2025 Land Use and Development Law Case Summaries

2025 Published Appellate Decisions

1. Planning and Zoning

Old Golden Oaks LLC v. County of Amador, 111 Cal.App.5th 794 (2025)

A catch-all provision in the County’s encroachment permit checklist requiring “[o]ther information as may be required” violated the Permit Streamlining Act because it failed to specify required information with sufficient detail. However, the court upheld the County’s determination that a grading permit application was incomplete, finding that County code provisions identifying when CEQA applies and requiring a CEQA indemnification agreement, read together with the grading permit checklist, satisfied the Act’s requirement to specify completeness criteria and justified requests for CEQA-related information.

Solano County Orderly Growth Committee v. City of Fairfield, 113 Cal.App.5th 1027 (2025) 

The City of Fairfield was not required to demonstrate that an agreement to receive, treat, and return water to an irrigation district was consistent with the City’s general plan. The court rejected the argument that every municipal action affecting land use constitutes a “land use decision” subject to general plan consistency requirements, explaining that the Planning and Zoning Law limits that requirement to specified categories of land use approvals. Even assuming consistency were required, the court concluded the agreement did not conflict with the City’s general plan, deferring to the City’s reasonable interpretation of an ambiguous policy governing urban development and municipal services beyond city limits. 

Move Eden Housing v. City of Livermore, 114 Cal.App.5th 1282 (2025) 

A court found that the City’s approval of a development agreement was legislative—and therefore subject to referendum—because it included a new policy commitment to fund a public park. The City then repealed the development agreement approval and simultaneously adopted a new resolution approving the same development agreement without the park provisions. The Court of Appeal held that this approach complied with Elections Code section 9241, which specifies that when a city council repeals a measure to avoid a referendum, it may not re-enact the same legislation for a period of one year following the repeal. Because the only legislative element of the earlier resolution (the park funding) was fully repealed and not reenacted, the City did not violate the one-year reenactment bar. The revised development agreement, stripped of new policy commitments, was administrative in nature and not subject to referendum. 

2. Housing 

New Commune DTLA LLC v. City of Redondo Beach, 115 Cal.App.5th 111 (2025) 

The City could not rely on a residential overlay applied to commercial and industrial zones to satisfy its RHNA obligations where the underlying zoning still allowed development with no housing. Government Code section 65583.2(h)(2) requires rezoning that guarantees minimum residential density on sites counted toward lower-income RHNA, or compliance with strict mixed-use alternatives. Because the City’s overlay permitted all-nonresidential projects and did not require that a minimum portion of mixed-use development be residential, it failed both requirements. The court also addressed site-specific challenges, upholding inclusion of an underutilized parking area but rejecting parcels constrained by existing grocery-store leases, underscoring the need for substantial evidence that nonresidential uses are likely to end during the planning period. 

Kennedy Commission v. Superior Court of San Diego County, 114 Cal. App. 5th 385 (2025) 

The expedited procedures and mandatory judicial remedies in Article 14 of the Government Code apply to charter cities that lack a compliant housing element. Rejecting Huntington Beach’s home-rule argument, the court concluded that Article 14 addresses a matter of statewide concern and hence governs actions challenging the validity of any city’s general plan. The court directed the trial court to issue a new order enforcing the statute’s 120-day compliance deadline and limiting or mandating land-use approvals until substantial compliance was achieved. 

3. Assessments and Taxes 

Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association v. Coachella Valley Water District, 116 Cal.App.5th 520 (2025) 

Groundwater replenishment charges by the Coachella Valley Water District were unconstitutional taxes under Proposition 218 because the District failed to prove that its cost-allocation formula was fair and reasonable. Although the District showed that total replenishment revenues did not exceed overall program costs, it did not demonstrate that allocating substantially higher charges to certain areas of benefit bore a fair or reasonable relationship to the benefits those ratepayers received. The record did not support the District’s claim that groundwater replenishment in one area did not benefit other areas, undermining its constitutional allocation argument. 

Thacker v. City of Fairfield, 113 Cal. App. 5th 1049 (2025) 

The Court of Appeal held that Proposition 218 applies to all increases in special assessments enacted before the 1996 effective date of the initiative, including flat, per-parcel charges. The court determined that Fairfield’s increases in a pre-1996 maintenance district assessment constituted an “increased assessment” requiring compliance with Proposition 218’s procedural and substantive requirements. The decision confirms that grandfathered assessments are effectively capped at their 1996 levels absent voter or property-owner approval. 

Carachure v. City of Azusa, 110 Cal.App.5th 776 (2025) 

Ratepayers challenging municipal sewer and trash fees under Proposition 218 were not required to exhaust administrative refund procedures or pay fees under protest under Health and Safety Code section 5472. The court held that section 5472 applies only to actions seeking refunds, not to suits seeking constitutional review of a city’s fee structure and revenue-transfer practices. Because petitioners did not seek refunds of fees paid, but instead challenged the legality of the City’s practices and sought prospective relief, exhaustion was not required. 

4. Land Use Litigation 

Coalition of Pacificans for an Updated Plan v. City of Pacifica, 2025 WL 3764279 (2025) 

The court vacated a $1.2 million attorney fee award, holding that the trial court misapplied Government Code section 65589.5(p)(1), which requires a court to give “due weight” to state housing policies when deciding whether to award attorneys’ fees in an action challenging a housing approval. The court clarified that a project’s contribution to housing needs must be assessed against regional targets, such as the City's RHNA, rather than a statewide deficit of two million units, which the court deemed an "unreasonable" benchmark. The court also rejected a categorical approach to urban designations, ruling that a trial court must focus on the specific area of a project rather than an entire community in evaluating whether the project advances the policy of focusing development in urban areas. 

Make UC A Good Neighbor v. Regents of University of California, 117 Cal.App.5th 282 (2025) 

Petitioners originally prevailed in the Court of Appeal on their claims that the University violated CEQA by failing to evaluate noise impacts from new student housing in People’s Park and failing to consider alternative locations for the project. However, the Court of Appeal held they were not entitled to attorneys’ fees under Code of Civil Procedure section 1021.5 after the Legislature passed a bill that abrogated petitioners’ victories and the California Supreme Court reversed the appellate court’s decision on that ground. 

Herron v. San Diego Unified Port District, 109 Cal. App. 5th 1 (2025) 

The Port District’s lease of public trust tidelands to a private yacht club was a discretionary decision not subject to traditional mandamus. Because the statute governing the Port expressly authorizes leasing tidelands for yacht club use and does not require continuous public access, the Port had no ministerial duty to deny the lease or solicit bids. Any challenge to the Port’s discretionary decision could be brought only as an administrative mandamus action, and was barred by the 90-day statute of limitations. 

5. Takings 

Benedetti v. County of Marin, 113 Cal. App. 5th 1185 (2025) 

Marin County’s requirement that new residential units on coastal agricultural land be subject to a restrictive covenant tying occupancy to active agricultural use did not effect an unconstitutional taking. Relying on Sheetz v. County of El Dorado, the court held that facial Nollan/Dolan challenges are permissible, but rejected the challenge on the merits, finding a sufficient nexus and rough proportionality between the covenant and the County’s interest in preserving agricultural land. The court also rejected a substantive due process claim, concluding the requirement was rationally related to longstanding farmland-preservation policies. 

6. Subdivision Map Act 

Cox v. City of Oakland, 17 Cal.5th 362 (2025) 

The California Supreme Court held that under the Subdivision Map Act, a pre-1972 deed referencing multiple lots does not by itself create separate legal parcels. A legal parcel is created only when a conveyance separates a portion of land into distinct ownership from contiguous property. Because the deed at issue conveyed multiple contiguous lots together and no lots were ever separately conveyed, no separate parcel was created, and the City properly denied a Certificate of Compliance. 

7. Real Estate 

Rodriguez v. City of Los Angeles, 116 Cal.App.5th 488 (2025) 

A recorded agreement with the City requiring the owner of a residential unit to rent exclusively to low-income households for at least 30 years survived a foreclosure action and remained enforceable against successor owners. The agreement was equivalent to a condition attached to a building permit and, under Government Code section 65009, ran with the land once the benefits under the permit were accepted. 

Sandton Agriculture Investments III, LLC v. 4-S Ranch Partners LLC, 113 Cal.App.5th 519 (2025) 

Floodwater captured and stored in an aquifer beneath property is not personal property but part of the real property, appurtenant to the land. Rejecting the theory that the capturing of floodwater renders it personal property, the court reaffirmed that water in its natural state underground becomes real property unless severed from the land. Because the groundwater was not severed, rights to the water were transferred with the property as part of a foreclosure sale. 

8. Surplus Land Act 

Airport Business Center v. City of Santa Rosa, 116 Cal.App.5th 501 (2025) 

The City of Santa Rosa did not abuse its discretion under the Surplus Land Act by declaring a City-owned public parking garage to be surplus land, even though the property continued to serve a parking function and the City required retention of some parking in future development. The court explained that land may be deemed surplus if it is not necessary for the agency’s own operations, and that an ongoing public benefit does not preclude a surplus land designation. Substantial evidence—including parking utilization studies, available excess capacity elsewhere, and the cost of structural repairs—supported the City’s determination, and conditioning disposition on retention of some parking spaces did not invalidate the surplus designation.

9. Rent Control 

CP VI Admirals Cove, LLC v. City of Alameda, 113 Cal. App. 5th 1167 (2025) 

Former military housing was not exempt from local rent control under the Costa-Hawkins Act despite extensive rehabilitation and issuance of a post-1995 certificate of occupancy. Relying on prior caselaw, the court concluded that the certificate-of-occupancy exemption under the Act applies only where the certificate predates any residential use. Because the units had been used for residential purposes before rehabilitation—even though vacant for years and formerly limited to military families—the new certificate did not trigger the exemption, and the City’s rent control ordinance applied.