Articles

The recession has hindered the production of affordable housing in California – even while it has heightened the demand for affordable housing. Yet cities in California are increasingly moving away from affordable housing requirements.

If California's redevelopment agencies vanish on July 1, as Gov. Jerry Brown has proposed, it's clear the task of mending the state's blighted neighborhoods will likely grow more complicated. Less obvious is the fact that California's effort to clean up the Earth's atmosphere may grow more difficult as well.

An appellate court has blocked a proposed Santa Barbara housing subdivision because the city did not receive of voter approval of an access road and bridge on city-owned open space land, as required by a 1982 initiative. 

In the 100 years since the initiative and referendum powers have become part of the local land use planning and development legal framework, voters have used these populist elements of democracy to shape growth. The case from the City of Santa Barbara illustrates a variation on the intersection of planning and voter control. 

Voters will face only a handful of local ballots March 8, and the slate is mercifully light--and concentrated in Southern California. After a November election (see CP&DR Vol. 25, No. 21 Nov. 2010) packed with some of the most contentious local and statewide questions in recent memory, next month's smattering of project approvals and parking spats likely comes as welcome relief. The biggest local question surrounds the would-be city of Jurupa Valley, which will vote to become yet the newest city in the Inland Empire, a region that is maturing in fits and starts.

Ever since Gov. Jerry Brown first announced his intention to eliminate redevelopment agencies the redevelopment establishment – led by the California Redevelopment Association – has taken a hard line: no elimination, no compromise, no relinquishment of the tax increment. The CRA is even preparing for a legal battle based on its interpretation of both the State Constitution and Proposition 22.

To some, infill development still occupies a quaint niche in the world of city-building. But over the past few years, greenfield development on the urban fringes has gone fallow and a host of economic, social, and regulatory forces have made infill more viable. Attempting to lead that charge is the newly formed California Infill Builders Association, a professional group made up of established and aspiring infill developers who seek mutual support in their effort to bring new development to urban areas.

A lawsuit challenging Sonoma County's ordinance regulating the location and operation of medical marijuana dispensaries has been dismissed because it was not brought within the 90-day statute of limitations.

The California Supreme Court will review a case in which Alameda County and a housing developer argue that a California Environmental Quality Act lawsuit filed by project opponents should have been dismissed because the opponents did not raise their objection during the administrative process.

Gov. Jerry Brown's proposed state budget will do more than merely plug a $24 billion deficit. According to some, it will also lead to shuttered factories, recidivism among ex-convicts, and the flight of companies and jobs to rival states such as Arizona, Nevada, and Texas. Faltering clothing manufacturer American Apparel could be pushed closer to the brink of bankruptcy. 

At least if Brown's proposal to do away with Enterprise Zones is adopted along with the proposed elimination of the redevelopment program.

The core of California redevelopment law tells redevelopment agencies what they can fight against – blight – and it enables them to identify project areas in which to do so. Generally, the law does not, however, indicate what blight should be replaced with. As a result, critics have charged that redevelopment often funds vanity projects such as stadiums at the expense of what they consider more socially beneficial developments.

As with so many trends, the use of tax-increment financing for redevelopment began in California. Since being created here in 1952, this vital aspect of redevelopment has spread to 48 other states. And yet if Gov. Jerry Brown's current budget proposal passes, it may very well die in the state where it was born.

It is not going quietly.

In the two weeks since Brown announced his intention to eliminate redevelopment in California as part of his proposal to cut the state's $24 billion deficit, what used to be a relatively obscure system intended to eradicate blight has been thrust into tumultuous debate.

What would life be like in California without redevelopment?

An 11-judge panel of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has thrown out the court's 2009 decision that invalidated the City of Goleta's mobile home rent control ordinance. This time, the court ruled the ordinance was not an unconstitutional taking of property because the mobile home park owners who brought the challenge acquired the property long after ordinance was in effect.