The parts of a Kern county mining project are decidedly not greater than – or a substitute for – the whole, as far as the California Environmental Quality Act is concerned.  

Even though the recession has brought construction in the Central Valley nearly to a standstill, one of the world's largest suppliers of building materials appears bullish on the region. Cemex  Construction Materials, LP , has proposed  an aggregate mine on a 2,036-acre site in  Fresno County,   inciting protest from both environmentalists and local Native American tribes.

When Proposition 84 passed in 2006, it reflected a booming economy. Providing $5.4 billion for clean water, parks, and open space the measure was seen as an important way to protect the state's natural resources at a time before many were worried about $28 billion deficits or maxing out the state's bonding capacity.  Prop. 84's primary focus is on waterways and water management. However, it also includes a relatively tiny set-aside for innovative planning that is provin

The Town of Mammoth Lakes has been ordered to pay more than $32 million for violating a development agreement. In upholding a jury's award of damages to the developer, the Third District Court of Appeal made clear that local government agencies are treated like any other private contracting party when it comes to development agreements and can be held liable for damages if the agency breaches the agreement.

The City of Sunnyvale's analysis of a road improvement project's traffic and related impacts based on predicted conditions in 2020 violated the California Environmental Quality Act's requirement to compare a proposed project with existing conditions.

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.

A state appellate court has found that a provision of the Palo Alto municipal code requiring a 60-day delay prior to the issuance of a demolition permit did not render the permit approval a discretionary act requiring environmental review. The city properly treated the demolition permit as ministerial and exempt from the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), the Sixth District Court of Appeal ruled.

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. <p> </p> 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 plea

A Santa Monica apartment complex owned by a religious group did not fall within a statutory exemption from local historic preservation regulations because the property has always been a commercial enterprise, the Second District Court of Appeal has ruled.

An environmental impact report for a 560-housing unit specific plan in the Riverside County city of Beaumont has been upheld by the Fourth District Court of Appeal. The court approved the city's use of a baseline for examining water usage that was favorable to the developer, accepted the city's determination that loss of farmland could not be mitigated, and upheld the city's statement of overriding consideration for approving a project with significant environmental impacts.

The future of land use in the City of Ontario is up in the air, Literally.