NEWPORT BEACH — The largest stretch of untouched land in coastal Orange County is back in the news again, thanks to a legal battle reaching California’s highest courthouse. When the dust finally settles the fallout of this battle will not be contained to Newport Beach. How developers, city councils and...
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2 Responses
The pertinent question at Banning Ranch is whether, during CEQA review (the Environmental Impact Report, which comes before project permitting), the public is better served by having local government make a good-faith effort to work with State agencies to avoid approving actions that clearly violate State policies and/or precedents, or whether it’s better for the local government to go through the motions of collaboration and then approve a project that clearly violates those policies/precedents. In this case, the City of Newport Beach actually has a requirement in its General Plan that the City will “work with” the Coastal Commission and other agencies during the CEQA review process, to ensure they are not wasting everyone’s time and money by approving a project that clearly violates the Coastal Act or other regulations. The City argued that having a meeting and a site visit, and then completely blowing off Commission staff and its many concerns, satisfied their requirements under both their General Plan and CEQA. We can only hope that the Supreme Court is able to discern the wastefulness and ultimately the illegality of such a bad-faith approach to planning.
Besides possibly violating the Coastal Act, the City of Newport Beach also possibly violated the Alquist-Priolo Act by approving development on the southern mesa.