Legal Digest

A framework intended to guide all local general plans in San Diego County could be adopted as soon as June by the San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG). Advocates of the framework say it has the potential to be one of the most effective regional plans ever devised in California.

The City of Morgan Hill's decision not to rezone the site of a closed hospital to allow for development of a private, Christian college has been upheld by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. The Ninth Circuit ruled that the city did not run afoul of the federal Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA), as San Jose Christian College had alleged.

A homebuilder's lawsuit over the City of Encinitas's fee scheme, which allowed the city building official to implement automatic fee changes, has been allowed to proceed. The Fourth District Court of Appeal ruled that even though the fees took effect years before the homebuilder paid them, the normal statute of limitations did not apply because the city made no provision for public review. >>read more

In a ruling directly at odds with a landmark 1995 decision, the Sixth District Court of Appeal has ruled that local government may not regulate the location of timber harvests.

A community college board's decision to close and demolish a shooting range, clean up lead contamination at the site and transfer shooting range operations to a new location amounts to a "project" that requires review under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), the Fifth District Court of Appeal has ruled.

Neighbors of a Marin County rock quarry, which has been the source of complaints and government investigations for years, have failed in their bid to pursue a class action lawsuit against the quarry for allegedly illegal activities.

In a unanimous opinion, the state Supreme Court has ruled that a community service district's water connection charge and fire suppression charge are exempt from the restrictions of Proposition 218. The ruling was only the state high court's second in a Proposition 218 case, and in both instances, the court ruled for local government.

An appellate court has ruled against homeowners who sought to prevent Santa Monica City Council members from making inquiries of staff members other than the city manager. "An injunction to prevent such communication violates the First Amendment. The First Amendment protects everyone, even politicians," Justice Arthur Gilbert wrote for the unanimous three-judge panel of the Second District, Division Six.

The City of Wasco has been ordered to pay an attorney that represented the city in complicated bond finance dealings during the mid-1990s. The First District Court of Appeal rejected the city's argument that the payments violated the state constitution's ban on incurring general fund debt.

An appellate court has upheld an injunction prohibiting the City of Garden Grove from requiring existing cybercafes to get conditional use permits. However, the appellate court removed an injunction against city-imposed operating requirements at the cybercafes.

A wireless telecommunications service provider may seek damages under the federal Civil Rights Act because a city improperly denied the provider a conditional use permit, according to the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Two decisions by the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeal appear to bolster local rent control ordinances, although the decisions at least hint at the court's doubt as to whether the state's system for weighing landowners' takings claims is adequate. In separate cases, the Ninth Circuit rejected allegations that the application of mobile home rent control ordinances in Carson and Morgan Hill were unconstitutional takings of private property.

The City of San Jose did not have to prepare a supplemental environmental impact report for the proposed expansion of a water recycling program because an earlier EIR adequately addressed the issues, the Sixth District Court of Appeal has ruled. The ruling came in a lawsuit filed by a citizens group and the Great Oaks Water Company. They opposed a proposed nine-mile-long main that would carry up to 15 million gallons per day of treated wastewater to North Coyote Valley for use as recycled water.

In a decision with separate opinions written by all three members of an appellate panel, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has issued a preliminary injunction to block logging on burnt national forest land. The panel ruled 2-1 that opponents of the logging had crossed the threshold necessary to win a preliminary injunction while the litigation proceeds. Environmentalists contended that the U.S. Forest Service violated the National Environmental Policy Act and the National Forest Management Act.