Featured Courses

Wildfires have suddenly become a major land use issue in California planning. This course provides California planners with the basics they need to know in order to begin tackling the wildfire issue. In four 15-minute segments, Bill Fulton, author of Guide to California Planning, provides an overview of this issue and tips and techniques to improve land-use practices dealing with wildfire.

The four segments cover the following

1. Why both urban and rural wildfires in California are increasing. 

2. The three basic approaches to dealing with wildfires: avoidance, mitigation and fire management.

3. What land-use practices are making wildfire risk worse in California, with a focus on low-density rural subdvision.

4. What land-use practices can reduce wildfire risk in California, with a focus on new requirements contained in the General Plan Safety Element.

If you take this course, you'll be eliglible for one hour of AICP CM Sustainability and Resiliency credit (claim your credit here)!

In this one-hour course, Bill Fulton explains how planning requirements and practices affect development feasibility and how development projects affect a jurisdiction's fiscal well-being. Eligible for AICP CM credit. 4 parts.

A one-hour AICP CM law class that provides an overview of California's recent land use / housing laws, including the Housing Accountability Act, the Density Bonus Law, SB 330, SB 35, and other important laws. 

Taught by former San Diego Planning Director and longtime planing commentator, Bill Fulton,
AICP, this course covers the history of exactions and how the pending Supreme Court case on
exactions could, known as the Sheetz case, could dramatically affect planning practice. It covers
the history of the Nollan/Dolan doctrine, which creates limits on exactions that can be imposed
on developers, and dicusses implications for planning practice depending on how the Supreme
Court rules in Sheetz. The course is designed to:
1. Ground practicing planners in the legal history and concepts behind exactions.
2. Help planners understand the legal limits to exactions under current law.
3. Prepare practicing planners for possible changes that could result from the Supreme
Court’s pending ruling in the Sheetz case.

Eligible for 1.0 AICP CM credit (Law).

In this one-hour course eligible for AICP CM Law credit, Bill Fulton goes over the basics of California's Regional Housing Needs Allocation process and Housing Elements, as well as current issues such as builder's remedy, site inventories, and pending litigation.

This one-hour course covers the basics of economic development for planners,including:

-- The different goals of economic development (jobs, tax revenue, business growth)

-- How jurisdictions approach economic development for these different purposes

-- How to pursue inclusive economic development

-- How to use economic development incentives

This one-course course provides an overview of parking as a land use issue and provides tips for planners on how to deal with parking as an issue. The four 15-minute sections of the course cover:

-- A history of parking as a land use issue

-- How parking drives development more than zoning

-- Donald Shoup's principles and a case study

-- Elminating minimum parking requirements and the future of parking

Eligible for one hour of AICP CM Credit