CP&DR - Articles

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...

AG: No Conflict in Infrastructure Deal

Jan 1, 1999

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

Requiring a landowner to provide an excess amount of infrastructure capacity - and reimbursing that landowner later with other county funds - does not fall under the state's conflict of interest laws if a county supervisor is one of the landowners, according to a new opinion from the state attorney general's office. According to the attorney general, such a requirement - permitted under the state's Subdivision Map Act - is not a contract between the developer and the landowners and therefore does not ...

City Not Required to Condemn Lease

Jan 1, 1999

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

The City of South San Francisco isn't required to compensate a property owner for the city's own leasehold interest in the property - as well as the value of the property itself - in an eminent domain action, the First District Court of Appeal has ruled. The case involves South San Francisco's decision to take the property of the Mayer family by eminent domain - property that the city had already leased from the Mayers for use as a city conference center. The Mayers leased the property to the city ...

Santa Clara Moves Forward with Controversial Sun Project

Jan 1, 1999

Kathleen Sharp, Local Watch, Vol. 14 No. 01 Jan 1999

A state hospital once used as an insane asylum has triggered one of the most contentious development battles in Silicon Valley, with officials on both sides of the deal calling each other crazy - and more. "It was a sweetheart deal and there was a lot of yelling over it," said Eddie Souza, former Santa Clara mayor. Sun Microsystems is building new corporate headquarters on 82.5 acres it bought from the state for $52 million. The high-tech company's digs will rise on a portion of the former Agnew Dev...

L.A. County OKs Newhall Ranch Development Project; But Approval Raises Familiar Water Supply Issues

Jan 1, 1999

Featured Articles, Paul Shigley, Vol. 14 No. 01 Jan 1999

By importing water from at least three sources, the largest housing subdivision ever processed by Los Angeles County could actually enhance the health of the wild river that splits the project site, according to proponents. Opponents of Newhall Ranch, however, see the proposed 12,000-acre development as a threat to the Santa Clara River, the region's last undammed river, and to Ventura County farmers and urban water customers. No matter who is right, Newhall Ranch is being closely watched statewide by...

The Suburban Novelty Made Urbane

Jan 1, 1999

Morris Newman, Places, Vol. 14 No. 01 Jan 1999

The proposed expansion of Farmers Market in Los Angeles raises an important question: Can "theme-park" architecture co-exist with "real" urbanism? By now, everyone is familiar with the coming urban apocalypse known as "Disney-fication" or "the theming of America." Outside of Las Vegas and Hollywood Boulevard, this phenomenon has largely been limited to suburban "entertainment centers," which are usually anchored by multiplex theaters and sell fast food and other "impulse" items amid an atmosphere of...

NEPA: EIS Required for Logging on U.S. Land After Fire

Jan 1, 1999

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

The U.S. Forest Service should have prepared an environmental impact statement before awarding a series of contracts for timber salvage sales in the Umatilla National Forest in eastern Oregon, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled. The Ninth Circuit's ruling - the latest in a long series of decisions on Forest Service operations in the Northwest - reversed the ruling of U.S. District Court Judge Ann Aiken, who had granted summary judgment to the Forest Service against the claims brought by...

Zoning Ordinances Come Under Renewed Scrutiny; Cities, Counties Ponder Radical Shift or Simple ‘Tweak'

Jan 1, 1999

Featured Articles, Vol. 14 No. 01 Jan 1999, William Fulton

As California's post-recession economy picks up steam, many city and county planning departments are revisiting an important policy document that serves as one of the pillars of the community's planning. Contrary to expectation, however, this policy document is not the general plan. It's the zoning ordinance — a document that serves as the workhorse of day-to-day land-use planning but can easily be rendered obsolete or irrelevant by a rapidly changing economy or a highly political planning environmen...

Oakland Port Expansion Moves Forward with Mitigations

Dec 1, 1998

Larry Sokoloff, Public Development, Vol. 13 No. 12 Dec 1998

The Port of Oakland is moving ahead with plans for a second dredging project to make it more attractive to larger ships. As part of the dredging some novel environmental restoration projects are planned, with a plan to fill a part of San Francisco Bay proving controversial to environmentalists. This past summer, the Port finished a $110 million dredging project to increase its depth from 38 feet to 42 feet. With an eye on remaining competitive in the future, the Port now wants to remove another eight ...

Morphing Houses in Downtown Upland

Dec 1, 1998

Deals, Morris Newman, Vol. 13 No. 12 Dec 1998

In the Animorph series of children's novels, teenagers receive a forbidden power from space aliens: the ability to "morph" or change their natural form into those of various animals. This morphing ability enables the children to do many things otherwise impossible for human beings, such as performing reconnaissance missions in the form of hawks, or fighting underwater in the form of sharks, and literally becoming flies on the wall. (This last-named ability is a source of envy among journalists.) If ad...

Forest Service Sued Over Management of SoCal Forests

Dec 1, 1998

Environment Watch, Larry Sokoloff, Vol. 13 No. 12 Dec 1998

The U.S. Forest Service could be forced to make changes in its land-use planning for four forests it manages in Southern California as a result of a lawsuit that charges the service hasn't properly considered preserving the 40 federally endangered and threatened species of plants and animals that live there. Until the Forest Service takes those species into account, the suit is asking a federal court to stop such activities as livestock grazing, mining, off-road vehicle use, road building, land ...