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State telecommunications law doesn’t pre-empt local governments’ ability to regulate telecommunications facilities through typical zoning ordinances, the California Supreme Court has ruled.

An appellate court has rejected a San Rafael-area quarry’s attempt to expand its non-conforming use status by importing recycled asphalt and other materials. Even though the activity would promote recycling – and Marin County approved the expanded activity on the theory that it would not have any additional environmental impact – the First District Court of Appeal concluded that the additional approvals violated the county’s non-conforming use ordinance. San Rafael Rock Quarry and its predecessor companies have quarried rock on Point San Pedro Road in the San Rafael area since the 1940s. In 1982, Marin County rezoned the property for commercial and residential use, rendering the quarry operation as non-conforming. Under the non-conforming status, the quarry could produce asphaltic concrete only from material mined onsite. In 2013, SRRQ sought an expansion of its county mining permit to be able to use recycled material in its production processes. Marin County approved a two-year amendment and then, in 2015, a two- to four-year amendment. The county was sued by the Point San Pedro Road Coalition, a coalition of homeowner associations surrounding the quarry that was created in 1999 primarily to monitor its operations. The coalition argued that the amended permit was not permissible under the quarry’s non-conforming use status. The coalition’s first lawsuit failed because the group had not exhausted all administrative remedies by going to the state mining board first, but the second time around the coalition’s suit survived that hurdle. On appeal, the First District Court of Appeal ruled in favor of the coalition and against the county and SRRQ. “The record demonstrates, as the trial court explained, that SRRQ’s proposed processing of asphalt grindings cannot be equated with the processing of on-site mined materials and imported sand that was used in the production of asphaltic concrete at the time the use became nonconforming under the 1982 zoning ordinance,” wrote Justice Ioana Petrou for a unanimous three-judge panel. “The processing of the asphalt grindings involves more than the mere substitution of one type of raw material for another, which is then stockpiled and fed into existing equipment to be used in the production of asphaltic concrete. Instead, the processing of asphalt grindings involves new full truckloads of asphalt grindings traveling to the site.” The county had argued that the importation of material would not lead to any significant environmental impacts, including no new truck trips, but Justice Petrou essentially found that argument to be irrelevant. The court also concluded that denial of the permit would not affect the quarry’s current, legally permissible operations in any way. Speaking to the Marin Independent Journal, SRRQ lamented the notion that the nearby residents would not permit the company to pursue environmentally laudable recycling goals, while the Coalition said the ruling affirmed their longstanding view that Marin County has engaged in lax oversight of the quary. The Case: Point San Pedro Road Coalition v. County of Marin, No. A150002 (issued March 6, 2019; ordered published April 3, 2019). The Lawyers: For Point San Pedro Road Coalition: John D. Edgcomb, Edgcomb Law Group, jedgcomb@edgcomb-law.com For Marin County and San Rafael Rock Quarry: Michael Zischke, Cox Castle Nicholson, mzischke@coxcastle.com

Five-hundred miles inland from the Pacific Ocean, the Colorado River calms down, widens, and flattens somewhere between the gorges of Glen Canyon and the Grand Canyon. It was there that John Lee, a guilty party in the Mountain Meadows Massacre, set up a ferry service. He proceeded to raise his 56 children, with his 19 wives, before being prosecuted and facing a firing squad in 1877. It was the only crossing of the river for hundreds of miles, connecting one wasteland to another. Today, Lees Ferry, in what is now Arizona, does not so much connect as divide. It marks the boundary between the Upper Colorado Basin and the Lower Colorado Basin. The Upper includes most of the mountains and tributaries that make the Colorado what historian Marc Reisner called “The American Nile.” The Lower Basin is an arid Purgatory through which the water travels on its way to the sea. Hydrology and geography distinguish the basins from each other, with Lees Ferry as good a boundary as any other. The river gets 93 percent of its water from the Upper Basin. But, a miracle of regulation and legislation has made Lees Ferry the very fulcrum on which the entire American West balances. It marks the boundary between where the water comes from and where the water goes. You can appreciate how special a place Lees Ferry is when you consider the hydrological fury that enabled the Colorado to churn through the Kaibab Plateau – a fury matched only by the imagination of America’s 20 th century engineers. Hoover Dam and Glen Canyon Dam collectively restrain up to 35 million acre-feet, or half of the system’s total storage capacity and more than twice the river’s average annual flow. The 1922 Colorado Compact , supplemented by further regulations that are collectively called the Law of the River, achieves two things: first, it codifies the amount of Colorado River water available for human use; second, it apportions that water. Back in 1922, when all seven Colorado Basin states had a combined population smaller than Los Angeles County today, an equal distribution between the upper and lower basins probably seemed like no big deal. California received 4.4 million acre-feet, to Arizona’s enduring consternation. Needless to say, there was no EIS. In total, the compact allocates 7.5 million acre-feet for each basin, plus 1.5 million for Mexico. The Colorado’s long-term average annual flow amounts to, at most, 14 million acre-feet, and much less during the recent 20-year drought. What could go wrong? Just as a lucky drop of water that makes its way to the Sea of Cortez – or, these days to the Tijuana Aqueduct—can trace its path all the way to a peak in Rocky Mountain National Park, so can the American Southwest trace its existence back to the raising of dams, the signing of the compact, and, indeed, the first explorations of the river, most famously by John Wesley Powell in 1860. Before then, the history of the river belonged to Native tribes, whose influence over the river has been reduced to a trickle. While California is plenty thick with history, the typical Californian probably doesn’t think about it very much. But in every panel at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy’s Journalists Forum, hosted by the Babbitt Center for Land and Water Policy in Phoenix a few weeks ago, I couldn’t help thinking about the connection between the swimming pools of Orange County, the lawns of the Inland Empire, the golf courses of the Coachella Valley, and that crossing where John Lee found his refuge. Every day, we are drinking, bathing in, and flushing down his legacy. The forum focused on the Colorado in exquisite detail. By some account, the Colorado is the most regulated, engineered waterway in the world (rivaled, perhaps, by the Sacramento Bay-Delta). It offers no end of discussion topics. And yet, no topic could be more simple: water starts in one place, succumbs to gravity, and ends up in another. In the case of the Colorado, 40 million people siphon it off along the way, and 5.5 million acres are irrigated by it. What makes the Colorado so surreal for Californians is that the vast majority of users don’t even live in the Colorado Basin. While much of California’s allotment stays close to the river, irrigating the fields of the Imperial Valley and then percolating (insufficiently) into the Salton Sea, that which is dedicated to residential use is pumped westward by the Metropolitan Water District and shared among its 26 member agencies and 19 million municipal customers. Water influences urban planning only in the broadest sense. It doesn’t tell us where to build or in what configuration. But it determines how many of us can live here. I suppose the average Californian doesn’t have to know or care where his water comes from. I wouldn’t blame anyone for being confused by our concoction of cities, water districts, aquifers, and aqueducts. And yet, the discussion – intense, detailed, contentious, and, despite plenty of good faith, without consensus – suggests that we really ought to pay attention, either to weigh in on political solutions, embrace conservation methods, or at least pay due reverence to nature’s largesse. Farmers can surely do their part, and cities can too. Urban planners can’t change the Law of the River, but they influence over the ways people live and, indirectly, over the amounts of water they consume. They can design places that are sprawling or compact. Places that have shared green space or backyards. Places that pave over nature or that leave it be. Places that remember Lees Ferry or places that function as if water is just another abundant gift from a benevolent god. I can’t help thinking about how water relates to something we obsess about almost constantly: traffic. Traffic is artificial and chaotic. It has no origin and no history. It goes every which way at all times. It seemingly knows no limits, and it cannot exist without infrastructure. It turns all of us into mutual enemies. That’s why, I suppose, I like thinking about the river. I like thinking about its past. I like thinking about its course, determined by axioms of gravity and geology. I like thinking about its connection to nature and about the ways that it forces people to collaborate. I don’t enjoy thinking about dams, canals, or water policy. I don’t enjoy thinking about the drought. But I – and all of us – need to think about them. We need to think about how we can share our resources fairly and how we can prepare for perpetual drought. (Congress recently approved an agreement, miraculously hashed out by all seven Colorado Basin states, to allocate river water in times of drought.) The thing about a fulcrum is, you can find a balance. But you have to consider the load: with too much weight, the rod snaps in half; the scaffold collapses. If California and its neighbors keep consuming at their current rates, the West will face a catastrophe as if the Hoover Dam burst, but so slowly that no one noticed it was happening. It’s easy to forget that accomplishments we consider mostly permanent rely on something ephemeral, nearly invisible, and only partly controllable. Notwithstanding the recent drought agreement, the Colorado Compact isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. Western water policy depends on seven competing entities that all, essentially, have veto power, just as it has for the past 97 years. Water supply, especially the amount that flows past Lees Ferry, depends on the water gods, just as it has for the past five billion years. Photo courtesy of U.S. Geological Survey via Flickr .

SAN FRANCISCO, April 15--As UCLA and UC-Berkeley planning professor Michael Storper contends in his book , the cities of the Bay Area enjoy an unexpected sense of unity. Rather than be divided by the San Francisco Bay, retreating to their own peninsulas, dells, and tidal marshes, the Bay Area cities find common ground – or, rather, common water – in the bay. They can literally see each other, and they all have to cooperate to navigate over, under, around, and through it. Of course, the Bay Area extends far beyond the bay itself. But at this morning’s session at the American Planning Association’s National Planning Conference , held this weekend in San Francisco, the unity of the greater Bay Area was on display. Eight directors of planning (and/or community development) came together on a panel, following a daylong session Friday, convened by the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy , in which they met to discuss, confer, and commiserate with each other.  They hailed from a representative set of cities, from the region’s heavyweights – San Jose, San Francisco, and Oakland – to suburbs and even a semi-rural exurb. Midsize cities like Concord and San Carlos are figuring out how to become more urban without enraging their longstanding residents while traditionally slow-growth cities like Palo Alto and San Rafael are trying to figure out how to be conservative while, at the same time, projecting a progressive image. (The major absence was that of an industrial city, such as Martinez or Fremont, and that of an exclusive suburb, such as Woodside or Orinda.) The discussion centered on some of the region’s agreed-upon challenges, like housing, as well as discussions of cities’ unique situations. Participants included Oakland Planning Director William Gilchrist; former Palo Alto Planning Director Hillary Gitelman (now with Environmental Science Associates); San Jose Planning Director Rosalyn Hughey; San Rafael Community Development Director Paul Jensen; Concord Community and Economic Development Director Andrea Ouse; San Francisco Planning Director John Rahaim; San Carlos Community and Economic Development Director Al Savay; and Dixon Community Development Director Dina Tasini.  Here are a few excerpts:  Local Conditions and Local Character Gilchrist, Oakland: Oakland has been going through a discovery, an epiphany of sorts around real estate for workplace, commercial, retail, and housing. Oakland is a fascinating city in terms of its culture and its history. We have about an even distribution across demographic groups of white, black, Asian, and Latino. Displacement is a concern for communities of color and for the very place-based nature of the culture.  It’s amazing moment of transformation in Oakland. The jury is clearly out on what the city will look like 5-10 years down the road.  Jensen, San Rafael: Marin County is the least populated county in the Bay Area, except for Napa County. It spans about 500 square miles, but the population is about 260,000. I don’t want to offend anybody, but Marin County is very old and very white. It’s not very diverse. It’s very affluent, and very well educated. It’s also very liberal, except when it comes to land development. The county is notorious for anti-growth, no growth policies. So it’s always a challenge to get housing development approved. The one exception is San Rafael. It's the true county seat. 60,000 in population. We do have some level of diversity. Twenty percent of the city is Latino. Gitelman, Palo Alto: It’s a beautiful leafy suburb, and I would characterize the political environment as being conflicted about change, very suspicious of regionalism, and very troubled by the state of California’s efforts to impose solutions to our housing crisis from above.  Hughey, San Jose: We are the biggest city in the Bay Area, I like to remind my colleagues of that. We are over 1 million people and growing every day. Our general plan population projections call for an additional 470,000 new residents by 2040. Last I checked, we are right on track. We are adding about 1,000 new residents each month.  San Jose has, over the years, been the bedroom community for the Bay Area. We had historically built housing for people working up and down the Peninsula and throughout the Bay Area. We built a lot of single-family development. Our land use map is a sea of yellow: low-density development.  Ouse, Concord: There is a transformation going on from '50s postwar suburb with low-density residential to more a urban context. We’re experiencing sort of a conflict between old-time residents who want more of a suburban feel and urban folks who might have been priced out of cities close to SF coming in and looking at the community from a different lens.  Rahaim, San Francisco: The issue that for me overrides all (else) is, how do we grow without displacement? The city is extraordinarily challenged by the displacement crisis. The Mission District is probably ground zero for these issues. It has lost 8,000 Latinos. This is not normal, organic neighborhood change. This is way beyond that. Savay, San Carlos: Many cities in Silicon Valley are going through cathartic and rapid transformation. Twenty years ago, downtown was dead. Everything closed at five o’clock. And there were no kids. It was a graying community. As Silicon Valley’s fortunes rose, so did San Carlos’s. All these young, high tech workers started to figure out San Carlos. These young people started to move to San Carlos and have kids.  We’ll be able to make our housing supply numbers by 2030, but we’re seeing displacement of manufacturing jobs and skilled labor and restaurant workers. With all this pressure, how do we keep our character and our soul? That’s the big question right now, and it’s the big question for the Bay Area. How do we respond to this rapid growth and success and keep our character and soul?  Tasini, Dixon: I thought to myself, how do I fit in with these big, dynamic, sexy cities? Then there’s me, little Dixon, with 19,000 people. Forty percent are white, and 60 percent are Latino. Our zoning map is 75 percent yellow. The other part is a mix of other things that haven’t really driven us to lots of success. Housing Gitelman, Palo Alto: The housing crisis in the region has gotten so severe, even Palo Alto wants to pitch in and do their part. But we want to do it our way: not the way ABAG / MTC says and not the way the state says. Jensen, San Rafael: We have housing stock that is primarily single-family. We have a very progressive, pro-housing city council. We had a retreat to discuss what to do to promote housing. We identified obstacles: we found out that the process was antiquated and difficult. So we made a switch in how we handle our housing review. Now they go to Planning Commission at the front end of a project review to sign off on basic things like density, building height, and environmental clearance. Hughey, San Jose: While we are still trying to attract jobs, we are in the middle of a housing crisis. We committed to building the housing to serve our residents and the whole Bay Area. Rahaim, San Francisco: To give you an indication of why we have the housing crisis we have in the city: the city has grown by 80,000 people since 2010 and 170,000 jobs since 2010. We have built less than 25,000 housing units. This can be replicated across the region and across the state, this imbalance between job creation, population growth, and housing production.  The jobs-housing balance issue has become more acute throughout the region. In the city, we have about 800,000 jobs and 400,000 housing units. It creates this incredible imbalance.  The challenge we all have is the opposition to housing growth and the change of “neighborhood character.” There's this belief that if you don't build housing, people won’t come. That’s just not true. It’s never been true.  Tasini, Dixon: We have one thing that other people don’t have, which is a large swath of affordable housing. You can still buy a home for under $400,000. We have about 1,300 homes proposed for the next 10 years. Commuting, Transit, and TOD Gilchrist, Oakland: We are a hub for the transit system. All the BART lines converge in Oakland. We’re looking at that as an untapped resource that we haven’t taken full advantage of.  Gitelman, Palo Alto: Palo Alto has about 65,000 residents. That triples during the daytime. We’re very job-intensive, about three jobs for every employed resident in Palo Alto. That’s an issue. A lot of traffic, and the community feels that in terms of their quality of life.  Hughey, San Jose: We have a great opportunity to address the imbalance of housing and jobs: Diridon Station is a commuter hub. BART is being extended to Diridon Station. We hope to have HSR one day. This area will be the largest multimodal transit hub west of the Mississippi River. This is obviously a game-changer or the city to have all of this transit investment coming into Diridon and downtown. (See prior CP&DR coverage .) Ouse, Concord: We have a Downtown Specific Plan. The keystone of downtown is Todos Santos Plaza, which is a lovely town square in walking distance of the Downtown Concord BART. The specific plan contemplates enhancing that downtown vis-a-vis additional housing units, in some areas up to 200 per acre, with high rise, high-density. Tasini, Dixon: Sacramento is only 25 miles away and is a wonderful place. Davis is 8 miles away. We haven’t really used our region and the fact that we are in the dumbbell. A Large portion of my population is driving to the Bay Area. They sit in their cars for two hours because we don’t have jobs. I’m trying to address that jobs-housing balance. Development Gilchrist, Oakland: The economics are amazing, just the amount of dollars that are coming in now and the interest the development community has in terms of providing supply of residential. We want to do that in a way that still addresses the elasticity of the development community on the supply side. Jensen, San Rafael: Marin County is notorious for using CEQA to stop or delay projects. I’ve been involved with many lawsuits where people have challenged EIRs for this purpose. We took a chance on two large projects around train station. We brought forward a categorical exemption for both projects: we shocked some of our environmental friends, but our planning commission fully embraced it. (See prior CP&DR coverage .) Hughey, San Jose: We have targeted growth areas primarily in downtown and the Diridon Station area. We have about 68 urban villages throughout the city we’re looking to revitalize, and transform commercial corridors to target growth.  Google will be adding 20,000 jobs at Diridon Station. We are excited that they are placing a number of jobs right at a transit center where the jobs should be. This will be a brand-new urban districts, mixed use, with a host of amenities that will make it an 18- if not 24-hour living environment. We have recently updated our design guidelines for the downtown area. (See prior CP&DR coverage .) Ouse, Concord: Concord is approaching a huge transformation. One of the main drivers is our 5000-acre Naval Weapons Station, which is going to be conveyed to the city and immediately to the master developer within a year or two. 2500 acres for open space. (See prior CP&DR coverage .)  Tasini, Dixon: We have a quaint old downtown. But it has not developed in any commercial manner. We created a priority development area around downtown….to create more density there, to allow people to build second-story residential. Many residents want to age in place. We are looking at a senior community with different levels of income.  Policies Gilchrist, Oakland: We had to put the brakes on the Downtown Specific Plan about halfway through the process because the outcomes were getting seemed to be agnostic about equity.  We are kicking off environmental review for the draft Downtown Specific Plan. It’s been an awakening for how we see the city moving forward and how we can engage communities. This plan has called on us to rethink how we reach out to communities.  Gitelman, Palo Alto: The council did an experiment: In early 2018 they drafted a work plan for housing that gave them a laundry list of activities they could undertake to increase the rate of housing production. It was everything from retooling how we think of 100 percent affordable projects, a little work on our zoning ordinance, an affordable housing overlay. We had a developer interested in developing a housing project that was a mix of affordable, market rate, and housing targeted at the “missing middle." That got entitled.  Hughey, San Jose: Our general plan was last updated in 2011. At that time, it was built around the need for attracting more jobs. Our mayor and council recently approved a Housing Crisis Plan. Coordinating with a host of city departments to develop a work plan to come up with a variety of different tools to preserve affordable housing that we currently have and importantly to produce additional housing units.  We have a goal to build 25,000 new units in the next five years. We’re using a variety of tools: we already have inclusionary housing; we’ve established further protections for renters; an anti-displacement strategy that we’re working on; loosening regulations around ADUs.  Jensen, San Rafael: We’re looking to change inclusionary housing provisions. We had inclusionary housing ordinance in place since 1986. We have gone from an initial 10 percent requirement for below market-rate to 20 percent in the last 10 years. Our developer folks say they can’t pencil. We are going to be bringing forward a recommendation to scale back those percentages. We are working on a Downtown Precise Plan: large projects around transit have difficulty getting through process. We are going to a form-based code, Replacing density with floor-to-area ratio. We are also doing an EIR to support that effort so these projects can tier off that EIR in the Precise Plan. We are the poster child for fire hazard and sea level rise. We’re adding an overlay into our general plan map that we’re going to use not only as a zoning and construction tool but also as a financing tool and an area for adaptation.  Rahaim, San Francisco: San Francisco has this unique provision called Proposition M, which caps the amount of office space approved in a given year at 950,000 square feet. Right now we have 3 million square feet of space in the ‘bank’ but 7 million in the application pipeline.  We are facing this interesting situation about how we allocate this space. Who gets it? Who doesn’t get it? It’s created an interesting, challenging dynamic about how we approve development and who gives us the most goodies as a result of development.  Savay, San Carlos: Ten years ago, we were at a tipping point. We had a financial crisis. The city was ready to turn off street lights and close the library. We integrated Planning, Economic Development, Housing, and Building. We redid the general plan and zoning quickly. We did TOD around the train station. We lowered parking ratios. We increased density a bit. We aimed for 9,000 new jobs by 2030 but only build 1500 units. Everybody said that was OK. Tasini, Dixon: We are in the process of finishing off the general plan. I have decided that we shouldn’t be designating area to the northeast as solely industry. It should include mixed-use and we should look at more dense housing. That’s a bad word in my community, but the council has been supportive.  We have a very interesting problem: a state highway runs right through downtown. It’s almost like a truck route. I want to change the truck route to another street further to the east of the city so we can do some urban design downtown: expand sidewalks, have sidewalk dining, make something happen that people will go to. We are trying to discuss linkage to transportation. We cannot keep driving two hours to go to work. Members of council want to secede from the Bay Area and become part of Yolo and Sacramento counties. Regionalism Gilchrist, Oakland: I’ve been hearing a lot of analogies between what Brooklyn and Manhattan faced over the last couple of decades, where capital and investing hopping the East River and Brooklyn became more of an investment choice around real estate with all the attendant pressures and changes.  We have a common destiny. It’s going to take regional thinking to find the best path forward.  Gitelman, Palo Alto: The city was a leader in housing solutions 10-12 years ago. It was one of the first cities to have inclusionary zoning. In the past 10 years, the pipeline has slowed down. There’s controversy associated with almost every planning proposal. Voters overturned the approval of a 60-unit, affordable senior housing project. It ushered in a whole new wave of folks who didn’t really want to do anything.  Rahaim, San Francisco: I was thinking about the fact that Los Angele County was able to pass a ballot measure for $120 billion for transportation. It happens to be the largest county in the country population-wise. It has 10 million people. So L.A. County alone has more people than all nine Bay Area counties. It really points to the importance of us working together and doing exactly what we’re doing in having this conversation. None of these issues can be solved within the boundaries of our cities. As a region, we don’t spend enough time talking to each other, so it was great to spend a whole day together. Some quotations have beed edited for clarity. Quotations are not necessarily presented in the order in which they were uttered.

When the California Legislature passed Senate Bill 743, Los Angeles’s power plants still burned coal, Newhall Ranch was still defending its EIR, the Clean Water Act still covered vernal pools, and electric cars were less common than Hummers.

The American Planning Association included six California projects among its recipients for 2019 Excellence Awards and Achievement Awards, presented yesterday at the APA National Conference in San Francisco.  Carolina Martinez of the Environmental Health Coalition and the Paradise Planning Partnership in National City won the Advancing Diversity and Social Change award, one of five 2019 National Planning Excellence Awards . The project was recognized for its comprehensive plan to clean up the city's toxic living environment and provide affordable housing near transit. The APA called the Paradise Creek Partnership "one of the largest and most significant developments in National City that has become a catalyst for neighborhood revitalization….the Paradise Creek Apartments shows how fiscal policy can achieve environmental justice by extending investments to the most disadvantaged communities. Most important, Paradise Creek demonstrates community-based planning at its best, with residents working together to create the community they want to live in." Achievement Awards for best practices included the Cottage Home program in Clovis, which boosted the community’s affordable housing and San Francisco’s “Sustainable Chinatown” project, which improved affordable housing projects while also educating communities on sustainable initiatives. An Achievement Award for public outreach went to Southern California’s Go Human Pop-Up Events, which raised awareness of traffic safety and helped communities reimagine new street infrastructure. Finally, an award for transportation planning went to the Lake Tahoe community spanning Nevada and California for its transportation implementation plan which used cell phone data rather than traffic data to create a clearer picture of travelers through the region.  San Diego Sued for Attempt to Reduce Downtown Parking Requirements  An advocacy group sued the City of San Diego for its measure to eliminate parking requirements for future developments, claiming that the measure passed without necessary environmental reviews. The ordinance, approved by the city council in March, removes the typical parking space requirements for multi-family homes built within a half-mile of transit hubs. San Diego mayor Kevin Faulkener touts the measure as a necessary step to drive down housing costs and increase the use of mass transit. But the group that filed the lawsuit, CREED 21, argues that the measure is premature, and that the city should improve public transportation before restricting parking. Mayoral hopeful Kevin Briggs leads this group. “Taking away parking spaces and forcing people to give up their cars so developers can build luxury high-rise condos in every neighborhood is no way to help hard-working San Diegans make ends meet,” Briggs told NBC 7. “It is a recipe for gridlock, air pollution, and gentrification.” Newsom Relaxes Environmental Rules to Prepare for Wildfires  Following two consecutive years of record-breaking wildfires, Governor Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency to waive environmental regulations on 35 forest management projects. The governor cited a February Cal Fire report that recommended streamlining environmental regulations to mitigate future wildfire risk. This would expedite fuel reduction measures such as the removal of dead trees and brush clearance to create fuel breaks and defensible space around communities. Experts refute the notion that logging and fuel breaks will reduce risk of fire, arguing instead for fire mitigation efforts that focus one homes – such as replacing flammable roof material and clearing vegetation around buildings. In total, the projects will cost $35 million. The governor’s office also reported an impending announcement for a $50 million community awareness campaign to protect homes. “The increasing wildfire risks we face as a state means we simply can’t wait until a fire starts in order to start deploying emergency resources,” Newsom said in his announcement, as reported by the L.A. Times. “California needs sustained focus and immediate action in order to better protect our communities.” Sacramento Approves Package to Lure MLS Team, Build Railyards Stadium In advance of Major League Soccer’s upcoming vote to expand its franchise, the Sacramento City Council unanimously approved a $33 million incentive package to build infrastructure around a planned $252 million downtown railyards stadium. This is the latest move in Sacramento's ongoing efforts to lure a team, with Sacramento and St. Louis considered frontrunners in the expansion bid. The incentive package is comprehensive: it includes $5.4 million of development fee waivers and tax rebates, and will create a special financing district around the stadium site to capture tax revenue to pay for its $27.2 million in proposed infrastructure. It also promises that the city would build that infrastructure – including streets, walkways, and sewers – and would then rebate future property taxes to cover the costs. Finally, the city would rewrite its sign ordinance to allow the team to build six digital display boards throughout the city. City officials will present this package to franchise officials in Los Angeles before they make their selection. “We’ve checked all the boxes,” Mayor Darrell Steinberg told the Sacramento Bee. “We have demonstrated to the league that we want this. We are absolutely the right choice for the league.” Study Finds Loss of Thousands of Affordable Units in L.A. County The California Housing Partnership  found that between 1997 and 2018, 5,256 affordable units in Los Angeles County were converted to market rate – making up over one-third of the 15,044 affordable units converted statewide. Many affordable units are built through the federal Low-income Housing Tax Credit program, which grants tax breaks to developers of low-income units. But these tax credits expire after 10 years, and some owners are allowed to convert units to market rate after 30 years. The report estimates that at least 14 Los Angeles developments built in the 1980s and early 1990s have soon-to-expire affordability agreements, putting an additional 12,121 homes at risk of losing their affordability status. Authors of the report urge local leaders to strike deals with developers to prevent the conversion of existing affordable units. Quick Hits & Updates  A poll by Change Research showed that 61 percent of Bay Area respondents support Senator Scott Weiner’s SB 50 transit-housing bill. SB 50, which recently passed its first committee in Sacramento, proposes changing zoning codes to build taller denser structures near public transit and increase affordable housing and tenant protections. The survey, which reached 3,379 Californians, was conducted online between April 6 and April 9. San Francisco’s cap on new office space may delay the construction of the final Transbay tower. The city’s Proposition M, which limits the amount of new large office space approved each year to 875,000 square feet, has created a backlog of office space development in the recent tech boom. If approval of the final tower is delayed, it may take years before construction begins on over 300 units of affordable housing that would come at no cost to the city. The project has been in the works for three years and would include a 190-room five-star hotel, 165 market-rate condos and 325,000 square feet of office space, which has already been leased to Salesforce. The LA County Board of Supervisors voted to extend a temporary rent control measure until the end of the year. The ordinance, which prevents landlords from raising rent by more than 3 percent in most apartments built before 1995, was set to expire in June. County officials hope that the extension to December 31 will give them time to create a more permanent ordinance while protecting tenants. In a special election last week, Alameda residents voted to turn a former federal office site into a wellness center for seniors and homeless people. Voters approved the Measure A homeless center over a competing measure to convert the site to public space. Critics of the opposing Measure B bill, which proposed turning the site into public parks, suggested that the park was an alternative to inviting homeless into the city rather than a legitimate proposal in itself. A Los Angeles City Council committee will vote on two drafts of a proposed ban on donations from those seeking approval on new development projects. This move comes two months after the Ethics Commission endorsed such a ban, and after a year of continuous public investigations of city officials who accepted donations from involved parties before key development votes. The radio show Reveal, from the Center for Investigative Reporting, sued the Beverley Hills School District on behalf of school officials as part of an ongoing battle a planned subway tunnel under Beverley Hills High. The lawsuit claims that the district violated the state’s Public Records Act by failing to release records of public funds used to lobby the Trump Administration against the subway project. (See prior CP&DR commentary .) Following Long Beach Mayor Robert Garcia’s call for a waterfront revitalization project, local businesses proposed construction of an aerial tramway dubbed “The Wave” that connects the city’s downtown to its waterfront. The project’s plan estimates a four-stop Gondola system serving up to 4,800 people per hour. The project team will seek grant funding before asking the city for funds. Should the tramway get approved, it will require a two-year permitting process and one to two years of construction before opening. A Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals panel denied a bid from home-sharing platforms Airbnb Inc. and HomeAway to override liability for illicit housing in Santa Monica. This ruling maintains a city ordinance that holds the companies responsible for booking unlicensed rentals. Both companies argue that the ordinance makes their operations impossible, because it would require them to monitor and remove unregistered listings. The ruling is the latest setback in their efforts to avoid regulation in cities around the globe. Tenants in Los Angeles and Orange counties faced the highest rent inflation in 11 years last month, according to the Consumer Price Index. The 5.5 percent annual inflation rate topped the national increase for rents. It’s also the largest rent increase among the two dozen metro areas tracked by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, ahead of Atlanta’s 5.2 percent and San Diego’s 4.9 percent.  In the latest development in negotiations between the Los Angeles Angeles and the city of Anaheim, the Angels have hired a consultant to assess development opportunities around the stadium. The Angels are particularly interested in acres of parking areas around the stadium for the development of restaurants, hotels, and entertainment centers in a future stadium complex. For the city, this represents a positive move in their efforts to keep the Angels long-term. A recent Apartment List study found that more than 120,000 Bay Area residents spend at least three hours commuting to work. The study, compiled from 2017 Community Survey microdata, compared commutes of workers across the Bay Area. It classified those who commute over 90 minutes one way as “super commuters.” The study found the highest concentration of super commuters on the edges of the Bay: 11 percent of Stockton and Lodi residents travel over 90 minutes one-way. In the more central cities of San Francisco, Oakland, and Hayward, 4.8 percent of workers face three-plus hour daily commutes.   Facing the termination of the 710 freeway extension project, the cities of Pasadena and Alhambra are preparing plans for the development of leftover freeway stubs. Pasadena has hired a consultant to negotiate the release of the 710 freeway ditch from Caltrans for future development. Alhambra city officials hope to covert their 50-acre stub to park land, but many citizens still oppose the closure of the stub, citing traffic concerns. The Long Beach city council unanimously approved a feasibility study for a gondola system to bring visitors to the Queen Mary ocean liner. This comes in response to Urban Commons’ proposed “Queen Mary Island” development project in the 54 acres around the ship, which will include a boardwalk, cafe, bars, and 700,000 square feet of retail space.  President Trump signed the Santa Ana River Wash Land Exchange Act, which will let the Bureau of Land Management trade 327 acres in the wash area for 310 acres owned by the San Bernardino Valley Water Conservation District. This swap advances a land-use plan for the 4,500-acre Santa Ana River wash area, allowing for more mining, boosting water conservation, and increasing protections for natural habitat. Governor Gavin Newsom announced that his proposed penalty to withhold gas tax proceeds from cities that fail to meet their planned housing goals won’t take effect until 2023. Following criticism for what many see as an extreme measure to reach statewide mandates, Newsom released legislation that gives cities four years to amend their processes for setting regional housing goals. If approved, the governor’s mandate would withhold funds for road repairs and public transit from cities that fail to update their plans by 2023. The California Supreme Court declined to review the appeal of San Francisco landlord Anne Kihagi, leaving the landmark 2017 tent abuse ruling in place. In 2017, a state judge fined Kihagi $5.5 million for bullying tactics and abuse in the 50 rent-control units she has purchased throughout the city of San Francisco since 2013. Since the ruling, the state has auctioned many of her properties and told tenants to send their rent checks to City Hall.

Amid rapid changes in the Bay Area and, especially, the increase in housing costs regionwide, the City of Oakland is looking to an updated downtown plan to keep the city both diverse and affordable.

The Senate Housing Committee voted overwhelmingly, 9-1, to support Senate Bill 50 , the controversial measure to promote dense development around transit hubs and job centers statewide. It now advances to the Senate Governance and Finance Committee. In so doing, SB 50 has already gone further than its predecessor, last year’s SB 827, which died amid controversy even before it came up for a vote in committee. (See prior CP&DR coverage .)

The Southern California Association of Governments has identified a 4.3-square-mile are of West Los Angeles as the possible location of the state's first congestion pricing scheme. SCAG determined that a $4 toll for vehicles entering the area during weekday rush hours could reduce traffic delays and overall miles driven by 20 percent. Use of other modes of transportation would rise correspondingly. A number of bureaucratic hurdles would have to be crossed in order to implement the recommendations, including the creation of a tolling authority and updating state law to allow for tolling on surface streets. The area — bounded roughly by the 405 Freeway to the east, the 10 Freeway to the south, Santa Monica’s 20th St. to the west and the Sunset and San Vicente boulevards to the north — was chosen over several other high-traffic areas in Los Angeles because it was determined that traffic is most intense there. Critics of the idea have raised concerns about equity, citing relatively larger tolls for less wealthy drivers.  Study Says State Needs Upzoning to Reach Newsom’s Housing Goal Absent dramatic up zoning statewide, Gov. Gavin Newsom may have to settle for a shortfall of 700,000 of the 3.5 million new homes he envisioned for California. A UCLA study contends that land throughout the state is currently zoned for only 2.8 million homes if fully built out. Much of that land is in unincorporated county territories and therefore not conducive to the sort of dense urban development that many state policies are promoting. Because not all available land is likely to be developed for housing within the governor’s timeline, the study estimates that California localities may have to double or even triple their aggregate amount of land dedicated to housing. The report "shows pretty clearly that it’s going to be a hard slog to actually get 3.5 million housing units built,” UCLA Urban Planning Professor Paavo Monkkonen told the Los Angeles Times. 100 Resilient Cities to Shut Down; Four California Cities Participated The New York-based Rockefeller foundation is abruptly shutting down the 100 Resilient Cities program, a global effort to help cities avoid and withstand challenges, including natural disasters, economic stresses, and other human-included and natural calamities. California had a generous number of cities, with Berkeley, Los Angeles, Oakland, and San Francisco participating. The program funded a “chief resiliency officer” in each city. The foundation will continue to fund resiliency efforts through a $30 million grant to the Atlantic Council. The program spent $164 million in its six years of existence. Staff will be let go as of July. (See prior CP&DR coverage .)

A Robert Wood Johnson Foundation study found that residents in rural counties like Kern in San Joaquin Valley suffer from the poorest health statewide, while wealthier coastal counties – such as Marin in the Bay Area – earned top spots. The study compared counties along two metrics: health outcomes and health factors. Health outcomes included metrics like premature deaths, percentage of people in poor health, and low birth weight. Health factors measured health behaviors, the physical environment, and other social and economic conditions. Statewide contrasts were clear: only 11 percent of Marin County residents were in poor or fair health, compared to 25 percent of Kern County residents.  The study also notes that health outcomes often fall along socioeconomic and racial lines. It points to past institutionalized practices that have contributed to health differences, including “unfair bank lending practices, school funding based on local property taxes, and discriminatory policing and prison sentencing.” The report concludes, " The collective effect is that a fair and just opportunity to live a long and healthy life does not exist for everyone. Now is the time to change how things are done." Greater Appetite for Mobility than Housing in Bay Area  Bay Area residents are more willing to pay to fix traffic congestion than housing problems, according to a Mercury News and Silicon Valley Leadership Group poll . The poll found that 71 percent of respondents supported a 1-cent sales tax increase, while only 43 percent of respondents supported a multi-faceted plan to address high home prices and rent. The response comes despite the fact that respondents ranked housing above traffic as a top concern: 83 percent agreed that housing is an “extremely” or “very serious” issue, compared with 76 percent who said the same about traffic congestion. Lukewarm support for the housing fix may come down to the proposal’s specifics. The report asked about the CASA Compact, which includes zoning changes, tax-backed affordable housing funds, and rent caps for existing tenants – and voters may object to parts of the plan even if they approve of others. Support for the traffic congestion tax measure, proceeds of which would go to measures like expanding transit lines and upgrading roadways, is comfortably above the 2/3 majority needed to pass the tax. “We’re heartened that 71 percent of us are willing to reach into our pocket to address this through a 1-cent sales tax,” Carl Guardino, President of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group told Mercury News. “This is quite a statement and a commitment by Bay Area voters.”  Los Angeles, San Diego Rank among Most Gentrified Cities Nationwide  A National Community Reinvestment Coalition (NCRC) report found that gentrification and cultural displacement is most pronounced in the nation’s largest cities but is nearly absent from many others. Two California cities were among the seven that account for nearly half of the nation’s total gentrification: Los Angeles and San Diego join the ranks of New York City, Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Chicago. Using U.S. Census Bureau and economic data, the study found that rising rents, property values, and taxes disproportionately forced residents to move from these key large cities. By contrast, the study found that many rural areas and small cities nationwide remain without wealth-building investment in amenities that will spark investment and economic growth. The study’s authors point to both an absence of affordable housing projects within gentrifying cities, and a lack of cultural revitalization in poorer areas. “Revitalization of struggling neighborhoods is unevenly distributed,” wrote Jason Richardson in the report. "The big investments that fuel gentrification and cultural displacement didn’t reach most of the nation’s poorest neighborhoods and rural areas.”

CP&DR Vol. 34 No. 3 March 2019

As part of a possible push to restructure the state’s Active Transportation Plan (ATP) budget, the Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO) released the first comprehensive review of the ATP since its inception in 2013. The ATP, established and administered by the California Transportation Commission and the California Department of Transportation, provides $220 million of funding to infrastructure and non-infrastructure projects to increase citizen walking and biking statewide. First, the review explains that it’s impossible to accurately track the ATP’s progress on its goal: the state lacks sufficient data collection to assess the success of ATP programs. Additionally, the LAO raises questions about the kinds of projects the ATP funds. The review notes that most current funding supports similar types of infrastructure projects: such as sidewalks, bike lanes, and crossing signals. The LAO points out that the plan’s original inception was to support larger, more transformational projects beyond infrastructure updates – and recommends that the ATP reallocate future funding accordingly. San Francisco Considers Overhaul of Civic Center  The San Francisco Planning Center proposed a sweeping redesign of the Civic Center, in what could become its biggest project since last year's Transbay Transit Terminal. The planned update, helmed by CMG Landscape Architecture, will revamp three areas: Civic Center Plaza, United Nations, Plaza, and the Fulton Street block that connects them. For decades, these public spaces surrounding City Hall have been beleaguered by high vehicular traffic, vandalism, and crime. Proposed changes include a permanent Fulton Street block closure, new lawns, and a revamp of the controversial, poorly-maintained, and currently waterless 1973 United Nations Plaza fountain – which has since informally become a public toilet. One highlight of the plan is the proposed “Fulton Mall”: a series of lawn terraces between the Main Library and Asian Art Museum framed by benches, gardens, pavilions, and new bathrooms. Further improvements incorporate a dog park, fitness park, youth soccer lawns, and artwork into the area. The redesign also aims to reduce congestion with a possible traffic lane reduction. However, any proposed street changes require approval pending from city traffic and design analysis.The plan still needs community input, political and monetary support, and a two-year environmental review before it can commence.  1.4 Million Affordable Units Needed Statewide  Two years after California passed legislation to expedite affordable housing construction, the California Housing Partnership (CHP) found that the state is leaving renters far behind. CHP’s report found that the state needs 1.4 million rental homes to fill its current demand, and that it currently spends 14 times more on homeowners than renters, in the form of mortgage tax deductions and other tax breaks. For low-income families, rental costs impinge on basic living expenses: CHP calculated that of more than two million very low-income renter households in California, roughly two-thirds spend more than half their income on rent. Yet the report also found that low-income housing development funded by the statewide tax credit has declined by 23 percent since 2016. CHP blames the federal tax reform for this decline. The report recommends that the state give more $1 billion annually to cities and counties to build housing, and to offer more tax breaks to renters. The California Housing Partnership is a nonprofit comprised of charitable organizations, including the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative and the Wells Fargo Foundation. Low-Income Californians Suffer from Poor Air Quality A study by the Union of Concerned Scientists published has found that vehicular air pollution  disproportionately affects Californians of color and low-income communities. The study quantified and compared the exposure of racial and economic demographics to particulate matter from on-road sources. It found that Latino, African-Americans, Asian-Americans and low-income communities are exposed to substantially more air pollution. Notably, it found that African American Californians are exposed to pollution that is 43 percent higher than that for white Californians, and Latinos are exposed to 39 percent higher pollution levels than whites. Additionally, it found that the lowest-income households in the state live where pollution is 10 percent higher than the state average, while the highest-income households live where pollution is 13 percent below the state average. The report outlines steps that the state can take to reduce this disproportionate pollution impact. These include more efficient conventional vehicles, incentivizing decreased driving, and targeted actions to reduce emissions in low-income communities and communities of color––like clean vehicle incentive programs for lower-income households. Rent Control Resurfaces in Legislature  Following last year's failed ballot for statewide rent control, Democratic lawmakers proposed a rental housing legislation package to increase tenant protections. The legislation includes Assemblyman David Chiu (D-San Francisco)’s AB 1482, a measure to cap rent increases statewide. Additionally, Assemblyman Richard Bloom (D-Santa Monica) AB 36 expands rent control: allowing local governments to apply rent control to single-family homes and 10-year-old construction. In 2018, California voters rejected a measure to repeal limitations on rent control. Still, California renter vulnerability continues: according to a UC Berkeley study, 9.5 million tenants spend at least a third of their income on rent. This latest rent control legislation package is the first proposed response to Governor Gavin Newsom’s call in his February State of the State address: “Here is my promise to you: Get me a good package on rent stability this year and I will sign it." Quick Hits & Updates  Following a week of six serious traffic collisions, San Francisco Mayor London Breed demanded that three city agencies create policies to accelerate safety projects and increase traffic law enforcement. Breed directed the city’s Municipal Transportation Agency to expedite the installation of measures like safety posts and temporary sidewalks, ordered the Police Department to crack down on speeders, and asked the Public Utilities Commission to add staff to the city’s “Vision Zero” goal of eliminating traffic fatalities by 2024. A Ventura County Superior Court judge ruled that the City of Santa Barbara must resume allowing vacation rentals in coastal zones. The ruling claimed that the city’s 2015 ban of short-term vacation rentals was illegal and in violation of the California Coastal Act, which requires that the public must have affordable accommodations within and access to coastal zone. Cal State University Dominguez Hills is pursuing a new master plan for its Carson campus in efforts to double its full-time equivalent student population to 20,000 by 2035. The proposed plan will add 1.28 million square feet of new development to the 346-acre campus. This includes housing for up to 988 student housing beds, 2,149 market-rate housing units, 100,000 square feet of retail space, and 720,000 square feet of office space. Pending San Jose City Council approval, Silicon Valley will conduct an international design competition for a universally-recognizable area landmark. The San Jose Light Tower Corporation has raised $1 million so far toward the competition, and expect tens of millions more in funds. Proposed projects will face review by Light Tower’s board, and the winning idea could be erected as early as 2021. Developers revised a proposed San Jose urban village plan to create a more pedestrian-friendly, nature-oriented complex. Plans to develop 22.6 acres of agriculture and open space include one million square feet of offices, 2,000 homes, 320,000 square feet of retail, an amphitheater, and a 150-room hotel. The updated plans scale back both home and retail square footage, and include five acres of open space area.  Two developments signal Bakersfield’s reluctance to support the downsized High-Speed Rail Project: the Kern County board of supervisors approved a resolution, 4-1, to completely abandon the project, and Congressman Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield) introduced legislation to repurpose the funds to water infrastructure projects. McCarthy’s proposal, dubbed the Repurposing Assets to Increase Long-Term Water Availability and Yield (RAILWAY), would repurpose up to $3.5 billion toward water storage statewide. The Riverside County Transportation Commission (RCTC) proposed temporary train service from Los Angeles to Indio County to carry hundreds of thousands of festival goers on special Amtrak trains. The $8.6 million project, which has received a $5.9 million grant from the California State Transportation Agency, attempts to solve the extreme traffic problems in and around Indio County during the Coachella and Stagecoach music festivals. The temporary train could arrive as early as 2020.  The San Jose City Council will consider a unique “offset fund” solution to gain support to build taller buildings near the San Jose International Airport. Raising height caps downtown will require the alteration of flight paths and, therefore, cut into airline revenue, forcing a reduction in plane cargo and passenger load to avoid tall buildings. To offset these losses, the city proposed a fund of up to $1.5 million raised by airline stakeholders and property developers, to which qualifying airlines could submit claims. In the wake of California’s biggest wildfire year in state history, the San Diego County board of supervisors is asking for measures to strengthen the county’s wildfire-prevention program.Their goals include initiatives to improve vegetation management, expand the network of fire safe councils, upgrade emergency planning technologies, and create stricter building codes for fire-resistant materials and ventilation.  The Environmental Protection Agency ruled that property in  Redwood City  owned by Cargill Salt is not bound by the federal Clean Water Act, potentially greenlighting future development or sale to the government. In 2009, Cargill Salt and Arizona developer CMG Associates proposed building 12,000 homes on the San Francisco Bay-side area, but withdrew the project amid opposition from environmentalists. (See prior CP&DR coverage .) Oakland city officials reported that though they’re set to exceed their goal to build 17,000 new homes by 2024, they’re lagging far behind their low-income housing targets. When Mayor Libby Scharff set the targets three years ago, she pledged that 28 percent of new units developed would accommodate low-income families – but so far, only 7 percent of building permits issued include low-income unit allocations. As the Salton Sea dries and recedes, the California Resources Agency is working to keep dust particles from the exposed floor out of the air. This dust, once airborne, represents a potential public health crisis: not only does floating particulate matter increase asthma rates, but this matter likely contains toxic substances from the long-polluted Sea. The agency plans to dig trenches to slow winds that disturb and carry lake dust. (See prior CP&DR coverage .)  Voting on Sacramento's “ Waterfront Idea Makers ” redesign competition has officially opened to the public. In January, the city invited five professional design teams and the public to submit concepts that reimagine the “Old Sacramento” riverside stretch. Proposals include concepts such as art installations, transportation projects, and public space redesign.  The Caltrain board of directors approved a proposal to sell Caltrain station naming rights. The approval, which will likely offer branding opportunities to local Silicon Valley players, comes in response to Caltrain funding challenges as the rail system expands. The Ventura County board of supervisors narrowly passed a measure to establish wildlife corridors, marking the most comprehensive effort in the state yet to protect common paths for local roaming animals. The measure requires reductions of nighttime outdoor lighting, curtails development, restricts fencing, and protects native vegetation around designated wildlife corridor areas in unincorporated areas throughout the county.  LA Metro’s Board of Directors unanimously approved an increased budget for the third and final segment of the Purple Line extension, bringing the total cost of the 2.6-mile rail segment from less than $1.4 million to $3.2 billion. Metro predicts the line will produce 75,000 daily trips to Westwood by 2026.