Assemblyman Darrell Steinberg is a Democrat from Sacramento and chairman of the Assembly Appropriations Committee. Since arriving in the Legislature in 1999, Steinberg has carried multiple bills that attempt to boost affordable housing production in the Sacramento region.

The state Supreme Court has added two cases involving fees to its expanding list of land use controversies under review.

An appellate court has rejected a psychiatric home developer's challenge to water and sewer connection charges.

Gov. Gray Davis closed out the 2003 legislative year by signing a three-bill package intended to settle the Colorado River water wars.

Arnold Schwarzenegger may or may not know anything about being governor of California, but one thing is for sure: He likes to keep people guessing.

Two Oakland ordinances that crack down on shoddy motels have been upheld as constitutional by the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

The City of Milpitas has adopted an ambitious specific plan for the heart of town, yet the city's approach to implementing the plan relies heavily on private investors.

A redevelopment agency may sue a landowner to force cleanup of contaminated property within a redevelopment project area, the Fourth District Court of Appeal has ruled. The court further held that the redevelopment agency need not have expended resources on the cleanup before filing a lawsuit.

A state law that requires developers of housing within the coastal zone to provide low- and moderate-income units does not apply in instances where all of the actual dwelling units are built outside the zone.

An outwardly conventional apartment complex in Orange County does not clamor for attention in the same way as an architectural milestone like Frank Gehry's Walt Disney Concert Hall in downtown Los Angeles. But it might be that the suburban apartments, easily overlooked, will have a greater long-term impact on average Californians than L.A.'s spectacular new icon.

California's judicial system uses a fast-track approach to bring cases to trial quickly, but the state's plans to repair the aging courthouses in which trials are conducted are on a slow track. It is a case of maintenance deferred, leading to decrepit courtrooms and unsafe, seismically unfit buildings.

A decade of litigation over the status of the northern goshawk has apparently concluded with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upholding the Fish & Wildlife Service's decision not to place the bird on the endangered species list.

This summer, another huge ice shelf broke off the north polar ice cap and began drifting out to sea. The event made world news because it added to the mounting, tangible evidence of a phenomenon that the Bush administration ignores but that California's government cannot afford to dismiss: Climate change.

The connection in people's minds between air pollution and urban development is getting stronger in Fresno. This summer, the City of Fresno settled a lawsuit filed by clean air advocates over the city's general plan. The city agreed to take a number of steps to encourage development that is less automobile-dependent than past projects, and the city committed $1 million to the effort.