Neal Payton, FAIA, FCNU

One of the biggest obstacles to building new housing in California has now vanished After a decade of battling, lawmakers just exempted infill urban development from the California Environmental Quality Act, or CEQA.

This is huge! calmatters.org/housing/2025...

Governor Newsom announces appointments 6.27.25 | Governor of California

I am honored to have been appointed by Governor Newsom to serve on the California State Historical Resources Commission www.gov.ca.gov/2025/06/27/g...

4/ I’m fairly certain that this was the president’s plan i.e., create excuses to federalize the national guard. And while it is LA today, i would not be surprised to see NY, Chi, Seattle, etc in the future. We’re living through history.

3/ However the president’s actions escalated things, (his plan) causing damage and necessitating deployment of LA riot police (never a good thing), which further escalated things. With the military involved now, all it takes is someone with the wrong temperament on either side, and things get ugly.

2/ The president decided, in his infinite wackiness, with no request from either the Governer or LA City Authoritues, to federalize and deploy the National Guard to LA, mostly focused on Federal property in Downtown. By itself, this was a newsworthy event, but not a lede.

1/ To those outside of southern California who’ve reached out to see if I’m okay, yes, it’s all good. Over the weekend, there were mass protests in reaction to an ICE/DHS campaign that’s focusing on Southern California. They were for the most part peaceful, with a few incidents like always.

These days I don’t agree with Elon very much, but his complaint that cutting off subsidies for EVs and their required infrastructure, but leaving in place subsidies for oil and natural gas production is a crime. Why not cut it all?

Exploring Resiliency and Sustainability Design Planners, architects, builders, developers, REALTORS® and even insurance companies are rallying to get a handle on resilient design.

Thanks @SteveWright for your excellent article on resilient design and including my perspectives on post-fire rebuilding in LA www.nar.realtor/on-common-gr...

I have no problem requiring all-electric in new construction, but it seems a bit of an unfair burden on homeowners whose houses survived unless they are compensated for the cost of converting to all electric.

His “chief strategist” is in the process of pissing on all the relationships he’s ever had, and destroying his business.

1/1 To run a country like a business then you need to
recognize that successful businesses grow on the basis of relationships NOT transactions. But the president doesn’t know that. He’s never built a successful business.

With a Landscape Approach, We Can Reduce the Risk of the Next Wildfire Disaster By Ronnie Siegel The Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) is the area where the built environment meets wildlands. We can reduce the risk of WUI wildfires with a landscape approach. This involves underst…

Excellent analysis showing how some counter intuitive strategies paid off. Against prevailing wisdom, certain trees, and certain growing patterns actually provided protection to structures. dirt.asla.org/2025/04/01/w...

#2513 State of the Union, Rebuilding a bike-oriented LA, and Bike storage as key Podcast Episode · Bike Talk · 04/02/2025 · 58m

This is a podcast about cycling called “Bike Talk” for which I was interviewed about my thoughts on rebuilding in LA post fires in a more pedestrian and bike friendly manner. I’m on at 23:17 podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/b...

This is my neighbor Peter Kerndt. It speaks for itself. #USAID #TB

I wish someone in the admin would just admit they f’ed up. Come clean. Apologize. Say they understand how serious a breech this was, and promise to stick to secure channels only. I for, one would actually respect that person for that. You may say I’m a dreamer….

Top Trump Officials Debated War Plans on Unclassified Chat Shared With Journalist The texts on the Signal encrypted messaging service revealed disagreements about whether to strike Houthis in Yemen.

To be fair, I have, on occasion sent texts to the wrong person, over unsecured chat services. I mean it happens. However, it almost never involved top secret information about intended military targets or payloads www.wsj.com/politics/nat...

Just saw the play tonight and it was riveting. Interesting how one can make academic scholarship riveting.

Coming on March 26 at 6pm EDT (3PM PDT)

3/3 As it is already in fabrication, simply shifting production to the US wouldn’t absolve the contractor from paying for the material already in fabrication.

If you think construction costs were bad before tariffs, they’ve just gotten significantly worse. This hurts all Americans.

2/3 This is for a small building on the site, not the main structure, which fortunately has already been erected. This steel is expected to be ready to ship later this month, but per today’s current tariff would face a 50% surcharge (approximately $100k) to be delivered.

1/3 Please note: tariffs are not a tax on Canada. They are a tax on us in the U.S. Today we heard that there is approximately $200k of steel in production in Canada for a project we designed that is currently under construction.

Foolish on this professor’s part. The more one spreads the acknowledgements, the more accolades come back to that person. Really effective self promoters also promote others.
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New urbanists must have a voice in LA fire recovery Walkable neighborhoods and buildings that frame the public realm should be part of any fire rebuilding effort in Pacific Palisades and Altadena, experts report to CNU.

www.cnu.org/publicsquare...

Wildfire Recovery and Planning Planning and urban design experts discuss recovery from wildfires relative to the LA fire disasters and wildfire recovery and planning in general. The panel included Neal Payton of Torti Gallas, Barry Long of Urban Design Associates, and Kate Blystone of Maui County. The moderator was Robert Steuteville.

Here’s a link to a panel on Wildfire Recovery in which I participated along with Barry Long, Kate Blystone and Rob Steuteville. I discussed the opportunity for redevelopment of the neighborhood centers of Pacific Palisades and Altadena #LAFires

nam11.safelinks.protection.outlook.com?url=https%3A...

Actually, it was Hamas who attacked Israel on October 7. And it was Hamas that launched over 15,000 rockets into Israel, and it is Hamas that is responsible for Gaza being so poor.

It was bullying. It was an apology for Putin.

It needs to. And if it doesn’t, that’s on Europe.

I don’t think that Trump understands how math works. He said, "In just over one month, illegal border crossings have plummeted by numbers that nobody has actually ever seen before. It’s much more than 100 percent," No one has ever seen it before because it is not mathematically possible.

Next Tuesday, March 4 at 12pm ET, On the Park Bench webinar: “Wildfire Recovery and Planning.” Panelists Neal Payton, Barry Long, Kate Blystone, and Martin Dreiling will discuss recovery from the LA fire disasters and urban planning related to wildfires. Register @ us02web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

Increasing DC's Affordable Housing Stock Through Unique Financing Solutions Affordable Homes & Communities' Paul Bernard on The Westerly in D.C. and the complexities of developing mixed-income, mixed-use communities.

A project that we Torti Gallas + Partners are very proud of for its design also is being discussed for its innovative financing allowing 30% affordable apartments in Downtown DC. The unique financing had design implications that were accommodated seamlessly. www.multihousingnews.com/increasing-d...