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Another group has arisen in the long-running battle to challenge Proposition 13. A coalition of several public employees unions and other interest groups, the Make it Fair organization seeks to place a measure that would upend Prop. 13 on the 2016 statewide ballot. The proposed measure would seek a "split-roll" solution, taxing commercial properties at market rates while leaving residential tax rates frozen according to purchase prices. Prop. 13's freeze on property taxes has long been cited as a complicating factor in local government finance, particularly for school districts. Supporters of the measure say that its passage could result in an additional $9 billion in annual tax revenue. "California is losing billions of dollars every year thanks to problems in the law that allow some big corporations and wealthy commercial property owners to avoid paying their fair share," campaign spokesman Anthony Thigpenn said in a statement quoted by the Sacramento Bee . "By continuing to raise taxes, the state is forcing businesses out of California, and they're taking our jobs with them," Rex Hine of California Business Properties Association told the Bee.  L.A. Metro May Seek to Raise $120 Billion Via Ballot Measure The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority is exploring another ballot measure to raise billions of dollars for the county's transportation system. Dubbed by non-profit Move L.A. as "Measure R2," the new sales tax would require two-thirds voter approval to pass and would likely go on the 2016 presidential ballot, hoping to get a better turnout to reach the needed supermajority. Metro's wish list totals about $300 billion; the agency estimates that Measure R2 could raise as much as $120 billion over 40 years by raising the county sales tax to 9.5 percent and extending the expiration of the 2008 Measure R sales tax by an extra two decades. The funds could be used for major transit projects such as a rail and automobile tunnel under the Sepulveda Pass, a rail link to LAX airport, and the extension of the subway to Santa Monica. According to the Los Angeles Times, a recent Metro poll suggests that the proposal has considerable support - as much as 79 percent depending on how the question was posed and how much information the respondents had.  Audit Finds Improved Richmond Housing Authority Three years after employees were implicated in illegal activities and a federal audit wrote a scathing report calling its leader "ineffective," the Richmond Housing Authority has made improvements. It is now considered "adequate," according to a recent report by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The agency implemented procedures to keep proper records, follow reporting requirements, and have the finance staff work directly under the city's finance department, all designed to help catch fraud that previously ran rampant in the department. The Richmond Authority came under fire when an audit flagged it for lacking internal controls resulting in ineligible expenses, poor record keeping and debt the reached $6.8 million.  Water Company Cadiz Hit with Suit over Groundwater Pumping In an attempt to block a Los Angeles-based Cadiz Inc. from shipping Mojave Desert groundwater out of San Bernardino County to Orange County residents, three conservation groups have filed opening briefs in an appeal of a Superior Court decision upholding the project. The project would involve pumping 16 million gallons of Mojave groundwater through a 43-mile pipeline for up to 50 years, averaging about 50,000-75,000 acre-feet per year. Critics said the Santa Margarita Water District improperly seized control of the environmental review process, which San Bernardino County officials should have overseen. They also state that the pumping would eliminate crucial desert habitats like springs and lower the water table, potentially having disastrous environmental consequences. "Let's call this what it is: a water-privatization scheme that will ship San Bernardino's water resources, essential to the health of the ecosystem, off to fuel suburban sprawl in Orange County," Adam Keats, head of the Center for Biological Diversity's California Water Project, told the San Bernardino Sun . S.F. Mayor Asks for $1 Billion for Muni Mayor Ed Lee of San Francisco unveiled a $1 billion budget for the Municipal Transportation Agency in the coming fiscal year, giving it a $48.1 million boost to the previous budget. With the goal of adding 18 new buses and 40 new Muni Metro cars, bike and pedestrian signal improvements, and hiring 244 new employees, the mayor wants to bring in $31.4 million from the city's general fund and $16.7 million in developer fees to modernize the nation's eighth-largest transit system. Ruling Complicates Efforts to Build A's Stadium in San Jose Another roadblock has come up against San Jose in its bid to lure the Oakland A's to a downtown ballpark. A judge recently ruled that under local laws the city should have gone to voters first before entering into a land-purchase agreement with the team for a site, thus invalidating the latest version of the deal between the city and the team. The San Jose City Council voted to appeal the court's decision, but the setback is just one of several for the planned move to Silicon Valley: the San Francisco Giants also have protested the move, asserting territorial rights to the South Bay, and a federal appeals court sided with the Giants in an antitrust case.  State Adopts Guidelines for Desalination Plants California became the first state last week to adopt environmental guidelines for building and operating desalination plants, hoping to make seawater potable without killing fish or emitting huge amounts of greenhouse gases. The rules represent a significant move in trying to monitor environmental impacts while heading off the water crisis, as construction of the state's first desalination plant is now underway in Carlsbad with seventeen more plants in the planning stages. The new rules seek to regulate the downsides to the desalination plants: that they kill fish as they suck in briny water and use too much energy to run, spewing greenhouse gases into the air. The rules will require plant operators to use screens if open ocean intakes are necessary to keep from killing fish, and water salinity of areas near discharge sites may not increase by more than 2 parts per 1,000. Lemon Grove Votes to Dissolve Planning Commission The Lemon Grove City Council voted 3-2 to dissolve its city's planning commission and to transfer its duties to the City Council, with the possibility of forming an advisory group that would act as a quasi planning commission without the official title or responsibilities. The city said that the move was provoked by cost-saving considerations, estimating that the planning commission meets four to seven times per year at a nonrecoverable cost of $7,500 for staff time and work. "Lemon Grove is a small town, and we just don't have the size or resources to support the commissions and committees larger cities do," City Councilman Jerry Jones told the U-T San Diego . The dissenting votes came from City Councilors who were both former planning commissioners. Sacramento to Dispose of 77 Redevelopment Properties The City of Sacramento is offering up for sale several high-profile parcels of land near the construction site of the new Kings basketball arena, taking its first step to sell off its 77 properties that were formerly part of its redevelopment agency. The sales will bring cash to the city and county, and will benefit Sacramento in the development of land that has long been underutilized. However, complicating matters, the Sacramento Kings have a right of first refusal on the downtown properties as a part of the city's subsidy of the arena project, allowing the Kings to match any offer in kind. Mixed-Use Development to Complement AT&T Park The San Francisco Giants' ownership revised its plans to build a massive new mixed-use development across the street from AT&T Park, opting for shorter buildings and more affordable housing at the development in response to changing winds in California land-use politics. Voters recently passed Proposition B, a ballot measure requiring voter approval of any development on port property exceeding height limits, and Mayor Ed Lee has set goals for affordable housing in the city. Sensing these changes, the Giants decided to lower the building heights from 380 feet to 240 feet, and to increase the percentage of below-market-rate units from 15 percent to 33 percent. The proposal, known as Mission Rock, would be a 28-acre redevelopment including 1,500 units of housing, eight acres of parkland, and 1.5 million square feet of commercial space. S.F. Arena Backers Fend Off Criticism Developers of a new Warriors basketball arena in Mission Bay are standing firm amid new criticism that the development could have significant impact on hospital traffic and parking. The group Mission Bay Alliance recently cited concerns that traffic for the development will impede emergency access to UCSF's hospitals, and that shared use of 950 parking garage spaces with two 16-story office towers that will also be built on the site. Officials with the Warriors, however, said that they have been studying these effects for the past year and have determined that their project won't have any significant effect on traffic or parking, as most sporting events take place at night, while the office towers will be used during the day. Report: Sprawl Costs U.S. $1 Trillion Annually A new report  (pdf)  from the Victoria Transport Policy Institute and LSE Cities states that urban sprawl costs the U.S. economy over $1 trillion each year, with people living in sprawled communities bearing $625 billion in direct incremental costs and the governments, businesses, and other households bearing an extra $400 billion in external costs. The study, coming from the New Climate Economy, a global commission on economy and climate, said that providing public infrastructure and services costs $750 annually per capita in the most sprawled fifth of American cities, 50 percent more than in the least sprawled cities. The report also stated that residents in compact communities save more money and have greater economic mobility, spending on average $5,000 less per year on transportation expenses, and that children who grow up in these communities tend to be much more economically successful in the future. Los Angeles Seeks to Figure Out New Transportation Technologies Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti announced a new fellowship at the Los Angeles Department of Transportation to create a citywide strategy that outlines the future of road safety, traffic regulation, and traffic enforcement, and will, supporters say, create a policy plan for a sustainable future for Los Angeles. The technology advisor, serving in a one-year fellowship, will work with city staff to mold Los Angeles as a model in sustainable, tech-enabled transportation. "It's about time the car capital of the world planned for the future of transportation in the digital age -- moving beyond the car to bikes, ride shares, and autonomous vehicles," said Garcetti. Recent discussions in the city have centered on the potential for ride-hailing services and even self-driving cars to relieve traffic congestion and reduce the need for parking in the city.

An environmental group has purchased $10.1 million worth of Lake Tahoe land including scenic meadows, forests, and trout streams in order to preserve wildlife there and increase California's water supply. The purchase amounts to over 10,000 acres. Planning to remove old logging roads and restore the landscape, Palo Alto-based Northern Sierra Partnership also hopes to prove that thinning out some of the trees in densely populated forest areas there would increase California's water supply, of which the Sierra Nevada provides 40 percent. Theorizing that California's firefighting efforts after 1850 prevent naturally occurring fires that thin out dead trees and brush, UC Merced and UC Berkeley scientists have done research indicating that if these forests are thinned it could increase the amount of water flowing from the Sierra Nevada into streams, rivers, the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta and San Francisco Bay. By thinning about 25 to 50 percent of the trees in many of these areas, UC Merced Professor Roger Bales said, the amount of water flowing into streams could increase from 9 to 16 percent. Sierra-wide, that could increase the water running off by 500,000 to 1 million acre feet a year, enough for up to 5 million people for a year. Massive Warehouse Complex Approved in Inland Empire In a split vote, the Moreno Valley City Council approved a 40 million-square-foot warehouse project to be built on the eastern edge of the city. Councilors in favor of the World Logistics Center -by far the largest of countless large warehouses and distribution centers being built in the Inland Empire - mostly touted the estimated 20,000 jobs that the project would bring to the city, a number that also prompted the Planning Commission to approve the project 6-1 in June. However, detractors including the California Air Resources Board have called the project's Environmental Impact Report inadequate to fend off lawsuits, and the 14,000 trucks a day that the project will likely draw into the city will worsen air pollution in a region plagued with some of the worst air pollution in the nation. "We've already been told if this is approved, lawsuits are going to be filed," Councilman George Price said during the council meeting, according to the Los Angeles Times . PPIC Contemplates Future Drought The Public Policy Institute of California has released a new report titled "What If California's Drought Continues?" chronicling the state's unpreparedness for a long-term drought worsened by climate change. Specifically, the report says that sustained investments in diversified water portfolios and conservation have put urban areas in the best position to sustain a long drought, but that the greatest vulnerabilities lie in low-income rural communities and in the biodiversity of wetlands rivers, and forests, with 18 native fish appearing to be at high risk of extinction. The report suggests building drought resilience through diversified water portfolios, coordinated emergency response, and better regional infrastructure across multiple agencies. Sacramento Arena Secures Financing; Soccer Stadium Proposed Sacramento's basketball and soccer stadium proposals are making waves as they seek expansions in the city. The Kings and the Republic Football Club have joined forces for a social media campaign dubbed "Fix My Ride 916" to encourage the Sacramento Regional Transit District to implement a stronger transit system by October 2016, when a new downtown arena is scheduled to open. The campaign comes in the wake of another big gain for the Kings as the city of Sacramento officially became a partner in the construction of a new arena, closing on a short-term $300 million bond sale and eventually contributing $255 million to the arena. Additionally, as a part of Mayor Kevin Johnson's effort to show Major League Soccer that Sacramento is ready to join its ranks, Sacramento Republic Football Club is seeking fan input on design and entertainment ideas for a proposed stadium in the downtown railyard. The railyard was once considered as a site for the basketball arena. "This vital feedback from the community will not only assist us in the design of the stadium but also garner ideas on how it will serve as a catalyst towards our goal of making Sacramento a better place to work, live and play," Republic FC team president Warren Smith said in a statement. More Funding Committed to O.C. Streetcar The Orange County Transportation Authority agreed to commit $56 million to a new streetcar line between Santa Ana and Garden Grove in a bid to get a matching federal grant of $144 million for the project. The $289 million project, called OC Streetcar, is expected to be running in 2017 for commutes along a four-mile route through densely populated neighborhoods and the Santa Ana train station, holding an estimated 6,000 riders per day. Critics, however, have said that those estimates are overly optimistic, and fares from the project are only expected to cover 30 percent of the estimated $5 million annual operating cost, with Santa Ana paying 10 percent of the balance, while OCTA  will cover 60 percent. OCTA CEO Darrell Johnson pronounced the authority's prospects of receiving the grant "very good," but money could still come from Measure M to build the rail even if they do not receive the federal grant. Coastal Commission Holds Firm on Affordable Housing in S.D. The Coastal Commission rejected plans to build three hotels on Harbor Island in San Diego because the project won't meet its demands for affordable lodging along the water. The projects, which would be located on public tidelands overseen by the Port of San Diego would build a 175-room hotel on the eastern end of the peninsula and 325 additional rooms on Harbor Island. "It is a form of segregation when we take the public land and develop it for people who can afford $250-and-above hotel rooms and we develop land (further) away for cheaper (hotels) for the public who can't afford it," Commissioner Mary Shallenberger said at the hearing. "This isn't all about money. It's about making our coast accessible to all people." Since the California Coastal Act came into being 40 years ago mandating that facilities along the coast be provided with lower cost facilities, the commission has had mixed success implementing the mandate. Some $19 million in affordable lodging fees have been collected over the years, but close to $10 million remains unspent. Escondido May Expand The Escondido City Council will likely begin updating and expanding the city's sphere of influence, which identifies land outside the city limits the it might eventually want to annex, in hopes of absorbing a piece of property where a developer hopes to build 550 luxury homes. The developer of the 350-acre Safari Highlands Ranch development in the rugged hills of the San Pasqual Valley hopes that the city will absorb the property in order to extend vital municipal services there. Annexation would also allow the developer to skirt county zoning restrictions, which would allow only 27 homes on the land. A year ago the City Council - indicating the city needs more upscale housing - told the would-be developers they could move forward planning the project, although no guarantees were offered that it would be approved. Critics have said that the resulting traffic and noise from the project would ruin the quiet character of the surrounding communities. National League of Cities to Hold Resilience Workshop The National League of Cities will host a Resilience Leadership Workshop to promote environmental, economic, and social vitality within Southern California municipalities. Hosted in Redlands on Sept. 21-22, the workshop will be attended by -City Teams,' composed of at least two attendees who are either elected officials or full-time city staff from each participating municipality. The primary goal is to help bring the innovative near tools and planning practices into the mainstream to the benefit of communities of any size through expert speakers. Bay Area Commuters Embrace Alternative Transportation Commuters in the Bay Area made the nation's most dramatic shift away from using private automobiles in a seven year period, dropping from 73.6 percent of workers in 2006 to 69.8 percent in 2013, according to a new Census Bureau report. In absolute terms, it also boasted the third lowest rate of use of private cars in commutes in 2013, only falling behind New York City and Ithaca, NY. Overall, 76.4 percent of the nation's workers drove alone to get to work in 2013, the Census Bureau's survey found, followed by those who carpooled, 9.4 percent; used public transit, 5.2 percent; worked at home, 4.4 percent; walked, 2.8 percent; or used "other means of travel," 1.3 percent. Bicycling was the least popular method of commuting, used by just six-tenths of one percent of workers. Plan for Office Park Unveiled at Controversial Site in Santa Monica Plans that once involved building a mixed-use neighborhood in Santa Monica across from the Expo Line 26th Street Station are now moving forward as a 204,000 square foot suburban-style office park after opposition to the original project launched a successful referendum. The original plan from developer Hines would have created more than 400 apartments and about 400,000 square feet of office space and included the city's most aggressive traffic demand management program. Director of MoveLA Denny Zane, a former Santa Monica mayor and current co-chair of Santa Monicans for Renters' Rights (SMRR), joined forces with local no-growth groups like Residocracy and Santa Monica Coalition for a Livable City, to kill the project. The new, scaled-down project will remain within the envelope of the defunct PaperMate pen factory that has long occupied the site. It will now go to the Architectural Review Board for design approval. The project's announcement follows the recent down-zoning of the city's general plan.  State of Jefferson Movement Eyes El Dorado County Over 400 citizens of El Dorado County gathered at a Board of Supervisors meeting there to voice their support for a plan to secede from California and join the proposed state of Jefferson. Supporters in 16 counties -- mostly across rural Northern California -- are trying to get supervisors to approve a "declaration of withdrawal" from the state, with El Dorado being the group's first attempt to garner an endorsement in the Sacramento region. The group hopes to convince a state legislator to introduce a sure-to-fail bill in January calling for the formation of the state, after which Jefferson advocates will take their movement for statehood to the courts, Mark Baird, a spokesman for the movement, told the Sacramento Bee. Supporters of secession have claimed that a new government would prevent the imbalance of power produced by heavily-populated, largely Democrat-leaning cities over rural areas like those in far-northern California.

Fresno's 2035 General Plan proposal has been moving through packed public meetings toward final approval this month. The city's Planning Commission approved the proposal December 8 . The City Council took it up in a packed public discussion hearing November 11. Mayor Ashley Swearengin has personally identified herself with the plan, which includes proposals from canal-side trails to increased infill development . The plan returns to the City Council December 18 for an approval vote. Ninth Circuit Enjoins Amphitheater Project In Homeless Vets' VA Suit The Ninth Circuit on December 15 issued a short-term order barring the Veterans' Administration from allowing continued construction of the "Hollywood Canteen Amphitheater" on its West Los Angeles veterans' hospital campus. The amphitheater's builder, the nonprofit Veterans Parks Conservancy (VPC), is one of several groups whose agreements to use parts of the park-like campus were invalidated by Judge James Otero last August in Valentini v. Shinseki . The December 15 order consolidated four separate appeals of the August decision and sent the matter temporarily back to Otero so he can decide whether to issue an order preserving the status quo on the campus pending the rest of the appeal. In the Valentini case, homeless veterans represented by a strong team of Los Angeles poverty lawyers and pro bono counsel argued that the VA was improperly allowing use of the campus by third parties for purposes including athletic facilities, gardens, and an industrial laundry for hotels. The plaintiffs argued these uses were providing only indirect or attenuated services to veterans, while the VA's priority should be housing for homeless veterans with disabilities. Otero's August order invalidated VPC's agreement for use of the property, but while the case was under appeal the VA authorized VPC, in a new agreement, to continue work on its already-begun construction project. For CP&DR's fuller coverage as of December 1 see http://www.cp-dr.com/articles/node-3634 . Lynch Seawall Case Accepted By State Supreme Court The state Supreme Court has granted review for the Pacific Legal Foundation's seawall case, Lynch v. Coastal Commission . The property-rights organization has championed two property owners who have sought a permanent rather than temporary permit for a seawall to prevent bluff erosion. See http://www.cp-dr.com/articles/node-3572 for CP&DR's prior coverage of the Fourth District appellate opinion, which backed the Coastal Commission's decision requiring a permit to rebuild the seawall after storm damage, and its refusal to issue seawall permits for any more than 20 years at a time. The Pacific Legal Foundation's celebratory announcement of the review opportunity was picked up by the San Diego U-T and the local Fox News station . L.A. Issues Earthquake Resilience Plan Mayor Eric Garcetti of Los Angeles released a plan December 8 to strengthen the city's resistance to future earthquakes by strengthening water pipes and other infrastructure, and retrofitting buildings, especially those with soft first stories or non-ductile reinforced concrete. The New York Times ' Adam Nagourney wrote an impressed account of the "Resilience By Design" report setting out the plan, which has been directed by celebrity seismologist Dr. Lucy Jones. National Housing Trust Fund To Be Funded At Last Six years after its formal creation, the federal National Housing Trust Fund will finally be receiving contributions from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, per an order last week from the Federal Housing Finance Agency. Affordable housing groups including the National Community Reinvestment Coalition were cheering the news. Reuters has details . O'Connor Out As L.A. Metro Board Member The Los Angeles Metro system's board of directors was rebalanced last week when officials from cities on the Southwest Corridor replaced former board chair Pam O'Connor, of the Santa Monica City Council, with Mayor James Butts of Inglewood. StreetsblogLA has details . The comments section to the article included an argument between John Mirisch, a former Beverly Hills City Council member who the article mentions as a rumored also-ran candidate, and commenters (including one signing as "Fakey McFakename") on issues including whether the article fairly described him as opposing the Westside subway extension. Mirisch insisted he in fact supported the extension but opposed "the routing of a portion of the Purple Line". Federal Budget Talks Kill California Foothills Easement Proposal Congressional Republicans have reportedly killed a proposal out of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to create the California Foothills Legacy Area . The project would have bought conservation easements on 200,000 acres of ranchlands in the Sierra Nevada foothills. The Fresno Bee has details . As of December 12 the paper also quoted Rep. David Valadao, R-Hanford, as saying the federal omnibus appropriations package "ensures no additional federal dollars for California High Speed Rail" and said the package did not include legislative language tentatively negotiated between House Republicans and Sen. Dianne Feinstein. The "Cromnibus", so named because it included a continuing resolution (CR) for Department of Homeland Security programs, passed the House Thursday night and the Senate on Saturday, in negotiations that Roll Call viewed as suggesting the formation of a "new governing coalition" in Congress. Khosla May Be Defying Order To Open Martins Beach During the week after a court order to open public access to Martins Beach, the gate remained closed at Vinod Khosla's disputed access road from Highway 1 on the San Mateo County coastside. The San Mateo Daily Journal and San Jose Mercury News reported the Coastal Commission was threatening Khosla with fines of $11,250 per day. The Mercury News noted the Thursday after the ruling was stormy, creating a legitimate reason to close the gate, "but the weather over the previous five days was mild and dry." CEQA Preemption Case Accepted For Review A state ruling on federal CEQA preemption has been accepted for review by the state Supreme Court. In the case of Friends of the Eel River v. North Coast Railroad Authority , the First District Court of Appeal upheld a contract for use of railroad tracks against a CEQA challenge to its EIR on the grounds that a federally regulated railroad deal was outside the purview of CEQA. If upheld, the ruling could allow lumber shipping by rail to resume in Willits . Attorneys Nicole Martin and Donald Sobelman of Barg Coffin Lewis & Trapp, LLP posted a detailed commentary last month on reasons why the appellate court's decision, if affirmed, could help advance freight rail expansions throughout the state. USSTB Says CEQA Review Is Preempted On High-Speed Rail In another railroad preemption move, the Fresno Bee reports the U.S. Surface Transportation Board ruled 2-1 on December 12 that CEQA review of the High-Speed Rail project's Fresno-Bakersfield route "is categorically pre-empted". The paper counts seven lawsuits that could potentially be blocked by the order -- which will presumably be litigated. Riverside County Settlement Allows Use Of Post-Redevelopment Funds Riverside County has reached a settlement with state officials allowing it to use up to $10 million in former redevelopment money on a shopping center rehab project in Jurupa Valley. The Press-Enterprise has details . Warriors' New Design Less Lavatorial The Golden State Warriors have released a redesign of their San Francisco arena plan, this time in more symmetrical form to answer critics' comments that the roof resembled a toilet lid. The smart San Francisco real estate blog Socketsite has details and renderings . The design is for a site near the corner of Third and 16th Streets in San Francisco's otherwise too-quiet Mission Bay tech neighborhood, south along the Bay waterfront from the Giants' AT&T Park. Procedural Tangle On EIR Resolved In Aggregate Mine's Favor In Friends of the Kings River v. County of Fresno , the Fifth District upheld dismissal of a CEQA petition that had challenged the EIR on the reclamation plan for a proposed new aggregate mine in Fresno County near Sanger and Reedly. The plan discussed how the property would be divided into 40-acre mining cells, each cell dug down 50 feet and the remaining ground restored. Petitioners had argued that the trial court dismissed their case when it was not ripe for review because by the time the court's decision emerged, the plan they were contesting was no longer in effect. Petitioners had filed their court petition against the Board of Supervisors' approval of the EIR while they also had an appeal pending with the State Mining and Geology Board. While the court appeal was still pending, the mining board granted petitioners' administrative appeal; the county Supervisors responded by approving a revised EIR, and when petitioners took the revised EIR back to the mining board, it approved the revised EIR. The mining board conducted its hearing on the revised EIR November 14, 2013, and on that same date the trial court denied the writ petition on the original EIR. The appellate court found the dispute was "neither unripe nor moot" and rejected several challenges to the substantive adequacy of the EIR. De Le�n As Pro Tem Ends Government Oversight Research Office The Sacramento Bee reports that new state Senate president pro tem Kevin de Le�n has eliminated the State Senate's Office of Oversight and Outcomes, a research unit whose reports included two 2010 reports that criticized redevelopment agencies during their last year of existence. Homeowners' Association Fees Case Goes To Oral Argument In January The case of Tract 19051 Homeowners Association v. Kemp goes to oral argument in San Francisco before the California Supreme Court on January 7, 2015. The case concerns whether Cal. Civil Code Sec. 1354 entitles prevailing parties to attorney's fees in a dispute with a homeowners' association where the win followed from a showing that the association had not been adequately maintained as a legal entity. The CalAttorneysFees Web site wrote up the case after it was granted review in August 2013. The original Second District opinion, which was unpublished, is at http://www.courts.ca.gov/opinions/revnppub/B235015.PDF .

In the first phase of a landmark redevelopment deal many years in the making, the U.S. Navy transferred nearly 300 acres of its old Treasure Island/Yerba Buena Island naval base to the City of San Francisco to redevelop the campus into 8,000 homes in exchange for $55 million to the Navy. The city has approved plans to build 2,000 affordable units, along with 300 acres of parks and open space on the campus, and will create a new ferry service to become a cornerstone of the island's transportation program. "It's taken almost two decades to get to this point, and we're eager to transform this former naval base into a vibrant community with more housing, jobs and economic opportunities for our residents," Mayor Ed Lee announced. High Speed Rail Identifies Properties for Eminent Domain The California High-Speed Rail Authority has  listed  over 200 properties in the Central Valley for possible eminent domain proceedings to accommodate construction of the first two segments of its network. The State Public Works Board, made up of the heads of the state's Transportation, General Services, and Finance departments, recently voted to adopt 23 resolutions declaring a public need and authorizing the acquisition of properties in Fresno, Madera, Kings, and Tulare Counties. Since December 2013, the Public Works Board has adopted 230 such resolutions covering more than 625 acres of land in the four counties in anticipation of the $68 billion project planned to be fully operational by 2028. Now a Superior Court judge will decide if the agency is entitled to the property, and, if the judge rules in the train's favor, a trail will determine the fair market value due to the owner. Sacramento Voters Reject Streetcar Plan Advocates for a new streetcar line in downtown Sacramento suffered  defeat  when a small group of voters in the surrounding neighborhood rejected plans to create a $30 million streetcar tax district to help finance the project. Property owners had formerly expressed enthusiasm for the project, with sixty-eight percent approving the idea to finance the $150 million plan. But with both renters and owners opining in the most recent vote, that number skewed to 52 percent voting no. Advocates have stated that they will not give up the quest to build the 3.3-mile system, though they have no Plan B to grab the necessary funding for the project. The city of West Sacramento has already agreed to put in $25 million, and the federal government has agreed to finance half the project, though that money could disappear if local officials can't nail down the other $75 million. Bay Area Bike Share to Expand The Bay Area Metropolitan Transportation Commission approved a plan to expand the Bay Area's bike share program tenfold, spanning eight cities and making it the second-largest program in the nation. The plan would expand San Francisco's fleet from 328 to 4,500 bikes and San Jose's from 129 to 1,000. It also would bring the bikes to the East Bay cities of Oakland, Emeryville, and Berkeley for the first time. MTC has committed $4.5 million in capital costs to expand the program to emerging communities, and the expansion comes free to taxpayers as the costs are paid off by memberships.  Sacramento Region Initiates Marketing Partnership A group of 15 communities in the Sacramento region agreed to an economic marketing partnership in an attempt to draw business to the region. Under the auspices of the nonprofit Greater Sacramento Area Economic Council, the group developed a process for promoting residential and commercial real estate and other assets that would appeal to companies considering a relocation or expansion. Additionally, if a company seeking relocation decided that a certain community wasn't the right one for relocation, officials from that area would help the company find a proper fit elsewhere in the region. In return, that community would be given an opportunity to help design the Greater Sacramento's regional marketing plan. "I think it will certainly open up more much more incentive -- if we cannot accommodate a company's needs -- to ensure they will find an option within the region," City of Woodland community development director Ken Hiatt told the Sacramento Business Journal. S.F. Supervisor Seeks to Undo Giants' Stadium-Area Plan San Francisco's Supervisor Jane Kim is gearing up for a battle with the San Francisco Giants on the November ballot, proposing a building height limit and affordable housing amendment that flies in the face of the Giants' long-planned development just south of AT&T Park. The Giants are paying for the project, but under Proposition B, which requires voter approval of any development on port property exceeding current height limits, they decided to put the 28-acre mixed use development on the November ballot.  The Giants' proposal includes buildings that reach 240 feet, and they have committed to making 33 percent of the 1,500 units "affordable," which they define as families earning up to 140 percent of the area median income, or $122,000 per year. Kim's proposal would cap the height limit at 120 feet and require half of the residential units to be dedicated to affordable housing. "It's kind of like a wild pitch from a pretty good player," former Mayor Art Agnos said of Kim in the San Francisco Chronicl e. "It flies in the face of progress we have made on affordable housing in the southeast waterfront." Rick Cole Named Santa Monica City Manager Rick Cole, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti's deputy mayor and top aide on budget issues, is stepping down from his post to become city manager of Santa Monica. Becoming the third deputy mayor to leave the offce in recent months, Cole said that he had expected to stay with Garcetti until the end of his administration but found that the city manager position was too good to pass up, partly because of the coming arrival of the Expo light-rail line with its terminus near the Third Street Promenade. He told the Los Angeles Times that Santa Monica is "a progressive city. It's a well-run city. It has the resources to do some incredible things. And with the coming of the Expo line, it's got some once-in-a-lifetime opportunities." Cole was city manger of Ventura while CP&DR Publisher Bill Fulton was mayor.  Desalination Plant Seeks to Fast-Track Coastal Commission Review California American Water is asking permission to take its Monterey Peninsula desalination project past local cities directly to the state Coastal Commission for a necessary permit, but one local city is putting the brakes on the proposal. Cal Am claims that bypassing the cities could save up to four months in time that it calls "critical" because of "severe restraints" that the state-ordered cutback in pumping from the Carmel River will have on the Peninsula's water supply and its economy. But the city of Marina's mayor, Bruce Delgado, said that he doubted that the city would surrender its oversight of the project, seeing parallels to an early test well project for Cal Am, which the city declined to approve until a full environmental impact report was produced. Poll: Support Wanes for �Split-Roll' Prop. 13 Reform A new poll shows that taxpayer support for removing commercial properties from tax limits imposed by Proposition 13 has dwindled. Proposition 13, the 1978 landmark property tax initiative, limited annual property taxes to 1% of the appraised property value and prohibited counties from increasing a property assessment more than 2% a year. Under the measure, property can be reassessed only after a change in ownership.  The proposal to change Proposition 13 would require the regular reassessment of commercial properties while keeping tax protections for residences in place. In January 2012, 60 percent of California voters favored the changes. Now only 50 percent do, and the results show a partisan divide, with Democrats favoring changes and Republicans in opposition. Unions and grass-roots organizations are considering offering statewide ballot measures amending Proposition 13 along with Proposition 30 to extend a tax increase passed in 2012. Group Sues Over Diversion of Bay-Delta Waters An environmental group has sued the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and the State Water Resources Control Board, accusing them of violating environmental laws by divvying up too much water for agriculture throughout the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers. The lawsuit, brought by the California Sportfishing Protection Association and others, alleges that excess diversions of waterways have brought the Delta smelt to near extinction. It also alleges that 95 percent of recent generations of Chinook salmon are dying in the waterways, as agencies of skewing water distribution heavily toward farmers over delta residents, fisherman, and wildlife. Officials have said they expect to order further water cuts by farmers and others in coming days.

To address the state's intensifying homelessness crisis, state senators proposed a $2 billion bill to help provide up to 14,000 units of permanent housing for the state's mentally ill homeless population. California has roughly 116,000 homeless people. The monies, to be raised as bonds, would be repaid over 20 to 30 years with money from the tax for mental health services approved in 2004 (Proposition 63). Backers of the bill say they hope that state funds will encourage local governments to address their respective homelessness problems. The Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de Le'n also proposed $200 million from the state's general fund to assist with rent subsidies until the new housing projects are completed. A spokeswoman for Gov. Jerry Brown said, "the administration is supportive of efforts to empower local governments to tackle homelessness, poverty, and mental health issues in our communities and we will take a close look at the proposals in this package." Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said that he embraces more state funding, while others criticized the proposal for not allowing local leaders to make financial decisions. Group Files Pair of Suits Against Warriors' Arena A citizens group called the Mission Bay Alliance recently filed suit to halt the development of The Golden State Warriors proposed $1 billion arena in San Francisco's Mission Bay. The arena was recently approved unanimously by the Board of Supervisors.  Parents fear that game time traffic to the Warriors arena, located 1,000 feet from UCSF Children's Hospital, could block life-saving care. The lawsuit argues that the plan violates California Environmental Quality Act for failing to consider other locations and for causing significant, air quality, noise, and traffic impacts. It also claims that the area plan violates a 1998 redevelopment plan, which, they say, does not include a sports arena. A separate suit filed by the group argues that UCSF Chancellor Sam Hawgood signed memorandum supporting the project without authorization from the UC Board of Regents. Sacramento Considers Rails-to-Trails Greenway            Sacramento officials are advancing a proposal for a defunct railroad right of way in the southwestern part of the city to be converted into a 4.5-mile long paved trail for bikes and pedestrians. Dubbed the Del Rio Trail, the project is currently in the planning stages and estimated to cost $17 million; the city recently received a $2.2 million grant from the Sacramento Area Council of Governments for environmental studies and other preliminary work. Supporters hope it will not only provide recreational space but also become an alternative route for commuters heading into downtown Sacramento. Residents surrounding the right of way, unused since 1978, have expressed support for the proposal, although a few cite concerns about increase in visitors to the area. However, California Department of Parks and Recreation envisions an extension of the Old Sacramento tourist train from downtown Sacramento to the Zoo. There are currently various options and ideas being discussed, and the City will begin community and stakeholder meetings this year. Los Angeles Drafts Regional Strategy to Combat Homelessness The City of Los Angeles released a draft Homelessness Strategy Report, which backers say lays the foundation for a regional approach to addressing the chronic issue. The report calls for expanded staffing, services, rental subsidies, and permanent housing for the city's homeless residents. Its recommendations will guide the Mayor Eric Garcetti's and city council's short- and long-term homelessness policy decisions. The report also identifies potential funding streams and begins to estimate initial costs that will help inform the mayor's proposed 2016/2017 budget. The draft, which is designed to complement a strategy being issued by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, will be heard by the Homelessness and Poverty Committee on January 13, with a follow-up meeting later in the month. It is expected to be considered by the full City Council in February. Garcetti said in a statement that his three top priorities center on "scaling up the Coordinated Entry System; preventing people at-risk for homelessness from landing on the streets; and balancing health and safety concerns with the rights and needs of people who are living in unacceptable conditions." Gas Leak Prompts Proposal to Halt Annexations  Los Angeles city officials are considering placing a moratorium on annexations near Porter Ranch. Since October of last year a gas leak from Southern California Gas Company in Porter Ranch has caused residents to become sick and nauseous while releasing a torrent of greenhouse gases. The SoCal Gas has placed 2,258 people in temporary housing with an additional 3,168 in the placement process. The process has been slow and Los Angeles City Attorney Mike Feuer went to court to force SoCal Gas to speed up the relocation process. In response to the crisis, County Supervisor Michael Antonovich asked County Local Agency Formation Commission Director Novak for a temporary ban on annexing unincorporated county areas into the city if they surround Porter Ranch and Chatsworth. At least one project, 188-home development, is currently planned in the area.  LAFCO will consider the moratorium Jan. 13. San Jose Backs Off of Affordable Housing Fee San Jose has approved a fee on new residential projects to support affordable housing and recently discussed a similar fees on commercial developments. The city council voted 7-4 to postpone a nexus study necessary to the implementation of a fee on commercial developments. Citing his desire to support jobs and businesses, San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo voted against the study, telling the Silicon Valley Business Journal, "We're the only major city in the United States with a smaller daytime population than nighttime population." The city has a ratio of 0.84 jobs to employed residents, the lowest of any major city in the U.S. One supporter of the fee stated the vote was not on approving the fee on commercial development but only allowing the study to begin. Originally the motion would require the city to achieve a 1-to-1 ratio of jobs to employed residents before implementing the study. This language has been removed, which gives hope to Zwick and other housing advocates that in a few years this proposal will be discussed again. Three NFL Teams Officially Seek Move to L.A. Three National Football League teams have, after years of discussion and speculation, officially filed requests to move to the Los Angeles area. The Oakland Raiders have proposed a move to Carson while the San Diego Chargers and St. Louis Rams submitted papers asking for approval to move to Inglewood, where they would share a stadium. The applications will be reviewed by an NFL committee in New York before a presentation at an owners meeting in Houston. To move a team at least 24 of the 32 owners in the league must approve. CTC Awards $96 Million for Rail Projects Of this sum, the California Transportation Commission announced that it will allocate $96 million to three main rail projects. The first, with $53.4 million will lower Fullerton Road Grade Separation Project, a $145.2 million project in the City of Industry that is in its final engineering and design stages. The second project with $42.2 million will purchase eight new zero-emission light-rail trains for San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency. The last rail project is $1.7 million to the Los Angeles-San Diego-San Luis Obispo Rail Corridor Agency for a yearlong demonstration program for the Pacific Surfliner to connect with current transit service providers. The CTC has allocated an additional $1 million to the Capitol Corridor Joint Powers Authority for maintenance on its rail lines between Auburn and San Jose. These investments will improve aging infrastructure, alleviate traffic delays and promote biking, walking and public transportation.    Pershing Square Competition Names Finalists In Los Angeles an international design competition to pick the "redesign" of downtown's Pershing Square, long considered one of the worst public spaces in the United States, is down to four finalists. Sponsored by the nonprofit Pershing Square Renew, the competition began with hundreds of architects and designers. The jury, consisting of city officials, development experts, neighborhood stakeholders and the public, voted end of last year. The finalists, chosen from a short list of 10 teams, are SWA with Morphosis, James Corner Field Operations with Frederick Fisher & Partners, Agence TER with SALT Landscape Architects, and wHY with Civitas. Entrants were charged with redesigning the square to make it more friendly to pedestrians and to integrate it better with the surrounding high-density neighborhood. The winner will be announced in March. There is not yet a timeline or budget for build-out. Tribe Proposes Major Casino in Sacramento County In Sacramento County the Wilton Rancheria tribe has submitted documents to the Bureau of Indian Affairs for an environmental review for a 282-acre casino and hotel resort along Highway 99. The 700-person tribe proposes a development with 2,000 slot machines, 84 table games, and a 12-story, 302-room hotel. The tribe has six other proposals including a shopping center, if the gambling development does not get approved. A public hearing will be held January 29th in Galt.  However tribal chairman Raymond C. Hitchcock said the project will take many years to begin because of the many approvals with agencies, Sacramento County, the City of Galt, and an agreement with Gov. Brown. Coastal Commission Withdraws from Landfill Discussion In North San Diego County, a debate over the proposed Gregory Canyon Landfill is approaching an unexpected resolution . Though the site is 20 miles inland, the California Coastal Commission became involved in discussions because of a concern with contaminants flowing into the San Luis Rey River, wildlife, water supply and fish. Last month, the Commission withdrew its application in the debate and said "its initial concerns about the effects the proposed trash dump might have on the coast have been eased". The withdrawal is a victory for developers because of less permits required. However native tribes, city of Oceanside, and environmental groups are disappointed in the decision of the Commission.  Anti-Development Referendum Struck Down in Yuba County In Yuba County a petition  for a referendum to overturn approval of the Magnolia Ranch residential and commercial development has been rejected by the county clerk because of a lack of legally sufficient attachments made available to petition signers. The petition claims that Magnolia Ranch would use valuable agricultural land and harm their farming businesses. The referendum supporters received 3,344 signatures and a minimum of 1,242 are needed to rescind approval or call an election. The developers, CEM Investments, filed a formal complaint that the referendum supporters did not attach specific plan and project maps. The county counsel and county clerk agreed. Referendum leader Ernie Ehnisz said Hansen made a rushed decision and that opponents will go to Yuba County Superior Court. HSR Authority Names Contractor for Third Phase California High-Speed Rail Authority named Spanish construction company Ferrovial the winning bidder to construct 22 miles of the California High-Speed Rail. Ferrovial was the lowest bidder, costing $348 million for the job compared to the other three teams with bids between $377 and $582 million. The authority estimated bids for the contract would fall between $400-$500 million. This stretch would be the third section the High-Speed Rail Authority has contracted since 2013, and will begin north of the Tulare-Kings county line and continue south to Shafter.

Officials with the Imperial Irrigation District have proposed a smaller plan for restoration of the Salton Sea, reducing the cost from $9 billion to $3.15 billion. That money, gained through mitigation funds from companies that emit greenhouse gases and from a $7.5 billion water bond, would fund new, shovel-ready projects and geothermal energy development around California's largest lake, which is dying due to diversions and drought. "It's a bargain compared to $9 billion, which everyone agrees has only served to impede any real discussion about what to do," Kevin Kelley, the Imperial Irrigation District's general manager, said at a board meeting. Specifically, the plan calls for $150 million in immediate funding from the $7.5 billion water bond as a stop-gap measure while local officials develop a long-term plan. That money would pay for pilot projects designed to cover parts of the lakebed with small pools, which would suppress dust and provide habitats for fish and birds. Once a prime destination for outdoor recreation, the sea has been shrinking for 12 years because of a massive rural-to-urban water transfer deal in 2003. The decline could become a public health and environmental disaster costing as much as $70 billion if nothing is done to slow sea's degradation, according to the Pacific Institute. Cities Ask U.S. Supreme Court to Reconsider Plan to Save Santa Ana Sucker Fish Two cities and ten water agencies have  asked  the Supreme Court to take up a case against a plan by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to save the endangered Santa Ana sucker by designating critical habitats. The request comes on the heels of a Ninth Circuit Court ruling holding that federal agencies can unilaterally add land to Habitat Conservation Plans under the Endangered Species Act (see CP&DR coverage 29 June 2015). The cities and agencies argued that the designation would unfairly restrict water uses on the Santa Ana River, limiting the agencies' ability to recharge groundwater aquifers with captured runoff from rainstorms in those areas and flood control operations that affect more than 1 million Southern California residents. The designation of more than 9,000 acres of land -- particularly in the northern reaches in the 96-mile-long Santa Ana River watershed-- as critical habitat requires federal agencies such as the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to consult with the Fish and Wildlife Service before they carry out, fund or authorize any local action that could destroy or alter the habitat's functionality. The Santa Ana sucker, a five-inch-long bottom-feeder, was listed as a threatened species in 2000, and since then it numbers have continued to decline because of diversions, dams, erosions, pollution, and species invasion. Opponents of the expanded HCP have said that the designation does little to help the sucker's complex life cycle. Oakland Businesses Take Issue with Public Art Fee A business group in Oakland filed a lawsuit against the city contesting a development fee used to fund public art. The City Council approved the fee in November 2014 to require developers of projects costing more than $200,000 either to install public art on site or to devote one percent of a commercial project's budget to public art and one-half percent for residential projects, with the ordinance stating that public art is "important for the vitality of the artist community as well as the quality of life for all Oakland residents." The two plaintiffs, the Business Industry Association of the Bay Area and Pacific Legal Foundation, called the fee unconstitutional, saying that the requirements violate the Fifth Amendment's prohibition against "uncompensated takings" because funding art has no connection to the effects of development. "I would interpret this lawsuit as a preemptive strike against the current administration, with the goal of preventing the upcoming development fees from being too onerous," Alex Ludlum, a land associate at Polaris Pacific who works with developers to identify building sites in Oakland, told the San Francisco Business Times . Feinstein Introduces Federal Proposal for Drought Relief Sen. Dianne Feinstein unveiled legislation to combat California's water crisis, introducing a $1.3 billion proposal for water storage, desalination, and other projects that will likely come into conflict with a rival proposal in the GOP-controlled House of Representatives. While the House's plan heavily favors San Joaquin Valley growers by rolling back environmental protections and pumping more water there, the two sides could come together over common provisions like storage projects and control of invasive predator species in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. Feinstein, who is known for deal-making and has connections to agribusiness, said she consulted with 12 environmental groups in crafting the bill after facing criticism last year from environmentalists who said that she failed to include them in negotiations with growers. Feinstein said her bill would not alter the Endangered Species Act, a key objection that environmentalists had to previous legislation."It's definitely a big boost in federal support. It's almost 10 times more than what the feds have provided so far, which is not a lot," Ellen Hanak, a senior fellow at the  Public Policy Institute of California and director of its Water Policy Institute, told the L.A. Times . Comment Period Closes on S.F. Arena EIR A proposed Golden State Warriors arena in San Francisco's Mission Bay is making progress as the ownership closed public comment on its draft Environmental Impact Report and gained the endorsement of a key medical center nearby. Despite the fact that the project will have significant, unmitigable impacts on traffic in areas like the Bay Bridge and as many as 11 key intersections in the South of Market, the University of California, San Francisco endorsed the project under the condition that the city negotiate a traffic "trigger" mechanism that would kick in during large dual or overlapping events. UCSF, which owns a six-story hospital complex across the street from the project, said that the Warriors' plan to beef up public transit and funnel arena-bound cars onto certain streets and hospital vehicles onto others created a workable plan, so long as the trigger mechanisms lead to a plan that will make the hospital accessible at all times. A powerful coalition of opponents of the project, known as the Mission Bay Alliance, said that the project is "fatally flawed," and that its effects on neighborhoods and traffic would "threaten patient access to lifesaving care and be a disaster for the Mission Bay neighborhood, the hospitals and city as a whole," as Bruce Spaulding of the Mission Bay Alliance told the S.F. Chronicle . Poor Air Quality Plagues California National Parks A new report by a national conservation group gives a handful of California's national parks an 'F' grade for pollution based on air quality, visibility, and climate change. The National Parks Conservation Association flunked Sequoia, Kings Canyon, Joshua Tree and Yosemite for routinely having unhealthful levels of ozone -- a lung-damaging pollutant in smog -- during the summer season, with the air quality at Sequoia and Kings Canyon rated worst in the nation as haze blocked 50 miles of scenery on average at the two parks. While levels of ozone within cities have tapered off dramatically in decades because of new regulations, parks face a different challenge as the ozone can be pushed by the wind over long distances and into high-elevation areas far from major pollution sources. The conservation group recommended strengthening federal regulation of the EPA's regional haze rule, wherein states must restore the clarity of more than 150 national parks and wilderness areas to natural levels by 2064. Many parks are off-track by several decades, including Joshua Tree, where natural visibility is not expected to be achieved until 2106. SPUR Recommends Strategy for Downtown San Jose Bay Area urban think tank SPUR released six recommendations for revitalizing downtown San Jose as a city center with people who live and work in walkable, livable neighborhoods. Citing decades of investment and trends of youths working and living in urban centers, SPUR consolidated six ideas to bring more people to downtown San Jose: welcoming all uses of space while holding out for jobs near regional transit, making sure that developers follow key urban design principles, promoting a larger area of Central San Jose with downtown as the core, making the area easier to get around without a car via public transportation, retrofitting the area to be more pedestrian-oriented through placemaking and road redesigns, and building downtown as a cultural and creative center of the South Bay. Transportation Connections Considered for Burbank's Bob Hope Airport A new study outlines potential transportation improvements to improve traffic congestion and air quality at Bob Hope Airport as it hopes to begin extensive improvements, replacing a terminal and building a high-speed rail station at the airport. The study, paid for mosty by a $5.4 million federal grant, found that the airport is ideally situated to be the "epicenter for multi-modal connectivity for the San Fernando Valley," but that it has a lack of direct connection to Metro trains, bus or light rail, and about three-fourths of airport employees and passengers drive their own vehicles to the airport. A 58-acre airport-owned property is currently being marketed for sale, hopefully making room to fund short-term improvements like increasing frequency of Metrolink trains serving the airport along with longer-term improvements like an extension of the Metro Red Line, which could likely come 20-30 years down the road. Carlsbad Plan May Be Retooled in Favor of Cars The Carlsbad Planning Commission recently approved an update eight years in the making to the city's 1994 General Plan, with a caveat. The commission forward the plan to the City Council with the recommendation that the council adjust it it to better accommodate car mobility and reduce housing estimates in its northeast quadrant. In particular, the Planning Commission took issue with the mobility section of the plan, which emphasized pedestrian- and bike-friendly streets in compliance with California's Complete Streets Act of 2008. "I'm tired of hearing about how everything is about the bikes," Commission Chairwoman Victoria Scully said at the meeting. "We need to keep these major streets a priority for the cars." Explaining that aspect of the update, city traffic engineer Doug Bilse said that the city had to stress additional roadway safety in lieu of driving efficiency in making car lanes smaller while widening bike lanes. L.A. Metro Considers New Relationship with Developers Los Angeles's Metropolitan Transportation Authority has proposed changes to its Joint Development Policy concerning the way that the agency partners with developers for development of project on the land it owns. Mostly including provisions regarding affordable housing, the proposed update increases from 31 percent to 35 percent the amount of joint development housing that would be affordable. It also would discount the price of Metro-owned land for a developer willing to build affordable housing up to a maximum of 30 percent equal to the percentage of affordable housing developed. Additionally, it would place emphasis on projects that would provide first/last mile facilities like walkways and bike parking. Hermosa Beach Announces Plans to Go Carbon-Neutral The Los Angeles County beach city of Hermosa Beach released plans for reducing greenhouse gas emissions to become carbon neutral by 2020. Specifically, the city has implemented a new app by consultant Brendle Group that can calculate the carbon output of every bit of energy the city consumes. It then plans to identify some of the cheapest, quickest routes to reducing carbon output -- including replacing all streetlights and lighting in city facilities -- to get started. The City Council also allocated $50,000 to invest in electric vehicles for parking-enforcement officers and staffers who carpool to office, a chunk of around $420,000 in carbon offsets the city would need to buy in order to become carbon neutral by 2020. "The South Bay is becoming a model for working together to create and implement programs to address greenhouse gas emissions and resource conservation," South Bay Cities Council of Governments Executive Director Jackie Bacharach told the  Daily Breeze .  L.A. Officials Want to Reopen Historic Funicular Calls are growing for the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority Board to reopen the Angels Flight funicular, a 298-foot transportation system akin to an uphill streetcar ride between Bunker Hill and Downtown that has been shut down since 2013 because of safety issues. Seeing the system as a vital historical landmark as well as a valid form of transportation, downtown business and cultural leaders urged Metro to help fund the reopening, saying that the 50-cent fares provide an important connection between the Historic Core and Bunker Hill. Advocates say that the Metro could easily make room in its budget for the funicular's $360,000 annual operating costs. The transportation system has been variedly shut down and reopened over the past several decades. In one accident in 2001, one of the rail cars careened down from the hill and killed and 83-year-old tourist. A National Transportation Safety Board investigation following a 2013 derailment found that the operators had been using a small tree branch to override the train's emergency stop settings.

Defending a federal agency's discretionary authority, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on December 22 upheld a 2009 restriction on water pumping meant to protect chinook salmon and other fish in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. The ruling was a victory for the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) and other federal agencies, and for environmental groups backing the federal position. It was a defeat for Southern California water agencies that had challenged the restriction, including the San Luis & Delta-Mendota Water Authority, Westlands Water District, Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, Kern County Water Agency and State Water Contractors, backed by the California Department of Water Resources as intervenor. Judge Richard Tallman issued a ruminative, painstakingly illustrated and contextualized opinion . It quoted John Steinbeck's East of Eden on the heartbreaking effects of dry conditions in California farm country, yet concluded: "People need water, but so do fish." Tallman was joined by the other members of the three-judge panel: Judge Johnnie Rawlinson and temporarily sitting district judge Thomas Rice. As the opinion's first footnote explains, the ruling was separate from, but "informed" by, the Delta Smelt opinion issued earlier this year by Judge Jay Bybee in San Luis & Delta Mendota Water Auth. v. Jewell , 747 F.3d 581 (9th Cir. 2014). That ruling also emphasized deference to agency discretion in reaching scientific conclusions. (See http://www.cp-dr.com/articles/node-3448.) The two opinions had one panel member, Judge Rawlinson, in common. The L.A. Times ' Bettina Boxall has more details , including suggestions that the recent opinion was an unsurprising sequel to the Delta Smelt opinion and that, although some of the water agencies have sought review of the smelt opinion by the U.S. Supreme Court, the high court is unlikely to take up the matter. The case is San Luis & Delta-Mendota Water Authority v. Locke . Bills Effective January 1, 2015: a Rundown of Rundowns It's surprisingly tough to find a public list of all new laws taking effect January 1, 2015, or of all those affecting land use. Local papers will offer grab bags of important new provisions on drivers' licenses, drug sentencing, sick leave, and prevention of cruelty to interns. But about land use? Here are some sources: The League of California Cities' 2014 Legislative Report provides a 208-page description of new statutes relevant to city officials, placed in the League's context, as of November 2014. All bill texts and histories can be found on the Legislature's official site , and laws likely to take effect January 1, 2015 can be found by searching for bills from the 2013-14 session bearing the 2014 statute year . Unless another date is specified in its text, a new law is likely, but not certain , to take effect on the January 1 following its enactment. The Littler employer-side law firm reports Governor Jerry Brown received 1,073 bills from the Legislature and signed 931 in 2014. For new laws specific to land use, many that were in the last crop to win approval are in CP&DR's own summary of the Governor's late-September signing decisions affecting California land use, and in Governor Brown's September signing and veto announcements . Another important land use law collection, excerpted as part of the CP&DR summary, is the "Greatest Hits" list prepared by the Senate Committee on Governance and Finance. It shows the whole year's complement of major bills handled by that committee. Among other legislative tallies, the Housing California list shows fates of bills affecting homelessness, housing funding, and landlord-tenant relations. (Per apparent error, that site shows AB 1537 , on default housing densities in Marin County, as having been vetoed. In fact that bill was signed into law.) Some bills from 2014 are already in effect -- notably the June budget bills, which enacted policy legislation as well as spending decisions. For example, SB 861 imposed new safety and cleanup rules on the petroleum industry and gave the Coastal Commission's staff new enforcement authority to impose fines administratively. SB 862 extensively redistributed the state's cap-and-trade revenues and created the new Affordable Housing and Sustainable Communities cap-and-trade program. (The Governor's signing announcement on the June budget bills lists the rest of the bill numbers.) Phase-in provisions apply in some cases, e.g. the SB 270 statewide ban on single-use plastic carryout bags has phase-in dates running from January 1, 2015 to as late as 2020. Plastic Bag Promoters File Signatures to Challenge Statewide Ban Opponents of recently enacted SB 270 said they had submitted more than enough signatures December 29 to qualify a statewide ballot challenge against California's new ban on single-use plastic bags. The petition's sponsors, the American Progressive Bag Alliance, had to collect at least 504,760 California voters' signatures to qualify the measure. The Sacramento Bee reported the group claimed more than 800,000 signatures. County elections officials have eight days from submission of the signatures to verify them. The League of California Cities wrote that if the measure qualified it would prevent implementation of SB 270 until a statewide election in 2016. The Sacramento Business Journal reported earlier that the chief funder of the campaign was bag manufacturer Hilex Poly. SB 270 passed the Legislature in August after fierce multimedia and legislative lobbying and a last-minute reversal by the United Food and Commercial Workers (see http://www.cp-dr.com/articles/node-3564 ). Many localities have created their own plastic bag restrictions, in part because SB 270 has a grandfather clause for existing local laws on the subject. Governor Jerry Brown delayed signing the bill until September 30 but signed it with a high-visibility statement announcing the first statewide ban of its kind. Kruger Confirmed to State Supreme Court Leondra Kruger , a respected litigator for the U.S. Justice Department who has argued a dozen cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, was confirmed to serve on the California State Supreme Court by the state Commission on Judicial Appointments. The Sacramento Bee described the commission's review as a "brief, friendly hearing" though it did include a query from Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye regarding her limited practice experience in California. A Month for Large Projects The news this month was thick with major construction plans, largely residential, in and around California urban areas. A few of the stories: Oakland's Brooklyn Basin project , with 3100 units, is about to start construction. (Via CACities) CSU-Sacramento is working with developer Westpark Communities to revive plans for a satellite campus at Placer Ranch north of Roseville. SPUR and Socketsite were celebrating the findings of a San Francisco municipal report saying more than 50,000 units of new housing, in 958 different projects, were in the "pipeline" for future construction in the city. L.A. Curbed reported on a plan "to turn Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza into a 24-hour community" including 961 residential units and a hotel. In the city of Alhambra, a former Mervyn's department store is headed for replacement by a mixed-use complex with extensive retail and 260 luxury housing units . The ARTIC transportation hub in Anaheim -- not residential, but legitimately huge -- opened in early December . Meanwhile, some current uses are being pushed to peripheries. The Sacramento Bee followed some of the low-income, troubled tenants being evicted from the downtown Hotel Marshall through their efforts to find and keep new housing. The paper reported the building was to be replaced by a market-rate hotel.

Two environmental groups have sued the U.S. Bureau of Land Management and the Secretary of the Interior for opening up 400,000 acres of public land in Southern California for fracking, which they claim violates the National Environmental Policy Act.  The groups, The Center for Biological Diversity and Los Padres Forestwatch, claim that the federal government's environmental report erroneously analyzed impacts to air quality by assuming that only 40 new wells will be drilled each year, though the plan estimates that 4,000 wells will be drilled in the plan's lifetime. The suit alleges  that fracking, which involves high-pressure injection of water and chemicals into shale rock to fracture the formations and extract oil and gas, pollutes groundwater and can cause earthquakes. California's oil producers are increasingly turning to fracturing to extract oil, with Kern County containing 2,361 fracked wells in 2014 and Ventura County containing 456 of them, according to the lawsuit. San Diego Loses Ground in Effort to Keep Chargers Possibly undermining months of work to create a viable proposal for a new pro football stadium in San Diego, the San Diego Chargers issued a statement that a Dec. 15 public vote on a new stadium would be impossible because the city won't be able to craft a legally defensible Environmental Impact Report within that time.  "The various options that we have explored with the city's experts all lead to the same result: Significant time-consuming litigation founded on multiple legal challenges, followed by a high risk of eventual defeat in the courts," Chargers' special counsel Mark Fabiani said in a statement.  The timing of the vote is important because the NFL could move a team to Los Angeles by 2016, and city officials have emphasized that they could indeed meet the Dec. 15 deadline, but that the Chargers have been unwilling to play ball. "It appears the Chargers have pulled the plug on San Diego even though the city and county have gone out of their way to try and accommodate the team," Mayor Kevin Faulconer's Task Force spokesman Tony Manolatos told the Union-Tribune . "Instead of working collaboratively on a solution, the Chargers have thrown up one road block after another in San Diego while working aggressively on stadium plans in Carson." Santa Ana Considers Downtown �Wellness District' The Santa Ana City Council took a step to establishing a "wellness district" for the preservation of Latino commerce in the city's downtown, voting to begin drafting a resolution and figuring out how much it will cost to implement. Supporters cite a study last year by The California Endowment that said the city could bring in an additional $137 million in spending to the downtown by bringing back Latino customers who, despite living so close to the downtown, have been lost to big-box retailers. Among the proposals aimed at promoting community wellness and supporting local vendors, the council vote directs city staff to draft an implementation plan for branding Fourth Street as "Calle Cuatro," supporting the creation of microfarms and a mercadito, and creating a community advisory committee on economic development. L.A. Considers Legalization of Street Vending; Curbs on Homeless Encampments The Los Angeles City Council passed a preliminary measure that would make it easier for law enforcement to break down the city's homeless encampments by reducing the amount of warning time that homeless people are given before authorities seize their belongings from public sidewalks and parks.  The measure would reduce the warning time to 24 hours from 72 hours, and it would also allow authorities to seize bulky items like couches, tables and larger tents -- anything that won't fit in the city's 60-gallon trash bins -- without notice. Through the ordinance, the city would store the belongings for 90 days in a skid row warehouse, complying with a court injunction from 2012 barring the city from seizing and immediately destroying homeless people's unattended property. "We spend $100 million on homelessness, and 85% of our response is law enforcement," Councilman Gil Cedillo, who cast the sole dissenting vote, told the L.A. Times . "That tells us our strategy is not working." The Los Angeles City Council is also weighing whether or not to legalize street vending , possibly becoming the biggest city next to New York to have a legal street vending program. Southern California Public Radio took a look at cities in the LA metropolitan area where it is already legal for policy comparisons. SPCR finds that some vendors hop over to Pasadena, pay about $400 a year in city fees, and obtain a city permit to stay in the lucrative market. Additionally, Santa Ana allows up to 200 pushcart vendors to legally operate, but they must remain mobile. L.A. Mayor Garcetti Co-Launches National 'Climate Action Agenda' Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti announced that the Mayors National Climate Action Agenda, an organization he co-founded with Mayor Michael Nutter of Philadelphia and Mayor Annise Parker of Houston, has called on President Obama to fight for the strongest possible climate agreement at the upcoming 21st Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP21) in Paris. The nationwide coalition of mayors also announced that 27 mayors from across the country have signed on to support the President and the U.S. delegation in Paris in pushing for strong action on climate change. Other California members of the organization include the mayors of Berkeley, Oakland, San Francisco, San Jose, and Santa Monica.  S.F. Giants Revise Housing Plan; Downtown S.F. Towers Face Opposition The San Francisco Giants have revised plans for a large mixed-use project next to AT&T Park to include an unprecedented amount of affordable housing, garnering the endorsement of all 11 supervisors and prompting Supervisor Jane Kim to withdraw her threat to draw up a countermeasure lowering allowed building heights and require half of all residential units to be designated affordable. Kim's opposition had drawn scorn from fellow supervisors who had worked on the deal with the Giants. The new proposal for the 28-acre project built on land controlled by the Port of San Francisco will include 40 percent of its 1,500 apartments priced to various levels of affordability, with 12 percent available for people making $32,000 to $39,000, 21 percent for people making $64,200 to $85,000 and 7 percent for people making $108,000. Community organizers are gearing up for two battles over plans for high-rises near San Francisco's waterfront, with former mayor Art Agnos rallying neighbors of the 160 Folsom and 75 Howard developments to oppose them based on the shadows the buildings would throw on nearby Rincon Park. 160 Folsom is set to be designed by architect Jeanne Gang with a twisting, staggered condo tower reaching up 400 feet, 100 feet higher than the limit and requiring an amendment to the Redevelopment Plan for the Transbay Project Area. Backed by developer Tishman Speyer, the full version would contain 399 condos, 141 of which-- roughly 35 percent -- would be below market rate, and a reduced version would stay within the 300-foot limit and include 318 units. Opponents of the tower have referred to it as a "wall on the waterfront." Meanwhile, the 75 Howard development hasn't been able to get community support for its project, even after offering additional affordable housing and offering to reduce its tower height to 220 feet.  Anaheim Approves Controversial Hotel Tax Break In an attempt to attract larger conventions and high-spending tourists to the city, the Anaheim City Council passed a tax break projected to be around $133 million for developers wanting to build luxury resorts there. Under the plan, developers of hotels that meet AAA's guidelines for four-diamond ratings would get to keep 70 percent of their bed taxes for up to 20 years. Of the remainder, 10 percent of the taxes would go to city coffers, while 20 percent would pay off bonds that funded improvements to Anaheim's city resort district in 1996. Mayor Tom Tait, an opponent of the measure, said that room taxes, which account for nearly half of the general fund's revenue, would be kept by hotel developers rather than going back to Anaheim's coffers to help pay for city services. "We are giving checks to hotel developers, but we have better needs for our money," Tait said at the Council meeting, according to the O.C. Register . San Diego Gives Boost to Recreational Area The San Diego City Council helped solidify plans for a 55-mile hiking and bicycling route on a "coast to crest trail" from Del Mar to Julian by approving a new 50-year agreement to continue jointly funding the project with the county and four North County cities.  San Diego officials had previously threatened to stop participating in the San Dieguito River Park Joint Powers Authority, but following a long list of policy changes primarily related to control over the park's financial decisions, the city agreed to a pact along with Escondido, Poway, Solana Beach, and Del Mar. Since the formation of the JPA in 1989, 34 of the park's planned 55 miles have already been acquired and preserved. Navy Plans $1 Billion Campus in Imperial Beach The Navy issued its record of decision to relocate its Coronado-based Navy SEAL command center from Coronado Island to a 600-acre, $1 billion campus along the Silver Strand near Imperial Beach.  SEAL officials have said their current World War II-era buildings are mostly obsolete and force them too often to train away from home, on top of frequent deployments. Built over a decade at a cost of $700 million for new buildings and $300 million for infrastructure improvements, the new project has prompted concern among nearby residents and those interested in birds and plants there. Tesla Expands Presence in East Bay Tesla Motors Inc. closed a deal leasing the Page Technology Center in Fremont, absorbing the last remaining vacancy related to the implosion of solar panel-maker Solyndra in 2011 and beginning its biggest expansion in Northern California since it leased a 431,000-square-foot former Chrysler assembly plant in Lathrop last year. The deal will aid Tesla's manufacturing sector as it preps to start deliveries of its Model X crossover in 2017. Tesla's and other companies' new leases in Fremont have driven the city's industrial vacancy rate down from 5 percent at the end of the first quarter to 2.1 percent, Cushman & Wakefield analyst Sethena Leiker told the San Francisco Business Times .

Following the announcement two weeks ago of the finalists for $120 million worth of grants through the Affordable Housing and Sustainable Communities grant program, two metropolitan planning organizations in southern California are calling foul. The five-county region covered by the Southern California Association of Governments, by far the largest metropolitan planning organization in the state, had only 12 of 54 finalists. By contrast, Alameda County alone had eight finalists.  Darrell Johnson, CEO of the Orange County Transportation Authority, and SCAG President Carl Morehouse both wrote letters ( here and here , via CALCOG) to officials at the Strategic Growth Council decrying what they call a selection process that unfairly allocates AHSC funds. "It is unclear how the process for selection on the next step is reasonable or consistent with the legislative intent of the authorizing legislation," wrote Morehouse. He called for SGC to accept full proposals from some of the applicants that had been rejected. Meanwhile, Johnson contended that the grant guidelines inappropriately excluded a streetcar project in Santa Ana that is one of OCTA's high-priority projects. Assuming that the selection process goes forward as planned, SGC and its partner department, Housing and Community Development, may revisit guidelines and consider geographic apportionment for the 2016 grant process. New L.A. City Health Element Uses Planning to Reduce Health Disparities Los Angeles officials have adopted new planning guidelines to reduce sharp health disparities across the city. A joint effort between the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, the city's Planning Commission and the California Endowment, the new guidelines include such goals as ensuring 75 percent of all residents are within a quarter of a mile of a park, increasing the number of Angelenos who live within a mile of a farmers market, and improving access to grocery stores. With a city analysis showing that Brentwood resident live 12 years longer than Watts residents, and more than 30 percent of children in South L.A. and Boyle Heights are obese, the guidelines seek to establish targets not traditionally part of health policy. "The built environment has an enormous impact on health," Beatriz Solis, director of the California Endowment's Healthy Communities program for the Southern Region, told the  Los Angeles Times . Report Calls for Orange County to Build More Housing Orange County needs to embrace mixed-use and infill development to fill a desperate housing shortage, according to a new report from the Orange County Business Council. The county today faces a shortage of 62,000 homes; that could increase to 100,000 by 2040 according to job and housing projections. However, there also is no longer enough open land to build more single-family homes.  The housing shortage stunts growth in the county as workers and potential residents are crowded out, according to economist Esmael Adibi. Orange County has already seen its age 25-to-34 population shrink 7 percent over the last 15 years, and nearly 40 percent of workers there commute more than an hour a day. "Everything else being equal, housing costs are a major, major factor to slowing down growth," Adibi told the Los Angeles Times . Monterey County Offers Downtown Vibrancy Grants Monterey County is offering its cities a matching grant of up to $10,000 to work with a consultant in revitalizing and energizing their downtown areas. Funding for the project comes from money the county expects to save from the consolidation of Salinas-area office leases into the recently purchased Schilling Place office complex in South Salinas to help local cities boost their downtown cores. Specializing in downtown retrofitting through zoning an code changes, the consultant, Miami-based Dover, Kohl & Partners, is already working in Monterey County with the city of Fort Ord in a broad urban redesign. Seeing the opportunity of having a big-name consultant in town, Supervisor Jane Parker formed the proposal. "Word is starting to get out and because of Dover Kohl being here, it kind of shined the spotlight and made it more concrete for people. My thought was, �Let's take advantage of a world-class team being in town,'" Parker told the Monterey Herald . L.A. Transportation Authority, Don Shoup Win American Planning Assoc. National Award The Los Angeles Metropolitan Transportation Authority has received the American Planning Association's National Planning Excellence Award for a Best Practice for its First Last Mile Strategic Plan & Planning Guidelines. The guidelines to improve Los Angeles's first and last mile transportation connectivity, providing a toolbox for localities to build support and resources for developing active transportation infrastructure like sidewalks, protected bike lanes, and clear signage directing users to regional transit hubs. Planners say that public support for the program has been strong because of the simplicity and clarity of the guidelines, which use infographics and imagery instead of complicated and overly technical planning jargon to convey the benefits of a multi-modal system. Meanwhile, UCLA Professor of Planning and "parking guru" Donald Shoup has been named the recipient of the National Planning Excellence Award for a Planning Pioneer; see last week's CP&DR briefs for a note about Shoup's retirement. The awards will be given out at the APA conference in Seattle in late April.  S.F. Think Tank Calls for Seamless Transit A new report by urban think tank SPUR calls for the creation of an integrated transit system in the Bay Area that would make it easier for riders to navigate the labyrinthine transit systems there. The report, titled "Seamless Transit," says that the Bay Area's myriad transit authorities, divergent maps, schedules, fares, and uncoordinated capital planning and investment has made the the system less efficient and less usable. SPUR suggests helping travelers use transit by coordinating marketing and transit information by creating a common regional transit map, standardizing fares, and creating regional passes. L.A. to Spend $1.3 Billion to Fix Sidewalks In a landmark agreement, Los Angeles is  pledging  to spend over $1.3 billion over the next three decades to fix its massive backlog of broken sidewalks and other infrastructure issues in compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act. In the agreement following a lawsuit filed by attorneys for the disabled, the city must spend $31 million annually on sidewalk and other improvements beginning in the next budget year, then increasing to $63 million in future years to adjust for rising costs. The city said that it plans to start by repairing sidewalks around parks, and in areas that are heavily trafficked, close to hospitals or workplaces, or that are requested by people with mobility challenges. It's unclear whether the promised money will completely eliminate the backlog, as about 40 percent of city sidewalks need repairs according to the Bureau of Street Services. The city has not identified any new funding sources for the settlement. Oakland Clears Path for Coliseum City Development By certifying the environmental impact report and voting to accept a specific rezoning plan, the Oakland City Council cleared a path for the Oakland Raiders or other developers to step forward and commit to its new Coliseum City proposal. The approval shows the council's optimal vision for the site: Three new sports venues, 5,750 homes and nearly 8 million square feet of urban retail and office space with convenient access to BART and the highway. However, Oakland's sports teams have shown tepid interest at best, with the Raiders pursuing a joint venture in Los Angeles and the Oakland A's and Golden State Warriors showing no interest. Fruition of the project is highly contingent upon the interest of at least one sports team in moving there. Officials are also not sure how the public could pay for more than $100 million in new streets, utilities and other infrastructure improvements that would be needed to build the homes, offices and shops for the multibillion project.

Sen. Diane Feinstein sent a letter to President Obama asking him to bypass Congress and designate over one million acres of land between Palm Springs and the Nevada border as national monuments under the 1906 Antiquities Act. Two bills previously sponsored by Feinstein to protect the area over the past six years have languished. In her request to President Obama, Feinstein asked that he create three monuments: one, to be called the Mojave Trails National Monument, would cover 921,000 acres of federal land along Route 66 between Ludlow and Needles; another, called the Sand to Snow National Monument, would take 135,000 acres of land between Joshua Tree National Park and the San Bernardino National Forest and protect 24 miles of the Pacific Crest Trail; the last, Castle Mountains National Monument, would include the historic mining town of Hart near the Mojave National Preserve. Feinstein was encouraged to seek presidential action by conservation groups including The Wildlands Conservancy, the Sierra Club, Defenders of Wildlife, the Center for Biological Diversity, the Mojave Desert Lands Trust and Friends of the Desert Mountains. Map Tracks Gentrification in Bay Area UC Berkeley researchers have created an interactive Urban Displacement Project map showing that the Bay Area's transformation into an exclusive high-income community that pushes out its low-income residents is only just beginning. Headed by UC Berkeley researcher Miriam Zuk and city and regional planning professor Karen Chapple and the product of nearly two years of community-engaged research looking at gentrification and displacement, the project found that in 2013, more than 53 percent of low-income households lived in neighborhoods at risk of or already experiencing displacement and gentrification pressures. Neighborhoods with rail stations, historic housing stock, an abundance of market-rate developments and rising housing prices are especially in danger of losing low-income households. It also finds that the most stable neighborhoods -- such as East Palo Alto, Marin City and San Francisco’s Chinatown -- have remained that way likely because of tenant protections, rent control, and strong community organizing. “Using our online map allows residents, neighborhood groups and governments to assess where their neighborhoods — or those next door — are in terms of the risk and actual occurrence of gentrification and displacement,” Zuk said in a statement. Light Rail Extension Opens in Sacramento Sacramento Regional Transit officially opened its 4.3-mile Blue Line light-rail extension connecting Cosumnes River College to other area campuses and offering south-county commuters an alternative to crowded Highway 99 and Interstate 5. Coming in about $10 million under the projected budget of $270 million, the extension links the rail line to Elk Grove's doorstep, and the college station includes a 2,000-spot parking garage shared by students and commuters. However, skeptical Elk Grove e-tran bus commuters say they have no intention of switching from buses to rail, saying that the trains will be inconvenient -- possibly taking longer than a typical drive to commute downtown -- and unsafe. However, Regional Transit’s security chief Norm Leong said that crime numbers are down on light-rail trains and at stations, totaling 39 thefts and robberies so far this year. High Speed Rail Targets More Properties for Eminent Domain The State Public Works Board has filed eminent domain resolutions for 12 more pieces of property along the high speed rail pathway in the San Joaquin Valley, bringing the total number filed to 270 since December 2013. Encompassing nearly 800 acres in the four county region of Fresno, Madera, Kings and Tulare counties, the board has been using eminent domain to condemn land when it and property owners cannot agree on price or terms. The resolution, encompassing 53 acres of land, will now go before a judge to decide whether the agency is entitled to the property, and then to a jury to decide the fair market value and other "just compensation" due to the owner. Residents Sue SF Over Flood Damage San Francisco residents affected by a December flood in the Mission District, Excelsior, and South of Market neighborhoods have filed a lawsuit against the city, saying that a lack of maintenance on storm drains and sewage systems led to property damage in those neighborhoods. Residents say that the city knew that repairs were necessary after paying out $5 million for a similar lawsuit stemming from 2003 and 2004 winter storms, but neglected to make needed repairs. The lawsuit alleges that the storms, which dropped 5 inches of rain in San Francisco, brought runoff that mixed with raw sewage and flowed into homes and businesses. It then alleges that Mayor Ed Lee told residents that the city was going to pay for damages, but the city then denied all claims filed. “My only conclusion as to why the city has failed to make good on its promises is because this problem does not exist in one of the more affluent neighborhoods of San Francisco,” the plaintiffs’ attorney, Mark Epstein, said in a statement. “My clients are your typical hardworking and honest property owners and renters and do not reside in the city’s Marina or Pacific Heights neighborhoods. Apparently, it is easy to ignore the working class.” Transit Center Opens in San Bernardino The new San Bernardino Transit Center designed to connect all major mass transit systems and connect people to downtown San Bernardino has officially  opened  this month. The $25 million project, located on Rialto Ave. in downtown San Bernardino, came about through a partnership between Omnitrans, the San Bernardino Association of Governments, and the City of San Bernardino with funding from the Federal Transportation Administration and the state of California. The 7,500-square-foot building will connect more than a dozen transit lines, including ten local bus routes, the Green Line, express Omnitrans bus routes, the Victor Valley Transit Authority, Mountain Transit, and the Metrolink San Bernardino Line once it is completed. SF Establishes ‘Green Benefit District' The San Francisco Board of Supervisors unanimously approved a resolution to establish a Green Benefit District -- designed to allow residents to directly invest in the maintenance and improvements of neighborhood parks, playgrounds, plazas, sidewalks and other public space amenities in their neighborhoods -- in Dogpatch & Northwest Potrero Hill. With over 76 percent of voters saying yes to the proposal to create the Dogpatch & Northwest Potrero Hill Green Benefit District, the new district will last for 10 years with a budget of almost $515,000, at a cost of $0.095 per square foot of building area for residential developments and $0.0475 for industrial developments. Olympic Valley Incorporation Falters A grassroots group attempting to incorporate Olympic Valley, adjacent to Squaw Valley ski area, as a town asked for a state review of a Comprehensive Fiscal Analysis prepared by Rosenow Spevacek Group Inc. that concluded that the proposed town "does not appear to be feasible at this time." In a 6-1 vote, the Placer Local Agency Formation Commission approved Incorporate Olympic Valley's request for review, putting a temporary halt to the town formation process and sending the request to the California State Controller's office for review. Specifically, IOV believes that errors were made in the CFA's estimates of the cost of law enforcement for the valley, expenditures based on comparable contract cities, and calculating the general fund reserve as a percentage of the total general fund revenue rather than the town's operating expenses. California Transit Agencies Pick Fight with U.S. Dept. of Labor Several California transit agencies say that the U.S. Department of Labor is holding  $1 billion  hostage, contingent on the agencies violating a state public employee pension reform law which a federal judge upheld last year. The department is still enforcing a federal prohibition against interfering with collective bargaining rights, which it claims California's Public Employees' Pension Reform Act violated by changing pension rights without negotiating with workers. The department could withhold $91 million for BART, $206 million for the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority, $700 million for the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, and millions more for agencies across the state. It said it will release the grants if an agency agrees to restore transit union rights and benefits in effect before the California pension reform took effect. In response, transit chiefs including among others Grace Crunican, BART's general manager, and Perry Woodward, chairman of the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority signed a letter to Secretary of Labor Thomas Perez, stating that "the (Labor Department) is requiring grantees to agree to violate California law in order ... to receive funding." Study Details Peripheral Benefits of SF Transit  In an effort to demonstrate the importance of San Francisco public transportation, a new study from San Francisco's Metropolitan Transportation Agency finds that for every one dollar San Francisco invests in Muni, $2-3 are generated in the local economy. The study, done by SFMTA in partnership with Oakland-based transportation consultant Economic & Planning systems, also found that the economic benefits of Muni exceeded its costs by $634 million to $1.25 billion annually. “This study demonstrates the significant economic benefit we receive when we invest in our transportation system,” Supervisor Scott Wiener told the Examiner . “This is exactly why the transportation fees on new developments we have proposed as part of the Transportation Sustainability Program are so essential.” In order to come up with its numbers, the study's authors had to imagine a scenario wherein Muni did not exist. In that scenario, San Francisco car ownership would increase by 50 percent, and San Franciscans would add 9.3 million to 11.5 million hours to their commutes, along with taking up 27 million to 30 million more parking spaces. L.A. Seeks ‘Zero’ Traffic Deaths In an effort to kick-start his "Vision Zero" plan to eliminate traffic-related deaths by 2025, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti signed an executive directive ordering multiple city departments to report back by Dec. 1, 2015 with specific recommendations for measures that would immediately reduce traffic-related deaths in L.A. by 20 percent by 2017. The directive also calls for the formation of a Vision Zero Task Force as well as an Executive Steering Committee, led by city agencies in coordination with the Los Angeles Department of Public Health. “We have to think big and work hard when it comes to keeping people safe,” said Mayor Garcetti in a press release. “It is tragic that 200 people are killed each year while moving about our city. With more people walking and biking than ever before, we must use every available tool to save lives. I am determined to bring that number down to zero.” Report Details Impacts of Drought on Agriculture A new report titled "Impacts of California's Ongoing Drought: Agriculture," the first comprehensive analysis of the drought on California agricultural revenue and employment through 2014, finds that California's agriculture sector has far exceeded expectations throughout the drought because of massive groundwater pumping that has been devastating to other sectors. Though farmers harvested 640,000 fewer acres last year than before that drought, crop revenue peaked at $34 billion -- the highest in California history -- in 2013. Statewide agriculture-related jobs also reached a record-high of 417,000 people in 2014, and farms have adopted more efficient water management practices, like drip irrigation and switching from lower- to higher-value crops. However, with groundwater pumping serving as a vital force for agriculture, other sectors have suffered, with current and future generations now forced to dig deeper wells, and cities forced to repair infrastructure damaged by subsidence. Pasadena Updates General Plan An update to the City of Pasadena's general plan focuses housing and commercial space in the city's urban core, emphasizing growth and walkability there while attempting to keep increases in density away from the city’s iconic tree-lined neighborhoods. Estimating a modest population increase of about 20,000 people by 2035, the plan focuses 60 percent of new housing and 40 percent of non-residential space in the central district. Part of the plan calls for more infrastructure to encourage walking, biking, and public transportation especially in downtown and on South Fair Oaks, where Marsha Rood, Pasadena's former development administrator said she expects to build "up" rather than outward. Los Angeles Debates Short-Term Rentals Los Angeles officials are trying to hash out the difference between "good" and "bad" short-term rentals as affordable housing advocates, rental operators, and neighborhood activists hotly debate rules over online rental sites like Airbnb. Much of the problems stem from commercial companies turning rent-controlled units into de facto hotels, with nonstop rentals for revolving doors of tourists. Housing advocates bemoan that this practice has taken nearly 11,000 units from the housing market, according to the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy, while neighborhood groups complain of noisy parties from tourists. But as they debate the "bad" units, common ground amongst the various groups lies in what Councilman Mike Bonin dubbed "good short-term rentals," wherein a homeowner may rent out a spare room or back house from time to time. Bonin's new proposed rules, backed by Council President Herb Wesson and Councilman Paul Koretz, would bar rentals at rent-controlled units and require them to collect the same kind of city taxes as hotels, which is already legally required but inconsistently done.

Developers in Los Angeles will face more extensive scrutiny if they decide to build near earthquake faults under new rules in Los Angeles. The Westside, the South Bay, and northeast Los Angeles will be the three main areas covered by new scrutiny under a program advanced by Mayor Eric Garcetti. While state law generally says that constructions within about 500 feet of faults zoned by the state require extensive studies, decades of budget cuts have delayed the state's mapping of crucial fault zones in Los Angeles. A Los Angeles Times 2013 investigation found that Los Angeles officials approved more than a dozen construction projects on or near well-known faults without requiring seismic studies because the state had not mapped out the area. Grand Jury Report Faults Management of Irvine Great Park Following a decade of accused mismanagement, a lack of transparency, and an unnecessarily high price tag, the Irvine Great Park plan to create a 1,347 acre park at a former air base needs a strategy for the next 10 years of development, according to a new report released by an Orange County grand jury. As of now, 205 acres of the park have been developed at a cost of $251 million, a price the grand jury said would have been smaller had the city not overreached by crafting a plan to develop the park all at once instead of in phases. The grand jury suggested the dissolution of the Great Park Corporation, because its Board of Directors also acts as the council, and it recommended adopting an ordinance to limit City Council members' influence of city operations. California Cities Fare Poorly in Street Quality; League of Cities Calls for Transportation Funding Seven California cities round out the top 25 cities over population 500,000 with the poorest streets in a new report (pdf) from national transportation research group TRIP. Of those cities, three scored the top three rankings for worst streets: San Francisco-Oakland, with 74 percent of its streets classified as poor; Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana, with 73 percent; and Concord, with 62 percent. Additionally, the rankings find that those three cities and many of the others listed in the top 25 -- including San Jose, San Diego, Riverside-San Bernardino, and Sacramento -- also have motorists spending the most money annually in vehicle maintenance because of poor roads. Meanwhile, the League of California Cities recently adopted a resolution urging Governor Jerry Brown and the state legislature to provide new sustainable funding for state and local transportation infrastructure. The move followed Governor Brown calling an Extraordinary Session on Transportation and Infrastructure, and the League is also requesting that the state provide a list of projects that could be funded by a new funding package. L.A. Housing Discrimination Suit Dismissed A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit by the City of Los Angeles against Wells Fargo & Co. accusing it of targeting minority borrowers with predatory lending practices. U.S. District Judge Otis Wright II said that Federal Housing Act loans issued during the time period did not violate the law, and that they were intended to overcome precisely the barriers to ownership often experienced by minorities. City Attorney Michael Feuer filed the suit -- among three other suits accusing big banks of the predatory practice -- saying that the practice violated the Fair Housing Act and helped result in 200,000 foreclosures in Los Angeles from 2008 to 2012, causing city property tax revenue to fall by $481 million.  "The city is not a champion of minority rights as it declared in the complaint," Wright said. "While this case began with allegations that Wells Fargo trampled the rights of minorities, it ends with the city's failed attempt to engage in the exact same conduct." Coastal Commission Challenges Long Beach over Fracking The Coastal Commission is attempting to force Long Beach officials and their corporate sponsors to obtain a special permit before beginning to use fracking on 13 local oil wells, though local officials dispute whether the commission actually has permitting authority for the process. Alison Dettmer, the Coastal Commission's deputy director in charge of energy and ocean resources oversight, said her agency has taken the position that any fracking within the state's coastal zone also requires a coastal development permit, but the state's Division of Oil, Gas & Geothermal resources has already issued permits for fracking at the Long Beach islands. Meanwhile, officials and managers of the company in charge of oil extraction operations are still deciding whether fracking the oil well would make financial sense. Jacbos Stepping down from Housing Finance Agency The chairman of the Housing Finance Agency -- the state agency in charge of financing affordable housing -- announced that he will not seek reappointment as his development company plans to eliminate a rent-controlled eight unit complex to make way for million dollar homes. Matthew Jacobs, the chairman and the owner Beverly Hills-based firm Bulldog Partners LLC, said that he will not seek reappointment when his term expires on Sept. 26. "Evictors like Jacobs have no place making affordable housing policy in this state," housing advocacy group Tenants Together said in a statement. S.F. Explores Options for Replacing City Jail San Francisco's Board of Supervisors decided in a sharply divided vote to submit a request for $80 million in state funding for a new jail to replace a current, seismically-unfit one, despite a declining jail population. Council President London Breed cast the deciding vote, with the caveat that the jail needs to be smaller and cost less than the $240 million, 384-bed jail currently proposed. The project is part of a larger effort to move workers out of the Hall of Justice at 850 Bryant St because of its placement on a fault line. Opponents of the measure noted that the population of the city's six jails has declined dramatically in the past decade, from a high of 2,300 in the mid-1990s to 1,285 this year � a historic 33-year-low. L.A. County Loses Housing Discrimination Suit in Antelope Valley The Los Angeles County Housing Authority will pay $2 million to victims of housing discrimination in Antelope Valley after a U.S. Justice Department investigation concluded that housing officials and sheriff's deputies joined with two cities to drive black residents out of the area from 2004 to 2011. In the settlement, five families who lost their housing will have the chance to have their vouchers reinstated, while others will be able to receive compensation up to $25,000 or have their voucher termination wiped from public housing records. The federal complaint alleged that the county Housing Authority and Sheriff's Department subjected black Section 8 voucher holders to "more intrusive and intimidating compliance checks" than their white counterparts and also were more likely to terminate black residents' vouchers. Federal officials alleged that the cities, which provided money to the county for extra enforcement, encouraged the discriminatory practices. Santa Barbara to Revive Desalination Plant The Santa Barbara City Council has decided to reactivate its desalination plant, approving $55 million for the plant in the hopes that it could provide nearly a third of the city's drinking water. Last September, Lake Cachuma, the city's main reservoir, dipped below 30 percent capacity, prompting the city to begin reactivation of the plant as a last resort with hopes that it will be operational by fall 2016. "We recognize it's a big decision to make," Mayor Helene Schneider told the L.A. Times. "We also recognize that desalination is not just for this particular drought -- they are cyclical." S.F. Mayor Proposes Fee on New Development to Fund Transit San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee proposed a new fee applicable to market rate condominium and apartment projects to raise $14 million a year for transit improvements. Known as a transportation sustainability fee, the new proposal would add market rate apartment and condo developers to the city's Transit Impact Development Fee, which currently applies to commercial developments and production, design, and repair facilities. The addition would hopefully raise the revenue of the fee from $720 million to $1.2 billion over 30 years. Affordable housing developers and builders of complexes with fewer than 20 units, along with medical centers and nonprofits, will be exempt from the fee, which will total $7.74 per square foot of residential developments. The money would be spent on expanding the Muni fleet with new buses and railcars, improving reliability on the busiest routes, retrofitting existing trains, investing in the electrification of Caltrain, and making streets safer for bicyclists and pedestrians. The proposal has not received any outright opposition from development circles or housing advocates. "We don't suffer from a low cost of producing housing, and $7.74 (a square foot) is not a negligible fee." Tim Colen, executive director of the Housing Action Coalition representing developers, told the San Francisco Gate. "But in the end, high-density urban infill doesn't work without excellent transit, and we want to do the right thing." Yuba County Tribes Reach Detente Over Casino Plans After years of litigation challenging the federal government's decision to place 40 acres in Yuba County into the trust of the Enterprise tribe to build a Class III  casino , opponents of the project have said that they would not try to block construction of a scaled-down version without permanent utilities or games like blackjack and slot machines. The scaled-down version would only span 10,000 square feet and would be a Class II casino, mostly favoring bingo, and that it would have to truck water in and out from the facility. The scaled-back plan prompted questions as to whether the tribe would be held responsible for any of $83 million the tribe would owe the county for mitigation of the construction of the larger Class III casino under a 2002 memorandum of understanding. The Enterprise tribe still plans to build the larger, 318,000 square-foot  casino  with slot machines and other casino games, but plaintiffs are seeking an order to require Enterprise to give 60 days' notice if it intends to construct anything beyond the Class II casino.

The Los Angeles Planning Commission advised the City Council to adopt the city's proposed Mobility Plan 2035  (pdf) , update the land use element of 35 community plans, and adopt an ordinance to implement new street standards and complete street principles. Updating the 1999 Transportation Element of the city's General Plan and the 2010 Bicycle Plan, the Mobility Plan 2035 has the goal of creating a balanced transportation system in the city of Los Angeles by prioritizing pedestrian, bicycle, and transit-oriented roads, and contains a five-year implementation strategy for the plan. The plan would promote complete streets, per AB 1358, and include a range of design guidelines to accommodate multiple modes of transportation.  Delta Smelt on Verge of Extinction The delta smelt, a small, three-inch fish found only in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta-and the symbol of decades-long debates over water management in the delta--is likely headed toward extinction if water-use trends in California continue. In previous years, researchers have caught hundreds or thousands of the fish in surveys of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Basin. "Numbers are down this year. So the March survey we caught six. The April survey we caught one," Lauren Damon, an environmental scientist with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, told Capital Public Radio. The drought has exhausted habitats for many species in the delta, including the winter-run Chinook salmon, which saw 95 percent of its brood die last year. "If we let the smelt go, we're essentially saying we don't really need a functioning estuary, and California is going to be losing something very special if that fish disappears," Peter Moyle told Capital Public Radio. Supervisors Halt Solar Plant near Joshua Tree A solar project in San Bernardino County has been stalled so officials can take a closer look at its problems, after the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors voted against it in a 3-2 vote. Approved by the San Bernardino County Planning Commission in December, the Bowman Solar Project would be a three-megawatt photovoltaic solar plant built in the community of Landers north of Joshua Tree National Park, with power generated by the project to be bought by Southern California Edison. Opponents of the project contended that it violated a temporary county solar ordinance adopted in 2013 requiring that projects be restricted to less-populated areas with substantially disturbed landscapes, such as old landfills. The ordinance was intended as a stopgap until the county completes an overall renewable energy amendment to its general plan slated for later this year. Gov. Brown Accelerates S.F. Arena Development Governor Jerry Brown fast-tracked environmental approval of the proposed Golden State Warriors arena on Mission Bay in San Francisco, giving courts just 290 days to rule on any lawsuit contesting the arena's environmental impact report. The arena will be just one of five projects granted fast-track review under AB900, a 2011 state law that streamlines environmental review of key projects. A spokesman for the Mission Bay Alliance group fighting the arena, remained undaunted by the governor's action. "It's less expensive for the alliance, and we will have a decision sooner," spokesman Sam Singer told the  San Francisco Chronicle . Court Blocks S.F. Streetcar Extension A state appeals court blocked construction of a new streetcar loop in San Francisco, ruling that opponents raised "substantial questions" about the the project's conformance with the California Environmental Quality Act. The new Muni extension would run on the T-Third Street line in the Dogpatch neighborhood to connect to the planned Central Subway as a part of a light-rail project authorized in September with a $10 million federal grant. Officials expected to complete the work in October, but with the injunction the court will further review a lawsuit brought on by a group of residents who claim that the 15-year-old EIR is now obsolete because of an influx of development in the area. San Jose Debates Rent Control in Downtown Renters and property owners clashed at a San Jose City Council committee meeting over proposals to implement rent control in San Jose's booming apartment market. Two recent proposals from Mayor Sam Liccardo and a few council members, slated to go before City Manager Norberto Duenas, attempt to expand rent control and strengthen tenant protections to avoid tenants getting priced out of their apartments as prices rise. One proposal, from Councilman Raul Peralez, would expand rent control to include 10,000 more units and reduce allowable rent increases from 8 percent to 4 percent annually. However, at the meeting of the council's Rules and Open Government Committee, property owners said that rent control makes it difficult to invest in properties and has not worked in other cities. S.F. Considers Demolition of I-280 in Mission Bay San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee is looking for ways to achieve a multi-billion dollar plan to tear down Interstate 280 at Mission Bay and build a new underground rail tunnel with a station between the proposed Warriors arena and AT&T Park. Lee hopes that the plan would bring Caltrain and high-speed rail into downtown and the new Transbay Terminal while opening up a new area of the city to development. Caltrain has expressed skepticism, however, saying that Lee's vision would derail already-planned efforts to place the new transit center at First and Mission Streets, as the new plan to create the center closer to the waterfront along Third Street would cost time and would require tunneling through landfill for an extra 2 to 3 miles. Senator Proposes Expansion of Boards of Supervisors to Seven Members Citing booming populations that underrepresent minority communities,  State Senator Tony Mendoza (D-Artesia)  has proposed an amendment to the state's constitution to expand boards of supervisors of all counties with a population of 2 million or more -- including San Diego, Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, and San Bernardino, among others -- from five to seven members beginning in 2021. Mendoza, who proposed the amendment, said that  an expansion of the Board of Supervisors of Los Angeles would help add a second Latino seat in the nearly 50 percent Latino county. However, board incumbent Don Knabe, whose district overlaps with Mendoza's, has insinuated that the proposal is an attempt for Mendoza to take that seat when he's termed out of state office. Newark Approves Massive Wetlands-Adjacent Development The Newark City Council unanimously approved a controversial 856-acre development of 1,260 housing units, public park space, and an elementary school site by developer Newark Partners LLC, despite pleas from environmentalists that the project would damage nearby federally-protected wetlands. The project, located on sites known as "Areas 3 and 4," dates back 20 years and has been the subject of numerous rounds of litigation for allegedly failing to comply with CEQA, as environmentalists have raised concerns including liquefaction, lateral spread, sea level rise, and the need for additional flood control measures, according to Citizens Committee to Complete the Refuge Vice Chair Carin High. The developer will provide $3 million in affordable housing fees and $6 million in other impact fees, along with $14 million and 66 acres of land for a potential golf course. Garden Grove Seeks More Urban Town Center The Garden Grove Planning Commission unanimously  approved  a new downtown zoning amendment to add mixed-use and adaptive reuse zones in the city's downtown. Planners hope to promote a bike- and pedestian-friendly downtown inspired by strategies in Orange, Tustin, Anaheim, and Santa Ana, all of which are attempting to create more urban environments in historically suburban Orange County.