The First District Court of Appeal determined that the California Environmental Quality Act exemption for infill development applies only to projects within the limits of an incorporated city.

As national debates about climate change have raged and federal action has grown ever more unlikely in the shadow of -- take your pick -- economic woes, mid-term election jitters, and the blackening of the Gulf of Mexico, the State of California last week edged closer to implementing its own land use based program to curtail climate change. Per a June 30 deadline stipulated in Senate Bill 375, the staff of the California Air Resources Board (ARB) released its draft regional targets for carbon emissions reductions. 

The targets are based on what participants have said is an extraordinarily sophisticated scenario planning and modeling. 

When the San Fernando Valley portion of the City of Los Angeles attempted to form its own city in 2002, one of five names nominated for what would have been the nation's sixth-largest city was "Camelot." This for a region most famous for being the vapid home of Valley girls.  

Although Measure F (CP&DR Insight Vol. 16 No. 10 Oct 2001) failed on both sides of the hills that separate the Valley from the rest of Los Angeles, nearly a decade later a far less grandiose, but perhaps more pragmatic, solution has emerged to give a unified voice to the Valley and some of its neighboring cities. 

In approving a redevelopment project that relies on a 20-year-old environmental impact report, the City of San Diego was not required to conduct supplemental environmental review on the issue of climate change, where the only discretionary action for a project was limited to project aesthetics, the Fourth District Court of Appeal has ruled.

A unanimous California Supreme Court has upheld a trial court's decision to reject a challenge to a Proposition 218 election for a storm drainage fee, thus reversing a decision by First District Court of Appeal. 

The state high court ruled the Marin County Flood Control and Water Conservation District maintained the requisite level of voting secrecy in accordance with the 1996 "Right to Vote on Taxes Initiative," which requires voter approval for certain local fees.

Now that the California Air Resources Board has released its draft targets for greenhouse gas emissions reduction under SB 375, it's time to do some math. What follows is nerdy and a little dense, but it's important – and planners need to be able to follow the bouncing ball on 375. 

The bottom line is that the math doesn't yet add up – and that's because what AB 32 calls for and what California's regional planning agencies think is realistic don't line up with each other.