State Law and Policy Affect Local Planning in California. As is the case at the national level in the United States, state governments do very little direct land use planning (Hawaii and Oregon are exceptions). Like the federal government, state governments pass laws and set state policy designed to influence or even more directly to shape local government laws and regulations. This is very much the case in the state of California. Over the last 40 or 50 years California’s state government has implemented a many policies (through state level legislation or the referendum process) that have direct impact on many aspects of land use and urban development. Key among these are Proposition 13 (limiting local property tax rates), the California Environmental Quality Act – CEQA (requiring extensive environmental review of nearly all development projects), the California Coastal Commission and the California Coastal Act (1976) (designed to protect the coast from rapacious development and degradation), the General Plan – California Government Code Section 65300 (requiring each county and city to adopt a comprehensive long-term general plan for physical development), and Senate Bill 375 – The Sustainable Communities and Climate Protection Act (2008) which mandates that the State Air Resources Board sets targets for the reduction of greenhouse gases and that metropolitan planning organizations must use these to parameters in planning for local development. There are many other examples in the state. Your assignment is to select one of the state initiatives/laws identified above and find one example documented in credible sources in print or from the web that illustrates the impact of this state law on local development (how something happened or did not happen
