Public Law Litigation/CEQA

Stradling's public law department uses the firm's vast resources to provide knowledgeable and vigorous support to its public agency clients in both state and federal actions at the trial and appellate court levels.

We have experience litigating disputes involving:

Constitutional challenges to public agency policies and practices
Contracts
Employment
Redevelopment and economic development
Eminent domain
Environmental issues (such as CEQA compliance, air quality, endangered species, and hazardous waste)
Energy
Transportation
Education
Land use and zoning issues
Construction
Tax allocation disputes
Special tax foreclosures
Affordable housing compliance and covenant enforcement
Redevelopment dissolution
Water disputes (water rights and environmental/contamination claims)
Validation and reverse validation
Intellectual property challenges
Civil rights challenges
Relocation benefits
Replacement housing compliance
Enforcement of development agreements

Defended City in Constitutional Challenge to Legislative Invocation Policy

Represented City in Challenge to Wal-Mart Store

Represented City in Challenges to City's Housing Element

Represented Community Services District in CEQA Challenge

Defended City in Federal Civil Rights Litigation

Defended Redevelopment Agency and City in Foreclosure Litigation

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California Appellate Court Holds that Increased Student Enrollment Subject to CEQA

California’s First Appellate District has ruled that discretionary decisions by a local agency that increase student enrollment constitute a “project” for purposes of the California Environmental Quality Act (“CEQA”). The case, Save Berkeley Neighborhoods v The Regents of the University of California, sustains the traditionally broad definition of a “project” in the context of CEQA by rejecting the argument that an increase in student enrollment must be analyzed only when it is concomitant with a physical development.