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Urban Planning & Development Appeals

Carlton Fields

Zoning Appeals: Have We Been Doing This Wrong for 30 Years?

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Since the end of 1993, Florida land use and zoning lawyers have been taught the basics: a rezoning hearing is quasi-judicial in nature and appeals of the decision go to circuit court on certiorari review. Why is this? Because...more

Perkins Coie

Council Resolution Approving an Amendment to a Disposition and Development Agreement Was Subject to Referendum

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The court of appeal held that a City Council resolution approving a development agreement that included policy decisions regarding development of a public park was a legislative act subject to referendum. Move Eden Housing v....more

Sullivan & Worcester

Zoning and Development Newsletter - January 2024

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Welcome to the Third Issue of Sullivan’s Zoning and Development Newsletter- This newsletter is a collaboration between members of our Permitting & Land Use Practice Group and the Litigation Department, in order to provide...more

Dorsey & Whitney LLP

Uncertainty Looms: Minneapolis's 2040 Plan Hits (Another) Judicial Roadblock

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The month of September was a bad month for the City of Minneapolis’s 2040 Comprehensive Plan (2040 Comp Plan). On September 5, 2023, Minnesota’s Fourth Judicial District (Hennepin County) released a decision temporarily...more

Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton LLP

California Court Holds Proposed Ballot Measure Excluding Community Plan Area from Height Limit Is Not a “Later Activity” For...

In late June, California’s Fourth District Court of Appeal upheld a Superior Court decision in Save Our Access v. City of San Diego, providing clarity for determining when a “later activity” is beyond the scope of an existing...more

Sullivan & Worcester

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Issues a Win for Sullivan Client in State Tax Dispute

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Justices Strike Down Tax Assessed on Capital Gain from Sale of Exempt Urban Redevelopment Project, a Win for Massachusetts Urban Redevelopment and Affordable Housing - On Friday, March 10, 2023, the Supreme Judicial Court...more

Holland & Knight LLP

Court Affirms Housing Applicants' Ability to Be Vested Against Downzonings

Holland & Knight LLP on

O'Brien Land Company's more than a decade-long odyssey to build 315 zoning-compliant homes – chronicled in Conor Dougherty's book Golden Gates: Fighting for Housing in America – has become the stuff of housing law legend,...more

Best Best & Krieger LLP

New Brown Act Requirements from Second District Court of Appeals

CEQA Finding of Exemption to be Listed on an Agency’s Agenda for its Public Meetings - In G.I. Industries v. City of Thousand Oaks, the Second District Court of Appeal recently held that the City Council’s approval of a...more

Perkins Coie

City of Davis Did Not Err in Finding Mixed-Use Project Consistent With General Plan

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The court of appeal held that the City’s determination that a mixed-use development project was consistent with applicable general plans policies and standards was supported by substantial evidence. Old East Davis...more

Perkins Coie

EIR Recirculation Not Required Where Final Version of Approved Project Was Not Specifically Evaluated in EIR

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The Second District Court of Appeal held that: (1) despite revisions to a mixed-use development project, the project description in the EIR was “accurate, stable, and finite;” (2) an opportunity for public comment on the...more

Pierce Atwood LLP

Appeals Court Excuses City’s Notice-by-Mail Fail

Pierce Atwood LLP on

Today the Appeals Court decided Markham v. Pittsfield Cellular Telephone Company (pdf), holding that the 90-day appeal period under M.G.L. c. 40A, § 17 for zoning appeals alleging procedural defects is not tolled where a...more

Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton LLP

Court of Appeal Holds No-Project Alternative Analysis May Mean More When Conversation is an Option and Reinforces Low Barrier to...

In Save the Hill Group v. City of Livermore et al., the First District Court of Appeal (Div. 5) reversed and remanded the superior court’s decision to uphold the reissued final environmental impact report (RFEIR) for a...more

Perkins Coie

EIR For Martis Valley Project Near Lake Tahoe Rejected on Four Grounds But Wildfire Evacuation Analysis Complied with CEQA

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In a lengthy opinion tackling several of CEQA’s hot topics, a court of appeal has rejected the EIR for the Martis Valley West project, finding its Lake Tahoe water quality analysis, GHG and traffic mitigation measures, and...more

Miller Starr Regalia

First District Holds EIR’s Analysis of “No Project” Alternative To City of Livermore Residential Development Violated CEQA By...

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In a published decision filed March 30, 2022, the First District Court of Appeal (Division 5) reversed a trial court judgment upholding the reissued final environmental impact report (“RFEIR”) for a 44-single family residence...more

Miller Starr Regalia

Third District Rejects CEQA Challenges To El Dorado Irrigation District Ditch Piping Project, Holds EIR’s Project Description And...

Miller Starr Regalia on

In an opinion filed January 28, and later certified for publication on February 16, 2022, the Third District Court of Appeal affirmed a judgment denying a petition for writ of mandate that challenged on CEQA grounds the El...more

Perkins Coie

State Density Bonus Law Does Not Require Applicants to Demonstrate Economic Feasibility of Project When Requesting Incentives

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A Court of Appeal held that the state’s density bonus law (Gov’t Code § 65915) does not require applicants to submit financial information to support requests for incentives or waivers and preempted a city ordinance that...more

Pierce Atwood LLP

Appeals Court Resurrects Neighbors’ Claims Against Noisy Vineyard Venue

Pierce Atwood LLP on

In its recent decision in Allegaert v. Harbor View Hotel Owner, LLC, the Massachusetts Appeals Court reversed in part two Superior Court judgments dismissing the plaintiffs’ zoning appeals. In the process the Appeals Court...more

Farrell Fritz, P.C.

Appellate Division finds Village Responsible for Maintenance of Bulkhead Related to Drainage Easement

Farrell Fritz, P.C. on

Plaintiffs own property in the Village of Freeport on Randall Bay and granted a drainage easement to the Village in 1961. The easement, dated September 6, 1961, allowed the Village to “construct and maintain one underground...more

Farella Braun + Martel LLP

California Court of Appeal Upholds Validity of SB 35 to Streamline Approval of Affordable Housing Projects

The California Court of Appeal issued a unanimous decision that will have lasting, positive implications for developers utilizing SB 35. SB 35 (Cal. Gov't Code Sec. 65913.4) requires cities and counties to quickly and...more

Bowditch & Dewey

Massachusetts’ New Economic Relief Bill – What Enabling Partnerships for Growth Means for Local Zoning

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On January 14, 2021, Governor Baker signed the Act Enabling Partnerships for Growth (the “Act”). Although Governor Baker vetoed specific parts of the Act, it includes a number of provisions that affect local zoning....more

Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck

CEQA News You Can Use - Vol. 5, Issue 4 - December 2020

Welcome to CEQA News You Can Use, a quarterly production of Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, LLP’s Natural Resources lawyers. This publication provides quick, useful bites of CEQA news, which we hope can be a resource to your...more

Perkins Coie

Violation of Zoning Ordinance Limiting Medical Marijuana Cultivation Did Not Justify Seizure of Dispensary’s Medical Marijuana

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The Sixth District Court of Appeal held that a medical marijuana dispensary could recover its marijuana plants seized by law enforcement, finding that violation of the ordinance did not render medical marijuana plants...more

Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton LLP

California Supreme Courts Holds Categorical Classification of Well Permits As Exclusively “Ministerial” Does Not Hold Water

After a nearly two-year wait, in Protecting Our Water and Environmental Resources v. County of Stanislaus (2020) __ Cal.5th ____ (POWER), the California Supreme Court unanimously rejected the County of Stanislaus’s (County)...more

Nossaman LLP

Government’s Enforcement of Development Plan Conditions is Not a Taking

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When a property owner commits to developing property in a certain manner, including providing a certain number of parking spaces, and the local government agency enforces the owner’s failure to comply, does the enforcement...more

Perkins Coie

Reclassification of Land From Urban to Agricultural Did Not Result in Unconstitutional Regulatory Taking

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The State of Hawaii Land Use Commission’s reversion of 1,060 acres from a conditional urban land use classification to the prior agricultural use classification was not an unconstitutional taking because the landowner could...more

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