Articles

Redevelopment agencies in California are often asked to carry a heavy load: fighting blight, promoting economic development, transforming brownfields, and creating communities. Now add to that list the modest task of combating global climate change � at the very moment when they have fewer funds than they have had in decades.

Senate Bill 375 seeks to reduce California's greenhouse gas emissions through the coordination of land use and transportation planning. But the state's most recent $2 billion raid on redevelopment funds is merely the latest shift of funds away from redevelopment agencies, many of which were already coping with lean budgets.

A couple of weeks ago, Shelley Poticha, the Obama Administration's point person on smart growth, gave a high-profile talk to a big Urban Land Institute crowd in Los Angeles. Her message, plain and simple, was that it's time for what she called "alignment." 

The environmental impact report for a proposed human waste composting facility in San Bernardino County has been rejected by the Fourth District Court of Appeal for failure to examine an alternative facility that would be enclosed rather than open-air, as proposed. In addition, the court ruled the county should have completed a water supply assessment for the project.

To supporters, the wisdom of Senate Bill 375, the 2008 law that promotes emissions reductions through coordination of transportation and land use, lies in its holistic approach to planning and its kitting together of disparate elements of the urban fabric. But, in light of budget crises at all level of government, one piece that is essential to SB 375's success is rapidly coming off the rails: money to run buses and trains 

 By Morris Newman

Dammit, it's not fair! Residents of affordable housing get all the lucky breaks. Just look at all the money they're getting from all directions: local government, the local power company, the feds, the green-building lobby. Case in point: the Casa Dominguez development in East Dominguez Hills, an unincorporated area of south Los Angeles County, even has a child care center and a medical clinic, on site.

The San Francisco 49ers of the National Football League are trying to punt themselves out of creaky Candlestick Park and into a shiny new home in Santa Clara. Whether political winds will carry them roughly 35 miles to the south to the City of Santa Clara or whether they'll be blown back to the line of scrimmage now depends on the voters of Santa Clara. 

Many long, hard-fought battles have been waged for the control of high ground, and the one surrounding Pleasanton's Measure D is no exception. 

Measure D asks whether a 51-home development known as Oak Grove may be built on a parcel of 562 acres in the southeastern hills above the city, a Bay Area bedroom community which sits in a valley in inland Alameda County. Measure D was placed on the ballot by the City Council following a long saga of denials, approvals, lawsuits, new ordinances, and community outcry. A yes vote allows the development to go forward per the agreement with the city council; a no vote forces would-be developers to start from scratch. 

Whether or not the state's "fleet reduction" plan to sell 11 properties for an estimated $2 billion makes the slightest bit of fiscal sense remains to be seen (see CP&DR Blog April 29, 2010). As the state wallows in a $20 billion deficit, the most palpable impacts of the sale may fall someplace other than Sacramento, including Costa Mesa.

Wary of intensive development of the 150-acre site of the Orange County Fairgrounds, residents of the City of Costa Mesa will vote on whether to amend the city's general plan requiring voter approval for any future zoning changes or major developments. The intent of the plan is to ensure that any future, post-sale uses will remain consistent with the site's historical uses.

As residents of one of the nation's oldest master-planned cities, Mission Viejo voters will be asked, essentially, to decide whether the city's planners got it right the first time.

Measure D, billed by its backers as the "Right to Vote Amendment," would update the city's general plan to require all projects seeking a "major amendment of planning policy documents" to not only go through the city's existing approvals process but also receive final approval via a popular vote. The measure is intended, say backers, to provide an extra layer of protection against projects that might be inconsistent with or detrimental to the city's character.

Use of redevelopment funds by a city-formed nonprofit organization to develop school administrative buildings and a housing project with units reserved for low- and very low-income residents was valid and did not require voter approval, the Second District Court of Appeal has ruled. 

In reaching its decision, the court had to interpret the various restrictions in redevelopment law as well as Article 34 of the state constitution.  

Article 34 as part of the California Constitution, adopted by voters in 1950, had the effect of requiring voter approval of "low rent housing projects." Over time, the Legislature has codified various interpretations of Article 34, excluding from the voter approval process certain types of affordable projects. On a parallel path, the Legislature has modified redevelopment law to ensure that cities spend a certain amount of their tax increments on affordable housing. 

UCLA Extension will offer its annual CEQA updates course on Wednesday June 9.  This one day seminar, CEQA: 2010 Updates, Issues, and Trends will be held at the Figueroa Courtyard in downtown Los Angeles.  Keep in mind, this seminar is only offered once a year.       

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Even as commuters have grown weary of the long drive from the western edge of the Central Valley to the employment centers of the Bay Area, a group of landowners in Brentwood see robust development opportunities. The formerly diminutive Contra Costa County city, now of 51,000, is hotly debating what its next round of expansion will look like. 

At issue is the fate of a 740-acre tract of largely undeveloped land, which lies to the west of the county urban limit line that governs Brentwood but is nonetheless already addressed in its general plan. That plan calls for up to 579 homes to be built on the property, which is owned by only five landowners, in the event that the land was annexed by the city. Measure F, however, would expand the urban limit line and in so doing authorize a 20-year development agreement for up to 1,300 homes and 30 acres of commercial development. 

Riverside County has gained the dubious distinction of being one of the foreclosure capitals of California, if not the country. 

One bright spot, however, has been the unincorporated community of Eastvale, which has grown from an exurb of scattered homesteads a decade ago to a major unincorporated bedroom community of roughly 40,000 residents. 

"Eastvale is really leading Riverside County in its ascendance from the recession," said Jeff DeGrandpre, president of the Eastvale Incorporation Committee.  

On June 8 Eastvale residents will consider Measure A, a multi-part ballot measure to decide whether the community, located in the northwest corner of the county adjacent to the City of Norco, will become the county's 27th city.