The Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Agency was correct to require a supplemental environmental impact report (SEIR) for a billboard proposed within a redevelopment project area, the Second District Court of Appeal has ruled.
In 1999, Eller Media Company filed an application to build two billboards within the Hollywood redevelopment project area. Staff members at the CRA conducted an initial study under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and determined that a proposed sign on Sunset Boulevard might have significant adverse impacts on historic resources and community aesthetics. The staff also determined that the billboard was a change to the 1986 project area plan. Additionally, the staff found that a billboard proposed on North Cahuenga Boulevard might have adverse impacts that could be mitigated.
Eller appealed these determinations to the CRA Board of Commissioners, which upheld the staff's conclusions. Eller then filed a lawsuit. Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge David Yaffe ruled for the city.
On appeal, Eller presented four arguments: Substantial evidence did not support CRA's determination that the signs did not conform to the redevelopment plan; the CRA abused it discretion in requiring Eller to prepare a SEIR for the Sunset sign; the initial study did not conform to CEQA Guidelines and required Eller to comply with nonexistent standards; and CRA was not the lead agency under CEQA. A unanimous three-judge panel of the Second District rejected all four contentions.
Eller argued that the CRA could not determine that the proposed signs failed to conform to the redevelopment plan because the CRA had never adopted sign and billboard standards that the plan called for. This failure allowed the agency to apply subjective criteria, Eller contended.
The court, however, found that "CRA was duty bound to determine of Eller's proposed billboards conformed with the plan. The performance of this duty was not dependent on CRA's exercise of its permissive power to adopt specific standards relating to signs and billboards in the project area. In the absence of such standards, CRA nevertheless was required to consult with the existing provisions of the plan to determine if Eller's proposed billboards did or did not conform to the plan. Eller has made no showing that CRA's factual determinations in this case were the product of unbridled discretion and ad hoc standards. … CRA correctly evaluated Eller's proposal in light of the entire plan." (The CRA later adopted standards that prohibited all billboards and pole signs in the Hollywood project area.)
As for the abuse of discretion contention, the court found that CRA followed CEQA and the CEQA Guidelines.
"An EIR for a redevelopment project is known as a program EIR," Presiding Justice Vaino Spencer explained. "A program EIR is designed to analyze environmental impacts of a series of related actions that can be characterized as one large project. That CEQA contains provisions for subsequent and supplemental EIRs reflects the Legislature's recognition that the need for environmental review may arise after the certification of a final EIR and the adoption of the redevelopment plan to which it relates."
"Eller's proposal to construct a billboard at the Sunset site, which was submitted 13 years after the final EIR was certified and the plan was adopted, is an individual, site-specific development project within the project area whose specific impacts could not possibly have been identified at the time the final EIR was certified. Accordingly, CRA correctly determined that this proposed construction was ‘new information' that was not known and could not have been known at the time the final EIR was certified as complete," Spencer continued.
The court found that Eller's argument regarding the nonexistent standards "has appeal." However, Eller suggested no remedy, and the plan did contain general provisions against which CRA could measure the proposed signs, the court ruled.
Finally, the court held that CRA, which has ultimate authority over building permits in the project area, clearly was the lead agency — not the City of Los Angeles, as Eller contended.
The Case:
Eller Media Co. v. Community Redevelopment Agency, No. B156300, 03 C.D.O.S. 3467, 2003 DJDAR 4343. Filed March 28, 2003. Ordered published April 23, 2003.
The Lawyers:
For Eller: Richard Hamlin, (310) 216-2165.
For CRA: Kathryn Reimann, (831) 647-1430.
An environmental impact report for a dairy in Madera County has survived a challenge from an organization that fights dairy expansion in the Central Valley. The Fifth District Court of Appeal rejected arguments that the EIR's handling of endangered species issues, project alternatives and cumulative groundwater impacts was inadequate.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia has turned back a San Diego developer's broad attack on the Endangered Species Act as an unconstitutional exercise of federal power.
Rancho Viejo LLC argued that the federal government had exceeded the authority granted to it by the constitution's Commerce Clause, and the developer pointed to two recent Supreme Court decisions striking down laws because they exceeded Congress's authority under the clause.
A city clerk did not have authority to throw out a zoning initiative petition based on evidence she received that the petition had been improperly circulated, the First District Court of Appeal has ruled.
The city clerk's role was ministerial, and she did not have the authority to consider extrinsic evidence about how the initiative's backers circulated the measure, the court held.
The California Coastal Commission does not have authority to consider environmental impacts to areas inside the coastal zone caused by development outside the coast zone, the First District Court of Appeal has ruled. The decision is the most definitive to date on the Commission's authority when a project straddles the coastal zone boundary.
Claims that Sacramento County violated the California Environmental Quality Act while approving a commercial development have been dismissed by the Third District Court of Appeal because the project opponent did not submit a written request for a hearing within 90 days of filing a lawsuit.
The attorney for opponent Forster-Gill, Inc., argued that a telephone call to the court clerk within the 90-day period was adequate, but the appellate court disagreed, ruling that the law "plainly contemplates a written request that can be, and is, filed with the court."
A state appellate court has upheld the California Coastal Commission's denial of a development permit for a small mixed-use project in Morro Bay.
The court rejected developer Dan Reddell's arguments that the commission violated his due process and equal protection rights, and that its decision was a regulatory taking of property. Instead, the Second District Court of Appeal ruled that substantial evidence supported the commission's finding that Reddell's project was inconsistent with Morro Bay's local coastal plan (LCP).
A state appellate court has thrown out an Inyo County general plan amendment that the county argued was nothing more than a clarification of a longstanding policy.
A unanimous three-judge panel of the Fourth District Court of Appeal, Division Two, concluded that the amendment was more than a mere clarification and that the county should have completed an environmental impact report before approving the amendment.
A City of West Hollywood moratorium on new multi-family housing development has been declared invalid by the Second District Court of Appeal. The court ruled that the city had not made required findings for the moratorium.
The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has set back a plan to develop the country's largest solid waste landfill near Joshua Tree National Park. The court ruled that the environmental analysis for the project was inadequate and that the Bureau of Land Management undervalued land it would provide to the landfill developer.
A state appellate court has struck down a California Environmental Quality Act exemption for an air district rule permitting new power plants to offset emissions by paving roads. The court found that the Mojave Desert Air Quality Management District did not have adequate evidence to support its finding that the rule could not have a negative impact on the environment.
A developer is not entitled to reimbursement or damages from a consultant hired by a local government to complete an environmental impact report, the First District Court of Appeal has ruled. Even when the consultant fails to complete an EIR in a timely manner, the consultant owes no contractual duty to the developer that paid for the consultant, the court concluded.
In the first decision of its kind, a divided Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel has declared that the City of Goleta's mobile home rent control ordinance constitutes a regulatory taking.
