A city ordinance effectively banning tattoo parlors oversteps constitutional limits protecting freedom of expression, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled.

A unanimous three-judge panel struck down a City of Hermosa Beach zoning code prohibiting tattoo parlors because it violated the First Amendment. 

Although it may seem that tattoos are the provenance of modern day subcultures such as rock stars and motorcyclists, tattoos have been part of evolving culture around the globe for thousands of years, the court explained. City of Hermosa Beach, however, perceived tattoos' outlaw air and had adopted a zoning ordinance that precluded the operation of tattoo parlors.

Divine purposes do not give developers a free pass to circumvent local zoning regulations. 

The Second District Court of Appeal has ruled that Los Angeles County was entitled to a court order that prohibited a church from operating a school without a required conditional user permit.

The Sahag-Mesrob Armenian Church owns two parcels zoned R-1 (single-family residential) in the San Gabriel Valley. In May 2008, the church filed an application for a conditional use permit to operate an 800-student, K-12 school on the property. Four months later, the county received complaints that the school was operating in advance of the issuance of the conditional use permit and without California Environmental Quality Act review.

If I ever write a book about the crisis of the world's largest cities, this photograph from the Oct. 24 edition of the LA Times should be on the cover: A 27-story, 400,000-square-foot private home (!) built by a Mumbai billionaire Mukesh Ambani, reportedly the world's fourth-richest individual. 

Refusing to second-guess a decision made by a public agency based on substantial evidence, the First District Court of Appeal has upheld a Sonoma County urban water management plan.

So, yet again Wendell Cox � a leader of the anti-anti-sprawl crowd -- has trotted out an impressive-looking quantitative report that purports to prove that certain metropolitan regions have high home prices because of "more restrictive land use regulation". In his New Geography piece  last week, which linked to a report on his web site, Cox seemed to attribute virtually all the variation in home price around the country to land use regulations � just as he has done in the past.

The passage of Proposition 26 – which requires two-thirds voter approval for certain local fees – won't stop the gears of land use planning and development approvals from churning. However, it does turn traditional thinking on its head – a fee is a tax unless proven otherwise – and it's certain to lead to some litigation that might affect planning and development on the margins in California. At least that was the conclusion Wednesday of League of California Cities lobbyist Bill Higgins, who spoke at the California Chapter, American Planning Association, conference at La Costa Resort in Carlsbad.

Here's the factoid of the week at the California Chapter, American Planning Association, conference:

Out of all the local sales tax declines since 2005, 40 percent are due to declining auto sales.

That's right: Local sales tax revenue in California has dropped $600 million in the last five years. And of that amount, about $245 million came from declining auto sales. This according to economic analyst Stan Hoffman, who also reported that about 10% of all dealerships have gone out of business and somewhere between 500 and 1,000 acres of prime urban real estate have opened up as a result.

Of all the ways that California is attempting to reduce its carbon footprint, perhaps none will have a more dramatic, or immediate, impact than that of solar power.  

Up to 200 solar energy projects, are seeking, or have received, approval to be developed in California. Most notable of these are nine large-scale projects in the state's own Empty Quarter � the Mojave and Colorado  -- where state and federal officials are on the verge of inking approvals on more than 4,100 megawatts worth of solar thermal farms. Collectively, they represent nearly ten times the amount of solar capacity installed in 2009, and enough energy to power roughly 2 million homes. 

Bill Fulton's new book, Romancing The Smokestack: How Cities and States Pursue Prosperity, is a collection of economic development columns from Governing magazine that covers the good, the bad, and the ugly about how economic development is practiced in the United States. It's a quick read -- but informative and entertaining -- on such topics as how Federal Express runs its middle-of-the-night operations in Memphis, the challenge of retaining manufacturing in America, the retail wars among cities in California, and whether cities need population growth in order to increase prosperity. To buy the book, just go here: https://www.createspace.com/3477293

It's been 20 years since California elected a governor with a strong interest in planning and development.  And next week's gubernatorial election appears to present a pretty significant choice in the state's approach to these issues.

Despite her occasional right-wing rhetoric, Meg Whitman is unlikely to bend in a radical direction. She may suspend AB 32 and focus on job creation, but she's likely to focus on green jobs. She's also likely to try to streamline the California Environmental Quality Act, though it's hard to know � with a Democratic legislature � how likely she is to succeed.

The City of Chico's draft general plan opens with the darndest thing: a sustainability element.

Collectively, ballots that California voters will cast Nov. 2 encompass a representative sample of the usual land use questions that California cities and counties face on a regular basis. Local voters will decide on everything from urban growth boundaries to downtown plans to specific projects. But, however strong local passions may be, the statewide ballot also includes potential whoppers on major issues like redevelopment funding, climate change, and the survival of state parks.

Updated as of November 3 with most current results. 

The California Air Resources Board's long-awaited greenhouse gas emissions targets probably are not perfect, to say the least. But they may be the closest thing California has to a consensus these days.