Articles

The Governor's Office of Planning & Research is a month late in issuing its final recommendation on whether to replace "level of service" as the measurement of significant transportation impacts in transit priority areas under the California Environmental Quality Act. But there's not much mystery: OPR has sent clear signals that it is going to propose replacing LOS with vehicle miles traveled, or VMT.

CEQA's future has been in holding patterns across all California's branches of government this summer. But while big things are expected any day in the administrative or judicial branch, CEQA is a sore and sour subject in the Legislature.

This fall, California's Strategic Growth Council will release a preliminary assessment about SB 375's implementation to date. So now is a good time to step back and deeply reflect on how we are running public participation processes in this state, especially legislatively mandated ones. We need to consider how legislative requirements like those for the SB 375 regional planning process may help or hinder meaningful public engagement.

The Sierra Club's Marin Group of chapters brought a court challenge July 10 seeking to reverse the Coastal Commission's May approval of the Marin County Land Use Plan Update.

Walnut Creek officially began preparation last month of a West Downtown Specific Plan focused on links between the city's BART station and downtown, with related attention to nearby major boulevards. The city's initial Notice of Preparation papers are at http://bit.ly/WAz7Wv.

November's local ballots aren't quite final; officials are still checking signatures on many petitions. But it's late enough in the season to have a sense of what's headed for a vote. (Especially in San Francisco and Santa Monica.) Here are some highlights of local measures likely to be on November ballots that are related to land use: [This article was revised July 29, mainly to reflect the compromise that is now likely to take two housing measures off San Francisco's local ballot.]

The Strategic Growth Council (SGC) held a celebratory but serious public meeting July 10 to take stock of its budgetary good fortune under California's cap-and-trade program. [This article was updated July 29, adding links and the newly announced August dates of planned workshops on the program guidelines.]

The Coastal Commission had plenty to worry about this month but the big-ticket item, the Santa Monica Mountains Local Coastal Program (LCP), was at last not problematic. After 28 years of difficult stop-and-start negotiations, the final Local Implementation Plan (LIP) approval session sounded like a Thursday morning at the Oscars. [This article was updated July 30.]

The agenda for this month's Coastal Commission session, which starts tomorrow, calls for one big bookend and a lively pile of locally debated items. [Updates added below 7/9/14]

A planning change to reconfigure San Jose Airport for more corporate jet traffic does not need full environmental review under a state appellate case newly ordered published.

The planning document challenged by Citizens Against Airport Pollution (CAAP) was approved by the City Council in 2010 as the eighth addendum to the EIR for San Jose's Airport Master Plan. It responded to projections for slower growth in the airport's cargo and passenger capacity than previously expected, and changed the planned use of a 44-acre area from air cargo facilities to general aviation "in order to accommodate the forecast that large corporate jets will comprise the majority of general aviation". Further, it called for modifying two taxiways to better accept corporate jets. City staff argued there would be no new significant environmental impacts beyond those addressed in previous planning rounds.

California's rethinking process for transportation impact assessments under SB 743 is still waiting for a formal proposal from state officials. The July 1, 2014 deadline for publication of a new draft standard from Governor Brown's Office of Planning and Research (OPR) came and went without the expected new document.

In San Francisco parking news in June, a startup tried to auction public parking spaces, activists sought CEQA review of a proposal to re-authorize free parking on Sundays, new data appeared on variable-rate parking, and drivers peeved at "transit first" policies were collecting signatures for a November ballot measure.

No, really: in late June the City Attorney's office told a startup company, MonkeyParking, to stop auctioning public parking access to the public: http://www.planetizen.com/node/70046.

With a budget passed, California's Legislature has turned to policy committee reviews of bills and to negotiations over a water bond facing a July 3 deadline to be finalized for November voters. So this roundup takes a look at June legislative developments other than the budget that are of interest in land use and city planning.

Two bills and a lawsuit that sought to limit Proposition 13's restriction of commercial property taxes were failed or flagging as of late June.