Articles

Plan Bay Area : planners’ dream; for Citizens, not so much

August 06, 2013 | By JONATHAN WOOD

Attorneys from the Pacific Legal Foundation filed a new lawsuit this morning, on behalf of the Bay Area Citizens, challenging Plan Bay Area. The Citizens are a non-profit that supports property rights, local community control, and the environment, and opposes burdensome land-use regulation. Plan Bay Area is the first Sustainable Communities Strate ...

Articles

Plan Bay Area : planners imposing their preferences on residents isn't just a Bay Area problem

August 12, 2013 | By JONATHAN WOOD

Last week, we explained why it’s terrible policy for planners to impose their preferences on residents who have different ideas on how they should live.Over at National Review‘s The Corner blog, Stanley Kurtz explains that this is a nationwide problem. The bureaucratic lingo for this brand of social engineering is TOD, “transit or ...

Articles

My Contra Costa Times op-ed on Plan Bay Area

September 09, 2013 | By JONATHAN WOOD

Saturday’s Contra Costa TImes carried this article about Plan Bay Area and the lawsuit that PLF has brought on behalf of Bay Area Citizens challenging the process by which it was adopted. Excerpt: Public policy must be made in a way that allows informed public participation. But Plan Bay Area was drafted by agenda-driven insiders. … ...

Articles

PLF's Jonathan Wood joins Bill Wattenburg show Sunday

October 11, 2013 | By JONATHAN WOOD

I’ll be on The Bill Wattenburg Show Sunday at 9. We’ll be talking about our lawsuit against Plan Bay Area. If you’re in the San Francisco area, the show will air on Talk 910. It will also be streamed here. Update: the recording is available here. … ...

Articles

The bay area needs fewer development restrictions, not more

October 14, 2013 | By JONATHAN WOOD

As regular readers know, PLF is challenging a recently adopted plan that will restrict most future development in the bay area to 5% of the regions land area. Our lawsuit, filed on behalf of Bay Area Citizens—a non-profit organized by local residents—challenges the process by which the plan was adopted. Regional bureaucrats sold the pla ...

Articles

An inconvenient truth : Stack-and-pack going down in Tinseltown

December 16, 2013 | By JONATHAN WOOD

As readers know, PLF is representing the Bay Area Citizens—a non-profit organization that represents citizens opposed to excessively burdensome regulations in the region—in their challenge to Plan Bay Area. Plan Bay Area is designed to pack the vast majority of future development in the region into approximately 5% of its’ surface ...

Articles

The Bay Area's ignored citizens will finally be heard

June 09, 2014 | By JONATHAN WOOD

This Thursday, June 12th, I will be arguing PLF’s challenge to Plan Bay Area in Alameda County Superior Court. As readers will recall, PLF’s client Bay Area Citizens challenges the plan — and its dozens of significant environmental impacts — because the agencies misled public and failed to property analyze the impacts of the ...

Articles

Plan Bay Area argument set for May 31

May 23, 2016 | By JONATHAN WOOD

Next Tuesday, May 31, the California Court of Appeal will hear argument over the legality of Plan Bay Area — the plan to restrict future development in all but a tiny fraction of the already incredibly expensive Bay Area. The Court will consider whether regional agencies were free to ignore the plan’s significant environmental consequen ...