In this month's roundup of state land use news: The state auditor is again raising questions about construction of a new death row at San Quentin; the State Water Resources Control Board is proposing an overhaul of the water regulatory system; the developer of a proposed Los Angeles project is suing the city for halting the review process; the company that owns the gigantic Newhall Ranch project has filed for bankruptcy.

An award of $665,000 in damages and legal expenses to a developer in Pacifica has been thrown out by the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The unanimous three-judge panel determined that a questionable condition of project approval that the city eventually repealed did not constitute a violation of the developer's equal protection rights because the condition did not stop the project from moving forward.

The Sierra Club's challenge of the environmental review for a large annexation by the City of Orange and a related development by the Irvine Company has been rejected by the Fourth District Court of Appeal.

The court turned away arguments that the environmental analysis for the Santiago Hills and East Orange projects improperly described the project, segmented environmental reviews, failed to adequately address water quality, incorrectly analyzed traffic and lacked a proper project alternatives analysis.

An appellate court has reinstated a lawsuit over environmental review of a recreational trail proposed to be built in San Mateo County.

A Santa Clara County Superior Court judge had thrown out the suit because it was filed after the California Environmental Quality Act's usual 30-day statute of limitations expired. However, the Sixth District Court of Appeal ruled there was "reasonable probability" environmentalists could show that a 180-day statute of limitations applied here.

A plan that alters regulations for the operation of a wastewater treatment plant that disposes of effluent into a Sierra Nevada foothills creek, rather than requiring improvements to the plant, has been upheld by the First District Court of Appeal.

Anglers and environmentalists sued over the plan, arguing state water quality regulators violated the California Environmental Quality Act and the Porter-Cologne Water Quality Control Act. But a unanimous three-judge panel of the First District, Division One, ruled for the government.

Are the exurbs dead?

You'd think so, based on all the publicity about plummeting home prices in California – and the rapidly increasing price of gasoline. In the short run, it is probably true that we'll see big housing price drops in the exurbs and construction will stop almost completely.

Wetlands used to cover a huge swath of Southern California's coast, serving as a sanctuary for wildlife and plants. But today one is hard pressed to find many wetlands left in this urbanized section of the state, where homes, marinas and ports long ago replaced native habitat. While wide, sandy beaches and rocky tide pools are part of the Southern California landscape, quieter wetlands with estuaries, marshes and sand dunes are harder to find.

The city with the best vacation downtown is the Rodney Dangerfield of beach towns. It gets no respect, and it is often overshadowed by its more glamorous neighbor.

Still, Carpinteria has the best downtown for a vacation in California. We'll tell you why.

State OPR says agencies must quantify and mitigate greenhouse gas emissions from projects. But determining significance and cumulative impact is likely to be tricky.

An environmental impact report for the Cal-Fed Bay-Delta project has been upheld by the state Supreme Court. The unanimous decision was at least somewhat academic because the Cal-Fed process has essentially halted. Still, the court appeared to signal that it would defer to policymakers on Delta water and environmental policy, and to agencies that certify broad program environmental impact reports.

The California Supreme Court has upheld three timber harvest plans that an appellate court had found to be in violation of the state Forest Practices Act and the California Department of Forestry's functional equivalent of the California Environmental Quality Act. The state high court ruled the analysis of cumulative impact on two rare species was adequate, as was an analysis of likely herbicide use.

I've always known that there are limits to celebrity in the world of urban planning. You write a book or two, people get to know your name, they ask you to come and give a speech, you make ‘em laugh, and maybe – maybe – they'll give you a couple of bucks for showing up. In a small professional field where nobody's very rich, that's the best you can hope for.

In other words, people might know who you are, but you're not really a star.

When we listed the best small-city downtowns in the Central Valley, we didn't include Exeter, a Tulare County community eight miles east of Visalia. Exeter was in our discussion, but it didn't make the cut for reasons that I don't recall.

After spending part of one day last week in Exeter, I'm convinced we made a mistake. In fact, Exeter has one of the best downtowns for a city of its size (about 10,700 people) not only in the Central Valley, but in the entire state.

The Los Angeles Times is running an all-week series on traffic congestion in L.A. and how miserable everybody's commute is. The topic is a sure-fire winner among readers, and the personal stories of commuters are interesting and well-told. But the Times appears to have taken the position that the problem can be solved by simply building more highways and denying development projects that would generate traffic. Good luck getting that package through the Legislature!