A late-added change in proposed final guidelines for California's new cap-and-trade grant program might broaden transit-oriented development sites.

I went to brunch a few Sunday mornings ago at Louie's, a place that I will unironically describe as a gastropub. My Sunday rituals usually consist of visits to the farmers market and worrying about deadlines.

There is, perhaps, no place on Earth so supremely well suited for high-speed rail as the leeward side of the island of Formosa. Sheltered from the Pacific winds, all of Taiwan's major cities hug the island's western coastal plain, unbroken by the mountains that characterize the interior. Running in nearly a straight line, the train covers the 214 miles from the Taipei to Zouying in two hours. It now carries 44 million passengers per year.

As anticipated, the Bureau of Indian Affairs has approved the application by the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians to have its 1400-acre Camp 4 property taken into federal trust. The Tribe has stated intentions to build housing, a community center and related buildings on the property. Local critics have expressed fears about what could happen after trust status takes the property out of state and county jurisdiction and exempts it from local taxation. >>read more

Look up the El Camino Real BRT project online, and the first impression is one of cheerful support. But that's from transportation advocates such as the TransForm organization, which has given it extensive promotion, and materials posted by the lead sponsoring agency, the Santa Clara Valley Transit Authority (VTA), which would build the route from Palo Alto to South San Jose along an old arterial south of I-280.

Defending a federal agency's discretionary authority, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on December 22 upheld a 2009 restriction on water pumping meant to protect chinook salmon and other fish in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. >>read more

The city of Bakersfield reached a settlement December 19 with the California High-Speed Rail Authority in which the rail agency agreed to consider a different route than originally proposed. The L.A. >>read more

The Strategic Growth Council (SGC) released a semiformal response on Friday to critiques received in October on its proposed design of the new Affordable Housing and Sustainable Communities (AHSC) program.

Although the question of Executive Order S-3-05 was the main event in the Cleveland National Forest v. SANDAG appellate ruling, Presiding Justice Judith McConnell's split-decision majority ruling covered a number of other important areas interpreting how the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) should be used in the context of a regional transportation plan.

The Santa Ynez Valley in Southern California brands itself as bucolic wine country, a mix between grape-covered hills and Old West charm. The Chamber of Commerce touts the hospitality and diversity of the valley's several thousand residents. But one thing that isn't mentioned in the Chamber's materials is the Chumash Casino Resort, a business run by the government of the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians that generated a reported $366 million in revenue in 2008.

Aided by the casino's success, the Tribe has been able to buy additional land near its 146-acre reservation. What it plans to do with that land has been a subject of angry debate.

New laws that bring back redevelopment in a limited way. The Office of Planning & Research's effort to do away with the traffic "level of service" standard. And whether you can live in California without a car.

These are just a few of the most-read stories from California Planning & Development Report in 2014. And now you can check them out again. Here's CP&DR's Top 20 List � in order:

The Second District Court of Appeal has affirmed a lower court ruling in favor of Ventura residents who sued Ventura County over a hospital project, contesting an addendum to the environmental impact report issued 11 years after the original EIR. The court held the Ventura Foothill Neighbors' petition was not time-barred under state law and that a supplemental EIR should have been prepared instead of an addendum to the EIR. The project in question has been completed in the meantime.

Fresno's 2035 General Plan proposal has been moving through packed public meetings toward final approval this month. The city's Planning Commission approved the proposal December 8. The City Council took it up in a packed public discussion hearing November 11. >>read more