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Superior Court Kills Las Lomas Development on L.A. Wildlife Pinchpoint

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Is the Las Lomas development 'finally dead'?
December 16, 2008, L.A. Times

By Jennifer Oldham
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-laslomas16-2008dec16,0,6500693.story

A Los Angeles Superior Court judge has declined to order the city to reopen its environmental review of a controversial 5,553-home development proposed for steep hillsides near where Interstate 5 and the Antelope Valley Freeway intersect. Judge David P. Yaffe ruled that state law doesn’t require the City Council to finish preparing environmental studies before considering a proposal by developer Dan Palmer to build a mixed-use community known as Las Lomas. Yaffe’s ruling, issued Friday, led City Councilman Greig Smith — who headed an effort to dismiss the city’s review of the 555-acre project — to declare that “after six years of fighting this ill-conceived project, it appears to be finally dead.” The council voted 10 to 5 in March to instruct the Planning Department to stop processing the application to build the project, which would have included more than 2 million square feet in commercial space. Palmer sued the city last summer, claiming the decision violated state law and the developer’s constitutional right to due process. The complaint asked the court to order the city to finish complex environmental studies and to award it $100 million in damages. Council members feared that the development -- under which Palmer proposed that Los Angeles annex the 555-acre parcel so he could access the city’s water supply -- would tax already overburdened services and further snarl traffic.