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.

Even though the recession has brought construction in the Central Valley nearly to a standstill, one of the world's largest suppliers of building materials appears bullish on the region. Cemex Construction Materials, LP, has proposed an aggregate mine on a 2,036-acre site in Fresno County, inciting protest from both environmentalists and local Native American tribes.

One of the country's leading experts on land use law, attorney and UCLA professor Robert Freilich has tried cases and designed plans in hundreds of cities and witnessed the legal and conceptual evolution of planning. In 1999 he co-authored From Sprawl to Smart Growth: Successful Legal, Planning and Environmental Systems, which heralded the mainstreaming of the smart growth movement. >>read more

When Proposition 84 passed in 2006, it reflected a booming economy. Providing $5.4 billion for clean water, parks, and open space the measure was seen as an important way to protect the state's natural resources at a time before many were worried about $28 billion deficits or maxing out the state's bonding capacity. 

Prop. 84's primary focus is on waterways and water management. However, it also includes a relatively tiny set-aside for innovative planning that is proving to be a godsend to planning departments that are suffering unprecedented budget cuts (see CP&DR Insight Vol. 25, No. 5, March 2010). 

The Town of Mammoth Lakes has been ordered to pay more than $32 million for violating a development agreement.

In upholding a jury's award of damages to the developer, the Third District Court of Appeal made clear that local government agencies are treated like any other private contracting party when it comes to development agreements and can be held liable for damages if the agency breaches the agreement.

The City of Sunnyvale's analysis of a road improvement project's traffic and related impacts based on predicted conditions in 2020 violated the California Environmental Quality Act's requirement to compare a proposed project with existing conditions.

A case involving the relationship of the Subdivision Map Act with the Coastal Act and Mello Act has been accepted for review by the state Supreme Court.

A state appellate court has found that a provision of the Palo Alto municipal code requiring a 60-day delay prior to the issuance of a demolition permit did not render the permit approval a discretionary act requiring environmental review. The city properly treated the demolition permit as ministerial and exempt from the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), the Sixth District Court of Appeal ruled.