The Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) released a statewide survey, called Californians and the Environment, centering on the governor’s race and key environmental issues. A majority of likely voters, 56 percent, say the candidates’ environmental positions are very important in determining their votes. The survey found 62 percent of Californians say global warming is extremely or very important to them personally, while an ABC News/Stanford/ Resources for the Future poll found 48 percent of American adults feel the same. Mark Baldassare, PPIC president and CEO, summed up the report, “Many Californians are concerned about the personal impact of global warming in the wake of a prolonged drought and in the face of fears that extreme weather may result in more severe wildfires.” The survey also found US Senator Dianne Feinstein leads state senator Kevin de Leon 46 percent to 24 percent among likely voters, with 9 percent undecided. The survey also found 58 percent of likely voters would vote yes on the $8.9 billion water bond. Almost 70 percent of adults oppose more drilling for oil off the coast.
Los Angeles Considers Routes for North-South Light Rail Extension
Los Angeles Metro released five alternative alignments for extending the Crenshaw/LAX light rail line north of the Expo Line. The 8.5- mile $2 billion line is currently under construction. As of last week, the project is 82 percent complete. The Line was expected to be opened October 2019, but a $8 million change order was recently approved to “stop the bleeding” on schedule slippage. The five alternatives would continue north on Crenshaw Boulevard corridor. Four branch west onto San Vicente Boulevard, connecting with Metro Red Line at Hollywood/Highland while the other alternative branches east along Olympic Boulevard and then north to connect to the Red and Purple Lines at Wilshire/Vermont. The proposed Crenshaw Northern Extension alternatives range from $3 billion to $4.7 billion in cost.
Brisbane Voters to Decide Fate of Massive Undeveloped Parcel
The Brisbane City Council voted last week to put a ballot measure before voters in November to amend the city’s general plan and allow the construction of thousands of new homes on the vacant 684-acre Baylands. The current general plan prohibits housing on the former rail yard and garbage dump. However, developer Universal Paragon Corporation (UPC) owns the site and has campaigned for more than a decade to create a mixed-use development with up to 2,200 new homes and 7 million square-feet of commercial space. The site still needs to be cleaned up, which could take three years, and groundbreaking won’t occur for at least a decade. In 2016, San Francisco threatened to annex the land if Brisbane did not consider housing developments. State lawmakers have also warned of the likelihood that they would pass legislation deferring to the developer’s vision for the site.
Sacramento Goes Big on Electric Vehicles
Sacramento has launched a $44 million "Green City” program, funded by Electrify America, which seeks to turn the city into the capital of electric cars. The initiative would upgrade the city’s electric vehicle infrastructure, adding hundreds of cars, charging stations, and buses. The goal is to see if building a support network for more sustainable transit can be replicated in other cities. The program begins this summer with car-sharing services Envoy and Gig which will add hundreds of electric cars to the streets. New zero-emission electric bus lines are being added to the regular service as well as 10 charging stations with super-fast 350kW charging.
Planners Advance New Vision for Old Town San Diego
San Diego city officials are proposing a community plan update for the Old Town San Diego neighborhood. The plan would increase housing and commercial projects, but preserve the historic core of parks and tourist attractions. The plan would densify housing near the edges of Old Town near a transit center and along Pacific Highway, Interstate 5 and Interstate 8. The proposal would also widen sidewalks and transform a city-owned parking lot into a public place. The population of the 274-acre community would increase from 830 to 2,400 under the plan and triple the number of housing units from 474 to 1,405. The proposal has been in the planning stages for five year and is being praised by community leaders, historic preservationists, and the development industry for striking the appropriate balance. After the Planning Commission hearing, the community plan update is expected to be presented later this year to the City Council for approval.
Quick Hits & Updates
The Strategic Growth Council released its 2018 Annual Report, which provides an in-depth look into the progress the council made through our programs and initiatives this year.
Redondo Beach withdrew applications for a proposed waterfront redevelopment before the California Coastal Commission. The developer of the proposed $400 million project, CenterCal Properties, withdrew its portion of the joint applications before the commission earlier this month. Mayor Bill Brand, a fierce opponent of the project, said “The CenterCal waterfront project is dead. It’s been a long road, years of working with them and years of fighting them. Unfortunately, they did not work with the community. It's a shame because it was a great opportunity.” Voters had limited the scope of the project in a ballot measure last year.
San Diego MTS’s executive committee voted to recommend the full board hire a contractor to start working on a potential 2020 ballot measure to raise sales taxes for transit improvements. The measure would draw from MTS’s improvement plan and include projects in SANDAG’s regional plan through 2050.
The City of Pasadena will terminate its agreement with Metro over the struggling Metro Bike Share program. The revenue from the program has been so low that the program cost’s now threaten the City’s total transit operating budget. The average monthly cost for the program over the past ten months have been about $98,000 per month. Ridership flatlined after a brief period of success in September 2017.
The City of Los Angeles intends to hire a consultant who can help address traffic gridlock, shortage of hotel rooms, and stubborn homelessness near tourism sites. The move is intended to address problems that might prevent the city from reaching its goal of welcoming 50 million tourists a year by 2020.
The US Army Corps of Engineers will fully fund the $177 million South Bay Shoreline Project. The project is an effort to build four miles of new levees and restore 3,000 acres of wetlands near San Jose. The project was one of the first to receive local support from Measure AA, the $12 parcel tax measure approved by voters in 2016 to fund multi-benefit wetland restoration and flood protection projects. Construction is slated to begin next summer and the new levee is expected to be completed in 3-5 years.
Hard Rock Cafe International announced it will partner with the Enterprise Rancheria tribe to build a mega-resort in Yuba County in greater Sacramento. Preliminary site work is under way, but neither Hard Rock nor the Enterprise tribe would discuss details about the resort. However, credit-rating agencies have reviewed the project’s financial documents say the resort will cost about $440 million and is expected to open in October 2019.
The just-formed Delta Conveyance Finance Authority, led by the regional water agencies backing the tunnels project, are expected to start the application process for a $1.6 billion federal water infrastructure loan administered by the US EPA. The controversial $17 billion Delta tunnels project is still facing critical permits and legal challenges, and some farming groups have not committed to paying for part of the project. Earlier this year, Metropolitan’s board approved a $10.8 billion investment in California WaterFix.
The San Diego City Council voted, 6-3, to outlaw vacation rentals in secondary homes, limiting STRs to primary residences only. The effect of the action will be curtailing investor activity in the short-term rental market while also barring residents and out-of-towners from hosting short-term stays in multiple properties other than where they reside. While the council was expected to weigh a special exemption for Mission Beach vacation rentals that have already paid required transient occupancy taxes, the council majority was not willing to along with that. Roughly 44 percent of the housing stock in Mission Beach is estimated to be short-term rentals.
Attorneys for two families who bought homes in the San Francisco’s Bayview district development in 2015 and 2016 have filed lawsuits against both the developer, FivePoint, and property owner Lennar. The two families claim FivePoint and Lennar failed to disclose to prospective residents the extent of contamination of the property. They also claim the developer did not inform home buyers about allegations that Tetra Tech had faked soil samples.
A draft of the City of Stockton’s General Plan update, Envision Stockton 2040, was released and will be open for public review until August 10. A public hearing by the Stockton Planning Commission on the Update and associated EIR will be held August 2.
A new study from WalletHub ranked the 100 largest cities in the US on 29 metrics to determine how driver-friendly each city is. The study looked at cost of ownership and maintenance; traffic and infrastructure; safety; and access to vehicles and maintenance. San Francisco was ranked the second worst city (99), Oakland was third worst (98), and Los Angeles was ninth worst (94). Oakland also had the highest rate of car theft.
According to a new report from the Bay Area Council Economic Institute and consulting firm McKinsey, the Bay Area’s annual growth rate of 4.3 percent over the past three years was nearly double that of the US as a whole. The region would have a GDP of $748 billion, behind only 18 countries. Overall employment in the region grew 26 percent since the end of the recession with more than 750,000 workers in tech jobs since July 2017.
The Riverside City Council voted 4-3 to ban marijuana dispensaries, commercial marijuana cultivation and outdoor growing within the city. The permanent ban will go into effect August 24, about two weeks before the city’s temporary moratorium with similar prohibitions expires. The vote will still allow people to use marijuana and grow up to six plants indoors.
The Frontier Group’s report “Highway Boondoggles 4: Big Projects. Bigger Price Tags. Limited Benefits" report highlights nine proposed highway extension projects across the country that are slated to cost $30 billion. The report’s one California project is the US Highway 101 Expansion in San Mateo, which will widen the freeway bringing more cars into an already congested area and directly conflicting with the state’s global warming goals. The project is expected to cost $534 million.
The City of Inglewood wants to open its own elevated transit system to move people between The Forum, the adjacent NFL stadium opening in 2020, and a potential Clippers arena. The 1.8 mile automatic people mover would start in downtown Inglewood near Metro’s Crenshaw/ LAX light-rail line. A round-trip could take just 13 minutes and is estimated to cost more than $600 million to build and an additional $18-$20 million annually to operate.
The San Diego County Board Supervisors approved new developments that would add hundreds of new homes in Harmony Grove in North County. While many argued at the hearing for more housing, some are concerned about the increased risk for fire. Erik Bruvold, CEO of the San Diego North Economic Development Council said the county is short 53,000 housing units, and North County is short 20,000 units. Supervisors are fast-tracking approval of nearly 4,000 homes this week, all of them in areas where the county’s General Plan has formerly limited development.
Groundbreaking for the Orange County Streetcar through Santa Ana and Garden Grove has been pushed to the fall and cost estimates have increased by more than $100 million. The project is now estimated to cost $407.76 million, up from a nearly $300 million estimate made in 2017. The project is expected to connect Metrolink stations and some of the county’s busiest bus routes with residential and employment hubs such as downtown Santa Ana and the Civic Center. The tracks will be along existing roads on the streetcars 4.15 mile route. The streetcar will have electric vehicles and travel in lanes with car traffic.
Pacific Grove residents filed lawsuits against the city on the new ordinance that limits the number of short-term rentals allowed within its borders saying it violates the California Coastal Act. The two couples filed the complaint claiming the city did not get approval from the Coastal Commission before it was adopted. In February, the city council passed the ordinance 4-1 which put in place a lottery system that decreased the number of rentals from 290 to 250 so that only 15 percent of housing per block is dedicated to such rentals.
Preservationists are hoping to secure city monument status for three historic Los Angles Times building by submitting applications to the Cultural Heritage Commission. Official recognition of the buildings as historic-cultural monuments would put a temporary stay on demolition and substantial alterations. Omni Group, which owns the buildings, is considering redevelopment of the site as a high-rise residential and retail complex.
Nine teams are competing to redevelop the historic Fort Winfield Scott campus in the Presidio. The companies include the World Economic Forum, OpenAI, and co-working space operator WeWork. The mostly vacant 22-building property spans 30 acres and is overseen by the Presidio Trust. The group will hold a public hearing on the nine competing bids on July 25 and pick a developer sometime next year.
A new grand jury report “Subsidizing a Lifestyle” found Napa County is granting millions of dollars in tax breaks to preserve wine country farmland that already appears safe from being paved over. The watchdog group said the Williamson Act tax breaks designed to preserve farms are concentrated in the hands of the wealthy and corporation that buy Napa County vineyard land.
Conservation groups and transportation agencies reached a multi-million dollar settlement to protect wildlife habitat and reduce pollution problems along two long-congested Southern California freeways: Mid County Parkway and SR 60 in western Riverside County. The agreement dedicates $17 million to protect wildlife habitat, install air filtration decides in homes and schools, construct solar energy panels at commuter rail stations and fund park renovations in affected communities. The settlement also increases incentives for public transit and carpooling, provides increased pedestrian and cycling access, increases safety measures for motorists and protects key wildlife corridors.
LA County Supervisors Sheila Kuehl and Hilda Solis are proposing to cap rent increases at three percent. If the board approves the proposal the rent cap would apply for six months but could be extended by the board. The California Apartment Association is mobilizing members to attend the public meetings and contact county supervisors to convey that a rent moratorium is not the solution to the county’s affordable housing problem.
The deadline passed for proponents of California initiative to pull their measures off the state’s November ballot, but it hasn’t stopped the California Assn. of Realtors from hoping it can still strike a deal with lawmakers. Prop 5 would allow homeowners older than 55 to take a portion of their Prop 13 property tax benefits with them if they move within the state. The organization is now interested in having state legislators put forward an alternative measures instead, which would face less opposition.
The Orange County Water District board voted, 6-2, to approve non-binding contract terms with Poseidon, which has spent 20 years on the proposed Poseidon desalination plant in Huntington Beach. The plan for the $1 billion plant and water distribution infrastructure would increase the average residential customer receiving the water by an estimated $3 to $6, however it would ensure the area has water during droughts. The company must still receive permits from the Regional Water Quality Control Board, which is scheduled to consider the application in December, and the California coastal Commission, which is expected to take up the issue next year.
