Vol. 19 No. 07 Jul 2004

A new agreement between the state and five Indian tribes promises to give local governments far greater oversight of casino development projects than ever before.

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Some of the most desirable office jobs are leaking overseas, and no one seems to know how to plug the hole in the employment dike. If the globalization trend continues as expected, it could dampen demand for commercial development and affect economic development strategies throughout California, especially in the Bay Area.

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If you tried, you probably could not design a better candidate for extinction than the California tiger salamander. But government protection of the salamander was slow to arrive and now, while the state and federal governments dawdle, the salamander has become embroiled in the politics of growth control and Indian gaming.

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The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld the constitutionality of a city’s ordinance regulating the location of adult businesses and requiring nonconforming businesses to close or relocate.

The ruling came in a case from Spokane, Washington. However, a number of jurisdictions in California have enacted similar ordinances.

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A state appellate court has upheld an environmental impact report for a 96-unit condominium project in downtown Oceanside. The court rejected arguments that the environmental impact report failed to analyze a reasonable range of alternatives, did not address the project’s impact on neighboring residents and did not require adequate mitigation of biological impacts.

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Lucetta Dunn became director of the Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) on June 1. She spoke with CP&DR Editor Paul Shigley in late June.

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One of the peculiarities of architects is their love of design method—and their love, equally great, of talking about it. The problem is, almost nobody really gives a toss about design method. Sometimes, however, design method is genuinely interesting, such as the five-year process to design and approve the Viewpoint School, a private academy for 1,200 students in the City of Calabasas.

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Two bills that give the state the ability to control local tax increment financing advanced at the state Capitol during June. If the bills become law, state officials would have more control than ever before over local projects that rely on tax increment financing.

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A State Auditor’s report questions reserve fund accumulations and spending practices at independent water districts. The auditor also selected eight districts for closer scrutiny and found that five of them "may have trouble defending to their ratepayers and taxpayers the need for some portion of their accumulative resources.”

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A governor’s executive order intended to speed development of power plants superceded the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and local measures for implementing CEQA, the First District Court of Appeal has ruled.

The appellate court held that an executive order signed by then-Governor Gray Davis “effectively repealed” portions of CEQA and the CEQA Guidelines that were inconsistent with the order while the directive was in effect, from February 8 until December 31, 2001.

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