Legal Digest

A state appellate court has reinstated a lawsuit challenging the environmental impact report for a 6,500-unit project in Madera County. The Fifth District Court of Appeal found that a lower court's dismissal of the lawsuit because of procedural problems was inappropriate.

A federal injunction that halted the City of Stockton's code enforcement crackdown on dilapidated residential hotels has been upheld by the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

A quarry in unincorporated Alameda County may go forward despite a potential conflict with a growth-control initiative that voters approved in 2000, an appellate court has ruled.

The environmental review of a proposed mining reclamation plan need not consider the impacts of the actual mining, the Third District Court of Appeal has concluded.

The Fifth District Court of Appeal has published its opinion in which the court invalidated the Castaic Lake Water Agency's urban water management plan.

The First District Court of Appeal has refused to excuse a citizens group's failure to comply with a California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) procedural requirement, and has upheld dismissal of a lawsuit.

An environmental study of a rock quarry proposed in northern San Diego County has survived a second court challenge.

The City of Sausalito's lawsuit over a development plan for the former Fort Baker Army base at the north end of the Golden Gate Bridge is headed back to district court.

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.