This article is brought to you courtesy of the paying subscribers to California Planning & Development Report. You can subscribe to CP&DR by clicking here. You can sign up for CP&DR’s free weekly newsletter here. In the 30-plus years since the adoption of the Charter of the New Urbanism, California has been a hotbed of New Urbanist thought. New Urbanist development, on the other hand, has been scarce--aside from frequently cited TOD projects such as Oakland’s Fruitvale Village and Pasadena’s Del Mar Station. In spite of the growing popularity of form-based code and other New Urbanist-ish regulations, California has no Seaside (Florida) or Culdesac (Arizona). That may be changing, at least in Sonoma County. The community of Esmeralda has been working its way through the planning process in Cloverdale, a city of around 8,600 residents just barely within the commute shed of the Bay Area. It is envisioned as a holistic community full of walkable streets, dense mixed-use structures, and an abiding sense of community that is both a world unto itself and also well integrated into Cloverdale’s existing urban fabric. "One of the great tragedies of California is the hyper-regulation of land use. Everyone is micromanaging everyone else, and it has to stop," said Michael Yarne, a veteran Bay Area developer who serves as Director of Development of Esmeralda Land Co. “What matters is what it feels like being on the street: is it safe to cross the street, can you ride a bike, is the architecture interesting, are there places to sit and pause." Esmeralda is the brainchild not of Andres Duany or Peter Calthorpe but, rather, of 32-year-old entrepreneur Devon Zuegel. In spite of, or perhaps because of, her relative inexperience in California, Zuegel devised the vision for Esmeralda -- based in part on childhood experiences in Chautauqua, NY -- and has pursued it enthusiastically, attempting to establish the state’s first large-scale New Urbanist development. The proposal has been called "utopian." Zuegel says it's common sense. "As I got older I started wondering why that isn't normal…. it's not rocket science: human-scale streets, more emphasis on public spaces," Zuegel said. "That led me to look for recently built neighborhoods, villages, and towns built on those principles. It's a short list in the United States, but I made a point of visiting as many as I could.” The development will occupy about one-third of the 266-acre site adjacent to downtown Cloverdale. It envisions roughly 600 housing units, a hotel, retail, and public amenities including parks and a central piazza. Because Cloverdale has already met its state-mandated affordable housing targets, Esmeralda will not include deed-restricted affordable housing but rather aims to include “affordable-by-design” units. "Part of why we wanted to build at the scale of a whole village rather than a single building or block is that a small pocket of walkability isn't worth the added risk — you get more risk without the benefit of real walkability," Zuegel said. "At a larger scale, the whole neighborhood becomes walkable — you can walk to a coffee shop, a restaurant, the park." The property, on which the company has an option, used to house a lumber yard and several other industrial uses. Shortly after the Louisiana Pacific mill closed in the early 1990s, the city changed the zoning to residential. So, while Esmeralda will propose an extensive development agreement, including provisions for the company to build out infrastructure and amenities, it is not asking for anything like a zoning change or annexation. "We're proposing a 25-year development agreement, an entirely new specific plan, specific plan zoning, objective design standards (ODS), and a master tentative map — those are the core elements, plus some ancillary agreements," Yarne said. City staff were not permitted to speak for this article. Members of the Cloverdale City Council did not respond to requests for comment. Jes Slavik, who is the master planner for the project, indicated that the topography of the site, which consists largely of rolling hills and shallow ravines, makes for an aesthetically compelling design. Over half the site will be preserved as open space, administered by Esmeralda. "The site itself is spectacular — beautiful views, and topography is one of its primary features," said Slavik. Esmeralda would include 600 housing units, plus a hotel, commercial zones, and community amenities. Less beautiful is the presence of potentially hazardous chemicals left over from the property’s lumber-mill days. Remediation of the site was completed gradually over 25 years following the lumber mill’s closure, in part through Superfund designation. Some Cloverdale residents are demanding that the project produce a full environmental impact report, rather than just an addendum to a previously published EIR, and have requested that the Regional Water Quality Control Board resume a program to monitor and test the property. Yarne considers the hazards manageable and the concerns overblown. "We'll continue to test and clean up any residual contamination — that's the whole point of brownfield development: to go in and fix it," Yarne said. More importantly, the site’s existing zoning is what may enable Esmeralda to be the exception that proves the rule regarding New Urbanist development. In the late 1990s, a city task force considered a range of potential new uses for the property. It arrived at a development centered on a golf course, including homes and commercial uses. The prospect of such a conventional, sprawling project, which could be developed by-right, may make Esmeralda’s design relatively more appealing to stakeholders. “Those who don't want change don't want it, period,” said Hanchett. “But it's private property — a developer could come in and build subsidized housing… and the city would have no say. I don't think people understand it's privately owned, and the owners can sell it if they choose.” Similarly challenging is the financial landscape. Zuegel said that conventional funders shy away from New Urbanism in large part because of its novelty. Her solution was to find novel funders. She solicited capital largely from her personal network, which is centered in San Francisco -- a city familiar with density and walkability. "In the Bay Area there are people who take a longer view and are willing to back bolder, boundary-pushing projects," said Zuegel. "Our investors were primarily Bay Area families who wanted to see this kind of development happen, some of whom had never invested in real estate before — a different path than traditional institutional investors.” Ultimately, the Esmeralda team will prepare the site, create the master plan, and build infrastructure and some communal facilities. Other developers will complete the build-out. The plan does not attempt to micro-manage the design. "Cloverdale is open to an approach where we set large parameters on quality of urban spaces, circulation, and landscape, but the draft specific plan does not micromanage housing," Yarne said, adding that design elements like setbacks, articulation, and rooflines will be up to individual developers. "It gives extraordinary latitude to the future buildout." "That's the value of a new urbanism plan — allowing different components to come together, and figuring out the interface between them, knowing they'll likely be built by different groups," Slavik said. What matters equally to Slavik is the activity and connections that Esmeralda’s design is intended to foster. "(We are) creating a network — for pedestrians, bikes, and cars — because connectivity drives engagement," said Slavik. "The other part is giving people places to engage. We're creating a community core, our 'piazza,' which brings together amenities and tenants." The project would occupy about one-third of a 266-acre parcel just east of Highway 101. One factor that has not impeded the project so far is the Cloverdale planning department and other city departments. Zuegel said she expected skepticism from the fire department, but the team praised the city’s collaboration. "There's an inherent conservatism, especially in California, about narrow streets — we catastrophize and assume the worst. Anyone attempting this has to work hard to bring engineers and fire officials on board. California is obsessed with safetyism,” said Yarne. Slavik hopes to satisfy their concerns for egress by, for instance, creating loops rather than dead-ends. "Many of them had heard of the places that inspired us and thought it would be cool to have something similar in Cloverdale," Zuegel said, of local planners' reaction to the project. “They've been creative and open to trying new things.” Something else for the city to appreciate is the potential to gain tax revenues and economic activity at minimal cost. "Because we're not in the middle of downtown, if we sink or swim on our own, the city isn't responsible for a dollar of what we're doing," said Yarne. "We're getting creative with property tax, property assessments, and transient occupancy tax. One hundred percent of zero is zero — all the revenue we're harvesting is value we're generating with our investment." The project’s opponents have gone so far as to refer to Zuegel and her team as a “weirdo cult,” presumably because of their connection to Chautauqua and claims that the project is “utopian.” Yarne rejects even that characterization, saying instead, "I'd call it innovative. I'd avoid the word 'utopian,' because the connotations are pretty negative.” For Hanchett, a successful version of Esmeralda means something much more basic: survival of the city. Sonoma County is an enviable place to live, but our kids can't afford to stay here without family help,” said Hanchett, who emphasized that neither she nor the chamber have formally endorsed the project. "Left alone, the town risks turning to dust — not just aging people, but aging infrastructure, plus state mandates that cost money to meet: streets, water, sewer.” Arguably, Esmeralda is in a race with a much higher-profile, vastly larger development also backed by people from the technology industry and also inspired by new urbanism: California Forever, in nearby Solano County. "More and more data shows people are desperate for urbanism: places that are walkable, compact, with mixed amenities,” said Yarne. "I love the audacity and the vision…. A new town or new city is appropriate, because California has an extraordinary housing shortage." Esmeralda will likely win the permitting race. The team expects to present its proposal to the city this month, with approvals hoped for by November. Contacts and Resources Esmeralda Land Company Esmeralda Project Information, Cloverdale Petition to Regional Water Quality Control Board Neena Hanchett, Director, Cloverdale Chamber of Commerce, neena@cloverdalechamber.com Jes Slavik, Slavik Design LLC, jes@slavikdesign.com Michael Yarne, Partner and Development Director, Esmeralda Land Company, michael@esmeralda.org Devon Zuegel Founder, Esmeralda Land Company devon@esmeralda.org Images courtesy of Esmeralda Land Co.

Sonoma County’s groundwater regulations are not exempt from the California Environmental Quality Act. Because there’s no guarantee that they will not have a significant impact on the environment.

This article is brought to you courtesy of the paying subscribers to California Planning & Development Report. You can subscribe to CP&DR by clicking here. You can sign up for CP&DR’s free weekly newsletter here. Bay Area Voters to Decide Fate of Regionwide Transit Funding The Connect Bay Area transit funding measure will officially appear on the November 2026 ballot after election the campaign collected 305,000 signatures, nearly doubling the required 186,000. The tax measure would provide long-term funding for major transit agencies including BART, SFMTA Muni, Caltrain and AC Transit, while helping VTA expand service and giving counties direct funding for transit. A combination of grassroots transit organizing efforts, 80 elected officials and more than 90 labor, business and advocacy groups helped raise over $5.5 million to qualify the five-county sales tax measure. Without more sustainable transit funding, the Bay area could face severe cutbacks including up to 15 BART station closures, elimination of two lines and service cuts of up to 70% on BART alone. Meanwhile, a separate but related measure, Stronger Muni For All, has qualified San Francisco's November 3 ballot, aiming to help close Muni's projected $300 million-plus budget deficit through a parcel tax. If approved, the tax would charge single-family property owners $129 annually, multifamily owners $249, and commercial landlords $799, generating roughly $150 million yearly toward the deficit and $10 million for service improvements over 15 years. It is tied to a separate regional sales tax initiative, the Connect Bay Area Act, which would raise about $1 billion annually for Muni, BART, Caltrain, and other Bay Area transit agencies. Cadiz Receives Approvals to Pump Mojave Desert Water, Faces Lawsuits After over a decade of negotiation, the Bureau of Land Management approved a plan by Cadiz Inc. to repurpose 162 miles of a former oil and gas pipeline to transport groundwater pumped from the Mojave Desert. The agency determined the pipeline conversion "will not significantly affect" the environment and would comply with regulations, while stating that the broader environmental impacts of the groundwater extraction itself fall "outside the scope of analysis" for this authorization. Nonetheless, two environmental groups and two Native American tribes filed separate lawsuits in over the Bureau of Land Management's approval of the use of a decommissioned oil and gas pipeline for transporting the water project. Both suits target BLM’s decision earlier this month approving Cadiz Inc.'s "Northern Pipeline," which the company acquired in 2011. Plaintiffs claim that the project’s aquifer drawdown near Joshua Tree National Park has never faced meaningful review despite extracting far more groundwater than is naturally replenished, roughly 16.3 billion gallons per year for 50 years. The Center for Biological Diversity and the Sierra Club filed in Los Angeles, while the Fort Mojave Indian Tribe, Chemehuevi Indian Tribe, Native American Land Conservancy and National Parks Conservation Association filed in Riverside. Sacramento Investigates EIFD to Redevelop Former Kings Arena Sacramento City Council has advanced plans to redevelop the former Kings arena site in North Natomas. The proposed 171-acre Innovation Park project would include housing, commercial development, regional open space, a future school site, and a California Northstate University medical campus anchored by a hospital. Major construction has yet to begin, and to help pay for public infrastructure the city is turning to an Enhanced Infrastructure Financing District to capture a share of new property tax revenue generated as the site develops, with about 80% earmarked for infrastructure and 20% for affordable housing. Under the plan, tax revenue wouldn't flow until a hospital or similar "catalytic" project promising high-paying jobs is actually completed, a safeguard officials say protects the city's general fund and doesn't raise taxes. San Francisco to Impose Penalties on Stalled Office Projects San Francisco's Planning Department will withhold developers’ Proposition M development allocations if they haven't shown good-faith progress toward construction of stalled commercial office projects. Prop. M is a 1986 ballot measure that caps and regulates the amount of commercial development the city can approve. Director Sarah Dennis Phillips said projects with no demonstrated momentum could have their Prop. M allocation stripped immediately, while those that have delivered on community benefits but haven't pulled permits would get an 18-month grace period. The move targets developers who abandoned office megaprojects in favor of housing but kept their valuable Prop. M allocations in reserve. Prop. M has capped new office space in San Francisco since 1986, but the pool of available allocations has shrunk dramatically since 2020's Proposition E tied replenishment to the city's affordable housing goals, which it is failing to meet. CP&DR Coverage: Evaluating the Surplus Land Act Passed in 2021, and administered by the Department of Housing and Community Development under guidelines adopted in 2024, the Surplus Land Act requires local agencies to prioritize housing on agency-owned land that is being sold or leased. To date, nearly 42,000 homes either have been put on formerly public land or are in the pipeline. David Zisser, deputy director of HCD, calls the number a success. Homes created by the SLA are, arguably, among the easiest to track compared to those created by the many other pro-housing laws adopted in recent years. Development agreements are, by necessity, subject to scrutiny and well documented, by notices of availability, exemptions, and other approvals by HCD. While the state may argue that the 42,000 homes justify the process, many cities consider it burdensome--and not necessarily effective. Quick Hits & Updates San Francisco voters will decide for a third time in four years whether to reopen the Great Highway to weekday car traffic. The highway has been the site of Sunset Dunes Park since 2024 when voters approved permanently closing it to cars. The new measure, backed by over 15,900 petition signatures, would reopen the road to cars on weekdays while keeping it closed Friday evenings through Monday mornings. Opponents say the closure has worsened traffic, while park supporters argue the space has been a success, drawing 1.7 million visits since opening and boosting nearby businesses, and warn that reopening it would cost the city about $10.75 million to remove. A California earthquake expert estimates that The Big One would likely cause around $500 billion and up to $1 trillion in damage. Ahmed Elbanna, the director of the Statewide California Earthquake Center, told the state’s Seismic Safety Commission that a 7.8-magnitude earthquake could become the costliest disaster in U.S. history dwarfing the roughly $200 billion in damage (adjusted for inflation) from Hurricane Katrina, which devastated New Orleans in 2005. San Diego's Community Planners Committee voted to oppose Senate Bill 958, which would exempt the Midway Rising development from the area’s 30-foot height limit by preventing building height from being treated as a significant environmental impact under CEQA. SMART, the North Bay's commuter rail system, is exploring a new station in Geyserville after roughly 1,800 residents successfully lobbied state lawmakers to allow the stop. Local business owners say the station would boost tourism to the area's 100 wineries, outdoor recreation and historical sites including the River Rock Casino, which is being converted into the 100-room Caesars Republic Sonoma County. (See related CP&DR coverage.) A new analysis from Harvard's Joint Center for Housing Studies finds that declining immigration is undermining U.S. population growth, making communities increasingly dependent on domestic migration and natural change to sustain growth. Large metro urban counties, including those in California, are most vulnerable due to steep domestic migration losses. East Palo Alto City Council voted 3-2 to approve the Temporary Housing Development Incentive Program, an ordinance allowing developers to skip the city's inclusionary housing requirements for projects with 20 units or fewer. The policy suspends the city's 1994 inclusionary housing ordinance, which normally requires developers to set aside 20% of rental units or pay an in-lieu fee for residents earning 35%, 50% and 60% of area median income, about $114,000. Developer Align Real Estate submitted revised plans to redevelop the Marina district's waterfront Safeway, reducing the project's two towers from 25 and 22 stories to 22 and 18 stories (roughly 258 and 219 feet) while increasing the total unit count from 790 to 848 apartments, a change the developer attributed to improved building efficiency and optimized floor plans. The revision comes after months of criticism from city leaders, including Mayor Daniel Lurie, who officially opposed the original 25-story tower last year. The San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted 7-4 to approve an ordinance requiring the city to prioritize drug-free permanent supportive housing when it fully funds future supportive housing projects. Under the new policy, residents who use illicit drugs in supportive housing could face eviction or relocation to another housing or shelter option.

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This article is brought to you courtesy of the paying subscribers to California Planning & Development Report. You can subscribe to CP&DR by clicking here. You can sign up for CP&DR’s free weekly newsletter here. Prior to Implementing Alternative Plan, Palo Alto Beset with SB 79 Applications The City of Palo Alto, which has historically favored slow growth, adopted an alternative plan pursuant to Senate Bill 79 that went into effect two weeks after the law’s July 1 effective date. In that window, at least seven projects that would otherwise have been disallowed were proposed and appear likely to be permitted. They include both market-rate and affordable units, including four housing projects by nonprofit developer Minority Television Project; some projects use state Density Bonus Law to go up to seven stories. Applications for some SB 79 projects have been accompanied by letters from developers’ attorneys threatening the city with lawsuits if it attempted to reject projects on technicalities. According to a preemptive letter from law firm Holland & Knight, the city can reject SB 79 applications only for “significant, unavoidable, and quantifiable impact[s] on ‘objective, identified written public health or safety standards, policies, or conditions.However, the Legislature has affirmed its expectation that these types of conditions ‘arise infrequently.’” Palo Alto’s alternative plan went into effect July 16, limiting the size of projects to roughly 50% of what SB 79 would allow. (See related CP&DR coverage.) California Forever Loses $3.2 Billion Shipyard Contract California Forever, the plan to build a new city on roughly 70,000 acres of farmland in Solano County, California, has lost its bid to recruit an industrial tenant for their planned waterfront shipyard on the Sacramento River on the southern end of its land holdings. The area has long been zoned for “maritime industrial uses.” Saronic Technologies, an Austin-based defense startup that builds autonomous watercraft, has selected the Port of Brownsville in Texas over Solano County for its planned $3.2 billion Port Alpha shipyard. California Forever had signed a 40-year union labor agreement covering its 70,000-acre project and backed legislation to speed up environmental review for the shipyard, which could still advance as a budget trailer bill this summer. Texas, meanwhile, approved a $211 million tax-abatement package in June to draw Saronic to Brownsville, where the new shipyard will sit about 20 miles from SpaceX's Starbase facility. Joshua Arce of the California Alliance of Jobs told the San Francisco Chronicle the move will send roughly 10,000 permanent jobs and thousands of union construction positions to Texas instead, faulting state leaders for failing to act quickly enough. CEQA Reform Ballot Measure Gains Strong Voter Support A recent poll from the Public Policy Institute of California shows that Proposition 45, a measure to overhaul CEQA, has drawn support from voters with 73% of likely voters in support, 24% opposed and 4% undecided. The measure would impose a 365-day limit on environmental reviews for projects like housing, transit, reservoirs and renewable energy facilities, and require courts to rule on related lawsuits within 270 days. It is the biggest change to CEQA since it was signed into law in 1970. Renters, younger voters and lower-income households say the reform would cut red tape and lower housing, energy and water costs, while opponents including the Sierra Club, Defenders of Wildlife and Jane Fonda, argue it would weaken environmental protections and enable projects like data centers with minimal public input. Weakening of Federal Endangered Species Act Could Endanger 300 Species in California The Trump administration finalized a rule Friday that narrows the definition of "harm" under the Endangered Species Act, eliminating protections against habitat destruction from logging, mining and oil drilling as long as animals aren't directly killed or injured. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum defended the change, saying the previous definition "interfered with private property rights" and had been abused by federal agencies to obstruct land use; officials said the move follows a 2024 Supreme Court decision limiting federal agencies' authority to interpret environmental statutes. California, the nation's most biodiverse state, is expected to be hit especially hard with roughly 300 of the law's approximately 2,300 protected species found here including condors, sea otters, desert tortoises and gray wolves. The Endangered Species Act has been credited with saving species such as the California condor, bald eagle, southern sea otter and El Segundo blue butterfly from near-extinction, recoveries advocates say resulted directly from habitat protections the new rule removes. (See related CP&DR coverage.) CP&DR Coverage: New San Francisco Planning Director Brings Private-Sector Perspective Shortly after the election of San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie, he nominated Sarah Dennis Phillips to succeed Rich Hillis as planning director. Dennis Phillip was both a conventional choice and an offbeat. Offbeat, because she was coming from over a decade in the private sector, working for mega-developer Tishman Speyer. Conventional because she had previously spent a similar amount of time in San Francisco city government, in planning and community development. Her appointment complemented Lurie's dedication to development and increasing the city's housing supply. A year later, Dennis Phillip has presided over the implementation of the city's "Family Zoning Plan" and is attempting to reform the department amid renewed public enthusiasm--or at least tolerance--for new housing. She spoke with CP&DR's Josh Stephens. Quick Hits & Updates A new economic analysis estimates that Los Angeles's Measure ULA, commonly known as the "Mansion Tax," generates significant unintended fiscal costs by suppressing property transactions, which in turn slows growth in property tax assessments. The study notes that in California and more than half of U.S. states, assessed property values only rise toward market value at the point of sale, so any drop in transaction frequency caused by the transfer tax directly reduces the growth of property tax revenue over time. Environmental groups Earthworks and Comité Cívico del Valle argued before a California appeals court in San Diego on Thursday that Imperial County failed to adequately review the environmental and cultural impacts of Controlled Thermal Resources' Hell's Kitchen lithium project. The project would extract lithium from geothermal brine and require 6,500 acre-feet of fresh water annually. Governor Newsom signed Assembly Bill 179, a new housing affordability law aiming to reduce the per-unit cost of affordable housing by $60,000 to $70,000, remove red tape and boost housing construction. The law features a major reduction in impact fees, or one-time charges local governments impose on developers to support municipal services including schools, public parks and sewage for residents in new affordable housing units. Gov. Newsom characterized the current fee structure as "comical" and prohibitive toward the construction of affordable units. The Riverside City Council adopted a new planning framework aimed at transforming the area around a downtown Metrolink station into a mixed-use hub with housing, jobs and transit access. The item updates preparation of a Transit Oriented Development Action Plan and adopts a resolution required under Regional Early Action Planning 2.0 grant guidelines. It does not approve construction, rezone land or commit city funding, but officials say it lays groundwork for future investment. The Prebys Foundation and Downtown San Diego Partnership are planning to formally ask the city to create a joint powers authority (JPA) with the San Diego Community College District and San Diego Unified School District to redevelop the Civic Center, San Diego's four-block municipal compound plus two adjacent blocks. Modeled after the Bay Area's Transbay Joint Powers Authority, the JPA would have broad legal powers though the city would still need to separately transfer the Civic Center land before the entity could exercise land-use authority. Bay Area transit ridership patterns have shifted significantly by income over the past decade. In 2014 both the poorest and richest workers rode transit at higher rates than middle-income workers; wealthier riders often lived near transit corridors in cities like San Francisco and Palo Alto and commuted to downtown offices. By 2019, as gentrification pushed lower-income residents out of transit-rich neighborhoods, wealthier commuters increasingly turned to BART and Caltrain. That trend reversed again by 2024, as remote and hybrid work drew affluent workers, leaving lower-income workers making up a larger share of transit riders relative to the overall workforce. The Los Angeles City Council approved Fourth & Central, a $2 billion mixed-use development that will replace cold storage facilities, parking lots and warehouses on Skid Row near Little Tokyo and the Arts District. The project, first proposed in 2021, calls for 10 buildings including a 30-story residential tower with 572 condominiums and 949 apartments, including at least 262 affordable units. Real estate firms Jamison and Kennedy Wilson will attempt a $200 million conversion of the L.A. World Trade Center into Sky Castle, a 512-unit affordable housing complex as part of a broader campaign to build 4,000 affordable apartments across Los Angeles. The office will be Jamison's 15th office-to-housing conversion, with work set to begin in August and completion expected by early 2028. Rents are expected to start at $937 for one-bedroom units, with two- and three-bedroom units renting for $1,100 and $1,300 respectively, and the complex will include amenities like a fitness center, co-working space and rooftop tennis or pickleball courts. Eligible tenants must earn between 30% and 80% of the area median income. San Diego City Council, acting as the Housing Authority of the City of San Diego, approved the creation of an $8.5 million Affordable Housing Preservation Fund to slow the loss of affordable rental housing and keep rents low for individuals, families and seniors. The fund is intended to help preserve "naturally occurring affordable housing" by combining its resources with other funding sources and establishing long-term affordability requirements for those units; specific proposals for using the fund will come before the council or Housing Authority in the future. A Contra Costa County Grand Jury issued a report on the City of Martinez's deteriorating waterfront and marina, which spans 67.3 acres along the Carquinez Strait and has fallen into disrepair since being built in the 1960s. The city currently lacks funding to repair the crumbling seawall and docks, dredge the marina, or build a higher seawall to address projected sea level rise, and cannot continue subsidizing the marina without harming core services. The Sierra Club and three other environmental nonprofits filed a petition Wednesday in San Bernardino County Superior Court seeking to invalidate Barstow's approval of the Barstow International Gateway, a $4 billion, 4,500-acre BNSF Railway facility that would become the nation's largest rail yard. The groups argue the city's environmental review was inadequate, citing projections that the project will emit over 550 tons of nitrogen oxide and 134,471 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent annually while burning more than 18 million gallons of diesel a year, and that it failed to properly assess impacts on species including the Mojave desert tortoise and western burrowing owl. El Segundo City Council declined to move forward with a plan to ask voters to make the city a charter city, after two of four council members present at the July 7 meeting voiced opposition, falling short of the three votes needed to place the measure on the November ballot. The proposal was aimed at giving the city more control over land zoning amid state housing mandates.

Housing issues again dominated the Legislature’s action on planning and development issues this year. About 30 bills were sent to Gov. Gavin Newsom after the end of the legislative session on August 31. Newsome has already signed two bills and has until the end of September to decide whether to sign the rest. CP&DR will update its legislative coverage once Newsom acts on all the bills, but he’s unlikely to veto many.

A controversial supportive housing project has been relocated out of Old Town Elk Grove – but the city will now be subject to increased scrutiny by the state Department of Housing and Community Development.

The Citrus Heights City Council has rejected a developer’s proposal to revamp Citrus Heights Mall – once the very reason the city was incorporated – to include big-box stores and drive-through restaurants.

The only way to squeeze a generation’s worth of growth into existing urban areas plus 2% more land is with a heavy reliance on infill development. With the Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG) beginning to finesse its density-driven, “2% Strategy” growth vision from policy into action, Solimar Research Group is producing information of use to those planning and executing infill development. In few of the giant metropolitan planning organization’s 13 subregions is this plan for infill-based development as relevant as in the South Bay, a 16-city cluster that is home to Los Angeles International Airport and inner-ring suburbs. Here, where the urban environment approaches full build-out and the population is expected to increase 170,000 by 2025, the South Bay Council of Governments has initiated an intensive examination of two development patterns that SCAG has deemed ripe with infill potential. Since early 2005, Solimar Research Group has guided this study of the functionality of existing “mixed-use centers” and “mixed-use corridors” in the South Bay. Still ongoing, we have already uncovered patterns in the travel behavior of the residents of these districts. Although our study is ongoing, there are signatures of “performance” that offer vital clues about future, high-density infill development throughout Los Angeles. We’ve discovered that those who live or work near these centers will travel to them more frequently than elsewhere, in effect absorbing trips to other destinations. Such residents are also more likely to walk than drive; in fact, at least 20% more will walk to the center than residents of a traditional suburban neighborhood accessing their local services. Overall, residents of mixed-use centers are likely to make fewer total trips, especially auto trips, than their suburban counterparts. By project’s end, we will have evaluated project areas in six communities in order to develop a set of broad, strategic guidelines for creating functional mixed-use districts. After completing a Phase I study of centers in Inglewood, Redondo Beach and Torrance, and a Phase II study of Hawthorne and El Segundo locations, we are currently engaged in a Phase III study of corridors in Gardena and Redondo Beach. Our methodology and results for the Phase II Hawthorne Boulevard project area exemplify the potential of this study. Like other “mixed-use corridors,” the City of Hawthorne’s one-mile Hawthorne Boulevard corridor is dense with commercial uses, is surrounded by relatively high-density housing and carries significant through traffic over a length greater than the typical “mixed-use center.” The corridor is socioeconomically typical of Los Angeles County as a whole. Our analysis of this commercial corridor was designed to reveal linkages between the functionality of mixed-use districts and the travel behavior of the people who use the districts. In addition to an extensive, online travel survey, including detailed “travel diaries” for corridor residents and employees—as well as a series of sidewalk visitor surveys—we undertook an exhaustive examination of a 395-acre “inner” and 750-acre “outer” buffer zone surrounding the corridor. This statistical and GIS-based functionality analysis covered the physical, social, commercial and transit-oriented characteristics of the corridor. We analyzed, among other things, demographic and socioeconomic figures, land use and year-built data, business functionality profiles, bus ridership and pedestrian activity, and parking and traffic patterns. Just a glance at the results reveals lessons for future mixed-use districting. Like nearly all study areas, Hawthorne Boulevard acts very much like a neighborhood shopping center. We found that Hawthorne Boulevard generates $400 million in sales in its “inner” buffer zone and has a total of 1,041 retail/service-oriented businesses. However, survey responses revealed that residents are less likely to walk to, or along, the corridor as compared to users of mixed-use centers. Yet it is also clear that the corridor plays an important role in the daily economy. Our survey results reveal that residents commute out of the area (largely by bus or Metrolink train) in the morning. Yet on their return in the afternoon, they consistently patronize the businesses along the corridor. This is an early indication that these arterial, “mixed-use corridors,” ubiquitous to all of metropolitan Los Angeles, can be transformed into successful mixed-use districts. The results of the ongoing, third phase of this project will allow us to further isolate those characteristics of existing mixed-use districts that affect the travel behavior of residents, employees and visitors. In concert with detailed case-study reports, this analysis will further facilitate the fruit of our efforts: Creating a broadly applicable set of strategic guidelines for developing functional, “high performance” mixed-use districts in the South Bay and beyond. Greg Goodfellow is a research associate and project manager for Solimar Research Group, parent company of CP&DR .

The right combination of zoning changes and decreased parking requirements can make infill projects feasible in some of the state’s most urban settings. That is the conclusion of Solimar Research Group, which continues to investigate land use options for crowded urban areas. Recently, we explored how regulatory changes affect the financial feasibility of infill projects, and then applied our models to the land use surrounding a major rail extension in Los Angeles. The results should prove interesting to any agency that is approaching the issue of rapid growth with a strategy of high density, transit-oriented development. We sought to calculate the degree to which changes in parking and density policy, as well to zoning, will shrink the notoriously stubborn gap between planning ideal and development reality. Our comprehensive pro-forma analyses revealed that while parking policy affects feasibility more than density allowance, reliance on one or the other is politically unrealistic. A combined strategy is essential. On the other hand, key zone changes may prove a powerful, singular tool in getting infill development off the ground. We further explored how these proposed policy strategies would play out in the very real built environment of the planned Exposition Line extension of the Los Angeles Metro Rail system. Our parcel-by-parcel GIS analysis of infill opportunities surrounding proposed rail stations highlights the infill potential of underutilized industrial land along transit corridors. Grounded Analyses To ensure the “real-time” relevancy of our calculations, we consulted local developers to identify actual development models. Five infill prototypes were selected, and examples of each — from an 8-10 unit townhouse to a 100-200 unit mixed-use project — are currently under construction. We then applied an “as is” pro-forma feasibility model to each, one based on current zoning standards and the industry’s minimum expected 15% net margin. With our feasibility baselines established, we analyzed the fiscal impact of incremental increases or decreases in density and parking requirements. The selection of these two policies as regulatory variables was straightforward: one is a powerful determinant of gross revenue, the other a huge booster of project costs. We also calculated the impact on each prototype of building in either industrial or commercial zones. Combined Regulation Our pro-forma for development prototype 2A exemplifies the political near-impossibility of relying on a single regulation to promote infill in Los Angeles. Prototype 2A is a small, mixed-use project of 54 units, with a current feasibility gap of $1.2 million. A 50% density bonus reduces that gap to only $900,000; a 100% density bonus to only $700,000. While feasibility may arrive with 150% bonus, attendant density, height and FAR changes to the C-1 and C-M zones in which this project would be built are unlikely. Construction of prototype 2A also is unlikely without a change in parking requirements. We found that only a 50% decrease in the number of required parking spaces reduces the $1.2 million gap down to $400,000. That is still too much. But a synergy of more modest changes produces a viable alternative. Our study indicates that a 75% density bonus combined with a 25-50% parking reduction provide enough incentive for developers to pursue projects of this size. This outcome repeated itself in our calculations for prototype developments of various sizes. EXPO Application After calculating needed regulatory and zoning incentives, we took our prototypes to a built environment of high infill potential. The Exposition Line is scheduled for completion in 2010. It will serve an almost entirely developed area. We drew circular study zones around the planned La Brea, La Cienega, Crenshaw, Western and Vermont stations. Our GIS “screening” of parcels around the La Cienega stop reveals a repeated pattern of industrial under-use that, as our pro-formas indicate, should be targeted for infill. Nearly 25% of the half-mile area surrounding the station is zoned industrial/light manufacturing, much of that characterized by large parcels. In addition, many parcels are underutilized and ideal for infill redevelopment. Finally, we identified parcels along the La Cienega Boulevard commercial strip that could be assembled into spaces that would increase the feasibility of projects the scale of Prototype 2A. These projects become even more realistic with the regulatory changes identified above. Solimar’s complete fiscal and land-use analysis of infill potential along the Expo line is available at: http://www.solimar.org/pdfs/Expo_Final_3-30.pdf . Greg Goodfellow is a research associate and project manager for Solimar Research Group, parent company of CP&DR.

This article is brought to you courtesy of the paying subscribers to California Planning & Development Report. You can subscribe to CP&DR by clicking here. You can sign up for CP&DR’s free weekly newsletter here. Shortly after the election of San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie, he nominated Sarah Dennis Phillips to succeed Rich Hillis as planning director. Dennis Phillips was both a conventional choice and an offbeat. Offbeat, because she was coming from over a decade in the private sector, working for mega-developer Tishman Speyer. Conventional because she had previously spent a similar amount of time in San Francisco city government, in planning and community development. Her appointment complemented Lurie's dedication to development and increasing the city's housing supply. A year later, Dennis Phillips has presided over the implementation of the city's "Family Zoning Plan" and is attempting to reform the department amid renewed public enthusiasm--or at least tolerance--for new housing. She spoke with CP&DR's Josh Stephens. You've been on the job for about a year now. What are your overall impressions so far? I think there are two overriding impressions. One, how amazing and evolved the San Francisco planning staff is. I left planning in 2013, for other career opportunities. We've always had really qualified staff, but the way staff practice their jobs now, that staff has really risen to the moment. They understand the challenges facing us. They understand how time impacts housing in our public realm projects, and they understand what the city wants. They're not just here regulating, they're looking at how they get to yes, to build, to get to the exciting outcomes that San Franciscans want. As we understand the affordability crisis, they've really taken that to heart. They've seen that themselves, not just because their boss told them to and not just because they just got out of college. There are plenty of people who started the same year I started here in 2005 and are still here — over 20 years — and those same humans have evolved in a really strong way. I think it's emblematic in some ways of our city And then the other one is, I forgot how brutal the politics are here. That's real, and it's a bit daunting. What lessons do you draw from Tishman-Speyer and bring into your current job? It was an incredible opportunity. I don't think everyone who works in the development sector has the opportunity to work with a firm that prioritizes design almost as much as planners do — that's endemic with Tishman Speyer and that's fabulous. What I brought back here is an understanding of the myriad ways that a project can get impacted and go south. There is not just "oh, the rents aren't high enough" — there are a hundred different ways that a project can go sideways, some of which are in the city's control: capital priorities shifting, capital partners going south, different ways you structure a joint development agreement. So many pieces along the financing and the construction side of things have made me understand the vulnerability of development, which definitely shapes my attitudes here as we regulate it moving forward. Tell us about the mayor's agenda. Which aspects are you most excited about, which are proving to be the most challenging? I came in last July, almost a year ago, with the number-one priority being we need to get the Family Zoning Plan over the finish line before we hit the deadlines mandated by the state housing element law. I'm proud of what the team built — they built it long before I got here, it had been in development for about two years before I arrived. What we brought over the finish line was largely baked by the time I arrived, but the politics of getting it approved, and the outreach needed so that the public really understood what we were doing, was a big part of those final six months. The family zoning plan wasn't the priority — that is the vehicle. The priority is housing. We need more housing for all San Franciscans, and the family zoning plan is a big part of that. There are other initiatives happening that I'm really excited about, including an expanded housing trust fund that'll create $125 million annually out of the city's budget for permanently affordable housing, and adjusted inclusionary housing percentages that allow regular market rate housing to move forward at the same time that we're financing affordable housing through that trust fund. Another priority is downtown revitalization — not recovery. I think we are past downtown recovery, but we still can make our downtown a lot better. Not just filling vacancies, but creating an amazing public realm, making it a place that people come to 24 hours a day for entertainment, for art. The third priority, which came straight from the mayor, is improving our permitting process, improving our permitting technology, and creating permitting that is oriented towards customer service. How much of that feels in your grasp versus technically challenging, or needing buy-in from staff, the supervisors, or the public? Under this mayor, there's a big chunk of it that is within our grasp. One of the things we are working on now is unifying our planning department and our building department. The people who issue rules and the people who issue building permits and inspect projects are different departments — that is not great. There are a lot of bumps in the handoff along that process. By putting us together — and we are midway through merging them — by early 2027 we hope we will be one unified department working towards housing and land use approvals together. The concept of a unified department has been talked about in San Francisco for a long time, but there hasn't been the leadership to pull it off, and the mayor has given myself and our director of the building department the authority to make that happen. A second example is our new technology permitting system. We are on a very old, disparate set of tech tools for permitting. this mayor has made it an imperative that we get on one unified system together. We started that system in March this year, we have about 10 permits up and running on it, and over the next two to three years we will fully migrate to a system that all permitting agencies in the city will be using together. You're obviously in the AI capital of the world. How has that affected the city itself in terms of rising rental rates and new influx of people? And how are you thinking about AI as a planning tool? It's a super interesting question. In terms of a business sector, AI has been the force driving our recovery. We're in a very good place from where we were in 2022, 2023, in large part due to not just the growth of AI firms and the leasing that they've done, but through the energy and ancillary support that's brought to other industries around San Francisco. At the same time, the fears that our entire country have around AI, particularly at a time of a tight and tightening job market, are even more acute here because it is so present at our front door. So there's some existential dread. We've regained our population losses, which is great. We are now seeing energy around developing new housing. We hadn't seen a lot of housing proposals in the city post-COVID, but that is starting to change because capital is following AI's impact on San Francisco, and they're starting to invest in housing projects to support the growing population. In our office, our staff are relatively nimble in figuring out ways AI can supplement their jobs. They've done some creative things in identifying and cataloging our historic resources, for example. As a city, we're a little creaky — like all bureaucracies. Executing AI in your work comes with union concerns, because people want to make sure it's supplementing their jobs, not replacing them. And we have privacy concerns, because we are stewards of public data and need to be careful about how we use it. The city is working on an emerging tech pool where we have prequalified technology partners, including AI partners, that we can develop smaller tools with — but it's a pilot and we haven't really started yet, so we'll see how that turns out. Let's get bigger and talk about the state. How do you feel about dealing with state laws? I probably can't parse out exactly which ones I like versus which ones are challenging because with so many in California, I sometimes still have to remind myself — wait, is that 2011 or 423, which one is it? By and large, I'm glad they exist and they are generally helpful. But they are most helpful when they push us towards an outcome while allowing us our own way of getting there. SB 79 describes what I was hoping for exactly — it said, “you are either going to have these types of heights and densities near your transit station, or you can show us your own way of getting there and we can tell you if we agree.” Our Family Zoning Plan basically qualified as our alternative plan under SB 79. It was one more tool we could use to explain to residents why it was important that we adopt the plan: “If we don't do it our own way, the state will do it for us.” There was some tension with some planning commissioners when you were appointed. How has that played out? That's been fine. I mentioned the politics here are kind of nasty — a knife fight in a phone booth, as our city attorney used to say. Our planning commissioners are lovely humans. Rich Hillis is my predecessor and he had a 4-3 vote on his appointment, and I joke that I was unanimous because those three recused themselves. We spoke pretty immediately after that outcome, particularly Catherine Moore, who's somebody I've worked with in a professional capacity for a long time and have a lot of respect for, and I think the respect goes both ways. Their challenge there was the process and not the person, and I'm comfortable with that. Process is, interestingly enough, one of the things we're trying to work through here in San Francisco — our planners are in favor of less process if it's the right outcome. And we've worked together swimmingly over the last nine months. San Francisco has had its share of contrverisal projects recently: the tower in the Outer Sunset; the Nordstrom's parking lot; and now the Safeway redevelopment in the Marina. What do those controversies mean to you? Are they a big deal or are they describing headlines but just part of the day-to-day for your office? Different meanings for each of them. The Nordstrom parking lot, dare I say, was a catalyst for much of the state laws that you asked me about. While it didn't turn state legislation on its head alone, the disapproval of that project and the grounds the appeal was upheld on, and just the utter shock that we could be that worried about growth on such a likely and positive development site, really helped catalyze a lot of the change at the state level that has been, as I've noted, generally helpful. The Outer Sunset tower has died. But even the noise around that one did bring to the fore a whole lot of housing supporters who were quiet before. It was just so loud that folks were like, wait, do I really care if there's a tower there? I know that's a crazy tower, but maybe I want more housing. Marina Safeway is challenging for us because we worked with the community in the Marina and the broader San Francisco community on the family zoning plan for what we felt was the right kind of density for that site. This project was filed just after that plan was adopted but before it became effective. We had been coming off a multi-year process, working with communities, telling them that yes, we need more housing, but we'll work with you on the shape and form of that housing. And then a project came in that was dramatically different. So that's a hard one. How do you characterize attitudes towards housing and development in the city today — what is the vibe? I think we are smack in the middle of an evolution. San Francisco has been for a very long time — certainly when I moved here in 2000 — a town with a lot of conflicted feelings about growth, even as it was an economic powerhouse through the first tech boom. “Manhattan” has always been a dirty word here in San Francisco. That's a long-standing attitude that is evolving. I don't think we're through the evolution — I think we're smack in the middle of it. The surveys around the family zoning plan showed that a strong majority, somewhere between 60 and 70 percent of residents, support that plan. And it was hard-fought — even though many people supported it, it was an incredibly tough approval process. So you can see that tension between high support but still those no-growth attitudes fighting against each other. The number of people who identify as pro-housing is incredibly large and well recognized. And attitudes towards growth are somewhat affected by what we saw post-COVID in our downtown — people realized they didn't want an empty downtown, and that if growth and more intensity is what it takes to get it back to activity, they can be in support of that. Where do you draw intellectual inspiration from — books, histories, people, mentors? I'm an economics geek. he overlay of the economy with the city is fascinating, not just because money has driven cities — through transfer of capital and growth — but because the other part of economics is humans and how humans want to see those things move. I'm a big fan of Edward Glaeser's books. I read The Economist weekly because it helps me understand what's going on throughout the world. I've had the benefit of some amazing mentors. Dean Macris, the planning director when I came here, who let me walk in as a very green planner and walk up to the podium and launch some exciting initiatives right from the get-go. John Rahaim, an incredibly thoughtful, design-focused planning director who I still consult with regularly. And Carl Shannon, who was my boss at Tishman Speyer, who showed me how you can be a capitalist with heart — Carl cared about affordability and design probably more than making money. And I would also say, given the brutality of land use politics, my inspiration for getting through challenging and thorny topics is running with my dog and playing my violin. I'm terrible at the violin — I only started a year ago — but there's nothing like being terrible at something when you've got a really hard job to get your head out of it. This interview has been edited and condensed.

The right combination of zoning changes and decreased parking requirements can make infill projects feasible in some of the state’s most urban settings. That is the conclusion of Solimar Research Group, which continues to investigate land use options for crowded urban areas. Recently, we explored how regulatory changes affect the financial feasibility of infill projects, and then applied our models to the land use surrounding a major rail extension in Los Angeles. The results should prove interesting to any agency that is approaching the issue of rapid growth with a strategy of high density, transit-oriented development. We sought to calculate the degree to which changes in parking and density policy, as well to zoning, will shrink the notoriously stubborn gap between planning ideal and development reality. Our comprehensive pro-forma analyses revealed that while parking policy affects feasibility more than density allowance, reliance on one or the other is politically unrealistic. A combined strategy is essential. On the other hand, key zone changes may prove a powerful, singular tool in getting infill development off the ground. We further explored how these proposed policy strategies would play out in the very real built environment of the planned Exposition Line extension of the Los Angeles Metro Rail system. Our parcel-by-parcel GIS analysis of infill opportunities surrounding proposed rail stations highlights the infill potential of underutilized industrial land along transit corridors. Grounded Analyses To ensure the “real-time” relevancy of our calculations, we consulted local developers to identify actual development models. Five infill prototypes were selected, and examples of each — from an 8-10 unit townhouse to a 100-200 unit mixed-use project — are currently under construction. We then applied an “as is” pro-forma feasibility model to each, one based on current zoning standards and the industry’s minimum expected 15% net margin. With our feasibility baselines established, we analyzed the fiscal impact of incremental increases or decreases in density and parking requirements. The selection of these two policies as regulatory variables was straightforward: one is a powerful determinant of gross revenue, the other a huge booster of project costs. We also calculated the impact on each prototype of building in either industrial or commercial zones. Combined Regulation Our pro-forma for development prototype 2A exemplifies the political near-impossibility of relying on a single regulation to promote infill in Los Angeles. Prototype 2A is a small, mixed-use project of 54 units, with a current feasibility gap of $1.2 million. A 50% density bonus reduces that gap to only $900,000; a 100% density bonus to only $700,000. While feasibility may arrive with 150% bonus, attendant density, height and FAR changes to the C-1 and C-M zones in which this project would be built are unlikely. Construction of prototype 2A also is unlikely without a change in parking requirements. We found that only a 50% decrease in the number of required parking spaces reduces the $1.2 million gap down to $400,000. That is still too much. But a synergy of more modest changes produces a viable alternative. Our study indicates that a 75% density bonus combined with a 25-50% parking reduction provide enough incentive for developers to pursue projects of this size. This outcome repeated itself in our calculations for prototype developments of various sizes. EXPO Application After calculating needed regulatory and zoning incentives, we took our prototypes to a built environment of high infill potential. The Exposition Line is scheduled for completion in 2010. It will serve an almost entirely developed area. We drew circular study zones around the planned La Brea, La Cienega, Crenshaw, Western and Vermont stations. Our GIS “screening” of parcels around the La Cienega stop reveals a repeated pattern of industrial under-use that, as our pro-formas indicate, should be targeted for infill. Nearly 25% of the half-mile area surrounding the station is zoned industrial/light manufacturing, much of that characterized by large parcels. In addition, many parcels are underutilized and ideal for infill redevelopment. Finally, we identified parcels along the La Cienega Boulevard commercial strip that could be assembled into spaces that would increase the feasibility of projects the scale of Prototype 2A. These projects become even more realistic with the regulatory changes identified above. Solimar’s complete fiscal and land-use analysis of infill potential along the Expo line is available at: http://www.solimar.org/pdfs/Expo_Final_3-30.pdf.