In the wake of the pandemic, some California downtowns are stronger than ever. Others resemble the walking dead. Both scenarios have inspired planners to get creative.
When a court told the City of San Diego to engage in more CEQA review, the city abandoned the project. Then the plaintiff tried to get the city to conduct the review anyway -- but an appellate court overruled her.
An appellate court concluded that San Diego staff emails constituted a "smoking gun" that the city had not considered a proposed increase in the height limit in the Midway area's programmatic EIR.
Only two jurisdictions are considering implementing the law so far -- the City of San Diego and Humboldt County. But others may have to use SB 10 in order to implement their housing elements >> read more
In an indication of the increasingly acrimonious nature of land-use disputes, a prominent San Diego land-use lobbyist and a community activist opposed to a church project sued each other for libel. The activist then filed an anti-SLAPP suit -- which was not successful. Now the lobbyist can move forward with the libel suit.
As a recent San Diego ruling reveals, cities have no choice but to defend their decisions to abide by statutes like the Density Bonus Law. At the same time, they are trying to "thread a needle" to challenge those laws in court.
As the recent fights over housing show, there are not "progressive" and "conservative" cities. There are just cities open to change and cities closed to change.
