Local road and street maintenance needs an additional $71 billion investment over the next 10 years, according to a study prepared by the California State Association of Counties and the League of California Cities. The study identified $99.7 billion worth of maintenance needed to roads, streets and their essential components, such as storm drains, sidewalks and signals. However, only $28.3 billion is expected to be available.
The additional $71 billion would permit all facilities to attain a "best management practices" (BMP) condition, under which basic preventive maintenance measures – slurry seals and thin overlays, for example – would be adequate to keep roads in good condition. "It costs twelve times less to maintain a BMP pavement compared with a pavement that is at the end of its service life," the report by Nichols Consulting Engineers stated. "Even a modest resurfacing is four times costlier than a pavement in the BMP condition."
The study is the first to comprehensively assess local street and road conditions in California, according to the local government organizations. The study found that the average pavement condition is "at risk," and that conditions will worsen based on recent funding trends. An additional $7 billion a year for the local system equates to a 38-cent increase in the gas tax.
It's official: 2009 was the slowest year for new housing construction since the 1940s. Builders pulled permits for only 36,209 housing units in 2009, according to the Construction Industry Research Board. That was a little more than half of the 64,962 housing starts in 2008, which had been the record post-war low.
The California High-Speed Rail Authority business plan released at year's end is inconsistent, unrealistic and potentially illegal, according to a Legislative Analyst's Office (LAO) report to the Assembly Transportation Committee.
A $400 million economic stimulus grant from the federal government for the proposed Transbay Terminal in San Francisco will provide the final piece of financing for construction of the first, $1.2 billion phase of the terminal project. However, federal transportation officials appear to have stepped into the middle of a dispute between local officials and the California High Speed Rail Authority over the precise terminus for high-speed rail in San Francisco by siding with the locals. In addition, one rail authority board member, former judge and state Sen.
The nonprofit organization GreenInfo Network has released a newly revised database that attempts to identify every publicly protected parcel of open land in California, ranging from national forest to urban pocket park. The database inventories 49 million acres of protected land composed of 51,500 separate holdings owned by 860 governmental agencies or nonprofit organizations. Downloadable for free, the information should be of use to planners, academics, government agencies, nonprofit organization, businesses and others, said Larry Orman, GreenInfo Network executive director.
The Governor's Office of Planning and Research released updates of two reference documents in December – the 2010 edition of "Planning, Zoning and Development Laws," and the 2010 version of the "Planners' Book of Lists."
About 475,000 residents, major sea ports and airports, thousands of miles of roads and rail lines, power plants and wastewater treatment facilities are at risk of flooding due to sea level rise, according to a new report from the State Lands Commission.
A report by the California state auditor gives the Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) and the California Housing Finance Agency (CalHFA) generally good marks for overseeing nearly $5 billion in bond funds approved by voters.
The Natural Resources Agency has altered proposed amendments to the California Environmental Quality Act Guidelines. The changes appear to shift the focus of environmental analysis away from a project's effects on automobile traffic and toward impact on the overall transportation system.
In the latest roundup of California land use news: The governor signs urgency legislation extending the life of all tentative subdivision maps by two years; the Los Angeles MTA approves its first congestion pricing project; a Desert Hot Springs development dream becomes species habitat instead; a developer takes its case directly to Mendocino County voters.
There is no evidence that California's enterprise zone program – the state's largest economic development effort – has increased jobs in program areas, according to a Public Policy Institute of California study. "Our main finding is that, on average, enterprise zones have no effect on business creation or job growth," PPIC researchers Jed Kolko and David Neumark wrote.
In this month's roundup of land use news, both the developer of a Calaveras County golf course built without permits and the county must decide how to proceed after supervisors refused to approve the project after-the-fact; the Obama administation has reversed a controverial Bush-era Endangered Species Act rule; a conservation plan for an endangered salamander in Sonoma County has died; developer DMB Associates has announced it is abandoning a new town proposal in San Benito County but has a new 12,000-unit project in Redwood City; and a whistleblower lawsuit over redwoods logging has been settled.
