CP&DR - Articles

The Power of Grid

Sep 1, 1998

Restraint is rarely touted as a virtue in urban design. Often, instructors in the History of Urban Design tend to treat the subject as a series of Greatest Hits - of grand interventions by such magnificently meddlesome people as Andre LeNotre or Baron Haussman or Robert Moses. Teachers in graduate seminars rarely show slides of, say, a Midwestern town and exclaim, "Look at how well the urban designers held themselves back!" The blockbuster mentality makes the current master plan of Mission Ba...

School Bond Includes Repeal of Mira; Builder Are Happy, Citties Aren't as Decade-Long Dispute Ends

Sep 1, 1998

Featured Articles, Timm Herdt, Vol. 13 No. 09 Sep 1998

Ending a two-year political stalemate, the Legislature has placed a $9.2 billion education bond on the November ballot with conditions that would fundamentally change the way school construction is financed in California. Under the proposed reforms, local school districts would have to cover half the cost of new schools, and the state would suspend the ability of cities and counties to levy school fees in excess of state-mandated limits - a power granted by a series of appellate court decisions c...

Citrus Heights Settles with Sacramento County

Sep 1, 1998

Larry Sokoloff, Local Watch, Vol. 13 No. 09 Sep 1998

A settlement has been reached in lawsuits between Sacramento County and the city of Citrus Heights over costs to be paid by the new city related to its incorporation. Citrus Heights incorporated in January 1997, and before incorporation had agreed to pay the county $5.6 million in installments for 25 years. That amount was the county's "profit" from taxes after paying for all services in the area during the period Citrus Heights was unincorporated. The new city was to pay a projected total of $14...

Newhall Ranch Plans Scaled Back

Sep 1, 1998

CP&DR Staff, Local Watch, Vol. 13 No. 09 Sep 1998

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors has begun scaling back Newhall Ranch, a huge project that has been heavily criticized by neighboring Ventura County. Supervisor Mike Antonovich, whose district contains the proposed project, introduced a motion in July to create more open space and possibly reduce the proposed 24,000 home development by 3,500 homes. The board approved the supervisor's motion that the county's staff should implement the proposed changes at its July 28 meeting. As approved by...

Courts May Use Discretion in SLAPP Atorney Fees

Sep 1, 1998

CP&DR Staff, Legal Digest, Vol. 13 No. 09 Sep 1998

Trial judges may use their discretion in determining whether to award attorney fees to SLAPP suit defendants if the plaintiff voluntarily dismisses the case while the anti-SLAPP motion to strike is pending, the Fourth District Court of Appeal has ruled. In making the ruling, Division 2 of the Fourth District rejected the argument that defendant's attorneys should be either automatically entitled to or automatically precluded from receiving such fees. The term "SLAPP" suit - the acronym stands f...

Endangered Species Act: Tribe Not ‘Indispensible' In Species Lawsuit

Sep 1, 1998

CP&DR Staff, Legal Digest, Vol. 13 No. 09 Sep 1998

Reversing a district court judge's ruling, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has concluded that a Native American tribe is not an "indispensable party" in an environmental group's endangered species lawsuit against the federal government. The case involved the Southwest Center for Biological Diversity's lawsuit challenging the federal government's plan to use more water storage capacity behind Roosevelt Dam in Arizona. The group claimed that the government had not done adequate analysis of ...

NEPA: Forest Service Analysis of Fire Risk Found Adequate

Aug 1, 1998

CP&DR Staff, Legal Digest, Vol. 13 No. 08 Aug 1998

The U.S. Forest Service's supplemental environmental impact statement for a timber sale in the State of Washington was adequate, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled. The case involved the Forest Service's decision to add to the sale more than 1,000 trees that were damaged by a fire. Several environmental groups sued, claiming the supplemental EIS did not adequately cover the environmental issues associated with this additional sale. But the Ninth Circuit ruled in favor of the Forest...

LAFCO: Gold Rush City Critics Lose Appellate Ruling

Aug 1, 1998

CP&DR Staff, Legal Digest, Vol. 13 No. 08 Aug 1998

A California appellate court has affirmed that the Sierra Club and other environmentalists did not exhaust their administrative remedies before filing a lawsuit to challenge the San Joaquin County Local Agency Formation Commission's annexation of the Gold Rush City property to Lathrop. However, the appellate court justices said that they consider the rule on which they based their decision "outmoded" and urged the California Legislature or the California Supreme Court to overturn it. Gold ...

Developer Suit Aganist Own Consultant Not SLAPP

Aug 1, 1998

CP&DR Staff, Legal Digest, Vol. 13 No. 08 Aug 1998

Reversing a trial judge's ruling, the Second District Court of Appeal has ruled that a development company's lawsuit against its own engineering firm is not a Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation - a so-called SLAPP suit - within the meaning of the state anti-SLAPP law. It is one of the few instances in which an attempt to use the state anti-SLAPP law has failed in the appellate courts. SLAPP suits are often filed by developers against citizen groups or others who speak out against their...

Farmers Support Anti-Sprawl Measures

Aug 1, 1998

Local Watch, Timm Herdt, Vol. 13 No. 08 Aug 1998

Reports on the need for farmlands preservation in the urbanizing Central Valley have become nearly as commonplace as tract homes in Fresno. But when a high-powered group of valley farmers released their own report last month, the reactions indicated that this one might carry more weight than the rest. The California Building Industry Association, sensing the potential loss of a sometime ally in the valley's land-use wars, condemned the report as "alarmist rhetoric". And the head of a environmenta...

Zoning: Court Reverses Ruling Aganist San Diego in Sex-Club Case

Aug 1, 1998

CP&DR Staff, Legal Digest, Vol. 13 No. 08 Aug 1998

The city of San Diego did not prosecute the owner of a sex club maliciously or selectively even though the city made a series of mistakes in granting him zoning approvals and then prosecuting him, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled. Reversing a district court jury's decision, the three-judge panel concluded that the city did not violate Elbert Poppell's civil rights and that Zoning Administrator Sharren Carr should not be held personally liable because she was acting in a professio...

Blight Finding Overturned: Murrieta's Plan Not Supported by Evidence, Court Rules

Aug 1, 1998

CP&DR Staff, Legal Digest, Vol. 13 No. 08 Aug 1998

The City of Murrieta's was wrong to declare 3,500 acres of land blighted in order to create a redevelopment project area, the Fourth District Court of Appeal has ruled. In a lawsuit brought by the Riverside County government, the Fourth District found that the property is not "predominantly urban" nor is "blighted," both of which are required in order to create a redevelopment area. With the exception of 200 acres of vacant county land that was withdrawn, the area in question "has been depicte...

Coastal Commission Case Remanded

Aug 1, 1998

CP&DR Staff, Legal Digest, Vol. 13 No. 08 Aug 1998

The California Supreme Court has remanded one takings case against the Coastal Commission to the Second District Court of Appeal, in Los Angeles, to be reconsidered in light of the high court's decision in another takings case against the Coastal Commission. In Coastal Commission v. Buckley, No. B081544, the Second District reversed a $2.1 million takings award against the California Coastal Commission, saying that the evidence on the record does not establish that the Commission's actions against a s...

Locals Get Standing in EIS Challenge

Aug 1, 1998

CP&DR Staff, Legal Digest, Vol. 13 No. 08 Aug 1998

Local governments in Nevada do have the standing to intervene in a lawsuit against the Interior Department, challenging the environmental impact process on a proposed water rights acquisition program, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled. The case involves the Interior Department's attempt to implement a water rights acquisition program designed to settle complex and longstanding water rights issues associated with the Newlands Reclamation Project in western Nevada. Under Section 206 of t...