CP&DR -

Adult Business Regulation: Newport Beach Revocation of Permit is Upheld

Feb 1, 1999

CP&DR Staff, Legal Digest, Vol. 14 No. 02 Feb 1999

Ruling on wide-ranging issues in three separate cases filed by the same business, the Fourth District Court of Appeal has upheld a Newport Beach adult business ordinance as constitutional and concluded that the city did not violate the business's constitutional rights by denying some permits and revoking others. As the court stated in its decision, the case is about "appropriate ways in which to distinguish a theater from a restaurant - something with which the general public seems to have ...

Initiatives: Defect Means City Can't Simply Adopt Initiative

Feb 1, 1999

CP&DR Staff, Legal Digest, Vol. 14 No. 02 Feb 1999

The First District Court of Appeal has overturned the Hayward City Council's decision to adopt a proposed ballot initiative reaffirming open-space designations within the city and subjecting future open-space zone changes to a vote. The court concluded that because the signature-gathering effort was legally flawed, the council did not have the right to adopt the initiative as a city ordinance. The decision - a reversal of the trial judge's ruling - is a victory for Mervyn's, the retail chain, which ha...

Davis Administration May Deal with Growth Issues; Appointments, Budgets Suggest Direction

Feb 1, 1999

Featured Articles, Larry Sokoloff, Vol. 14 No. 02 Feb 1999

Despite the heavy emphasis on education issues, newly elected governor Gray Davis has sent some early signals that planning and development will also be important to his administration. The strongest signal yet has been his appointment of strong environmentalists to his Cabinet, as well as comments in his State of the State speech and the budget request he submitted to the Legislature during his first week in office. In his speech, the governor said: "After education and public safety, the most voc...

Sisters of Notre Dame Meet HUD

Feb 1, 1999

Morris Newman, Trends, Vol. 14 No. 02 Feb 1999

The late James Michener once wrote a novel called THE SOURCE, which told the story of a single piece of land in Israel. The metaphor of the story was an archeological dig: the reader went back in time, as if removing layer after layer of soil, uncovering a different story with each stratum. I could never finish the book, to tell the truth: The writing was dry, and the book was a bit of a doorstop. Still, I admired the conceit that any given piece of ground had a good story to tell, or indeed many storie...

New Comission Tackles Cortese-Knox Act; Proposal Likely at End of Year

Feb 1, 1999

Featured Articles, Vol. 14 No. 02 Feb 1999, William Fulton

A new state commission is examining local govern issues and is expected to produce a proposed legislative overhaul of the Cortese-Knox by December. The 15-member Commission on Local Governance for the 21st Century was created last year as a by-product of legislation making it easier for the San Fernando Valley to pursue secession from the City of Los Angeles. The commission is officially charged with reviewing the Cortese-Knox Act, proposing methods to increase public participation in l...

Costal Act: ‘Calvo EXckusion' Doesn't Apply in Malibu Coastal Dispute

Feb 1, 1999

CP&DR Staff, Legal Digest, Vol. 14 No. 02 Feb 1999

A Malibu property owner can't rely on the so-called "Calvo exclusion" - which exempts single-family homes from Coastal Commission jurisdiction - because the property owner had previously agreed to submit to the commission's control, the Second District Court of Appeal has ruled. "Appellant has taken inconsistent positions in this litigation, first waiving the right to further litigate the Calvo exclusion and agreeing to obey any Commission order regarding restoration of the property, and later asserti...

Reatiling and the Web

Feb 1, 1999

Stephen Svete, Trends, Vol. 14 No. 02 Feb 1999

One of the more interesting outcomes of the explosion of the Internet on our culture is the wave of anxiety it has produced at City Halls and in Sacramento. And it's not because the powerful new interactive media isn't already being used in hundreds of ways by state and local government to connect and its constituents - or otherwise benefiting our technology-strong economy. It is because the Web's success threatens to siphon off the lifeblood of the public agency revenue stream: sales tax. The threat...

SFO Offers 15:1 Wetlands Swap for New Runway

Jan 1, 1999

CP&DR Staff, Economic Development, Vol. 14 No. 01 Jan 1999

San Francisco Airport officials have proposed an airport runway expansion that has a novel tradeoff for environmentalists. In exchange for filling up to 1,400 acres of San Francisco Bay for new runways, the airport proposes to restore 29,000 acres of bay wetlands that are located east and south of the airport. The proposal, which is to be formally presented at the end of January, is already proving controversial in the environmental community, and is strongly opposed by Cargill Salt, whose land could...

Anaheim Still Moving Forward with Sportstown

Jan 1, 1999

CP&DR Staff, Economic Development, Vol. 14 No. 01 Jan 1999

Despite a developers' decision to drop out of a 40-acre sports-themed project in Anaheim, city officials are keeping the project on track. Known as Sportstown, the entertainment project is taking shape in the parking lot of the Big A, home of the Anaheim Angels baseball team, and close to the Arrowhead Pond, home to the major league hockey team, the Mighty Ducks. In November, Cleveland-based developer Forest City Enterprises Inc. dropped plans to develop Sportstown, which is to include sports-theme...

Landowner Loses Again: No Taking in Coastal Dispute, Apppellate Court Rules

Jan 1, 1999

CP&DR Staff, Legal Digest, Vol. 14 No. 01 Jan 1999

The Second District Court of Appeal has reaffirmed its decision to overturn a $2 million takings judgment against the Coastal Commission - even after reconsidering the case in light of a California Supreme Court ruling in another coastal case. However, the property owners' lawyers appear determined to fight on to the California Supreme Court on the very issue that caused the remand in the first place. Lawyer Thomas Banks said his client, Peggy Ann Buckley, plans to appeal the case to the Calif...

Catellus, Conservancy Make Big Deal Over Desert Land

Jan 1, 1999

Environment Watch, Larry Sokoloff, Vol. 14 No. 01 Jan 1999

A major land deal to preserve thousands of acres of Southern California desert land is in the works between a land conservation organization and the Catellus Corporation. Acquisition of the land is considered as significant for Southern California as the Headwaters Forest acquisition has been in Northern California. U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein threw her support behind the proposal in mid-December. Feinstein, a longtime supporter of efforts to create two national parks and a national prese...

Santa Cruz Pushes Lumber Rules

Jan 1, 1999

CP&DR Staff, Environment Watch, Vol. 14 No. 01 Jan 1999

Santa Cruz Lumber Rules Santa Cruz County supervisors are clamping down hard on the logging industry, and have approved "in concept" new ordinances that limit logging near residences, helicopter harvesting, and logging near riparian corridors. The ordinances are expected to be presented to the state Board of Forestry next year as proposed rules that would impact only Santa Cruz County. The county is one of a handful of California coastal counties that have special authority to propose rules to the ni...

No EIR Needed on Plan for Landfill, Court Rules

Jan 1, 1999

CP&DR Staff, Legal Digest, Vol. 14 No. 01 Jan 1999

San Diego County's integrated waste management plan did not require preparation of an environmental impact report even though the plan called for the creation of new landfills and identified 10 possible sites for those landfills, the Fourth District Court of Appeal has ruled. "There is no substantial evidence in the administrative record to support a fair argument that the county's adoption of the summary plan and siting element may have a significant environmental impact, and thus the county did not ...

Supreme Court Takes Landslide Case

Jan 1, 1999

CP&DR Staff, Legal Digest, Vol. 14 No. 01 Jan 1999

The California Supreme Court has agreed to review an appellate court decision that ruled the City of Los Angeles should not be held liable for landslide-related damage to a property in the Pacific Palisades even though it violated municipal code requirements. In Haggis v. City of Los Angeles, Supreme Court Docket No. S074364, property owner Paul Haggis argued that his house was damaged by a landslide triggered in the 1994 Northridge earthquake, and later condemned and demolished by the city. After t...