The City of Chico's draft general plan opens with the darndest thing: a sustainability element.

Property taxes collected by redevelopment agencies provide the largest ongoing source of funding for low- and moderate-income housing development in California – about $1 billion annually. How agencies account for and spend that money may be about to change in light of a state Senate investigation and front-page newspaper stories.

The state Capitol is one weird place. Sometimes, I'm not sure if it's even of this earth. 

At the moment when you think major redevelopment "reform" is on the horizon, state lawmakers instead rewrite inconvenient laws that were getting in the way of San Diego's desire to use redevelopment financing to build a football stadium, including a law requiring increased funding for affordable housing.

The proposed Saltworks project in Redwood City is, as one of its designers says, a potential "game changer" for the Bay Area. Proposed by landowner Cargill and developer DMB, the project would provide 8,000 to 12,000 high-density, mixed-income housing units in a decidedly suburban town halfway between San Francisco and San Jose, and within close proximity to hundreds of thousands of jobs.

The Bay Area has seen similar projects in recent years, but they have been in San Jose and San Francisco proper. Even those suburbs that have embraced relatively dense, transit-oriented development haven't seen anything on the scale of Saltworks.

I was trying to figure out a way to summarize the 2009-2010 session of the California Legislature when I found a summary upon which I could not improve.

In its September 3 edition of "Framing the Issues," the affordable housing advocacy group California Housing Law Project nailed the situation. Under the headline "No Budget … No Money … No Legacy … Failed Policy," was this:

Maybe there is reason to hope we can get development right in the future.

That's the conclusion I draw after looking over the list of projects that the state Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) recently named "catalyst projects." It's largely rhetoric, the state has put its seal of approval on -- and given valuable publicity to -- some promising, progressive projects. In general, projects are mixed-use, mixed-income infill projects that attempt – to varying degrees – to de-emphasize the automobile and improve the public realm. It's nice to see the state recognize the planning behind such projects, even if the state isn't willing to attach much money to that recognition.

A California Environmental Quality Act amendment that could ease Walmart's entry into new markets appears to be speeding toward approval in the state Legislature.

Assembly Bill 1581 (Torres) would exempt from CEQA review the alteration of a vacant retail structure of up to 120,000 square feet so long as the use is consistent with the applicable general plan and meets certain energy and water efficiency thresholds. The exemption would sunset on January 1, 2014.

In early 2009, I wrote a story about the City of Bell's plan to lease 15 acres it had recently purchased to Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad for use as a truck yard. An environmental organization had successfully sued to block the project because Bell did not complete an environmental review.

As you no doubt know, Bell has been in the news lately for gross levels of corruption at the elected and staff level. Now, the Los Angeles Times has revealed that Bell is unable to pay back a $35 million debt that was issued for the railroad truck yard project. Standard & Poor's has placed Bell on a credit watch list.

The announcement earlier this week that bookstore giant Barnes & Noble is for sale is important to city planners for two reasons.

First, however the deal comes together, the sale will almost certainly result in the closure of some of Barnes & Nobles' 720 U.S. stores. Closures could begin even before there is a sale, as the company tries to increase its appeal by shedding its weakest outlets.

California Supreme Court Chief Justice Ronald George is probably most widely known for his 2008 majority opinion striking down the state's prohibition on same-sex marriages, and for his 2009 opinion begrudgingly upholding voters' ability to ban same-sex marriage and effectively reverse the court's earlier ruling. But in land use planning and development circles, George's legacy is one of centrism and consensus. Time and again, George has corralled all of his colleagues into unanimous decisions on sticky land use regulatory issues.

In light of George's announcement last week that he will not seek re-election this November, a quick review of the George court's land use decisions is in order.