Legal Digest

A Berkeley citizen group lost its challenge to People's Park in the legislature and the California Supreme Court. But that didn't stop the group from claiming enough of a victory to seek $1 million in attorney's fees. An appellate court shot the idea down.

A challenge to two SB 35 projects in Benicia by a local preservation group – arguing, among other things, that the projects involved historic structures and wetlands – has been struck down by the First District Court of Appeal. The ruling is unpublished and therefore cannot be used as precedent.

A case which says a city can delegate final approval of its housing element to the city manager -- and not hold a final approval -- has been published by the Fourth District Court of Appeal.

So, in the battle between the California Environmental Quality Act and the Housing Accountability Act, which law wins?

The City of Davis doesn’t have to do an environmental analysis under the California Environmental Quality Act in order to move playground equipment from one location to another.

Apparently a city can delegate final approval of its housing element to the city manager – and not hold a final public hearing – so long as the final changes as a result of negotiating with the Department of Housing and Community Development are relatively minor.

Carlsbad’s growth management plan – dating from the 1980s – is often held up as a model of integrating private residential growth with public infrastructure. (It’s even highlighted in Guide To California Planning.) Times have changed in the last 40 years and local growth control advocates say the Carlsbad City Council has not stuck to the spirit of the initiative. But the growth control folks keep losing in court.

Huntington Beach has lost around round in its seemingly endless legal battle with the state over housing law. The California Supreme Court has declined to hear a case in which the city argued it doesn’t have to follow state housing law because it’s a charter city.

A local judge has ruled that the City of Dublin should have conducted an environmental analysis under the California Environmental Quality Act before placing a measure on the ballot that would permit development in an area previous protected under the city’s Open Space Initiative.

A few months ago, a Los Angeles judge ruled – in a fairly technical opinion – that SB 9, the lot-split law, is unconstitutional for charter cities.

SB 158, which lifts the CEQA exemption for some projects, apparently applies only to one project in the entire state: a proposed eight-story apartment building behind the iconic Santa Barbara Mission.

Appellate court concludes city should not have exempted car wash, which could lead to more Benzene emissions near school playground