Eminent domain must describe project sufficiently

The Matteoni firm scored an important reform of government's ability to take private property in the case of City of Stockton v. Marina Towers (2009) 171 Cal.App.4th 93. A boutique eminent domain defense firm, Matteoni & Associates represented Marina Towers against the City of Stockton's grab of the property to give it to a private apartment developer.

"There are many reasons why a failure to identify sufficiently the proposed project in a resolution of necessity must have fatal consequences to a public entity's right to take." Such reasons, the Court continued, include inability to describe why the taking is necessary and consistent with the public good, to comply with CEQA environmental review, and to provide the private owner with due process.

The City's resolution of necessity merely stated (with the usual mumbo-jumbo) that the property was needed for redevelopment. But--and key here--the City's taking was not done by the redevelopment agency. As the Court indicated, the ruling may have been different if the property were taken for a redevelopment project. Redevelopment law only requires a plan to remove blight, and the resolution of necessity only need refer to that plan's objectives.

New jurisdictional trap: subdivision act litigation service of process applies to CEQA litigation

It's been called a trap for the unwary. Now the trap is even bigger... In Friends of Riverside's Hills v. City of Riverside ,(Cal.App. 4 Dist.) , a case of first impression, an objector's petition for a writ of mandate challenging a city's approval of subdivision tract maps under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) was properly dismissed for noncompliance with the Subdivision Map Act (SMA) requirement of service of the summons within 90 days, even though the objector had met CEQA's requirements by providing notice of its intent to sue, and personally serving the city with a copy of its petition and a request to prepare the administrative record. Because the CEQA cause of action was a challenge to a decision concerning a subdivision, it was subject to the SMA service scheme as well as to CEQA.