Successful CEQA Compliance, 2-Day Seminar UCLA Extension will offer a two day seminar on Successful CEQA Compliance at the Figueroa Courtyard in downtown Los Angeles on Thursday and Friday, February 25 and 26.  This intensive two-day workshop serves as a comprehensive introduction to CEQA and the environmental review process as well as an in-depth refresher and update for more experienced professionals.   The program includes discussions of the policies, players, procedures, and practices of CEQA.  It also covers key questions of when exemptions apply, and to prepare a Negative Declaration (ND), Mitigated Negative Declaration, or an Environmental Impact Report (EIR).  The course will also address proven techniques for ensuring that CEQA documents are legally adequate and useful to the decision-making process.  Project examples are used throughout to illustrate key issues arising in CEQA practice, and strategies for successfully addressing those issues.  Ron Bass , Senior Regulatory Specialist and Jonathan Riker , Environmental Counsel, both from ICF International will instruct the seminar.     The seminar runs from 9:00 am to 4:30 pm each day, and provides ample opportunity for participants to raise questions or interact with speakers. The fee is $495 and includes materials.  Please reference registration number V4763 when enrolling.    For a complete listing of our courses, more information, or to enroll, please call (310) 825-9971 or go to www.uclaextension.edu/publicpolicy

A $400 million economic stimulus grant from the federal government for the proposed Transbay Terminal in San Francisco will provide the final piece of financing for construction of the first, $1.2 billion phase of the terminal project. However, federal transportation officials appear to have stepped into the middle of a dispute between local officials and the California High Speed Rail Authority over the precise terminus for high-speed rail in San Francisco by siding with the locals. In addition, one rail authority board member, former judge and state Sen. Quentin Kopp, said that only the rail authority may allocate the $400 million to the San Francisco project. The $4 billion Transbay Terminal is proposed to be a 900,000-square-foot station for high-speed rail, CalTrain commuter rail, and local and regional buses (see CP&DR Public Development , August 2004 ). The facility would replace a dilapidated and undersized terminal. Groundbreaking was originally scheduled for 2008, but litigation, financing issues and engineering problems have caused delays. Only days after federal officials promised a $171 million loan for the Transbay Terminal project, U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood announced on January 28 the project would receive a $400 million stimulus grant as part of $2.25 billion for the state's high-speed rail system. LaHood insisted the money was designated for a terminal that would serve as the San Francisco terminus of the high-speed rail line. But the rail authority disagrees with the alignment and terminal plans adopted by the local Transbay Joint Powers Authority. Kopp told the San Francisco Chronicle that the rail authority will decide how to spend the $2.25 billion federal grant, and that no federal money may be spent on the Transbay Terminal until the high speed rail authority completes an analysis of alternatives in 2011.

Local road and street maintenance needs an additional $71 billion investment over the next 10 years, according to a study prepared by the California State Association of Counties and the League of California Cities. The study identified $99.7 billion worth of maintenance needed to roads, streets and their essential components, such as storm drains, sidewalks and signals. However, only $28.3 billion is expected to be available. The additional $71 billion would permit all facilities to attain a "best management practices" (BMP) condition, under which basic preventive maintenance measures – slurry seals and thin overlays, for example – would be adequate to keep roads in good condition. "It costs twelve times less to maintain a BMP pavement compared with a pavement that is at the end of its service life," the report by Nichols Consulting Engineers stated. "Even a modest resurfacing is four times costlier than a pavement in the BMP condition." The study is the first to comprehensively assess local street and road conditions in California, according to the local government organizations. The study found that the average pavement condition is "at risk," and that conditions will worsen based on recent funding trends. An additional $7 billion a year for the local system equates to a 38-cent increase in the gas tax. You may find the needs assessment report here .

Counties and cities must let go of another share of property tax revenues to school districts under the redevelopment law's distribution of the property tax increment. The case at hand involved a tug-of-war between a county and a school district over a share of the property tax increment distributed by redevelopment agencies. In the wake of Proposition 13, property tax revenues are limited and their allocation is coveted by local government, special districts and school districts. Under redevelopment law, redevelopment agencies must give a portion of the incremental increase in property tax revenues to local entities, including schools, based on the percentage of property tax revenue received by the entity in that fiscal year. These are known as "pass-through payments" from redevelopment agencies. In this case, the Los Angeles Unified School District argued that it was entitled to a larger share of the property tax increment than it had been allocated because the defendants, which were 13 redevelopment agencies, the County of Los Angeles and the City of Los Angeles (collectively "county"), failed to take in account certain property taxes received by the school district. The trial court disagreed with the school district, and the Second District Court of Appeal reversed. The argument in this case centered around the overlap between two statutes: the pass-through legislation under Health & Safety Code § 33607.5, and the Educational Revenue Augmentation Fund (Revenue & Taxation Code §§ 97.2, 97.3), which is known as ERAF. The Legislature enacted ERAF to require the distribution of a portion of property taxes, along with other funds, to schools, to the detriment of county and city coffers. Health & Safety Code § 33607.5 deals with the allocation of the property tax increment, which is the increase in property tax revenues resulting from the redevelopment of property. In order to ensure that local entities are not financially burdened by the adoption of redevelopment plans, state lawmakers enacted pass-through legislation (Health & Safety Code § 33607.5) whereby redevelopment agencies must, according to the court, "share or pass-through a portion of the property tax increment to local taxing entities, including schools." This portion of the property tax increment is based on the proportion of property taxes allocated to the entity in the same fiscal year that the property tax increment is allocated. In this case, the county did not take into account the amount of property taxes received by the school district through ERAF when calculating the percentages of property taxes received by each local entity. Because the county's calculation of the percentage of property tax revenue received by the school excluded the additional ERAF amount, the pass-through payment allocated to the school district was too small, the school district argued. The school district sued the county on the grounds that the ERAF funds had to be included in the pass-through calculation. On appeal, the Second District held that the county acted unlawfully in excluding the ERAF allocations. According to the court, subdivision (d)(5) of §§ 97.2 and 97.3 of the Revenue & Taxation Code clearly and unambiguously includes ERAF distributions as property tax revenue, and therefore, "any property tax revenue deemed allocated to ERAFs under subdivision (d)(5) necessarily qualifies as property tax revenue to the school that received it." The court did point out that any money allocated through the ERAF to the school that was not property tax revenue should be excluded from the pass-through calculation. Thus, the court concluded that the county's calculations were unlawful and remanded the matter to Los Angeles County Superior Court to determine the right to reimbursement. The Case: Los Angeles Unified School District v. County of Los Angeles , No. B213703, 2010 DJDAR 1422. Filed January 27, 2010. The Lawyers: For the school district: Gregory Luke, Strumwasser & Woocher, (310) 576-1233. For the county: Paul Gale, Troutman Sanders, (949) 622-2704.

It's official: 2009 was the slowest year for new housing construction since the 1940s.  Builders pulled permits for only 36,209 housing units in 2009, according to the Construction Industry Research Board. That was a little more than half of the 64,962 housing starts in 2008, which had been the record post-war low. The 2009 housing starts were composed of 25,046 single-family homes and 11,163 multi-family units. The Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario metropolitan area had the most new homes with 6,681. In second place was Los Angeles-Long Beach-Glendale with 5,610, while San Diego was third with 2,989 units. Not one metro area experienced an increase in homebuilding activity in 2009 compared with 2008. The greatest slippage was in Merced, which saw housing starts drop from 473 in 2008 to 84 last year. During the mid-decade peak, local governments in Merced County often permitted about that many new units in one week.

Opponents and supporters of a proposed luxury resort and housing development in the City of Healdsburg have signed an agreement outlining what a new environmental impact report should address. A Sonoma County Superior Court judge in December ruled that the EIR for the Saggio Hills project was deficient because it did not address water demand for tree planting, failed to consider impacts on nearby public open space, and lacked a sufficient range of project alternatives. The city in 2008 approved the project, proposed to include a 130-room, high-end resort and 70 large-lot houses on a portion of a 258-acre site at the north end of town. Proponents said the project would provide economic benefits as well as new parkland and 14 acres for future affordable housing development in the small wine country town. Rather than appealing the judge's ruling, developers Robert Green and Tony Korman reached an agreement with the lead opposition group, Healdsburg Citizens for Sustainable Solutions, on the parameters for a new EIR, with the apparent intent of streamlining the process and avoiding additional litigation. Opponents insist the number of houses in the project should be reduced to about two dozen.

Transportation costs associated with a community are a good predictor of housing foreclosure rates, according to a new study commissioned by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). The peer-reviewed statistical analysis found that, after accounting for variable factors, foreclosure rates in automobile-dependent fringe neighborhoods are higher than in "location efficient" neighborhoods in which residents spend less of their income on transportation, according to the NRDC. The study looked at 40,000 mortgages in the San Francisco, Chicago and Jacksonville, Florida, regions. "In all three cities, the study found statistically sound results that the probability of mortgage foreclosure increases as neighborhood vehicle ownership levels rise, after controlling for income," a briefing paper on the study says. The problem, according Jennifer Henry, of the NRDC's Chicago office, is that people who must drive everywhere "have much less economic flexibility" in difficult economic times. The NRDC makes three recommendations based on the findings: Land use, infrastructure and transportation policy should encourage development of location-efficient communities; mortgage underwriting practices should favor purchases of location-efficient homes; lenders and researchers should perform further research to refine underwriting models. A briefing paper about the study is available on the NRDC website, www.nrdc.org/energy/10012001.asp . The NRDC publicized its study at the same time the Congress for New Urbanism (CNU) stepped up its campaign to reform Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac lending standards. According to CNU, the government-backed mortgage agencies will not finance developments that have more than 20% commercial use, meaning mixed-use project developers and buyers do not have access to Fannie and Freddie loans. "Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac enforce rules that have made Main Street almost impossible to build in America," complained CNU President and CEO John Norquist. He pointed to the 2008 study produced by CEOs for Cities called "Driven to the Brink" that strongly suggested high gasoline prices helped pop the housing bubble because exurban commuters could no longer afford both their mortgage and their gas bills. Norquist and other CNU leaders want Congress and the Obama administration to encourage lending programs that favor walkable, location-efficient development.

Last Wednesday afternoon, I arrived in Seattle and checked into a room on the 16th floor of the Hyatt At Olive 8 hotel and began preparing to moderate a panel the next day on transferrable development rights programs. The hotel was brand-new and less than a block from the convention center. It was comfortable and cool, the first LEED certified hotel in Seattle. Little did I realize that the very room I was staying in existed because of the King County transfer of development rights program I was there to discuss. TDR programs, as you may know, allow developers in "receiving areas" -- usually cities -- to increase density by purchasing the development rights of landowners in "sending areas" -- usually rural areas -- whose land has been designated for preservation. Our panel Thursday at the New Partners for Smart Growth was focused on TDR programs in the Seattle area -- including the King County TDR program , which is run by Darren Greve, who used to work with me at Solimar Research Group . The panel -- which also included Skip Swenson of the Cascade Land Conservancy and Ivan Miller of the Puget Sound Regional Council -- was an excellent overview of TDR programs in the Puget Sound area, and the questions from the audiences were unusually sophisticated and on-point. And about halfway through the panel, I realized that my hotel room had been created as a result of the King County TDR program. I bring this up not just because it's kind of a fun thing to write about, but because it goes to one of the central questions about TDRs raised during the panel: How do you get developers, cities, and people in the receiving areas to accept additional density? It's definitely a variation on the old notion of "what's in it for me?" Why should anybody in a receiving area be willing to accept additional density in order to preserve land a long way away? This is a question that Darren Greve, in particular, has been pondering a lot, because part of his job is to negotiate "interlocal agreements' with cities in King County to accept higher-density development through TDRs. In his presentation, Darren suggested several possibliities -- all of them compelling. The first is that cities that accept TDRs may be able to lower the region's carbon footprint -- important if that's a reiognal policy goal. Darren showed a slide suggesting that a condo in a receiving area has less than half the carbon footprint than a single-family home on a five-acre lot. The savings are not just from less driving, but also from less home energy use. The second is that it might be possible to link TDRs to urban redevelopment goals. For example, currently cities in Washington cannot use tax-increment financing. There's a bill in the state legislature right now to allow use of TIF -- but only if TDRs are also used. The third -- similar to the second -- is the use of what are called "amenity funds." Sometimes it's possible to peel off enough money from the TDR system to give the receiving area money to improve neighborhood amenities. The last one is the most intangible -- but possibly also the most powerful, and the one I thought about when I got back to my room at the Hyatt at Olive 8 that night. That's the sense of satisfaction you get from helping to accomplish a goal that conforms to your basic values. One of the reasons that TDR programs work in the Seattle area is that even the most urban dwellers do not feel removed from the rural environment. around them. Even if they walk or ride transit during the week, they love to get out and collide hard with nature on the weekends. So saving land far aware isn't an abstraction. It's real. During our panel, Darren said that the Olive 8 condo/hotel tower had gotten 30% more height because of TDRs (I was on the second-to-higest floor) and that one TDR from rural King County -- that is, removing the ability to build one house on a five-acre lot -- bought 2,000 additional square feet in the Olive 8 tower. That means every six or seven rooms on the upper floors of the Hyatt at Olive 8 preserved one five-acre lot in eastern King County from being mini-mansioned by a Microsoft millionaire. Maybe they should have put a plaque in every room: "This room preserved a half-acre of rural land in eastern King County." Hmmm. Not a bad idea. I'm suggesting it as part of the next TDR program I work on. – Bill Fulton

There's an old joke that what the locals fear more than a federal government in disarray is a federal government that has its act together. Well, now the joke's being put to the test. At the plenary session of the New Partners for Smart Growth conference in Seattle the other night, President's Obama's so-called Green Cabinet -- Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan, and EPA Assistant Administrator Mathy Stanislaus, filling in for his boss Lisa Jackson -- presented the most cohesive vision of federal involvement in planning and development since the Johnson Administration 40 years ago. "When it comes to housing, transportation, and environmental policy, it's time the federal government spoke with one voice," HUD Secertary Donovan said at the plenary. The coordinated federal effort would have vast reach and billions of dollars in resources if it is successful. It takes at least three forms -- the creation of special offices on sustainable communities inside each of the three agencies; the addition or continuation of funding programs inside each agency; and an unusual level of coordination among the agencies on the sustainable communities effort. At the plenary session Thursday night, HUD Secretary Donovan said that the fundamental problem to be attacked is "the fundamental mismatch between where we work and where we live." He also said the federal government would not try to create a top-down solution to the problem."This is not about telling localities how to do it, but about offering them resources and tools to help them realize their own vision, "Donovan said. Each of the three announced or reaffirmed that their agency will be creating an office focusing on sustainabile and/or livable communities. These are: • As expected, HUD will create an Office of Sustainable Housing and Communities , overseen by Deputy Secretary Ron Sims, formerly King County executive in Seattle, and run by Shelley Poticha, formerly head of the Center for Transit-Oriented Development in the Bay Area and also a veteran of Calthorpe Associates. • DOT will create an Office of Livable Communities and has proposed a $527 million budget for livable communities programs in the next federal budget. • EPA's current Office of Smart Growth will be combined with other functions and morph into an Office of Sustainable Communities/ The major brainpower for the coordinated effort would appear to be located in HUD -- an unlikely place for policy innovation in recent administrations. Donovan, the former New York City housing commissioner, is viewed as one of the Obama Administration's brightest starts, whereas La Hood's appointment as DOT secretary was greeted with disappointed from smart growth advocates last year. As an elected local official, Sims implemented many of the most far-reaching smart growth efforts in the nation, and Poticha has been on the cutting edge of transit-oriented development policy efforts in the Bay Area. In addition, Donovan selected Rafael Bostic from the University of Southern California's School of Planning Policy & Development as his Assistant Secretary for Policy Development and Research . This office within HUD has always been influential in federal policy, and Bostic is considered one of the nation's brightest young planning and housing researchers. (Full disclosure: I teach part-time in the same school as Bostic.) Both La Hood and Donovan have repeatedly said they will seek to use their entire departmental budgets to promote sustainable communities. However, direct federal funding for these programs is increasing rapidly. In addition to La Hood's $527 million budget request, Donovan announced Thursday night a new $150 million sustainable communities planning grant program . EPA's Stanislaus announced that the three agencies had selected five cities as national sustainable communities pilots . The only city in California on the list was National City, south of San Diego. – Bill Fulton

According to walkscore.com , I work in a walker's paradise. The walkscore of our office in Ventura, California, is 95. I also live in a pretty good walking environment. My duplex has a walkscore of 78—and that's way better than the walkscore in the cavernous suburban house I used to live in, which was 3. So, what's all that worth? The answer is something. Your walkscore now shows up on Zillow.com and Ziprealty.com when somebody checks out your house. Recent real estate research has found that houses with high walkscores command a price premium, all other things being equal. The permutations are endless – as we learned this afternoon at the New Partners for Smart Growth conference in Seattle. At a panel this afternoon, Matt Lerner, the Chief Technology Officer of Front Seat – creator of walkscore.com – was one of several folks who talked about how walkscore is affecting real estate markets and planning processes. Not only does your walkscore show up on Zillow and Ziprealty now, real estate agents in urban areas are using high walkscores in ads. The clear implication is that walkability is a selling point – and walkscore.com is pushing the idea more and more. "Our whole theory of change with walkscore is that people who otherwise wouldn't care about walking or transit are hungry for information for real estate." Lerner said. "This is a way to talk to them in way that will affect their future carbon footprint and their health." He noted that, other than LEED, "there are no smart growth metrics in the real estate listings." He said walkscore is adding transit accessibility, roadway networks and "real" walking routes (rather than as-the-crow-flies), and provides its data to any researcher who wants to use it. In particular, he said, walkscore plans to add road width, road speed, and density of intersections as measurements of connectivity, not just distance. Lerner also said walkscore can be used over time, to show which neighborhoods are getting more walkable and which are getting less walkable. It's also possible to use walkscore on planning projects. Harriet Tregoning, planning director for the District of Columbia, said she is using walkability as a metric in neighborhood planning – and said that even re-planning of Edge City employment centers such as Tysons Corners (which, by the way, has a walkscore of 80) can use walkscore as a way to measure outcomes. Tregoning said walkscore holds great potential as a way to inform discussions about plans. "Everybody wants all that stuff walking distance to their house," she said. "It's hard to explain that at four units per acre you're not going to get it, and that vast parking lots won't get it for you either. Walkscore is a way to show the you have to have enough people and enough foot traffic to get it." A number of questioners asked whether walkscore was going to move toward the idea of "placescore." Lerner said they were considering it and had even thought about creating a "Jane Jacobs score" by converting Jacobs' criteria for vibrant neighborhoods into an algorithm. But, he said, "It starts to feel a little more political because we'd be saying to people, your neighborhood isn't healthy. Walkscore is more objective. Some realtors tell us their clients like a low walkscore because it's the get-away-from-it-all score." – Bill Fulton

Winters – one of the most charming towns in the Central Valley – is considering whether to accept the town's first franchise fast-food outlet. I almost never take sides in these things, but I'm hoping the city's leaders say no to the proposed Burger King. It wasn't too long ago that Winters was little more than a struggling Yolo County farm town. In recent years, though, civic leaders, property owners and merchants have revitalized the downtown. It's now a lively community center that features galleries and boutiques for visitors, shops and services oriented to locals, and enough variety in restaurants and watering holes to satisfy just about everybody. Winters even snagged The Palms several years back, when the venerable live music venue relocated from Davis. When we rated small city downtowns in the Central Valley two years ago, we listed Winters in the "others of note" section. If I could do that list over again, I'd place Winters and Exeter in the top tier, and I'd bump Lodi down a notch or two. (When we compiled our list, downtown Lodi seemed on the verge of really big things, almost none of which have come together.) You'd never know anything about the rise of Winters as a vibrant town if all you did was drive through on the I-505 freeway, which is a shortcut for people driving to and from the Bay Area. Except for a lone gas station at the offramp, Winters has no presence on I-505, even though the city limits extend to the freeway. If you want to grab something to eat or a decent cup of coffee, you've got to get off the freeway, drive a short distance into town and then – gasp! – get out of your car and walk into a non-franchise operation. A few years ago, I wrote about how swell it is for people like me – who need strong coffee for frequent long-distance drives – that so many towns have an instantly identifiable Starbucks. But I still believe that having the same darn Starbucks store everywhere is bad for people who actually live in those towns. For some reason, Winters has escaped this phenomenon. Yes, the town does have a Subway, a Roundtable and a Pizza Factory. But it doesn't have the usual array of franchise boxes and parking lots jammed against the freeway ramps. That sets Winters apart in the Central Valley. Of course, cities can't pay police officers or pave streets with charm. Cities need actual money, and that's one of the biggest arguments for the Burger King/76 gas station (Eat here, get gas!) project proposed by Singh's Foodservice. A busy stop on the interstate can produce meaningful revenue for a small town such as Winters. And having freeway ramps full of franchise offerings doesn't necessarily toll the death bell for a downtown. Our favorite Central Valley small city downtown is nearby Woodland, whose I-5 freeway ramps offer all the usual McFood. Still, Winters feels a little fragile. If the drive-through burger joint/gas station is the start of a new freeway-oriented commercial district, the implications for the rest of town are not good. Such is the nature of "fiscalized" land use planning. Revenue needs often trump long-term community building. Sounds like a decision on the Burger King is still a little ways off. If Winters says no, I promise I'll do my part by finding my way to Steady Eddy's for a sandwich and cup of coffee the next time I'm driving down I-505. We'll all be better off. - Paul Shigley

UCLA Extension's annual Land Use Law and Planning Conference is typically a demilitarized zone. Combative environmentalists and builders usually check their weapons at the door, and a civil discussion about legislation, litigation, and regulation ensues. Not so last Friday during the 24th annual event at the Biltmore in downtown Los Angeles. Blame the economy, but something close to open warfare erupted over stormwater runoff between Mark Gold, president of the Heal the Bay, and Andrew Henderson, general counsel of the Building Industry Association of Southern California. On top of that, the keynote speaker – Ed Blakely, former dean of the planning school at the University of Southern California and recovery czar in New Orleans – warned that there may not be enough market to sop up the growth that we are planning. The stormwater panel was billed as an educational session on understanding the alphabet-soup regulation of low-impact development, which is now mandated under new stormwater rules in both Orange County and the Los Angeles/Ventura County area. Adam Fischer of the Santa Ana Regional Water Quality Control Board made some progress in the explanation. He noted that under the Orange County permit, the regional board now has more authority to go after developers, whereas the agency's only previous recourse was to go after cities. But when Gold and Henderson began to mix it up, explanations were left in the dust. The two quickly began to square off over the nature of stormwater regulations and, in particular, whether numerical limits on runoff pollution should be implemented. "Does anybody think we are doing a good job on stormwater runoff?" Gold asked at the beginning of his presentation. "Did anyone see the beaches after the storms last week? They pretty much looked like a trash dump." He did acknowledge that water quality is handled well during the dry season, when runoff systems (natural and man-made) can handle the load, but not during heavy rains. Henderson responded by attempting to counter with common sense: "My suspicion is Native Americans thousands of years ago probably wouldn't go swimming in the ocean right after the rain because there'd be a lot of pollution." Henderson and Gold then got into a rhetorical battle over standards for trash, which wasn't all that hard to follow but did stray somewhat from the goal of informing the audience. Blakely, who is now based at the University of Sydney, in Australia, painted a somewhat bleak picture of the future of Western countries if their economies are based on the notion of growth among large middle-class families. "When I lived in Pasadena," he said, "I had a six-bedroom house. Thank God I sold that. Who is going to buy our homes? My children aren't. They're married or in long-term relationships, but they are not planning on four or five kids. In fact, they haven't yet produced one!" Blakely noted that New Orleans, five years after Hurricane Katrina, still has 40,000 abandoned homes. As a solution, Blakely strayed from traditional planning topics. He argued for better education of immigrant families so they are more upwardly mobile, and for more savings and investment so that economic growth would not rely so much on population growth. – Bill Fulton