CP&DR - Articles

Envirnomental Impact Report required for Mitigation Bank

May 1, 1999

CP&DR Staff, Legal Digest, Vol. 14 No. 05 May 1999

The Metropolitan Water District must complete an environmental impact report before creating a mitigation bank that MWD and private developers would use to offset building on habitat for endangered species, the Fourth District Court of Appeals has ruled. The ruling reverses a trial court judge's decision that allowed plans for the multiple species reserve in western Riverside County to go forward with only a mitigated negative declaration. The appellate court backed San Bernardino Valley Audubon Socie...

Approval Process: Landowner Loses Subdivision for a Second Time

Apr 1, 1999

CP&DR Staff, Legal Digest, Vol. 14 No. 04 Apr 1999

Completing the subdivision application process twice, and having the project rejected both times, does not qualify as an exhaustion of the administrative process, The First District Court of Appeal as ruled. In a case from the Town of Ross, a unanimous three-judge panel said a landowner's taking claim was not ripe because the landowner had not used up all administrative remedies. The court also said the "futility exception" was not available because the landowner had filed only two applications, both ...

Trustee Agencies Must Get Negative Declaration Notice

Apr 1, 1999

CP&DR Staff, Legal Digest, Vol. 14 No. 04 Apr 1999

Failure of a county to send a copy of a mitigated negative declaration to the state Department of Fish & Game is a big enough oversight to require setting aside the mitigated negative declaration and a subsequent rezoning, the Third District Court of Appeal has ruled. In interpreting Public Resources Code §21005, the unanimous three-judge panel ruled that the lack of notice given to a trustee agency "deprived the county of information necessary to informed decision making and informed public participa.

Court Defines Environmental ‘Baseline': Conditions Allowed By CUP Serve As Starting Point

Apr 1, 1999

California Environmental Quality Act, CP&DR Staff, Legal Digest, Ventura County, Vol. 14 No. 04 Apr 1999

A county considering the environmental impact of a proposal to expand a mine may use full-capacity operation of the existing facility as the environmental "baseline" even if the facility is operating at less than full capacity, the Second District Court of Appeal has ruled.

SF Lawyer Named Director of OPR

Apr 1, 1999

CP&DR Staff, Local Watch, Vol. 14 No. 04 Apr 1999

Loretta Lynch, a San Francisco lawyer with solid Democratic credentials, is the new Office of Planning and Research director. Gov. Gray Davis in mid-March named Lynch to the top job at OPR, which provides technical assistance to local planners and runs the State Clearinghouse for project review. The 37-year-old Lynch has been a partner in Keker & Van Nest since 1991, where she represented small and large companies in securities trading matters. Lynch is a graduate of University of Southern California ...

Rent Control: Court Upholds City Board's Denial of Requested Increase

Apr 1, 1999

CP&DR Staff, Legal Digest, Vol. 14 No. 04 Apr 1999

Carson's mobile home rent control board acted properly in granting a mobile home park owner a rent increase of only $58 per month rather than the $160-170 that the park owner requested, the Second District Court of Appeal has ruled. The court also ruled that the city's formula for granting rent increases is constitutional even though it is vague. The city board reduced the rent increase by determining that the mobile home park should amortize the cost of remediating contaminated wetlands over...

LAFCO: AG's Opinion Addresses Alternate Member's Role

Apr 1, 1999

CP&DR Staff, Legal Digest, Vol. 14 No. 04 Apr 1999

Alternate members of a Local Agency Formation Commission, when not serving in the place of regular members, may participate in public hearings and deliberations, but they may not attend closed sessions, according to a state Attorney General's opinion. The opinion should lead to a standardization of practices for the 57 LAFCOs in California, said Mike Gotch, executive director of the California Association of Local Agency Formation Commissions. In fact, Gotch was the one who raised the issue of parti...

Amphitheatre and Speedway Find a Home in Yuba County

Apr 1, 1999

Local Watch, Paul Shigley, Vol. 14 No. 04 Apr 1999

Auto racetracks and rock concert venues are often seen as noisy land uses with the potential to generate monster traffic jams. Rare is the homeowner who wants a speedway or concert amphitheater in his back yard. Thus, the lack of opposition to plans to build a speedway and amphitheater in southern Yuba County is extraordinary — but no more extraordinary than the fact that this $90 million development is pegged for one of California's poorest counties. Preliminary grading and road work has commenced ...

L.A. may have multiple planning commissions

Apr 1, 1999

CP&DR Staff, Local Watch, Vol. 14 No. 04 Apr 1999

L.A. may have multiple planning commissions An overhaul of the Los Angeles City Charter, which will go before voters June 13, calls for creation of at least five area planning commissions. But those area commissions would have limited powers, and the citywide Planning Commission would remain in place, under the proposal. "The citywide Planning Commission is seen as a body that's not very closely related to the people," Jackie DuPont-Walker, chairwoman of the Elected Charter Reform Commission said. ...

Cities Struggle To Regulate Adult Business

Apr 1, 1999

Adult businesses, Featured Articles, Paul Shigley, Vol. 14 No. 04 Apr 1999

They raise the ire of homeowners and merchants, councilmembers and supervisors, police chiefs and chamber of commerce leaders. They are seen as blights on a town, attractions for the wrong element. They should be run out of town, is the common sentiment.

Stable Funding Sources Elude Several State Land Conservancies

Apr 1, 1999

Environment Watch, Larry Sokoloff, Vol. 14 No. 04 Apr 1999

Money problems for the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy earlier this year have highlighted a need among most of the state's six land conservancies to find a long-term funding source to carry out their mission of acquiring, restoring and preserving open space. The Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, which acquires land throughout Los Angeles County and in southeastern Ventura County, announced it had run out of money to even pay administrative costs as of June 30. A state Assembly budget subcommitte...

Construction Pace Quickens

Apr 1, 1999

Stephen Svete, Trends, Vol. 14 No. 04 Apr 1999

It is said that a rising tide lifts all ships. It would stand to reason, then, that California's resurgent economy is uniformly raising construction activity. But tides are, after all, fluid. Swells and surges may drop a boat here or there, depending on the harbor. And so it is with California's building. Some of the trends that we began to notice last year are holding strong, while others have reversed — suggesting that the current boom manifests in ways that are particular to Califor...

There's Nobility in Simplicity

Apr 1, 1999

Deals, Morris Newman, Vol. 14 No. 04 Apr 1999

We have grown suspicious of simplicity. We late 20th Century folk have come to equate complexity with competence. We tend to give the benefit of the doubt to things that have been over-intellectualized, over-wrought and over-papered. We want massive documents with hundreds of appendices that only consultants can read and interpret for us. The trend has given rise to a kind of info-snobbery: If a non-expert offers us an opinion, we tend to give it less weight than if a specialist weighs in on th...

Rapidly Growing Contra Costa Considers Tighter Urban Limit Line; New Regional Planning Efforts Stretch From Bay Area to Valley

Apr 1, 1999

Featured Articles, Vol. 14 No. 04 Apr 1999, William Fulton

In the latest chapter in a long-running story, Contra Costa County and many of its cities appear to be ready to tighten up the county's urban limit line. The county is examining the creation of tighter boundaries in the controversial Tassajara Valley area and in fast-growing eastern Contra Costa County. Meanwhile, the county's Local Agency Formation Commission recently adopted a written policy committing itself to honoring the county's urban limit line wherever possible. Urban limit line tightening co...