Architects and planners like to think they are building "for the ages." Recent experience, however, suggests the very opposite. The culture, the economy and fashions in urban design all appear to be in a rapid state of change. Perhaps the Internet and advances in telecommunications are shortening the half-life of cultural events. Perhaps we're just getting older and the world seems to be getting faster. Notwithstanding, buildings that exemplified urban life only 20 years ago are rapidly becoming obsolet...

A 5,855-square-foot retail and office building proposed for downtown Mill Valley is exempt from environmental review under revised California Environmental Quality Act Guidelines, the First District Court of Appeals has ruled. The court ruled that buildings of up to 10,000 square feet proposed for an urban area may be exempt from CEQA review. In the Mill Valley case, the court concluded that the project opponent did not prove the existence of any "unusual circumstances" that would preclude the exempti...

A six-year dispute between Shasta County and the new City of Shasta Lake regarding tax revenue has been decided in favor of the city. The Third District Court of Appeals upheld nearly all aspects of a ruling issued during binding arbitration by retired Siskiyou County Superior Court Judge James Kleaver. The appellate court said the city, which incorporated on July 2, 1993, has the right to receive Proposition 172 sales tax revenue and that the Proposition 172 revenue should offset the amount the count...

Forced by a lawsuit to incorporate the California Environmental Quality Act process into the way it issues streambed and lake alteration permits, the California Department of Fish & Game has issued new procedures that will require more property owners to do greater environmental review before they undertake such projects. Every permit (often called a "1600" for a section of the Fish and Game Code) will be examined to see how CEQA applies, according to Jim Steele, a DFG program manage...

In his first year as governor, Gray Davis has gained a reputation as a chief executive quick to wield the veto pen — and the field of planning and development legislation proved to be no exception. Even though the Legislature passed only small and incremental bills — opting against sweeping change in any area — Davis vetoed one-third of all planning and development bills that reached his desk. "I think he actually striped the middle pretty well," said Clyde McDonald, Assembly Local Governme...

Two lawsuits Attorney General Bill Lockyer filed against Tulare County regarding approval of giant dairies have been settled. The county agreed to add an animal waste management element to its general plan and to complete a program EIR by the end of the year. Under terms of a settlement reached in August, the Airosa Diary agreed to suspend its 3,600-cow expansion of a dairy near Pixley until the county completes the EIR and reviews the expansion. An October settlement of a second lawsuit places the sa...

Sonoma County has won the first round in its lawsuit over the state's 1993 shift of property taxes from counties and cities to school districts. Sonoma County Superior Court Judge Laurence Sawyer ruled that the Educational Revenue Augmentation Fund (ERAF) shift was unconstitutional because "the shift of local property taxes compels the counties to accept financial responsibility in whole or in part for a program that was required to be funded by the State." Fifty-three counties joined the lawsuit, whi...

The Proposition 218 requirement for public elections regarding property-based taxes does not apply to areas annexed into a jurisdiction that already has such taxes, according to an Attorney General's opinion. The opinion issued in October by Deputy Attorney General Gregory Gonot says that a Local Agency Formation Commission may require that taxes levied by the jurisdiction be imposed on the newly annexed parcels, even though those landowners did not vote on the taxes. The proposition was not intended ...

Although it may not receive as much attention as high-tech powerhouses such as San Jose, Santa Clara and Mountain View, Fremont has attracted numerous small and medium-sized technology companies in recent years. Now, Fremont — in southern Alameda County about 12 miles north of downtown San Jose — is poised to become an even bigger player. Catellus Development Corporation has received nearly all the government approvals necessary for 8.25 million square feet of commercial developm...

Delays in constructing roads and utilities funded by Mello-Roos bonds do not absolve property owners of paying Mello-Roos assessments, the Fourth District Court of Appeals ruled in a recently published opinion. In a case from Riverside County, the unanimous three-judge panel found that property owners have an obligation to bondholders that is independent of any dispute over how bond proceeds are used. The County created Community Facilities District 88-8 under the Mello-Roos Community Faci

The Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals has rejected a takings claim and request for a jury trial filed by a property owner in Washington who disputed a zoning decision made under that state's Growth Management Act of 1990. It was the Ninth Circuit's first takings decision since the U.S. Supreme Court voted 5-4 to uphold a takings decision and jury award of damages in May. In City of Monterey v. Del Monte Dunes at Monterey Ltd., 119 S. Ct. 1624, the high court broke new ground by allowing an aggrieved...

Four months after making a sweeping proposal to re-orient the state's infrastructure investments around "smart growth" principles, State Treasurer Phil Angelides — a former "New Urbanist" developer -— is moving forward with at least three different proposals to change the selection criteria in state bond and tax credit financing programs. "It's a new way of thinking for the state and the public finance community," Angelides said. "But it's not irresponsible and it is creditworthy." Angelides has al...

It's no surprise that Ephrain Corona didn't have time to talk when I called. The immigrant owner of a five-store Mexican roasted chicken chain based in Oxnard was too busy growing his business. What Corona undoubtedly realizes is that the time is ripe to cash in on California's fastest growing consumer segment: foreign immigrants. Joining this growing group of entrepreneurs are a few developers and a handful of planning departments – mainly redevelopment agencies – all of whom may have found the...

Silicon Valley's job boom has underscored gaps in the transit systems in the San Francisco Bay Area, and has renewed calls to extend BART, the costly regional transit system that was once supposed to ring San Francisco Bay. But while construction continues on a $1.5 billion extension of BART from northern San Mateo County to San Francisco International Airport, other plans to extend BART have received mixed receptions. A ballot initiative to extend BART south of the airport through S...