General Plans Address Climate Change
A general plan that does not address the issue of climate change appears to be an endangered species.Numerous cities and counties in the process of updating their general plans are addressing climate...
View ArticleOntario Seeks To Make Its General Plan An Everyday Tool
The City of Ontario is on the verge of adopting a general plan unlike any in California. Its goal of transforming Ontario into a bustling urban place of 350,000 residents with the state’s most...
View ArticleAirport Restrictions Trump Local Planning
An appellate court has set aside the City of Watsonville’s general plan on grounds that it is incompatible with the State Aeronautics Act, and because the city failed to consider a lower growth...
View ArticleAnother OC City Considers Vesting Zoning Power in Voters
As residents of one of the nation’s oldest master-planned cities, Mission Viejo voters will be asked, essentially, to decide whether the city’s planners got it right the first time.Measure D, billed by...
View ArticleSanta Monica General Plan Anticipates SB 375
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...
View ArticleMonterey County Braces For General Plan Lawsuits
Deep in the heart of John Steinbeck country, city folks, rural folks, farmers, businesses and everyone in between are still waging dubious battle over control of Monterey County land. After an 11-year...
View ArticleGeneral Plan Update Riles San Diego’s Backcountry
A world away from the Gaslamp Quarter and the Hotel del Coronado, eastern San Diego County is often described as California’s own outback. Its roughly 3,600 square miles of unincorporated county...
View ArticleLocal Agencies Gain Powerful Tool for Preserving Farmland
A program intended to preserve farmland, adopted pursuant to the county’s general plan, has been upheld as reasonably related to adverse impacts of residential development on agricultural land by the...
View ArticleAirport's Tailspin Imperils Development in Ontario
The future of land use in the City of Ontario is up in the air. Literally. read more
View ArticleCash-Strapped Planning Agencies Get Prop. 84 Windfall
When Proposition 84 passed in 2006, it reflected a booming economy. Providing $5.4 billion for clean water, parks, and open space the measure was seen as an important way to protect the state’s natural...
View ArticleAttorney General May Punish Plans For Failing to Mitigate GHGs
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,...
View ArticleSan Diego To Disband Planning Department, Again
Even if it takes a village to raise a child, apparently it does not take a planning department to raise a village. Or even a city of villages. The City of San Diego’s Planning Department won national...
View ArticleSacramento County Plan Embraces ‘Paradigm Shift’ in Growth Management
Josh Stephens Sacramento County may not rank among California’s great wine countries, but it does appreciate the value of aging. Eight years in the making, the land use element of the county’s new...
View Article’Flexible’ General Plan Update Raises Controversy in Tulare County
Josh Steichmann Tulare County is a diverse 4,800 square miles, with extensive, mountainous public lands in the east, and some of the country’s most fertile farmland in the west. It encompasses the...
View ArticleTahoe Plan Attempts to Introduce Smart Growth to Great Outdoors
Josh Stephens In perhaps a more sensible world, the 325,000-acre Lake Tahoe Basin would not be governed by two rival states, a handful of small cities, and embittered factions of environmentalists and...
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