A lawsuit challenging the City of Pleasanton's housing policies has been reinstated by the First District Court of Appeal after a trial court judge had ruled the lawsuit was filed too late. The unanimous three-judge appellate panel determined the statute of limitations for the lawsuit had not expired. The court concluded housing advocates had at least three years to sue the city.

Two referendums of large housing projects in the City of Loma Linda have been reinstated by the Fourth District Court of Appeal. The court overturned a Superior Court judge's decision to pull the referendums from the June 2006 ballot because referendum petitions failed to contain the full text of challenged ordinances. The Fourth District found the petitions to be legally adequate, clearing the referendums to appear on ballots in 2009.

Calling Proposition 13, "deeply flawed," a new report by the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy recommends entirely new approaches to property tax relief.

Senate Bill 375 – commonly referred to in the popular press as the "climate change smart growth bill" – is going to become a law. The newspapers have been calling the legislation "precedent setting," but it's got nary a new idea in it. If you peel back the layers, you've got what old-timers like me call a "growth management law" – one that ties transportation funding to growth patterns.

The state Assembly has voted 46-22 to approve SB 375, the bill that ties together land use planning, transportation funding, affordable housing planning and greenhouse gas reductions.

The largely party-line vote followed a 40-minute debate in which Republican bill opponents argued the measure would erode local land use control. The mostly Democratic supporters rejected that argument, noting that the League of California Cities and the California State Association of Counties endorsed SB 375.

The State of California is nearly two months into the 2008-09 fiscal year, and it faces at least a $15 billion gap between current spending levels and tax revenues. Yet there is no sense of urgency at the state Capitol.

Earlier this month, I predicted that lawmakers would pass a budget by August 25 because that's the day the Democratic National Convention starts and every Democrat wants to be in Denver. Looks like I'm wrong again.

I've been listening to sports talk radio since "Sportsphone 68" with Scottie Sterling was on the Bay Area airwaves during the 1970s. I think the show was on for a couple hours on weekday evenings.

A federal judge's ruling blocking development of a controversial condominium project on the shore of Big Bear Lake has been thrown out by the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

The Ninth Circuit ruled that the district court had no jurisdiction to consider alleged Clean Water Act violations because environmental groups' notices to the developer regarding potential violations of the act were inadequate and federal agencies were already forcing corrective action. The Ninth Circuit further rejected alleged violations of the Endangered Species Act as both bogus and moot.

It's the last week of the California Legislature's session, and we're still on the SB 375 watch.

SB 375 is, of course, Sen. Darrell Steinberg's bill that would implement the AB 32 greenhouse gas emissions reduction bill by tying state transportation and infrastructure money to regional plans to create "sustainability communities." It has been years since California Planning & Development Report has covered a bill this much.

A housing bill that local governments love and affordable housing advocates hate has passed the state Legislature.

What really matters in economic development today? How about highway access – and labor cost – and energy cost?

Huh? What ever happened to the New Economy? You know, all those creative types sitting around coffee shops drinking lattes and typing on their laptops? (Which, by the way, is what I am doing right now.)

Climate change has a lot of people talking about "alternative" energy and water resources. Fine, say some people, let's built more dams for hydroelectric power and impound more surface water. But that's not what environmentalists have in mind at all.

Denial of a conditional use permit renewal is a "project" requiring review under the California Environmental Quality Act, the Third District Court of Appeal has determined. The court ruled for the owner of an airport in Sacramento County whose application for a conditional use permit (CUP) renewal was denied by the county Board of Supervisors without any environmental review.

Earlier this week, the author of a bill that seeks to place regional planning, transportation funding, affordable housing and greenhouse gas reductions into a "smart growth" package conducted a press conference to announce that builders, local governments and environmentalists had reached agreement on the legislation.