The budget negotiations in Sacramento took a dramatic turn last Friday when Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed the Democrat-led budget that had been sent to him less than 24 hours before. Though it sends the parties back to the drawing board, the veto did not directly affect the so-called "two-bill" strategy that threatens to do away with, or possibly impoverish, many of the state's redevelopment agencies.

As one of the most prominent organizations lobbying on environmental and land use issues in Sacramento, the Planning and Conservation League has led campaigns on everything from global warming to public health to local dam removal. Its history includes the promotion of such landmark measures as the California Environmental Quality Act, the California Coastal Act, and Prop 12, the 2000 Parks Bond measure. 

Update: Late this morning, Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed the budget package that the Legislature sent him yesterday. Brown said that the budget was imbalanced and that the legislation "contains legally questionable maneuvers, costly borrowing and unrealistic savings." Brown reportedly wants to hold out and force a popular vote on tax extensions that he considers critical to overcoming the state's remaining multi-billion dollar deficit. He did not mention redevelopment in his veto statement.  

Last week the Nevada Legislature—usually not an entity with much to say on California land use—issued a decision that would make King Solomon blush. 

After 31 years as a supposedly equal party in the Bi-State Compact governing the Lake Tahoe basin, Nevada has taken its first steps towards pulling out of the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency and thereby negating the agreement under which the two states have governed and managed Lake Tahoe and the surrounding basin. 

With a surface level at 227 feet below sea level and shoreline temperatures often rising past 120 degrees, the Salton Sea could be mistaken for the headwaters of the River Styx. Sometimes, concentrations of salt in the brackish lake, formed by a not-quite-natural overflow of the nearby Colorado River a century ago, asphyxiate resident tilapia fish by the thousands. Currently California's largest lake--larger, even, than Tahoe--the Salton Sea itself may soon dry up, leaving a dust-filled crater.

In the first quarter of 2011, 53% of buyers could afford the median-priced single-family in California, and 60% could afford the median-priced condo or townhouse, according to the California Association of Realtors.

In order to avoid having your takings claim dismissed, your timing must be just right. Unfortunately for Colony Cove Properties, LLC, the timing was off, and its multifaceted takings claim was rejected by the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeal for being both too late to challenge a rent control ordinance and too early to challenge how a city applied its ordinance. 

Being governor of a state that includes Hollywood requires mastering the art of the cameo.

Governor Brown demonstrated his skill at the craft when he arrived, unstaffed, at the Strategic Growth Council (SGC) meeting blocks away from his Capitol office, saying that he just stopped by to see what exactly the Council had in mind regarding strategic growth--and to get a handle on what, exactly, the SGC does. 

Even if it takes a village to raise a child, apparently it does not take a planning department to raise a village. Or even a city of villages. 

The City of San Diego's Planning Department won national acclaim for its 2008 "City of Villages" general plan update, which was guided by outgoing Planning Director Bill Anderson and his predecessor, Gail Goldberg. But budget constraints have compelled Mayor Jerry Sanders to order that the department be shut down and merged with the Development Services Department. 

If, as the adage goes, it's impossible to tell the dancer from the dance, then it might be even harder to tell the SCS from the RTP. 

Even with the preoccupation over the state budget--and especially the fate of redevelopment--Sacramento lawmakers have managed to advance a typically broad array of bills related to land use. 

Several of those bills focus on redevelopment reform, most notably Sen. Alan Lowenthal's SB 450, which seeks to preserve funds for affordable housing, and Sen. Rod Wright's SB 286, aimed at comprehensive reform -- but not elimination -- of the state's redevelopment system. Both bills have the support of the League of California Cities and the California Redevelopment Association. 

For years, major cities, especially in California, have held their ground in what some consider an unwelcome onslaught by Walmart stores and their like. In the City of San Diego, however, Walmart has been making one of its most significant plays yet in attempting to establish itself in urban California. Its recent announcement of its intention to build up to a dozen stores comes amid a political battle that has raged for a half-decade.