Court Says Anaheim Played Bait-and-Switch on Hotel Developer
Description
The Fourth District Court of Appeal has blocked the City of Anaheim's attempt to build a surface parking lot on a property adjacent to two new hotels rather than a parking structure, as was implied in a conditional use permit the city approved in 1999.
Technically, the appellate court affirmed a trial judge's ruling that the city was estopped (a legal term essentially meaning prohibited) from enacting a subsequent conditional use permit � applying to the city's own property, not the hotel developer's property � that called for a surface lot rather than a parking garage and deviating from the city's own Resort Development Standards, which the hotel developer's own project had to meet.
The case involves a complicated arrangement in which Intercontinental Hotel Group had agreed to a smaller, redesigned project because of the city's plans to build an overpass over I-15 along Gene Autry Way that better connects Disneyland with Anaheim Stadium and other destinations east of the freeway. The overpass, which opened in 2012, takes up part of the hotel developer's property and also part of an adjacent property.