On-Demand Content

Still need to fulfill your mandatory Ethics CM credits for the 2022 – 2023 period? Want to learn about and better understand the revised Code of Ethics?

In this video from the Northern Section/APA California webinar, experts review changes to the AICP Code of Ethics and discuss the most recent Ethics Cases of the Year!

Curious to find out which bills were signed, vetoed, or carried over to next year?  Come join APA California’s VP for Policy and Legislation (Erik de Kok), Technical Advisor (Tom Pace), and Chapter Lobbyist (Lauren De Valencia y Sanchez) for a recap of the final outcomes of the 2023 legislative session.  We will summarize the year’s most important bills, how they relate, and how to prepare for implementation.  If you attended the Annual Legislative Update session at the conference, this “Part 2” webinar may also be of interest as we will cover key actions taken by the Legislature and Governor after the APA CA Conference.

How can failing shopping malls be repurposed? Housing? Office? Retail? Entertainment? Hotels? Food court? Park space? Or all of the above? How much is too much? There are so many possibilities to transform auto-oriented malls of yesterday into next generation neighborhoods of tomorrow. How do city leaders re-imagine indoor shopping malls so that these projects address the community’s priorities and needs? What are the components required to produce a successful project? What are some of the economic development tools that can be used? What about CEQA? What are some of the obstacles? Join us on this webinar, which will include economic development specialists and city leaders (featuring panelists from the City of Citrus Heights, City of Westminster, and City of San Diego) as we explore current retail trends and learn from case studies of mall redevelopments.

Leading the effort to plan, build, and operate the first high-speed rail system in the United States, California’s High-Speed Rail Authority CEO Brian Kelly will discuss this landmark project. Initial construction of the High-Speed Rail line is already underway in California’s Central Valley, with Downtown Fresno designated to serve as the site of the nation’s first high-speed rail station. The conference itself and many sessions and mobile workshops center around the bullet train in honor of this trailblazing infrastructure investment. Following a formal presentation, CEO Kelly will be joined for an interactive dialogue with City of Fresno Mayor Jerry Dyer and Andrea Ouse, President of APA California.

In this session, participants will learn about new laws that directly affect planning practice in California. Topics will include ongoing efforts to accelerate housing production through various streamlining mechanisms, housing element preparation, infrastructure financing, CEQA reform, climate resilience and hazard mitigation, and more. The panel will discuss why certain proposals made it through the State Legislature and why others failed to advance, and provide context for how the new laws fit within the State’s legislative agenda and with the Chapter’s policy platform. The panel may also provide a few highlights from the State’s FY 23-24 budget.

Since 1971, California planning has been defined by the “consistency requirement” — almost all planning-related decisions must be consistent with a general plan. This session will look at the evolution of the requirement and its impacts on how general plans are written and implemented. Panelists will emphasize how the California Legislature has used the combined power of updated general plan content requirements (e.g., regarding environmental justice, housing, resiliency, etc.) and the consistency requirement to promote key policy directions.

Join a panel of experts to get a quick refresher on the current AICP Code of Ethics and engage in a lively panel and audience discussion about the Ethics Cases of the Year.

The unprecedented 6th Housing Element Cycle has and continues to produce a new level of housing elements. These 6th Cycle housing elements aim to confront the housing crisis through meaningful and measurable programs, including new housing construction, affordable unit preservation, anti-displacement, and equity-focused programs, among others. With enhanced accountability and enforcement from the California Department of Housing and Community Development, successful execution of housing element programs is paramount. Learn how jurisdictions ranging from rural mountain communities to big coastal cities are tackling housing programs through strategic approaches and deployment of resources. Topics that will be discussed include partnering and funding for new affordable housing construction and conversions of existing structures into affordable housing, zoning tools and incentives to facilitate housing, staffing housing element implementation efforts, and innovative and unique programs that are being developed or administered in each jurisdiction. Speakers will focus on key approaches, tools, and takeaways to help other jurisdictions more effectively achieve their housing element program objectives.

Mixed-use transit corridors provide a way to connect housing, employment, education, commercial destinations, and services in a single car-free trip. As such, complete corridors offer a realizable model for implementing the “15-minute city”– a new urban model that goes beyond district-scale TODs to advance corridor-scale land use / transportation. The complete corridor concept defines livability as equitable access to land use opportunities using high-quality transit, biking and walking environments. As case studies will demonstrate, the complete corridor model can be applied to create holistic communities within established urban or emerging suburban settings. To assemble a complete complement of land uses, the session will describe how to: measure livability performance, engage stakeholders to tailor goals, address corridor needs, and overcome obstacles. A best example for promoting equity along a corridor, we will feature Fresno’s Blackstone corridor. Through comprehensive planning, community organizing, and infill development, Blackstone is emerging as a vibrant and active multi-modal corridor that connects affordable housing to employment and education, while increasing availability of local commercial and cultural destinations. Using cross-sector initiatives, Blackstone offers a roadmap for transforming auto-oriented arterials into mixed-use boulevards in which whole communities are organized to deliver housing, employment, job training, and social services.

This session will have three main components all centering around AB 52 tribal consultation under CEQA:

1. Provide the legal landscape for tribal consultation (AB 52, SB 18, Executive Orders, recent White House guidance, etc)
2. Discuss some best practices and examples for successful tribal consultation under CEQA
3. Review existing resources for practitioners

The panel will also include additional speakers to discuss best practices, including tribal members.

Classic city-wide community planning academies (CPAs) and local neighborhood boo-camps, together with service learning project, can help reinvigorate planning and zoning processes as they cultivate the next generation of citizen planners. They can also serve as forums for difficult conversations to reexamine the legacy of structurally racist land use policies and decisions and help reform existing planning, zoning and land development policies, programs and processes to ensure they are just, equitable and sustainable.

Representatives from the City of Sacramento’s CPA and a new community base land use academy in Fresno will then outline their complementary models to community driven land use education, how they are structured, how they recruit, what they teach, and how they teach it with a focus on the intersections of land use, race, equity, and community engagement.

This year’s conference highlights the iterative nature of planning. Through each plan, each public hearing, and each community meeting, planners, decision makers, and communities hope to see momentum in addressing health equity, sustainability, and economic issues impacting California’s diverse communities.

Our closing session will reflect on the discussions held at this year’s conference and look toward 2024 in Riverside. An intersectional panel will focus on how planners can equitably and effectively implement plans, featuring collaboration between nonprofits, local government, public institutions, and regional agencies. This session complements the discussions in the Diversity Summit – asking not just how planners can implement, and who are likely (and unlikely) partners in implementation success and building community trust.

Everyone knows the nation is in the midst of an unprecedented housing crisis, and nowhere is it more acute than in California. As cities look to increase housing capacity, aging commercial centers and old strip malls stand out as minefields of opportunity. Most are located along transit rich corridors and adjacent to existing multi-family areas. Many have big box stores that have “gone dark” and sit on expansive over-designed parking lots, begging to be transformed to something more active. As retail shrinks, and housing demand continues to grow, redevelopment of our commercial centers offers a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to breathe new life into our cities with placemaking and much needed housing that connects to transit.

Employing ground floor commercial, and in particular, retail, land uses to activate street-level development in mixed-use projects returns mixed results in many communities. This session explores the potential for policies and design standards to align the performance of ground-floor uses with a community’s vision for an active pedestrian realm. This is a particularly critical planning issue now, as communities are at the crossroads of implementing their housing elements and responding to the impetus of recent housing legislation while also being true to community goals for long-term vitality and sustainability of land use and development decisions. At this juncture of planning and long-term resiliency, do we need zoning to ensure long-term viability, or can we move to a performance-based metric to regulate new development?

There is no argument that women bring unique strengths and experiences to any organization, community, or even individual project but it has often been ignored what women need to bring their best to their job and how they do it.  With panelists from varying levels of the profession, these women will tackle the challenges and opportunities of today’s workplace. From addressing how to have an affective voice for good, navigating the work-motherhood balance, to participating in culture change come hear from both female trailblazers leading their organizations towards female-supportive organizations and mid-level planners navigating the corporate ladder. This session will give you the tools and language to speak up, take action, and empower other women in the industry. The speakers will shed light on their experiences, bringing lessons learned and constructive ways to navigate certain situations. No matter where you are in your career, this session can help you improve some aspect of your work life.