CLEANR faculty and staff share decades of experience in the areas of land use planning, mediation, and local and regional climate action.
Current Projects
With a generous grant of $1.2 million dollars from the State of California, CLEANR Director Dr. Gregg Macey and Faculty Director Alejandro Camacho lead a new program to leverage that experience and expertise. Integrated and Equitable Climate Action (IECA) builds on UC Irvine School of Law’s programs devoted to environmental and land use law, community-based environmental justice research, and public dispute resolution; the Department of Urban Planning and Public Policy’s expertise in climate policy and land use and transportation planning; UC Center Sacramento’s ability to facilitate communication with the State Legislature and disseminate policy-relevant research; and the Newkirk Center for Science and Society’s innovation in community-based participatory research. Importantly, IECA has multiple community and agency Co-P.I.s and advisors. IECA carries out applied research and policy drafting to align local land use plans with state climate objectives and mandates as well as innovations from other jurisdictions. Its mission is to ensure that a growing number of California’s 478 municipal governments and 58 counties are at the forefront of state climate policy integration, while assuring compliance with civil rights laws.
CLEANR’s community partners contribute to updates to California climate policy through AB 617 steering committees, Scoping Plan updates under AB 32, carbon sequestration and other nature-based solutions through state conservation commitments, and other programs. They stress that California will fail to achieve economic, environmental, and public health co-benefits of climate investments in disadvantaged communities unless it overcomes two longstanding and self-limiting factors. First, they identify land use integration as the central obstacle to maximizing environmental justice benefits of state climate policy. Second, programmatic staff at city and county agencies lack the means to ensure that those updates comply with civil rights laws, including California Government Code § 11135. Through ongoing research and development of legal inventories, compliance metrics, and model ordinances; comparative research; needs assessment focused on jurisdictions with one or more disadvantaged communities; selection of five jurisdictions per year for collaborative plan design; and ongoing sharing of findings and evaluation, IECA drafts land use plan and policy revisions and designs and shares strategies to align local land use plans with state climate objectives. For more information, please contact Dr. Gregg Macey, CLEANR Director or Professor Alejandro Camacho, CLEANR Faculty Director and Chancellor’s Professor of Law.
News
Past Policy Workshops
Promoting Water Efficiency through Water Budget Tiered-Rate Structures in California
November 12, 2021
This roundtable focuses on promoting water efficiency through water budget rate programs in California. In an effort to build resiliency as the state faces growing stressors due to changing climate and other pressures, water resource experts in California have begun to explore a variety of initiatives focused on long-term water conservation and efficiency planning. This 2020 roundtable explores one particular approach to water efficiency and conservation: water budget-based, tiered-rate structures. These rate structures involve calculating a water budget that represents an efficient volume of water based on individualized customers’ water needs, and are designed to provide a clear and visible incentive to avoid high levels of water use by having the water user pay different prices per unit of water delivered depending on the amount used. This roundtable will facilitate dialogue on the water efficiency and water quality improvements, as well as revenue stability achieved by water districts that have adopted budget-based rate structures, and will address the gaps in knowledge that policymakers have on this issue. This roundtable will bring together California legislators, water districts, NGOs, scholars, and economists in an effort to contribute to policy action aimed at the Legislature’s creation of a State Revolving Fund allocation that would provide technical and legal assistance to municipalities to develop water budget rate structures.
Tap Into Resilience: Removing Barriers to Local, Sustainable Water Resource Strategies
September 13, 2019
In partnership with Waternow Alliance
As water systems face ever-increasing stressors due to our changing climate, communities are looking for ways to build resilience and secure local water resources. Localized water resource strategies such as green infrastructure, efficiency programs, and on-site reuse initiatives can be affordable, effective, and environmentally friendly alternatives to centralized systems to help address these challenges. Yet legal and policy barriers, including limited funding options and institutional water management silos, have limited their scope. Building upon WaterNow Alliance’s Tap Into Resilience campaign, this roundtable engages participants in a focused discussion on the legal and policy reforms needed to identify and address the barriers to promoting decentralized and localized water strategies. The roundtable convenes scholars, technical experts, and representatives from cities and water utilities to share lessons learned from those already grappling with these issues and explore opportunities for diversifying water resilience strategies with on-site solutions.
Mitigating Climate Change through Transportation and Land Use Policy: Opportunities and Challenges
October 19, 2018
Allowing for greater population density has the potential to shorten commute times, make housing more affordable, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, enable greater and more cost-effective investment in mass transit, and increase economic productivity. Nonetheless, local zoning boards and bodies that regulate land use give disproportionate influence to incumbent residents who oppose greater density at the expense of their potential future neighbors, economic growth, and climate change mitigation. This dynamic offers state and local governments the opportunity to reap large economic, environmental, and social gains if they could craft policies that ensure adequate housing and accessible transit in the places where people want to live. Although there exists no legal barrier to state governments exerting greater control over land use policy, it is traditionally an area of local responsibility, and imposition of strong prescriptive policies has proven politically challenging. This roundtable explores the experiences of California, Maryland, Oregon, Washington, and New York in addressing these challenges, and engages participants in a focused discussion on potential approaches and opportunities for improved policy.
Tensions of Transparency: Open Government Laws in Land Use Regulation
December 9, 2016
Open government laws facilitating public access to government meetings and records can promote public participation in the democratic process. Yet, some participants in public-private land development deals contend that existing open government law can constrain productive negotiations without effectively increasing public engagement. This roundtable explored the tensions that arise in the land development process, where the goal of maintaining government transparency can conflict with the goal of effectively negotiating complex deals mingling private resources and public authority.
Proposition 218
May 18, 2016
California’s Constitution mandates that state water resources be put to beneficial use and not be wasted or used unreasonably. Proposition 218 requires government agencies to show that the amount charged for a property- related service such as water delivery does not exceed the proportional cost of the service. As California faces growing water supply challenges, the recent Capistrano Taxpayers Association v City of San Juan Capistrano litigation involving tiered water rates and Proposition 218 struck down penalty rates for excessive water use, thus posing additional potential hurdles for conservation. This half-day workshop roundtable will convene various leading thinkers to address water conservation challenges facing local governments in California, exploring the application of Proposition 218 and its potential effects on California water policy. The participants will explore solutions to address: (1) stormwater funding, (2) conservation pricing, and (3) affordability, including the potential development of model local ordinances and recommendations for state water law and policy reform.