CP&DR - Articles

Sacramento County Attempts to hold the Line on Urban Growth

Jul 1, 2000

Local Watch, Paul Shigley, Vol. 15 No. 07 Jul 2000

A recently adopted specific plan for nearly four square miles in southern Sacramento County represents the first time county officials have instituted a major farmland mitigation program. The East Franklin Specific Plan calls for developers of 2,475 acres to contribute $950 per acre to an account that will purchase agricultural easements or property in a nearby farming area. Whether farm owners will cooperate, however, is uncertain. The mitigation fee is intended to protect about 26,000 acres ...

Indian Casinos Sweep Across State: Locals Have No Jurisdiction, But Some Tribes Are Negotiating Anyway

Jul 1, 2000

Featured Articles, Paul Shigley, Vol. 17 No. 09 Sep 2002

With the approval last March of a statewide initiative and the signing of a pact between the governor's office and 63 Indian tribes, development of Indian casinos is taking off. Proposals for major new casinos are introduced seemingly every week, and tribes that operate many of the existing 39 casinos have expansion plans. The casino boom is passing by local government officials, who have no say over what happens on lands held in trust for Indian tribes. "If it's reservation land, they pretty much do ...

Michael Sweeney

Jul 1, 2000

Paul Shigley, Q&A, Vol. 15 No. 09 Sep 2000

Michael Sweeney is the undersecretary of the California Resources Agency, the umbrella entity for seven state departments that address natural resources. Prior to his appointment in 1999, Sweeney was an Democratic assemblyman from Alameda County for two terms. He also served as mayor of Hayward from 1990 to 1994, and as a Hayward city councilman from 1982 to 1990. A teacher before entering politics full-time, Sweeney has bachelors and masters degrees in political science from California State U...

County Finds ‘Smart Growth' Isn't Easy

Jul 1, 2000

Local Watch, Paul Shigley, Vol. 15 No. 07 Jul 2000

When they adopted a new general plan in 1993, Sacramento County supervisors approved what would now be called "smart growth" policies. The general plan established an urban growth boundary (called an urban services boundary), encouraged dense residential development, and designated a number of areas for transit-oriented development. Thus far, the county has blocked development outside the urban services boundary, despite attempts by developers to bust the boundary. But implementing higher densi...

Redevelopment Repairs Economy and Environement

Jul 1, 2000

Morris Newman, Places, Vol. 15 No. 07 Jul 2000

The Park Avenue Project in the City of South Lake Tahoe is not the largest or the most expensive downtown plan ever contemplated in California, but it might be the most ambitious. I can't name too many other downtown projects that undertake, all at once, to remove blighted buildings, provide all-new urban design, build a new resort hotel, retail space, high-end condominiums and an ice-skating rink, erect a gondola that carries visitors to two local ski areas — and undertakes major environmental pro...

Jobs are Plentiful, Homes are Not: Effects of Silicon Valley Housing Shortage Spread over Vast Region

Jun 1, 2000

Featured Articles, Paul Shigley, Vol. 15 No. 06 Jun 2000

A proposal from Cisco Systems to build a 6.6 million-square-foot campus for up to 20,000 workers in south San Jose has focused attention on the Silicon Valley's housing shortage. Cities and counties south of San Jose feel threatened by the continued industrial development in Silicon Valley because more and more technology employees are commuting from places like Hollister, Salinas and Santa Cruz. The City of San Jose, however, says it has long carried more than its fair share of the housing load...

U.S. Supreme Court: BLM Rangeland Grazing Rules Withstand Ranchers' Challenge

Jun 1, 2000

CP&DR Staff, Legal Digest, Vol. 15 No. 06 Jun 2000

In a case watched closely by ranchers and environmentalists, the U.S. Supreme Court has upheld 1995 grazing regulations for public lands, including about 6.7 million acres in California controlled by the Bureau of Land Management. Ranchers challenged Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt's power to impose the new rules, which ranchers said would raise their expenses and threaten their livestock businesses. But a unanimous Supreme Court, interpreting the 1934 Taylor Grazing Act, 43 U.S.C. §315, said ...

McClellan Plan Relieves the Pain of Base Reuse

Jun 1, 2000

Deals, Morris Newman, Vol. 15 No. 06 Jun 2000

Describing the closing of a military base as successful might strike some people as a poor choice of words. Anybody acquainted with base closures knows they are traumatic events. The initial trauma, of course, is the loss of jobs and resulting economic depression that befall surrounding communities. The secondary trauma, which happens more slowly, is the series of barriers that communities encounter in their efforts to reinvent a base into an office park or airport. Redeveloping bases can b...

Consumers Gag on L.A.'s Toilet-to-Tap Program

Jun 1, 2000

Environment Watch, John Krist, Vol. 15 No. 06 Jun 2000

For the past decade, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power has been preparing to tap a significant new supply of water to help meet demand in its growing service area. Yet, after investing $55 million in a pipeline and related facilities, the DWP put the project on hold in late April, just days before it was to begin operation. The reason was a loud, albeit belated, public outcry about the source of that new water: the Donald C. Tillman Water Reclamation Plant, which treats munic...

Have it YOur Way. Just Get Out of the Car FIrst

Jun 1, 2000

Stephen Svete, Trends, Vol. 15 No. 06 Jun 2000

Odd how the fast food joint has become emblematic of what's wrong with the modern world. The recent bombing of a McDonalds in Brittany was widely interpreted as nothing less than a shot across the bow of cultural globalization. Here on our golden shores, discussions about the merits of quick service restaurants are more measured, but the burger and burrito huts can cause high anxiety. Particularly loathed by many are drive-through facilities. These car-friendly land uses have been scoffed at ...

North Livermore Plans for Homes and Farms, But Initiative Looms

Jun 1, 2000

Local Watch, Paul Shigley, Vol. 15 No. 06 Jun 2000

The City of Livermore and Alameda County are close to completing a specific plan that provides for the development of 3,200 acres and the conservation of 10,300 acres of farmland and open space. However, a Sierra Club-backed urban growth boundary initiative that appears headed for the Alameda County ballot in November could throw the project into question. The city and county are in the midst of conducting approximately 17 workshops and public hearings on the North Livermore Specific Plan. Cit...

Southern California Cities Argue Over SCAG's Regional Housing Allocations

by William Fulton on Jun 1, 2000

Housing, Insight, RHNA, Vol. 15 No. 06 Jun 2000, William Fulton

After a delay of almost a decade, the battle over how localities in California divvy up their responsibility for low- and moderate-income housing has been joined once again. The first battlefield is metropolitan Los Angeles, where the Southern California Association of Governments is engaged in a struggle with its own members over the "Regional Housing Needs Assessment" (RHNA) process ï¿½ and is lobbying the state to reduce L.A.'s overall obligation to provide low/mod housing. The SCAG battle is ...

Subdivison Map Act: City Wins Despite Regarding Postponed Off-Site Improvements

Jun 1, 2000

CP&DR Staff, Legal Digest, Vol. 15 No. 06 Jun 2000

A Subdivision Map Act provision that gives local government a maximum of 120 days to acquire an interest in land upon which a subdivider is obligated to build improvements applies only in cases where the improvements are a condition of final map approval, the Fifth District Court of Appeal has ruled. A developer in the City of Clovis contended that such a narrow reading of Government Code §66462.5 would place an undue burden on the subdivider because a city could wait decades before acquiring of...

Court Clamps Down on Redevelopment Abuse: DIamond Bar Project Rejected When City Fails to Prove Blight

Jun 1, 2000

CP&DR Staff, Legal Digest, Vol. 15 No. 06 Jun 2000

Making clear that the Community Redevelopment Law "is not simply a vehicle for cash-strapped municipalities to finance community improvements," an appellate court has thrown out the City of Diamond Bar's redevelopment plan. A unanimous three-judge panel of the Second District Court of Appeal ruled that Diamond Bar did not prove that its 1,300-acre redevelopment project area suffered from "blight," as defined by the Community Redevelopment Law (Health and Safety Code §§33000 et seq., 33030). The...