Voters in Culver City rejected an initiative that would have blocked a downtown redevelopment project, while voters in Benicia overwhelmingly approved an open space protection measure during April 11 special elections. The split decisions on growth follow March 7 balloting, when three-quarters of slow-growth measures failed.
In Culver City, which lies a few miles north of Los Angeles International Airport, Measure M received only 32.8% of the vote. The complex Save Our Schools Initiative would have prohibited certain uses, such as parking garages, theaters and liquor stores, within 400 feet of schools.
Measure M was aimed at a downtown redevelopment project called Town Plaza that is planned to include a large theater, retail stores and a parking garage. City officials vigorously fought the initiative, which they said would "kill efforts to bring downtown back to life." Initiative proponents said they wanted to protect schoolchildren from "unrestrained commercial development" and complained about city subsidies for retailers.
In Benicia, a Solano County city along the Bay, 88.6% of voters backed a very different Measure M. This one will require voters to approve development or sale of city-owned land designed as open space in Benicia's 1999 general plan. The measure does not apply to private property but does affect dozens of city-owned parcels, including some very small ones, throughout Benicia.
Controversy last year over a city proposal for a 50-unit affordable housing development on a grass field in the Southampton subdivision spurred the measure, which the City Council placed on the ballot. Some environmentalists questioned the measure, saying it would discourage infill development.
When two companies contribute to groundwater pollution, one company cannot avoid cleanup costs by arguing that the other company would have spent money on the cleanup anyway, the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled. The decision came in an Oregon case interpreting the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA), better known as the Superfund law.
To let one company avoid cleanup costs "would encourage parties to avoid investigating and cleaning up con...
Parcels delineated in pre-1893 subdivisions do not exist as separate lots unless there has been a transfer of title at some point, the Second District Court of Appeal has ruled.
In addressing the status of antiquated subdivisions, the court ruled squarely in favor of local governments that have fought to prevent legal recognition of "paper subdivisions" created prior to laws regulating the subdivision of land. In answering an unresolved issue of state subdivision law, the court said that the ti...
A City of Los Angeles home occupation permit fee has survived a legal challenge from the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association. The Second District Court of Appeal ruled that the Jarvis lawsuit was filed too late, that the organization failed to follow administrative procedures for refunds and that a later repeal of the fee made claims for injunctive and declaratory relief moot.
The court said a lawsuit challenging such fees must be brought within 90 days of their enactment so municipalities can have fi...
The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has ordered preparation of an environmental study on an already-completed freeway interchange in Washington state. On a 2-1 ruling, the three-judge panel said that the project was not exempt under the National Environmental Policy Act.
"While we decline to order the interchange torn down, we direct the district court to order the requisite environmental review …" the court concluded.
In 1985, the City of DuPont, between Seattle and Tacoma, identified t...
The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to review a takings case involving a San Francisco housing law, but Associate Justice Antonin Scalia issued a scathing dissent in which he equated San Francisco's law with extortion and questioned a state appellate court's willingness to follow "takings" precedents.
Ten years ago, San Francisco rejected the application of Claude and Micheline Lambert, who asked to convert 24 units of their Cornell Hotel from residential to tourist use. San Francisco's hotel c...
Property rights advocates suffered a second setback when the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear a takings case from Florida.
A man and his mother had purchased 40 acres, including 32 acres of swampland, in 1973 and began attempting to develop a housing tract and marina in 1980. They received state and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers permits in the early 1980s, but one state agency asked Monroe County to reconsider the project. The landowners sued and won, and the county again granted approvals...
The U.S. Supreme Court let stand another 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling, thus one striking down a zoning ordinance aimed at adult businesses. The 11th Circuit said the City of Jacksonville, Florida, impinged on businesses' free speech by requiring so-called lingerie shops — actually nightclubs with nude dancers — to get a special exemption before they could open in any but two locations in the city.
The 11th Circuit said Jacksonville's zoning law gave city officials too much discreti...
George B. Brewster has served as executive director of the California Center for Land Recycling since its founding in 1996. The nonprofit organization advocates sustainable community development and provides programs to facilitate redevelopment of brownfields, which are abandoned or underutilized sites hampered by real or perceived contamination.
Brewster has an extensive background in real estate development, asset management and finance, and he serves on the Urban Land Institute's Infill Dev...
A garbage company does not have legal standing to file a lawsuit regarding the environmental review of a competing company's landfill plans, the Third District Court of Appeal has ruled.
The three-judge panel unanimously voted to dismiss a suit filed by Waste Management of Alameda County. Waste Management argued that Alameda County should have required environmental impact report before allowing Browning-Ferris Industries to accept "designated wastes" because the county required Waste Manageme...
The Department of Fish & Game's flat fees for reviewing documents under the California Environmental Quality Act do not constitute taxes even though the fees do not reflect the exact cost of the CEQA review in every case, the Third District Court of Appeal has ruled.
In rejecting a Shasta County landowner's argument to the contrary, the Third District reaffirmed a longstanding principle of "takings" law that property-rights advocates have unsuccessfully sought to overturn: the courts should no...
When 5.7 million people say they want to shield local funding from grabbing hands – as they did in November -- that should be the end of the story. At least, that's what California's redevelopment agencies would hope after this annus horribilis in the redevelopment world.
In Year Three of the Great Recession, it's comforting to think that California has heard all the bad news it's going to hear. Or at least we're so accustomed to bad news, that we've stopped getting depressed by it. As a result, many of this year's top stories come with silver linings.
The no-growth vs. slow-growth vs. build-everything debate has become a faint murmur, since not much of anything is getting built anyway. What is getting built, though, is generally pleasing to the smart growth crowd.
Fans of infrastructure development have surely cheered the progress on projects like High Speed Rail and Los Angeles Metro's 30/10 Initiative. Then again, skeptics may be assuring themselves that these projects will never get built.
