Police Power

Subscribe to Police Power

With the February 13 passing of U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonin Scalia, American jurisprudence lost an intellectual giant. But Justice Scalia will not be forgotten; the legacy of his life’s work lives on.

While much has been and will be written about his landmark opinions and the originalist and textualist methods of constitutional and statutory interpretation he brought to bear in them, Justice Scalia’s significant legal contributions to CEQA, land use and environmental law merit special recognition.…

Continue Reading Justice Scalia’s Enduring CEQA and Land Use Law Legacy

CEQA and land use law in California go together like a hand in a glove. Due to CEQA’s broad scope and exacting substantive and procedural requirements, it is relatively easy to plead a cause of action for CEQA violations in most instances where land use approvals or entitlements for a development project are challenged.  CEQA claims thus play a prominent, and often leading, role as petitioners’ litigation “weapon of choice” in most such land use disputes.
Continue Reading When CEQA Violations Are An Afterthought: Fourth District Upholds Trial Court’s Independent Judgment Determination That City Of Anaheim Is Equitably Estopped To Unilaterally Modify Resort Hotel CUP Conditions

In one of the most widely followed land use cases in recent years, the Supreme Court of California unanimously upheld the City of San Jose’s affordable housing ordinance because it was intended to advance the constitutionally permissible public purposes of increasing the amount of affordable housing in the community and promoting economically diverse developments. California Bldg. Industry Ass’n v. City of San Jose, 61 Cal.4th 435 (June 15, 2015, Case No. S212072). According to the court, such ordinances should be evaluated under a municipality’s broad discretion to regulate the use of real property to serve the legitimate interests of the general public and the community at large, rather than as an exaction imposed to mitigate the adverse impacts of development.
Continue Reading California Supreme Court Rules that Ordinance Intended to Increase Number of Affordable Housing Units is a Lawful Exercise of the Police Power