Articles

Late last week, the California Fourth District Court of Appeal issued an unpublished decision in San Diego Unified Port District v. California Coastal Commission. Reversing the trial court, the court of appeal held that the Commission correctly denied the San Diego Port District’s master plan amendment. The amendment would have changed the cu ...

Absent Gopher Frog headed to Supreme Court The Fifth Circuit in an 8 to 6 decision declined to rehear the case of the frog that isn’t there, Markle Investments v. United States Fish & Wildlife Service. The problem in this case is that the Fish & Wildlife Service insists in designating large swaths of property … ...

Victory in Wyoming! Our client Andy Johnson entered in this consent decree with the Environmental Protection Agency in Johnson v. EPA. This is the case where the EPA threatened Andy Johnson with millions of dollars in fines if he didn’t remove a stock pond — despite the fact that Johnson obtained all necessary state permits, … ...

This week, after 22 years of litigation, the St. Johns River Water Management District finally paid the Koontz family for taking the use of Coy Koontz’s property. This case began in 1994, when the St. Johns River Water Management District told Koontz that if he wanted a permit to build on 3.7 acres of his … ...

On November 12, we reported that the California Coastal Commission had asked the Court of Appeal to reconsider (for a third time!) its decision and rule in the Commission’s favor.  Last week, we filed an answer to the Commission’s petition for rehearing, explaining why the Court need not rehear the appeal.  We are pleased to … ...

Last month, we reported on PLF’s big win against the California Coastal Commission, when the California Court of Appeal unanimously ruled that three sisters could rehabilitate their old ranch house without having to dedicate a mile-long public-access easement across the shoreline of their property.  The court held that the easement exacti ...

Today, the California Court of Appeal issued a published decision ruling in favor of PLF client, SDS Family Trust, in its years-long battle against the California Coastal Commission. The case involves the constitutionality of a public-access easement that the Commission demanded as a condition of the family’s modest restoration of its home ...

Evidently not.  This week the Commission is meeting in Ventura, California, and one of the items it’s considering is a request from the City of Ventura to change the zoning on a few undeveloped coastal parcels, to accommodate a possible residential development proposal.  The Commission’s staff is concerned because it would rather have ...

The Los Angeles County Regional Planning Commission is currently in the process of adopting General Plan 2035. Like Obamacare, General Plan 2035 checks in at a whopping 900 pages. It seeks to reshape the county through mandates including: expanded transit districts, expanded mixed use development, mandatory farming districts, and “Employment ...