Today on AirTalk, we'll discuss a recent San Diego City Council vote to nix minimum parking requirement for new housing developments and what a similar proposal might look like in Los Angeles. We also analyze how the state supreme court’s decision on the so-called ‘California rule’ impacts you; and more.
San Diego moves to eliminate parking requirements for new housing. Is LA next?
San Diego City Council voted Monday to nix the minimum parking requirement for new housing developments. The change comes as the city aims to address housing shortage and move away from a car-oriented city plan.
The new policy will allow developers to build condominium or apartment buildings without parking spots if the property is located within a half-mile distance from a major public transit stop. Sacramento and San Francisco are two other California cities that have already approved similar parking changes.
We’ll talk about how this politically-challenging proposal made it through the city council, how a similar proposal might look in Los Angeles and the specific challenges that would need to be addressed here, and check-in on the efforts to address the affordable housing crisis at the state level.
With guest host Libby Denkmann
Guests:
Andrew Bowen, metro reporter at KPBS; he tweets
Katy Murphy, State Capitol and housing reporter for the Bay Area News Group; she tweets
Michael Manville, assistant professor of urban planning at UCLA
Mott Smith, principal with Civic Enterprise Development, a mid-sized developing firm based in L.A., and adjunct professor in the USC Price School of Public Policy; he tweets
‘SimCity’ inspired a whole cohort of urban planners -- what inspired your career?
Has a childhood game or seemingly trivial experience become the starting point to your eventual career path as an adult?
Jessica Roy’s latest article for the Los Angeles Times explores just that -- how a generation of city planners were inspired by “SimCity,” the hit city planning and building game first published by Maxis in 1989 that rocketed to success among computer gamers in the 1990s and spawned another hit title, “The Sims.” Players start off as “mayor” and are given a plot of undeveloped land that they must then zone and develop into a thriving city where people want to live, all while setting and regulating local tax, budget and social policies, and dealing with unexpected events like natural disasters.
Today on AirTalk, guest host Libby Denkmann talks with Roy about her piece as well as one of the people mentioned in it whose experience playing Sim City in college led him to a career in urban planning and city management. But we want to hear from you, too! What inspired you to pursue the career you chose? Can you attribute it to something like a video game or TV show or movie or a book? What about an experience you had growing up with someone whose career you ended up choosing? Join the conversation at 866-893-5722.
With guest host Libby Denkmann
Guest:
Jessica Roy, audience engagement editor at the LA Times, where she also covers pop culture, politics and technology; her recent piece is “From video game to day job: How ‘SimCity’ inspired a generation of city planners;” she tweets
Orange County experiences dramatic rise in homelessness
As Orange County squabbles over how to address homelessness, a previously unreleased count found the number of people living on the streets of north Orange County is nearly 60 percent higher than the last official estimate in 2017. Anaheim, the largest city in north Orange County, has twice the homeless population estimated in that 2017 count.
The intensive census of homeless people in 13 cities was carried out with public funds by local law enforcement officers, homeless outreach workers and volunteers over a three-week period during March and April of 2018.
Experts and public officials involved in the census cautioned that the size and nature of the homeless population has likely changed in the year since the data was collected. Still, the data provides a more recent and much more detailed snapshot of the area's homeless population than previously known.
Officials have had the data for months but repeatedly declined to release it until KPCC/LAist filed a public records act request in January. The delay raises questions at a time when Orange County is embroiled in a major, county-wide legal battle over the lack of shelter space and if, where and how new shelters should be built.
An accurate count is a key measure for the fate of the county's homeless residents. Officials and nonprofits use the numbers to determine how many shelter beds and other services are needed. They also use the numbers to apply for funding to address homelessness.
Read Jill’s LAist piece here
With guest host Libby Denkmann
Guest:
Jill Replogle, Orange County reporter for KPCC who’s looked at the new homeless numbers from OC
How the state supreme court’s decision on the so-called ‘California rule’ impacts you
The California Supreme Court on Monday upheld a decision by state lawmakers to roll back one way for public workers to pad their pensions, but avoided ruling on the larger issue of whether retirement benefits can be taken away once promised.
At issue in the unanimous decision was a provision of a 2012 pension reform law that ended the ability of public workers to pay for more years of service for a more lucrative pension when they retire. The law, backed by former Gov. Jerry Brown, sought to rein in costs and end practices viewed as abuses of the system.
Attorneys for a union argued that the elimination of additional retirement service credits violated a long line of California court rulings that have made pension benefits for existing employees sacrosanct. Those court decisions established the “California Rule,” which says workers enter a contract with their employer on their first day of work that entitles them to retirement benefits that can never be diminished unless replaced with similar benefits.
Critics of the rule, along with employee unions, were keeping a close eye on the case because it had the potential to upend the California Rule. But the justices sidestepped the issue by ruling that additional retirement service credits were not “core pension rights” that lawmakers were contractually bound to honor.
The justices are considering several other pension cases, so they may address the California Rule in another case.
With files from the Associated Press
With guest host Libby Denkmann
Guest:
Randy Diamond, writer for Chief Investment Officer, an investment news, opinion and research site, where he covers CalPERS and CalSTRS
Should the FDA regulate fecal transplants as if poop is a drug or a bodily tissue?
If human feces is used to cure a disease, then is it a drug or a bodily tissue?
That’s a question the FDA has to answer in order to regulate fecal microbiota transplants (FMT), a treatment in which feces is transferred from a healthy donor to one suffering from Clostridioides difficile, also known as C. diff, in order to introduce healthy bacteria into the gut of the patient.
In 2013, the FDA drafted a decision to regulate FMT like a drug, while continuing to analyze the situation. The decision is expected to come down shortly. As reported by the New York Times, the FDA’s decision will have bearing on how the treatment is regulated, as well as how much it costs.
Currently, the treatment, which involves transferring fecal matter via colonoscopy or enema, has a success rate of over 80 percent. Though the FDA hasn’t approved the therapy, it can be tried in situations where other therapies have failed. Concurrently, drug companies have been investing resources into figuring out a different way to deliver the benefits of FMT -- including via pill.
Some pharmaceutical voices and doctors have said that the drug model will mean a safer development of this treatment. But other doctors fear that if FMT is regulated like a drug, then pharma will make the treatment expensive and inaccessible. Still, others think that the FDA should create a new regulatory category for developments in microbiota therapies.
Which regulatory framework would work best for patients, as well as research and development?
With guest host Libby Denkmann
Guests:
Colleen Kelly, M.D., a gastroenterologist and associate professor of medicine at the Brown University medical school, where she has been doing fecal microbiota transplants for over 10 years
Leigh Turner, associate professor at the Center for Bioethics, School of Public Health and College of Pharmacy at the University of Minnesota