Now is the time to roll out new planning ideas – different codes, new public review processes, original ways of thinking. "These are revolutionary times," new urbanism guru Andrés Duany told about 150 planners, state government officials, architects and consultants during a gathering in Sacramento on Thursday.

For the second time this year, we've been reminded that the California Environmental Quality Act is not a set of tablets brought down from Mount Whitney. It's just a state law, and it can be changed whenever the Legislature and the governor can agree on changing it – especially during bad economic times.

The latest reminder is AB 81X3, signed by the governor the other day, which exempts the proposed football stadium in Industry from CEQA – and even from several pending CEQA lawsuits.  This law comes only a few months after the state budget deal, which truncated or eliminated CEQA review on several highway projects that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger wanted to get moving.

Ah, the growth wars. What would we land use journalists do if there were ever a truce?

In the first decision of its kind, a divided Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel has declared that the City of Goleta's mobile home rent control ordinance constitutes a regulatory taking.

State lawmakers have approved a bill that would exempt a proposed football stadium in the City of Industry from having to comply with the California Environmental Quality Act, as well as state planning and zoning law. While Gov. Schwarzenegger has signed the stadium bill, he has vetoed some of the year's most significant land use bills. Among them: two fire-safety planning bills; legislation funding regional and local planning; and a bill giving local government more authority over the conversion of mobile home parks to condominiums.

Formation of new cities, building-height limits in Santa Barbara and Ventura, and a developer-written specific plan for a vacant industrial site near Ukiah are among the land use proposals up for a vote in the November 3 municipal elections. At least 21 measures with land use implications are on the ballot in 12 different California jurisdictions.

In this roundup of the news: The Western Riverside Council of Governments has removed the City of Beaumont from a regional transportation program because, the council says in a lawsuit, Beaumont has spent impact fees that were intended for the program; Santa Barbara County has finally adopted a plan for the Santa Ynez Valley; dam removal on the Klamath River comes closer to reality.

The Navy closed Moffett Naval Air Station in 1994, and, at first, some buildings sat empty. But now, given the right economic conditions, Moffett is poised to be a national model of base reuse with various parts serving as a business incubator, business park and research university. Collectively, those projects could add as many as 4,000 residences, more than 2,000 students and upwards of 5,000 employees to the former base.

An air pollution fee levied on new development in the San Joaquin Valley has been upheld by the Fifth District Court of Appeal. In rejecting all arguments presented by the California Building Industry Association and its allies, the court concluded that the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District fee is not bound by restrictions in the Mitigation Fee Act and is a properly adopted regulatory fee.
 

A major residential and resort development on the Tejon Ranch has won unanimous approval from the Kern County Board of Supervisors. The project, known as Tejon Mountain Village, is proposed to have 3,450 housing units, two golf courses, 750 hotel rooms, a resort and extensive highway commercial development on about 5,000 acres east of Frazier Park.

My ire often rises when the national media or some big-time organization ignores California. Don't they know how important we on the whacky West Coast are?
 
When the American Planning Association released a list of the 10 best streets in the country and not a single California street was on it, my outrage cranked up. At first. Then I got to thinking: What is the best street in California? Should it be among the APA's top 10?
 

Planners, architects and developers think they make stuff that lasts forever, or at least for a very long time. For them, empty lots are merely temporary conditions. However, empty lots can be interesting and even useful, especially during economic down times. In San Francisco, a number of architects and landscape designers have created temporary uses for cleared construction sites or abandoned construction pits.

Choose your analogy.

CEQA is like pi: It goes on without end, for infinity.

CEQA is like a "Friday the 13th" movie: Horrifying yet predictable, and it keeps coming back.

CEQA is like the Bill of Rights: Ingenious and adaptable for any age.