Senate Bill 330, known as the Housing Crisis Act of 2019 and authored by State Senator Nancy Skinner (D-Berkeley), passed the California legislature on Friday, September 6, 2019, with strong support from numerous...more
According to traditional urban economic models, developers in well-functioning housing markets will choose to build apartments where land is expensive and housing demand is strong....more
Despite well-settled limits on California’s constitutional initiative and referendum powers, the courts continue to be faced with ballot measures that test those boundaries. ...more
On July 18, 2019, in Sacramentans for Fair Planning v. City of Sacramento, __ Cal.App.5th __ (2019), the Third District Court of Appeal affirmed a trial court decision denying a “vertical” consistency challenge filed by...more
On June 21, 2019, the Supreme Court of the United States decided Knick v. Township of Scott, Pennsylvania, 588 U.S. __ (Case No. 17-647), a closely-watched property rights case that was argued first in October of 2018 and...more
6/25/2019
/ 42 U.S.C. §1983 ,
Federal v State Law Application ,
Fifth Amendment ,
Inverse Condemnation ,
Just Compensation ,
Knick v Township of Scott Pennsylvania ,
Popular ,
Precedential Opinion ,
Property Owners ,
Reversal ,
SCOTUS ,
State Law Remedies ,
Takings Clause
California law contains several critical limitations on the exercise of the police power conferred in Article XI, Section 7 of the state constitution....more
On May 8, 2019, in Cedar Point Nursery v. Shiroma, __ F.3d __ (Case No. 16-16321) (2019), a 2-1 Ninth Circuit panel majority held that a California regulation allowing union organizers access to agricultural employees on...more
On April 5, 2019, in a case originally filed March 8, 2019, the Second District Court of Appeal certified for publication York v. City of Los Angeles, __ Cal.App.5th __ (Case No. B278254) (2019), an inverse condemnation case...more
California’s ongoing housing crisis has many causes, including, as prominently noted in the Housing Accountability Act, the “activities and policies of many local governments that limit the approval of housing, increase the...more
On April 3, 2019, in a case originally filed March 6, 2019, the First District Court of Appeal certified for publication Point San Pedro Road Coalition v. County of Marin, __ Cal.App.5th __ (Case No. A150002) (2019), an...more
On March 7, 2019, the Fourth District Court of Appeal published Southcott v. Julian-Cuyamaca Fire Protection District, __ Cal.App.5th __ (Case No. D074324) (2019), another in a long line of cases addressing the limitations on...more
Takings cases involving transportation agencies such as Caltrans typically involve physical occupations of land under the law of eminent domain. In a twist on such physical occupation, in a case originally filed on December...more
Declaring there to be a statewide housing emergency, California state Senator Nancy Skinner (D-Berkeley) introduced Senate Bill 330, on February 19, 2019, to suspend certain regulatory restrictions on the development of new...more
“Out here, due process is a bullet!” – John Wayne -
As a general principle, the federal and state constitutions prohibit governmental entities from depriving persons of property without due process of law....more
On December 6, 2018, the California Attorney General issued an opinion (No. 14-403) in response to a request from Mendocino County Counsel Katherine L. Elliott to address three questions regarding the balance of land use...more
In a decision filed December 4, 2018 and published December 20, 2018, the Sixth District Court of Appeal, in SummerHill Winchester LLC v. Campbell Union School District, __ Cal.App.5th __ (2018) (Case No. H043253), affirmed a...more
California State Senator Scott Wiener is taking another whack at seriously addressing the state’s housing supply crisis with a bill that would create new state zoning requirements for high-density residential development near...more
On September 26, 2018, the First District Court of Appeal partially published Atwell v. City of Rohnert Park, __ Cal.App.5th __ (2018) (Case Nos. A151896, A153011), a decision originally filed on September 18, 2018,...more
On October 17, 2018, in Beach and Bluff Conservancy v. City of Solana Beach, __ Cal.App.5th __ (2018) (Case No. D072304), the Fourth District Court of Appeal ruled against a coastal property owner’s group in its facial...more
On October 1, 2018, in Westsiders Opposed to Overdevelopment v. City of Los Angeles, __ Cal.App.5th __ (2018) (Case No. B285458), the Second District Court of Appeal denied an appeal challenging the City of Los Angeles’...more
On September 30, 2018, Governor Jerry Brown signed into law Assembly Bill 2923, which gives the Bay Area Rapid Transit District land use authority for transit-oriented development on the land it already owns near existing and...more
On October 1, 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court denied certiorari in Martins Beach 1, LLC v. Surfrider Foundation (Docket No. 17-119), a high-profile property rights case involving Martin’s Beach in the County of San Mateo....more
In 2005, in Lingle v. Chevron U.S.A. Inc., the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously overruled the first prong of a regulatory takings test established 25 years earlier, in Agins v. City of Tiburon. ...more
The City of Rancho Palos Verdes is the site of the ancient Portuguese Bend and Abalone Cove landslides, both of which remain active. In 1978, in response to movement of the Abalone Cove landslide, the City adopted an...more
On August 23, 2018, the California Supreme Court held, in City of Morgan Hill v. Bushey, __ Cal.4th __ (2018) (Case No. S243042), that a referendum petition to challenge a zoning ordinance amendment that would bring the...more