Redevelopment agencies in California are often asked to carry a heavy load: fighting blight, promoting economic development, transforming brownfields, and creating communities. Now add to that list the modest task of combating global climate change � at the very moment when they have fewer funds than they have had in decades.

Senate Bill 375 seeks to reduce California's greenhouse gas emissions through the coordination of land use and transportation planning. But the state's most recent $2 billion raid on redevelopment funds is merely the latest shift of funds away from redevelopment agencies, many of which were already coping with lean budgets.

A couple of weeks ago, Shelley Poticha, the Obama Administration's point person on smart growth, gave a high-profile talk to a big Urban Land Institute crowd in Los Angeles. Her message, plain and simple, was that it's time for what she called "alignment." 

2010 Summer and Fall UCLA Extension Public Policy Courses

The UCLA Extension Public Policy Program has now released its listing of courses for Fall Quarter. We encourage you to visit www.uclaextension.edu/publicpolicy for more information about the courses listed.

Online enrollment is available by visiting www.uclaextension.edu and referencing the Reg#.

Join Us!

Summer 10

• Recent Innovations in Parking Management (V7784)
Thursday, June 22
Figueroa Courtyard, Los Angeles, CA

Peter Valk, President, Transportation Management Services
Don Shoup, Professor of Urban Planning, UCLA

The environmental impact report for a proposed human waste composting facility in San Bernardino County has been rejected by the Fourth District Court of Appeal for failure to examine an alternative facility that would be enclosed rather than open-air, as proposed. In addition, the court ruled the county should have completed a water supply assessment for the project.

The Legislature doesn't get credit for doing many things right these days, but lawmakers appear to be making at least one bipartisan strike for fiscal sanity.

Few definitive trends emerged in the handful of local land use ballot measures that were decided across the state yesterday. Voters in Costa Mesa, Mission Viejo, Pleasanton, Sutter Creek, and Brentwood maintained status quo with votes that either limited development or rejected new land use provisions. Meanwhile, Redlands voted to allow new big-box stores, Eastvale voted to exist as a city, and Santa Clara voted to allow and partially fund a football stadium that, when full, will add the population of a small city to the heart of Silicon Valley. 

Read on for complete results, with links to CP&DR's preview coverage:

To supporters, the wisdom of Senate Bill 375, the 2008 law that promotes emissions reductions through coordination of transportation and land use, lies in its holistic approach to planning and its kitting together of disparate elements of the urban fabric. But, in light of budget crises at all level of government, one piece that is essential to SB 375's success is rapidly coming off the rails: money to run buses and trains 

HOLLYWOOD, June 4 -- What's that spell?!? If you're a policy wonk, public official, or real estate developer and you were within earshot of Hollywood Boulevard yesterday, then you'd darn well better know.

 HOLLYWOOD -- Speaking at the Urban Land Institute's Transit Oriented Development Summit, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-California) announced that the Federal Transit Administration had admitted the entire 9.3-mile stretch of Los Angeles Metro's proposed "Subway to the Sea" for preliminary engineering studies. Boxer said that the admission of the entirely bodes well for Metro's innovative "30-10" financing plan, which promises to remake the face of transit in Los Angeles within a decade.

 By Morris Newman

Dammit, it's not fair! Residents of affordable housing get all the lucky breaks. Just look at all the money they're getting from all directions: local government, the local power company, the feds, the green-building lobby. Case in point: the Casa Dominguez development in East Dominguez Hills, an unincorporated area of south Los Angeles County, even has a child care center and a medical clinic, on site.

By Morris Newman

TIPPER and AL GORE have retired for the evening. They lie supine under the covers and are wearing pajamas, each with their respective monograms on the chest pockets. 

Al: "Honey, something's been on my mind...."

Tipper: "If it's dirty, please write it down. You know I don't like to hear smutty language."

Al. (chuckling): "No, hon, nothing like that. Those fires are banked for the night. I'm just wondering if we blew enough insulation into this house."

Tipper (lecturing tone): "Albert, we have 300 cubic yards of insulation in this house. Plus we live in Tennessee, not Wasilla. It's never below 50 degrees."

AL: "I know, I know. It's just that this house is so… freakin' gi-normous. Sometimes I don't see you for days."

Tipper: "It's true. But, then again, it's not even the biggest on the block!" (coyly): "Did you miss me?"

The San Francisco 49ers of the National Football League are trying to punt themselves out of creaky Candlestick Park and into a shiny new home in Santa Clara. Whether political winds will carry them roughly 35 miles to the south to the City of Santa Clara or whether they'll be blown back to the line of scrimmage now depends on the voters of Santa Clara.