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Late last week, the California Fourth District Court of Appeal issued an unpublished decision in San Diego Unified Port District v. California Coastal Commission.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 current ...

It seems that some governments and courts prefer to treat Supreme Court precedent as an option, rather than a requirement. The Supreme Court has ruled—twice—that it's unconstitutional for government to charge permitting fees when the fees have nothing to do with the reason for the permit. Yet some courts continue to ignore the Constitution. Pe ...

The answer to that question seems rather obvious to property owners—if the government demands that you give up a portion of your property in exchange for a development permit, why should it matter what particular branch is making the demand? After all, the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution broadly prohibits the government from taking priva ...

On Friday, PLF attorneys filed a petition for a writ of certiorari with the U.S. Supreme Court in the case, 616 Croft Ave, LLC v. City of West Hollywood. The petition asks the Court to review a California Court of Appeal decision holding that a city or county can force landowners to dedicate private property to public use, without providing just co ...

According to the California Coastal Commission staff, any permit where public access has not been granted can be automatically appealed on the grounds that California likes public access. A standard that weak is no standard at all, and certainly not what the legislature intended when it provided only limited grounds for appeal under section 30625 o ...

Earlier today, PLF attorneys filed the reply brief in 616 Croft Ave, LLC v. City of West Hollywood. As you may recall, this case arose from the City's demand that husband and wife entrepreneurs Shelah and Jonathan Lehrer-Graiwer pay a $540,000 "affordable housing" fee in order to get the necessary permits to build new homes. The Leher-Graiwers chal ...

One thing that nearly all Californians agree on is that the price of housing in this state is too high. The relentlessly rising prices are unmistakable evidence of a housing shortage: not enough homes are built to meet the rising demand. Husband and wife entrepreneurs Shelah and Jonathan Lehrer-Graiwer thought they could help meet that demand when ...

Almost a century ago, Justice Holmes famously warned that "We are in danger of forgetting that a strong public desire to improve the public condition is not enough to warrant achieving the desire by a shorter cut than the constitutional way of paying for the change." This warning could not be more timely or relevant. At issue in Common Sense Allia ...

San Juan County's scheme to force shoreline property owners into dedicating water treatment buffers is now pending on a certiorari petition with the U.S. Supreme Court in the case, Common Sense Alliance v. San Juan County. As you may recall, in order to address a Washington state statute requiring that cities and counties adopt measures to protect ...