In Citizens for the Restoration of L Street v. City of Fresno, 2014 Cal. App. LEXIS 786,the Fifth Appellate District affirmed a judgment granting a writ of mandate challenging the City of Fresno’s (City) approval of an infill development project. The court upheld the trial court’s ruling that the City violated the California …

On September 4, 2014, the Court of Appeal for the Fifth District granted a request to publish an additional portion of the recent case San Francisco Tomorrow v. City & County of San Francisco, 2014 Cal. App. LEXIS 800. The previously published opinion affirmed the City and County of San Francisco’s approval of a …

In Town of Atherton v. Cal. High-Speed Rail Authority, (2014) Cal. App. LEXIS 670, the Court of Appeal for the Third District upheld the final program environmental impact report (EIR) for the segment of the California High Speed Rail project linking the San Francisco Bay Area to the Central Valley.

In the EIR, the …

In a partially published opinion in San Francisco Tomorrow v. City and County of San Francisco, 2014 Cal. App. LEXIS 735, the Court of Appeal for the First Appellate District upheld denial of a petition for a writ of mandate seeking to overturn approval of a 152-acre redevelopment project near Lake Merced in southwest …

On August 6, 2014, the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research (“OPR”) released a Notice of Availability of a Preliminary Discussion Draft of Changes to the California Environmental Quality Act (“CEQA”) Guidelines Related to SB 743 (Steinberg, 2013; “Preliminary Discussion Draft”). These updates are geared towards the evaluation of transportation impacts under CEQA.

Traffic studies …

In Tuolumne Jobs & Small Business Alliance v. Superior Court of Tuolumne County, (August 7, 2014, S207173) __ Cal.4th __, the Supreme Court reversed the appellate court’s issuance of a writ of mandate challenging the City of Sonora’s approval of an ordinance for the expansion of a big box store (Project) without first conducting …

In an unpublished decision, Parks Legal Defense Fund v. City of Huntington Beach, (2014) Cal. App. Unpub. LEXIS 5050, the Fourth District Court of Appeal upheld the trial court’s jurisdiction to discharge a writ of mandate, but reversed and remanded the trial court’s determination that the subsequent environmental impact report complied with the California…

In an unpublished decision in Save Our Heritage Organisation v. County of San Diego, (2014) Cal. App. Unpub. LEXIS 5121, the Court of Appeal for the Fourth District reversed the trial court and ordered the trial court to deny a writ of mandate challenging the adequacy of the environmental impact report (EIR) for a…