The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has reversed a trial judge and ruled that the City of Yuma's refusal to approve an upzoning might constitute a disparate racial impact under the federal Fair Housing Act. >>read more

An outdoor advertising company that erected a billboard without permits in the City of Corona was not discriminated against and did not have its constitutional rights violated by the city's action, the Fourth District Court of Appeal has ruled. >>read more

A Venice tenant who was renting her attic or loft out through AirBNB does not have a "triable issue of fact" on an eviction case brought against her by her landlord, the appellate division of the Los Angeles County Superior Court has ruled.

The case highlights one of a myriad of legal issues created by the such online services as AirBNB, which facilitates occupants of regular housing to rent out their bedrooms as if they were hotels, often in violation of zoning ordinances and homeowner association rules.

The case involved Joella Kraft, who lived in a rent-controlled unit in the Venice neighborhood in Los Angeles pursuant to a written agreement with the property's then-landlord dating back to 1997, which also permitted her two then-young sons to live there on a part-time basis. >>read more

The City of Newport Beach improperly permitted a councilmember who was openly opposed to a bar's permit to appeal the planning commission's decision granting the permit and to vote on the permit appeal, the Fourth District Court of Appeal has ruled. The appellate court also ruled that the trial court should not have granted the city a preliminary injunction to block the bar from operating under the permit approved by the planning commission.

On the question of whether the councilmember should have been permitted to appeal the permit, the appellate court wrote sharply: "The city council violated the rules laid down in the city's own municipal code, then purported to exempt itself from that code by invoking some previously undocumented custom of ignoring those rules when it comes to council members themselves."

Regarding the preliminary injunction, the court wrote: "It is hard to maintain the city's actions were likely to be upheld when it had no authority to act in the first place."

Reversing the decision of an Orange County Superior Court judge, the Fourth District Court of Appeal has ruled that rezoning residential property in Tustin to accommodate an assisted living facility is a legitimate use of spot zoning.

"The creation of the new senior residential housing zoning district and its application to the Project site were in the public interest and were not arbitrary or capricious," wrote Justice Richard Fybel for a unanimous three-judge panel. >>read more