If you attend only one conference all year, it should be the UCLA Extension Land Use Law and Planning Conference, scheduled for January 23 in downtown Los Angeles.
For years, I have been telling people that the UCLA Extension event – now in its 23rd year – is the best of its kind. I realize that the registration fee ($400 or $450, depending on when you sign up) is not spare change in this economy. But if you need to know the fine details from the world of land use law, public policy and planning practice, this conference is worth the price of admission. (Of course, if you want to save money, you could simply subscribe to CP&DR. A one-year online subscription is about half the price of the conference!)
If you're like me, you've been to dozens of conferences and you long ago recognized that socializing, schmoozing and sightseeing are the priorities. Admit it: You sit through the ballroom speechifying for the free meals and coffee. You hit the breakout sessions just long enough to grab the handouts. You wander through the exhibitors' hall solely so that you can fill a bag with candy for your kids. Well before the end of the PowerPoint presentations, you're already engrossed in email, working up a sweat in your hotel's exercise room, or parked at the bar, depending on your priorities.
The UCLA Extension conference is different. It's more like an eight-hour brain dump with barely enough breaks for saying hello to friends and peers. Sure, some people arrive the night before or linger afterward for a cocktail and socializing. For the most part, though, this is a one-day event that's all business. There's a reason that so many of the state's most high-powered land use lawyers and planners are in the audience.
I attended my first Land Use Law and Planning Conference in 1999. Afterward, I felt as if I'd been run over by a truck. The depth of useful information and analysis – and the speed at which it was delivered – overwhelmed me. I've been to every conference since, and I always leave with a full notebook and a spinning head. This is not a conference for beginners. The presenters assume you already know a lot, so they typically charge full speed into detailed policy and legal discussions. If you don't know a SUSMP from a THP, if you can't recite the fair argument standard, this may not be your event.
This year's keynote speaker is scheduled to be State Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento), the author of SB 375. Steinberg is one of California's more skilled politicians, but he also is wonky enough to fit right in with this crowd.
- Paul Shigley
