The wealthy City of Indian Wells will give $1.5 million in housing funds to the City of Coachella, a neighboring town where residents' median income is less than one-third that of Indian Wells' citizens. The money is a portion of the mandatory 20% housing set-aside from an Indian Wells redevelopment project, which transformed desert land into an upscale golf resort.
Indian Wells has spent $13.6 million in housing funds on 90 senior apartments and earmarked $14.6 million for 100 more senior units. The city offered the $1.5 million to Coachella, where Indian Wells officials said the money would go further.
In early December, the Coachella City Council voted 3-2 against accepting the money. "Indian Wells has a responsibility to provide housing for their workers in their city," Coachella Mayor Sylvia Montenegro told the Los Angeles Times. However, a councilwoman elected in November switched her vote on December 28 — three days before special legislation allowed the transfer expired. State officials are now reviewing the transfer.
The California Supreme Court will decide a case involving the City of Los Angeles's inspection fee on apartments. In December, five of seven justices voted to grant the petition from Los Angeles, which lost a Second District Court of Appeal ruling on a lawsuit filed by apartment owners. (See CP&DR Legal Digest, October 1999.)
The Los Angeles City Council approved the $12 annual inspection fee on each of the city's approximately 750,000 apartments in July of 1998. The fee was intended to generat...
The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that citizens can sue alleged polluters under the Clean Water Act. The high court's January decision in a case from South Carolina was a significant victory for environmentalists, who argue that the government sometimes does not adequately enforce the Clean Water Act and other environmental protection laws.
On a 7-2 vote, court ruled that Friends of the Earth (FOE) had standing to sue Laidlaw Environmental Services over the company's violation of a National Poll...
The Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals has sided with a miner in a feud between the miner and the U.S. Forest Service. In interpreting the Mining Law of 1872 and the 1955 Multiple Use Act, the court ruled that the Forest Service could not kick a miner off his claim in the Tonto National Forest, and that the Forest Service may not have had justification for increasing a reclamation bond requirement.
In an opinion that recounted the history of mining laws in the United States, Circuit Judge Andrew K...
Property owners who never filed a development application have no basis for a takings claim, the Fourth District Court of Appeal has ruled. The court also said a landowner whose one application for a specific plan amendment that was rejected also has no takings argument.
The case arose from the City of San Diego's lengthy planning process for the East Elliott community, a former Navy base that the federal government sold during the 1960s. As early as 1981, the city conceded that a 1971 East Ellio...
An appellate court has ruled that an environmental impact report for a proposed San Diego County rock quarry was closer to acceptable than a trial judge had ruled, but the EIR still lacked a proper analysis of air quality impacts. The Fourth District Court of Appeal overturned San Diego Superior Court Judge Judith McConnell's ruling that the rock quarry EIR improperly deferred study of highway widening, and that the EIR failed to account for prior illegal mining on the property. Still, the unanimou...
Delays by the City of Los Angeles in issuing a permit to demolish a burned-out hotel amounted to a temporary taking, the Second District Court of Appeal has ruled. The unanimous three-judge appellate panel upheld a trial court's ruling that awarded the landowner $1.2 million, plus interest, for the inverse condemnation.
The court upheld the trial court's monetary award after concluding that the city's delay in issuing the demolition permit was not part of the normal development review process, and...
Two lawsuits Attorney General Bill Lockyer filed against Tulare County regarding approval of giant dairies have been settled. The county agreed to add an animal waste management element to its general plan and to complete a program EIR by the end of the year.
Under terms of a settlement reached in August, the Airosa Diary agreed to suspend its 3,600-cow expansion of a dairy near Pixley until the county completes the EIR and reviews the expansion. An October settlement of a second lawsuit places the sa...
An initiative to prevent hotel and resort development on 60 acres of city-owned land in Sonoma passed with 77 percent of the vote during a Sept. 21 special election that attracted 59% of registered voters. A Mexican investor had proposed an upscale, 100-room resort for the hillside above Sonoma Plaza. Project opponents said they wanted to preserve open space and a scenic view.
Burbank city leaders and the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority have announced a new agreement that would lead to expansion of the crowded Burbank Airport and end a four-year legal battle.
The deal allows the airport to build a terminal nearly twice the size of the current terminal but retain the same number of gates — 14. The airport would close concessions and services from 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. daily and phase out noisier Stage 2 jets. If the airport convinces federal regulators to approve a 1...
Loretta Lynch, a San Francisco lawyer with solid Democratic credentials, is the new Office of Planning and Research director.
Gov. Gray Davis in mid-March named Lynch to the top job at OPR, which provides technical assistance to local planners and runs the State Clearinghouse for project review. The 37-year-old Lynch has been a partner in Keker & Van Nest since 1991, where she represented small and large companies in securities trading matters.
Lynch is a graduate of University of Southern California ...
L.A. may have multiple planning commissions
An overhaul of the Los Angeles City Charter, which will go before voters June 13, calls for creation of at least five area planning commissions. But those area commissions would have limited powers, and the citywide Planning Commission would remain in place, under the proposal.
"The citywide Planning Commission is seen as a body that's not very closely related to the people," Jackie DuPont-Walker, chairwoman of the Elected Charter Reform Commission said. ...
Elsewhere Near River City …
West Sacramento hopes to become home to a minor league baseball team in little more than a year. The 12-year-old city is forming a Joint Powers Authority with Yolo and Sacramento counties to issue $40 million worth of taxable bonds to build a 10,000-seat baseball stadium near the Sacramento River. The new owner of the Oakland A's Triple-A franchise, now located in Vancouver, B.C., wants to play ball in West Sacramento in April 2000.
Under the plan all three entities appr...
