Legal Digest

The City of Orange's strategy for enhancing its downtown ambiance received a sharp rebuke from the Fourth District Court of Appeal.

The purely aesthetic impacts of a housing project in an urban area are not enough to require preparation of an environmental impact report, the First District Court of Appeal has ruled. In a lengthy opinion, the court appeared to conclude that where aesthetics are the lone issue, a local government's design review process could substitute for environmental review.

The U.S. Supreme Court is scheduled to hear three cases during its 2004-05 session with potential implications for planning, land regulation and development in California. The court has accepted for review an eminent domain case from Connecticut, a case involving the installation of a radio antenna in Rancho Palos Verdes, and a takings case from Hawaii.

Mendocino County's automatic merger of four lots into one has been upheld by an appellate court. The court rejected the property owners' argument that they should have received advance notice from the county before the lot merger became effective.

Monterey County should have completed an environmental impact report for a proposal to demolish a county jail that many people consider historic for cultural and architectural reasons, the Sixth District Court of Appeal has ruled.

In the first published ruling on the subject, the Second District Court of Appeal has ruled that the newly incorporated City of Goleta had the discretion to reject a final subdivision map.

A sweetheart deal that permitted nearly 300 mobile home owners to maintain homes in a state park at the beach has reached a conclusion.

A Placer County judge's decision to throw out a mitigated negative declaration for an employee housing project in the high Sierra has been upheld by the Third District Court of Appeal.

The Court of Appeal has again upheld a public agency's dismissal of project alternatives as economically infeasible, even though the project's environmental impact report did not include an economic analysis. The ruling is the third published decision in two years in which a court has said that an economic analysis does not have to be part of an EIR.

An amendment to a local coastal plan is not subject to the California Environmental Quality Act, even if the local agency adopts an environmental impact report for the amendment, the Second District Court of Appeal has ruled.

In a ruling with potential implications for development projects impacting wetlands, streams and lakes subject to federal jurisdiction, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld an injunction against a development in suburban Phoenix that environmentalists challenged based on the Clean Water Act. Although the court did not rule on the merits, the court did indicate that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers needed to consider more of the 600-acre subdivision than simply the 66 small locations, total

A state appellate court has rejected the City of Malibu's argument that the state Legislature could not require the California Coastal Commission to adopt a local coastal program (LCP) for Malibu. The court also ruled that the Coastal Commission-prepared LCP is not subject to a local voter referendum.

State legislation approved in 2001 permits a Southern California wholesale water agency to sell water directly to retail customers, the Second District Court of Appeal has ruled. The ruling was a victory for the Castaic Lake Water Agency over leaders of the Newhall County Water District and slow-growth advocates.

A ruling by the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals appears to have thrown into doubt many of the approximately 100 mobile home rent control ordinances in effect in California cities and counties. A divided three-judge panel ruled that the City of Cotati's mobile home rent control ordinance was unconstitutional because, under the ordinance, the possibility existed that tenants might receive what amounts to a transfer of equity from landowners when tenants sell their mobile homes.