The civic centers of the mid-20th century, at least in Southern California, were decidedly single-use institutions. Even in unassuming suburbs, new or rapidly expanding cities built stark plazas, city halls and generally soulless administrative buildings in which to attend to city business. They oversaw bedroom communities but housed no residents of their own.

A Los Angeles judge has called out the City of Pasadena for not processing a builders remedy application even though the California Department of Housing and Community Development had not certified the city’s housing element at the time.

Regarded by pro-housing advocates as a potentially transformational law, SB 79 went into effect on July 1, essentially forcing midrise zoning for housing projects near major transit stations.

Developer Proposes Building Data Centers on Fairgrounds Statewide Global Stack LLC, a California infrastructure company, has proposed building data centers, multilevel parking garages, and helicopter landing pads on state land generally used as fairgrounds. The company has expressed a desire to utilize the substantial swaths of public land in partnership with private interests to generate revenue year round. Public records reveal discussions with eight fairgrounds so far: Cow Palace Arena & Event Center, San Mateo County Event Center, the Calistoga Fairgrounds, the Solano County Fairgrounds & Event Center, the Tulare County Fairgrounds, the Kings County Fairgrounds, the Antelope Valley Fair and Event Center in Lancaster (Los Angeles County), and the Southern California Fair in Perris (Riverside County). The plan envisions rolling the model out to as many as 70 of California's roughly 80 fairgrounds by 2030, offering site operators 100-year land leases in exchange for a stable revenue stream many fairgrounds sorely need. The proposal for Daly City’s Cow Palace, which is still in early discussions, includes an 8- to 10-megawatt data center, multilevel parking garage, and a helicopter landing pad for emergency response. Critics of the projects across communities cite concerns about noise, pollution, water and power demands. (See related CP&DR coverage.) SANDAG Says San Diego Skimped on SB 79 Upzoning The San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG) determined last week that more than five times the four stops city officials had recognized are eligible for upzoning under Senate Bill 79, opening the city to allow even more new homes than the 367,000 that city officials predicted this spring. On July 1 SB 79 took effect, allowing buildings up to 85 feet tall in areas zoned for single-family housing near qualifying transit stops, with height and density allowances scaling down farther from the stop. It has been unclear which bus stops qualify until this dispute; city officials had counted only stops with bus lanes inaccessible to cars or bikes, while the YIMBY Democrats of San Diego County argued the law's criteria were broader and pushed for as many as 26 stops. Housing advocates estimate the change will push the city's required housing capacity increase from 367,000 units to roughly 467,000, though city planners say they're still calculating a revised figure. Elsewhere in the region, the Oceanside City Council has voted, 4-0, to defer implementation of SB 79 and will seek to “exempt and/or defer all sites that could potentially be exempted or deferred” and “reduce SB 79’s impact to the greatest extent possible.” The city is working on an Alternative Plan, but the deferral of full implementation could extend as late as 2032. The city has a transit center and several rail stations, bringing its full SB 79 capacity to over 50,000. (See related CP&DR coverage.) Environmental Group Sues CARB to Prevent Cuts to Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund Communities for a Better Environment, an environmental justice nonprofit, is suing the California Air Resources Board over an update to the cap-and-invest program, alleging the agency skirted required environmental review under CEQA. The suit is the first major legal challenge to the program since lawmakers extended its expiration date from 2030 to 2045 last year. The suit addresses a manufacturing decarbonization incentive that lets polluters claim up to 118 million new emissions allowances in exchange for decarbonization investments, a move regulators say is meant to keep industry from leaving the state. The lawsuit contends CARB introduced the mechanism roughly six weeks before the vote without updating its environmental impact analysis, and posted the final assessment just two days before the hearing. It also alleges that the change threatens up to $2 billion annually that would otherwise be funneled into the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, which finances housing, transit and clean-air programs, with the heaviest impact falling on low-income communities and communities of color. Lafayette May Upzone to Settle Dispute over Housing Development Lafayette, an East Bay city of about 25,000, has agreed to consider upzoning 130 acres of land as part of a June settlement with the Housing Action Coalition, possibly bringing an end to a notorious yearslong battle over the Terraces of Lafayette, a proposed office space and multifamily housing complex. Since 2011, the project has been downsized, rescinded by voter referendum in 2018, restored, approved by the city council in 2020, and challenged in a lawsuit by the group Save Lafayette that reached the California Supreme Court before the city prevailed in 2023. The development includes 63 below-market-rate units, though eligibility requires household income under 80% of Contra Costa County's area median of $135,750 for a family of four. Save Lafayette, led by resident Michael Griffiths, opposes the project on wildfire and traffic-pollution grounds and is considering further legal action. (See related CP&DR coverage.) State Offers $55 Million in Resilience Planning Grants Applications have opened for Round 2 of California's Community Resilience Centers (CRC) Program, which provides approximately $55 million in grants funded by the 2024 Climate Bond (Proposition 4). The program supports the planning, construction, and renovation of neighborhood resilience centers that provide shelter, cooling, emergency resources, and year-round community services to help communities prepare for climate-related disasters such as extreme heat and wildfires. Round 2 is open to lead applicants that are a public or local agency, nonprofit organization, special district, joint powers authority, Tribe, public utility, local publicly owned utility, or mutual water company, prioritizing communities most impacted by environmental, socioeconomic, and health inequality. Applications opened July 2, with grant applications due in September for review. CP&DR Coverage: Ugly Mayoral Race Highlights Importance of Civic Beauty At one point during his ill-fated campaign for mayor of Los Angeles, former reality TV star Spencer Pratt declared, “ we're going to have L.A. so beautiful. No more of these high-density, SB-79, prison-like structures.” He called out Art Deco in particular as the hallmark of a more attractive city. Pratt was angry and, arguably, loony. But, for a city beset by bad news, we can still take a cue from his optimistic vision. Conventional politicians rarely discuss aesthetics because they are likely afraid of the specters of gentrification or elitism, or they’re wonky enough to know how hard it is to regulate aesthetics. Or -- quite likely -- they simply have no taste and consider aesthetics to be frivolous. Except, writes CP&DR’s Josh Stephens, aesthetics matter. Not as much as poverty, homelessness, or housing--but they still matter a lot. Good plans warrant good design -- and vice-versa. Quick Hits & Updates Modesto will prepare an environmental study to measure the impact of a proposed development and population increase in compliance with their 2050 general plan. The City Council adopted a land use option that would add thousands of acres to the city and potentially grow its population from 220,000 to 324,000 over the next 24 years, bringing up to 38,500 new housing units and 57,300 jobs. While the plan will include mitigation policies to lessen environmental impacts, the city retains the option to approve overriding considerations for impacts deemed too significant to fully mitigate, citing economic or social benefits. San Francisco will introduce the Affordable Grocery Act in November, aimed at combating the city's food deserts and so-called "zombie stores", vacant grocery and pharmacy buildings that corporate chains keep empty to block competitors. The measure would pair tax credits and expedited permitting for businesses that reopen vacant storefronts as groceries or pharmacies with a new tax on corporations that deliberately leave such properties empty, though new stores after January 2027 and housing-conversion sites would be exempt. The San Diego County Board of Supervisors adopted a new inclusionary housing ordinance that requires most new residential developments in unincorporated areas with at least 10 units to reserve 5% of homes for very low-income households or comply through alternatives such as fees or land donations. Other local jurisdictions like Chula Vista and Carlsbad have long required affordable housing set-asides, and San Diego county has met only 28% of its state housing target so far. The county has invested more than $334 million in affordable housing since 2017, but officials noted that limited transit, wildfire risks, and slower homebuilding pose a challenge in unincorporated communities. The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority has sued the Trump administration over withheld funds the agency says will put more than 11,000 at risk of losing housing and other services. LAHSA is seeking a temporary restraining order in order to stop the Housing and Urban Development Department from suspending the funds. The lawsuit comes three weeks after HUD suspended LAHSA over allegations of financial mismanagement, fraud and inadequate conflict-of-interest safeguards, to which the agency argues HUD has produced no formal investigative findings. The Governor’s Office of Land Use and Climate Innovation released a Notice of Funding Availability for Round 2 of California's Extreme Heat and Community Resilience Program, offering $27.5 million total in competitive infrastructure grants. Funding for the program is provided by the Climate Bond and Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund to support projects that reduce the impacts of extreme heat and build community resilience. Funding is split into two tracks: Early Infrastructure Projects and Advanced Infrastructure Projects.

The state has sued five jurisdictions for housing element violations, including three of the 15 that were issued warning letters back in March. Meanwhile, however, most of the other 12 jurisdictions that got letters have adopted housing elements and gotten them approved by the state Department of Housing and Community Development.

The San Diego Association of Governments has run into resistance on its SB 79 map, in large part because it has used a methodology that deviated from the guidance provided by the California Department of Housing and Community Development.

The 21st Century Road to Housing Act – hailed as a major bipartisan accomplishment – took effect on July 11 over President Trump’s objections but not his veto. Because the federal government plays a limited role in housing production, it’s not likely to have a transformational effect. But several provisions could be important to the planning and development community in Californiaas the state and its cities continue to grapple with the state’s housing affordability crisis. Among the major provisions are: -- Funding for jurisdictions that have increased their housing supply; -- Guidelines and best practices for zoning reform; and -- Provisions designed to streamline project approval under the National Environmental Policy Act. -- A 10% penalty in Community Development Block Grant funding if minimum housing production numbers are not met. NEPA, of course, plays a less important role than the California Environmental Quality Act in California because it applies only to projects undertaken by the federal government or including federal funding. The law is long and complicated, with many provisions. (You can find the text here.) And the actual impact will be a while coming for two reasons. First, in future years Congress has to actually appropriate the funding called for in the bill. And second, the Department of Housing and Urban Development has to go through a lengthy rulemaking process for virtually every provision. (As the Urban Institute has pointed out, funding cuts have left HUD with limited capacity to engage in rulemaking.) Here’s a rundown of provisions of interest to the California planning and development community. To avoid confusion, these provisions are listed in the order they appear in the bill – not based on the significance of the provisions to California planners. Section 102: Guidelines For Single-Stairway Apartment Buildings This provision calls for “federal guidelines for point-access block buildings”. But don’t get confused – that’s just a fancy term for single-stairway apartment buildings, a major Yimby policy goal. Advocates say it will make building smaller apartment buildings more feasible. Within 18 months, HUD must issue “model code language, best practices, and technical guidelines” to facilitate permitting of single-stairway apartment buildings. A bill to allow single-stairway apartment buildings (AB 2252) stalled in the California Legislature this year, but some cities such as Culver City have adopted their own single-stairway ordinances. A model ordinance could make it less complicated for other cities to do the same. Section 103: NEPA Exemption for Rural Infill Housing This provision exempts some Rural Housing Service projects from NEPA, especially if they are in infill locations. But it is likely to have limited impact in California, as the state has seen almost no Rural Housing Service projects since the early 2010s. Section 104: Database of Publicly Owned Land This provision could have some significance for California jurisdictions, especially as housing advocates seek to use public land to “unlock” housing opportunity. Section 104 requires jurisdictions receiving Community Development Block Grant funds – that’s basically everybody – to put a list of vacant sites owned by the jurisdiction on the web. This means California cities and counties will have to daylight the vacant land they own so housing advocates and developers can see the parcels and perhaps put pressure on the jurisdiction to do something with them. Of course, in California, much of the land owned by cities is underutilized land, not vacant land, and therefore is not covered by this requirement. It will be interesting to see, even in areas closer to the coast, whether counties own significant pieces of vacant land. And, in any event, in California unlocking this land for housing means going through the Surplus Land Act, which comes critics say actually discourages housing production on public land. (See CP&DR’s recent coverage of this controversy here.) Section 107: Guidelines For Land-Use Policy Because the federal government does not control local land use decisions, a major effort by both the Biden and Trump Administrations has been focused on finding ways to encourage zoning reform at the local level. For example, the Biden Administration had a major grant program to provide funds for zoning reform. This section continues the effort along those lines. It requires HUD to prepare best practicers and guidelines for what the law calls zoning “frameworks” – state and local zoning policy regimes that hold the potential to increase housing production. The law calls out many specific policies, such as eliminating parking minimums, reducing setbacks and lot sizes, increasingly by-right approval of “plex” buildings, and encouraging transit-oriented development. Section 201: Increasing Housing in Opportunity Zones This provision allows HUD to give extra points for Opportunity Zone projects that include housing. Section 205: Streamlined NEPA And Environmental Review For Multifamily Projects This provision allows HUD to downshift environmental review for some federally funded multifamily projects to local governments. But which projects would be included and what the local environmental review would look like won’t be determined under HUD undertakes the rulemaking. So it’s not clear at this point whether CEQA review would suffice – or, for example, whether the “essential project” designation under the Chamber of Commerce CEQA initial would also suffice if that initiative passes. Section 206: NEPA Streamlining For Small Projects This provision allows streamlined NEPA review (no environmental assessment – the equivalent of an initial study – and no environmental impact reports) for small projects. The projects include rehabilitation of 1–4 unit buildings, new construction of 5–15 units (and larger scattered-site projects capped at 15 units per site), acquisition or disposition of existing structures, office-to-residential conversions that don't increase the building footprint by more than about 20%, and infill projects generally. But again, this only applies to NEPA, meaning when federal funds are involved. Section 207: GrantsFor Housing Plans And Zoning Reform This is a potentially important grant program that California jurisdictions – including regional planning agencies – might be interested in. The law does not specify an amount of funding for this project. Activities permitted under this project include things like updating zoning codes and updating and improving housing plans and strategies at the state, regional, or local level. Surely some California jurisdictions will seek to obtain funds to update their housing elements. Regional planning agencies are specifically called out as potential recipients of the funds – so it will be interesting to see whether California’s councils of governments seek to use funds to undertake their Regional Housing Needs Allocation process. States are also eligible. Section 208: $1 Billion For Housing Innovation Grants To Prohousing Jurisdictions In addition to the grants in Section 207, the law has a section calling on HUD to create a $1 mbillion grant program to jurisdictions that have increased their housing supply in order to support innovation in housing production. It authorizes $200 million a year for five years, though the money still must be appropriated by Congress in the budget each year. But the law calls on HUD to give priority to jurisdictions that have both implementing innovative programs and increased housing production. Among other things, the law specifies that jurisdictions seeking grants must submit data proving that housing production has gone up. In that sense, the prohousing “rich” will get “richer” under this program. There may be a match with California’s prohousing program, since jurisdictions have already had to prove to the state that they have adopted prohousing policies. The list of eligible activities is similar to Section 107 (eliminating parking minimums, by-right plex approval, smaller lot size etc.). But activities also include streamlining environmental regulations (would shifting CEQA review to the plan level and facilitating ministerial review of individual projects, a la San Diego, qualify here?) and “minimizing the impact of overburdensome energy and water efficiency standards on housing costs,” which could knock out California jurisdictions that must comply with state law. Section 213: Penalties and Bonuses for Housing Production The law also contains penalties and bonuses for housing production. Jursidictions that don't a median housing production target determined by HUD will receive a 10% cut in Community Development Block Grant funds. Jurisdictions that over-produce housing will be eligible for a bonus to be determined by HUD. Community Scale has created a map showing the likely impact of this provision -- which areas will benefit and which will be penalized -- that suggests California's coastal communities are likely to be penalized.

The Coastal Commission’s powers trump the state’ builders remedy law, an appellate court has ruled in yet another case from Redondo Beach. The case is potentially very important becauaes the appellate court published the ruling, meaning it can be used as precedent.

This article is brought to you courtesy of the paying subscribers to California Planning & Development Report. You can subscribe to CP&DR by clicking here. You can sign up for CP&DR’s free weekly newsletter here. Rural Jurisdictions Take Steps to Limit Development of Data Centers Tulare County, Hanford, Visalia, San Joaquin County and Coachella are among the California communities taking steps to restrict or ban data center development amid growing concerns about conservation and public health. Hanford has publicly opposed data centers, while Visalia is considering a moratorium. In San Joaquin County, Supervisor Robert Rickman is seeking a temporary moratorium that would give officials time to develop regulations or consider prohibiting large-scale AI and other high-intensity data centers in unincorporated areas. Coachella has gone further, becoming the second city in California after Monterey Park to ban data centers completely. The debate has intensified in Tulare County around a proposed partnership with Global Stack LLC and the Tulare and Kings county fairgrounds to install small, shipping-container-sized edge computing systems. Residents have raised particular concerns about groundwater use as the Central Valley faces ongoing water challenges and agricultural pumping restrictions. Officials across the region say existing land-use rules often do not account for the significant water, power, wastewater, noise and emergency-service demands associated with modern data centers. (See related CP&DR coverage.) California Forever Shipyard Must Wait; Company Embarks on Revitalization of Downtown Suisun City Solano County supervisors voted to oppose, 3-2, a proposed state law to streamline approvals for a shipyard on the Sacramento River at Collinsville to be developed by California Forever, the company proposing a new city and industrial zone in Solano County. The shipyard promised to be the first major element of California Forever’s master plan to be implemented. The supervisors’ vote essentially doomed the project for this legislative year. It would have exempted California Forever from having to draft a new environmental impact report and instead would have allowed the company to use an EIR from 2008. Meanwhile, California Forever has acquired property in downtown Suisun City for $1 million, with the intent of redeveloping and revitalizing the property and leasing its parking lots back to the city for $1 per year. The project will conform with the city’s Downtown Specific Plan, which envisions a mix of commercial and residential uses. California Forever’s partnership with cities in Solano County are part of its strategy to rally support for the proposed new city. (See related CP&DR coverage.) This brief has been updated since its original publication to reflect California Forever's purchase price of the Suisun City property. Gutting of Roadless Rule Could Reduce Protections on 4.4 Million Acres in California The Trump administration is proposing to rescind the federal “Roadless Area Conservation Rule,” a 2001 regulation that bans the development of roads and attempts to keep pristine roughly 44 million acres of federal land nationwide -- ten percent of which is in California. Backers of the plan intend to give discretion to local agencies, arguing in part that it will give states more flexibility to fight and prevent wildfires. The proposal comes at the same time the federal government is attempting to increase logging on federal lands. A statement from the Department of Agriculture calls the rule, “a one-size-fits-all restriction that has frustrated land managers and served as a barrier to wildfire risk reduction work across large swaths of America’s national forests.” Roadless areas in California span 21 national forests. “These are some of the last truly wild forests left in the country, places that shelter endangered wildlife and protect our drinking water,” said Randi Spivak, public lands policy director at the nonprofit Center for Biological Diversity, in the Los Angeles Times. “Once you start bulldozing roads for commercial logging and industrial development, there’s no getting them back.” The proposal is in the midst of a 30-day public comment period. Report Credits ADU's for Bulk of New Housing In L.A. County USC's Lusk Center for Real Estate published its second annual State of Los Angeles County Housing and Neighborhoods report. ADU construction hit a record high in 2025, the share of new rental units affordable to low-income households nearly doubled, and homelessness appears to be leveling off after more than a decade of steady growth. While housing production dipped from 2024 to 2025, ADU production reached its peak; despite this growth, the county is far behind state-mandated housing construction goals. Meanwhile, 19% of new rental units affordable to low-income households nearly doubled over the last seven years, rising from 10% to 19% of new stock. More than half of renters in Los Angeles are now considered rent-burdened, meaning they spend more than 30% of their income on rent. Among middle income households who make between $50,000 and $100,000 per year, severe rent burden has nearly doubled, meaning this demographic is increasingly spending over 50% of their income on rent. The report also introduces a new method for identifying naturally occurring affordable housing (NOAH), defined as older, unsubsidized units that remain relatively affordable, and emphasizes the importance of maintaining this stock. Even in the most affordable NOAH buildings the typical renter spends 35% of their income on rent. CP&DR Coverage: Sonoma Co. Development Hopes to Break California’s New Urbanist Drought Since the adoption of the Charter of the New Urbanism, California has been a hotbed of New Urbanist thought, yet development has been scarce. This trend might be shifting, namely in Sonoma County, where the community of Esmeralda is working its way through the planning process in Cloverdale. It is envisioned as a holistic community full of walkable streets, dense mixed-use structures, roughly 600 housing units, and community amenities. Esmeralda is the brainchild of Devon Zuegel, an entrepreneur who is attempting to establish California’s first large-scale New Urbanist Development built on the principle of human-scale streets and an emphasis on public space. So far, there has been no friction with city planning departments; however, Esmeralda faces challenges in financing the project and in meeting community demands for a full environmental impact report. Quick Hits & Updates The Newport Beach city council voted 5-0 to approve a decrease in low-income housing requirements for for-sale homes near John Wayne Airport, dropping the requirement from 15% to 6% of units in a development to be designated as low-income. An additional 8% will now be designated for moderate-income households, a change city officials argued was necessary because Newport Beach's home values run nearly three times the Orange County median. On a 6-1 vote, the Fresno Planning Commission has endorsed the Southeast Development Area, a 9,000-acre annexation that would permit development in what is now largely farmland. The plan had been considered by the city council last year butas sent back to the Planning Department for modifications. Opponents, including the school district, are concerned about the financial plan for providing infrastructure in the annexed area. Developer Wellpointe has unveiled plans for Viva, a $2-billion senior housing high-rise complex in Warner Center that would become the largest affordable housing development in Los Angeles. The 2.2-million-square-foot project would comprise four towers ranging from 34 to 42 stories, creating 3,192 income-restricted senior units. The proposal leverages the Warner Center 2035 specific plan, joining the LA Rams’ separate $10-billion headquarters and practice facility as one of two major high-rises now proposed for the area. (See related CP&DR coverage.) New York-based Yellowstone Real Estate Investments has taken over four parcels at San Francisco's Parkmerced complex through foreclosure. The previous developer Maximus Real Estate defaulted on a construction loan that had grown to over $199 million, surrendering the 152-acre property containing more than 3,200 homes next to San Francisco State University. Oakland's City Council has advanced a November ballot measure that would extend the city's real estate transfer tax to foreclosure-related transactions, which are currently exempt. The measure could generate $4 million to $13 million annually as downtown office vacancy sits at 30% and landlords default on loans. A study from UC Berkeley and UCLA found that building more homes can eliminate up to 1 percent of miles driven statewide, a small step toward the state's goal of a 25% reduction by 2030. The study recommends the state prioritize housing goals to help local governments better align new construction with locations that naturally reduce car dependency, as while regional housing agencies are effectively directing growth toward car-light areas with good transit access, individual cities aren't strategically placing new housing to maximize driving reductions. Research suggests that closing this gap could push per-capita vehicle miles traveled down by as much as 6%.

Foreshadowing a major legal battle, housing advocates have filed five SB 79 lawsuits around the state, including two in San Diego.

SLO County Can’t Approve Subdivision Map If Conditions Aren’t Met

The other day I was speaking to a local official who works for a city in California that is contemplating changing around a project that’s already got a certified environmental impact report. When I asked how they might do that, he said, “Well, we’re thinking of just SB-344-ing it.”