.cp-dr.com/articles/node-3564 on the bill's difficult ride last month.) Governor Jerry Brown still hasn't formally signed the bill, but during the September 4 gubernatorial debate, Brown said, he would "probably" sign it. (Republican candidate Neel Kashkari said he wouldn't.) See http://lat.ms/1rFh0tW for details. Meanwhile the Orange County Tea Party blog made liberal (or, anyhow, ample) use of the epithet "nanny-state" in relaying local news reports on the state of bags in Huntington Beach via http://bit.ly/WRxWkU. As the blog noted, the Orange County Register reported the Huntington Beach City Council was waiting for Brown's decision to decide whether to undo its own bag ban. See http://bit.ly/1Brp4BE. Whereas in San Luis Obispo (a district possibly less beset with concern for the right to bear paper or plastic), the League of California Cities spotted an item at http://bit.ly/1p5Yiq3 saying the City Council has moved on from plastic bags toward also restricting polystyrene, including Styrofoam. Do Brown and Kashkari really agree on 'CEQA reform'? Further in the Brown-Kashkari debate, the Sacramento-area Fox News 40 station reported at http://bit.ly/ZgAbQ5, "Brown, Kashkari Agree on CEQA Reform During Debate." The station highlighted a clip from the debate that focused on the special SB 743 provisions for the Sacramento Kings arena project, with a political commentator adding, "If the Kings can get it, why shouldn't everyone get it?". On the other hand, Ethan Elkind noted on his blog that Brown had called Kashkari's approach to CEQA "glib". Elkind had a few further skeptical things to say about Kashkari's view of the subject at http://bit.ly/1shVz2k. In Other News -- Los Angeles Metrolink reported a continuing decline in fares and ridership. The LA Times has details at http://lat.ms/1lSIE6f. The LA Times at http://lat.ms/1oW1ZnD reported on a planning effort to densify and renew investment in the part-built Warner Center in Woodland Hills, in part by zoning for more commercial development and raising height restrictions. Best, Best & Krieger (at http://bit.ly/1tvCjfT) noted a libertarian take on California's housing affordability crisis and CEQA in The Economist at http://econ.st/1qKT1YT. The commentary draws partly on last month's affordability-shortage report by the California Housing Partnership Corporation at http://chpc.net/ (and see http://www.cp-dr.com/articles/node-3561). A widely mirrored Los Angeles Daily News editorial blamed CEQA for the Tesla factory's move to Nevada -- see http://bit.ly/1lSJHmG. A study at UC Davis reported California has allocated five times more surface water than exists in the state. See http://news.ucdavis.edu/search/news_detail.lasso?id=10999. A federal draft Environmental Impact Study is out for the Temperance Flat dam project. The Fresno Bee has details at http://bit.ly/1qgGUVu (via the Maven's Notebook blog). the DEIS itself is at http://www.usbr.gov/mp/nepa/nepa_projdetails.cfm?Project_ID=821. Comments are due October 21. The state Water Board is accepting comment until October 10 on a proposed amendment to local wastewater treatment rules, including for "wet weather overflows". The amendment has already passed San Francisco's regional water board and is now up for state-level approval. See http://bit.ly/1qgJ33E. A report by the Pacific Institute at http://pacinst.org/publication/hazards-toll/ says "massive public health and environmental costs" could result if no remediation work is done on the Salton Sea. The San Bernardino County Sun has details at http://bit.ly/1qAk6PC. The Sacramento Bee reports the Nature Conservancy has taken to renting wetlands from rice farmers for birds: http://bit.ly/1lSIyM1

The partnership that owns a mobile home park in Fillmore, California received a Ninth Circuit determination September 2 that it has standing to sue the city over "interference" with its application to subdivide the park. The El Dorado Estates park was seniors-only when its owner applied to subdivide the property. In the court's description, the partnership alleged that city officials imposed "unreasonable delays and extralegal conditions" on the subdivision application for fear that, if approved, it might allow families to move in. The partnership therefore alleged it had suffered losses as a result of discrimination prohibited under the Fair Housing Act. Without reaching the merits, the court found the partnership had standing to pursue its claim in federal court because it alleged it had suffered losses directly in the form of extra expenses caused by the city's allegedly unfair treatment of its application. The case is El Dorado Estates v. City of Fillmore . For the opinion see http://1.usa.gov/1qxmtkT. 'Friendly Village' owners blocked from raising rents The San Jose Mercury News reports a federal judge has sided with the city of Milpitas in its effort to stop the owners of "Friendly Village Mobilehome Estates" from raising their tenants' rents by 50 to 90 percent. The city's rental review board had found the proposed increases violated the local mobile home rent control ordinance. For details see the Mercury News report at http://bit.ly/YvOY9B. ADA claim upheld over street parking for local government offices The Ninth Circuit ruled September 5 that a wheelchair user's right of access to local government offices in the city of Lomita included his need for accessible diagonal-stall on-street parking outside the buildings. The city had argued unsuccessfully that since no specific ADA regulations existed specifically for on-street parking, it was not required to provide that type of access. For the opinion see 1.usa.gov/1xmoqqC. More of the ParkMerced decision ordered published The California First District Court of Appeal, in two increments on consecutive days, ordered publication for all of Part II of the ruling that approved San Francisco's ParkMerced expansion project. Part II addresses General Plan consistency. Part III, the CEQA review, remains unpublished. The case is San Francisco Tomorrow v. City and County of San Francisco . See http://bit.ly/1mGwnNa for the online docket showing the publication history and http://www.courts.ca.gov/opinions/documents/A137753N.PDF for the opinion. Initial reports on effects of the decisions appeared in the SF Chronicle at http://bit.ly/1qpnusx and the SF Business Times at http://bit.ly/1w8ikcI. The city's page for this large, dense project in the west of the city is at http://www.sf-planning.org/index.aspx?page=2529. Newhall Ranch litigation inches along with Cal Supremes In the Newhall Ranch litigation before the State Supreme Court, the plaintiffs'/respondents' opening briefs on the merits have been filed (see http://bit.ly/1uvpcwY), and the Court has refused to grant a stay to the related case of Friends of the Santa Clara River v. CA2/5 (County of Los Angeles) . See http://bit.ly/ZgpqNL. Check your local rail trail rights In case you missed the case of Brandt Trust v. U.S. , in which the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated certain "rail trail" rights, the Abbott and Kindermann law firm has a detailed new writeup at http://bit.ly/WGCOZC.

A developer proposing to replace two century-old houses in Fresno with 28 new two-story townhouses lost its appeal of a CEQA writ of mandate but won significant points from the Fifth District Court of Appeal in Citizens for the Restoration of L Street v. City of Fresno . The August 29 ruling upheld the trial court's finding that the city failed to comply with CEQA in granting approvals for the houses to be demolished and the project built. But it nevertheless found the trial court properly applied the "substantial evidence" test in declining to second-guess the city's determination that the houses were not so historic as to qualify for an EIR review of their proposed demolition. The plaintiff citizens' group had opposed the project, seeking to have the houses preserved both for their own sake and as part of a larger proposed historic district. One house had been designated a "Heritage Property" but the court's narrative said both were "in disrepair." Fresno's Historic Preservation Commission issued approvals to demolish both houses; the City Council endorsed its action. A month after the last city action in late 2011, the plaintiff group's writ petition was filed -- and within that same week, both houses were demolished. The court refused to consider the question moot, allowing the parties to continue disputing whether the Preservation Commission had acted with proper authority and whether it properly determined the houses lacked "historical resource" status. The trial court granted the plaintiffs' writ petition based on city officials' procedural errors. However, it held that the Preservation Commission properly held the houses were not sufficiently historic. In August the Fifth District upheld both of the trial court's actions. Writing for a unanimous three-judge panel of the Fifth District Court of Appeal, Justice Donald Franson, Jr., joined by Justices Dennis Cornell and Jennifer Detjen, held that Fresno, and local lead agencies in general, do have power "to delegate authority to approve a mitigated negative declaration and a project to a nonelected decisionmaking body" such as the Preservation Commission. However, it found that in this case Fresno, by its municipal code, "did not actually authorize the Preservation Commission to (1) complete the environmental review required by CEQA and (2) approve the mitigated negative declaration," hence that the resulting approvals did not comply with CEQA. Further, Franson's opinion found deficiencies in the "Notice of Intent to Adopt a Mitigated Negative Declaration". Although the City Council endorsed the Preservation Commission's actions in a separate vote, Franson found the Council's action did not cure defects in the initial process. He found the Council did not genuinely review the matter using its own independent judgment under CEQA-compliant procedures, and it approved only the mitigated negative declaration rather than the demolition permit or the proposed project itself. Although the houses were long gone, Franson wrote that the matter was still not moot because it was still possible to grant a form of relief: if the court saw fit to do so, it could still require the City to prepare an EIR for the project replacing the houses. However, the court found there was no need for an EIR because whether or not the plaintiff presented a "fair argument" for the properties' "historical resource" status, the necessary standard for the court to apply in evaluating the "historical resource" determination was one of "substantial evidence", as previously held in Valley Advocates v. City of Fresno (2008) 160 Cal.App.4th 1039. So although the court did uphold the writ based on the city's procedural errors, it did not reject the city's decision to deny "historical resource" status to the buildings. The case is http://www.courts.ca.gov/opinions/documents/F066498.PDF. The Stoel Rives firm, which represented the city and the developer in the case, has its own detailed writeup at http://bit.ly/1qKrgzD. Art Coon of Miller Starr Regalia has an analysis at http://bit.ly/1p5u6vb.