For all of the Legislature's fretting this year, the consensus in Sacramento is that among the state's overwhelming crises, land use ranked as a low priority this past legislative session. The legislative session that ended Aug. 30 included relatively few land use bills and, of those, they were of relatively minor import.

Typically it's the developers who worry about cap rates and the environmentalists who worry about preserving ecologically sensitive lands. That tradition could be upset, however, if a recent proposal to restrict the investments of nonprofit land trusts is approved by the California Department of Fish and Game.

The California Endangered Species Act allows for developers and other landowners to set aside sensitive lands and receive incidental take permits in exchange. These lands are typically preserved in perpetuity, using the investment income from endowments that the landowner sets aside.

After months of stakeholder meetings, speculation, and preliminary reports, the California Air Resources Board has finally adopted official targets for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, as mandated by SB 375. The targets were announced this past Thursday, Sept. 23, in compliance with the law's Sept. 30 deadline. 

In some ways, Christine Essel could not have come into her new job at a worse time – or from a more unexpected background. The new CEO of the Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Agency, Essel had previously led Paramount Pictures' government affairs team. She is one of few executives to cross over from Tinsletown to the gritty streets of urban Los Angeles. Those streets, in CRA/LA's 32 project areas and 128 active projects, may get even grittier thanks to the state's $2.1 billion transfer of redevelopment funds this past spring.

With the implementation of SB 375 still to come, cities across California will be challenged to revamp their general plans to meet goals of reducing vehicle miles traveled and promoting more compact development. In the race to write the perfect plan, the City of Santa Monica has, according to some, taken an early lead with the approval in July of a new land use and circulation element (LUCE).

When the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard closed, the United States Navy was steaming home from the South China Sea and the best way to get across San Francisco was in an airborne Mustang GT. It was then, 36 years ago, that the prospect of a massive redevelopment for Hunters Point and adjacent Candlestick Point first sprang to life. And it was just last month that a project was finally approved.

The staff of the California resources board has released a staff report (pdf) and CEQA functional equivalent (pdf) document with its proposals for per capita greenhouse gas emissions targets for the state's four largest MPO's. The report comes roughly two months after ARB staff presented the board with a target range of 5-10 percent per capita reductions for 2020 for the four urban MPOs and "placeholder targets" for those of the Central Valley.

Somewhat unexpectedly, ARB staff has recommended different targets for each of the "big four." 

If you are at all involved with urban planning in Los Angeles you were probably either in the audience or on the panel at last night's "The Future of the Los Angeles City Planning Department (and the City of Los Angeles)" event, sponsored by AIA, APA-L.A., ULI, and Cal Poly Pomona's College of Environmental Design. I suppose a third option is that you were stuck in traffic and couldn't make it.   

Jamboree Road might not become the next Park Avenue, but a new vision plan recently completed by the City of Irvine signals a major shift away from the suburban lifestyle of Orange County. One of the early cities to pioneer the strict segregation of office-park style commercial development from master-planned residential areas, Irvine will be allowing thousands of new residential units into its business core in the coming decades. 

At a press conference at City Hall this morning Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa introduced Michael LoGrande, his nominee to success Gail Goldberg as the city's planning director. At some moments the rhetoric of the mayor and fellow speakers -- including LoGrande, City Council Member Ed Reyes, and Planning Commissioner Bill Roschen, and affordable housing activist Jackie DuPont Walker -- sounded as if they were building the world's next great city.

Other times, their emphasis on customer service made the city sound more like a Nordstrom store than the writhing metropolis that it is.