CP&DR

Santa Monica Buys Key Parcel for Potential Park, Affordable Homes

Jun 1, 2000

Paul Shigley, Public Development, Vol. 15 No. 06 Jun 2000

Available land is a rare and, therefore, valuable commodity in Santa Monica. So city officials are pleased with the opportunities they now have after purchasing about 11 acres, owned for decades by a prominent think tank, that lie adjacent to Santa Monica Civic Auditorium, City Hall and Palisades Park. "It's an incredibly strategic area," said Andy Agle, Santa Monica's deputy director of planning and community development. The city could eventually develop parks, affordable housing and office ...

San Diego Addresses Zoo Expansion in a Finite Park

Apr 1, 2000

Paul Shigley, Public Development, Vol. 15 No. 04 Apr 2000

A proposal to expand the San Diego Zoo has forced city officials, civic activists and the Zoological Society to reexamine the zoo and its relationship to Balboa Park, where the facility is located. San Diegans consider both the zoo and the park civic treasures, and finding a compatible mix is proving to be a time-consuming and politically sensitive project. Although the issues are complex, the questions are relatively simple — how large to make the zoo, and how to solve traffic congestion and p...

Failed Sale of Highway 91 Toll Lanes Refuels Debate

Feb 1, 2000

Paul Shigley, Public Development, Vol. 15 No. 02 Feb 2000

A proposed public bailout of the owner of Highway 91 toll lanes in Orange County has died amid allegations of financial improprieties. The experience with the 91 Express Lanes, which even privatization supporters call a "fiasco," appears to put a damper on what little interest remains in constructing private highways. "This is not something that anyone should expect to become the dominant mode of highway building," said Marlon Boarnet, a University of California, Irvine, planning professor who ...

Classroom Construction: The Good Ol' Days Are Gone

Dec 1, 1999

Larry Sokoloff, Public Development, Vol. 14 No. 12 Dec 1999

When California's first "space-saver" school opens next fall in Santa Ana, it will be an immediate orphan. The program that gave birth to the school no longer exists. Instead, the state and school officials are pursuing different strategies to provide classroom space in growing urban districts, as evidenced by innovative new schools in Pomona and Long Beach. The state space-saver program, launched with great fanfare during the early 1990s, sought to solve the problems of growing urban district...

Public Transit Advances in Congested Bay Area

Oct 1, 1999

BART, Larry Sokoloff, Public Development, Public Transit, Vol. 14 No. 10 Oct 1999

Silicon Valley's job boom has underscored gaps in the transit systems in the San Francisco Bay Area, and has renewed calls to extend BART, the costly regional transit system that was once supposed to ring San Francisco Bay. But while construction continues on a $1.5 billion extension of BART from northern San Mateo County to San Francisco International Airport, other plans to extend BART have received mixed receptions. A ballot initiative to extend BART south of the airport through S...

Judge Stalls SD Stadium Pending EIR Completion

Aug 1, 1999

Paul Shigley, Public Development, Vol. 14 No. 08 Aug 1999

Efforts to build a new ballpark for the San Diego Padres hit a snag when historic preservation advocates won a round in San Diego County Superior Court, potentially jeopardizing the project's targeted completion date of February 2002. Superior Court Judge Judith McConnell ordered the City of San Diego and its downtown redevelopment agency to halt eminent domain proceedings, land assembly and the awarding of a $50 million contract for infrastructure improvements until an environmental impact ...

Coastal Commission Alters UCSB Housing Plan

Aug 1, 1999

CP&DR Staff, Public Development, Vol. 14 No. 08 Aug 1999

University of California, Santa Barbara, officials proposed building 200 dorm rooms a little too close to wetlands, the California Coastal Commission had decided. The commission approved the student housing but ordered the university to keep the planned construction at least 100 feet from a slough, coastal pools and other wetlands. The decision requires a major redesign of the San Rafael housing addition and will delay the project by a year, according to Tye Simpson, UCSB director of physical and env...

Burbank Airport Expansion Remains In Holding Pattern

Jun 1, 1999

CP&DR Staff, Public Development, Vol. 14 No. 06 Jun 1999

The City of Burbank, which has vigorously fought a proposed Burbank Airport expansion, won a major victory when the Second District Court of Appeal ruled the Airport Authority must receive approval from the city before proceeding with a new terminal. In a ruling delivered May 5 and ordered published on May 20, a unanimous three-judge panel said the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority must submit its land use plans for city approval, and must get the city's approval to condemn land for the proj...

City Hall Joins Migration to Downtown San Jose

Jun 1, 1999

Paul Shigley, Public Development, San Jose, Vol. 14 No. 06 Jun 1999

Once the butt of many jokes, downtown San Jose has become an increasingly popular location. Among the latest to indicate interest in a downtown office tower is the city itself, which proposes building a $214 million Civic Center on the eastern edge of downtown. The city has completed an environmental impact report, and the City Council was expected on June 1 to approve the EIR, a new redevelopment area, a housing relocation plan, and a financing program. City officials hope the project will solve the ...

San Diego Waterfront Continues Transformation

Apr 1, 1999

Paul Shigley, Public Development, Vol. 14 No. 04 Apr 1999

The San Diego waterfront, already the scene of a growing San Diego Convention Center, is on the verge of adding 750 hotel rooms, a massive retail village and an expanded public park. The project is the first phase of the Port of San Diego's South Embarcadero Redevelopment Project. Two to three year's worth of construction is likely to begin this spring, according to Ralph Hicks, the port's director of land use and planning. The project involves three separate undertakings: adding a 750-room tower to ...

Articles