Jan. 11, 2014

Firm takes stock of land use developments in 2013

Attorneys from Miller Starr Regalia reviewed major developments in land use law from 2013 in the firm's annual land use program on Thursday. William Dean, assistant director of development services for the city of Tracy, joined MSR shareholders Nadia L. Costa, Bryan W. Wenter and Arthur F. Coon for the Northern California edition of the program, held at the Round Hill Country Club in Alamo. Coon said 2013 started out as a promising year for those hoping to see reform of the California Environmental Quality Act, but Sen. Michael Rubio, the champion of reform efforts, retired to take a job at Chevron Corp., which led the effort back into stagnation. "We've probably seen all we're going to see for a while in terms of meaningful legislative reform," Coon said. Costa said the 4th District Court of Appeal decided in October that plaintiffs can't collect attorney fees for invalidating permit conditions on a property. In that case, Norberg v. California Coastal Commission, the plaintiff successfully argued that the coastal commission was incorrectly applying its rules and then asked the court for attorney fees, claiming that forcing the commission to behave properly was in the public interest. The court disagreed that this was the intention of the law. "The court said clearly the litigant did not bring the case to benefit the public but to further his own interests," she said. Dean contended that cities and counties should be careful about making their zoning rules too stringent, which can lead to relatively meaningless red tape and stifle innovation. "I had to go to City Council last year and explain the difference between a bookstore and a magazine store. That was an actual distinction," he said. Wenter said a 4th District decision further clarified the use of impact fees by local jurisdictions, which compensate service districts for additional work required by increasing the density of an area. He said the court determined that a school couldn't impose impact fees for a section of a project that was replacing existing housing. "You can only charge a school fee for the new part of the project which is shown to add new students." — Joshua Sebold