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George Skelton, the venerable Los Angeles Times political columnist, recently came out in favor  of Gov. Jerry Brown's plan to eliminate redevelopment. Skelton's Exhibit #1 is the Dive Bar, a hangout on derelict K Street in downtown Sacramento that is now one of the city's hottest night spots -- complete with a mermaid tank -- thanks partly to the redevelopment subsidies provided to the project's developer.

So, redevelopment is back, sort of. How much of a difference it will make remains to be seen.

For the moment, equilibrium has been more or less restored in rivalry between Northern California and Southern California � at least as far as urban planning goes.

The Strategic Growth Council staff has proposed using $30 million in new money to provide additional funding for projects that didn't make the cut or weren't fully funded by the Affordable Housing and Sustainable Communities program last year.

The City of Carlsbad acted correctly in including traffic from a vacant store in its environmental baseline for a shopping center renovation, the Fourth District Court of Appeals has ruled in an unpublished case.

The City of San Clemente must refund $10 million in beach parking impact fees accumulated over a 20-year period because it did not build parking facilities with the money nor make the necessary findings under the Mitigation Fee Act to retain the money for more than five years, the Fourth District Court of Appeal has ruled.

There's a scene in "X Men Origins: Wolverine" in which a government scientist infuses every bone in the title mutant's body with an inviolable metal called adamantium. The process is excruciating, but it leaves Wolverine with the distinct benefit of near-indestructibility. And claws.

The holiday season continues to be a cruel time of year for California's redevelopment community. Last year, the state Supreme Court struck a blow on Dec. 29, allowing the state to abolish redevelopment agencies.  And this year, on Dec. 18, the state Department of Finance denied funding to many of the 240 of the 400 successor agencies who had appealed earlier rejections.

A summary judgment ruling April 7 by U.S. District Judge John Mendez upheld the Tahoe Regional Plan Update, endorsing a new regulatory approach to protecting Lake Tahoe that emphasizes incentives for more centralized, better mitigated development. His decision helps to ratify a high-level accord that in 2011 and 2012 resolved political tensions between California and Nevada over shared governance of Lake Tahoe.

California's Supreme Court justices were picking doubtfully Wednesday morning at the famous "CEQA in reverse" argument -- a claim that the California Environmental Quality Act can require an environmental impact report (EIR) not only when a project may threaten the environment, but also when a project would draw users to a place with hazardous environmental conditions.

The federal Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday issued a nationwide stay blocking enforcement of the new federal rule defining "Waters of the United States". For now the stay applies in all states, including California. While it lasts, the "Waters Of..." definition returns to the jumbled but familiar state it was in before the new rule took effect on August 28. Although the stay is only a temporary measure, it strengthens legitimacy and buys time for opponents of the Obama Administration's approach to clean water regulation.

The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit held that, in determining the relevant parcel of land for purposes of analyzing a regulatory takings claim based on the denial of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers of a Clean Water Act § 404 fill permit, the Court of Federal Claims should only consider the economic value relating to the single parcel of land containing the wetlands to be filled, and not the adjacent developed property and other wetlands in the vicinity owned by the same developer.  Here, the single parcel was never considered part of the same larger development.