Articles

Lawyers for organizations may feel both shudders and relief on reading a recent appellate decision protecting attorney-client privilege for the members of a La Jolla homeowners' association. Shudders, that a local court's discovery order would have required individual homeowners to recount group strategy meetings held by their HOA's lawyers. Relief, that the Fourth District Court of Appeal has blocked the order.

Ruling for the Coastal Commission against property owners represented by the Pacific Legal Foundation, California's Second Appellate District cited the doctrine of collateral estoppel to find that an easement condition on a coastal development permit, once final, cannot be contested in a second permit application.

HUD's in-house auditor has joined the chorus asking what now becomes of assets funded through California redevelopment agencies. 

March 13 was a bad day for big water in California. A state appellate court blocked preliminary studies for the Delta water tunnel on takings grounds, and the federal Ninth Circuit threw its weight against California's existing southbound hydraulics on behalf of the tiny Delta smelt.

Studies for Delta tunnel project found to be takings in themselves.

The tar pit–inspired scheme by Swiss architect Peter Zumthor to replace the eastern half of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art is a rare misstep by one of the world's most gifted architects. Surprisingly for a Pritzker-winning architect famed for his sensitivity to context and site, this ink blotch of a design shows little understanding of its park site, or, for that matter, the context of Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles as a whole, or museums as a building type. It should not be built.

The California Second District Court of Appeal has sided with the Coastal Commission against organic farmers accused of damaging habitat on a ridge above Topanga Canyon. In a January 24 ruling, the Second District refused to block cease and desist and restoration orders issued by the Commission to property owners Stefan, Kathryn and Rahel Hagopian.

A square mile of Central Valley farmland moved closer to development with the defeat, on procedural grounds, of a CEQA and reorganization challenge to the annexation of 960 acres by the City of Ceres under its West Landing Specific Plan.

In a new case from Humboldt County, the First District Court of Appeals has ruled that Caltrans must see the trees as well as the forest -- at least in the environmental impact report for a controversial road widening.

By the simplest accounts, peace has returned to Lake Tahoe.

California-Nevada cooperation has rescued the Lake Tahoe Regional Compact from years of deadlock and faltering communication over environmental governance by the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency (TRPA).

Redevelopment reform has been gridlocked in the state capital for two years, but Governor Jerry Brown issued new clues on where he's heading in the state budget that was released in January. 

A Riverside County city will take the first steps to disincorporate itself in January, with the blame being pointed at Sacramento and state government decisions about how new cities are financed. Several other cities in the Inland Empire have discussed disincorporation, but no others appear to be close to taking such an action.  

The city, named Jurupa Valley, could be any city in California. But most observers say the disincorporation is due to the fact that it was the last city to incorporate before state laws changed in 2011.

In an unpublished opinion, the First District Court of Appeal has rejected an attack on San Francisco's single-use plastic-bag ban, saying that the city did not violate the California Environmental Quality Act and that local plastic-bag bans are not overridden by the state's Retail Food Code.

There's no question that Riverside County is still the single-family home capital of California. Between 2010 and 2013, more single-family detached homes were built in Riverside than in any other county in the state – a lot more. 

In a new opinion, the Sixth District Court of Appeal has unraveled a confusing set of events surrounding the certification of the environmental impact report for San Jose's new general plan, concluding that an environmental group exhausted all administrative remedies and can sue over the EIR.

The California Clean Energy Committee sued over the certification of the EIR, saying that it should not be penalized because of the confusing way San Jose certified the EIR. The Sixth District agreed.