Legal Digest

In a ruling critical to moving forward Sacramento's downtown basketball arena, the Third District Court of Appeal has given the City of Sacramento a clean win in a wide-ranging CEQA challenge brought by a group of individual environmentalists.

Most significantly, the appellate court found that the city did not violate the California Environmental Quality Act by committing itself to a downtown arena site prior to the completion of the environmental impact report and did not have to consider the site of the existing Sleep Train Arena in Natomas in its alternatives analysis. >>read more

The First District Court of Appeal has upheld Calfire's Nonindustrial Timber Management Plan to permit logging of a 17-acre parcel of land in Mendocino County. The First District also rejected the Center for Biological Diversity's claim that the California Department of Fish & Wildlife can be sued under the California Environmental Quality Act over its role in the approval of the NMTP. >>read more

In an important victory for local governments, the Third District Court of Appeal has ruled that the state Department of Finance improperly rejected Emeryville's action to re-enter into several redevelopment agreements with its successor agency.

The case is perhaps the first big win in the post-redevelopment era for local governments, which have battled DOF daily since the elimination of redevelopment three years ago. >>read more

In a split decision, the Fourth District Court of Appeal has upheld the Coastal Commission's conditions on two property owners' reconstruction of a seawall in Encinitas after it was destroyed in a storm, including limiting the new seawall's permit to a 20-year term. >>read more

The California Supreme Court has agreed to review an appellate ruling that Priceline, Expedia, Travelocity and similar "online travel companies" (OTCs) did not have to pay San Diego hotel tax on income they derived using a "merchant model" approach to marketing local hotel rooms. The Second District ruled that if an OTC contracts with a hotel for a block of rooms at a fixed wholesale rate, and then retails them to guests at higher prices, then city hotel tax is due only on the wholesale rate, not the difference the OTC receives. >>read more

In the latest decision on a long series of legal challenges by Peninsula cities and environment groups to the California High Speed Rail project, the Third District Court of Appeal has upheld the final programmatic environmental impact report for the portion of the project that calls for a route from the Central Valley over the Pacheco Pass into Bay Area suburbia. >>read more

California's Fifth Appellate District on July 3 upheld the Westlands Water District's 2012 interim renewal contracts for Central Valley Project water from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, finding the changes they represented were exempt from CEQA review sought by environmental groups. >>read more

The First District Court of Appeal has upheld the EIR supporting a $1.5 billion development plan for Treasure Island, the man-made former World's Fair site at the middle of the San Francisco Bay Bridge. >>read more

California's Fifth District Court of Appeal has issued a partial publication order for its June 30 decision upholding the EIR for a wind turbine farm in Kern County's Tehachapi Wind Resource Area. >>read more

The First District Court of Appeal has argued that Humbolt County did not create a taking of property by requiring the owners of a mobile home underneath an airport flight path to provide an overflight easement in exchange for a permit to build a carport and porch that had been illegally built by the previous owners of the property. >>read more

Reversing the decision of an Orange County Superior Court judge, the Fourth District Court of Appeal has ruled that rezoning residential property in Tustin to accommodate an assisted living facility is a legitimate use of spot zoning.

"The creation of the new senior residential housing zoning district and its application to the Project site were in the public interest and were not arbitrary or capricious," wrote Justice Richard Fybel for a unanimous three-judge panel. >>read more

If the oral argument is any indication, the U.S. Supreme Court is likely to rule against a landowner in Florida who filed a takings lawsuit against an Orlando-area water district - turning what appeared to be an easy victory for property rights advocates into a loss. >>read more

The Fourth District Court of Appeal has upheld the City of Newport Beach's environmental impact report for the Banning Ranch development, rejecting a challenge by a local conservancy which asserted piecemeal environmental review and the adequacy of the impacts of a park the city is building adjacent to Banning Ranch. The court of appeal affirmed the trial court's judgment and denial of the writ. >>read more

In many situations, the settlement of a lawsuit is a flexible tool to resolve disagreements between parties and allow the participants to move on with their lives. A settlement with a public agency invokes slightly different considerations then a matter resolved exclusively through private parties. As previously noted in Trancas Property Owners Association v. City of Malibu (2006) 138 Cal.App.4th 172, a public agency cannot rely upon a settlement agreement to bypass a required land use approval step. >>read more