Land Use
The ballot-box and urban infill
How the initiative power affects land-use decisions in California
Here at Legal Planet we’ve been paying a lot of attention to how CEQA affects land-use decisions. So has the legislature. And that’s fair enough. CEQA is important. And CEQA may well be deterring an important range of urban infill development that is environmentally important. But it’s not the only thing that affects urban infill …
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CONTINUE READINGAre Transit Strikes Bad for the Environment?
Banning public transit strikes might help the environment
Even if you’re not from the Bay Area, you’ve probably heard about the labor troubles at the Bay Area Rapid Transit system (BART) – the rail system that is one of the largest public transit providers here in the Bay Area in terms of passengers. Hundreds of thousands of commuters use the BART system on …
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CONTINUE READINGA Bad Hollywood Ending for Smart Growth — What’s the Sequel?
Judge rules the downtown plan for transit-oriented growth is fundamentally flawed
Smart growth advocates are lamenting a judge’s decision yesterday to toss out the environmental impact report (EIR) on Hollywood’s years-in-the-making plan for higher-density growth around the city’s subway stops. Hollywood is one of the few communities in California willing to increase growth around transit stops and along transit corridors, and the demand for housing and …
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CONTINUE READINGCEQA Reform 2013 Holds Promise for Improving the Environment
Despite grumblings, the new law contains significant victories for infill development and urban investment
Governor Brown recently signed into law this year’s version of “CEQA reform,” which as Eric noted was decidedly stripped down from what it could have been. SB 743 (Steinberg) got a lot of negative attention for giving the Sacramento Kings basketball arena proponents accelerated environmental review and immunity from injunctive relief unless the project is …
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CONTINUE READINGNot all drones are weapons of war
Scientists promote low-cost aerial drones as conservation tools
Speaking of visualizing environmental problems, they are hidden for different reasons and therefore can be revealed by a variety of different mechanisms. Drones are one tool with a great deal of potential. Aerial drones have gotten a lot of attention as weapons of war or counterterrorism in the U.S. arsenal. Whatever you think about the …
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CONTINUE READINGCalifornia Enacts Nation’s First Comprehensive Fracking Law—And Everyone’s Unhappy
Controversial But Promising, SB 4 Constitutes Tangible Progress on the Fracking Front
Late last month the California Legislature passed, and Governor Jerry Brown signed into law, the nation’s first comprehensive system of regulating hydraulic fracturing, the oil and gas drilling technique more commonly known as “fracking.” It turns out that no one–the oil and gas industry, surface landowners or environmentalists–is particularly happy with the new law. And …
CONTINUE READINGSingle-Family Houses: A Smart Growth Strategy
Single family homes are a smart growth strategy as long they are planned and developed, well, smartly.
Sunday’s New York Times features a story by Shaila Dewan asking, “Is Suburban Sprawl on the Way Back?” Answer: not really, although highly compact urban development is hardly going to dominate, either. The best quote from the whole piece comes from Smart Growth America President Geoff Anderson, who correctly observed, The market isn’t all for smart growth, …
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CONTINUE READINGCEQA Reform 2013: Long-Overdue Changes for Infill and the Environment
It looks like State Senate pro Tem Darrell Steinberg might finally be putting the “E” back in “CEQA,” at least when it comes to how California’s premiere environmental law treats traffic impacts. His bill SB 731 to reform the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), previously discussed by Eric, is taking aim at the law’s perverse …
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CONTINUE READINGUCLA / UC Berkeley Law Report on High Speed Rail Policies for California’s San Joaquin Valley
The environmental law centers at UCLA and UC Berkeley Schools of Law are releasing today a new report on policies to maximize the economic and environmental benefits of high speed rail in the San Joaquin Valley. “A High Speed Foundation: How to Build a Better California Around High Speed Rail″ is the eleventh report in …
CONTINUE READINGDid Kenny Kill High Speed Rail?
On Friday, California Superior Court Judge Michael Kenny ruled that California’s plan for the initial construction segment of high speed rail in the San Joaquin Valley violated the terms of the 2008 voter-approved initiative that launched the project. Petitioners and some in the media are calling it a major setback for the system. However, the …
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