Search Results

Restrained congratulations were circulating in late November over a deal brokered by Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti that persuaded the Kinkisharyo company to expand its rail car assembly operation in Palmdale after all. The Japanese rail car manufacturing company had threatened to move the planned expansion of its U.S. branch elsewhere after activists supportive of International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 11 filed a CEQA appeal with the Palmdale City Council against the expansion. (See prior coverage at http://www.cp-dr.com/articles/node-3601.) The L.A. Times reported the deal allows Kinkisharyo to expand without facing environmental review challenges, while the IBEW will be able to conduct a "card-check" union organizing campaign as it had sought to do. But the paper wasn't happy about the outcome necessarily: that report appeared in an editorial that suggested: " Kinkisharyo and IBEW win; CEQA loses? " The paper suggested that the Legislature in its new session would have reason "to make it harder for groups with ulterior motives -- be they labor unions or business rivals -- to stymie projects," and that in turn would make environmental challenges more difficult for concerned citizens. The Rafu Shimpo has more details of the agreement. Because IBEW Local 11 got the card-check organizing agreement out of the deal, the conservative Breitbart site described the agreement as an abuse of process to gain a labor negotiating advantage. And although the deal preserved the promised production jobs in Palmdale, the Chamber of Commerce wrote that construction jobs were lost because Kinkisharyo went back on its original plan to build a large new assembly building. Protest takes to freeways as well as streets The nationwide demonstrations over accountability for police killings continued to suburbanize, with freeway ramps as well as streets frequently occupied by demonstrators. Sites of freeway occupations in California included Oakland and Berkeley (the Bay Bridge was blocked late on December 8), Sacramento , and Los Angeles -- places where downtown neighborhoods were disrupted by freeway projects in the 20th century. Among commentaries posted, one choice by Planetizen is " On the Symbolism of Highway Protests " featuring Alex Ihnen's NextSTL essay about freeways' ambiguous images as symbols of freedom for some but segregation for others. As of November 25 Ihnen wrote, "At last glance, protesters had closed portions of highways in Detroit, Atlanta, New York City, Cincinnati, Oakland, Nashville, Baltimore, Los Angeles, Washington D.C., and elsewhere." Notorious 'Jungle' encampment evicted in San Jose In early December, after a heavy rain, local authorities staged a full-scale eviction of the famous "Jungle" encampment along Coyote Creek in San Jose. The action followed a city services campaign that has gone on since spring to whittle down the camp's population by moving residents to subsidized housing. The L.A. Times reported "Nearly 150 had found housing, but over 50 had yet to find a place to live." Other news reports said 60 people had been offered city vouchers but couldn't find landlords who would take them. The camp had been a substantial village of some 200 to 300 people, said to be one of the largest unofficial encampments in the United States. Homes at the site reportedly included elaborate underground dwellings, as well as more ordinary tents and lean-tos. Residents had been accepting city help in clearing out trash but the site suffered from lack of sanitation and running water, and had a reputation for violence. Even so, the Mercury News reported some residents were in tears at having to leave without other housing prospects. Some told the paper they had to leave property behind. City policy calls for staff, when they remove campers' property, to preserve and store items of value to be claimed -- but there have been past disputes about how carefully the policy is followed. As CP&DR reported in May , the site was only one of many creekside encampments that provide low-quality housing in an area characterized by high rents, suburban environments, an economy divided between high and low wages, and scarce supplies of SRO-type housing. The practice of camping in creekbeds has intertwined the problems of housing shortage and waterway contamination. In response, some neighbors and officials have called for wholesale evictions of campers. Others have called for initial provision of sanitation facilities as a starting point, and, as a next goal, for plentiful housing away from the creekbed, even if at first such "housing" might take the form of organized camping. News reports on particulars of the eviction have appeared widely, in publications including the San Francisco Chronicle , Los Angeles Times , New York Times , Sacramento Bee , and even the UK's Daily Mail . The KQED public radio station's Michael Krasny hosted a "Forum" debate on the eviction that included an activist organizer and a "Jungle" resident as well as a news reporter, a service provider, and city homeless response team manager Ray Bramson. Listeners' comments responding to the KQED debate and to a news report of the conversation included an essay by Chris Herring, a UC-Berkeley grad student who has become a recognized authority on U.S. encampments. (He's the author of the paper, " The New Logics of Homeless Seclusion: A Comparative Study of Large-Scale Homeless Encampments in the Western U.S. ") Herring wrote that he expected the evicted people would only move to more obscure camp sites elsewhere along Coyote Creek, likely with worse consequences for the creek and for themselves. APA joins amicus for regulating signage by type Do free speech rights trump a city's ability to regulate signs placed in public? The American Planning Association has gotten nervous enough about the answer to join the National League of Cities, U.S. Conference of Mayors and other groups in filing a Supreme Court amicus brief in the case of Reed v. Town of Gilbert . The petitioners in Reed seek to overturn rules in the city of Gilbert, Arizona that regulate publicly placed signs according to their general purpose. In the underlying dispute, a pastor of a Christian church rented space at an elementary school and placed signs announcing services there. He was cited for violating a local sign code regarding the size, placement, and other physical characteristics of "temporary directional signs". The pastor and his church sued on free speech and equal protection grounds, arguing that signs inviting the public to his services were more heavily regulated than other types of signs, such as yard signs for political campaigns. The petitioners argue that the regulations are content-based and hence should be reviewed under a strict scrutiny standard. The city contends it acted properly to apply regulations to the signs based only on their generic purpose, and did not make a content-based decision, so that its actions may be reviewed as regulating only the "time, place and manner" of sign displays. The city has contended that "Petitioners wanted free, permanent, off-site billboards in Gilbert -- and were trying to misuse Gilbert's temporary directional sign regulation to fit that inapposite goal." Courts thus far have upheld the city's action. The APA writes that its brief supports the city, arguing that strict scrutiny of sign codes "has the potential to invalidate nearly all sign codes in the country." Review denied in Pasadena cases The State Supreme Court declined to review City of Pasadena v. Cohen , an August ruling by the Third Appellate district in one of California's many disputes over asset claims of former redevelopment agencies. Pasadena had challenged an effort by the Department of Finance to redistribute property tax funds that the city's post-redevelopment "successor agency" claimed it needed to pay down pension bonds and subsidized housing bonds. At the city's request, the trial court had granted an injunction sequestering the funds until a trial on the merits could be held.  The appellate opinion , by Justices M. Kathleen Butz, George Nicholson and Harry E. Hull, Jr., rejected the city's procedural choices. The appellate panel found the city mistakenly sought declaratory relief when it should have filed for a writ of mandate. They accordingly sent the matter back to the trial judge with instructions to either dismiss the proceeding or "construe it as one for traditional mandate and proceed accordingly." The state Supreme Court also denied review in City of Pasadena v. Superior Court (Mercury Casualty Co.) , the August ruling that paradoxically found a city-owned tree falling on a private home is "serving a public purpose" in doing so for the purpose of allowing the homeowner's insurance claim to go forward. The Second District's opinion was tartly written up in the National Law Review at the time. Ninth Circuit: no new ozone rules The Ninth Circuit turned down a petition in WildEarth Guardians v. McCarthy that sought to require the EPA to create new "Prevention of Significant Deterioration" rules for ozone pollution under the Clean Air Act. It based the rejection on ambiguity in the relevant statute, � 166(a) of the Clean Air Act (42 U.S.C. � 7476(a)), saying the law did not establish clearly enough that the duty to establish the standards was mandatory. San Francisco to combine city offices in new tower on SoMa site The San Francisco Board of Supervisors agreed to spend almost $327 million to purchase part of the former Goodwill charity's property at 11th and Market Streets and replace it with a 17-story city office building. The San Francisco Business Times , partly drawing on the Socketsite real estate blog , reported the cost was earlier quoted at $253 million. The reports said developer Related California originally bought the property from Goodwill for $65 million and also planned to develop up to 550 units of housing next to the office building. The site is currently a single-story warehouse-type complex used partly as a thrift store but largely to receive and sort donations. A downtown best-kept secret for years has been the "as-is" shop on 11th Street, where bargain-hunters dig through bins of newly donated items. The news reports say the city will sell its existing five-story office building at 30 Van Ness ( likely for housing ) to help finance the purchase, and will combine offices in the new building for Public Works, Building Inspection, Planning and Retirement and Health Services. Studies look toward more rail in northwestern San Francisco A study commissioned by San Francisco transportation officials predicts a rail extension would be popular if it ran from the end of the currently in-progress Central Subway project westward to Fisherman's Wharf. Michael Cabanatuan of the San Francisco Chronicle reports the study found an extension of the T-Third line to Fisherman's Wharf might increase ridership about 55 percent. Separately, the BART system's planning office announced it would begin a long-range study on a possible new train route that might travel through an additional tube under San Francisco Bay and into San Francisco's currently low-rise western neighborhoods. A drawing released with Streetsblog SF 's report shows the route crossing the Bay south of the current Transbay Tube, running from Alameda to Mission Bay. It's shown crossing Market Street northbound, heading west, then dividing, with one line going west to the cliffs of the Western Richmond District near the Fort Miley VA hospital, and the other heading southwest through the Sunset District outside the city's central ridge to rejoin the existing commuter line in Daly City. Streetsblog SF suggests the design may owe something to former BART board member James Fang's dream of "BART to the beach," an idea often dismissed in the past as not serving a dense enough population.

Attorney Robert May of the LA-based Telecom Law Firm writes in the San Francisco Daily Journal that a new order from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) could limit local power to regulate cell phone towers. The October 17 FCC approval interprets Sec. 6409 (a) of the Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act of 2012 to allow the addition of new equipment within the areas of currently used wireless sites. He writes that new rules will "require local governments to do more, with less information, in a shorter time, or face harsher consequences." Among other rules, the order allows applicants to start construction if they receive no response to a qualifying permit application after 60 days, and allows them to file suit under "Shot Clock" rules when local governments delay responding to an application by "90 to 150 days depending on the application type." Telecom Law Firm has posted detailed analysis and commentary on the ruling at https://telecomlawfirm.com/sec6409/ . The FCC announcement is at http://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-boosts-wireless-broadband-easing-infrastructure-burdens . A statement attributed to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler says the order responds to the reduced size of recent cell phone technology "by crafting a more efficient process for small deployments and other installations that do no trigger concerns about environmental protection for historic preservation." The Ninth Circuit upheld a grant of summary judgment against the National Resources Defense Council and local environmental groups in late October, allowing a project to go continue linking the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach to the I-405 freeway. The case is NRDC v. USDOT , No. 12-56467 . The Coastal Commission has requested rehearing in the Bowman sisters' case, now formally known as SDS Famly Trust v. CA Coastal Commission . This is the October 2014 Pacific Legal Foundation (PLF) victory, reported at http://www.cp-dr.com/articles/node-3607 , in which the Second Appellate District reversed itself on rehearing. It allowed daughters who inherited a coastal property from their father to file a fresh application for a coastal development permit, removing the burden of a coastal access easement that had been imposed as a condition for granting a previously sought permit to their father. (The sisters' family trust is known as "SDS", hence the case name.) The PLF noted the review request indignantly on its blog and posted a copy of the request . The request challenges the court's decision to adopt a different version of the facts in October than it had related as part of its first decision in March. The request also challenges the court's October finding that the coastal easement was unfair because it had little to do with the work for which the coastal development permit was sought: renovations and rebuilding to a dilapidated farmstead a mile inland. The review request alleges the court made its more recent decision "based on facts that were different than those before the Commission and a legal theory undeveloped in the record below." It alleges the facts stated by the court "are not only directly contradicted by the record, but are also contrary to SDS's representations" to the Commission and the courts. It asks the court essentially to return to the March fact pattern (see http://www.cp-dr.com/articles/node-3452 ). That version says the current landowners' father did do some work on the property in anticipation of the first permit, thereby becoming bound by its terms. Further, the review request argues the Court had no right to exercise independent judgment about the fairness of the easement requirement. The Cambrian has local coverage . The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia threw out HUD's disparate-impact rule under the Fair Housing Act as of November 3 in American Insurance Association v. HUD . (Opinion may be downloadable here .) As of October 3 the U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari in the case of Texas Dept. of Housing v. Inclusive Communities , a Fifth Circuit appellate ruling on the distribution of affordable housing subsidies in Dallas. Forbes has a writeup of the Texas case . (Links to both via HAC News .) The State Supreme Court has denied review of an appellate ruling against Target Corporation in the recent case of Target Corp v. La Mirada Ave. Neighborhood Association . The LA Weekly reports the request for review concerned Target's request to resume construction of a store on Sunset Boulevard. As described by Curbed LA , the litigation had previously won an October order stopping construction of the store at Sunset and Western Avenue. It's another success for the La Mirada Avenue Neighborhood Association and its counsel, Robert Silverstein. They are profiled in the Weekly article , which includes a catalogue of their recent victories. The San Diego U-T reported that Superior Court Judge John Meyer upheld a $120 million infrastructure bond issue over a challenge brought by activist litigator Cory Briggs on behalf of San Diegans for Open Government. The paper said Meyer "essentially agreed" with Briggs that the bond issue was structured to avoid a public vote via "subterfuge", but that he ruled, "like it or not, it's legal." The League of California Cities noted a chance to comment to a State Supreme Court commission on the way California courts are run. The State Supreme court denied review of several appellate court orders in litigation between the Taxicab Paratransit Association of California and Internet-dispatched transit companies Uber, Lyft and Sidecar. Per the San Francisco Business Times , the taxi association has been suing since last year over the Public Utilities Commission's decision to legalize the "ride sharing" companies. See Supreme Court case numbers S218427, S220982, S218564 and Third Appellate District Case No. C076432, all at http://appellatecases.courtinfo.ca.gov/search.cfm?dist=0 . A writeup by the Nossaman firm discusses U.S.A. v. 1.41 Acres of Land (N.D. Cal. Nov. 10, 2014). This ruling by California's Northern District federal court held the General Services Administration (GSA) could use an eminent domain action to increase the profitability of a sale of federal land, but only under specific disposal statutes, not the general authority of the GSA. The court refused to strike a defense noting that the property already had an access easement, hence didn't need the added land. The GSA had attempted to take a part of McKay Avenue in the town of Alameda, which belonged to the East Bay Regional Park District and adjoined the Crown Beach public park. The parcel to be augmented was vacant waterfront land next to the Alameda Federal Center, being sold to a private developer for $3.075 million. The decision text, placed online by the Nossaman firm, said that after the developer outbid the park district for the property, the city of Alameda zoned the property open-space only. The case goes to trial next October. The Supreme Court refused a depublication request made by Caltrans, the High-Speed Rail Authority, and other parties in Town of Atherton v. High-Speed Rail Authority, which upheld the programmatic EIR's analysis of a route through Pacheco Pass en route to the Peninsula. The underlying decision , issued in July by the Third Appellate District, is discussed in detail at http://www.cp-dr.com/articles/node-3540 . In Squires v. City of Eureka , landlords filed suit accusing Eureka city officials of singling them out for harassing code enforcement efforts; the city and individual defendants responded successfully with SLAPP suit motions for dismissal. The First District Court of Appeal upheld the trial court's dismissal in October and published its own decision November 14. The decision is at http://www.courts.ca.gov/opinions/documents/A138768.PDF . The California Supreme Court denied review November 12 for an unpublished August decision in Harper v. Canyon Hills Community Association , by the Fourth District Court of Appeal. The ruling held that an aggrieved homeowner in a subdivision had no right to sue her neighbors for an encroaching contruction project based on their alleged violation of conditions, covenants and restrictions of the subdivision homeowners' association.  However, the appellate court upheld her claim against the homeowners' association for approving her neighbors' project, overturning a trial-level ruling that she bore the burden of showing the association's board did not act in good faith. The Fourth District ruling is at http://www.courts.ca.gov/opinions/nonpub/G048445.PDF . The State Supreme Court refused a depublication request in Olive Lane Industrial Park, LLC v. County of San Diego . For prior brief coverage on this Fourth District case upholding a belated transfer of a Proposition 13 reassessment exclusion, see http://www.cp-dr.com/articles/node-3534 . In the case of Union Pacific Railroad v. Santa Fe Pacific Pipelines , the Second Appellate District ordered recalculation of rent rates in litigation pending since 1994 over the rent due from Santa Fe Pacific Pipelines and Kinder Morgan to the Union Pacific Railroad for use of easements allowing a pipeline along a railroad right of way established in the 19th century. The lengthy opinion includes extensive long-range historical discussion of Western railroads and pipelines and of the pipeline agreement in question. The Porterville Recorder reports former councilman Greg Shelton is claiming vindication from a recent opinion by state Attorney General Kamala Harris on purchases of former redevelopment property. The paper said Shelton purchased property in the local redevelopment zone in 2012, and that Shelton was saying the AG's opinion supported his purchase as legitimate because it was for a residence and not for speculative purposes. It reported the opinion followed from a query raised in 2012 by Assemblymember Connie Conway, R-Tulare. The opinion, at http://oag.ca.gov/system/files/opinions/pdfs/12-1204.pdf , provides that conflict-of-interest laws written for redevelopment agencies are still in effect with respect to members of the governing bodies of successor agencies. It says such provisions in general prohibit acquisition of real property by a member of such a governing body, and resignation from the body would not cure a violation of law committed through an improper acquisition. However, it includes among exemptions a mention of Health and Safety Code Sec. 33130.5 allowing purchase or lease of a project area property for "personal residential use" but "only after any needed property improvements have been completed, or when no improvements are needed." A Superior Court judge in San Jose allowed a contractor to go forward with construction on an aviation terminal primarily serving planes of Google executives. (CP&DR reported on a prior phase of San Jose airport litigation at http://www.cp-dr.com/articles/node-3526 .) Meanwhile Google signed a contract to lease Moffett Field, including the historic Hangar One, from NASA. See http://www.cnbc.com/id/102172594 . Developer-side law blogger Art Coon noted the case of Paulek v. CA Dept of Water Resources , a Fourth District Court of Appeal ruling issued October 31 . The case upheld a local activist's standing to bring a CEQA challenge the Perris Dam Remediation Project in Riverside County but rejected the challenge itself. The Department of Water Resources had argued that when appellant Albert Paulek spoke at a public hearing on the project, asking whether the project would achieve what it set out to do, he was raising questions but not making objections, and hence lacked standing to pursue them later. The court said Paulek raised objections sufficiently to qualify to bring a petition. However, the court rejected the challenge itself, which alleged that DWR, by removing plans to include an emergency outlet extension in the dam repair project would leave a flooding hazard unmitigated. It held the decision not to include the extension in the project was not improper segmentation. Further, the court held DWR's responses to comments were adequate, including on a question Paulek raised about cumulative impacts to habitat for the Stephens' kangaroo rat.

San Diego Climate Plan Ruling Ordered Published On November 24, the Fourth Appellate District's Division 1 issued a publication order for its October ruling rejecting San Diego's climate plan. That same day the same division issued its major decision rejecting the EIR for the San Diego Association of Governments' regional transportation plan. The effect was to give value as precedent to two cases that impose stricter greenhouse gas reduction standards on local and regional planners. Kruger Nominated To Fill State Supreme Court Vacancy Governor Jerry Brown has nominated Leondra Kruger, a senior Justice Department lawyer noted as a rising star, to fill the vacancy on the California Supreme Court created by the retirement of Justice Joyce Kennard. Kruger has argued a dozen cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, most prominently in Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. EEOC , a 2012 case on the interaction of a religious employer's prerogatives with an employee's disability rights. Kruger has seldom taken positions on land use issues as an attorney, but as a Harvard undergraduate she had a front-row seat for the demise of Massachusetts rent control per a November 1994 statewide vote and she clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens , a former city attorney who often sided with government agencies on land use and property rights issues. Originally from Pasadena, she was editor of the Yale Law Journal, clerked for D.C. Circuit Judge David S. Tatel as well as Stevens, served briefly as a visiting professor at the University of Chicago, and worked with the firms of Jenner & Block and Wilmer, Cutler, Pickering, Hale & Dorr before joining the Justice Department. Migratory Bird Survey Removed From San Jose General Plan Agenda San Jose came close to approving a general plan amendment that would have required surveys of birds during the mid-year nesting season before any trees could be removed or disturbed. But the San Jose Mercury News reports the item was removed from a November 18 council agenda by "a last-minute decision." Planner Whitney Berry told the paper the plan was worked out with environmental, development/construction and Fish and Wildlife representatives in hopes of streamlining CEQA review. The paper says developers "expressed concerns" that it would slow development -- and then on November 14, current mayor Chuck Reed, mayor-elect Sam Liccardo, and Councilwoman Rose Herrera prepared a critical memo on the proposal, saying it amounted to "precluding construction for seven months of the year." The amendment was expected to resurface in revised form in 2015. It's Still Not Over In El Dorado County This November, El Dorado County voters defeated three slow-growth measures and the Placerville Roundabout Menace . The roundabout may have been knocked flat -- but there are more slow-growth initiatives where the last three came from. The Sacramento Bee reports the Board of Supervisors had held back two measures for further study, but has now agreed to place them on the June 2016 ballot. Both measures are directed against new subdivisions. One would prohibit subdivisions that lack sufficient access to water supplies. The other would protect views and areas near farmland. Long Beach Preparing For Freeway Removal Project The Long Beach City Council is expected to approve a contract December 2 with the Mel�ndrez firm of Los Angeles for planning and conceptual design services on the Terminal Island Freeway Transition Plan. The Longbeachize blog says it's a big step in moving forward on plans to remove a large section of the Terminal Island freeway, with accompanying plans to approve quality of life in the "park poor" area of West Long Beach. (Item via Streetsblog LA .) Does Mayor Of Benicia Have To Stop Commenting on Oil Trains? Should a mayor have to stop talking about a public issue for fear of showing bias on the subject? The question has come up in Benicia, where the Valero Refining Co. has proposed to bring crude oil by train to its refinery in the city. The Sacramento Bee reports Mayor Elizabeth Patterson of Benicia has disclosed that when she frequently commented on safety issues involving oil trains, the city attorney "advised her to stop talking about the oil trains and sending out mass emails containing articles and other information, and to recuse herself from voting when it came before the council". Patterson's comments on oil train safety have included "E-Alert" messages. In a recent email, she wrote regarding these messages: "What I do is repost national, regional and local stories about rail safety. My job is to affirm public, health, safety and welfare and to keep my constituents informed about these issues. No opinion is expressed." Her other public comments have included an op-ed in the San Francisco Chronicle last March calling on Governor Jerry Brown to issue an executive order on safety in the transport of petroleum products. The Council agreed on November 18 to waive its attorney-client privilege and release an opinion issued last summer that was the apparent source of the advice: it came from a city-retained outside attorney, Michael Jenkins of Jenkins & Hogin . A community Web site opposed to the oil trains, the Benicia Independent , has posted a copy of Jenkins' opinion . Jenkins wrote in part, "This is a close case. The evidence I have reviewed can be interpreted to suggest a probability of bias on the part of the Mayor." At issue is the prospect that Patterson would take on a quasi-judicial role in helping to adjudicate Valero's permit application for the oil train project, in which case the company would have a due process right to a hearing before a disinterested authority. In a more recent post on the Benicia Independent site, Patterson protested that Jenkins had reviewed her "E-Alert" statements selectively and that her own attorney had advised her differently. Benicia Approves Housing Element Update In separate November 18 City Council action, the city of Benicia voted to revise its housing element and to adopt an ordinance for transitional housing supportive housing and "emergency shelters", amid concern from Council member Marilyn Bardet that hazardous industrial materials might exist in the Arsenal historic district, which was identified as a site for transitional housing and shelters. For details see the Benicia Herald and the Council's November 18 agenda .

A new report released by the Public Policy Institute of California shows that California's housing market continues to recover from its low at the beginning of 2012. Median home values in the most populous counties have increased by 39 percent since 2012, though they remain 20 percent lower than they were at the market's peak in 2006-2007. The report also shows that the housing recovery has caused a problem for some less affluent residents, as "increasing prices place housing out of reach for many Californians." It finds that homeownership rates in California have fallen more sharply than the rest of the nation, with California falling to 53.8 percent as compared with a 64.7 percent nationwide. Another report  released by NYU's Furman Center describes the percentage changes in rental populations in major US cities from 2006 to 2013. Los Angeles and San Francisco rank among nine cities where more than 50% of the population rents, as of 2013. San Francisco scored in the top five increasing rental populations, with 22% more San Franciscans renting since 2006; Los Angeles' rental population increased by 11%. Richmond-San Rafael Bridge closer to getting new lane, bike path The Richmond-San Rafael Bridge near the northern end of the San Francisco Bay  is one step closer  to getting an extra lane of traffic and a new, separated bike path following an approval of $4.65 million for the project by a committee of the Bay Area Toll Authority. Though no structural work will be necessary on the bridge, officials say that some components on the ground will need to be adjusted on the 5.5-mile bridge to accommodate the new lanes, and they will need to reconstruct an approach on the east side of the bike path to protect bikers from traffic. The Bay Area Toll Authority hopes that the extensions will alleviate the increasing congestion on the bridge. The vote now goes to the full board of BATA for a vote on Feb. 25. Construction will not begin until 2017. SF Proposes Development Curbs in Mission District A San Francisco supervisor  is attempting to limit, or impose a full a moratorium on , the development of market-rate development in the Mission District, one of the most rapidly gentrifying neighborhoods in San Francisco. Supervisor David Campos said that he is responding to a community outcry in the district for more affordable housing.  "There has been a cry from the community for the last couple years that there is a housing crisis and the projects that are in the pipeline are not responding like it is a crisis," Campos told the San Francisco Business Journal.  He will likely propose legislation in the next few weeks that could attempt to either a moratorium on market-rate housing or create a special-use district near the 24 th  street BART.  So far, about 500 housing units in the district  have been approved for upcoming development  by the Planning Department, but only 34 affordable units have been generated. Prop. K, due on the ballot in November, will attempt to make one-third of all units in the city affordable. Property Owners Vote to Support Sacramento Streetcar Two-thirds of property owners near Sacramento's proposed new streetcar line  voted in favor  of providing funds to help finance the $150 million project. Project advocates said that the mail-in vote - while only advisory in nature- showed that local businesses are on board with the benefits that the trolley line would bring in creating a more vibrant downtown, boosting property values, and serving as a connector between historic and commercial locations. The Federal Transit Administration is also considering funding the 3.3-mile project this year with $75 million in requested money, covering half the project's cost. In May, a an advisory ballot measure will go before 3,800 voters who live within three blocks of the project. Chargers, Raiders Propose Shared Stadium in Carson The San Diego Chargers and Oakland Raiders recently  made a surprise proposal  to build a shared stadium in a city near Los Angeles. The teams announced that they will continue to pursue options for stadium deals in their current cities, but that they will jointly pursue the $1.7 billion stadium in Carson as an alternative. Both the Chargers and the Raiders are on year-to-year leases with their current stadiums, and both teams have shown restlessness with city reluctance to fund new stadiums with taxpayer dollars. The teams stated that they plan to launch a petition drive immediately to put the stadium to a vote of city residents. Gold Line Authority Pushes for Extension to Montclair The Metro Gold Line Foothill Extension Construction Authority, which is constructing Phase II of the Gold Line light rail in eastern Los Angeles County, has asked for funding for the next phase, from Azusa to Montclair. It would be the first light rail line to reach into San Bernardino County -  have asked for a transfer  of $33 million in sales taxes for the 12.3 mile extension. The money would come from leftover construction funds from an 11.5-mile extension from East Pasadena to the Azusa city limits, which will be completed in September. The authority says that it has already completed its Environmental Impact Report and hopes that it can get the funding to be ready for operation by 2023. Proponents say that the $1.18 billion project should undoubtedly be a priority for the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transit Authority, but with several other public transportation projects fighting for money, it could be difficult to get the needed funds. "I would say there is no question our project (Azusa-to-Montclair Gold Line) should be a priority. But this is a political game," Doug Tessitor from the Construction Authority Board told the San Gabriel Valley Tribune.

The demise of redevelopment may leave the city of San Diego with a monstrous bill : $271 million to cover the development of its downtown stadium, Petco Park. When the stadium's financing plan was approved in 1998, general obligation bond funds were to be routed through the Center City Development Corp., one of the city's redevelopment agencies. In anticipation of the 2012 shutdown of redevelopment, CCDC transferred over $200 million to the city. The state then determined that these funds were not authorized for exemption from state "claw-back." In a 9-0 vote earlier this month, the City Council determined that it would pursue legal action against the state. Opponents of Sacramento Arena Raise EIR Concerns in Court Foes of the efforts to build a new stadium for the Sacramento Kings  aired their concerns in court  earlier this month, calling the project's environmental impact report inadequate. Justices in the Court of Appeals asked lawyers for the city whether planners had surveyed other alternative sites and considered the impact of stadium traffic on I-5. Opponents of the project are concerned about a $255 million public subsidy that the city is giving to the arena, and that state lawmakers passed SB 743, written specifically for the project and intended to make it much harder for foes to block construction. The hearing ended without a ruling. Sen. Jackson Seeks to Streamline CEQA Process The  latest attempt to reform CEQA  comes from State Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson (Dist. 19 � Santa Barbara). Her bill, SB 122, attempts to streamline the CEQA process but does not make substantive changes to the law. SB 122 would make lead agencies keep an administrative record of all actions on a project in real time. Jackson claims that this change would help streamline much of the data-gathering process, which is now typically done only after a lawsuit is filed. The bill would also establish an online clearinghouse through the Office of Planning and Research that would post all documents relating to environmental impact reports across the state. Finally, the bill would reform what Jackson calls "document dumping" at the scheduled close of the public comment period on draft EIRs. City of San Francisco Must Pay for Tree Upkeep The San Francisco Board of Supervisors agreed that the city's Department of Public Works, not local property owners,  should be responsible for upkeep of the city's street trees . The vote is a move away from dumping the cost of tree maintenance to homeowners and is in line with the Planning Department's Urban Forest Master Plan. But, the supervisors did not allocate any money toward the $15 million annual cost of upkeep.  That could be the toughest part, as Supervisor Scott Weiner said, "trees don't do well in the budget process." A parcel tax is being considered for the 2016 ballot. Meanwhile, the city is hoping to add 50,000 street trees to its urban forest by 2035. San Diego Awash in Unused Development Impact Fees An investigation by the San Diego Union-Tribune  found that the city has let pile up millions  of unspent dollars of developer impact fees, designed to offset the local impacts of big projects. These monies may be used for local infrastructure projects such as parks and fire stations. Over $78 million collected has not been spent as of June 2014; $35 million of that has not been designated for any specific purpose. Public officials have expressed frustration in the wake of a staggering backlog of infrastructure improvements in the city that have not been fixed. Ranking Gentrification in California According to a new ranking of incidence of gentrification in America's 50 largest cities, Sacramento and Oakland are the most rapidly gentrifying cities in California. Governing Magazine ranked them Nos. 9 and 11, respectively, in its "Gentrification in America" report. Around 30 percent of both cities' census tracts were determined to have gentrified since 2000. Though California cities have some of the highest rents in the country, cities including San Diego, San Francisco and San Jose ranked lower in part because they have already gentrified dramatically. The report defined a neighborhood as gentrified if growth in its median household income and home value was in the top third percentile as compared with other neighborhoods in its metro area; median incomes and home values had to be in the bottom 40% in 2000 for a neighborhood to be eligible. High Speed Rail Opposition Files Petition Two counties in the Central Valley  have filed a petition with the 9th District Court of Appeals , hoping to overturn a ruling by a federal agency prohibiting state courts from citing CEQA in opposition to the high speed rail coming to California. The Surface Transportation Board ruled in December that the state couldn't use CEQA because doing so could "deny or significantly delay an entity's right to construct a line that the (Surface Transportation) Board has specifically authorized, thus impinging upon the board's exclusive jurisdiction over rail transportation." Kings County and Kern County, in association with several anti-HSR groups in the Central Valley and Bay Area, contend that the previous ruling "violates petitioners' constitutional right to seek redress of grievances" and that it violates California's sovereignty as guaranteed by the 10th Amendment.

In California land use news this week: The Monterey Herald is reporting that Cal American Water has settled with landowner Cemex ahead of its Coastal Commission appearance on Wednesday to seek permission to drill a test well under the City of Marina. The well would go under the sea floor to check if water could be taken from that area for a desalination plant proposed for the Cemex sand mining site in North Marina. Cal Am and Cemex had been on the point of litigation . Marina officials have criticized the plan because they feared that it might worsen saltwater intrusion into groundwater and that, once dug, it might be used permanently for extraction, not just for testing. The Commission's agenda packet as of this writing showed a staff recommendation for conditional approval. For prior coverage see http://www.cp-dr.com/articles/node-3610 . The Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) has proposed to cut two BART stations planned for San Jose and Santa Clara. The station in San Jose, on 28th Street in the Alum Rock area, has been popular with its proposed neighbors, who worked willingly with public officials on a transit-oriented development project. Details via Planetizen at http://www.planetizen.com/articles/node-71983 and in the San Francisco Business Times . The HomeAway vacation rental Web site has sued San Francisco over the city's recently passed law legalizing certain vacation rentals, saying it favors Airbnb over other companies. Carolyn Said reported on the dispute in the San Francisco Chronicle . As she noted, City Attorney Dennis Herrera posted a statement saying he would "vigorously defend" against the suit, and complaining, "HomeAway's challenge pushes a dubious legal theory that the U.S. Constitution's Commerce Clause somehow prohibits local jurisdictions from making local land use decisions." The VTA issued an environmental assessment on its planned Bus Rapid Transit project along El Camino from Palo Alto to San Jose. See http://www.vta.org/el-camino-brt . Reports of the death of "dinosaur planning" may be exaggerated. The LA Times reported last week on the opening of a partly built first "neighborhood" of a 1200-unit "community" to be known as Park Place, in the enormous planned "New Model Colony" town in Ontario, California. The paper describes it as "the first New Model Colony project to debut since the financial crisis." Economist Gerd-Ulf Krueger told the paper, "The dinosaurs... have come alive." Los Angeles Metro held a groundbreaking on the Purple Line . For initial reactions see the #purpleline Twitter hashtag. Ethan Elkind posted a bittersweet note of celebration . The LA Times reports the line that was once dreamed of as the "subway to the sea" will in fact most likely stop at the VA hospital in Westwood. It's a long if pretty walk from there to the ocean. The Sacramento Bee reported the Kings basketball team released plans for mixed-use residential, commercial and office construction ancillary to their new arena in downtown Sacramento. A Modesto group, Stamp Out Sprawl, started a petition drive to place an urban growth boundary limit on the November 2015 ballot to steer big-box retail stores away from the Wood Colony area. The Modesto Bee has details at http://www.modbee.com/news/local/article3545807.html . The LA Times reported the Zillow real estate site found 47.9% of working-age adults in Los Angeles and Orange Counties live with a roommate or adult family member other than a spouse. On the real-estate-oriented HousingWire site, that story led to a somewhat different headline: " Zillow: Millions of potential houses lost to 'doubling up' ". The original Zillow report refers to the doubled-up people as "hidden households." As anyone knows who was at the APA-California convention in September, the Disneyland area of Anaheim could use a smoother transportation setup between the theme parks and convention center, and the many blocks of hotels that serve them. Now Planetizen reports some critics are seeing connections between Disney's political contributions and a proposal for a streetcar in the area. A hearing is set for November 12 on Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors approval of the Antelope Valley Area Plan and its EIR, discussed in our recent news feature at http://www.cp-dr.com/articles/node-3603 . For plan materials see http://planning.lacounty.gov/tnc/ . For the Board of Supervisors agenda see the November 12 entry at http://bos.co.la.ca.us/BoardMeeting/BoardAgendas.aspx . Links to the Board's agenda materials are at http://file.lacounty.gov/bos/supdocs/89590.pdf and include a 118-page draft Statement of Overriding Considerations. An initial hearing was held November 5 on a draft renewable energy ordinance for unincorporated areas of Los Angeles County, including some large high desert tracts where large solar arrays have been controversially proposed. See http://planning.lacounty.gov/energy . The Sacramento Bee reports the solar industry is rebounding after losing ground during the home mortgage crisis. Investigative freelancer Darwin Bond Graham writes on his blog that the exclusive city of Piedmont is willing to allow affordable housing in its Housing Element, but principally by encouraging owners of large houses or lots to add second units -- in some cases by re-converting actual former servants' quarters into -- yep, servants' quarters again. The Los Angeles Times reports the statewide plastic bag ban is actually kind of popular . Last week the LA Times reported in detail on seismic protections in the New Wilshire Grand tower . Los Angeles is in a quandary over increasing costs of privately contracted street tree maintenance. Planetizen has a roundup at http://www.planetizen.com/articles/node-71873 of attempts by the City of Lancaster to close its Metrolink station, which serves 400 commuters, based on claims that it brings homeless people to the city. Planetizen picked up a plan to spend $2.8 million developing a rail trail along Slauson Avenue in Los Angeles. See www.planetizen.com/articles/node-71893 . And The Planning Report has an interview with Esther Feldman of Community Conservation Solutions about Zev Yaroslavsky's work creating a missing link for walkers in the LA River Greenway Trail. Stockton is officially out of bankruptcy .

President Obama's proposed 2016 budget, announced last week, includes several nods to development and transportation in California to the tune of over $1 billion. In the plan, Los Angeles  would receive $330 million  for an expansion of the Purple Line of its subway, along with a downtown connector to tie together several strands of the system.  The budget also included $150 million  to fund a streetcar line  in downtown Sacramento. To receive the money, the city has to get approval from residents within three blocks of the proposed line, and it will have to raise $30 million in matching funds from property owners nearby. Officials hope to have the trolley operating by 2018.  Some of the projects that are likely to survive Congressional whittling,  according to the Sacramento Bee : restoration projects of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, upgrades to Yosemite National Park, and funding for improvements to Central Valley flood control. Meanwhile ,  the  San Diego Union-Tribune pondered  the fate of a new stadium for the Chargers - a hotly debated subject in San Diego - if Obama's budget is passed. O ne proposal within the budget would bar cities from issuing tax-free bonds to finance new projects for professional sports facilities, an incentive usually used to push stadiums through.  "This is one of those areas where there's consensus among economics professors that these are not good projects for the use of public dollars," said one urban planning professor. Property Owners Decide Against Protest of Transbay Vote A group of heavyweight property owners  decided not to sue  the City and County of San Francisco over the creation of a new Mello-Roos tax district to help fund the Transbay transit center, which is currently under construction. The creation of the district was approved in December by a vote of over 50 percent of local property-owners. Developers with nearby projects, including Hines and Boston Properties, objected to the fact that the vote on the tax district had been a foregone conclusion, since government agencies own over 50 percent of land in the area and therefore had a built-in majority. Opponents had also objected to a tax increase from $3.33 to $5.11 per square foot since the special district was first proposed in 2012. Opponents had 30 days from the original vote to file a protest, but they did not do so, meaning that the election is certified and the district is officially approved.  Wastewater Pumping Taints Central Valley Drinking Water As the historic drought continues, California water users in the Central Valley have had to resort to groundwater pumping to get the water that they need, causing land in the Central Valley to actually sink. Things just got a lot scarier, as the  San Francisco Chronicle  reported that oil companies have been pumping wastewater laden with bits of oil back into the ground due to bureaucratic errors in enforcement of bans against that pumping. The EPA is investigating whether the wastewater pumping has polluted groundwater, and it could seize control of the injection wells from California officials. Santa Ana Uses Blind Luck to Permit Marijuana Dispensaries Santa Ana  employed a lottery system  to determine who would get one of the 19 permits issued for medical marijuana dispensaries in the city, becoming the first city in Orange County to issue the permits since most California cities banned the shops years ago. However, some criticized the structure of the lottery system, saying that officials should have done preliminary screening before opening up the lottery to over 630 applications.  "Instead of going through all of this ... you should be vetting people up front, figuring out who doesn't have a criminal record and all of that, and then have the lottery," attorney Randall T. Longwith said. Quarry Rejected in SLO The San Luis Obispo County Planning Commission  narrowly rejected  a 41-acre granite quarry in Santa Margarita following community opposition over traffic impacts on the town. Commissioners cited concerns of an increase in traffic and the safety of trucks carrying heavy granite through downtown Santa Margarita as reasons for the rejection.  Further south in San Luis Obispo County, developer Tom Blessent  proposed a housing project  that would triple the size of the community of Avila Beach, adding 1,000 to 1,500 homes. The developer is expected to face heavy resistance from conservationists, who failed at an attempt to conserve all 2,400 acres of Wild Cherry Canyon. Atkins Proposes Plan to Fund Infrastructure Assembly Speaker Toni Atkins released a plan to fund California's crumbling infrastructure following Governor Jerry Brown's call for statewide improvements. Citing the problem of increasingly fuel-efficient cars stifling the money that the state raise from gas taxes, Atkins proposed a $52 per year tax on California drivers. The tax could be tacked on to insurance bills or vehicle registration charges.

The Santa Monica Mountains coastal area, one of the largest still under direct Coastal Commission permitting authority, on April 10 won Commission approval of a Land Use Plan, which was the most significant step toward final certification of its Local Coastal Program (LCP). The Commission will take up the interpretive Local Implementation Plan separately, probably at its June meeting. The LCP plan area covers a broad swath of the Santa Monica Mountains inland from the Malibu city limits and Pepperdine University, running approximately five miles to the crest of the mountains and covering 50,000 acres. A further mountainous "North Area" is subject to similar planning approaches but is inland of the Coastal Act's jurisdiction. The area under the Santa Monica Mountains LCP touches the coast only briefly on either side of Malibu's long, narrow strip of coastline. The traditionally fractious City of Malibu has had its own separate LCP since the Legislature forced it to adopt one in 2002. Final Commission approval for an LCP would delegate coastal permit approval powers to the county, removing a layer of regulatory process from most construction approvals but requiring the county to operate per the Commission-approved plan. The plan passed the Commission with environmental groups generally in favor and mixed positions by affected property owners, with farmers and vintners most strongly in opposition. A brief political season leading up to the meeting included a letter-writing campaign against the plan's agriculture restrictions. After a long history of past false starts, the LCP project was reportedly restarted by LA County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, in order to wrap up the matter before the end of his last term as Supervisor. He vigorously cheered the county and Commission efforts to completion. A statement on his weblog after the Land Use Plan certification called it "a vote that will resonate for generations". Richard Bruckner, director of the LA County Department of Regional Planning, said the Santa Monica Mountains LCP policies, crafted mainly by the County, took a new approach to the usual starting binary for a Coastal Commission permit discussion: whether land qualifies as "Environmentally Sensitive Habitat Areas" (ESHA) or not. He said they worked out "a much more nuanced plan where there are gradations of habitat." Bruckner said previously each permit application began a negotiation over the extent to which development on a property could be limited without effecting a taking. The new approach would be clearer, hence less time-consuming, he suggested. The new plan classifies land in three categories of sensitivity, H1 through H3, ranging from severe limitations on development in H1 to relatively relaxed standards in H3 zones that are already developed. Long-term Commission watcher Susan Jordan, director of the California Coastal Protection Network, said the H2 standard applied development restrictions that would be typical of restrictions on development in ESHA areas. Don Schmitz, an organizer of opposition to the plan who frequently represents permit applicants before the Commission, said "I understand it was a hard-fought compromise that was hammered out with the Coastal Commission staff." The plan allows existing farming and vineyards, and new or old personal gardens. However, it creates a heavy presumption against "new crop-based agricultural uses" and prohibits new vineyards outright, based on concern about runoff, erosion, pesticides, and habitat disruption, especially on steep slopes. Initial drafts would have prohibited all new "crop-based" uses, but in light of the pro-agriculture campaign, the Commission approved an addendum whose major provisions clarified that not all new crops were prohibited, and described small-scale gardening and farming that could still be allowed if organic and biodynamic methods are used. Yaroslavsky wrote on his weblog that the Commission added the additional wording about authorized agriculture due to "misinformation" from opponents including Schmitz, whom he singled out by name. In the earlier of two weblog posts focused on the April meeting, he gave a heated defense of the LCP against claims that it would unreasonably restrict property use, especially with respect to crops and animals. Schmitz in turn accused the plan's creators of failing to observe protections for agriculture that he argued were centrally enshrined in the Coastal Act, and of moving the approval process too fast. He said the original proposal was for an "outright and complete ban on any agriculture in the Santa Monica Mountains," but that he and other opponents were "chastised" for saying so because the proposed rule "magnanimously" would allow existing agriculture to continue. Schmitz described himself as a farmer and vineyard owner and a spokesperson for a new group, the Coastal Coalition of Family Farmers, which was the plan's most visible opponent as of April. Schmitz said this group was newly formed in response to news of the plan proposal. He said the proposal took farmers by surprise and did not leave much time for them to organize a response. In an email Jordan wrote, regarding opposition complaints on timing, "all legal time requirements were fulfilled, all sides -- supporters and opponents -- had the same access to information, and were well informed of the direction it was going." A Change.org petition bearing the logo of Schmitz's group is still posted at http://www.change.org/petitions/local-coastal-program-protect-the-future-of-farming-in-the-santa-monica-mountains. The page introducing the petition refers to "Banning future agricultural land use". The petition had received 922 signatures as of this writing, many added after the April meeting, some from as far away as Nevada, Ohio and Italy. The Commission staff's 179-page addendum, containing last-minute responses and revisions to the proposal, included letters showing a mix of strongly held local sentiments: support from environmental and community groups and some landowners, and opposition from other local landowners, the Farm Bureau, Pacific Legal Foundation and Malibu Chamber of Commerce. The opponents' letters contained varying phrasing about whether what was to be banned was new farms and vineyards, or agriculture in general. Bruckner and Jordan said the many established equestrian facilities in the Santa Monica Mountains would be helped to come into compliance before they faced hard-edged enforcement actions. Jordan, herself an equestrian, said descriptions of the help with compliance as an "amnesty" program were, however, inaccurate. The Santa Monica Mountains LCP process has spanned most of Yaroslavsky's long-running political career. He was first elected to the LA City Council in 1975. The LA County Supervisors took the first step toward an LCP in 1982 by approving a Land Use Plan for the Malibu area. The Commission certified that plan in 1986 but because the Supervisors had not passed zoning and planning ordinances to implement it, the Commission could not approve the whole LCP. The Supervisors partially restarted the process in 2007, then stalled, then recently redid the whole package. And now, at last, the plan is headed toward final certification, with only the meeting on implementing details to get through, presumably at the meeting scheduled in Huntington Beach in June. Looking toward June, Bruckner said, "It's the details, but I'm very pleased that... we've got agreement on the policies between the Commission and the County. And I think we can work through the details with the Commission staff. They've been very generous with their time and we've had a good dialogue with them." The lack of a Santa Monica Mountains LCP was recently an issue in Hagopian v. State of California , discussed at http://www.cp-dr.com/articles/node-3440, in which organic farmers at the top of Topanga Canyon attempted to develop their property based on county approval without going to the Commission. Participants on all sides of the LCP debate declined to comment on the Hagopian matter, all distancing themselves from the Hagopians' position that the LCP had not been needed at all. Bruckner said he anticipated the LCP would bring the county about 30 to 40 new permitting cases a year, depending on economic conditions, and then there would be work to do with nonconforming property owners. He said "by the commission staff's own reckoning there are as many violations or unpermitted improvements in the Santa Monica Mountains as in the ... rest of the coastal areas combined." While the new Santa Monica Mountains LCP may transfer that much workload off of the Coastal Commission, it won't be as much of a change as in 2002. That was when the Commission, under orders from the Legislature's AB 988, created and approved an LCP for the City of Malibu, ending a long tradition of extended fussing over Malibu local issues at meetings of the statewide body. Some of the history is explained in Malibu's LCP, as created in 2002, appearing as an attachment to the September 2002 agenda at http://coastal.ca.gov/meetings/mtg-mm2-9.html. Conoisseurs of legislative dudgeon may appreciate the last three staff analyses on the 1999-2000 session's AB 988, available at http://bit.ly/PK0b0V. Links: Malibu Times : http://bit.ly/1p0Wg0a Thousand Oaks Acorn : http://bit.ly/1lZfLR5 LA Business Journal : http://bit.ly/QTS4Qn LA County LCP planning page: http://planning.lacounty.gov/coastal Yaroslavsky's weblog: http://zev.lacounty.gov/news/a-high-note-for-mountain-protections For a list of coastal segments where Coastal Commission permit authority had not yet been transferred as of November 2013 see http://www.coastal.ca.gov/lcp/LCPStatusSummFY1213.pdf. Coastal Commission April agenda, annotated with results, LCP documents attached: http://coastal.ca.gov/meetings/mtg-mm14-4.html Monterey Bay Shores Resort The Coastal Commission approved developer Ed Ghandour's proposal for the 39-acre, 368-unit "Monterey Bay Shores Resort" in Sand City, which has been before the Commission intermittently since 1998. The decision overrode intense objections from environmental groups and agencies that had sought stronger habitat protections for species including the Western Snowy Plover, Smiths Blue Butterfly and Monterey Spineflower. The approval used a special procedural double play to wrap up the case both in an appellate court and at the Commission. At the start of the three-day session, the Monterey resort proponents -- formally, Security National Guaranty, Inc., or SNG -- were close to settling 13 years of litigation with the Coastal Commission. SNG had won a ruling in San Francisco Superior Court that the Coastal Commission appealed. Before going forward with appellate briefing, the parties agreed to seek resolution of the matter in a hearing of the Commission with the option to return to court. The matter was set to recur on the April 9, 10 and 11 agendas so the Commission and courts could act in correct order to sew up the settlement. The Commission heard environmental objections, centered on the plover habitat issue, from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, California Parks & Recreation Department, environmental organizations and individual objectors, while local officials praised the project's design and potential economic benefits. Other issues included measures to reduce bluff erosion; provide stability for the structures, which would be built on a dune field; preserve views from Highway 1, and protect surrounding sand dunes. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service had called for SNG to prepare a habitat conservation plan and apply for an incidental take permit. The primary environmentalist objection was that instead the final plan called for created a "habitat protection plan" with fewer enforceable specifics. Having reached a settlement, the parties dismissed the court cases and returned Friday, April 11 for an approval decision. When it was time for the approval, the Monterey Herald said it took four minutes. Links: Monterey Herald on the start of the debate: http://bit.ly/1qu4jzR Monterey Weekly blow-by-blow on the marathon April 9 debate: http://bit.ly/1klDagR and on the outcome: http://bit.ly/1gXQu5A Monterey Herald looking toward the April 11 post-settlement approval: http://bit.ly/1hEpbgG Herald on the final approval: http://bit.ly/OZbodM Audubon Society "displeased" with the habitat provisions: http://bit.ly/1qW4F0E The Sierra Club likewise: http://bit.ly/1enOKb2 Appeal of Security National Guaranty v. CA Coastal Commission , settled April 10, as shown on the online docket at http://bit.ly/1kVsyUh Related San Francisco Superior Court dockets; many more recent papers are downloadable: http://bit.ly/1lYcVgb; http://bit.ly/1lYg5AC. ( Disclosure: the judge in the San Francisco Superior Court case, Harold Kahn, heard an unrelated matter in March in which Martha Bridegam participated as an attorney. ) Paradiso Del Mare approval disappoints Surfriders The Commission approved the Paradiso Del Mare proposal for two large private homes on Brooks Street in Santa Barbara County west of Goleta, sought by CPH Dos Pueblos Associates. The approved proposal provided for coastal trail and habitat restoration mitigations including $500,000 "for public access trail implementation" and $20,000 for a new "Seals Watch" volunteer group, but local environmental activists condemned them as insufficient or even harmful. The 454-page official record includes statements that 137 of 143 acres on the project site would be "preserved as permanent visual open space," of which 117 acres would be preserved as habitat, with "substantial public access and recreation easements on the property representing the first phase for implementation of the California Coastal Trail along the 20-mile Gaviota Coast." Local Surfrider Foundation chapter chair Mark Morey wrote indignantly to supporters that the 7-4 vote to approve the project "was a vote against you, the community, nature, and the Gaviota Coast." He wrote that surfers and the larger public would lose beach and trail access, a white-tailed kite nesting tree would be affected, and other private development projects would likely follow these first two. (Objections to the project in the prior record include arguments that although the project was approved to include only two residences only, it would create conditions that make nearby land easier to develop.) In an email exchange, Morey and fellow Santa Barbara Surfrider members wrote that the construction would block a trail that "has been used by the public across private land for around 50 years" and would replace it with an access easement that, to become a trail, would depend for its construction costs on county or other third-party funds. (Objections noted in the record said a trail on available easement routes would call for a stairway costing $750,000 or more.) Further, the Surfriders objected that the project would be built close to a seal rookery, and the expected easement route would likely run so close to the seals that it might have to be closed during the season when both seals and surfers traditionally used the area. The chapter's Bob Keats wrote that future occupants of the project would have access to the seals' area any time, "in contrast to the infrequent access to the beach by surfers, as the surf, although high in quality, does not occur very often." Keats questioned whether adequate notice had been given of amendments to the commission's settlement with the developer that, when they were discussed at the meeting, seemed to persuade some commission members toward approval. An account posted April 15 by the Santa Barbara Independent said some Commission members were startled to be presented with revisions to the settlement agreement during the meeting and that Commissioner Mary Shallenberger raised questions about notice. Surfrider and the Gaviota Coast Conservancy are plaintiffs in a pending court challenge to the EIR. On the case, Morey wrote, "every option is on the table." Keats wrote that the suit would now name the Coastal Commission as well, "and we will continue to pursue the litigation." Santa Barbara Independent reports: April 8: http://bit.ly/RgI7gF; April 15: http://bit.ly/1kXRMWx The local Noozhawk site on the court case: http://bit.ly/1kmfWa9 In other Coastal Commission news: The Commission unanimously disapproved the Beach Plaza Motel teardown and reconstruction on Ocean Blvd. in Long Beach. The Long Beach Press Telegram reported the Commission found the proposed swankier replacement would violate a Local Coastal Program provision "to "protect access to the coast for people of low and moderate incomes."" The plan had been opposed by UNITE HERE Local 11, environmentalists and neighbors. For the Press Telegram report see http://bit.ly/1khfQk8. The Long Beach Post has more at http://bit.ly/1m59CUD. Santa Monica received Coastal Commission approval, with conditions, to replace the deteriorated 84-year-old California Incline Bridge, Ocean Avenue to PCH, with bluff stabilization, better structural stability and improved sidewalks and bike lanes. The project is expected to close that heavily used link between the PCH and Ocean Avenue for 12 to 18 months. The Commission approved revised findings in a staff report in support of a disputed athletic fields renovation in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. Some neighbors have opposed the use of artificial turf, bright lights for night games, and the resulting loss of informality at that end of the park. Others have endorsed the same choices. The City Fields Foundation, which supports the renovation, posted on Facebook at http://on.fb.me/1eo8Txv, "Though just an administrative action, this vote was critical if we are to start construction this spring." As reported in the San Francisco real estate blog Socketsite at http://bit.ly/1hDliOM, the Coalition to Protect Golden Gate Park is gathering signatures for a ballot measure against the renovation. To the Surfrider Foundation's joy, the Commission approved a proposal to truck in extra sand to replace erosion at Broad Beach in Malibu. Malibu Times: http://bit.ly/1kVNpGW; Surfrider Foundation: http://bit.ly/1m0NahW Items noted at the meeting as not requiring a coastal permit included an emergency dust control project at the Oceano Dunes State Vehicle Recreation Area.

An Oregon property rights initiative has been upheld by that state’s Supreme Court. In a unanimous decision issued February 21, the court ruled that Measure 37 did not violate equal protection and due process rights, and did not improperly restrict state lawmakers’ land use authority. The decision overturned a trial court ruling issued last fall that found the initiative violated the federal and state constitutions. The ruling could provide a boost to similar proposed ballot measures elsewhere, including California. Approved by 61% of Oregon voters in November 2004, Measure 37 requires the government to either compensate property owners for land use regulations promulgated after the owner acquired property or not apply the regulations. The initiative backed by a group called Oregonians in Action was a direct attack on the state’s 30-year-old planning law that many planners see as a national model. The law prohibits most development outside of urban areas. Within months of Measure 37’s passage, landowners filed at least 2,500 applications for development in rural areas. With no money to compensate landowners, counties took many different approaches to the applications. Everything froze, however, when a Marion County Circuit Court judge invalidated the initiative. The state Supreme Court did not find constitutional flaws in Measure 37. The court rejected the argument that Measure 37 violated equal protection rights by establishing classes of people that others could not join, and that the measure violated due process rights by favoring certain property owners over others. “Although it is true that neither the state nor the federal constitution compensation to individuals who suffer any loss in property value as a consequence of land use regulation,” the court ruled, “it is equally true that neither constitution requiring such compensation in the manner provided for in Measure 37. The people, in exercising their initiative power, were free to enact Measure 37 in furtherance of policy objectives such as compensating landowners for a diminution in property value resulting from certain land use regulations or otherwise relieving landowners from some of the financial burden of certain land use regulations.” The case is , Oregon State Supreme Court No. S52875. Only days before the ruling, the farm bureau in the state of Washington filed an initiative similar to Measure 37. A local, California version of Measure 37 is scheduled to be on the ballot this June in Napa County, which currently bars most development in agricultural and watershed areas. The “fair pay” initiative would require compensation for land use regulation similar to Measure 37. A city charter amendment in Chula Vista that would limit the city’s eminent domain authority has been placed on the ballot by the City Council. The measure would prohibit the use of eminent domain for economic development purposes and would require the city to own for at least 10 years property it acquires via eminent domain. A group called Chula Vistans for Private Property Protection submitted about 14,000 signatures on the ballot measure in January. The group appeared to lack the number of signatures required to place a charter amendment on the ballot. But the City Council, without endorsing the amendment, voted unanimously in late February to put the measure on the ballot anyway. Exactly how the measure would affect the city’s redevelopment agency is unclear because the agency is not bound by the city charter. The state attorney general’s office revealed in February that it is continuing to monitor three redevelopment agencies that were cited last year for major violations of the Community Redevelopment Law by the state controller’s office. In a letter responding to an inquiry by state Sen. Christine Kehoe (D-San Diego), Attorney General Bill Lockyer said redevelopment agencies in Calapatria, Hawaiian Gardens and Santa Ana remain under scrutiny. In Calapatria, the redevelopment agency used low- and moderate-income housing funds to purchase 29 acres that the agency intended to sell to a developer for a market-rate housing project. The city said the developer would fully reimburse the low/mod housing fund. In Hawaiian Gardens, the controller questioned the redevelopment agency’s acquisition of 17 properties. The attorney general’s office demanded more information but has not received it. In Santa Ana, the redevelopment agency sold a parking lot to a commercial developer for $1 and then leased back 150 spaces for $15,000 per month, with the city subleasing parking spaces from the agency for $6,000 a month. Low/mod housing money is involved in the deal. “The arrangement appears to be problematic, and we anticipate taking further action in the matter, including the possibility of litigation,” Lockyer wrote. As expected, the Western Riverside Council of Governments increased a development mitigation fee for regional transportation to nearly $10,000 per house, effective in July. The Western Riverside COG has been a leader in the growing statewide movement to assess new development for regional highway, road and transit projects. The group claims that its transportation uniform mitigation fee (TUMF) is the largest, multi-jurisdictional transportation development fee program in the country. Since it was implemented in July 2003, the fee has generated about $800 million for projects. However, transportation officials said rising construction costs and faster-than-anticipated growth forced a fee revision. The new fees are $9,639 per single-family home (up from $7,247), $6,806 per multi-family unit (up from $5,021), $12.49 per square foot for retail development (up from $8.51 per square foot), $2.27 per square foot for industrial development (up from $1.58 per square foot) and $6.33 per square foot for services (up from $5.28 a square foot). The nonresidential fees will be phased in over three years. Some development interests and city officials argued against the fee hike, saying the charges would hinder needed growth and send desirable projects to neighboring San Bernardino County, where fees are lower. A new federal Environmental Protection Agency “smart growth” report on balancing parking needs with broader community goals highlights planning for two projects in California. The report, called “Parking Spaces/Community Places,” provides an extensive review of the proposed NASA Research Park (NRP) at the decommissioned Moffett Field Navy base in Mountain View. Using typical parking ratios, the 2-million-square-foot research park would need about 7,500 parking spaces. But a transportation demand management plan instead calls for only 5,200 spaces on the site. The reduction in parking spaces is made possible by the overall development’s inclusion of nearby housing with sidewalks and bike paths, shuttle busses and bus passes, charging tenants and lessees for parking, and forcing different users to share parking spaces. The second project profiled is a proposed 162-room hotel in downtown Long Beach. Under the city’s ordinance, the hotel and accompanying 35,000-square-foot retail project would have had to provide 302 parking spaces. That was neither financially feasible for the developer, nor preferable to the city, which wants to encourage pedestrian activity. The on-site parking requirement was eventually knocked down to 162 spaces through a hotel valet parking system, relaxed parking standards, and the payment of in-lieu fees to the city, which will provide public parking spaces. Parking Spaces/Community Places as well as a new report on best management practices for stormwater and two reports regarding water and high-density development are available on the EPA’s smart growth website, www.epa.gov/smartgrowth . The Department of Water Resources has completed an overhaul of the California Water Plan. Unlike previous state water plans, which forecast large deficits in the amount of water that would be available, this plan says needs can be met through 2030 through more efficient water use, underground water banking, recycling of treated wastewater, desalination projects and a relatively small amount of new surface storage. The complete report is available at www.waterplan.water.ca.gov .

California city councils may be in a short time window when it's to their advantage to pass local bans on plastic bags. They became more safely able to do so as of April 16 when the state Supreme Court declined to review the ruling by California's First District that upheld San Francisco's ban on plastic bags last winter. That decision was ordered published in January. At the other end of their time window is a deadline that could be imposed if the Legislature passes SB 270, proposed by State Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Pacoima. The Contra Costa Times , reporting on Pleasant Hill's proposed ban at http://bit.ly/1haLlbd, noted that, if passed, the Padilla bill would grandfather plastic bag bans imposed before September 1, 2014 but would impose a uniform ban statewide for areas that by then had not yet passed their own plastic bag laws. For SB 270's text and legislative progress see http://bit.ly/1o0lkjH. As of this writing it had passed the Senate and was on its third bounce through policy committees in the Assembly. Links: Bill Fulton's detailed account of the appellate decision for CP&DR is at http://www.cp-dr.com/articles/node-3426. The appellate court's online docket on the San Francisco case is at http://bit.ly/1tRLtoW. The advocacy site "Plasticbaglaws.org" provides a usefully thorough picture of plastic bag ban litigation around California, with links to official sites, at http://plasticbaglaws.org/litigation/ (In addition to the Marin chronology shown there, the state Supreme Court review was denied in the Marin case in October.) The Grist Web site, writing from an advocacy perspective, provides a national picture of plastic bag bans, in which California cities are prominent: http://grist.org/article/plastic-bag-bans-spreading-in-the-united-states/ Huntington Beach, which previously banned plastic bags, recently allowed the sale of reusable paper bags: http://cbsloc.al/POIIEz The Encore Recycling Company of Salinas, which recycles agricultural plastic into bags, was preparing to capitalize on a provision being considered for the statewide law that would favor use of recycled plastic bags: http://bit.ly/1hQnXzj EPA map focuses environmental attention by census tract A visually stunning and socioeconomically telling map project by CalEPA's CalEnviroScreen 2.0 project (http://oehha.ca.gov/ej/) has drawn Southern California papers' attention to the unequal distribution of pollution hot spots. Many of the most pollution-burdened areas are low-income communities of color in southern and central California. The LA Times provides the map -- which extend statewide -- and links to interpretive news reports at http://graphics.latimes.com/responsivemap-pollution-burdens/. (The city of Burbank and the report's authors disputed whether notably poor scores on water contamination were derived from tests of treated drinking water or untreated groundwater: http://bit.ly/1nYsEMO.) CalEnviroScreen, which is part of CalEPA's Environmental Justice Project, maps cumulative effects of separately measured pollution burdens and compares them to socioeconomic data, seeking "portions of the state that have higher pollution burdens and vulnerabilities than other areas, and therefore are most in need of assistance." In a statement at http://bit.ly/1pJ5PkR, Assemblymember V. Manuel P�rez, D-Coachella, said his AB 1329, passed by the Legislature last year, instructed the state's Department of Toxic Substances Control to prioritize enforcement in the hot spots that CalEnviroScreen identified -- and that the tool showed areas of serious concern in the Coachella and Imperial Valleys. AB 1329 is at http://bit.ly/1fLOfmo. Drought proclamation suspends HOA landscaping rules The Governor's April 25 emergency drought proclamation includes a declaration that homeowners' association rules and policies are unenforceable where they conflict with the proclamation's calls for water-saving measures. The order's phrasing is a more generic echo of provisions in the proposed AB 2104, by Assemblymember Lorena Gonzalez, D-San Diego, which has been approved by the Assembly and as of late April was pending in its first State Senate policy committee. AB2104 would permanently invalidate HOA rules that impose landscaping standards: http://bit.ly/1k9b1r3. At a macro level, the proclamation's effects include suspending competitive bidding for several state agencies' drought projects. For details and the full text see http://gov.ca.gov/news.php?id=18496. The Sacramento Bee 's Matt Weiser has the proclamation's highlights at http://bit.ly/1hEL93o. Bergamot development will be on Santa Monica's November ballot A challenge to the proposed large Bergamot-area development in Santa Monica, also known as the Hines project, has qualified for the November ballot, according to the local Santa Monica Lookout : http://bit.ly/1iqOQj2. The paper reports the Bergamot measure won its signatures with the help of project opponent Residocracy.org, an organization and multi-topic petition Web site founded by former City Council candidate Armen Melkonians. Other opponents include the Santa Monica Coalition for a Livable City, at http://www.smclc.net/, which filed suit against the project in March. PG&E fights cities and neighbors on trees PG&E has temporarily suspend a newly draconian vegetation removal program that could cut thousands of trees from areas around its gas pipelines. The utility has cited safety as its reason for the program but faces strenuous objections from cities and residents. The Contra Costa Times (reprinted in the Mercury News ) has more at http://bit.ly/1nxDTOI. Earlier this month PG&E was indicted on federal charges in connection with the 2010 gas pipe explosion that killed eight people in a residential neighborhood of San Bruno. For details in the SF Chronicle see http://bit.ly/1jyjPIK. San Francisco prepares to add local well water to Hetch Hetchy supply San Francisco's famous mountain-clear tap water, all the way from Hetch Hetchy, could have less clean local water blended with it as of 2016 in much of the city. Chris Roberts of the San Francisco Examiner reports the city is preparing to dig four wells this summer in the western part of the city, creating an emergency supply and a supplemental source that could provide up to 5% of city water regularly. There's concern, however, about contamination from bacteria and nitrates in the local groundwater. See http://bit.ly/1jZ0oXv.

A rule proposed March 25 by the EPA and Army Corps of Engineers could broaden the definition of "waters of the United States" subject to Clean Water Act regulation. Among much else, that could expand the areas where developers need Section 404 permits from the Corps to go forward, in a parallel permitting process in addition to local government. The Association of California Water Agencies says the rule apparently would place "most intermittent and ephemeral streams as well as wetlands located near rivers and streams" under Clean Water Act protection. (See http://www.acwa.com/news/water-news/proposed-rule-clarifies-clean-water-act-protections.) The firm of Alston & Bird LLP has posted its analysis at http://bit.ly/Pdlybx. As of April 1 the proposed rule had not yet been posted for comment purposes on the Federal Register site nor Regulations.gov, but a preview of the document is available at http://www2.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2014-03/documents/wus_proposed_rule_20140325_prepublication.pdf. Tax legislation could end the Jurupa Valley trap The League of California Cities is backing two bills, SB 69 (See http://http://legiscan.com/CA/bill/SB69/2013) and AB 1521 (http://legiscan.com/CA/bill/AB1521/2013), to undo the sudden funding disadvantage that pushed the newly incorporated city of Jurupa Valley toward disincorporation this winter. The bills are based on the prior SB 56 and are designed to restore funding to newly incorporated towns from vehicle license fees As CP&DR reported in January (see http://www.cp-dr.com/articles/node-3427), the legislature first sent vehicle license fee (VLF) money to help new towns like Jurupa Valley with their new municipal governments, then took much of it away with SB 89. The two new bills propose to restore incentives for new cities to form and for existing cities to annex territory, which the League writes has been absent since a state budget maneuver, the VLF-property tax swap of 2004, left cities unable to count directly on substantial VLF revenues. The new bills would change property tax and/or VLF distribution formulas to favor recently incorporated or annexed areas. See http://www.cacities.org/Top/News/News-Articles/2014/March/Legislation-Proposes-New-City-Incorporation,-Annex. The Central Valley is sinking from groundwater loss. National Geographic and California newspapers reported this week on news from USGS that ground levels have sunk, in places alarmingly, near the Delta-Mendota Canal in the San Joaquin Valley. The USGS announcement is at http://bit.ly/1htGt4e. National Geographic has an extensive writeup at http://bit.ly/1dKrNcg quoting one researcher for the news that "one 2-square-mile... area... is subsiding almost a foot.. annually." Further recent reports on groundwater as a crisis in the San Joaquin Valley appear in the San Jose Mercury News at http://bit.ly/O7KD6l and the Hanford Sentinel at http://bit.ly/1mGeGkR. Online hotel-booking services held not to owe San Diego hotel tax The Second District Court of Appeal ruled twice in March that "online travel companies" (OTCs) such as Priceline, Expedia and Travelocity do not owe San Diego's transient occupancy tax on fees they collect for serving as middlemen between hotels and guests. The decision focused on tax amounts that cities may lose through cases when the OTC pays wholesale room rates to hotels, charges retail rates to guests, and keeps the difference. The court referred to the text of the San Diego tax ordinance, and compared prior rulings in the same group of coordinated cases for Anaheim and Santa Monica, to find tax was only due on room rent charged by the business that provides the lodging. Hence, the court found, tax is only due to the city on the wholesale rate that the hotel operator is paid, even if the hotel guest might have spent more. It added in a footnote that the 1912 case of Los Angeles Gas & Electric Corp. v. City of Los Angeles , 163 Cal. 621, "does not support a ruling that hotels may delegate to OTCs all of their responsibilities under the ordinance, nor does it suggest that the OTCs may be audited or held liable for nonpayment of any under the circumstances before us." The matter was originally heard in Los Angeles Superior Court. On appeal, a three-judge panel of the Second District issued a unanimous initial opinion March 5 that it did not order formally published (at http://www.courts.ca.gov/opinions/nonpub/B243800.PDF). The panel then agreed to revisit the matter, but after rehearing issued a nearly identical opinion March 27 (at http://www.courts.ca.gov/opinions/documents/B243800A.PDF). Airbnb to pay hotel taxes in San Francisco and Portland Under pressures from city officials that included partway-drafted regulatory legislation, Airbnb announced March 31 that it would collect and pay San Francisco's 14 percent hotel tax on behalf of hosts in the city who list housing through the Airbnb service. Carolyn Said of the San Francisco Chronicle explains details at http://bit.ly/1mGqOlH. She further writes that the company made a similar announcement in Portland, Oregon last week and has offered $21 million in tax payments in New York. The San Francisco announcement followed the San Diego hotel tax decision by four days but it was not mentioned in the Airbnb weblog post announcing the decision (at http://publicpolicy.airbnb.com/san-francisco-taxes-airbnb-community/). Storm water Industrial General Permit up for final adoption April 1 The State Water Resources Control Board meets April 1 to consider adoption of the updated statewide Industrial General Permit for "storm water discharges associated with industrial activity". The General Permit covers entities in California including oil, gas and mining facilities, landfills, recyclers, feedlots, factories and food processors, airports, certain vehicle maintenance shops, and sewer systems. If granted, the approval would update a prior document, long since expired, that has been in effect by default since 1997. The new proposed permit would apply National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) standards under the Clean Water Act. It would require specified levels of effort, depending on circumstances and type of pollutant, to keep runoff within limits based variously on the contents of the effluent and the carrying capacities of the bodies of water receiving the runoff. Unlike the prior 1997 General Permit, it would require minimum Best Management Practices statewide along with other new standards. On March 28, the Friday before its Tuesday approval meeting, the board released responses to commenters that reflected some tension over the scope and timing of the third and last comment opportunity on the draft Permit: comment had been allowed only from February 19 to March 4, and only on the latest round of revisions. Several more substantive comments questioned the new definitions of Best Management Practices and of Numeric Action Levels (NALs), which are thresholds for pollution conditions including pH, suspended solids, oil and grease, and individual chemicals and metals. NAL exceedances trigger stricter levels of regulation and requirements to present plans for improvement. A unique comment from the Mosquito and Vector Control Association of California prompted the board to warn dischargers that local mosquito control ordinances would apply to stormwater facilities where water might be left standing. The meeting notice, comments, staff response chart, and other relevant documents are at http://www.swrcb.ca.gov/water_issues/programs/stormwater/industrial.shtml.

Monterey County voters in June may decide as many as three ballot measures regarding the county general plan. The Board of Supervisors approved a new general plan on January 3. At the same time, the board agreed to ask voters whether they want to keep the new plan. The board also consented to placing on the ballot a general plan initiative backed by environmental and homeowner organizations. The county had originally refused to put the initiative on the ballot (see f, October 2006; , May 2006). Meanwhile, backers of the initiative have gathered signatures to force a referendum on the new general plan. They said a referendum is necessary to prevent the new plan from taking effect prior to the June election so that there is not a window for developers to take advantage of the new plan. The plan opponents also said the referendum would present voters with a more straightforward question than the Board of Supervisors had crafted. The county adopted the updated general plan after seven years of planning and three discarded drafts (see , July 2004). The new plan designates a number of growth areas, mostly near cities and existing unincorporated communities. Supporters say the plan will help the county accommodate needed housing. Opponents say the plan sacrifices important farmland and encourages sprawl. The newly adopted plan is available at www.co.monterey.ca.us/pbi/gpu . A controversial Carmel Valley subdivision is back in court six years after a state appellate court rejected an earlier environmental impact report for the project. The Monterey County Board of Supervisors approved the September Ranch project in December. The project calls for 73 market-rate houses, 15 inclusionary units and seven units of workforce housing on about 100 acres. The remainder of the nearly 900-acre site will remain as an equestrian center and open space. In 2001, the Sixth District Court of Appeal used the September Ranch project to make an important ruling regarding baseline conditions for environmental studies. The issue concerned how much water had historically been used for farming on the site, and, therefore, how much water would be available for what was then a 109-unit project. The amount of agricultural water use increased during the 3 1/2 years the development application was under consideration, and the final EIR relied on the higher volume of water used during the end of the process. The court ruled in , 87 Cal.App. 4th 99, that “baseline conditions are normally to be determined at the time environmental review is begun” (see , April 2001). The EIR for the newly approved project says that water for September Ranch is available from a recently discovered aquifer that is separate from the overburdened Carmel Valley aquifer. Project opponents submitted information disputing the analysis, but the county concluded that disagreement among experts was not enough to force changes in the EIR. In January, three environmental groups filed two separate lawsuits challenging the EIR’s water analysis. Impacts to traffic, historic sites and the Monterey pine forest are also issues. The flood-control situation in Sacramento continues to evolve rapidly as local, state and federal officials grapple with the city’s inadequate protection from high water. The Federal Emergency Management Agency revealed in January that it would require all property owners in Sacramento’s Natomas Basin with federally backed loans to purchase flood insurance before the end of the year. The mandate will remain in place until Natomas, the City of Sacramento’s primary growth area, has at least 100-year flood protection. Also in January, the Sacramento Area Flood Control Agency began detailing proposed assessment district changes that would expand the district’s territory and raise existing assessments. Property owners are scheduled to vote on the assessments by mail in March. The revised assessment district would encompass all of Natomas, including undeveloped portions in Sacramento and Sutter counties, where property owners would pay $76 annually. The Flood Control Agency plan is intended to raise $326 million over 30 years to help Natomas achieve 100-year flood protection by 2010, and for the entire area to get 200-year flood protection in following years. The money would match more than $2 billion that local officials hope to receive from the federal and state governments. These moves follow a state Department of Water Resources request to Sacramento last fall for a growth moratorium in Natomas, a request the city has rebuffed. The state’s request was spurred by a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ announcement that Natomas lacked 100-year flood protection because seepage is weakening levees. A San Francisco Superior Court Judge has issued a ruling that builds on a 2004 appellate court decision aiding redevelopment agencies in cleaning up brownfields. Judge John Munter ruled that five manufacturers or distributors of dry cleaning chemicals and one dry cleaner are liable for the future costs of cleaning up contamination from the Modesto Steam Laundry & Cleaning operation. In 2004, the First District Court of Appeal ruled that companies that made or distributed solvents may be held liable for cleanup under the Polanco Act and returned the case to Superior Court (see , August 2004). The City of Modesto and its redevelopment agency contend that dry cleaners disposed of solvent waste by dumping it into the sewer system, from which contaminants leached into soil and groundwater. Last year, a San Francisco jury held the five manufacturers and distributors liable for $3.2 million for harming the city’s drinking water, and Munter assessed punitive damages of $13 million. The latest ruling assesses liability for future costs and also awards the Modesto Redevelopment Agency $430,000 for work already done at a brownfield site. “It’s good news for cities who are seeking to clean up contamination in redevelopment areas because it enlarges the pool of potentially responsible parties,” agency attorney Michael Axline, of Miller, Axline & Sawyer, told the . An appeal of Judge Munter’s ruling is likely. The cases are , No. 9993345, and , No. 999643. The Business, Transportation and Housing Agency and the California Environmental Protection Agency have released the “Goods Movement Action Plan,” which is intended to guide allocation of $3.1 billion contained in the $19.9 billion Proposition 1B that voters approved last November. State and regional officials have been working on the plan for two years to address transportation and environmental problems caused by ever-increasing traffic at shipping ports, especially the port at Los Angeles and Long Beach (see , June 2006). The plan does not necessarily dictate how the money should be spent, rather it provides about 200 “candidate actions” to improve infrastructure, protect public and environmental health, upgrade security and lessen community impacts. The California Transportation Commission, the Air Resources Board and the California Maritime Transportation Security Council will make the ultimate spending decisions. The Goods Movement Action Plan is available at www.arb.ca.gov/gmp/gmp.htm . The issue of historic preservation will apparently return to the City of Berkeley ballot, as opponents of a revised landmarks preservation ordinance have submitted petitions to force a referendum. The city eased its preservation regulations in December, one month after voters rejected a measure that would have locked in existing regulations that were some of the most stringent in the state. But preservation advocates said the revisions favored developers and now want voters to decide again. Unless the city calls a special election, the referendum will appear on the ballot in 2008. An organization representing mobile home and travel trailer owners on the shores of Lake Berryessa have sued the Bureau of Reclamation over a plan adopted last year that calls for the mobile homes and trailers to be removed. The federal court lawsuit filed by the group Berryessa For All contends that the bureau’s decision was arbitrary, capricious and an abuse of discretion. The agency adopted the plan in June 2006 with the goal of boosting short-term visitor use at the reservoir in the hills of eastern Napa County. The plan calls for removing more than 1,000 trailers located in seven “resorts” whose leases expire between this year and 2009. The government hopes to lure new concessionaires to develop facilities that may include cabins, motels and campgrounds (see , October 2006). Owners of mobile homes and travel trailers contend they were not given a fair shake during the plan preparation process, which lasted for six years.