Earlier this month, the California Court of Appeal ruled that a qualifying development project in San Diego County could use the County’s General Plan Environmental Impact Report (“EIR”) to streamline the project’s environmental review, over the objections of neighbors and the County’s Board of Supervisors. A similar result was recently achieved in San Francisco. RJR partner Tuija Catalano secured a victory at the Board of Supervisors for a housing project, with the Board determining that the project properly used San Francisco’s recently certified Housing Element EIR to streamline CEQA processing for the project. The Court of Appeal’s opinion further strengthens
Two recent California court decisions, involving all-too-common neighbor disputes, have provided new guidance concerning easements and property ownership. In Romero v. Shih (S275023 [2024]), the California Supreme Court ruled that a neighbor (Sierra Madre, L.A. County) can acquire an exclusive right to a driveway easement by implication even where all of the elements of adverse possession are not met, namely, where the party claiming an easement has not paid taxes on the land in question. The Court reversed the Court of Appeal, which had held that as a matter of law, such an easement could have been created only by
The San Francisco Planning Department has released more details on its Expanding Housing Choice Program, a citywide rezoning that will primarily target the city’s westside. The rezoning proposal originates in the city’s 2022 Housing Element Update, which was adopted last January, and requires the city to rezone to allow for approximately 36,000 housing units in order to meet its regional housing need allocation (RHNA) goal. Much like last year’s Constraint’s Reduction Ordinance legislation, the Expanding Housing Choice Program proposes sweeping changes to the Planning Code that are meant to spur housing development. These changes include upzoning along various transit and
Leases, construction contracts, easement agreements, and other contracts often require one party to name the other as an “additional insured” under its liability insurance policy. The insuring party often provides its counterpart with a “certificate of insurance.” The receiving party may believe that the insuring party complied with its obligations. But unless an additional insured endorsement is issued, the negotiated risk transfer to the insuring party’s insurance carrier was not accomplished. A certificate of insurance is nothing more than evidence of insurance. It typically identifies the insurance carrier, states the kinds of coverage that are maintained, and outlines the insured’s
The question has been previously raised – is a lease the same as a license – in that does the underlying occupant/user acquire tenancy rights by such occupation regardless of whether you define an agreement as a license or a lease. A recent case – Castaic Studios, LLC vs. Wonderland Studios (97 Cal.App.5th 209) – discusses an important aspect of this issue. In Castaic, Wonderland, as licensee, defaulted under a license agreement and the licensor, Castaic, elected to seek an unlawful detainer action to remove the licensee, only to be told by the lower court that it was not an
We are following up on a previous update where we discussed Assembly Bill 572. After undergoing a few amendments in the State legislature, the Bill passed and became effective January 1, 2024. AB 572 amended Section 5605 of the California Civil Code, which is part of the Davis-Stirling Common Interest Development Act. The amended law, with certain exceptions, prohibits a homeowners association (HOA) that records its original declaration (CC&Rs) on or after January 1, 2025, from imposing an increase of a regular assessment on the owner of a deed-restricted affordable housing unit that is more than 5% plus the percentage
