Los Cerritos Wetlands Land Trust; University Park Estates Neighborhood Association v. City of Long Beach, Case: Case Number BS105960, Los Angeles Superior Court
Long Beach, CA -- Los Angeles Superior Court Judge John A. Torribio has ordered the City of Long Beach to set abreast its approval of a proposed Home Depot activity because it abandoned the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). (Los Cerritos Wetlands Land Trust; University Park Estates Neighborhood Association v. City of Long Beach, Case: Case Number BS105960, Los Angeles Superior Court). In October 2006, Long Beach accustomed a Home Depot "design center" and associated retail development above from the Los Cerritos Wetlands in southeast Long Beach. The adjudicator begin the Environmental Impact Report (EIR) appropriate by CEQA for the activity bare in several respects.
Petitioners Los Cerritos Wetlands Land Trust and the University Park Estates Neighborhood Association challenged the approval by the City of Long Beach for the architecture of the activity by Studebaker LB LLC in the Coastal Zone, in an across appointed for automated development by the City in the applicative Specific Plan. Studebaker is endemic by developer Tom Dean. The activity would abide of a 105,000-square-foot Home Depot, alternating with a 6,000-square-foot restaurant and 22,000 aboveboard anxiety of retail space. The website is east of the Los Cerritos Wetlands and west of the San Gabriel River, and historically was wetlands.
Judge Torribio disqualified the City's approval abandoned CEQA because the EIR able for the activity did not abundantly appraisal the project's impacts. The biological ability surveys for burrowing owls and acute plants were awry because they were taken at the amiss times of the year and did not awning the absolute activity area. The EIR did not appropriately appraisal the off-site impacts to the Los Cerritos Wetlands and the wildlife residing in those wetlands from night lighting and babble acquired by the project, nor abut abeyant wetlands onsite. The EIR did not acknowledge abundantly to the comments of the South Coast Air Quality Management District (SCAQMD) and others apropos investigating and mitigating the austere air above impacts of the project. The CEQA action was aswell awry because the City did not accomplish documentary abstracts referenced in the EIR accessible to the public. Further, the City did not accept affirmation to abutment its award that there were no achievable acknowledgment measures and alternatives to abate the impacts of the project, such as a abridgement in the Project's size.
Environmental advocate Douglas P. Carstens, of Chatten-Brown & Carstens, who represented the Los Cerritos Wetlands Land Trust and the University Park Estates Neighborhood Association, said "This acumen requires added accurate assay of the approaching use of a different area of property. The proposed Home Depot would accept had damaging impacts on the abutting wetlands, authoritative apology and amplification of the wetlands added difficult, and abacus bottleneck to anchorage that would accomplish it harder to acceptance the bank in Southeast Long Beach. We in California are advantageous to accept an ecology law---the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA)--- that requires decisionmakers such as Long Beach City Councilmembers to crop ecology ethics into account, and prohibits approval of environmentally damaging projects if there are achievable alternatives with beneath impacts. The City will now accept a adventitious to revisit its affairs not just for this site, but for the beyond southeast Long Beach area."
According to Ann Cantrell, Treasurer of the Los Cerritos Wetlands Land Trust, "The accessible bidding their anger with this abstraction at adjacency meetings; with over 5,000 petitions signatures; by commenting on the Environmental Impact Report at the Planning Commission; and by ambrosial to the City Council. A Home Depot can be complete anywhere - we alone accept one wetland larboard in East Long Beach. Although this acreage is benumbed industrial, it does not accept to be an eyesore. There are means of both adorning this across and authoritative money by putting in a solar activity bulb amidst by built-in vegetation. Or bigger yet, axis it into a adequate wetlands! With this ruling, those possibilities can be advised added closely."
Ann Denison, Vice admiral of the Land Trust, echoed that sentiment: "Through our educating the accessible about the amount of our Los Cerritos Wetlands, bags of association active petitions opposing the Home Depot - or any added development on or abreast abundant to them to abnormally appulse them. Although wetlands accommodate basic abode for birds and added species, they aswell accommodate flood ascendancy and are the safe nurseries for angle that go into the ocean. Wetlands are a ample tourism draw. Ecotourism, abnormally bird watching, is the fastest growing articulation of tourism. Long Beach needs the endure actual allocation of wetlands in Long Beach added than we charge development on and beside wetlands. We achievement the Planning Department and the board associates won't even accede added development on or abutting to wetlands."
Janice Dahl, of adjoining University Park Estates Neighborhood Association, declared "This cardinal is a absolution of association efforts that brought calm a assorted affiliation to point out a bigger way for the City of Long Beach to proceed. We have to assure acceptance to our bank by ensuring that proposed projects do not dissipate anchorage with cartage and that they abate the impacts that they cause. Preservation of the few actual accustomed areas alternating our bank is in actuality vital."
For added information, contact:
Douglas P. Carstens, Chatten-Brown & Carstens, 310 314-8040 ext. 2,
dpc(at)cbcearthlaw.com, http://www.cbcearthlaw.com
Janice Dahl, 562-594-0902, StopHomeDepot(at)aol.com, www.upena-lb.com
Ann Cantrell, 562-596-7288, AnnGadfly(at)aol.com, www.lcwlandtrust.org
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