California Legal Brief

The Rule of Citizens Against Marketplace Apartment/Condo Development v. City of San Ramon is that a city does not abuse its discretion in approving an infill housing development despite general plan language encouraging preparation of a "master plan," under circumstances where the general plan uses discretionary language ("encourage") rather than mandatory requirements and the project achieves the substantive objectives of circulation, access, and visibility improvements while introducing mixed-use residential development.

The Rule of Shear Development Co. v. California Coastal Commission is that courts must exercise independent judgment in determining an agency's appellate jurisdiction when that jurisdiction depends primarily on interpretation of enacted law rather than factual matters, and where two agencies offer conflicting interpretations of a law both administer, no deference is due to either when the Yamaha factors do not clearly favor one interpretation, under circumstances where jurisdictional disputes turn on legal interpretation of local coastal programs and multiple agencies share administrative responsibility.

The Rule of Shear Development Co. v. California Coastal Commission is that courts must exercise independent judgment when reviewing an agency's jurisdictional determinations based on legal interpretation of enacted law, and when two agencies offer conflicting interpretations of law they both administer, neither receives deference if Yamaha factors do not clearly favor one over the other, under circumstances where the jurisdictional question depends primarily on statutory or LCP interpretation rather than factual disputes.

The Rule of Committee for Tiburon LLC v. Town of Tiburon is that a program EIR for a local agency's general plan need not include site-specific environmental analysis of sites identified in the housing element where no housing project has been proposed for the site, under circumstances where the absence of project-specific details precludes informed review of environmental impacts and mitigation measures.