Judge Finds Fault With Impact Report : Housing: Conflict of interest cited in allowing developers to pick their own environmental consultant. Work on 220-acre Altadena project is ordered halted.
Los Angeles County set up a “stark and irreconcilable conflict of interest” when it allowed developers to select their own environmental consultant for a 220-acre Altadena housing development, a Superior Court judge ruled Monday in a decision that may have statewide impact.
In his decision on the 272-unit La Vina housing project, Judge John Zebrowski ruled in favor of opponents of the development, who argued that Los Angeles County violated the California Environmental Quality Act by allowing developers Tim Cantwell and Southwest Diversified to pick their own consultant to prepare an environmental impact report for the project. The report was part of the material used by the Board of Supervisors to evaluate and approve the project in December.
“The stark and irreconcilable conflict of interest which exists if the developer’s paid consultant prepares the (environmental impact report) is manifest,” Zebrowski wrote.
In court Monday, Zebrowski said, “The kind of problem we have here is we clearly have someone here preparing the (environmental) study whose allegiances clearly belong to the developer and not to the public.”
The decision stunned the La Vina developers and county officials who have allowed developers to pick environmental consultants since the state’s environmental law went into effect 20 years ago.
“It’s a pretty significant ruling, not just for us, but it affects every jurisdiction in the state of California, every developer in the state of California,” said Pike Oliver of Southwest Diversified.
“About half of the housing developments in the state are prepared under the same procedures that the judge invalidated,” added Karen Lee, an attorney for the developers.
Last Thursday, Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley announced proposed changes in the city’s environmental review process that would encourage developers to allow the city to pick the consultants by guaranteeing completion of the study within a year.
Zebrowski ordered work to stop at the Altadena site in the San Gabriel Mountains foothills until the county complies with his ruling. Grading and construction have not yet begun on the site, which includes 180 acres within the Angeles National Forest. The developers have set aside 108 acres of open space and plan to maintain hiking trails.
Attorney Deborah Bucksbaum, who brought the lawsuit against the county on behalf of the La Vina foes, said the ruling does not permanently stop the project but requires the county to prepare an environmental impact report itself, or to contract with a neutral consultant.
Although Zebrowski’s ruling addressed only the La Vina case, Bucksbaum said the decision has a broader application: “The county should be very reluctant to use developer-prepared environmental impact reports for other projects.”
But Pam Holt, the county’s supervising regional planner, said the county will not consider changing its procedures until it evaluates the court decision.
In addition, Holt said Zebrowski’s decision may conflict with a July 7 ruling by Los Angeles Superior Court Judge David P. Yaffe in a lawsuit over the Paramount Ranch development in Agoura. Yaffe ruled that the county had obeyed state environmental law even though the environmental study was prepared by a developer’s consultants.
