The state Department of Water Resource (DWR) has received harsh criticism from State Auditor Elaine Howle for the department's administration of a flood protection corridor program. The auditor found that DWR lacked objective criteria for scoring applicants when it awarded $28 million in bond funds to five projects in 2001, and did not require mandated information from applicants when it awarded $29.1 million in 2003.

The downtown in the East Bay city of Hayward has many features that any redevelopment agency would envy — an Amtrak station, a Bay Area Rapid Transit station, historic buildings, and a modern grocery store with additional shops. Soon to come is a 12-screen movie theatre and more retail shops. But what may be helping the downtown area even more is years of work to create additional housing in and around downtown, within walking distance of BART and its connections to jobs in Alameda, Contra Costa and San Francisco counties.

Developers are beginning to go green because it makes economic sense. But they're probably not going green enough to satisfy Jerry Brown.

That was the impression I got last week at the annual Emerging Trends in Real Estate conference put on by the Urban Land Institute, San Diego-Tijuana Council. Dusting aside the typical numbers-and-market-glimpses approach, ULI devoted the meeting to the theme of "sustainability" and even brought in sustainability guru-ess Hunter Lovins to give a speech.

Billboard ordinances in five cities have survived constitutional challenges, as the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeal has rejected claims filed by three billboard companies. In three published decisions, the Ninth Circuit upheld billboard regulations in San Diego, Beaumont and Oakland. In unpublished memoranda, the court upheld regulations in Chula Vista and Lemon Grove.

After several years of struggling along with a minimal website, Solimar Research Group – sister organization to California Planning & Development Report -- has just launched a handsome new site (http://www.solimar.org) that is far more comprehensive and attractive than the old one.

According to the "traffic on the fives" radio station, I was avoiding all the bad freeways, just like I was supposed to. Apparently, there were no crashes or unusual conditions on my chosen route.

Still, the needle on my speedometer hovered just below 10 mph. Although I was in the midst of five lanes of brake lights, the alternatives were worse.

A little more than a month ago, in a blog from the CCAPA conference, I wrote about a panel that discussed the design of streets from a planner's perspective. I promised to follow-up with some links that presenters offered, and I have finally gotten around to posting those links. These are great resources for planners, engineers, developers and anyone interested in how their neighborhood might function better.

Voters in Palm Springs threw out a 10-year extension of a development agreement for a project on the side of Mt. San Jacinto during the November 6 election. Slightly more than 60% of voters said yes to the Measure C referendum, which called for setting aside the development agreement extension.