Legal Digest

In the latest setback for a proposed water project in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, a state appellate court has thrown out water permits and an environmental impact report approved by the State Water Resources Control Board.

The state Supreme Court has accepted for review an unusual Subdivision Map Act case from the City of Goleta.

An appellate court has overturned separate environmental impact reports and project approvals for two Bakersfield shopping centers with Wal-Mart supercenters as anchors.

The long-running legal fight between a hotel and San Francisco has finally reached the U.S. Supreme Court. The high court agreed in December to review the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals' most recent decision in San Remo Hotel v. San Francisco.

A state law that mandates affordable housing development for projects within the coastal zone does not apply if a housing project that straddles the coastal zone boundary places no houses or other private facilities within the coastal zone, the California Supreme Court has ruled.

A state appellate court has upheld the San Diego Regional Water Quality Control Board's comprehensive regulations regarding municipal storm drainage discharges.

A state appellate court has reinstated a lawsuit challenging the environmental impact report for a 6,500-unit project in Madera County. The Fifth District Court of Appeal found that a lower court's dismissal of the lawsuit because of procedural problems was inappropriate.

A federal injunction that halted the City of Stockton's code enforcement crackdown on dilapidated residential hotels has been upheld by the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

A quarry in unincorporated Alameda County may go forward despite a potential conflict with a growth-control initiative that voters approved in 2000, an appellate court has ruled.

The environmental review of a proposed mining reclamation plan need not consider the impacts of the actual mining, the Third District Court of Appeal has concluded.

The Fifth District Court of Appeal has published its opinion in which the court invalidated the Castaic Lake Water Agency's urban water management plan.

The First District Court of Appeal has refused to excuse a citizens group's failure to comply with a California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) procedural requirement, and has upheld dismissal of a lawsuit.

An environmental study of a rock quarry proposed in northern San Diego County has survived a second court challenge.

The City of Sausalito's lawsuit over a development plan for the former Fort Baker Army base at the north end of the Golden Gate Bridge is headed back to district court.