Search Results

Schools don’t usually run into zoning and land-use problems – because under state law school districts are exempt from local zoning. But the advent of charter schools means that school facilities are once again a land-use battleground – and school land-use issues appear to be getting jumbled up in the charter school fight.

The Cupertino City Council tossed an alternative plan for a massive mixed-use project at the Vallco Shopping Mall property, effectively green-lighting a previously proposed plan at the site via provisions of Senate Bill 35. The alternative, called the “Vallco Specific Plan,” was drafted by a past city council in response to complaints from community members about the developer’s plans for a large mixed use development. It included more overall housing units than what developer Sand Hill Property Company proposed, and required them to pay school impact fees and contribute to community projects. Sand Hill has already gained fast-tracked consideration under SB 35, which forces cities to expedite developments that include affordable housing. In the absence of a council-approved alternative, that plan -- including 2,402 apartment units, 1.8 million square feet of office space, 400,000 square feet of retail, and a 30-acre rooftop park -- goes into effect. Better Cupertino, a citizens group opposing the project, has filed a lawsuit challenging the city’s approval of the development. (See prior C&PDR coverage .) Study Criticizes Complexity, Ineffectiveness of State Housing Allocation The Regional Housing Needs Assessment (RHNA) process fails to identify true housing needs, according to a recent examination of the California Housing Element by the UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies. The UCLA paper, which responds to Governor Gavin Newsom’s announced intentions to reform the Housing Element law, identifies many issues with the RHNA. First, it claims the RHNA creates a “needless tension between subsidized and market-rate housing.” It also asserts that RHNA numbers are the result of a political process in which affluent cities lobby to keep their numbers low, and that the law asks cities to plan for more than 10 times the amount of subsidized housing that can be funded. It identifies another issue with RHNA: the law steers housing production away from places where housing is most expensive and necessary by basing “housing needs” on projections of population, rather than prices. Finally, the paper argues that RHNA needlessly pits market-rate and affordable housing against one another, when both are necessary to advance affordability. The paper proposes a reform for the flawed policy: “Rather than engage in a complicated process of prediction and allocation,” the authors write, "California should simply require that all cities build a 'fair share' of affordable housing.” $8 Billion Mixed-Use Development Proposed Next to Levi’s Stadium A proposed $8 billion, 240-acre development by Related Cos. will create over 9 million square feet of offices, housing, hotels, and retail across from the San Francisco 49er’s Levi’s Stadium site in Santa Clara. The project, set to break ground next year, will transform a golf course into the first large-scale mixed-use development in the South Bay Area. Plans for the neighborhood will include 5.4 million square feet of new commercial office space, 1,280 new residential apartments, 400 extended-stay apartments, 1 million square feet of shopping, dining and entertainment spaces, and two hotels. The project is estimated to create 25,000 jobs and generate nearly $17 million a year in taxes, fees, and lease revenue. "This 240-acre redevelopment represents one of the most ambitious and transformative opportunities in the area’s history," Related Cos. Chairman Stephen M. Ross said. “The commercial offerings were designed for visionary companies who demand a globally competitive work place with innovative, sustainable design and outstanding amenities to attract and retain a talented workforce.” Renowned firm Foster+Partners will serve as master planner and lead design architect.  Newsom’s May Budget Revise Increases Funding for Homelessness, Housing Governor Gavin Newsom’s recently-published "May Revise” budget increases homelessness services from $650 million to $1 billion. This change responds to the growing statewide homelessness issue: California is home to one quarter of the nation's homeless people, and also has the highest share of unsheltered homeless people – 69 percent – of any state. However, critics claim that Newsom’s plan, which focuses on short-term, emergency services and shelters, overlooks the need for more permanent housing. “If you look at what’s going to actually solve the problem, it’s a systematic investment in these longer-term solutions,” said Linda Hershey, Executive Director of Housing California. “Otherwise, we’re just going to keep putting more people into the homelessness situation.” The governor’s January budget included $1.75 billion General Fund to increase housing production. The May Revision maintains this commitment to spur housing production, but refocuses $500 million to remove barriers to building mixed-income housing. Berkeley Study Correlates Housing Supply with Local Regulations The UC Berkeley Terner Center for Housing Innovation published the California Land Use Data Set , a comprehensive survey which examines policies that affect the production, location, and preservation of state housing at the jurisdiction-level. Based on data collected from August 2017 to October 2018, the survey considers the effects of local land use on housing supply in a given region, and its effects on sustainability, economic mobility, and access to opportunity. The survey was completed in partnership with the California Department of Housing and Community Development, and includes responses from 252 cities and 19 unincorporated county areas. The Terner Center also published an accompanying report which reviews trends in survey responses in areas like zoning, affordable housing, and rental regulations. Quick Hits & Updates Following through on months of threats, the Trump Administration officially cancelled its $929 billion grant for construction of the California high speed rail in the Central Valley. The Federal Railroad Administration cited the project’s failure to forecast accurate schedules, reach key milestones, and demonstrate commitment to deadlines. The administration also warned that it will attempt to recapture $2.5 billion in grants already spent by the state. (See prior CP&DR coverage .)San Jose rent increases have outpaced its stagnant tech salaries, according to a new study by Rent Cafe. The study found that over the last three years, rent in San Jose has increased by almost seven percent, while average tech salaries have dropped by nearly one percent. Authors of the study note that the area's housing market inflation may cause even its highest-paid workers to relocate. Tech workers in San Francisco and the East Bay fared better: in these areas, the average wage increased 14 percent while rents grew by nearly six percent.The Oakland Port Authority unanimously approved a tentative exclusive negotiation process with the Oakland A’s baseball team, giving them four years to conduct an environmental impact report of its proposed Howard Terminal stadium. This marks the first of many needed approvals for the team’s proposed 35,000-seat stadium and multi-use development project on Oakland’s waterfront. And this approval is only tentative; the authority has expressed environmental, traffic, and safety concerns about building at the Howard Terminal site.The San Diego Association of Governments released more details about its ambitious new transportation project, including hundreds of miles of high-speed commuter rail and a new congestion pricing policy. The multibillion dollar project, which replaces previous highway expansion plans, will likely take decades to build, and will require voter approval for new tax funding. North and East County officials, looking for near-term traffic relief solutions, have already objected to the plans’ preliminary details. Los Angeles Metro announced yet another delay on its Regional Connector twin tunnel rail expansion project – this time until mid-March 2022. Already, Metro has increased the project’s budget twice to $1.75 billion, and delayed it once previously. Once completed, the 1.9-mile tunnel will connect three rail lines into two new mega routes to decrease commute time. The project is still on track for its 2023 deadline set by federal officials, who contributed a $670-million grant and a $130-million low-interest loan for the project.After adopting a “ Housing Crisis Workplan ” to expedite new building in 2018, San Jose city officials are proposing consolidating four development phases into two. This effort will expedite 8,000 new apartments in the area, including 1,500 affordable units. This will help the city along its goal to develop 15,000 market-rate and 10,000 affordable units by 2022. In parallel, the city is working on a proposal to fast track transit improvements.Caltrans officially released its parklet permit guide for major highways, following bids from cities and counties to build more pedestrian areas where highways pass through downtown.  The guide outlines Caltrans’ many requirements for approval: for example, parklets can only be built on sections with speed limits of 30 mph or lower, they must be open to the public, and must be renewed annually with Caltrans. Additionally, they must be applied for and built by local agencies, not businesses or other organizations. Currently, there is only one highway parklet in the state, built in Redding in 2015. (See prior CP&DR coverage .)Following his report suggesting that cities “de-emphasize” building in high-risk fire areas, Governor Gavin Newsom clarified that he does not discourage building in wildfire zones. Instead, Newsom challenged cities to rethink density in high-fire areas, and to build with greater fire protections. Last year, the now-retired head of the state’s Forestry and Fire Protection Department said that the government should consider blocking new construction in high hazard areas. But the governor said that he has never seen concrete proof that halting new construction is the most viable solution. The governor also cited the state’s affordable housing crisis as a reason to consider more creative protections before blocking new development altogether.The California Natural Resources Agency will be accepting project proposals for the Green Infrastructure Grant Program from May 13, 2019 through June 28, 2019. Approximately $18.5 million in awards will be funded by the program. Applicants submitting the most competitive proposals will be invited to participate in the next level of the competitive process, anticipated late Summer/early Fall 2019.The Green Infrastructure Grant Program, funded by Proposition 68, will fund multi-benefit green infrastructure projects in or benefitting disadvantaged or severely disadvantaged community. In efforts to lay the groundwork for future 5G technology, San Diego mayor Kevin Falcouner struck a deal with Verizon to streamline the permitting process for building mobile network “small cells.” Small cells boost a network’s range and increase the number of accessible high speed connections for any given area. In exchange, Verizon will install more than $100 million of power efficient light poles, give 500 smartphones to the city’s Police Department, and give 50 tablets to the city’s Fire-Rescue.The City and County of San Francisco and a coalition of California water suppliers sued the State Water Resources Control Board for its new wetlands protections law. The law, unveiled last month, introduces an expansive definition of “wetlands,” and increases regulations for dredging or filling in water bodies. The lawsuit claims that the new requirements overstep state authority by introducing costly water regulations in areas that the federal government deems open to development. (See prior CP&DR coverage .) In a sign of progress for the long-stalled Salton Sea Management Pla n, the Imperial Irrigation District board of directors voted to allow access for state wetlands projects at the Salton Sea. In exchange, California the state of California will implement project operations and taxpayers will cover costs of potential lawsuits or penalties. The state has fallen behind on its 10-year plan to suppress dust and protect habitat over 3,700 acres of the threatened 350-square-mile sea. The area has been a point of focus both for wildlife loss and for public health concerns due to increasing toxic dust pollution. (See prior CP&DR coverage .) The California Coastal Commission will impose a record-high $15.58 million fine against a coastal developer. The commission ruled that Sunshine Enterprises violated a state public beach access law by building a high-priced coastal hotel after receiving a permit for a moderately-priced hotel. The commission delayed a vote on levying an additional $5.9 million in mitigation fees to build lower-priced alternatives nearby. The Department of Conservation has $950,000 for local and regional planning grants to support the integration of natural and working lands, specifically agricultural lands, into local and regional planning documents. This funding is made available through Proposition 68 The California Drought, Water, Parks, Climate Coastal Protection, and Outdoor Access for All Act of 2018 passed by California voters in June 2018. Public comment on the guidelines will be accepted until May 20 and grant applications due July 31.

Last year, San Francisco Sen. Scott Wiener’s Senate Bill 827 rose to stardom as arguably the most talked-about urban planning bill in state history. This year, like Stephan Curry beating his own three-point record, SB 50 took its place atop the planning headlines. The stage is now set for a publicity three-peat.  The question is whether Wiener and his fans will ever win .  CP&DR has followed Wiener’s campaign to marry housing and transit from the start. It caught the imagination of stakeholders and planners alike for its logic — put housing near transit and jobs residents can drive less — and for its audacity — covering the entire state, forcing cities to stop resisting housing in the name of local control or neighborhood character. Wiener has always maintained that the housing crisis is larger than the interests of any single jurisdiction.  Both bills attracted countless supporters and detractors. They covered every imaginable interest group, and there were differences of opinions even within interest groups. Arguably the biggest winner was the YIMBY movement, which arose from an odd grassroots movement to statewide prominence as a sponsor of the bills.  Wiener revised his bills several times in efforts to gain supporters. He attempted to soften affronts to local control (to please cities and homeowners) and strengthened protections against displacement and provisions for affordable housing (to please social justice advocates). It wasn’t enough, though, as Sen. Anthony Portantino refused to bring SB 50 to a vote yesterday, freezing it until 2020.  As we await next season, here is CP&DR’s coverage of the life, death, and impending resurrection of SB 827 and 50. Note: Many of these articles require logging in to view.  Solve the Housing Crisis With Carrots As Well As Sticks Jan 15, 2018  Where's Scott Wiener Coming From? Jan 22, 2018  Housing Bills Flood Sacramento Again Feb 12, 2018  Legislative Update: Weiner Revises SB 827 Transit Oriented Development Bill Mar 6, 2018 Insight: The Market Versus NIMBYS And Renters Mar 25, 2018 Amid Raging Public Debates, Weiner Injects More Nuance into SB 827 Apr 11, 2018 Is SB 827 Really Dead? Apr 20, 2018 The Sad Debate Over SB 827 May 10, 2018 Newsom Proposes Major Housing Package Jan 21, 2019 SB 50 Clears First Committee Hurdle Apr 9, 2019 SB 50 Density Bill Merges with SB 4, Passes Committee Apr 26, 2019 Committee Chair Refuses to Hold Vote on Housing Bill SB 50 May 16, 2019

Last year, Senate Bill 827, Sen. Scott Wiener’s attempt to promote housing development and higher densities around transit hubs, died a premature death, without ever making it out of committee. This year, its successor, the similarly polarizing, more expansive SB 50, has been put into an induced coma.

At some point when you’re reading this piece you’re going to say to yourself, “What about the Eiffel Tower?!” I’ll get to that. First, let’s talk about San Jose. Over 1 million people live in San Jose. It’s the tenth-largest city in the United States and the home of the richest industry western civilization has ever known. It’s also basically an enormous suburb. Its aesthetic varies between generic suburbia and generic office parks, some of which are laughably unattractive, especially considering the rents they command. San Jose’s 180 square miles have less character than do single city blocks in nearby San Francisco or Oakland (the latter of which outgrew its “there’s no there there” derision long ago). Maybe I’m being harsh, but I don’t think I’m saying anything that residents and businesses in San Jose aren’t already aware of. It’s the anti-San Francisco, and it has quietly, and impressively, developed according to the norms of its time and place. Recently, though, a group called the San Jose Light Tower Corp. proposed the erection of a landmark tower—a yet-to-be-designed $150 million beacon, of indeterminate height, that would advertise San Jose to its neighbors and the world. It would, in the words of its promoters, be a “powerful and enduring icon will be the place every visitor must see when coming to Silicon Valley.” This enormity was borne out of the idea that a major world city—which San Jose is, at least economically—needs to be more recognizable and that the tech industry needs to be celebrated, as if it has any trouble celebrating itself already. Bits, bytes, and stock options are all well and good, but you can’t gaze up at them in awe. I happen to think that this plan has about as much chance of getting built as MySpace does of making a comeback. But it’s still worthy of discussion. Even as a thought experiment, it can help us think about what we should build and not build. The tower proposal represents all that is wrong with urbanism today. I use “today” loosely, since the idea owes itself more to the 20th century sprawl mentality than to current planning trends. But that mentality dies hard. I don’t know what $150 million buys you these days. But, whatever the cost and however high it might reach, the tower wouldn't solve any of San Jose’s actual problems. It wouldn't make it less sprawling. It wouldn't make its neighborhoods more walkable or its boulevards any less massive. It wouldn't make it easier to get around or more pleasant. It wouldn’t reduce the gap between poverty and ultra-wealth. It just would just make San Jose more noticeable—in the most superficial way possible. The San Jose tower falls into the all-too-common trap of mistaking a skyline for a city. As I wrote recently in Common Edge , skylines are discrete and identifiable and therefore appealing. They are convenient signifiers to put on postcards or in the backdrop of local newscasts. They are images that, in many cases, have come to be synonymous with their respective cities. The problem is, as much as we might like to gasp at downtown skyscrapers (or, in the case of San Jose, squat corporate superblocks), no one lives in a skyline. They have little to do with the daily, human-scale experience of a city. They reveal nothing about a city's character, economy, or culture. Take a look at San Jose's skyline and, say, Little Rock's and see if you can tell what it's like to live, love, work, and commune in either place. A monumental tower pretends that a soaring, bootless structure will, instantly, make San Jose a city worthy of attention. If only it was that easy. I submit that, however much attention a tower would garner, it will most certainly not make San Jose a better city. It will, in fact, distract San Jose from the process of improving itself. San Jose already has plenty of things going for it. Urbanism is not one of them. What San Jose needs to do with its wealth and status is not advertise that wealth and status but rather invest it in the types of design, infrastructure, and private and public developments that will make it more urban and break it out of its Vietnam Era mold. Like many other postwar American cities, regardless of whether or not they are considering odd PR stunts, San Jose can and must reinvent itself. The proposed competition to design the tower would be a bonanza for architects. But so would commissions to update San Jose’s sidewalks, street furniture, signage, mobility patterns, and urban design guidelines. San Jose must figure out how to promote density, intrigue, and interaction. It must develop the sort of dense, multi-use streetscapes that characterize truly great cities. I am, of course, essentially describing San Francisco. Must San Jose emulate San Francisco? That wouldn’t be a bad thing. Then again, maybe San Jose can put its wealth and brainpower to the task of coming up with new, dare I say innovative, approaches to 21st century urbanism. San Jose should figure out how to retrofit itself, creating a denser, more pleasant 2.0 rather than just sticking a weird piece of new hardware a city whose layout shares more in common with vacuum tubes than touch screens. If it’s smart about it, Google might actually pull this off with its forthcoming mixed-use village in downtown San Jose. Surely other civic boosters can do the same. Back to Paris. I know. Everyone hatedhated hated the Eiffel Tower when it was built. And look at it now: it’s one of the most famous, beloved structures in the world, symbolizing one of the most famous, beloved cities in the world. The Eiffel Tower is the exception that proves the rule. Paris already was a lovely, dense, horizontal city before the tower. It already had the grandeur of the Champs Elysees, the romance of the Marais, the history of the Ille de la Cite, the bold interventions of Hausmann, and cafe after cafe after cafe. Paris didn’t need a tower to advertise itself. Eiffel was lucky that Paris allowed it to be built. Its genius derives from the contrast between the tower’s verticality, modernism, and engineering skill and the city’s preexisting charm, history, and scale. (Oddly, the “Light Tower Corporation” is named after a 237-foot tall 1880s structure that stood in San Jose which, the company’s website claims, inspired Gustav Eiffel.) The original, 1880s-era San Jose Electric Light Tower. I could say much the same for New York before the Empire State Building, St. Louis before the arch, Chicago before the Sears Tower, and, yes, San Francisco before the Transamerica Pyramid. Meanwhile, look no further than the plodding, overtall Salesforce Tower for a cautionary tale. It dominates the San Francisco skyline like its namesake dominates customer relationship management. As John Branch  asked recently in the New York Times, "Will the San Francisco skyline ever be as beautiful as it was before the Salesforce Tower rose like a middle finger to the city’s low-slung aesthetic…?” I reckon it won't. San Jose would also do well to consider California's ultimate midair bauble. Fittingly enough for a city that trades on image and fakery, Los Angeles’s most famous structure isn’t even as substantial as a tower. It’s a meaningless, two-dimensional advertisement that has, somehow, remained beloved even as the city became scarred over the decades by freeways, dingbats, mini-malls, and Angelyne billboards. I’m not immune to the charms of the Hollywood Sign. I’ve hiked near it and I get a thrill when I view it from the 10 Freeway, knowing that I’m looking upon a landmark that has inspired so many dreams of stardom. But a sign doesn’t put a roof over anyone’s head. I don’t oppose monuments, and I’m not against fun. But I’m against eating cake before you’ve had your peas and potatoes. I’m against displays of wealth that loom over people who struggle to pay rent. San Jose, like almost every other California city, has a lot of work to do -- especially as housing prices rise, congestion worsens, and the natural environment degrades further. And it, like many other California cities, is headed in the right direction. It’s planning on building more housing and has developed a nice light-rail system. The next generation of development will be governed by new policies like Sustainable Communities Strategies, vehicles miles traveled metrics, concern for equity and ecology, and a general awareness and embrace of higher-quality urbanism. Improving a city's streets is a far better way to put a city on the map. Again, this thing isn’t getting built in our lifetime. But something—many things, in fact—will get built as San Jose’s economy will likely keep booming and its population is expected to surge by another 300,000 in the next two decades. Many other low-density, high-prosperity American cities can expect the same. The kind of urbanism those people are going to need requires us to keep our feet on the ground and our heads out of the clouds. If we really want a nice tower, we’ll always have Paris. Click for prior CP&DR coverage of San Jose .  A version of this piece appears on Common Edge Collaborative. Downtown San Jose photo courtesy of Ben Loomis via Flickr;  vintage Light Tower photo courtesy of Saratoga Historical Society and Ninian Reid via Flickr .

In a change of direction, the Newsom Administration is proposing a shift of $500 million away from rewarding cities for housing production and instead using that money to augment funding for the Infill Infrastructure Grant program. But he has not backed off plans to tie SB 1 transportation dollars to housing production.

The Sacramento City Council unanimously approved Mayor Darrell Steinberg’s proposal for a $47 million revamp of the city’s historic waterfront. The plan, which will be funded by hotel tax revenue, aims to improve access to the waterfront and draw residents and visitors with a series of attractions and new venues. These include a concert stage, a 5,000-seat festival lawn, an interactive water fountain, and a floating terrace on the river with performance spaces, among other proposals. The city estimates that the new attractions could double the current $700,000 sales and hotel tax draw. “For many decades, the people of Sacramento have dreamt about making our waterfront more accessible to the people and more of a destination,” Steinberg said at the council meeting, according to the Sacramento Bee. “And we’ve been thwarted for a long time, mostly because of a lack of resources and maybe the lack of a sufficient push.” Opportunity Zones Pose Threat of Gentrification  The Federal Opportunity Zone program will largely benefit wealthy investors and may accelerate gentrification, according to a new study published by the California Budget & Policy Center. The program offers federal tax incentives for private investment in economically distressed communities, or Opportunity Zones (OZs). Governor Gavin Newsom has embraced the policy, and his 2019-2020 budget proposal will provide state-level tax incentives for investments in California's 879 designated OZs. More than four million Californians live in designated OZs, located in almost every county statewide. However, the study found though the benefits are clear for private investors, there is no evidence that these investments benefit community residents. That’s because the program offers no clear guidelines for investments: an investor may choose to build luxury apartments rather than affordable housing, and thus accelerate gentrification. The center advises providing structure for statewide incentives so investments will benefit current residents. It also advises strict data collection and evaluation requirements to ensure that the investments are increasing opportunities for low-income residents. (See prior CP&DR coverage .) SACOG Moves Forward on New Sustainable Communities Strategy After 16 months of development, the Sacramento Area Council of Governments Board of Directors approved the April 2019 update to their Preferred Scenario that will serve as the foundation for Sacramento’s 2020 Metropolitan Transportation Plan/Sustainable Communities Strategy (MTP/SCS) and its associated environmental impact report. The update is designed to use transportation performance goals to set the investments of the plan, while considering future uncertainties in technology and funding, and supporting the economic development of the region. It includes a land use forecast, transportation project list, revenue and budget assumptions, and future roadway pricing strategies. The board also released a Notice of Preparation for the Draft Environmental Impact Report for the 2020 MTP/SCS. (See prior CP&DR coverage .) Report Urges Regionwide Approach to Homelessness in Bay Area  The Bay Area Council Economic Institute published a report examining the Bay Area homelessness crisis through a regional lens. The report found despite many city- and county-wide efforts, the Bay Area houses the smallest proportion of its homeless (33 percent) of any region in the United States, besides Los Angeles. Much like the CASA Compact (see CP&DR coverage ), which recommended policies to address the affordable housing crisis as a region, the report highlights the inefficiencies created by local solutions across overlapping communities. It proposes a coordinated solution spanning nine Bay Area counties, with targeted interventions across all stages of homelessness. Such interventions include: preventing homelessness by supporting extremely low-income housing; consolidating efforts region-wide for more flexible and targeted funding and resources according to need; and improving homeless services by using philanthropic capital to test the effectiveness of current strategies.  Transit Boost Real Estate Values in Los Angeles New data from real estate firm Trulia shows that buyers in Los Angeles are increasingly searching for homes near public transportation, and are willing to pay more for them. Trulia's study finds that the share of home listings with keywords such as “metro” and “subway” more than doubled since 2013, and that these listings sell for about 4.2 percent more than others. These results are a favorable outcome for a car-filled city plagued by congestion issues, and affirm Metro’s $120 billion public transportation expansion efforts. "Los Angeles is infamous for its sprawl and car culture,” the study concludes. "But the city is actively promoting alternatives to private automobiles, and mobility in and around L.A. has changed dramatically in recent years.” Quick Hits & Updates Southern California is the nation’s second-worst “mega-city” to live in, according to the U.S. News & World Report’s annual “best cities to live in" rankings . The region, which includes Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino and Ventura counties, was ranked among 21 metropolitan areas with 2.5 million residents or more. Though it earned top scores on desirability and quality of life metrics, it bested only Miami for livability and economic issues. The Eureka Planning Commission approved the first update to the city's 53-year-old zoning code. The new code, aligning with the city's 2040 General Plan implementation, updates outdated regulations on businesses and allows homeowners to modify their homes more easily. Palo Alto will more than double fees on developers for each peak-hour car trip their projects will generate in the city. The city council approved a $7,886 fee to replace the current $3,700 fee, strengthening the incentive for builders to incorporate strong “transportation demand management” programs to encourage transit and other alternatives to driving cars. Five years after a $1 billion carpool lane opened on the 405 freeway through Sepulveda Pass, data from traffic analyst Inrix shows that average northbound drive times have still increased. This data supports the concept of “induced demand”: that increasing roadway capacity contributes to congestion by encouraging more people to drive. Additionally, California car-ownership and driver’s license data suggests that the number of drivers in Southern California has increased. (See prior CP&DR commentary .) LA Metro Board will conduct a feasibility study of a $425-million bus rapid transit line for Vermont Avenue, as well as a potential rail line. In a 9-1 vote, the Metro board advanced the motion to study rail concepts and extensions as part of its environmental impact review. With 40,000 passengers each weekday, Vermont is currently Metro’s most successful bus corridor. A rapid bus line is projected to increase ridership to 70,000 weekday passengers. Marking the end of Governor Jerry Brown’s $19 billion Bay-Delta water project, Governor Newsom is withdrawing permit applications to build twin tunnels under the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta to channel water to Southern California. Newsom first announced plans to scale back the project to a single tunnel in his February State of the State address. The administration is entering an environmental review of the single tunnel project, which is expected to cost a more modest $10 billion.  The San Diego Association of Governments and San Diego Metropolitan Transit System (MTS) will both pursue major tax hikes on upcoming ballots for multi-billion-dollar transportation overhauls. MTS is pursuing a half-cent sales tax increase for bus and rail improvements, while SANDAG's ambitious plans for new transit systems will likely require more extreme taxation.That could mean two separate ballot measures, each requiring a two-thirds majority approval. The agencies have not yet coordinated, but experts raise concerns that putting two separate measures to voters could jeopardize the success of both. In efforts to win approval for a waterfront ballpark, the Oakland A’s committed to building a total of 6,000 homes around their proposed future Howard Terminal stadium and the Coliseum site they are leaving. Last year, Mayor Libby Schaaf disapproved plans for a downtown ballpark amid concerns that a stadium would displace neighborhoods and compress an already-tight affordable housing market. Schaaf has said before allowing the A’s to build on Coliseum land, she is open to a bidding process to hear from other developers who may build more homes. The Department of Conservation (DOC) has $950,000 for local and regional planning grants to support the integration of natural and working lands, specifically agricultural lands, into local and regional planning documents. This funding is made available through Proposition 68 The California Drought, Water, Parks, Climate Coastal Protection, and Outdoor Access for All Act of 2018 passed by California voters in June 2018. Public comment on the guidelines will be accepted until May 20 and grant applications due July 31. Salesforce founder Marc Benioff announced a $30 million donation to fund a new homelessness research center at the UCSF Center for Vulnerable Populations. The program, dubbed the Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative, will fund research into causes of, and viable solutions for, homelessness. The center also aims to bring together experts and policymakers to inform best practices to end homelessness. EMC Research published a poll showing that 66 percent of Bay Area voters would vote for a sales tax increase to fund more affordable housing, marking a crucial two-thirds majority needed to approve such a tax. The poll, which surveyed 1,935 voters in all nine Bay Area counties in April, also found that 82 percent of voters worry that others won’t be able to find housing, and 72 percent believe that the state needs to take a regional approach to solve the housing crisis. Population growth is the slowest in state history, slipping to 0.47 percent last year from 0.78 percent in 2017, according to data released by the California’s Department of Finance. Researchers attribute the slowed birthrate in part to a decline in immigrants from Mexico. But they tie the growth slowdown more strongly to a lack of affordable housing: they found that increasingly, California’s youngest and poorest residents are leaving the state. Notably, the study also found that growth rate in Los Angeles leveled at zero percent last year.Developers of the San Jose Coleman Highline office complex are seeking permits to add two buildings to the mega mixed-use campus. The complex, most notably home to the tech giant Roku, would add roughly 668,000 square feet and accommodate 3,300 to 4,500 workers. The development will also offer new retail space and other amenities, including a planned Marriott hotel. Pending approval, these buildings could open as soon as 2021. Ride-hailing tech company  Lyft pledged to invest $50 million into locally-driven transportation services – and Los Angeles is its first beneficiary. The investment program, dubbed Lyft CityWorks, aims to accomplish three goals: provide transportation, build transportation infrastructure, and create a clean energy future. Projects already underway in Los Angeles include reduced-fare scooter rides for low-income residents, and partnerships with local organizations and nonprofits to improve infrastructure for bikes and scooters citywide. A new ordinance went into effect in San Francisco that requires landlords to register their vacant storefronts within 30 days or face a $2,844 fine. City officials hope that the ordinance will give them a better picture of the number of empty storefronts citywide. The ordinance, passed earlier this year, also intends to discourage landlords from leaving commercial space vacant while shopping for the highest-paying tenant.  The annual Los Angeles Quality of Life Index put Los Angeles residents’ satisfaction with the area at a record low, citing the rising cost of housing as the primary source of discontent. The survey, conducted for the past four years by the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs and the California Endowment, asks a random sample of over 1,400 residents to rate their satisfaction with several aspects of city life. Year over year, the studies show an increase in housing concerns: more residents report dissatisfaction with housing costs, more residents are considering moving, and more residents claim to know someone worried about becoming homeless. (See CP&DR commentary .) In its latest citywide effort to control reckless use of dockles scooters , the San Diego City Council unanimously approved new rules for scooter use. The rules establish a permitting process for operators, limit speeds in designated areas, and require all devices to scan a valid driver’s license before they can be used. San Diego Mayor Sam Liccardo has supported scooter use as a means to reach carbon reduction goals. But concerned residents crowded City Hall to protest scooter use, citing the dangers they have posed in the city. The new rules will go into effect in June, after the council takes its final vote. The San Francisco Port Commission approved the city’s plans to build the Embarcadero Navigation Center, a temporary multiservice homeless shelter on an Embarcadero lot near the Bay Bridge. The 200-bed facility will be the city's largest navigation center, and has a two year lease with a potential for a two-year renewal. The proposed center i s a critical part of Mayor London Breed’s campaign pledge to open 1,000 new shelter beds by 2020, but  has faced  community pushback from  residents fearing increased crime and decreased property values.

The Trump administration released plans to open more than five million acres of public and private land in California to fracking. The Bureau of Land Management's move ends a five-year moratorium, imposed on the Obama administration by a federal judge, on leasing federal California land to oil and gas developers. The plan targets land across eight central counties: eastern Fresno, western Kern, Kings, Madera, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Tulare and Ventura. It also encompasses more than one million acres of federal mineral rights. Environmentalists object to the move, claiming that fracking would worsen air pollutants in an already highly polluted part of the state. Parks representatives echo these criticisms, raising concerns about pollutants released from drilling adjacent to major national parks like Sequoia and Yosemite. Additionally, the Army has raised concerns because the plan would open some National Guard facilities to fracking and drilling. “This plan is going to wind up in court unless the BLM makes some hard decisions about what is appropriate and not appropriate ,” Jeff Kuyper, executive director of Los Padres ForestWatch told the Los Angeles Times. “They should look at it by parcel-by-parcel impact.” Supervisors Fail to Support SANDAG Transit Overhaul  The San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG) revealed a proposal for a multi-billion-dollar transportation overhaul that would prioritize transit over roads, but failed to gain majority support from the city’s board of supervisors. The proposal radically shifts transportation priorities away from highway expansions and improvements, and toward public transit. Their ambitious transit plans promises alternative routes to congested highways, raising transit trips from 1.5 percent to 10 percent of total vehicle rides citywide. However, in a 3-2 vote, the board expressed concerns about SANDAG’s plans to abandon long-promised highway expansions – which voters have counted on since approving a half-cent sales tax increase in 2004. Supervisors who voted against the proposal doubted that SANDAG could win public trust for future taxation without following through on promised past projects. “I’m not really opposed to the new vision,” Supervisor Jim Desmond told the San Diego Union-Tribune. “However, I think it should be in addition to and not replace the projects that have already been promised by TransNet.” Los Angeles "Green New Deal” Seeks Reductions in Driving, Energy Use  Los Angeles mayor Eric Garcetti hopes Los Angeles will reach carbon neutral status by 2050 through an ambitious " Green New Deal ” plan released last week. The plan largely echoes the city’s 2015 sustainability roadmap, but it adds ambitious new housing and transportation targets. The plan proposes that all new buildings will reach "net-zero” carbon emissions by 2030, and all buildings will reach net-zero by 2050. It proposes building a zero carbon electricity grid that will bring LA to 100 percent renewable energy by 2045. The plan also calls for a dramatic increase in the percentage of electric or zero-emission vehicles in the city: from 1.4 percent last year to 25 percent by 2025, 80 percent by 2035, and 100 percent by 2050. Garcetti also aims to reduce the distance that residents drive by 2,000 miles per year. Experts claim that these targets are unrealistic, but that they send a clear message of a region wide shift toward renewables. In the plan, Garcetti called on citizens with a sense of urgency. “With flames on our hillsides and floods in our streets, cities cannot wait another moment to confront the climate crisis with everything we’ve got,” Garcetti wrote in a statement. "L.A. is leading the charge, with a clear vision for protecting the environment and making our economy work for everyone.”  Housing Crisis Hits Low-Income Households Hardest A California Policy and Budget Center Report revealed that the state’s housing affordability crisis disproportionately impacts renters and the lowest-incomes households. It classifies affordable housing according to relative income: “cost-burdened” households pay more than 30 percent of income toward housing, while “severely cost-burdened” households pay over half of their income toward housing. The study that 81 percent of low-income households in California are cost-burdened, and nearly 60 percent are severely cost-burdened. By contrast, 48 percent of middle-income households are cost-burdened, and 15 percent are severely cost-burdened. High income households are the least affected: only 15 percent are cost burdened, and two percent severely so. The study concluded that high housing costs drive a vicious cycle of poverty – contributing to California’s highest poverty rates in the nation. Report Calls for Natural Methods to Combat Sea-Level Rise in Bay Area A project of the San Francisco Estuary Institute and SPUR, the San Francisco Bay Shoreline Adaptation Atlas provides a comprehensive blueprint for bayside communities to battle rising sea levels, recommending a range of resiliency strategies aimed at reducing what could be catastrophic losses. The recently released 255-page report, the first-ever regional plan to protect Bay Area cities, comes on the heels of a U.S. Geological Survey report that sea level rise could cause over $100 billion in property damage throughout the Bay Area this century. The report proposes a series of natural alternatives to existing seawalls, culverts, and crude fortifications that experts say won’t withstand damage. Instead, it suggests more resilient features to absorb the rising tide, including a ring of reefs, rocky beaches, and graded marshland. “The Bay Area is ground zero for sea level rise,” Warner Chabot, executive director of the Estuary Institute, told the San Francisco Chronicle. “We have a trifecta threat of sea level rise, groundwater rising and lowland flooding from extreme weather patterns, and that guarantees a soupy future for the Bay Area.” California Cities Land near Top of ‘Best Performing Cities' California cities earned top spots in the Milken Institute’s best-performing cities rankings . The Milken assessment measures a "metro area’s economic performance using outcomes-based metrics such as job creation, wage gains, and technological developments to evaluate relative growth.” The San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara area took second place in the nation after Provo, Utah. The area jumped from last year's 11th-place ranking. San Francisco landed at number four. Other California cities in the top 25 included Oakland-Berkeley at 14, Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario at 15, and Santa Rosa at 18. The Milken Institute’s assessment also notes that fast-growing industries like tech can create costs like housing prices and taxes that ultimately inhibit a city’s growth in diversity. “Employers have to pay more to recruit and retain talent, which then puts more pressure on housing demand and costs,” Kevin Klowden, executive director of the Milken Institute for Regional Economics and California Center noted to Fox & Hounds Daily. "It’s not a deterrent for many of the top people. Instead the combined cost of living and doing business creates a larger split between the haves and have-nots.” Milken's full ranking covers 200 large metro areas and 201 smaller cities. Quick Hits & Updates  Citing a critical need for affordable housing, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors gave final approval to a 19,333-home development on 12,300 acres in the Antelope Valley. The Centennial project at Tejon Ranch has stirred public outcry over concerns that the development will damage sensitive habitats and increase commuter traffic and greenhouse gas emissions. In 2008, Tejon Ranch Co. struck a deal with environmental groups committing to develop only 10 percent of their 270,000 acres, and to preserve nearly half of developed acres as open space. In addition to housing, he project will also include 10 million square feet of commercial space, schools, fire stations, a police station, and a library. (See prior CP&DR coverage .) The California High Speed Rail Authority released a report revealing a $1.8 million increase in estimated costs to build a high speed rail link in the Central Valley. This is the first cost update for the project since Governor Gavin Newsom announced limiting current building to a 119-mile segment of rail from Bakersfield to Merced in February. Total estimates now bring building costs to a total of $12.4 billion – over double the initial $6 billion estimates.  The California Business Roundtable, the California Business Properties Association, and the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association have filed court documents against San Francisco’s Proposition C, a November ballot measure that taxes the city’s largest corporations to fund housing and homeless services. The two business interest groups and the anti-tax organization argue that the measure shouldn’t have passed with a simple majority vote, and claim the city’s methods violate the state constitution. The California Natural Resources Agency released draft guidelines for the Trails and Greenways grant program. The Trails and Greenways grant program, funded by Proposition 68, will fund projects that provide non-motorized infrastructure development and enhancements promoting access to parks, waterways, outdoor recreational pursuits, and forested or other natural environments. These projects should encourage health-related active transportation and opportunities for Californians to reconnect with nature. Grants will be awarded on a competitive basis. Draft guidelines can be downloaded at http://resources.ca.gov/grants/trailsandgreenways/ . The public comment period began April 16 and ends May 31. Written comments may be submitted by e-mail to bondsandgrants@resources.ca.gov or by U.S. mail to the Trails and Greenways Grant Program. A complaint filed in the Los Angeles Superior Court claims that a solar project developer siphoned public funds for personal use. The complaint, filed by the City of Industry, follows its $20 million lease agreement with San Gabriel Valley Water and Power LLC to build a solar farm on the 2,500-acre Tres Hermanos Ranch. Industry alleges that the solar company used funds for the project to pay for work on other projects, and for unrelated personal and business expenditures. Industry also claims that the company has continued to send them invoices even after they terminated the lease agreement in May 2018, amounting to an additional $20 million. Five California cities received top rankings from Redfin’s annual TransitScore report , which rates locations based on how convenient they are to public transportation. San Francisco came in at number three, while Los Angeles County cities Santa Monica, West Hollywood, Beverley Hills, and Florence-Graham nabbed numbers 18, 21, 23, and 35, respectively. Los Angeles cities have risen in the rankings in recent years, following countywide efforts to expand and improve public transportation.The Long Beach Arena faces possible demolition should the Angels move from Anaheim to Long Beach, according to reporting from the Los Angeles Times. The Long Beach City Council is negotiating an expansive stadium site with the Los Angeles baseball team, which may encompass an area currently occupied by the city’s arena. The Angels are negotiating both a stadium renovation in Anaheim and a move to Long Beach, and expect to make a decision by the end of the year.San Francisco mayor London Breed has picked Steve Heminger as the new board director of the troubled Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA). Heminger, the recently retired head of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, will replace the outgoing director Lee Hsui. The board will need to tackle myriad issues beleaguering the agency – including  equipment problems, allegations of bullying and sexual harassment, a contract standoff with its drivers’ union,  and the  step-down  of Muni chief Ed Reiskin.  The Bay Area Council announced the launch of its “Casitas Coalition”: a statewide volunteer coalition to expand construction of accessory dwelling units (ADUs). The coalition – comprised of nonprofit organizations, builders, architects, city planners, homeowners, and more – hopes to raise awareness, pass legislation, and advance new technologies that will make it easier, faster, and cheaper to build new ADUs. The Orange County Board of Supervisors approved a partnership with the City of Placentia to form a Enhanced Infrastructure Financing District (EIFD). Last November, Governor Newsom passed statewide legislation making EIFDs – programs that use anticipated increases in future property taxes to finance infrastructure projects – easier to form. This is only the fourth EIFD in the state, and the first-ever partnership between a city and county. Placentia’s EIFD, supported by the county, will help finance public projects that promise to produce 1,600 new housing units, create 3,900 construction jobs, and provide over 1,100 permanent jobs once completed.LA Metro will move forward with the environmental review process for a privately-funded aerial gondola between Union Station and Dodger Stadium . This is the first time the Metro has proposed to be a CEQA lead agency reviewing a private transit developer; such projects are usually handled by cities or counties. As part of the agreement, no Metro funds will be used in the design, construction, or operation of the $125 million project.UC Riverside’s Center of Economic Forecasting and Development released a report showing that halfway toward its eight-year goal, Southern California cities have already fallen far behind the state’s Regional Housing Needs assessment targets. The center’s analysis showed that in 2017, local governments had only approved 26 percent of the targeted 400,000 new home permits needed by 2021. The report found the greatest shortfall in new moderate- and low-income housing: 77 percent of homes approved so far are affordable only to upper-income households. A federal judged dismissed portions of the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians’ 2013 lawsuit against the Coachella Valley water districts to gain greater control of groundwater storage capacity under tribal land. Other parts of the lawsuit have already ruled in the tribe’s for: the tribe gained federally reserved rights to groundwater in the Coachella Valley. In the most recent development, however, the judge ruled that the tribe’s access to water had not been sufficiently harmed to justify claiming greater control of groundwater storage.In a victory for Inglewood residents attempting to halt construction of a new Los Angeles Clippers arena, a Los Angeles County Superior Judge ruled in favor of hearing a case against the planned 22-acre project. Residents argue that under the California Surplus Act, the city council should never have approved the deal with the basketball team without shopping the city-owned lot to affordable housing developers. In response, Inglewood Mayor James Butts has argued that the lot was never viable for housing development because it falls under the LAX flight path.The Stockton City Council approved the Envision General Plan 2040, greenlighting long-debated development of 3,800 acres in the northern section of the city as part of an Economic Education Enterprise zone. Critics of the plan claim that community members asked for infill and reinvestment in underdeveloped areas downtown, rather than the development of open space far from the city’s center. (See prior CP&DR coverage .)California’s Strategic Growth Council Climate Change Research Program staff released a schedule for their  Research Roundtables and Listening Sessions  at several California universities in early May. Staff want to hear from researchers, non-traditional research partners, and stakeholders about what the program should consider when investing in climate research that engages and benefits communities in California. The schedule, which runs from May 1 to May 10, includes UC Berkeley, UC Davis, UC Merced, Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, UCLA, and San Diego State University. A state labor report found that the Bay Area added 31,300 new jobs in the first three months of 2019, making up 61 percent of jobs added statewide. Experts attribute this year’s staggering job growth in the area, which has accelerated with each month, to recent hiring booms in the technology industry.

The Trump Administration is suing the California State Water Resources Board for alleged failure to comply with California Environmental Quality Act by approving an increased tributary flow for native salmon and steelhead in the San Joaquin River. The lawsuit, filed by the U.S. Department of Justice and the Department of Interior, claimed that the Board’s plans failed to provide an accurate project description and masked its potential environmental impacts – particularly on the federal New Melanos Dam Project. But many environmental groups believe that the flow increase to 40 percent still doesn’t do enough to support fish species, citing the board’s research showing that restoring salmon and steelhead will require a 60 percent flow. Fishing and environmental groups alike lambast the lawsuit, claiming it threatens to states’ rights by claiming authority over California watersheds.  “California has authority over the waters in the state and exercises that through the State Water Resources Control Board,” said President of the Golden Gate Salmon Association John McManus, according to reporting from the SF Bay Area Independent Media Center. Bay Area at Risk for $98 Billion of Damage in Major Quake A U.S. Geological Survey report finds that a major earthquake along the San Andreas Fault would cause over $98 billion in damage to the city of San Francisco and the surrounding area. Scientists at the Menlo Park USGS Earthquake Science Center modeled how today’s city infrastructure would withstand the 7.9-magnitude earthquake that leveled the city in 1906. Their findings were grim: despite the city’s stricter building codes, more earthquake-resistant technologies, and better emergency preparedness, the tenfold population increase since 1906 leaves the area still vulnerable. Researchers also warn that their projections may be underestimated: their model uses census data from nine years ago and doesn’t account for aftershocks. Based on their data, researchers warn residents to be prepared at all times for at least 72 hours without access to water or electricity. They caution that the area is overdue for a quake, estimating that there is a 72 percent chance that a quake greater than or equal o a magnitude 6.7 will hit the Bay Area before 2043. “It may be that the whole system is on edge and ready for a new active cycle,” Glenn Biasi, co-author of the paper and supervisory geophysicist at USGS told the San Francisco Chronicle. “The whole system is loading up, and we don’t know when it will unload.” Farmers Lose Suit to Undo Critical Habitat Designations In a decisive victory for the Endangered Species Act, a U.S. District judge dismissed a lawsuit challenging protections for 1.8 million acres of imperiled species habitat. In 2016, the Fish and Wildlife Service designated the land tract under the Endangered Species Act to protect two species of high-altitude frogs, as well as Yosemite toads. Last year, three farmers' coalitions – the California Cattlemen’s Association, the California Wool Grower’s Association, and the California Farm Bureau Federation – challenged the designation, saying that it failed to consider severe burdens on local farmers. The coalition argued that they should have been involved in consultations prior to the designation. But the judge overruled their claims, saying that though their involvement “may have been prudent,” it was not in fact required by law. Groups Sue to Block Coastal Drilling The Center for Biological Diversity sued the Bureau of Land Management in federal court over a recent Trump administration effort to loosen regulations against drilling and fracking. The lawsuit alleges that the bureau is violating the federal Freedom of Information Act by failing to provide public records about plans for leases for oil drilling and fracking in the Bay Area and along the Central Coast. The group is especially concerned about potential fracking in Monterey, San Benito and Fresno counties, and have been seeking these records of the bureau’s plans since August 2018. The new leases contain federal land and underground mineral rights managed by the bureau on approximately 400,000 acres in 11 counties extending from Contra Costa County in the north to Monterey County in the south, including the western Central Valley. For representatives of the center, fracking poses potential water contamination risks. "Californians have every right to know the details of this destructive plan,” Clare Lakewood, an attorney for the center, told SF Gate."And it's deeply worrying that the BLM is refusing to release them." Los Angeles Area Fares Poorly in Nationwide Pollution Rankings  The American Lung Association’s annual “ State of the Air ” report found that the Los Angeles-Long Beach metropolitan area has the worst ozone pollution in the nation – a distinction the area has earned for 19 of the report's 20-year history. Between 2015-2017, the region was also ranked seventh-worst for number of unhealthy particle pollution days, and fifth-worst for total annual particle pollution. According to the report, the average number of unhealthy ozone days increased in Los Angeles-Long Beach compared with last year. The same was true for 16 other cities listed among those with the worst ozone pollution in the country. including New York, Chicago, San Diego, and Denver. The report notes the growing impacts of global climate change on nationwide health: "“This year’s report covered the three warmest years in modern history and demonstrates the increased risk of harm from air pollution that comes despite other protective measures being in place,” the report said. "The Clean Air Act must remain intact and enforced to enable the nation to continue to protect all Americans from the dangers of air pollution.” Quick Hits & Updates  The Oakland A’s have reached a tentative $85 million agreement to buy half of the Oakland-Alameda Coliseum site from the County of Alameda. Representatives of the team maintain that they still intend to build a new waterfront ballpark at the Port of Oakland’s Howard Terminal. They hope to develop the Coliseum site into a multi-sport complex, and build parks, a technology campus, and 3,000 units of housing. Completion of the San Francisco Central Subway line extension will likely delay until 2020, according to a federal monitor report. This is the latest in a series of delays for the 1.7-mile extension, which was originally planned to open in February 2018. The report cites five main causes of the new delays: contractor fights, worker shortages, cost overruns from past delays, unexplained water leaks on the line, and insufficient staffing for final tests. The San Diego Planning Commission unanimously approved a proposal for new zoning regulations to encourage more mixed-use projects. Currently, blended residential, commercial, and industrial developments have required special city approval. The proposed zoning policy would classify mixed-use as a new type of city zone. The proposal, which faces approval from the city council next month, is the latest in Mayor Kevin Falcouner’s aggressive set of housing reforms – including last month’s removal of parking requirements for new housing near mass transit stops.  Following a January executive order to survey state lands for development, Gov. Gavin Newsom will solicit bids from developers to build affordable homes on at least three state-owned properties. This effort seeks to overcome the rising cost of land statewide: UC Berkeley’s Terner Center for Housing Innovation found that from 2000 to 2016, land prices more than doubled in San Francisco and almost tripled in Los Angeles. Newsom's plan involves asking affordable housing developers for low-income project concepts. Approved projects would then enter into long-term lease agreements with the state. “My administration is using every tool at our disposal to combat the housing affordability crisis families face,” Newsom said in his announcement, according to the Los Angeles Times. The Peninsula Open Space Trust purchased $11 million of land totaling 937 acres from timber company Big Creek Lumber. The Palo Alto nonprofit group’s purchase covers two major parcels of land: 320 acres adjacent to Butano State Park which will likely become parkland, and 607 acres near the Aptos hills which the trust plans to sell back to Big Creek Lumber under a stricter environmental agreement than state and federal laws require. California state lawmakers proposed a bill to set an April 1, 2020 deadline for a public access plan to Hollister Ranch near Santa Barbara. The proposal, AB 1680, comes a year after a controversial deal struck between coastal officials and ranch owners limiting beach access to landowners, their guests, visitors with guides, and those who could boat or paddle in. Now the state is working on an updated plan that would cement recreation, science, and education opportunities at the beach area. If the state fails to update the plan by the April 2020 deadline, a 1982 public access program for the area will go into effect. The Los Angeles Planning Commission unanimously rejected local businessman Vince Lambert's bid to turn 32 Venice Beach apartment units into hotel guest rooms, citing the city’s affordable housing goals. Last year, a Superior Court judge ruled in Lambert’s favor, and his testimony cited old building permits and city codes that allowed him to turn the units into an “apartment-hotel.” Since, the city council has adopted new rules to allow only Airbnb-style rentals on renters’ “primary residences,” and Lambert lost a bid to turn the building into a hotel. Lambert plans to appeal the commission’s decision with the city council. San Bernardino County and several environmental groups filed lawsuits against the City of Fontana, claiming the city violated state environmental laws by approving a 3.4 million-square-foot warehouse complex. The lawsuits claim that the the West Valley Logistics Center project will add more than 6,000 daily vehicle trips through the area – increasing local air pollution, noise, and traffic. Additionally, environmental groups say the project will harm habitat for the coastal California gnatcatcher and destroy a wildlife corridor between Jurupa Hills and Rattlesnake Mountain. The Los Angeles Metro board conducted an alternatives analysis of possible routes for a bus rapid transit line between North Hollywood and Pasadena, and found that a street-running route is the most viable option. Metro’s analysis compared this route with freeway-running routes and hybrid street-and-freeway routes. Though the street-running route would take the most time, the analysis found that it will attract the most riders, and connect the greatest number of destinations. Major League Soccer announced it will expand to 30 teams, officially inviting the cities of Sacramento and St. Louis to join its franchise. Both cities have competitively vied for inclusion for months. Earlier this year, Sacramento offered the franchise a $23 million comprehensive incentive package to build around a $252 million stadium. In efforts to preserve affordable housing in the city, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors unanimously passed an ordinance to give nonprofits the right of first refusal to purchase multifamily residential buildings. The proposal, called the Community Opportunity to Purchase Act (COPA), would give nonprofits such as the Mission Economic Development Agency or the Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Coalition the first opportunity to buy a building with three or more residential rental units. The ordinance must pass a second vote and be signed by the mayor to go into effect. The California Housing Finance Agency announced its pilot accessory dwelling unit funding program in Clovis, providing $2.5 million to fund the Clovis Cottage Home program. The agency is partnering with the nonprofit Self-Help Enterprises, which will provide finances to individual homeowners/borrowers, service the loans, and collaborate with Clovis to market their program. The Choice Neighborhoods Program HUD posted the FY19 Choice Neighborhoods Planning Grants NOFA on April 10 with up to $5,000,000 for Planning Grants, including Planning and Action Grants. These grants support locally driven strategies that address struggling neighborhoods with distressed public or HUD-assisted housing. Successful applicants address housing, people, and neighborhood goals through a comprehensive “transformation plan.” Applications are due on Monday, June 10. The California Strategic Growth Council's Climate Change Research Program staff will be visiting institutions of higher education throughout the State in early May, hosting Research Roundtables and Listening Sessions . Staff hope to hear from researchers, non-traditional research partners, and stakeholders about the program’s future investments in climate research that engages and benefits communities in California. Key institutions and dates include: UC Berkeley on May 1, UC Davis on May 2, UC Merced on May 3, CalPoly, San Luis Obispo on May 7, UCLA on May 8, and San Diego State University on May 10.  Citing the success of last year’s measure to limit scooters, San Francisco will consider doubling its scooter allowance numbers. Last year, officials temporarily banned scooter use citywide following complaints of reckless driving and blocked sidewalk traffic. San Francisco’s measures may serve as a model for successful control of scooter use for cities facing similar complaints statewide. Fresno Housing Authority Commissioner Terra Brusseau is being pressured to resign after she opposed a Clovis low-income development project on the grounds that the area might not be the “best place” for diversity. Community leaders call her remarks racist and offensive to the economically disadvantaged. The commissioner claims that her remarks were misconstrued, and does not plan to resign. Napa County supervisors unanimously passed watershed protection regulations, potentially jeopardizing the growth of the wine industry in the region. The proposed rules aim to protect trees and the hillside watershed, which have faced erosion and increased sediment deposit into reservoirs. New regulations would prohibit development next to streams or land with at least 30 percent slope, limit the number of trees that could be removed, and require open space be set aside when trees must be removed. The Santa Monica City Council temporarily banned two forms of affordable housing downtown to accommodate more kinds of renters. The ban halts approval of market-rate micro apartments smaller than 375 feet – also known as single-room occupancies (SROs) – for 45 days until the council devises a measure to address their overabundance. The ban was placed to halt production of six apartment complexes downtown that offer 363 SROs, 95 percent of which are at market rate. The council also banned approval of extremely low income housing (ELIs) for eight months, citing data showing that ELIs make up 45 percent of current affordable housing production.  NASA released a report saying that its 2010 agreement with the Department of Toxic Control to clean up the notoriously contaminated field lab at Santa Susana , north of Los Angeles, by is “not achievable.” The agreement, which set a 2017 deadline, requires NASA to cleanup soil background levels on the 2.500-acre site. Initially, the remediation project’s cost estimates were $209 million, but have since soared above half a billion dollars. The Department responded that it will hold NASA “accountable” for violations.

For the past two years, the California Legislature has passed “packages” of bills aimed at alleviating California’s housing crisis. This year, it may get to vote on an entire package in one bill.  Senate Bill 50, the controversial bill that would force localities to accept more residential density in transit- and jobs-rich areas, was approved by the Senate Senate Governance and Finance Committee, though in a radically different form from what was previously proposed.  Committee members voted to advance SB 50 , 6-1, after Sen. Scott Wiener, SB 50’s author, and committee chair Mike McGuire agreed to merge SB 50 with McGuire’s SB 4. The move was a surprise, as SB 4 has attracted little attention during this legislative season and approaches housing production in a very different way than the original SB 50 had. McGuire represents the North Bay and the North Coast, including notoriously anti-growth Marin County. While SB 50 had been criticized for intervening too deeply into local land use, the merged bill arguably would have much more wide-ranging impacts. The bill retains many of the density requirements of SB 50. It requires cities to permit residential buildings of up to four or five stories within a half-mile of major transit stops and job centers. It retains requirements for low-income housing as well as protections against displacement, which many social justice advocates had demanded.  The revised bill adds SB 4’s requirement that every single-family lot in California be allowed to accommodate up to four units — including accessory dwelling units, duplexes, and four-plexes, by right. In so doing, the new SB 50 would essentially re-write zoning laws in the vast majority of the state’s cities.  Whether this move will prove to be too radical for lawmakers or a canny example of pooled strength remains to be seen.  In agreeing to the merger, Weiner made major concessions to small counties, may of which had feared the SB 50 would introduce incompatible dense, urban style development to suburban and semi rural communities. The new bill exempts counties of less than 600,000 from some of SB 50’s density requirements, leaving 15 counties subject to SB 50’s origins provisions. Smaller counties would be required to permit structures one story taller than current regulations allow — but not necessarily up to the five stories that would be permitted by-right in more populous counties.  “A one-size-fits-all approach doesn’t work for every community in California, and the strategy of ‘no’ no longer works,” said McGuire, as quoted in the Los Angeles Times. “No matter if you are a large city, a small city, an urban county, a rural county, everyone has to do their part to be able to combat this crisis of lack of affordable housing.” The revised bill also excludes coastal communities from many of these requirements. This move is seen as an attempt to placate wealthy, largely residential coastal communities such as those in Marin, Santa Cruz, Santa Barbara, and Orange counties. McGuire’s district includes Marin County while Wiener represents San Francisco. Meanwhile, SB 50 has the potential to increase densities across large swaths of major cities, including up to 40 percent of Los Angeles and nearly 100 percent of certain small cities. (Of course, allowable development does not necessarily correlate with actual development.) “What works for downtown L.A. will not work for downtown Santa Rosa,” McGuire said, as quoted in the Los Angels Times. “More housing, more affordable housing, will be built under this bill respecting the population at hand.” Overall, the merge seems designed to increase the visibility of SB 4’s provisions while softening the impact of SB 50’s provisions. While SB 50 has support from many housing activists and YIMBY groups, it has drawn criticism from some social justice organizations and, notably, cities that object to the loss of local control. The Los Angeles City Council and San Francisco Board of Supervisors both voted to oppose the previous version of SB 50 (unless amended), as did the California Chapter of the American Planning Association. (See prior CP&DR coverage .)  The new bill may attract more critics, though — 9 million of them. That’s the rough number of single-family homeowners in California, many of whom have already decried the updated SB 50 as an assault on single-family zoning and an attempt “ outlaw " single-family homes.  SB now goes to the full Senate, which must decide its fate by the end of May, after which it goes to the Assembly. Gov. Gavin Newsom, who supports an aggressive pro-housing agenda, has yet to take a position on the bill.

CP&DR Vol. 34 No. 4 April 2019

Settling a court battle, downtown San Diego’s semi-independent planning agency, Civic San Diego , will lose much of its authority. The settlement ends a years-long legal battle between the city and Martusa Baxamusa, a former Civic San Diego board member who alleged that the agency lacked oversight and abused its powers by expediting approvals for certain developers. Civic San Diego, which arose out of the dissolution of the state’s redevelopment agencies, has agreed to transfer powers back to the city, including its planning and permitting of downtown projects and its administration over the downtown parking district. The city continues to deny any wrongdoing, and claims the settlement is a positive step. “We’re pleased with this tentative settlement agreement, which will elevate the planning and permitting services the city provides to our urban neighborhoods,” city spokesperson Katie Keach told the San Diego Union Tribune. “This agreement will enhance our efforts to tackle the housing crisis, create jobs and improve the quality of life in our communities.” Water Board Adopts New Rules for “Waters of the State" The State Water Resources Control Board adopted new definitions and procedures for waters of the state. This is the board’s latest effort to safeguard the existing water regulatory process against the Trump administration's current efforts to scale back the reach of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineer’s regulatory powers. The new rules , entitled "Procedures for Discharges of Dredged or Fill Material to Waters of the State", strengthens protections for "waters of the state" and develops uniform definitions and procedures across California's Regional Water Quality Control Boards for regulating discharges of dredged or fill materials. Notably, the change formally adopts the Corps’ expansive definition of “wetlands,” which will strengthen protections for arid portions of the state not covered under federal jurisdiction. It also establishes a regulatory process for the submission, review, and approval of applications to discharge dredge or fill material to "waters of the state.” Feds Pass Drought Plan; Imperial Irrigation District Sues The same day Senate and House approval seemed to conclude the long-negotiated seven-state Colorado Drought Contingency Plan, California’s Imperial Irrigation District (IID) sued to block the plan. IID's lawsuit, filed in a state court, asks for further environmental review before the plan’s approval. IID has repeatedly refused to agree to the plan until the federal government provides $200 million to restore the at-risk Salton Sea. Earlier this year, California’s other prominent water agency, the Metropolitan Water District (MWD), agreed to take over IID's delivery cuts in order to move the plan forward. Additionally, California Senator Dianne Feinstein committed to work with the Department of Agriculture to help IID find the funds it needs to restore the Salton Sea. Despite IID’s latest bid to halt the agreement, MWD’s director Jeffrey Kightlinger is confident that the plan’s final signing ceremony will still take place in the coming weeks. “I don’t think the lawsuit changes anything on the ground,” he told the Los Angeles Times. (See prior CP&DR commentary .) More Cities Come into Compliance with New Housing Laws The Department of Housing and Development (HCD) announced that cities and counties are making progress toward compliance with state housing laws. HCD attributes the uptick to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s February meeting with mayors from non-compliant cities and counties. Since this meeting, three of these cities have become compliant, and 14 others have committed to specific actions toward compliance, or submitted drafts. "Strong local planning is key to building a California for All, and the progress thus far is encouraging," said Department of Housing and Community Development Director Ben Metcalf in the release. "We are seeing meaningful efforts by cities and counties that weren't in compliance to get back on-track and plan to meet the housing needs in their communities.” Quick Hits & Updates The California Air Resources Board (CARB) released its annual report analyzing the state’s 2018 investments from cap and trade funds in the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GGRF). Last year, the state invested $1.4 billion in various projects to reduce the effects of climate change on California communities – over double the total 2017 investment. CARB estimates that the 2018 investments will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by almost 37 million metric tons. This amounts to about what would be produced by burning four billion gallons of diesel fuel, or “roughly equivalent to taking eight million cars off the road for a year.” San Francisco District Four Supervisor Gordon Mar proposed a resolution to block Senator Scott Weiner’s SB 50, which will increase density and allow for taller buildings near transit hubs. Mar represents the city’s Sunset District, which notably contains predominantly low-density, single-family housing. Mar’s opposition claims that Weiner’s bill doesn’t contain affordability provisions and displacement protections – but Weiner responded that the opposite is true. Meanwhile, the Los Angeles City Council voted unanimously to oppose Sen. Scott Weiner’s SB 50 housing bill, arguing that the bill would create more market-rate housing without protecting or promoting affordable housing.  To Mountain View Whisman school board unanimously approved a $56 million agreement to lease out a 144-unit subsidized apartment buildings for its employees for the next 55 years at least. This move makes the Whisman school district one of a growing number of bay area districts that are using affordable housing as a tool to attract and retain top talent for its workforce. The Mountain View Environmental Planning Commission will review the plan at its April 17 meeting, and it will go before the city council for final approval May 7.  A poll conducted by Mercury News and the Silicon Valley Leadership Group revealed that nearly two-thirds of Bay Area residents believe that quality of life has gotten worse in the past five years. Respondents cite high housing prices, traffic jams, and high homelessness rates among the reasons for worsened conditions. Forty-four percent of the polls respondents report plans to move away from the area in the next few years, and 6 percent plan to leave the area this year.  The Santa Cruz City Council is considering invoking eminent domain to claim several private properties for a highway expansion project. The city has completed design plans for key expansions in high-traffic areas of Highway 1 and Highway 9, and, and if it fails to begin construction by 2020 it risks losing funding from a State Transportation Improvement grant. City officials estimate that in order to make that date, they need agreements with all property owners by July. To justify the purchase, the city must also make the case that the claim is necessary and in the public good. The California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) released SB 2 Planning Grants Program Notice of Funding Availability (NOFA) for approximately $123 million. The Planning Grants Program provides one-time, over-the-counter grants to local governments to update a variety of planning documents and processes that streamline housing approvals and accelerate housing production. Over-the-counter applications will be accepted for an eight-month period ending November 30. A new report shows that San Francisco surpassed New York as the world’s most expensive place to build. According to the report, conducted by consulting company Turner & Townsend, costs rose because of an increase in demand from the tech sector, a shortage in construction labor, and a spike in steel prices attributed to U.S. and China tariffs.  The City and County of San Francisco entered into a $500,000 agreement with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory for information and planning assistance to safeguard the city against future weather extremes, including heat waves and storms. This is a first-of-its-kind local agreement between city officials and local researchers; typically, municipalities use national weather and climate data for their planning analyses. City officials hope it will help them decide where to direct future infrastructure investments, including fortifying San Francisco International Airport, upgrading highway drainage, and re-engineering seawalls. The Fresno County Local Agency Formation Commission approved adding a new 1,035-acre area to Clovis's northeast side.  More than 500 acres of the land are already designated in the city’s general plan for business development, with another 325 acres for residential projects and 225 acres of parkland and open space.  Consultants for the city projected that by the time it is built out in 2035, the area could generate about 6,100 jobs. California cities are eligible to apply for up to $200,000 in grants under Proposition 68 , the $4 million parks and water bond from the California Department of Parks and Recreation. To apply for the grants, cities must respond to the Department’s mailed letter seeking information for fund allocation by June 3rd. After this, the grantee must submit an adopted resolution to the Office of Grants and Local Services (OGALS by November 1, 2019; the grantee must submit the application to OGALS by January 31, 2020; and the OGALS contract must be signed and submitted back to OGALS by March 31, 2020. More information can be found on the department’s webpage. Representatives of the Port of Oakland’s maritime industry raised concerns about the Oakland A’s new waterfront ballpark plan. Port commissioners are currently negotiating a deal for the baseball team to acquire Howard Terminal on the Oakland Inner Harbor, and install a 34,000-seat stadium and housing project. However, groups like the Pacific Merchant Shipping Association and San Francisco Bar Pilots Association are concerned about ship safety from decreased visibility around the site, and about the future economic viability of the port itself. The California Natural Resources Agency will be accepting project proposals for the Environmental Enhancement and Mitigation Program from April 12, 2019 through June 17, 2019. Approximately $6.7 million in awards will be funded by this program. Applicants submitting the most competitive proposals will be invited to participate in the next level of the process in  late summer or early fall 2019.  The California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) and the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research (OPR) announced the release of the SB 2 Planning Grants Program Notice of Funding Availability   for approximately $123 million. The Planning Grants Program provides one-time, over-the-counter grants to local governments to update a variety of planning documents and processes that streamline housing approvals and accelerate housing production. Over-the-counter applications will be accepted for an eight-month period ending on November 30, 2019. HCD’s technical assistance team will work closely with regions, sub-regions, and counties to help jurisdictions identify activities and provide tools that will accelerate housing production. A recent Ecological Journal study found that two Southern California mountain lion species could go extinct within 50 years. The study cites a precipitous decline in genetic diversity caused by inbreeding issues: The apex predators face major man-made blockers to their roaming needs in the form of freeways, cities, and private properties. The study’s authors urge Los Angeles County to construct wildlife land bridges over major freeways and wildlife corridors around private areas to help intermix two declining populations. The U.S. Department of Housing and Development approved $124 million in recovery funds for the 2017 California wildfires and mudslides. These funds support the state of California’s disaster action plan, which will address outstanding housing, business, and infrastructure damage in affected Southern California counties. The San Luis Obispo County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved an overhaul of its inclusionary housing ordinance, with updates promising to generate as much as $1 million per year. The existing ordinance, which required developers to build affordable units or pay fees for affordable unit construction,  only raised $25,000 per year. The updated fines will apply to construction of all new homes, rather than only to multiple-home developments. It also tiers the fees based on the development’s size – generating more revenue for with each increase in square footage. The Los Angeles City Council settled a court case securing the property rights of homeless people in the Skid Row area. The rare non-unanimous 10-2 decision, applauded by homeless advocates throughout the city, maintains a 2016 injunction that prevents police and city workers from confiscating possessions of homeless people without notice.  California cities earned top-20 spots in the Trust for Public Land’s 2018 dog park rankings : Oakland and San Francisco claimed 7th and 8th, respectively, Sacramento claimed 18th, and Bakersfield and Long Beach tied for 19th. The rankings measure the number of dog parks per 100,00 residents. Bay Area job growth accounted for 81 percent of new jobs in the state of California in the first two months of 2019, according to the state Employment Development Department. So far this year, the state of California has added 20,500 jobs, and 16,600 came from the Bay Area. These numbers are  driven in most part  by rapid hiring in the tech sector.  San Francisco’s New Housing Inventory Report showed that housing construction in the city declined by 41 percent in 2018, to only 2,600 units. However, more than 3,000 new units authorized this year remained unbuilt – which may signify that new homes built will increase in future years. Notably, the report also found that only one-quarter of these new units were affordable, down 56 percent from last year. The Commission on Catastrophic Wildfire Cost and Recovery has released a request for comments on a number of questions related to wildfire liability. All comments will play an important role in informing the Commission’s report to the legislature. Stakeholders can respond on the  Governor's Office of Planning and Research (OPR) website . Responses are encouraged by 5:00 pm on Monday, April 22 to help inform the next Commission meeting on Monday, April 29.