Topanga Assn. for a Scenic Comm. v. Cty of Los Angeles

4 Analyses of this case by attorneys

  1. CEQA Remedies Go Both Ways:  Fourth District Reverses Judgment Upholding San Diego County Board’s Decision Granting Project Opponents’ Administrative Appeal, Holds Board Erred In Finding CEQA Guidelines Section 15183 Statutory Exemption Inapplicable And Ordering EIR Prepared for Exempt Industrial Project

    Miller Starr RegaliaArthur F. CoonFebruary 27, 2024

    viously adopted development policies or standards shall not be considered “peculiar” (§ 15183(f)), so, per the Court, “the issue is whether substantial evidence in the record supports the Board of Supervisors’ findings that there are project-specific impacts that will not be substantially mitigated by previously adopted and uniformly applied policies and procedures.”In this same vein, prior to analyzing the Board’s findings for substantial evidence support, the Court noted that the Board’s decision “failed to identify the specific nature of the NCER Project’s “peculiar” impacts that required environmental review, except to point to broad environmental categories” and did not “address, with specificity, the effect of uniform policies and procedures on these purported impacts.” The Board’s brief and non-specific findings thus failed “to bridge the analytic gap between the raw evidence and ultimate decision or order.” (Quoting Topanga Assn. for a Scenic Community v. County of Los Angeles (1974) 11 Cal.3d 506, 515.) This failure, i.e., the Board’s ambiguous findings, and the fact that County’s staff reports and technical environmental studies contradicted those findings, made review of the voluminous 48,000-page record for substantial evidence supporting the Board’s decision a “challenging” and “daunting task” for both the Court and the parties. Further, while County attempted to bridge the analytic gap by pointing to various public comments in the record, these consisted largely of lay opinion and personal observations on technical subjects requiring expertise, and “altogether fail[ed] to address [the key issue of] whether the purported project-specific impacts will be substantially mitigated by uniform policies in the PEIR.”Despite indulging all inferences in favor of the Board’s decision as required by the substantial evidence standard, the Court could nonetheless identify no substantial evidence in the record supporting the decision to overturn the Zoning Administrator’s and Planning Commis

  2. California Court Rejects Zoning Uniformity Claims

    Allen MatkinsAugust 2, 2019

    The City's exercise of its police powers through its general plan was rationally related to a legitimate government interest and therefore did not violate the equal protection clause, and the policy's standard requiring a "significant community benefit" was not so vague as to violate the due process clause. The court also rejected plaintiff's arguments that the project approval constituted "spot zoning," noting that the project site was not given lesser development rights than surrounding parcels, and that spot zoning issues are still tied to legislative approvals such as general plan amendments and rezoning, and are therefore subject to the deferential rational basis test, which was met in this case.The court then rejected the claim that the zoning uniformity rule was based on a zoning social contract theory as articulated in Topanga Assn. for a Scenic Community v. County of Los Angeles (1974)11 Cal. 3d 506. The court held that Topanga only analogized zoning to a contract, and that even though zoning "may be based on theories of mutual benefit and reciprocity … there is not constitutional or common law social contract in California that compels zoning legislation and land use permits to meet a standard higher than the rationality and reasonableness required by the Fourteenth Amendment."

  3. California Court Issues First Decision Addressing SCEA Environmental Review

    Holland & Knight LLPJuly 30, 2019

    The court found the city had articulated a rational basis.Finally, the court found that "there is no constitutional doctrine or common law social contract in California that compels zoning legislation and land use permits to meet a standard higher than the rationality and reasonableness required by the Fourteenth Amendment." The court declined to extend the analogy to a contract first offered in Topanga Assn. for a Scenic Community v. County of Los Angeles, 11 Cal. 3d 506, 517-18 (1974).This case confirms that asserting a "spot zoning" argument will be an uphill battle since it will be very difficult to disprove any rational basis for differential land use controls.

  4. Court of Appeal Upholds Termination of Dispatch Supervisor and Confirms that Bypassing Progressive Discipline was Proper

    Liebert Cassidy WhitmoreFebruary 29, 2016

    Rivera also argued that she did not receive sufficient notice that her misconduct could subject her to immediate termination. However, the Court rejected the argument noting that the City provided her with a Notice of Termination clearly outlining why it was terminating her and under what applicable provisions of the MOU.The Court also rejected Rivera's argument that the hearing officer failed to make sufficient findings in his decision to uphold her termination under the California Supreme Court decision of Topanga Assn. for a Scenic Community v. County of Los Angeles (1974) 11 Cal.3d 506 (Topanga). In Topanga, the California Supreme Court held that the decision of a hearing officer or hearing body after a quasi-judicial hearing must "bridge the analytic gap between the raw evidence and ultimate decision and order" so that the decision can be reviewed in an administrative mandamus proceeding.