County Tags Builders for Legal Costs

Facing a wave of litigation over recent development decisions, the Board of Supervisors, in an unusual move, voted Tuesday to cut its future court costs by requiring builders to pay for the attorneys who will defend some of the county’s decisions.

County officials said they don’t have the money to fight all the expected legal challenges. And the developers, rather than risk the county approvals they have received, have agreed to pay for the county’s lawyers.

“They realize we don’t have the funds to do this,” said Ernie Schneider, director of the county Environmental Management Agency. He said that if agreements between the developers and the county fail, “there are significant public benefits that could be lost.”

The 4-1 vote, with Supervisor Roger R. Stanton opposed, applies to the builders who participate in the county’s so-called development agreements. The agreements protect certain construction projects from future land use changes in return for private funding of new roads and other public improvements.

The agreements have been attacked by leaders of the slow-growth initiative who claim that they are unconstitutional and an attempt by the county to circumvent the slow-growth measure. The initiative is scheduled to be decided by Orange County voters on June 7.

So far, there have been seven lawsuits filed against six development agreements, said Assistant County Counsel John R. Griset. In all, the board has approved eight development agreements with more than a dozen still being considered. Seven agreements are scheduled to be heard by the board today.

Schneider said he has received commitments for the legal costs from all eight of the developers who have already received board approval for their agreements. For the remaining agreements--including those to be considered today--he said there will be new language inserted in the agreements to require the reimbursement.

Don McCormick, spokesman for the Irvine Co., which has a major residential and commercial development on the Irvine coast scheduled for consideration by the Board of Supervisors, said Tuesday that the company supports the concept of paying the county’s legal fees in the agreements.

Griset said it is too early to predict the cost of defending the agreements. He said the county also is still working out how it will distribute the burden among the developers.

In cases that involve only one agreement, the individual developer will be responsible for all of the county’s litigation costs. However, many of the same legal issues are involved in several different suits. So, Griset said, some of the costs may be shared by the developers.

“We’re going to have to work this out as we go along,” Griset said.

Schneider said the county will probably have the developers determine how the costs should be shared. “It just makes sense to have them agree among themselves,” he said.

The supervisors also plan to hire outside legal counsel to handle the developer agreements, but Tuesday they postponed a decision on selecting a law firm.