To many urban planners, the "mixed-use" development project is a kind of Holy Grail, a development that combines residential units with commercial space into one seamless project where people can both live and work. Although other ideas are also important to planners seeking to create urban-style places - specifically, higher-density housing and development oriented around transit stops - the mixed-use concept often seems the most compelling.

Two decisions by the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeal appear to bolster local rent control ordinances, although the decisions at least hint at the court's doubt as to whether the state's system for weighing landowners' takings claims is adequate. In separate cases, the Ninth Circuit rejected allegations that the application of mobile home rent control ordinances in Carson and Morgan Hill were unconstitutional takings of private property.

The City of San Jose did not have to prepare a supplemental environmental impact report for the proposed expansion of a water recycling program because an earlier EIR adequately addressed the issues, the Sixth District Court of Appeal has ruled. The ruling came in a lawsuit filed by a citizens group and the Great Oaks Water Company. They opposed a proposed nine-mile-long main that would carry up to 15 million gallons per day of treated wastewater to North Coyote Valley for use as recycled water.

In a decision with separate opinions written by all three members of an appellate panel, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has issued a preliminary injunction to block logging on burnt national forest land. The panel ruled 2-1 that opponents of the logging had crossed the threshold necessary to win a preliminary injunction while the litigation proceeds. Environmentalists contended that the U.S. Forest Service violated the National Environmental Policy Act and the National Forest Management Act.

In a 2-1 decision with a vigorous dissent, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld the State of Oregon's law regulating billboards. The law prohibits new billboards except for "on-premises signs." An Oregon resident said the law violated his First Amendment rights by favoring businesses. But the court concluded the law passed the content-neutrality standard.

Cities and counties of all sizes are adopting regulations to limit development of big box stores. Jurisdictions as different as the City of Los Angeles and sparsely populated Tuolumne County are considering or have adopted new regulations.

A proposed 5,800-unit housing development in the rugged hills between the San Fernando Valley and Santa Clarita is generating controversy, intergovernmental friction and litigation even before an environmental impact report has been produced.

Calveras County supervisors approved a 3,250-acre residential and golf course resort project near the lower foothills community of Copperopolis in mid-December. The following day, the Tuolumne County Board of Supervisors voted to sue its northern neighbor because of traffic concerns about the project.

Long criticized as a regulatory laggard, the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District appears to be only one year away from becoming the first air district in the state to levy air quality impact fees on all new developments. The proposed fee would be based on the size and type of project, and development proponents whose projects meet certain criteria could minimize or avoid the fee all together.

Riverside's University Village - where city officials permitted a 25% reduction of required parking spaces - is evidence that when merchants, developers and a municipality are willing to flex, new retail development can thrive in existing urban areas.

An appellate court has rejected the argument that a project leading to the loss of farmland should have been mitigated with the establishment of agricultural easements on other farmland.

An appellate court has found the state liable for costly damages to property in Yuba County as the result of a 1986 Yuba River levee failure. The decision arrived within days of Gov. Schwarzenegger's reduction of $105 million from local flood control project budgets, and the decision comes as construction of thousands of homes in the same floodplain proceeds.

The booklet titled "Accessory Dwelling Unit Manual" may not hit The New York Times bestseller list any time soon. But this unprepossessing little booklet is dynamite because it promotes the least popular type of housing in California.

The Bush administration announced it has dropped a plan to relax federal regulation of wetlands. For most of 2003, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers worked on a proposal to redefine which streams, ponds, wetlands and other seasonal and permanent bodies of water would be protected under the Clean Water Act.