A case involving the relationship of the Subdivision Map Act with the Coastal Act and Mello Act has been accepted for review by the state Supreme Court.

With the advent of AB 32 and SB 375, California has adopted some of the world's leading anti-greenhouse gas laws. And yet, even according to conservative projections, certain very low-lying coastal areas may not survive.

Some of the state's most vulnerable land rings the San Francisco Bay, which is becoming a battleground in the latest round of climate change policy debates. 

In a pair of decisions issued on the same day, the Second District Court of Appeal, Division Four, has addressed the scope of permitted regulation when a mobile home park owner elects to convert a park into a residential subdivision and sell individual spaces. In cases from the City of Los Angeles and the Los Angeles suburb of Carson, the court ruled that local government may apply state law and local considerations to restrict mobile home park conversions.

In approving a redevelopment project that relies on a 20-year-old environmental impact report, the City of San Diego was not required to conduct supplemental environmental review on the issue of climate change, where the only discretionary action for a project was limited to project aesthetics, the Fourth District Court of Appeal has ruled.

Judged by the result, the Supreme Court's June 17 decision in Stop the Beach Renourishment v. Florida Department of Environmental Protection looks like a model of judicial restraint. The court unanimously rejected a claim by landowners on Florida's northern Gulf Coast that they had suffered an unconstitutional taking of property after beach restoration by local governments turned their oceanfront homes into ocean-view lots separated from the water by 75 feet of new sand. 

California has a yet another seismic threat to prepare for, thanks to a set of new maps that depict a ferocious line of water that may, if earth moves in just the wrong way, someday surge inland along the state's coastline. Experts are saying that these new maps should be used to plan for emergency evacuations, not changes in land use planning. In at least one case, however, the Coastal Commission is already considering policies that would take tsunamis into account when approving developments.

Characterized as "the last piece in the puzzle" for Chula Vista bayfront redevelopment, a land swap between the San Diego Unified Port District and developer Pacifica Holdings has been approved by the district and the City of Chula Vista.

A state appellate court has upheld the California Coastal Commission's denial of a development permit for a small mixed-use project in Morro Bay.

The court rejected developer Dan Reddell's arguments that the commission violated his due process and equal protection rights, and that its decision was a regulatory taking of property. Instead, the Second District Court of Appeal ruled that substantial evidence supported the commission's finding that Reddell's project was inconsistent with Morro Bay's local coastal plan (LCP).

About 475,000 residents, major sea ports and airports, thousands of miles of roads and rail lines, power plants and wastewater treatment facilities are at risk of flooding due to sea level rise, according to a new report from the State Lands Commission.