Land Use
BREAKING: SB 50 Voted Down By State Senators Representing Affluent Suburbs
Final vote today kills major climate-land use legislation to legalize apartments near transit
The California State Senate this morning (after an initial vote last night) narrowly and finally voted to kill SB 50, a major climate-land use bill that would have allowed apartment buildings near major transit stops and job centers, as well as fourplex conversions statewide. Despite high-profile opposition from some low-income tenants groups, the senators voting …
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CONTINUE READINGThe Bleak California Housing Picture By Numbers
Key recent studies and data can inform the legislative debate
As the debate over SB 50 and other state legislative efforts to boost California’s housing supply heats up, it’s worth reviewing some of the data about how dire the housing situation is in the state. Here are some tidbits: High Home Prices and Rents: According to the California Legislative Analysts Office, the average California home …
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CONTINUE READINGThe Real Lesson From Madrid’s Failed Climate Conference? Spain’s Success On Urban Quality of Life & Carbon Emissions
Southern European nation excels at walkability, reduced emissions & resident happiness
The UN climate conference in Madrid last month may have ended poorly, but conference attendees had a big success story right in front of them in the host country. Spain’s success achieving efficient – and enjoyable – land use and transportation outcomes is a model other countries and states should emulate to address climate change. …
CONTINUE READINGCalifornia’s Major Housing Bill, Take 3: New Amendments Announced For Local Flexibility
Will Governor Newsom now put his weight behind Sen. Wiener’s SB 50?
California State Senator Scott Wiener launched his third legislative attempt today at boosting California’s housing supply. SB 50 aims to address the state’s massive housing shortage, which has resulted in high home prices and rents, gentrification, displacement, inequality, homelessness, and a mass middle-class exodus to high-emission states like Texas and Arizona. Because this housing undersupply …
CONTINUE READINGAn Oil and Gas Setback in Los Angeles Would Not Create Billions in Liability
A recent report from the Petroleum Administrator relied on incorrect and incomplete legal assumptions about the City’s potential liability to oil and gas operators. Here’s why it matters.
This week, Sean Hecht and I (in our capacity as attorneys in the Frank G. Wells Environmental Law Clinic at UCLA School of Law) sent a letter on behalf of the Los Angeles Neighborhood Land Trust to Mayor Eric Garcetti, the Los Angeles City Attorney’s office, and the Los Angeles City Council. (Our letter built …
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CONTINUE READINGMaking It Work: Administrative Reform of California’s Housing Framework
How recent legislative changes have been the state greater power to enable prohousing policies
This blog post is coauthored by Chris Elmendorf, Eric Biber, Paavo Monkkonen, and Moira O’Neill. As California’s housing crisis swirls through the national news, attention has focused on statewide upzoning bills. Sen. Scott Wiener’s ballyhooed effort to allow 4-5 story buildings near transit was tabled until 2020, but earlier this fall the legislature effectively terminated …
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CONTINUE READINGHow Does Increasing Wildfire Risk Affect Insurance in California?
Affordability and Availability of Wildfire Insurance Are Less Stable Under Changing Conditions
(This post is part of a series on the issue of climate change and insurance that my colleague Ted Lamm and I are writing, inspired by a symposium that the law schools co-organized with the California Department of Insurance earlier this year. You can find more information on the symposium here. Ted’s prior related post …
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CONTINUE READINGLearning Lessons from Los Angeles’s TOC Program
Challenges and opportunities as TOC continues to drive affordable housing production
I’ve written before about Los Angeles’ Transit Oriented Communities (TOC) Program, an inclusionary housing program designed to allow for increased density in residential and mixed-use projects near major transit stops in exchange for a developer commitment to include a set percentage of affordable housing units in those projects. Since implementation began in late 2017, the …
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CONTINUE READINGCan Soils Solve Climate Change?
Another dubious claim of natural climate solutions makes the rounds
A few months ago, I questioned a claim that planting trees could solve climate change. According to some scientists, reforestation “is by far the cheapest solution that has ever been proposed,” and for $300 billion it could sequester 200 gigatons of carbon (GtC, or 733 GtCO2). Many media outlets swooned, but the assertions were weak …
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CONTINUE READINGTOC Under Fire
Fix the City’s new lawsuit challenges a key transit-oriented housing program
Last week, a Los Angeles slow-growth group, Fix the City, filed a lawsuit challenging a West Los Angeles development project on Santa Monica Boulevard. The project, a seven-story, 120-unit apartment building less than half a mile from the Century City mall, was approved using density bonus, height, and setback incentives through the City of Los …
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