The use of vehicle miles traveled (VMT) metrics to evaluate the environmental impacts of developments goes into effect statewide July 1, after seven years of legislating and planning. It promises to be one of the more monumental changes in California land use, forever changing the relationship between development and the automobile.

Lately, as I have been watching cities and other local governments all over the country struggle with declining revenue, I have been reminded of my own experience as Deputy Mayor and Mayor of Ventura during the last recession, when we faced so many of the same issues. It was, I have to admit, a pretty bruising experience as we tried to figure out how to raise revenue, cut costs, balance the budget, and keep everybody happy – which was, of course, impossible. So I thought I’d try to help people going who are going through this now understand my experience by calling upon some of the blogs I wrote at the time – blogs originally written to my constituents to explain why I made the decisions I made. This is the third of three reprinted blogs. The first  highlights the fact that there is no “magic bullet” in this kind of situation. The second  talks about how residents resist higher fees during a recession. And the third -- this one – talks about the bruising emotional toll a recession takes on a city and its residents. To say nothing of its politicians. All these blogs were published in my 2017 book, Talk City: A Chronicle of Political Life in an All-American City . You can learn more about Talk City (and order the book) by clicking here . This blog was written in the depths of the Great Recession in 2009. To the extent that a politician ever gets a day off, mine is Saturday. This week I was looking forward to my typical “day off” – a trip to the Farmers Market, the dry cleaners, Target, Trader Joe’s. A day to feel like a typical person. Here’s what happened: At the Farmers Market, I ran into a devoted constituent who is very active in the library issue and talked to me for a long time about different ways to keep Wright Library open. She was, by turns, angry, fearful, concerned, confused, and full of ideas. On my way to Target I stopped off across the street at Fire Station #5 and chatted with firefighters about how the pending budget cuts might affect them. They were, by turns, angry, fearful, concerned, confused, and full of ideas. While checking out at Trader Joe’s I talked with the cashier and an elderly lady standing in line about how bad the parking was and how much worse it might get if Wal-Mart moves in next door. Though opposed by many people for many reasons – including, apparently, this elderly constituent concerned about parking – Wal-Mart would appear to be one of the few vehicles for the city to obtain more revenue in the short run. So it was not exactly a relaxing day off. I reconnected with my town and my constituents, but they are all understandably anxious that things are bad and getting worse. The things they cherish about their community – their neighborhood library, easy parking at Trader Joe’s, quick response times from firefighters and police officers – all seem at risk. And all this is happening at a time when we are all afraid of what is going to happen to us personally. Will we lose our jobs? Will our wages be cut? Our health insurance? Will we ever be able to retire? I am very fortunate – I make a good amount of money, more than most people – but I am scared too. I feel at risk in my personal and business life just like everybody else. The months ahead will not be easy. This week, we on the City Council will start eliminating positions and possibly even laying people off. Over the next couple of months, we will be making even more severe cuts in city services. We may well ask the voters for an increase in the sales tax. But even if it passes, that won’t generate enough money to restore all the services we have now. So we will be faced with terrible choices. Do we want to lay off police officers in order to keep the libraries open? Shall we close the parks or stop paving the streets? Shut down a fire station or stop servicing our vehicles? Nobody wants to make these kinds of choices, whether it’s in government, in our private businesses, or in our personal finances. And it’s been hard for all of us to face up to what has to be done. Whenever I’ve talked to people around town about making cuts in their favorite service, they’ve reacted all kinds of ways. Many have simply insisted this can’t be happening. Some have yelled at me. Others have insisted that there must be some other way – cutting back on paper clips, firing the overpaid top managers, cutting somebody else’s favorite program. Others have been combing through government budgets trying to prove that money is wasted. Many have suggested that I cut my own salary as a City Councilmember. (I’d happily do so, but that fat $7,200 per year is set in the City Charter and can’t be changed without a vote. By the way, it’s hasn’t gone up in 35 years.) As I have talked to constituents over the past few weeks, I have been recalling the five stages of grieving laid out in Elizabeth Kubler-Ross’s famous book On Death and Dying , which I first read in college more than 30 years ago. The five stages were meant to be applied to grieving over the death of a loved one (or one’s own mortality). But as it turns out, they can be applied to the grieving process you go through whenever you suffer any kind of loss. The recent loss of our prosperity – and the consequences for both our personal life and our civic life – means not just a loss of material things but also a loss of confidence and a loss of our sense of well-being. In dealing with constituents – and dealing with my own feelings about the current financial situation – I have come to recognize all five stages of grief, which are: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. In both our personal lives and our civic life, many of us have been in denial. This library can’t be closing! A lot of people have moved on to anger, which is why I get yelled at so much. It’s all the City Council’s fault! Or it’s the fault of the stupid library director, who should be fired! Many people get stuck there, but I notice a bunch of constituents moving on to bargaining. Let’s raise enough money just to keep the library open for a year, and then maybe things will improve! Maybe because our city’s financial woes have been coming on for a while, I guess I feel like I have worked through those first three and right now I’m at depression. Things are awful. Why bother continuing to make them better? That’s how I feel a lot of the time these days. But I also know that people have faced tough times before. I’m trying my best to move toward acceptance. Acceptance is liberating, because it makes you realize that some things are going to happen that you can’t control. We are less prosperous than we were a year or two ago. We will have less money to make things happen. This means we will have to endure some cutbacks; but it also means we will have to use the money we have more creatively, and come up with solutions nobody has tried before. This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t hope things will get better. But it does mean that we will have to pull together as a community, both to accept the loss that we are going to feel and to turn things around so our community is successful again. It’s hard to work through the five stages of grief in a situation like this. But people – and communities like Ventura – are very resilient. And that gives me hope. Eventually, of course, Ventura did pull out of the recession and prosper again. But I have to admit that I carried the scars of the Great Depression with me for a long time after I left office in late 2011 – to Washington, D.C., then to San Diego, and finally to Houston. Maybe that’s part of the reason I moved around so much in those years. It was still hard to come to terms with the decisions we had to make in those days. You can learn more about Talk City (and order the book) by clicking here .

Simply increasing enrollment on a University of California campus – as opposed to adding buildings and other development projects – is subject to the California Environmental Quality Act, an appellate court has ruled. UC said it would appeal the ruling to the California Supreme Corut.

Wildfire Threat Dooms Lilac Hills Ranch Proposal in San Diego County Citing wildfire concerns, San Diego County supervisors voted to reject the 1,700-home Lilac Hills Ranch development. The development would have required a change to the county's general plan, a fact that drew ire from supervisor. The county has approved other projects despite similar wildfire concerns, but fire officials and county staff said this project posed special dangers because of the narrow two-lane roads that could trap residents during an evacuation. Further complicating the matter, the developer was unable to secure legal agreements for easements that would allow firefighters to hold a fire, giving residents time to evacuate. A Supervisor also noted that to meet greenhouse emissions standards, the project relied on a county offset program that was recently struck down by the Court of Appeals . The lone supervisor that voted yes was in support of the badly needed housing the project would bring, but a decade of failed negotiations left the board with little incentive to fight for the project. The development had been the subject of two ballot measures, most recently in March, in which voters refused to approve zoning changes that would have accommodated the project.  Sober Living Homes Must Abide by Local Zoning Regulations, Court Rules  Costa Mesa won the latest round of legal battles over sober living homes, which have proliferated in coastal communities in recent years. The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously agreed to uphold a lower court's ruling that the American With Disabilities and Fair Housing acts do not exempt the rehab industry from city zoning regulations. Costa Mesa was the first California city to impose limitations on sober living homes, which have proliferated in residential neighborhoods based on, it seems, a faulty legal presumption. The district court wrote its decision that there are "significant countervailing interests... in preserving the benefits the city ordinance conferred." On balance, the judges said, the hardships did not strongly favor the sober living home operators. The ruling is just one of more than a half-dozen lawsuits, which have cost the city more than $7 million to defend, but the ninth circuit's opinion will set the tone for lower courts as other suits make their way through the courts. The decision is also significant in that the court could have made a narrow decision that applied to the specific case, but instead the court delved deeper, speaking to the broader set of public interest versus city ordinances that will permeate these cases. (See prior CP&DR coverage .)  Overcrowded Housing Spreads Coronavirus in California  A clear pattern has emerged as the coronavirus spares some California neighborhoods and strikes others: The virus takes a heavier toll in neighborhoods where people pack into overcrowded homes (defined as households where there are more people than rooms of all types, besides bathrooms), according to a Calmatters analysis of neighborhood-level data from 10 counties. Neighborhoods with large numbers of people per household have about 3.7 times the rate of confirmed COVID-19 cases per 1,000 residents as neighborhoods where few residents live in tight quarters. Calmatters collected case data from 10 California counties with large numbers of infected people in late May, totaling nearly 69,783 confirmed cases in 659 neighborhoods, or about 69 percent of all the state's cases at the time. The pattern was startlingly consistent across the counties, whether urban or rural, coastal or inland, northern or southern. Only in Sacramento was there no link between household crowding and COVID-19. Lee Riley, a UC Berkeley epidemiology professor, said the strong link between overcrowded housing and infections could point to one reason that California's shelter-in-place order didn't bend the curve right away: People continued to spread the virus to the people with whom they live. Coastal Commission Allows San Diego to Reduce Parking Requirements  San Diego's new policy eliminating parking requirements for new housing projects built near mass transit cleared a key hurdle when the California Coastal Commission approved allowing the change in the city's beach areas. Commission members rejected recommendations from their staff, who said the new policy shouldn't apply to a large swatch of Pacific Beach because it could worsen the area's already chronic parking shortages. The new policy eliminates rules requiring developers to create at least one parking spot per unit for most projects and more parking for larger apartments. It also requires developers, who are free to build parking spots if market studies show there is strong demand for it, to "unbundle" the cost of a parking spot from monthly rent. The only neighborhoods eligible for the new policy are those near transit hubs, which are defined as being located within half a mile of a trolley line, a bus rapid transit station or two high-frequency bus routes. Los Angeles to Consider Vacancy Tax Ballot Measure  The Los Angeles City Council has directed city lawyers to draft language for a ballot measure that would impose a 'vacancy tax' to encourage landlords to rent out units. A successful drafting process will be key to the measure going forward because ongoing squabbles about the finer points - how the tax would work and whether it would actually benefit Los Angelenos - have prevented the council from giving final approval. A city-commissioned analysis found that a vacancy tax could cover 19,000 residential units, 2,500 commercial units, and 2,900 parcels. A separate analysis found that L.A.'s vacancy rate is between 6 and 7 percent; of those, a disproportionate number are luxury units. Councilman Mike Bonin, who championed the proposed tax, suggested Los Angeles adopt a measure much like the recently passed vacancy tax in Oakland, but with a different structure for taxation rates: a flat tax of $5,000 a year for vacant residential properties, with charges ranging from $5,000 to $40,000 for vacant parcels. Recent adjustments to the proposal exclude commercial properties are not eligible for residential use and non-corporate owned single-family homes. Prior to those adjustments, an analysis estimated the tax could bring in $128 million in annual revenue. The council now faces a July 1 deadline to decide whether to put the proposed measure on the November ballot. CP&DR Coverage: AIDS Healthcare Loses Again In the most recent court case, the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, which has waded into land use battles in recent years, accused the City of Los Angeles of pursuing gentrification policies that would adversely affect low-income people, Latinos, and others, especially with regard to four development projects in Hollywood: the Palladium project, the Sunset Gordon project, the Crossroads project (adjacent to Crossroads of the World), and the 6400 Sunset project. All of the projects are located along Sunset Boulevard less than a mile from the Foundation’s headquarters. The appellate court was unpersuaded, however, that this displacement would be the result of a specific policy by the City of Los Angeles actionable under the disparate impact doctrine. (See prior CP&DR coverage .)  Quick Hits & Updates  Bay Area lawmakers introduced a statewide measure for long-term eviction relief for renters struggling to pay rent during the coronavirus pandemic. The measure, AB 1437, would ban evictions for back rent and would give renters 15 months after emergency orders are lifted to pay back rent. If passed, landlords would still be allowed to pursue civil claims to recoup lost rent. After eight years of construction and two years of delays, BART's 10-mile, $2.3 billion extension line to San Jose carried its first passengers in June. The new end-of-the-line Berryessa Station in northeast San Jose will eventually bring passengers to hundreds of under construction condominiums and apartments. (See prior CP&DR coverage .) San Luis Obispo was named top U.S. city for bicycling by PeopleforBikes City Rankings . The ratings analyze five key indicators of bicycle programs - ridership, safety, network, connection to the community and how quickly the program is being improved - across more than 550 cities and communities. Another California city, Santa Barbara, made the top 3 cities for bikes. After an intense 6-week community opposition campaign, CIM Group has backed away from an agreement to purchase and redevelop Crenshaw Mall into an office campus. The redevelopment was seen by opponents as an attempt to gentrify the majority-African American community. "This is a tremendous Black victory and a testament to the power of our community," said Damien Goodman, Executive Director of the Crenshaw Subway Coalition. The Lompoc City Council adopted and finalized the city of Lompoc Pedestrian and Bicycle Plan, which will focus primarily on increasing safety along routes near schools and in high speed and high vehicular traffic areas. The pedestrian component of the master plan identifies and prioritizes future projects to create a sidewalk network that encourages walking. Work has slowed but continued on San Francisco's Central Subway  project, SFMTA officials say. Heavy construction on stations was scheduled to finish this summer, but now will continue into the fall and finish by the end of the year. Once operational, the Central Subway will provide key connections to some of the city's most densely populated and growing areas. California transportation regulators ruled that rideshare drivers are employees, in line with newly-enacted state law AB5. For now, it is unclear what practical difference this ruling makes, but regulators issued a notice to Uber and Lyft that they must provide compensation for their employees by July 1, and the companies are currently being sued by California's largest cities and the state attorney general. The U.S. Forest Service will use a loophole from the George W. Bush era to open up 755 acres of Ventura County backcountry to logging - without having to complete an environmental impact assessment or having to provide a full public comment period. Centuries old trees up to five feet in diameter dot the landscape of the popular destination for hikers and climbers. Los Angeles Metro released the draft of its 2020 Long Range Transportation Plan, a $400-billion, 30-year transportation blueprint for the region. The 2020 LRTP details how Metro will add more than 100 miles over the next 30 years, the most aggressive transit expansion plan in the nation. Metro has set aggressive goals: according to a press release, the plan will result in an 81 percent increase in daily transit trips and a 19 percent decrease in greenhouse gas emissions. Elon Musk's vision for a high-speed rail tunnel linking Rancho Cucamonga with Ontario International Airport got the go-ahead from San Bernardino County's transportation agency. Staff have been directed to flesh out the proposal and postpone a $3 million study of other airport-rail connections. The proposal would build a 2.8-mile tunnel, 14 feet in diameter and about 35 feet underground

CP&DR Vol. 35 No. 6 June 2020

Homelessness Rises in Los Angeles, Especially among Black Residents  Even pre-pandemic, the number of people without a home in the City of Los Angeles grew 13 percent over the previous year according to newly released numbers. Now, the count "is not that helpful because the whole landscape has changed," said Los Angeles Homeless Services Director Heidi Marston. "This doesn't take into account the almost 600,000 people that, since January, and even just since May, have lost their jobs due to COVID-19," she said. A recent study from the UCLA Luskin Institute on Inequality and Democracy estimates that 120,000 households in Los Angeles County could become homeless for some period of time once eviction moratoriums are lifted. The Black community has been hit particularly hard. According to a draft report , 21,509 Black people were without permanent, habitable housing during the count in January - 34 percent of Los Angeles' homeless population of 64,000. In a presentation on the recent homelessness count, Martson repeatedly said systemic racism is behind the inequities in homelessness, citing a commissioned report that called homelessness "a byproduct of racism" and detailed structural barriers in education, criminal justice, housing, employment, healthcare, and access to opportunities.” Wiener Sponsors Bill to Speed Development of Transit  In a bid to boost green transportation and juice the economy, Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) is proposing a bill that would fast-track transportation projects focused on public transit, bikes and pedestrians. SB288, the Sustainable Transportation COVID-19 Recovery Act, would exempt sustainable transportation projects from challenges under CEQA. It targets transit stations, bus rapid transit lines, safer streets for biking and walking, electric-vehicle charging stations, and repairs for bridge and transit storage facilities, while excluding projects that would encourage car use. The bill does not entirely sidestep CEQA. It still requires that the overarching plan behind projects already have CEQA approval, but specific projects under the umbrella of an approved project would be exempt. Additionally, projects must be located on public rights of ways in urbanized areas, and large projects must be part of a regional transportation plan. California has 1.6 million transportation jobs many of which could be impacted as cities, counties and the state slash budgets amid the coronavirus crisis. Compounding that problem is commuters who may continue to avoid public transit as cities reopen. With CEQA exemptions, cities stand to save substantial sums that would have gone to EIRs and CEQA lawsuits. Nationwide Parks Rankings Give California Cities Mixed Reviews The Trust for Public Land released its annual “ ParkScore ” rankings, showing how nearly 100 of the country’s most populous cities fare when it comes to public parkland. California has some of the top cities on the list, but also some of the lowest, often within close proximity of each other. Irvine was ranked highest among California cities at number 7, while nearby Santa Ana ranked low at the 85th spot; Sacramento ranked at 30 while Stockton, an hour’s drive away, ranked 87. Ratings were based on factors such as acreage, amenities and how many people have access to the parks. The report found that every San Francisco resident is within a 10 minute walk from a park, earning San Francisco a top spot in the rankings for the first time. But in Fresno, No. 92 on the list, that’s true for only 67 percent of residents. The results are important, the report’s authors note, because people are turning to parks during the pandemic to find refuge. CP&DR Coverage: Court Rules against AIDS Healthcare Foundation -- and San Diego CAP  The powerful AIDS Healthcare Foundation keeps trying to block development of property adjoining its headquarters and on nearby parcels in Hollywood – and keeps losing . In the most recent court case, the Foundation accused the City of Los Angeles of pursuing gentrification policies that would adversely affect low-income people, Latinos, and others, especially with regard to four development projects in Hollywood: the Palladium project, the Sunset Gordon project, the Crossroads project (adjacent to Crossroads of the World), and the 6400 Sunset project. All of the projects are located along Sunset Boulevard less than a mile from the Foundation’s headquarters. Meanwhile San Diego County's Climate Action Plan was struck down by the 4th District Court of Appeal in a suit brought by environmental groups. Lawyers for the county argued that San Diego's offset program should be allowed under state law because of its similarities to California's cap-and-trade program. But the appellate court disagreed, noting the state's strict performance standards that ensure offsets represent real reductions in greenhouse gases. However, the court left the door open to a more stringent offset program, adding that its ruling "should not be construed as blanket prohibition on using carbon offsets.”  Quick Hits & Updates The California bullet train's proposed route from Burbank to Los Angeles would cross 22 roads, traverse the Los Angeles River, run through dozens of businesses and hit people across economic and racial segments, a draft environmental study found. The project's future has never been more uncertain. California legislators have proposed a bill that would halt high-speed rail funding for two years, and with less traffic, cap-and-trade funding has fallen from $613 million in February to just $25 million in May. A middle-of-the-night vote by City College of San Francisco trustees to shut its Fort Mason Arts campus has drawn the ire of students, teachers and critics of the school administration. The Chancellor said money woes brought on by the coronavirus pandemic were forcing the college to make the change. San Francisco Mayor London Breed announced the closure of a $43.7 million construction loan to build a 104-unit complex that will house formerly homeless people, including veterans, on Treasure Island. The total cost of the project will be $75 million, paid for by more than a half dozen city, state, and private sources. A former top deputy to L.A. City Councilmember Jose Huizar has agreed to plead guilty to a racketeering charge, while the FBI says he played a central role in a "criminal organization" at City Hall. The wider scheme involved city officials, developers and their associates who conspired to exchange bribes of cash and gifts for a leg up for development projects. While high-density metro areas may have higher infection rates, density alone isn't a predictor of coronavirus-related mortality rates, a new study shows. After controlling for metropolitan population, county density is not significantly related to infection rate, possibly due to more adhere to social distancing guidelines. Their findings suggest that connectivity, or high levels economic, social, and commuting relationships, matters more than density in the spread of COVID-19. (See prior CP&DR commentary .)  Los Angeles rents fell in March for the first time since 2010 in the wake of the Great Recession and continued to tumble in April -- a 3.3 percent decrease to an average of $2,254 for units of all sizes followed a 0.8 percent drop in April. Data showed declines were focused on the middle and high-end of the market. Since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, one in 13 San Francisco renters, or 7.5 percent, have broken their lease since coronavirus stay-at-home orders went into place. The biggest group of tenants breaking leases are Gen Z workers, according to landlord and tenant groups, who expect many will come back when the pandemic ends. Rancho Cucamonga and Hartford, Conn., are the winners of Smart Growth America's Form-Based Codes Award, an annual recognition of cities that have adopted exemplary zoning codes. Rancho Cucamonga's Etiwanda Heights Neighborhood Plan and Code won accolades for "creating a new neighborhood that conserves much of the natural environment.” An 84-acre development plan known as the Hub was granted a key approval by San Francisco planning officials. The developments in the approved environmental impact report could house up to 15,000 residents, fund or create up to 2,200 affordable units and bring in nearly a $1 billion through development fees for public benefits. The Coastal Commission is recommending Newport Beach fine nearly three dozen beachfront homeowners ta combined $1.7 million in fines for illegal yards that extend onto public beaches. The commission cited the 1976 Coastal Act, which safeguards public access and environmental preservation. Newport Beach has agreed to restore the encroachments to their natural state. The COVID-19 crisis was the final blow to California's " Green New Deal ," a legislation package that aimed to accelerate the state's climate goals while creating opportunities for disadvantaged communities. That's according to one of the bill's author, Oakland Assembly member Rob Bonta. In response to the pandemic, the authors turned the bill into a stimulus package: the California COVID-19 Recovery Deal. The California Assembly has co-sponsored a resolution directing the California High-Speed Rail Authority to defer funding toward construction of the bullet train rail system between Merced and Bakersfield. It's a signal that a growing number of members - particularly in Southern California - think investing in urban centers and commuter rail systems may have a bigger payoff.

Lately, as I have been watching cities and other local governments all over the country struggle with declining revenue, I have been reminded of my own experience as Deputy Mayor and Mayor of Ventura during the last recession, when we faced so many of the same issues. It was, I have to admit, a pretty bruising experience as we tried to figure out how to raise revenue, cut costs, balance the budget, and keep everybody happy – which was, of course, impossible. So I thought I’d try to help people going who are going through this now understand my experience by calling upon some of the blogs I wrote at the time – blogs originally written to my constituents to explain why I made the decisions I made. So I’m reprinting three blogs. The first  highlighted the fact that there is no “magic bullet” in this kind of situation. The second, this one, talks about how residents resist higher fees during a recession. And the third will talk about the bruising emotional tool a recession takes on a city and its residents. All these blogs were published in my 2017 book, Talk City: A Chronicle of Political Life in an All-American City . You can learn more about Talk City (and order the book) by clicking here At the beginning of the Great Recession in 2008 – when I was Deputy Mayor of Ventura – the City Council adopted two fees that turned out to be very controversial: a “9-1-1 fee” of $1.49 per month per phone line designed to help pay for our city’s 9-1-1 call center, and a $99-per-year weed abatement fee for hillside property owners. This blog was written in the middle of the controversy in 2008. We got creamed in the press and by constituents all winter and spring over passage of the 911 fee. More recently, we’ve gotten hammered by hillside property owners for the weed abatement fee of $99, which is meant to cover the city’s cost of ensuring that hillside property owners are complying with the State Fire Code. Our 911 fee is still in place – the so-called “opt-out” period ended yesterday – but on Monday night we did waive the weed abatement fee for this year while we take a step back. People don’t complain much about fees when they understand what service they’re paying for. If you’re doing a room addition, for example, and we charge a fee to cover the city’s cost of processing the permit, people understand that. If we raise the fee a lot they may gripe, but at least they understand that they are paying for something they are getting. In the case of both the 911 fee and the weed abatement fee, it’s not as clear to people what they are buying their fee. They’re not paying a fee based on something they are applying for – a room addition, a business license, whatever – but rather based on the fact that they fall into a particular category of resident. For example, everyone who buys telephone service pays the 911 fee (unless you opt-out, in which case you pay by the call); and that, of course, is just about everyone, which is why some people think it’s a tax. The money is earmarked to maintain the state-mandated 911 call center. Similarly, everybody who owns hillside property received a bill for the weed fee, whether or not they maintain their property on their own, simply because they live in a high-fire-hazard area. That money is earmarked to pay for the city’s cost on ensuring compliance with the State Fire Code. So when people gripe, it’s because they’re being asked to pay a fee when they aren’t applying for or seeking anything in particular. This is a fair point and we’ll debate it over the coming weeks and months. But if we do back off fees like this, then we will have to make much deeper cuts in our city services, at least in the short run. We’ll probably just be trading constituent complaints about high fees for constituent complaints about poor service. I know this isn’t a popular statement, but my personal view is that the City has been too reluctant to charge fees in the past, because the good folks who work for the City hate to make our residents pay for things. That’s why our overall fee burden is fairly low. But I’m more than willing to admit that it’s time to step back and examine where we should “draw the line” between (1) charges for specific services that specific people request and (2) charges for services that we must provide to specific groups of people (often because of state law) whether they ask for those services or not. So the question becomes, who pays for what? The tricky part is how we handle a situation where the City is obligated by law to do something that benefits a particular group of people, but charging those people to cover the cost requires either voter approval, if it’s a tax, or public acceptance for the notion that it’s a fee. The hillside weed thing is a good example. When a wildfire breaks out in the hillsides – as happens frequently in Ventura – hillside residents expect the government to spend enormous amounts of money to fight the fire and protect their neighborhood. (I know this because I used to live in Ondulando, which has been saved several times by a multimillion-dollar firefighting efforts.) So there’s a state law that says the hillside owners have to abate their fire hazards and that the City has to enforce those requirements. You can probably argue the question of who should pay either way. On the one hand, spending a little tax money to monitor weed abatement in the hillsides might save huge amounts of tax money later – so shouldn’t we all pay? On the other hand, the primary beneficiaries of fire suppression efforts are the hillside homeowners – so shouldn’t they pay? We often face the same kinds of “who pays?” questions down at the beach. In any event, I think all the public debate over the last few months – including all the criticism of the City Council – has done us a favor. It’s forced a long-overdue conversation about who pays and who benefits and what our priorities should be. In the end, we killed the weed fee and we also eliminated the 9-1-1 fee after a similar fee was declared illegal in a city in the Bay Area. But nine years later, half the houses in Ondulando burned down, where I used to live, in the Thomas Fire, a massive wildfire which stretched all the way from Santa Barbara to Ventura. You can learn more about Talk City (and order the book) by clicking here .

As I watched the looting that coincided with the protests last week, I couldn't help playing the Sublime song “April 26, 1992" in my head. In my youth, it was part of the soundtrack to Los Angeles. Sublime name-checks a random array of cities: "riots on the streets of Miami… Chicago… Long Beach… Compton… Santa Barbara.... let it burn, let it burn.”

The powerful AIDS Healthcare Foundation keeps trying to block development of property adjoining its headquarters and on nearby parcels in Hollywood – and keeps losing.

The renewed urgency about racial injustice following the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer has reminded us, both as people and as urban planners, of how deeply racism is embedded in American life. I have certainly been reminded of the experiences Black American face every day that I, as a white male, typically do not have to worry about: Driving While Black. Fear that even the most interaction with a police officer could result in tragedy. The undeniable fact that an African-American job candidate will simply not attract as much interest from employers as an identically qualified white candidate. The list of daily threats and indignities is endless. These are experiences that are all too easy for a white person to overlook. But the events of the last two weeks have reminded all of us that these experiences must be top of mind for every American, no matter their race or ethnicity. Simply put, they are experiences no American should ever have to contend with, and all of us, from this point forward, must dedicate ourselves to ensuring that they simply never occur. But one thing we urban planners have been reminded of recently is something that we cannot overlook: How structural racism plays itself across the landscape of our cities and how that affects the opportunities that African-Americans, in particular, have in our society. As urban planners, we set out every day to improve the built environment for the people who live in our cities and communities. And every day, we must contend with how structural racism has shaped – and still shapes – what that built environment looks like and how different groups relate to it. The evidence is all around us, in historically segregated neighborhoods, lack of housing opportunity for African-Americans, freeways that have torn communities asunder, neglected or nonexistent infrastructure in black neighborhoods, displacement resulting from gentrification, a growing homeless problem that has emerged in part from a lack of housing opportunity (and which affects the African-American community disproportionately), and much more. This list, too, is endless. Anybody in the planning community unaware of the historic, structural, and legal reasons that these inequities exist would do well to read The Color of Law by Richard Rothstein, which is perhaps the most important book about urban planning written in recent years. In an understated, matter-of-fact way, Rothstein recounts all the ways in which America’s legal system and perpetuated inequities between whites and African-Americans. Indeed, Rothstein found no shortage of examples in California. The beginning of the book depicts how black Ford assembly-line workers living in (an unincorporated part of) Richmond were forced to commute an hour each way to Milpitas when the Richmond Ford plant was relocated there because the South Bay housing market was closed to them. The book is a powerful indictment of how our communities have been shaped over the past century. Covering planning in California means, by definition, that we at CP&DR write about this legacy of segregation—often without being mindful of it. California has 480 cities, most of them small, and these municipal governments – along with their consultants and lawyers – represent CP&DR ’s primary audience. But the truth is that the way the boundaries are drawn around these 480 cities also shapes the geography of racial injustice. We at CP&DR spend an enormous amount of time writing about relatively small, mostly white suburbs – because that’s where most of the land-use fights occur, where precedents get set, and where lawsuits come from. But we typically don’t place these fights in the context of racial opportunity – or lack thereof – and we spend little time writing about how the built environment is being shaped in historically Black cities and communities (or, for that matter, in predominantly Latino communities either). Yes, increasingly, many planning policies in California are designed with equity in mind. Sustainable Communities Strategies account for environmental justice; Regional Housing Needs Allocations provide for low-income residents. But the recent protests highlight the fact that we should have been doing more all along. The vast majority of California’s planners – indeed, the vast majority of CP&DR ’s subscribers – are planners who work for local governments or for consulting firms that contract with local governments. And no matter how strong a sense of social justice urban planners have when they emerge from school – and often it’s very strong ­­– over time they get worn down by the relentlessly political environment in which planners typically operate. Some retreat to bureaucratic nit-picking, hiding behind slavish adherence to a development code that is almost always in some way a barrier to inclusivity. Most simply serve the political desires of their elected officials. In small suburban communities this often means using the planning and development process to exclude pretty much everybody who is racially or economically different from the mostly older white homeowners who show up at public meetings. Try as they might to maintain their sense of social justice, in the end most planners have jobs they want to keep. And the ability of our institutions such as the American Planning Association to effectuate change is limited by the reality of who most planners work for. Over the past generation, I have witnessed a growing unease on the part of many younger planners with the career choices they have been presented with. They are less interested in calculating floor-area ratio than they are in attacking the question of why so many people in our society don’t have enough FAR – or, in some cases, none at all. Increasingly, I see these planners taking a different path – working for advocacy groups or community nonprofits or politicians – or increasingly, running for office themselves. While it’s discouraging that working for public agencies often dampens planners’ idealism, I’m encouraged that their passion takes them into the realm of unalloyed advocacy. Our profession desperately needs this counterweight. The opportunities in these sectors are still limited, but we can only hope that more planners in the future devote themselves to using their professional skill to advocating for – and bringing about – real change in reversing the long-standing trends of racial discrimination evident in our built environment. And we at CP&DR must commit ourselves to ensuring that our coverage of land-use issues in California reflects the fullness of this longstanding racism and highlights the work that planners are doing to reverse the trend. We must – and we will – do better.

San Diego County’s program of permitting new development projects to mitigate their GHG impacts by buying carbon offsets elsewhere is too vague and violates the California Environmental Quality Act, the Fourth District Court of Appeal has ruled. But the court warned that its ruling is extremely narrow and does not rule out the possibility of using carbon offsets if the mitigation program is better constructed.  The ruling came in a complicated 137-page opinion with two appendices, one of which is a glossary. The case involves the interplay between the county general plan and the county climate action plan, between projects anticipated by the general plan and projects that exceed the general plan’s expected development, and between onsite GHG mitigations and offsite mitigations including in some cases carbon offsets that can purchased anywhere in the world.  The ruling was the third so far from the Fourth District in the case. (Previous CP&DR coverage can be found here and here .) and in the opinion a clearly exasperated Justice Joan Irion tried to provide a roadmap for the county’s compliance with CEQA and state climate law. The county’s climate action plan calls for a decrease of approximately 15% in greenhouse gas emissions between a 2014 baseline and buildout in 2030. This target includes additional development in unincorporated county territory as anticipated in the county general plan. To reduce GHGs, the CAP lays out 26 different strategies. Many of them are pretty standard (reducing vehicle miles traveled, building bike facilities) but one of them – T-4.1 – calls on the county to invest in projects that reduce GHGs, such as weatherization and urban tree planting, and track the GHG reductions from those projects. But the CAP also sought to address projects whose size would exceed the anticipated development in the general plan, including several pending major projects seeking general plan amendments, such as Lilac Hills Ranch and Newland Sierra. For these projects, the county required GHG emissions above the CAP limit to be reduced to zero and permitted a separate mitigation strategy to accomplish this goal. M-GHG-1, as the strategy was known, permitted developers to purchase carbon offsets anywhere in the world, subject to the discretionary approval of the county staff.  In the litigation before the appellate court, a coalition of environmental groups argued that county’s climate action plan was inconsistent with the county general plan and that M-GHG-1 was a violation of CEQA.  On the first question, the appellate court concluded that the CAP was not inconsistent with the general plan, but that the county abused its discretion in approving the CAP. But this finding was related to the question of M-GHG-1. “,There is nothing inherently unlawful under CEQA by delegating M-GHG-1 determinations to the Director,” wrote Justice Irion. “The problem is that M-GHG-1 contains no objective criteria for exercising that discretion to ensure that the GHG emissions reduction goals are actually met.” Without such objective criteria, there is no guarantee that the emissions reductions sought using M-GHG-1 will be “real, permanent, quantifiable, verifiable, enforceable, and additional.” She also found that M-GHG-1 impermissibly defers CEQA mitigation into the future, basically for the same reason.  In its appeal, the county relied heavily on Appendix B of its Supplemental Environmental Impact Report, which, the county claimed, “contains nearly 3,000 pages of offset protocols that the registries listed in M-GHG-1 use to ensure that offsets meet rigorous standards showing they are . . . additional, and verifiable.” “The problem, Irion wrote, “is that Appendix B itself states that it does not apply to M-GHG-1. Rather, Appendix B applies to CAP reduction measure T.-4.1.” She added: “ lthough nothing appears to preclude a GPA project from using an Appendix B protocol as part of its M-GHG-1 mitigation—nothing in M-GHG-1 requires it. By insisting that M-GHG-1 requires additionally because it requires GPAs to use Appendix B protocols, the County actually highlights one of M-GHG-1's most significant flaws—offset credits under M-GHG-1 need not be additional.” Because the whole M-GHG-1 regime was defective, substantive evidence did not exist that the GHG goals would be met, the county abused its discretion in approving the cap.  Irion seemed to go out of her way to say that the ruling should not be widely cited – and also made it clear she and her colleagues do not want to see this particular dispute again.  “To be abundantly clear, our holdings are necessarily limited to the facts of this case, and in particular, M-GHG-1. Our decision is not intended to be, and should not be construed as blanket prohibition on using carbon offsets—even those originating outside of California—to mitigate GHG emissions under CEQA.,” she wrote. “Except to the extent that (1) the CAP is impacted by its reliance on M-GHG-1; and (2) the CAP's inventory of greenhouse gases is inconsistent with the SEIR), the CAP is CEQA-compliant.” Noting that the case has been in the appellate court three times, she added, "In an attempt to avoid a fourth, we further note that the CAP contains a GHG reduction measure (T-4.1) designed to offset in-County GHG emissions. As explained post, T-4.1 significantly differs from M-GHG-1 in several respects and, perhaps more importantly in indicating the types of offset protocols that might pass muster, is unchallenged in this litigation.”

Housing Advocates Sue Huntington Beach Again California Renters Legal Advocacy and Education Fund (CaRLA) has filed a lawsuit against the city of Huntington Beach in a challenge to the city's rejection of multiple development proposals that complied with the city's zoning requirements, potentially in violation of the Housing Accountability Act and other state statutes that compel cities to apply objective standards to project decisions. CaRLA is applying the same playbook it used in a successful suit against Los Altos, in which a judge ruled that Los Altos was not acting in good faith when it denied a project and multiple appeal rounds on shifting, nonobjective grounds. In the Huntington Beach case, the city revised its Specific Plan to re-designate what had been high-density housing to half the number of units allowed to be developed, spurring extended litigation over whether the city violated Housing Element requirements. Subsequently, the city rejected proposals that met land use standards in both the General Plan and the Specific Plan, and went on to reject appeals on subjective grounds like safety concerns and neighborhood character. (See related CP&DR coverage .) San Francisco Strengthens Ban on Pandemic-Related Evictions  San Francisco landlords will be permanently barred from evicting tenants if they can't pay rent due to coronavirus-related issues, like job loss or getting sick from the virus, under legislation passed by the Board of Supervisors. Mayor London Breed already issued an emergency order that bans evictions, eliminates late fees and interest, and gives tenants more time to pay their back rent during the public health emergency. The new legislation will extend those measures permanently amid fears that thousands of eviction filings to give tenants three days to pay rent or face eviction would be forthcoming as soon as restrictions are lifted. Lawmakers have gone on the record saying they will work to set up a Rent Resolution Fund to help landlords offset the burden of unpaid rent. Funding could come from a proposed November ballot measure that would double the city's transfer tax on real estate above a $10 million threshold. Despite record job loss due to the pandemic, about 97 percent of residential tenants in San Francisco paid their May rent, according to the largest survey of its kind. Alameda Voters May Lift Ban on Multi-Unit Housing  City of Alameda voters will have the opportunity to lift a ban on multi-unit housing construction that was added to the City Charter with a ballot measure in 1973. In recent years developers of large housing projects have used state regulations to sidestep the ban, but triplexes and fourplexes are still prohibited. Before the state passed legislation to encourage new housing, Alameda did not have multi-family housing construction for decades. The move to change the city's charter is in response to California's housing crisis and the need for more places to live, Mayor Marily Ashcraft said. Alameda City Council is spearheading the effort to prepare language for a November ballot measure. Any change in the charter would just be the first step: the council would still need to select neighborhoods and approve zoning law changes for housing to get built. The council had nearly unanimous consensus to push the bill forward.  CP&DR Coverage: Pandemic and Public Space  In recent weeks, cities throughout California have fast-tracked programs and permitting schemes to allow restaurants to set up dining areas in parking lots and on sidewalks. Cities are also allowing fitness and yoga studios to take over public space for classes. Most ambitiously, some cities are closing off streets to traffic entirely in order to allow residents to walk, job, and ride bikes — either for fitness or for commuting — without having to compete with cars. These “al fresco” programs are not without controversy, as critics fear that they may overlook disadvanaged communities.  Quick Hits & Updates  Demand for real estate in San Francisco's affluent suburbs has skyrocketed in recent months - surprising brokers who say the coronavirus outbreak is leading to a surge of interest from San Francisco city-dwellers looking to spread out. Expensive neighborhoods have emptied as residents escape during virus shutdowns, while less affluent areas like the Tenderloin district are crowded with hundreds of tents. Plans to redevelop CityView Plaza in downtown San Jose are a step closer to fruition after the San Jose Planning Commission voted to approve a 3.8 million-square-foot office development proposal that will now go to City Hall for final approval. Council members--who are also considering a petition to declare the site a historic landmark- are expected to vote on the project sometime this summer. California Air Resources Board announced two new grants available to cities, one for planning and one for implementation of transportation projects that meet green and accessibility targets. Through the Sustainable Transportation Equity Project (STEP), CARB has up to $22 million available for disadvantaged and low-income communities in California. The City of San Jose  opened its first "bridge" housing community for the homeless-- 40 tiny homes with a bed, a desk, some storage, electricity, and air conditioning. Each house, which costs around $6,500 to build, will provide shelter for 60 days while residents prepare to transition into permanent homes. The Los Angeles City Council unanimously approved two motions that will redirect over $500 million in 'arts fees' from now-cancelled or planned cultural events and instead make the money available as grants to arts organizations and spaces that have been economically devastated during the pandemic. Southern California's largest landlord organization has filed a lawsuit against the city of Los Angeles aimed at overturning anti-eviction rules put in place in the wake of the coronavirus. The suit is the latest in a string of suits against local governments in the region that have passed rent stabilization programs and eviction moratoriums due to the pandemic. In at least one case, the City of Upland rescinded its eviction protections under threat of litigation. Reversing course again in a 30-year-old battle over protection of the weasel-like Pacific fisher, the federal Fish and Wildlife Service has moved to deny protections for the animal in large swaths of its territory in California and Oregon. A federal judge overturned the service's most recent refusal to list the species in 2018, but in declaring the northern and southern populations two distinct species, the government has effectively limited protection to as few as 100 animals. The UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies recently launched an initiative to combine innovative research with practical strategies to tackle housing affordability in the Los Angeles region. The Randall Lewis Housing Initiative will have a research arm that will focus on housing supply and tenant protections, an event-convening component, and will produce policy briefs. Circulate San Diego released a report hailing the success of San Francisco's Home Bonus Program, a program that provides incentives for developers who choose to build affordable units as a part of their projects. The analysis of 20 months of program data compiled by Circulate San Diego shows that beginning in 2016, the program has seen triple-digit increases in applicants and affordable home production over the previous program. The Eno Center for Transportation released a comprehensive report that seeks to accelerate the development of congestion pricing programs in the U.S. that advance sustainability and equity goals. Intended for elected officials, civic leaders, advocates, and agency professionals, the report addresses the political and communication hurdles that arise when developing a congestion pricing program. Long Beach's General Plan won recognitio n for "Efficient and Sustainable Land Use" in this year's 2020 Sustainability Awards by the Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG). The "exemplary and innovative" plan received praise for its focus on expanded transit access, greenhouse gas reduction, and practical housing solutions that address overcrowding while creating attractive and vibrant spaces. Facebook joined forces with SamTrans in 2018 to begin an environmental impact study for the Dumbarton Rail Corridor, initiating a long-sought after revitalization. Now Facebook is "reassessing this long-term commitment," according to a statement, citing the need to address "the immediate needs of people in the community struggling with the economic impacts of the pandemic." City officials have said they will urge Facebook to continue with the project. Developers of a proposed 18,000-seat soccer stadium in downtown Concord have walked away from a $100,000 exclusive negotiating agreement with the city. The company said a combination of the economic downturn due to the COVID-19 pandemic, along with community opposition led to the decision. Besides the stadium, a hotel, convention center, and offices had been considered for the property as part of a multi-use sports complex. (See related CP&DR coverage .)