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Orange County Cities Push Back Against Housing Allocations Newport Beach and Huntington Beach have announced they will appeal their Regional Housing Needs Assessments (RHNA). Huntington Beach was the first to vote to appeal, in a closed session, on a motion that passed 7-0. The current draft numbers state that Huntington Beach would have to zone for 13,337 residential units during the 2021-2029 cycle. The Newport Beach City Council unanimously voted to appeal the city's RHNA numbers, which hold Newport Beach accountable for 4,834 housing units. The 34-page-long appeal addresses three main concerns, pointing to site constraints, the methodology, and the change in circumstances--namely, concerns over density--in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. The appeal proposes that the numbers be reduced to 2,426 units. (See prior CP&DR coverage .) Milpitas to Sue to Stop State-Funded Homessless Program The Milpitas City Council unanimously voted to sue to stop a Project Homekey proposal that would convert 146 hotel rooms into 132 studio apartments with on-site supportive services for homeless people. State funding would have covered $29.2 million of the cost of purchasing and converting the Extended Stay America hotel, but Santa Clara County, which pitched in $21.2 million for an affordable housing bond, is the likeliest target for litigation; though the council has said it will "pursue litigation against any and all parties involved." Under new state law AB 83, pandemic housing projects for homeless people are allowed to skip local planning processes. While originally supportive, the council soured on the project after significant push back from community members. Environmental Groups Threaten Suit over Drilling The Center for Biological Diversity threatened to sue Gov. Gavin Newsom to halt all new permits for gas and oil wells in the state unless Newsom "promptly direct your regulators to halt permitting." An official with the state Department of Natural Resources disputed the organization's assertion that any permits were issued improperly. Environmental groups have grown increasingly frustrated with what they consider a lack of consequential action on Newsom's part to curb oil- and gas-production related pollution. The permits were issued after a November announcement by Newsom that he would temporarily block new fracking permits until those projects were reviewed by an independent board of scientists. The California Geologic Energy Management Division, known as CalGEM, issued close to 50 new hydraulic fracturing permits to Chevron and associates of Shell Oil and ExxonMobil since April. Quick Hits & Updates  A developer who finally won approval of a five-story mixed-use building in downtown Los Altos via SB 35 has sued for $4 million in damages . Los Altos approved the project this fall after choosing not to appeal an adverse trial court ruling.  A new report shows a solid majority of Los Angeles County residents believe that climate change is caused by human activity and that it poses a threat to their well-being. However, less than half of residents are aware of government incentives to help them adopt environmentally-friendly practices. Nearly 70 percent of respondents realize that climate change is a threat to their well-being. A slightly lower share, 64 percent believe that their actions can make a difference in fighting climate change. A little more than a year after the Agua Caliente Band of Cauilla Indians and the Los Angeles company Oak View Group announced plans for a $250 million sports and entertainment arena in downtown Palm Springs , officials confirmed that the project is moving to the mid-valley--and the tribe is no longer involved. The arena is now planned for an unincorporated piece of land just north of Palm Desert with a new partner: a local nonprofit that owns the land and will lease it out. Two California sites made the top 11 most endangered historic places for 2020. The list, compiled by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, includes the Harada House in Riverside. Local advocates have launched a campaign to rehabilitate the house, which is on the brink of collapse. The future of West Berkeley Shellmound and Village, one of the earliest known Oholone settlements, is uncertain, though plans to build a large condo project on the site are now on hold. The Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) released the Draft 2018-2019 Annual Action Plan October 2, 2020 Amendment and is asking for public comment. These amendments will allow the state to align the Housing Trust Fund (HTF) program to HUD's regulations by permitting new construction, rehabilitation, acquisition, and more for HTF funding. The Anaheim City Council voted to approve a revised deal with Angels owner Arte Moreno, selling Angel Stadium and the surrounding land for $150 million in cash in return for the team's commitment to stay in Anaheim through 2050. Last December, the council voted to sell the site for $325 million in cash and community benefits. The city of El Cajon has caught the eye of both Qualcomm and Cox Communications: both companies say they want to take what the city is already doing and fast-track it to help El Cajon become a leader in technology as a "Smart City." The senior director of Qualcomm went so far as to say they would like to make El Cajon the first '5G city' in the world. A proposal by the city of Escondido to raise development fees on new homes by about $9,300 per home is on hold after objections from developers, realtor groups, and others. Escondido City Council agreed to postpone consideration, though the county has said fees only cover about 74 percent of the estimated infrastructure costs needed to serve a new development. The idea of congestion pricing in San Francisco has been around for years, but with the backing of Mayor London Breed and others, the effort appears to be gaining support. Currently, the San Francisco County Transportation is seeking community input for a study on charging up to $12 for driving into the downtown area during rush hour. Rent prices continued to plunge across the U.S. last month, with San Francisco leading the decline, according to data from Zumper, a real estate start-up. The median rent for a one-bedroom apartment in San Francisco dropped more than 20 percent from a year ago, to $2,830, according to the report.

A property rights case from San Francisco that could influence the legal definition “ripeness” for takings claims is making its way through the federal courts – and could wind up in front of the U.S. Supreme Court. It’s one of the first cases to show the impact President Trump’s appointees are having in land-use cases before the traditionally liberal Ninth Circuit.

Self-storage facilities, which often include blank streetfronts and generate essentially zero pedestrian activity, are not exactly ideal uses in dense urban areas. But, in a bid to expand an existing facility, Public Storage offered up an unorthodox public benefit the City of Mountain View could not resist: 105 affordable housing units.

SANDAG Member Cities Sue Agency over Housing Vote  Four of San Diego Association of Governments' member cities are suing the agency for what they claim is an inequitable use of a weighted vote favoring larger cities at the expense of smaller communities. Coronado, Imperial Beach, Lemon Grove , and Solana Beach have filed a legal challenge to the Regional Housing Needs Assessment adopted by SANDAG in July. Together the cities will argue that SANDAG failed and disenfranchised San Diego County residents by employing a weighted vote over the objections of a super majority of its board. SANDAG violated the organization's stated goals, the litigants say, to work cooperatively within their respective regions to distribute the assigned housing allocation. The methodology that was adopted resulted in the four cities being assigned between 258 percent and 1,800 percent increases from prior housing allocation cycles. Google’s Plans for Downtown San Jose Take Shape Google has released renderings and sketches for its mixed-use, 80-acre campus in downtown San Jose. More than half of the "Downtown West" 80-acre project will be allocated for residential and public space and include features like childcare centers, outdoor movie screenings and ecological viewing stations. It comes a year after the company files its initial campus framework. The project proposed 30 buildings and around 4,000 housing units, as well as office space for non-profits including YearUp and Tech Challenge, following a step Facebook took at its Menlo Park headquarters in 2018. The company is proposing amenities including public maker spaces, a hotel and "performance areas" for live music, events, and movie screenings. The company aims to include at least 10 parks and several trails while making nearly all of the site's buildings run off of solar or electric energy. It will also have "ecological systems viewing" areas designated to raise awareness of environmental issues, the proposal documents state. The company said it aims to make 65 percent of the campus accessible through bike, public transit, carpool, or foot. It will also connect to Caltrans. (See prior CP&DR coverage .) State Economy May Take Two Years to Recover California’s economy will bounce back, but not for at least two years, UCLA economists predict. The UCLA Anderson quarterly forecast suggested California payrolls will drop 7.2 percent this year to 16 million jobs, down 1.5 million since the COVID-19 pandemic hit. The state's economy is expected to grow just 1.3 percent next year and 3.5 percent in 2022. Likewise, the unemployment rate is forecast to come down in fits and spurts to 8.6 percent next year and 6.6 percent in 2022. Some industries are faring better than others, the economists note. The leisure and hospitality sector will likely see payrolls fall up to 25 percent this year; the housing market is expected to see a quick recovery to pre-recession levels." Residential building permits are expected to bounce back to pre-pandemic levels by the end of the year, and grow in the following years. The forecast comes with a major caveat: it assumes that Congress will allocate at least $1 trillion in fiscal stimulus before the end of the year, and that the pandemic's impact on economic activity is relatively mild in 2021 and 2022. Negotiations in Congress have stalled, and no one can say with certainty the direction the pandemic will take. "None of these assumptions are assured, and if they do not come to pass, our forecast, presented here, is too optimistic," the authors caution. CP&DR Podcast: Future of Housing In Diana Lind's new book Brave New Home: Our Future in Smarter, Simpler, Happier Housing, Lind shows why a country full of single-family houses is bad for people and the planet, and details the new efforts underway that better reflect the way we live now, to ensure that the way we live next is both less lonely and more affordable. CP&DR's Josh Stephens spoke with Lind about how Brave New Home can help planners anticipate, and promote, innovative approaches to housing for the podcast .  Quick Hits & Updates The World Economic Forum and the City of Los Angeles released a roadmap to support the roll-out of "urban air mobility" in cities. Though flying vehicles may be out of technological reach for the foreseeable future, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said in a statement: "Our city's strength stems from our creativity and our willingness to test new ideas... even in the face of COVID-19 today, our eyes are fixed on the horizon of a reimagined tomorrow.” Los Angeles Metro will consider plans for a gondola project that would connect Dodger Stadium and Union Station. The Los Angeles Aerial Rapid Transit gondola--as it has been called--would move up to 5,500 people per hour in each direction, meaning more than 10,000 fans could be transported to Dodger Stadium in the two hours before the start of a game or event. San Francisco's Embarcadero could be devastated by earthquakes and rising seas, according to an exhaustive new study from the Port of San Francisco. The 82-page report says natural disasters could flood downtown streets and inundate BART and Muni tunnels. The study's findings will be used to prepare a list of recommended projects to strengthen the most vulnerable areas along the seawall, which dates back to the early 1900s. California's Active Transportation Program added a small pilot program this year to test the feasibility of supporting "quick-build" projects--a moniker for projects meant to allow a city to quickly redesign and implement safer street redesigns. The California Transportation Commission added the pilot program to test whether these kind of projects should be part of future ATP funding cycles. CTC staff has released recommendations to fund eight proposals for a total of $4.4 million. An analysis of the condition of Los Angeles tenants during the COVID-19 emergency found that distress has occurred along multiple dimensions, almost all of them stemming from losses of work and income. The data, obtained by the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, shows that despite extraordinary economic difficulty, most renters are paying on-time and in-full. The Census Bureau has found that California has the highest real-world poverty rate of any state, 17 percent over the previous three years and much higher than the national rate. Living costs, particularly for housing, impoverish at least 7 million Californians, and the state topped the poverty charts even as California's overall economy was booming in the 2017-19 period. San Francisco is enacting a new temporary permit program for outdoor entertainment and amplified sound, Mayor London Breed announced. The new Just Add Music permit, known as JAM, will cover entertainment in shared spaces and other outdoor locations that are seeing dramatically more activity during the pandemic. Included on the list of activities that would require a JAM permit are outdoor fitness classes, farmers markets, and drive-in gatherings.

Newsom Seeks to Earmark 30 Percent of State Lands for Agriculture, Conservation Governor Gavin Newsom advanced an executive order "enlisting California's vast network of natural and working lands... in the fight against climate change," according to a press release. The order directs state agencies to deploy carbon-storing measures through healthy soil management (like cover crops, for example), wetlands restoration, active forest management, and green infrastructure in urban areas like trees and parks. The order also sets a first-in-the-nation goal to conserve 30 percent of the state's land and coastal water by 2030 to fight species loss and ecosystem destruction. Conservation includes both preservation and "working lands" for agriculture. The order directors the California Natural Resources Agency to form a California Biodiversity Collaborative to spearhead the "30 by 30" goal.  San Jose Adopts Ambitious Bike Plan  San Jose City Council approved a plan that commits the city to building a 550-mile network of bike lanes, boulevards, and trails. The Better Bike Plan 2025 includes over 350 miles of protected bike lanes, 100 miles of bike boulevards, and 100 miles of off-street trails. While the additional miles of bike lanes will undoubtedly please San Jose's current biking population, the plan aims to bring new riders into the fold, who may not feel comfortable riding on busy streets. To accomplish that, the city plans to include buffers between bikers and traffic with either parked cars or widened lanes. In the same vein, the plan creates a "low-stress" network of "bike boulevards," on San Jose's residential streets. LA Metro Plan to Widen Freeway Draws Fierce Criticism Los Angeles County Metro announced plans to widen the 605 and 5 Freeways--which would necessitate the demolition of hundreds of Downey homes. The plan has officially been opposed by the City of Downey in a press release and drawn criticism from both transportation advocates, who oppose the development of new freeway lanes, and social justice advocates, who oppose the demolition of homes belonging to minority and low-income residents. Broadly the release touts "minimiz the number of homes... taken" while seeking "a reasonable... locally preferred alternative that will provide capacity enhancements and improved operations, while minimizing right-of-way impacts." In August, Metro announced four alternative plans, but three of the alternatives are essentially identical in terms of right of way impacts. The other alternative is the legally required no-build alternative. The least invasive option would fully acquire 242 parcels; the most would take 257 Downey parcels. Quick Hits & Updates  A five-square-mile plume of groundwater contaminated with chlorinated solvents and other manufacturing chemicals has been placed on the federal Superfund list, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has announced. The plume is within the Orange County Water Districts, which provides water for 2.4 million residents in 22 cities. As a Superfund site, the EPA could compel anyone who might have polluted the groundwater basin to help pay the estimated $100 million cleanup cost. Two citizen groups who advocated for a ballot measure in Redondo Beach in 2017 that would block a proposed waterfront development will appeal a lower court's decision to invalidate Measure C, which would have altered zoning in the waterfront. The project had already been approved by the City had not won Coastal Commission consent. The citizen groups say the matter would substantially weaken the California Coastal Act, allowing cities to approve construction projects in the coastal zone without approval from the Commission. The developer is also suing the city for $15 million in damages in a separate case. Sunnyvale , the recipient of a $338,000 sustainable communities grant from Caltrans, will move forward with a 10-year plan to boost the number of commuter cyclists and pedestrians, as well as create safer streets for children along school routes. With the grant money, city staffers did research to craft the plan, which included biking and walking tours, path audits, focus groups and public outreach. Manhattan Beach City Council voted unanimously to appeal a decision from Los Angeles Superior Court that ordered the city to stop enforcing a ban on short-term rentals in Manhattan Beach's coastal zone, escalating the case to the state level. According to the final judgment, the ban has no legal effect and is unenforceable in the coastal zone without approval from the Coastal Commission. In a surprise move, Sacramento Regional Transit  board is scheduled to redo a vote on a $130 million proposal for a passenger rail bridge just a week after voting the proposal down. The RT board rejected the plan by a split vote under the transit district's "weighted voting system. A crucial vote that represents 10 percent of the weighted total will weigh in after missing the first vote. A yes would put the project back on track. A feasibility study conducted by a private consulting firm indicates that the Horton Plaza redevelopment project has the potential to establish a downtown tech hub in San Diego. The mega-campus, with over a billion square feet of planned commercial space, has a link to Clearway Energy Center San Diego, subterranean delivery tunnels, and proximity to Lindbergh Field and San Diego trolley stations. (See prior CP&DR coverage .) Two announcements of federal transportation funding were made recently: the Federal Transit Administration finalized the $1.2 billion grant for BART's Core Capacity program. On the same day, the Federal Highway Administration announced its annual August redistribution. For California that means almost $500 million in federal transportation dollars. A slim majority of Californians support Proposition 15 , the November ballot measure that would change how commercial property is taxed. The survey, conducted by the Public Policy Institute of California on a wide range of issues, also found that most Californians are concerned about contracting COVID-19. On race relations, attitudes shifted significantly since 2019. Six in ten Californians believe race relations have gotten worse in the last year. Amid mounting controversy and concerns over environmental justice, California American Water withdrew its application for a desalination project in the City of Marina. The proposal had become one of the most fraught issues to become before the commission, and would have been the first major test of its new power to review harm to underrepresented communities. A planned 16,000-acre luxury resort project between Clear Lake and Napa Valley is being challenged by the Center for Biological Diversity in courts shortly after Lake County officials approved it. The approvals allow for 400 hotel units in five "boutique" co-plexes plus 450 resort units, 1,400 estate villas, 500 workforce housing bedrooms, according to the EIR.

In Diana Lind's new book  Brave New Home: Our Future in Smarter, Simpler, Happier Housing , Lind shows why a country full of single-family houses is bad for people and the planet, and details the new efforts underway that better reflect the way we live now, to ensure that the way we live next is both less lonely and more affordable. Diana Lind Lind explores the homes and communities that are seeking alternatives to the American norm, from multi-generational living, in-law suites, and co-living to microapartments, tiny houses, and new rural communities. Brave New Home offers a diagnosis of the current crisis in American housing and a radical re-imagining of the possibilities of housing. Based in Philadelphia, Lind was editor in chief, and later executive director, of Next City, a leading urbanist website and nonprofit. She currently leads the Arts + Business Council for Greater Philadelphia, where her work fosters an exchange between the creative and business communities. CP&DR 's Josh Stephens spoke with Lind about how Brave New Home can help planners anticipate, and promote, innovative approaches to housing. Please click below or visit CP&DR's podcast homepage to listen on Spotify, Breaker, and other platforms. Brave New Home Diana Lind Bold Type Books 272 Pages $16.99 October 13, 2020

The regional transportation plans devised by California’s metropolitan planning organizations – as well as their accompanying Sustainable Communities Strategies – usually don’t change from one four-year cycle to the next.

State to Phase Out Gasoline-Powered Vehicles in 15 Years  Gov. Gavin Newsom signed an executive order that phases out the sale of new gasoline-powered vehicles by 2035--the most aggressive clean-car policy in the United States. Although it bans the sale of new cars and tracks after the 15-year deadline, it will still allow such vehicles to be owned and sold on the used-car market. Newsom also threw his support behind a ban on petroleum fracking, but called on the California Legislature to make that change. Transportation is California's biggest source of emissions, while other sources of emissions, like those from the electricity sector, are falling due to ambitious climate policies. Electric vehicle sales have been steadily rising in recent years, although they accounted for fewer than 8 percent of all new cars sold in California last year. While considered crucial for meeting the state’s greenhouse gas emissions targets, the demise of gas-powered cars may affect regulations that seek to reduce pollution via land use controls that reduce vehicle miles traveled.  Study Contends State Overestimates Housing Need by 900,000 Units The Embarcadero Institute conducted a series of studies that contend California's Regional Housing Needs Allocation process has overestimated the housing need in the state's most populous regions by more than 900.000 units over the next decade. According to the institute's calculations, a conventional economist approach suggests San Diego County, for example, would need 112,000 homes by 2030 instead of the nearly 172,000 in the state's updated Regional Housing Needs Assessment. The Bay Area, Sacramento region, Sacramento region, San Diego County, and the remainder of Southern California need 2.11 million more homes, according to RHNA allocations. The institute says it should be 1.17 million. Experts warn that inaccuracies on this scale obscure the lack of funding to affordable housing, while surpassing California's market-rate housing targets. Developer Sues Sacramento Over Temporary Homeless Housing A plan to get more than 100 homeless people into permanent housing in a Sacramento hotel could be derailed by developers of a high-end apartment building across the street. The Project Roomkey program, launched by Gov. Gavin Newsom when the coronavirus struck, provides state funding for cities to get homeless indoors in motels. Developers immediately sued Sacramento in Superior Court after the city council's vote to seek state funding for the homeless housing project. The developers claim the city is going back on its promise not to increase homeless services in the River District. Hundreds of homeless people sleep in tents lining several blocks of streets along the American River Parkway. Newsom has announced the city will receive state funding for another Homekey hotel in the Parkway neighborhood of south Sacramento, with another 100 rooms. ACLU Sues Palo Alto over Residents-Only Park The American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California is suing Palo Alto for a nearly 50-year-old ban of nonresidents from using Foothills Park, calling the prohibition "a legacy of the city's history of racial discrimination." Only 1.6 percent of Palo Alto's population is Black, a stark contrast with adjacent East Palo Alto, which has a Black population of 16.7 percent. Access to the park's rolling hills, lake, campground and picnic areas has been restricted to Palo Alto residents since 1969, when the city adopted an ordinance allowing fines of up to $1,000 and sentences of up to 1 month in jail for nonresidents caught using the park. The suit claims the ordinance perpetuates Palo Alto's history of housing discrimination and racial exclusion that lasted into the 1950s, transforming the park into a "preserve for the fortunate few," namely those who were not victimized by racial exclusion in the past. CP&DR Coverage: Newsom Signs Housing and Planning Bills Gov. Gavin Newsom signed virtually all planning and housing bills on his desk on Monday, vetoing only a bill that would have required the California Housing Finance Agency to get involved in financing accessory dwelling units. Most of the bills are not sweeping. The entire package of Senate housing production bills failed in the session, with several bills dramatically falling on the last night of the session. Quick Hits & Updates  A bid to expand rent control in California faces a large hurdle to pass in November, a new poll of voters statewide has found. Just 37 percent of likely voters support Proposition 21, which would give cities and counties greater authority to implement rent control in their communities, according to a poll from UC Berkeley's Institute of Governmental Studies. Los Angeles's "Al Fresco" initiative has been put on indefinite pause due to a lack of funding. The program has been aimed at offering brick-and-mortar restaurants the opportunity to quickly expand outdoor seating into parking lots, sidewalks, and closed-off sections of public street. While 50 restaurants were approved for on-street dining as part of Phase Two, funding for the physical safety infrastructure has run dry. Caltrain's board adopted a $35 million budget to get through the end of 2020 as the train system fights for survival amid vanishing ridership. The train system still faces a shortfall between $18 million and $31 million for the entire fiscal year if ridership remains at only 5 percent of pre-pandemic levels. In a play to crack down on short-term rentals listed on sites like Airbnb, Los Angeles City Planning has launched a new online system that makes it easier to identify and take down illegal rental listings. The site implements an agreement, developed by City Planning, that Airbnb made with the city to continue operating legally amid a housing shortage. Ineligible units for homesharing include rent stabilized and affordable housing units. A union pension fund is set to inject $1 billion into Bay Area housing construction, an initiative the group says will help finance more than 4,000 new residential units by 2025. The AFL-CIO Housing Investment Trust will invest $500 million in a broad spectrum of housing types, including market-rate apartments, middle-income workforce housing and affordable units. The trust will leverage another $500 million from local unions, investments, low-income tax credit investors and other partners. The elusive, cat-sized Homboldt marten is now officially protected as a threatened species under the Endangered Species. The decision comes 10 years after conservation groups petitioned for the animals to have protected status and after they sued the Trump administration for its long delay in finalizing protections for the fewer than 400 martens remaining in northern California and southern Oregon. The Justice Department is urging a federal judge to uphold the Trump Administrations determination that salt ponds along the San Francisco Bay are not protected waters under the Clean Water Act. The case, brought by California and a coalition of environmental groups, has been ongoing for a year. During a hearing on dueling motions for summary judgment, prosecutors argued the EPA failed to justify its abrupt about-face despite previously classifying the area as protected. The Ventura County Board of Supervisors voted to approve the nation's first 2500-foot health and safety setback from oil wells as part of their General Plan. More than 8,500 people in Ventura County live within 2,500 feet of an active oil or gas well, about 60 percent of them Latino. Across the state, the vast majority of Californians who live in close proximity to oil drilling are from communities of color. The Los Angeles Clippers received final approval from the Inglewood City Council for a $1.8 billion basketball arena and will move forward with construction next summer. The team's owners have already opened a wait list for season tickets and "other arena experiences." The 18,000 fixed seat basketball arena is slated to open in time for the start of the 2024-25 NBA season. Plans to build a light rail bridge that would have connected downtown Sacramento with West Sacramento were rejected  by Sacramento's regional transit board. The board's refusal appears to end a decade-long cross-river rail effort--once envisioned as a four-mile streetcar line, plans were scaled down to a 1.1 mile-long rail line. But city officials could not guarantee full funding to build the new project, nor cover the estimated operating costs of $1.5 million annually. Since the start of a statewide stay-at-home order due to COVID-19, a new report shows bicycle ridership is up more than 40 percent from 2019 in San Diego County. From mid-April to the middle of May, bicycle traffic was up a 66 percent from 2019. Traffic fell to 28 percent as the weather began to heat up and more people headed to work in their vehicles. Los Angeles' best hope for housing the homeless is remodeled hotels and open dormitory-style buildings, says city Controller Ron Galperin, who cited two projects whose costs soared to nearly $750,000 per unit. The city's Housing and Community Development manager pushed back on that assessment, saying the two projects are outliers and that savings from hotel conversions, while appealing, are unproved.

Gov. Gavin Newsom signed virtually all planning and housing bills on his desk on Monday, vetoing only a bill that would have required the California Housing Finance Agency to get involved in financing accessory dwelling units.

CP&DR Vol. 35 No. 9 September 2020

Los Angeles Metro Approves $400 Billion Long-Range Plan, Service Cuts for 2021 Against the backdrop of plunging revenue due to the pandemic, the Los Angeles County Metro Board of Directors approved an updated 2020 Long Range Transportation Plan (2020 LRTP): a $400-billion, 30-year transportation blueprint for the county. The 2020 LRTP details plans to add more than 100 miles of rail over the next 30 years, the most aggressive transit expansion plan in the nation. Beyond transit, Metro will invest in arterial and freeway projects to reduce congestion, such as the I-5 North enhancements project and adding more Express Lanes. The plan calls for prioritizing bus travel on the county's busiest streets and implementing the recommendations of the NextGen Bus Plan to make bus service more frequent and faster. After implementation, Metro expects 21 percent of county residents and 36 percent of jobs will be within a 10-minute walk of high-quality rail or bus rapid transit options--up from only 8 percent and 16 percent, respectively. The comprehensive plan estimates an 81 percent increase in daily transit trips, a 31 percent decrease in transit delay and a 19 percent decrease in overall greenhouse gas emissions in the county. At the same time, Metro approved budget and service cuts for 2021. The budget will drop 20 percent, to $6 billion, and bus and rail service will drop by 1 million hours, to 5.6 million.  Sacramento Plans for Downtown Public Transit Hub The City of Sacramento revealed new plans for a downtown transit hub situated between the city's downtown and the railyard, which is being redeveloped as a massive mixed-use community. The vision for the 17-acre, city-owned site, which includes the historic Sacramento Valley Station depot, is centered around a new passenger station above existing Amtrak platforms, with adjacent plazas and bus hubs to be integrated into the station. This fall the city will update its planning guide for the area, which will open up state and federal grant opportunities to contribute to what is expected to be hundreds of millions of dollars in both public and private investment costs. Early designs suggest the hub will have a similar sleek and high-tech feel of nearby Downtown Commons, but with more recreational amenities like a community garden, a dog park, and a skate park along the river. Among the first steps are a plan to build a ramp into an existing train passenger tunnel to connect to planned developments including a medical center and a Major League Soccer stadium. Coastal Commission Approves Makeover of Dana Point Harbor The California Coastal Commission voted unanimously to approve a redevelopment plan for 49-year-old Dana Point Harbor in Orange County. The plan, which is expected to cost $330 million, is the result of more than 20 years of collaborative efforts with the county, the city of Dana Point, and community stakeholders. As part of the Coastal Commission's approval--which includes re-configuring the harbor and replacing 2,409 boat slips with fewer, larger boat slips--the developer must meet special conditions. Among these are creating a sea lion and seal monitoring program, planning for post-construction water quality protection and enhancement, and maximizing public access and recreation so environmental justice considerations, such as educational access for youth, are addressed. For the latter, the developer said it is developing a program that would bring at least 1,000 low-income and disadvantaged youths to the harbor every year. The program will include a variety of water education programs including sailing and surfing. CP&DR Coverage: Infamous Apartment Proposed Approved in Lafayette  The Lafayette City Council voted to approve the Terraces at Lafayette, an apartment complex planned for 22 acres in the upscale Bay Area suburb. The Terraces saga gained widespread attention early this year when it was recounted in Conor Dougherty’s recently published book  Golden Gates . Over the years, the project’s size has wavered between 44 units and 315 units. Some local residents at one point favored the diminutive version, while housing advocates insisted that the project accommodate as many residents as possible – and famously sued the city, unsuccessfully, to force the larger project. Even so, the controversy is far from over. Opponents, led by the citizens’ group Save Lafayette, filed a lawsuit suit against the project in late September – the second suit brought by the group under the California Environmental Quality Quick Hits & Updates  City officials have delayed the release of a crucial report about a transit village proposed by Google for downtown San Jose, saying the game-changing project is so complex that more time is needed to fashion the study. The next major step in the city planning process was an initial environmental impact report that had been slated for release by the end of August. The report is now slated to be released in October. (See prior CP&DR coverage .) Following newly released details of the Burbank to Los Angeles leg of California High-Speed Rail , officials will now study how to extend service into Orange County. Under the proposed plan, the roughly 30-mile corridor would feature an electrified track for high-speed trains and other passenger rail services. The environmental study will also evaluate the construction of two new satellite rail facilities in the San Bernardino County communities of Lenwood and Colton. Gov. Gavin Newsom and state lawmakers have unveiled a plan to protect California from a looming wave of evictions caused by economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic. The proposed deal has some eviction protection provisions for tenants, but no rent forgiveness. Proponents of the bill say it's a stopgap measure meant to help Californians in need until federal aid comes through. Los Angeles plans to spend nearly $10 million on a new program to help tenants threatened with eviction defend themselves in court, along with an additional $40 million to help low income residents. The "emergency eviction defense" program will be funded with up to $8 million from federal block grants and nearly $2 million previously set aside for a renters relief program. The board of Los Angeles commuter rail system  Metrolink has greenlit the planning of two extensions for a $5 billion high-speed train to Las Vegas that would tie it into existing Los Angeles-area commuter rail lines and California's high-speed rail project. Each of the extensions would be about 50 miles from Victorville, California, and add about $2 billion of additional construction costs. Hundreds of thousands of dollars in severance payments flowed improperly to former employees, an audit of the San Diego Association of Governments found. Hasan Ikhrata, who took over as SANDAG's top executive in 2018, approved more than $227,000 in payments without telling the board of directors. The actions were not isolated cases, the audit said: Ikhrata regularly operated outside of existing procedures and established his own policy objectives. A proposed development in Upland is now in jeopardy due to a conflict regarding whether the project can bypass environmental review pursuant to SB 35. Due to initial backlash from the city of Upland, the developer has said that it will either go through a ministerial approval process or not build at all. The case is complicated by the fact that part of the project straddles two jurisdictions. The city of Claremont disputes Upland's claim that the environmental report does not qualify for construction through SB 35. San Francisco's Muni Metro light-rail system, which shut down abruptly after a short reopening, is expected to remain closed through the end of the year as extensive repairs are made. Muni shut down the light-rail system after equipment malfunctions and reports of employees infected with the coronavirus. Officials said after worrying back-to-back breakdowns it makes sense to do the repairs now while ridership is low. Details are emerging for a proposed gondola line that could take one of four routes from the San Fernando Valley to a viewing platform below the Hollywood Sign in Los Angeles. The proposed tram would require the construction of a series of tower structures which would be used to support cable-driven gondolas. Ridership forecasts anticipate as many 13,000 passengers per day with ample parking and inexpensive fares.

Amy Coney Barrett, President Trump’s nominee to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the U.S. Supreme Court, has a thin judicial record on property and environmental issues. But the one recent opinion she wrote provides some insight into how she might approach those issues on the high court: carefully, narrowly, and with deference to local government. Environmental groups are excoriating Barrett as a threat to all efforts at environmental protection, particularly combatting climate change. Typical is the statement from the Center for Biological Diversity , a public interest law firm that has been extremely effective in California land-use law. The statement called Barrett “an ideological fanatic who lacks the temperament to rule fairly in the interest of all Americans” and predicted Barrett “will slam shut the courthouse doors to public interest advocates, to the delight of corporate polluters.” And many environmentalists are concerned that by reducing the number of liberal justices on the high court to three, public-interest-oriented cases in the environmental and property arenas won’t even get a hearing in front of the Supreme Court because it takes four votes to hear a case. To be sure, Barrett’s confirmation would pull the court in a conservative direction on property and environmental issues. Recently she joined a majority of the Seventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in rejecting the argument that wetlands surrounded by residential development, 11 miles from the nearest navigable waterway, required a federal permit, as the Army Corps of Engineers argued. But she did not write the ruling. In the one environmental/property opinion she has written as a member of the Seventh Circuit – issued only a month ago – Barrett rejected a very expansive federal takings claim and showed extreme deference to the City of Chicago. She also showed herself to be extremely careful in her legal reasoning and an unusually clear and accessible writer of judicial opinions. The case involved a legal challenge by a parks watchdog group and Chicago residents to Chicago’s deal with the Barack Obama Foundation to place the Obama Presidential Center in historic Jackson Park, originally the site of the famous Chicago World’s Fair in 1893. The deal granted an extraordinary amount of control over a public park to a private foundation. The watchdog group sued on a wide variety of arguments, but the one of most interest to those outside of Illinois was the group’s attempt to claim that the deal with between the city and the Obama Foundation amounted to a taking of public property for private gain under the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution. In short, the plaintiffs invoked Illinois’ “public trust” doctrine to claim that the deal illegally transferred control of a public park to a private entity for private purposes. Then the plaintiffs argued that, as Chicago residents and taxpayers, they have a “beneficial interest” in the park under the public trust doctrine. This beneficial interest, they argued, constitutes a property right worthy of protection under the Fifth Amendment – and the Obama deal was a taking of that property right. The plaintiffs also argued that their substantive due process rights were violated under the Constitution. This is a pretty far-out argument even for a citizen group, and it’s easy to imagine Barrett’s mentor, Antonin Scalia, dismissing it with memorably snarky language. Indeed, Barrett does note that “the alleged property right” is “highly unusual” and “one might be immediately skeptical about whether it exists”. But her ruling dispatches the constitutional claims carefully, with admirable restraint, and with considerable deference to the city. On the takings claim, she relies heavily on an Illinois Supreme Court case that concluded that private landowners near a public park have no private property right in having the park used a particular way. “If adjacent landowners have no protected interest in public land, then the plaintiffs don’t have one either,” she wrote. “Although the plaintiffs wish it were otherwise, the Illinois cases make clear that the public trust doctrine functions as a restraint on government action, not as an affirmative grant of property rights.” And she added: “What’s more, the City’s judgment that a particular transfer and use has a public purpose is entitled to deference.” She noted that it’s hard to argue that the Obama Center, which includes a museum, a branch library, an auditorium, an athletic center, and gardens, does not have a public benefit. On the substantive due process claim, she also deferred to the City of Chicago and also the state. She quoted a previous Seventh Circuit ruling concluding that one legislative determination “provides all the process that is due”. Noting that the city adopted four different ordinances – after “multiple public hearings” and the state also amended laws to accommodate the Obama Center, she concluded: “If one legislative determination is enough, then five determinations are overkill.” CP&DR is a subscriber-supported publication. This article is being provided free of charge, but most articles are available only on a premium basis. For  FULL ACCESS  to all our premium content -  Subscribe Online Today ! (If you're not a subscriber premium articles can be purchased for just $5 each by visiting our online Single Purchase Store ) COMMENTS: