A thorough analysis of building codes and local ordinances applicable to seismic hazards provides the substantial evidence necessary to uphold a city's revised environmental impact report, the First District Court of Appeal ruled in Oakland Heritage Alliance v. City of Oakland.

United by common complaints against a particularly loud, disruptive neighbor, the residents who live under the flight path of Los Angeles International Airport are a relatively cohesive bunch. The Second District Court of Appeals has ruled, however, that neighborhood cohesion goes only so far. 

According to the court's decision in City of Los Angeles v. Superior Court (2011), the city's voluntary program by which certain residents who live near the airport can sell their property to the city does not amount to a taking of adjacent properties. 

A notable feature of California land use law, when compared to the overall body of civil law, is the relatively short filing period for bringing legal challenges. This constraint came into full view in Haro v. City of Solano Beach, in which the would-be builder of a mixed use development claimed that the city violated the terms of its own housing element.  

In order to avoid having your takings claim dismissed, your timing must be just right. Unfortunately for Colony Cove Properties, LLC, the timing was off, and its multifaceted takings claim was rejected by the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeal for being both too late to challenge a rent control ordinance and too early to challenge how a city applied its ordinance. 

A state appellate court has ruled that a city and its redevelopment agency's approval of a term sheet for the development of a professional football stadium was not a "project approval" that required review under the California Environmental Quality Act

Although the term sheet was detailed, and substantial sums had been spent on consultants leading up to that agreement, it did not commit the city to a definite course of action, the Sixth District Court of Appeal ruled.

A State Lands Commission policy prohibiting development seaward of the most landward historical position of the mean high tide line was an invalid underground regulation because it was not promulgated as a regulation pursuant to the Administrative Procedures Act, the Third District Court of Appeal has ruled.

An appellate court has upheld the City of Berkeley's application of the density bonus law and the California Environmental Quality Act exemption for an infill project.

An appellate court has directed a trial court to set aside all of a project's approval because portions of an environmental impact report were found to be inadequate.

The Fifth District Court of Appeal declined to follow the practice of allowing severance of project approvals unaffected by the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) violation. Instead, the court required that the project approval be set aside in its entirely once the CEQA violation was shown.

The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has reversed a District Court's grant of summary judgment to two adult bookstores. The stores had claimed that a Los Angeles ordinance requiring the dispersal of adult businesses violated the First Amendment. The Ninth Circuit found that the declarations upon which the summary judgment was based were biased did not amount to "actual and convincing" evidence sufficient to cast doubt on the rationale for the ordinance.

The ruling is the latest in a 15-year-old case that the court called "resilient." Yet the ruling settled nothing. All the Ninth Circuit did was return the case, known as Alameda Books, to District Court for trial. 

The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has aside a summary judgment in favor of a city in a dispute over a church's request to relocate and develop an expanded church facility in an industrial park.

The unanimous three-judge appellate panel ruled that District Court Judge Phyllis Hamilton's decision in favor of the City of San Leandro was erroneous, and the Ninth Circuit sent the case back to the trial court for further proceedings. The Ninth Circuit did not rule on the merits of the case.