The developer of the controversial proposed 50-story tower in the low-rise Sunset District of San Francisco has sued the city, saying that denial of the project violates the state’s Density Bonus Law. The proposed tower has the subject of enormous controversy since it was first proposed. The developer originally proposed a set of 12-story buildings, but when neighbors organized to oppose it , the developer responded with the 50-story proposal. In early July, the San Francisco Planning Department concluded that while the project fell within the state’s density bonus requirement, it did not comply with city codes. “T he building remains a 600-foot-tall tower in a 100-foot district,” a planning department spokesman said a the time. Later in July, the Board of Appeals denied the project.

The City of La Habra has won an important round in its litigation with Lennar Homes over denial of a housing project slated for property that has long been used as a golf course.

The City of La Cañada Flintridge has fired back against a developer trying to invoike builder’s remedy by taking square aim at the idea that the Department of Housing and Community Development has independent authority to determine whether a housing element is compliant or not.

The City of San Bernardino has update its housing element and density bonus ordinances as part of a settlement of a lawsuit with the Public Interest Law Project. The California Attorney General’s Office is also participating in the settlement.

A city doesn’t have to engage in additional analysis under the California Environmental Quality Act just because school districts don’t think they’ll ever raise the money necessary to build new schools.

In a battle between rival developers over the California Environmental Quality Act, the prominent Sacramento developer Tsakopoulos Investments has lost an appellate court ruling challenging the environment analysis on a nearby developer’s project. In the published portion of the case, the Third District Court of Appeal concluded that Sacramento County properly conducted its climate change analysis on the neighboring project and did not use methodologies recently discredited by both the California Supreme Court and the Fourth District Court of Appeal in Sacramento.

Short-term rentals are not by definition development projects that require a coastal development permit in the coastal zone.

Environmentalists have lost the latest skirmish in the seemingly interminable battle over development of Fanita Ranch in the San Diego County community of Santee – and in the process an appellate court may have plowed important new ground about what’s acceptable mitigation for lost California gnatcatcher habitat. The latest Fanita Ranch proposal would disrupt 400 acres of gnatcatcher habitat but preserve 1,000 acres. An environmental group called Preserve Wild Santee appealed a judge’s ruling that adequately protected gnatcatcher habitat, saying that the mitigation plan simply “preserves what’s left”. But the Fourth District Court of Appeal in San Diego affirmed the judge’s ruling, saying that there is the California Environmental Quality Act contains no requirement that lost habitat be actually replaced on a one-to-one basis. “CEQA does not required a complete offset for lost habitat, and .. conservation easements can mitigate such loses by substantially lessening the impacts to a particular species’ habitat,” wrote Justice Julia C. Kelety for a three-judge panel of the appellate court.

A developer has sued the City of Davis over a proposed housing project, claiming that the city has dragged its feet in such a way that the project has been effectively denied. The developer has also filed a builder’s remedy application for the project. In response, the city claims it has not denied the project and is processing the application.

In an unpublished appellate ruling, a unanimous three-judge panel has ruled that the San Diego’s ordinance reducing parking standards for multifamily developments near transit stops is not subject to the California Environmental Quality Act. The city was sued by CREED-21, a group typically represented by frequent CEQA litigator Cory Briggs.

It’s clear that under the Housing Accountability Act a city must approve a housing project if the project is consistent with the general plan – but the zoning is inconsistent with the general plan.

Culver City’s “anti-mansionization” ordinance violates the Housing Accountability Act by reducing the amount of floor-area ratio permitted in single-family zones, an appellate court has ruled.