The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California has embarked on a major reorganization and a series of cost-cutting measures, partly in response to cost overruns for the construction of Eastside Reservoir in Riverside County.
In July, MWD's new general manager, Ronald Gastelum, unveiled the first phase of a series of organizational reforms, calling for $10 million in immediate cost savings and perhaps as much as $100 million in cost savings in the coming years.
Like the Calfed negotiations, the MWD's internal travails will not directly affect land-use issues in Southern California. But the agency supplies almost all the wholesale imported water in metropolitan Los Angeles and San Diego, providing water to 27 cities and water districts. Its boundaries have largely determined the boundaries of urban growth in Southern California over the past half-century.
In recent years, the agency has had a series of internal problems, including a dispute with the San Diego Water Authority over whether San Diego will be able buy water directly from farmers in the Imperial Valley and have it shipped through MWD's Colorado Aqueduct. San Diego is MWD's biggest customer, and the possible loss of San Diego business could imperil the agency's capital program. The agency's largest capital project is the $2 billion, six-square-mile Eastside Reservoir project near Hemet, which is designed to increase surface water storage for the agency.
Gastelum, a former official with the waste-management firm of BKK Corp., was appointed in March to replace John Wodraska, the MWD's previous general manager. The cost-cutting effort was initiated in the face of high-pressure criticism from the state Legislature regarding cost overruns and other allegations of mismanagement.
A new survey has documented what many planning and public policy experts have long suspected: California city managers prefer retail projects in their community over any other type of land use, and they least favor multi-family housing and heavy industrial projects.
The survey — part of a study of land use and sales tax issues by the Public Policy Institute of California — was released just as the California Legislature considers a bill that would require cities that lure large retailers ac...
Southern California's regional planning agency unveiled a new "conceptual land use plan" on Friday, May 8 –but the plan does not meet the presumed greenhouse gas emissions target for the region under SB 375, and SCAG has not revealed yet how growth would be split up under the most transit-oriented interpretation of the plan.
A five-county "Inter-Regional Partnership" between the Bay Area and the Central Valley is taking more tangible form. The Partnership will ask the Legislature this year for a pilot project to designate housing and job "incentive zones" — similar to enterprise zones — that would include a re-distribution of existing property tax revenue and streamlined environmental review to encourage better jobs-housing balance. The Partnership is also seeking $625,000 in state funding to integrate computer mappin...
Faced with the possibility of adding another 1.5 million people during the next 20 years, Riverside County has embarked on an ambitious effort to plan for that growth. The Riverside County Integrated Plan seeks to combine land use, transportation, and habitat planning into one unified blueprint for growth.
County officials emphasize that the planning process does not seek to restrict growth. Rather, the goal of the process is to channel and accommodate new growth while meeting federal standards f...
As a booming economy continues to drive up housing prices, California's top officials are placing a higher priority on housing issues in the year 2000. But with Democrats firmly in charge in Sacramento, the state's efforts appear likely to focus on providing more public assistance for housing, rather than pushing for a dramatic reform on policy issues such as the housing element law.
Gov. Gray Davis appears ready to give higher priority to housing issues in his second year in office than he did in his...
Despite five years of negotiation with state housing officials, the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors has rejected a proposed housing element that would permit the county to reach its affordable housing goals largely through the unprecedented use of "granny flat" policies.
At its core, the dispute between the notoriously slow-growth county and the state is a stark example of two competing philosophies about affordable housing. Within the context of longstanding growth restrictions, count...
In his first year as governor, Gray Davis has gained a reputation as a chief executive quick to wield the veto pen — and the field of planning and development legislation proved to be no exception.
Even though the Legislature passed only small and incremental bills — opting against sweeping change in any area — Davis vetoed one-third of all planning and development bills that reached his desk.
"I think he actually striped the middle pretty well," said Clyde McDonald, Assembly Local Governme...
Four months after making a sweeping proposal to re-orient the state's infrastructure investments around "smart growth" principles, State Treasurer Phil Angelides — a former "New Urbanist" developer -— is moving forward with at least three different proposals to change the selection criteria in state bond and tax credit financing programs.
"It's a new way of thinking for the state and the public finance community," Angelides said. "But it's not irresponsible and it is creditworthy."
Angelides has al...
Stimulated by the success of Ventura County's SOAR initiatives, citizens � and some City Councils � throughout the state are placing growth restrictions on the local ballot in increasing numbers. Four growth-control initiatives are scheduled for the November ballot, including three sponsored by the Citizens' Alliance for Public Planning, or CAPP, a Pleasanton-based citizen organization active in the Tri-Valley area of eastern Alameda and Contra Costa counties. Up to eight measures may appear n...
State and federal officials early this summer released a "draft preferred alternative" for the Calfed Bay-Delta Program, which officials inside the process contend will overhaul the plumbing system on which most California residents, farms and businesses rely.
Many observers outside the program, however, struggle to determine how significantly Calfed will alter water and land use policies. Although the full plan weighs in at 40 pounds, it is light on some crucial details that might have major implicat...
In the latest chapter in a long-running story, Contra Costa County and many of its cities appear to be ready to tighten up the county's urban limit line. The county is examining the creation of tighter boundaries in the controversial Tassajara Valley area and in fast-growing eastern Contra Costa County. Meanwhile, the county's Local Agency Formation Commission recently adopted a written policy committing itself to honoring the county's urban limit line wherever possible.
Urban limit line tightening co...
A new state commission is examining local govern issues and is expected to produce a proposed legislative overhaul of the Cortese-Knox by December.
The 15-member Commission on Local Governance for the 21st Century was created last year as a by-product of legislation making it easier for the San Fernando Valley to pursue secession from the City of Los Angeles.
The commission is officially charged with reviewing the Cortese-Knox Act, proposing methods to increase public participation in l...