Following the announcement two weeks ago of the finalists for $120 million worth of grants through the Affordable Housing and Sustainable Communities grant program, two metropolitan planning organizations in southern California are calling foul. The five-county region covered by the Southern California Association of Governments, by far the largest metropolitan planning organization in the state, had only 12 of 54 finalists. By contrast, Alameda County alone had eight finalists. >>read more

The Malibu policeman's immortal warning "keep out of my beach community!" in the 1998 leisure-sport epic The Big Lebowski could just as easily have been uttered last autumn by certain residents of Orange County's unincorporated community of Sunset Beach. In this case, though, they would not be shouting at The Dude but rather at the entire City of Huntington Beach.

Instead, a group of Sunset Beach residents are suing the City of Huntington Beach for, they say, unfairly imposing a 5% Users Utility Tax on them. 

In 2007, then-Attorney General Jerry Brown established a new paradigm for planning in California. With his settlement in a lawsuit against San Bernardino County, he clearly signaled that cities, counties, and county subregions would have to account for, and attempt to mitigate, greenhouse gas emissions in their general plans under the California Environmental Quality Act and AB 32. In fact, Brown went so far as to vow to sue any city that failed to account for its greenhouse gas emissions.  

An appellate court has directed a trial court to set aside all of a project's approval because portions of an environmental impact report were found to be inadequate.

The Fifth District Court of Appeal declined to follow the practice of allowing severance of project approvals unaffected by the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) violation. Instead, the court required that the project approval be set aside in its entirely once the CEQA violation was shown.

Since January we have witnessed the unusual spectacle of elected local officials throughout the state expressing intense and emotional anger and frustration about the possible end to redevelopment -- and no reaction at all from anybody else. 

Nothing from the people in blighted neighborhoods, who supposedly benefit from better housing and more jobs and more retail choices.