CP&DR

City Must Pay for Temporary Takings: L.A.'s Delay in Issuing Permit Earns Landowner $1.2 Million

Feb 1, 2000

CP&DR Staff, Legal Digest, Vol. 15 No. 02 Feb 2000

Delays by the City of Los Angeles in issuing a permit to demolish a burned-out hotel amounted to a temporary taking, the Second District Court of Appeal has ruled. The unanimous three-judge appellate panel upheld a trial court's ruling that awarded the landowner $1.2 million, plus interest, for the inverse condemnation. The court upheld the trial court's monetary award after concluding that the city's delay in issuing the demolition permit was not part of the normal development review process, and...

Indian Wells donates housing money.

Feb 1, 2000

CP&DR Staff, Local Watch, Vol. 15 No. 02 Feb 2000

The wealthy City of Indian Wells will give $1.5 million in housing funds to the City of Coachella, a neighboring town where residents' median income is less than one-third that of Indian Wells' citizens. The money is a portion of the mandatory 20% housing set-aside from an Indian Wells redevelopment project, which transformed desert land into an upscale golf resort. Indian Wells has spent $13.6 million in housing funds on 90 senior apartments and earmarked $14.6 million for 100 more senior units. The ...

Disney goes to Glendale

Jan 1, 2000

CP&DR Staff, Economic Development, Vol. 15 No. 01 Jan 2000

Less than 10 miles north of the Cornfield, Walt Disney Co. has proposed a large "creative campus" on the grounds of the former Grand Central Air Terminal, a Glendale airport that closed in 1959. Disney's plans are sketchy, but the entertainment giant has revealed plans for four district projects on the site: a 52-acre campus to house the theme park research and development operations; a 24-acre soundstage and production facility; a 27-acre media and technology campus that would have space available for ...

Water Plan Must Match General Plan: Court Also Expands State Say Over FERC-Licensed Dams

Jan 1, 2000

CP&DR Staff, Legal Digest, Vol. 15 No. 01 Jan 2000

An appellate court has thrown out an environmental impact report for a 17,000-acre-foot water project in El Dorado County because the EIR was predicated on an unadopted, draft general plan. In the same far-reaching opinion, the Third District Court of Appeal ruled that the purchase of three reservoirs by an irrigation district was not categorically exempt from the California Environmental Quality Act because the district planned to provide the water for consumption, which would have been a new use. Th...

Lack of Environmental Study Dooms Sierra Madre Election

Jan 1, 2000

CP&DR Staff, Legal Digest, Vol. 15 No. 01 Jan 2000

The Second District Court of Appeal has thrown out the results of an election in the City of Sierra Madre because the city violated the California Environmental Quality Act. In a December 1999 decision, the court invalidated an April 1998 election in which voters approved a city-sponsored measure that removed 29 properties from the city's Register of Historic Landmarks. City officials put the issue on the ballot as a way of avoiding a study of the impacts of delisting the properties. But the court sai...

Rent Control: Mobile Home Rent Control Ordinance Ruled Constitutional

Jan 1, 2000

CP&DR Staff, Legal Digest, Vol. 15 No. 01 Jan 2000

The City of Montclair's ordinance controlling rents in mobile home parks is constitutional, the Fourth District Court of Appeal has ruled. The court rejected mobile home park owners' argument that the ordinance was a regulatory taking without compensation. Citing the California Supreme Court's decision in Santa Monica Beach, Ltd. v. Superior Court, (1999) 19 Cal.4th 952, the appellate court ruled that "a rent control ordinance is a regulatory taking if it is an arbitrary regulation of property rights....

Inverse Condemnation: Court Rules Telephone Tower Neither A Taking Nor Nuisance

Jan 1, 2000

CP&DR Staff, Legal Digest, Vol. 15 No. 01 Jan 2000

Construction of a 130-foot-tall cellular telephone transmission tower does not constitute inverse condemnation of a neighboring property from which residents can see the tower, the Third District Court of Appeal has ruled. In a case from Butte County, the court also ruled that the tower did not constitute a nuisance because it did not harm neighbors' use of their property. "[W]hile we have sympathy for plaintiffs' plight, not all plights give rise to legal rights," Justice Daniel Kolkey wrote for th...

Taxes: State Supreme Court Will Hear Proposition 62 Case

Jan 1, 2000

CP&DR Staff, Legal Digest, Vol. 15 No. 01 Jan 2000

The state Supreme Court has granted a petition for review of a case involving a city's utility user's tax. Six of seven justices voted to review Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association v. City of La Habra, 1999 Daily Journal D.A.R. 9003, in which the Fourth District Court of Appeal ruled that the statute of limitations had elapsed for challenging the tax. (See CP&DR Legal Digest, October 1999.) Lawyers on either side of the case had expected the state's high court would take the case because the decision ...

Ruling Could Slow Brownfield Reuse

Dec 1, 1999

CP&DR Staff, Legal Digest, Vol. 14 No. 12 Dec 1999

In a decision that could have implications for the cleanup of polluted industrial sites, the Second District Court of Appeal has ruled that an oil company's insurer has no responsibility to pay for state-mandated remediation. In a 2-1 ruling, the court held that the insurer's promise to defend a "suit" did not force the insurer to defend an administrative proceeding. Furthermore, the court said, the insurer must pay only court-ordered damages, and not fines coerced by an administr...

November 1999 Land-Use Election Results

Dec 1, 1999

CP&DR Staff, Elections, Vol. 14 No. 12 Dec 1999

Alameda County City of Livermore Voters rejected the Citizens Alliance for Public Planning (CAPP) initiative that would have required an election for a development of more than 20 units. Measure B: No, 61.5% City of Pleasanton Voters defeated the CAPP initiative that would have mandated an election for a development with at least 10 units. Measure D: No, 56.4% City of Newark Voters defeated an initiative that would have changed the general plan designation of 560...

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