Miller Starr Regalia

Supreme Court Again Declines to Hear Major Property Rights Case, Leaving in Place Hopelessly Muddled Takings Doctrine

By Bryan W. Wenter, AICP

February 23, 2021

As former U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens famously explained, more than 30 years ago, about the Supreme Court’s takings cases: “Even the wisest of lawyers would have to acknowledge great uncertainty about the scope of this Court’s takings jurisprudence.” Nollan v. California Coastal Comm’n, 483 U.S. 825, 866 (1987) (dissenting opinion).…

Land Use Developments

Landowner’s Efforts to Void and Redraw Subdivision Map Fails Under Laches Doctrine

By Bryan W. Wenter, AICP

January 28, 2021

The often invoked but rarely successful laches doctrine is an equitable defense when a party unreasonably delays enforcing a right and when granting the relief sought would prejudice the adverse party. A petition for “exclusion” is an equitable process under California’s Subdivision Map Act, to compel a local agency to redraw or discard a recorded subdivision map, and it is even rarer. These issues recently collided in Decea v. County of Ventura, __ Cal.App.5th __…

CEQA Developments

2020: A Look Back at the Year’s CEQA Case Law

By Arthur F. Coon

January 18, 2021

While the COVID-19 pandemic made 2020 a year most would prefer to keep in the rear view mirror, the courts kept fairly busy handing down precedents that hopefully provided us all with a better road map for navigating CEQA. What follows is not a comprehensive review, but more of a brief trip down memory lane to review a “baker’s dozen” of last year’s case law highlights.…

Land Use Developments

Proposed California Budget Would Create Housing Accountability Unit and Add New Targeted CEQA Exemptions Focused on Housing

By Bryan W. Wenter, AICP

January 11, 2021

On January 8, 2021 California Governor Gavin Newsom proposed an expansive state budget that includes $1.75 billion to purchase additional motels, develop short-term community mental health facilities, and purchase and preserve housing dedicated to seniors, $500 million in low income housing tax credits, and $250 million for infill infrastructure intended to facilitate housing.…

CEQA Developments

Can a Responsible Agency Get A Second Bite At The CEQA Apple? First District Says “Sometimes, Yes,” Upholds Regional Water Board’s Imposition of Additional Mitigation On Flood Control Project Through “Independent” Porter-Cologne Act Authority Exercised Subsequent To Grant Of CWA § 401 Water Quality Certification Based On Lead Agency’s Unchallenged Final EIR

By Arthur F. Coon

January 6, 2021

In a published opinion filed December 29, 2020, the First District Court of Appeal affirmed a judgment denying a petition for writ of mandate filed by the Santa Clara Valley Water District (District) challenging waste discharge requirements (WDRs) belatedly imposed by a responsible agency, the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board (Board), on lead agency District’s flood control project. Santa Clara Valley Water District v. San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board…

Land Use Developments

Court Upholds Coastal Commission Cease and Deist Order Directing Homeowners to Remove Seawall Protecting $25 Million Home and Pay $1 Million Administrative Penalty

By Bryan W. Wenter, AICP

December 28, 2020

On December 18, 2020, the Fourth District Court of Appeal published 11 Lagunita, LLC v. California Coastal Commission, __ Cal.App.5th __ (2020) (Case No. G058436), a case involving a Coastal Development Permit issued by the California Coastal Commission in 2015 for the reinforcement of an existing seawall that was installed years earlier, before the Coastal Act, at the base of a 1950’s era Laguna Beach home.…

CEQA Developments

2020 CEQA Legislative Developments

By Arthur F. Coon

December 13, 2020

As we rapidly approach the end of a year of COVID-related challenges and uncertainties, CEQA practitioners may want to review the year’s key legislation impacting CEQA and its application, which was contained in the handful of bills summarized below. AB 168 (Aguilar-Curry). This urgency legislation became effective with the Governor’s signature on September 25, 2020. It amends Government Code §§ 65400, 65913.4 and 65941.1 to correct an “oversight” in SB 35 (Weiner), namely, that 2017 law’s…

Land Use Developments

City “Apartment Rent Ordinance” Survives Constitutional Challenge by Landlords

By Bryan W. Wenter, AICP

December 8, 2020

In a concise December 7, 2020 opinion, Hotop v. City of San Jose, __ F.3d __ (2020) (Case No. 18-16995), a 3-0 panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the district court’s dismissal of an action alleging that portions of San Jose’s “Apartment Rent Ordinance” violated the Fourth, Fifth, Fourteenth, and Contracts Clause rights of individual apartment owners and an unincorporated trade association of San Jose landlords. The challenged regulations require…

CEQA Developments

Remedial Legal Logic: Fifth District Doubles Down On Split with Other Districts in Holding CEQA Doesn’t Allow Limited Writ Remedy of Partial EIR Decertification – But Does It Really Matter?

By Arthur F. Coon

November 29, 2020

“The life of the law has not been logic: it has been experience.” – Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., The Common Law (1881) “CEQA discourse has become increasingly abstract, almost medieval in its scholasticism.” – former California Governor Edmund G. (“Jerry”) Brown, Jr. by Arthur F. Coon On November 24, 2020, the Fifth District Court of Appeal filed its partially published opinion in the latest installment of the long-running CEQA litigation over Fresno County’s approval of…

Land Use Developments

Supreme Court Decides to Hear Important Property Rights Case Addressing Whether Time-Limited Easements Are a Physical Taking Under Per Se Rules

By Bryan W. Wenter, AICP

November 16, 2020

On November 13, 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court issued an order granting certiorari in Cedar Point Nursery v. Hassid. The question presented in the successful cert petition is “whether the uncompensated appropriation of an easement that is limited in time effects a per se physical taking under the Fifth Amendment.”…

Miller Starr Regalia

Miller Starr Regalia Blogs

Blog Authors

Supreme Court Again Declines to Hear Major Property Rights Case, Leaving in Place Hopelessly Muddled Takings Doctrine

Landowner’s Efforts to Void and Redraw Subdivision Map Fails Under Laches Doctrine

2020: A Look Back at the Year’s CEQA Case Law

Proposed California Budget Would Create Housing Accountability Unit and Add New Targeted CEQA Exemptions Focused on Housing

Court Upholds Coastal Commission Cease and Deist Order Directing Homeowners to Remove Seawall Protecting $25 Million Home and Pay $1 Million Administrative Penalty

2020 CEQA Legislative Developments

City “Apartment Rent Ordinance” Survives Constitutional Challenge by Landlords

Remedial Legal Logic: Fifth District Doubles Down On Split with Other Districts in Holding CEQA Doesn’t Allow Limited Writ Remedy of Partial EIR Decertification – But Does It Really Matter?

Supreme Court Decides to Hear Important Property Rights Case Addressing Whether Time-Limited Easements Are a Physical Taking Under Per Se Rules

Stay Connected

Company

Products

Support

New to the Network

Miller Starr Regalia Blogs

Blog Authors

Latest from Miller Starr Regalia