South Fresno community groups score another victory with appeals court ruling
Recently they've been fighting back. And in an increasing number of cases, fighting back and winning.
The latest example came in March when a state appeals court sided with community groups in their ongoing legal battle with Caltrans and the Federal Highway Administration over major expansions of the North Avenue and American Avenue freeway interchanges on Highway 99.
The appellate court granted a petition submitted in November by Friends of Calwa Inc. and Fresno Building Healthy Communities that should – without wading too deep into the legal muck – finally compel Caltrans to justify its environmental review for the $140 million project.
Opinion
The same environmental review which, as you may recall, conveniently left out Fresno County's proposed 2,940-acre industrial park east of 99 that can't proceed without improved freeway access and will unquestionably bring more air pollution and truck traffic to already overburdened neighborhoods.
In fact, Caltrans' analysis of the interchange expansion claimed there were no communities in the project area that would be impacted. Completely disregarding tens of thousands of south Fresno residents who live within breathing distance.
Such glaring omissions triggered Friends of Calwa and Fresno BHC in March 2023 to file a lawsuit against Caltrans and FHA in federal district court over the agencies' approval of the project that challenged the legality of the environmental review under state and federal laws.
Rather than defend its shoddy work, Caltrans restored to legal tactics intended to price out the opposition (i.e. cross-filing the federal suit in state court) and bickered over technicalities. In October, it scored a temporary victory when a Fresno Superior Court judge granted Caltrans' motion for summary adjudication to throw out any claims against the California Environmental Quality Act because the community groups filed their arguments too late.
Last month's California Fifth Appellate Court decision put an end to that nonsense. It ordered the Fresno Superior Court to vacate its October ruling and conduct further hearings to determine whether Caltrans' environmental review violated state law.
Now, at last, we might get somewhere.
Michael Claiborne, directing attorney for Leadership Counsel for Justice and Accountability, one of the legal firms representing Friends of Calwa and Fresno BHC, said writs of mandate that seek review of a lower court's order are 'rarely granted.'
'My understanding is that more than 90% of petitions like this are denied,' Claiborne said. 'This is extraordinary relief reversing an order by the Superior Court prior to final judgment.'
This ruling, it must be noted, does not prevent Caltrans from expanding and improving the 99 freeway interchanges at North and American avenues. Nor was that the groups' ultimate aim.
Friends of Calwa and Fresno BHC simply wanted the project's environmental review to adhere to state and federal law – and for a massive industrial park near the freeway whose traffic will utilize those exits to be included in the study.
Neither request is unreasonable. Not when the negative public health effects of air pollution, including how noxious gas compounds disperse over wide areas, are well-established science.
'The communities of Calwa and Malaga are frustrated and tired of being treated as a dumping ground,' said Laura Moreno, executive director of Friends of Calwa. 'Our neighborhoods deserve transportation projects that don't completely disregard the needs of the people who live here.'
The appeals court decision is the latest in a string of victories by south Fresno residents and their legal teams against the actions of government agencies and municipalities, and the second involving the inadequacy of environmental reviews.
Last August, the same state appeals court ruled in favor of a group called the South Fresno Community Alliance in a lawsuit that successfully challenged the adequacy of the environmental review process the City of Fresno uses for new construction.
Dozens of projects throughout the city were reportedly halted as a result.
Though not in the legal arena, the string of victories by south Fresno residents and community groups includes the rejection of the Measure C transportation tax extension in the November 2022 election. And going back a few more years, the successful Measure P parks tax.
Among the powers-that-be, this recent shift has caused no small amount of consternation. For example, Fresno City Councilmember Mike Karbassi accused law firms like Leadership Counsel of 'economic terrorism' and questioned the motives of 'some people' opposed to the 99 interchange expansion.
'This is straight up about killing economic development in Fresno – that is the goal,' Karbassi said during a December 2023 council meeting.
Instead of making silly statements, why not create economic development that doesn't ignore state and federal laws and worsen living conditions in marginalized neighborhoods?
Is that too much to ask?
'What Caltrans did was illegal – that's what the (appeals) court said,' Moreno said. 'Now we're hoping for them to fix it. Caltrans can still make this right.'
Those don't sound like the words of someone who wants to kill economic development. They sound like someone looking for a solution.
Perhaps that's why south Fresno residents are fighting back, and winning.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
01-08-2025
- Yahoo
She faced $500 daily HOA fines for an unapproved door in her home. A new state law saved her
Jinah Kim's HOA said she couldn't fix a doorway inside her condo. She did it anyway. She figured it was fine. After all, the doorway was completely inside her home, separating an office and dining room. But when the complex's manager peeked into her place through the open garage door one day in March and saw the renovation, she received a notice the next day. The privacy intrusion was shocking, but the cost of noncompliance was even worse: a single $100 fine at first, then up to $500 per day — $3,500 per week — starting July 10 until she changed the doorway back. But on July 1, when Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill 130 into law, her HOA nightmare vanished with the stroke of a pen, and her fee for defiance was capped at $100. "It's a game changer," Kim said. "For years, HOAs have been able to bend entire communities to their will on a whim. This stops that." Industry experts and HOA lobbyists were taken by surprise in June when Newsom pushed AB 130 through the state Legislature and signed it into law — not because it passed, but because it included a last-minute update redefining HOA law in California. The overall goal of the bill is to expedite housing by easing California Environmental Quality Act regulations for many projects, but it also amends the Davis-Stirling Act, the framework that governs homeowners associations. The biggest change? HOA fines are now capped at $100 per violation unless there are health or safety impacts. Want to paint your house neon green? $100. Erect a giant Halloween skeleton on your front lawn year-round? $100. The bill also bans interest and late fees on violations and prohibits HOAs from disciplining homeowners as long as they address violations before the hearing. It allows homeowners to request internal dispute resolution if they don't agree with the board's findings at hearings. It's a massive win for disgruntled homeowners, who have long claimed that California HOAs are too aggressive, stringent and overbearing. It's a startling blow for HOAs, which were left blindsided by the changes. Dyanne Peters, an attorney with Tinnelly Law Group who practices HOA law, said her firm was tracking the legislation, but in a different bill. The HOA language was originally part of Senate Bill 681, a housing bill authored by state Sen. Aisha Wahab (D-Hayward). Peters said HOA lobbyists were making headway negotiating the bill and coming to a mutual agreement, but on June 27, the HOA language from SB 681 was added into AB 130 and passed three days later, leaving the HOA industry reeling. "As an industry, this came as a shock," she said. "Everyone is scrambling to get a handle on the changes." Peters said no one likes paying fines, but noted that fines aren't a money-making tool for HOAs. Instead, they're used as deterrents for actions that disrupt communities. For example, if a neighborhood doesn't allow homes to be used as short-term rentals such as Airbnbs, but a homeowner shirking the rules only has to pay $100 one time, they'll probably just pay the fine and keep renting out their home. Or if a resident wants to build a huge fence but doesn't want to deal with the architectural approval process, they'll just eat the $100 and build whatever they want. "It's frustrating because these new rules are handcuffing homeowners associations," Peters said. "It takes away the ability for HOAs to govern their own communities. Clients are calling us asking, 'What's the point?'" However, the bill added a lifeline for HOAs by specifying that fines can be greater than $100 if they "result in an adverse health or safety impact on the common area or another association member's property." Peters said associations should go through their current rules and see which could be health or safety violations, and then adopt resolutions that specify in writing that certain actions, such as speeding or having aggressive pets, have health or safety impacts and therefore qualify for fines greater than $100. Luke Carlson, an attorney who represents homeowners in HOA disputes, called the bill a "long-overdue course correction." "AB 130 is more than a law — it's a signal that Sacramento is finally starting to hear the voices of homeowners who've suffered in silence for too long," said Carlson, who authored the book "Bad HOA: The Homeowner's Guide to Going to War and Reclaiming Your Power." Carlson said HOAs in Southern California are uniquely aggressive because of soaring home prices. Property values are high — and so are the stakes for maintaining a problem-free community that keeps those values high. But he said when an association is bad, it tends to feed off its own power, making arbitrary decisions or giving out preferential treatment until someone pushes back. "Everyone agrees bad HOAs are a bad thing, and it takes legislative reform to stop them," he said. HOA horror stories abound in California, the state with the most HOAs (more than 50,000) and the most homes within HOAs (4.68 million) in the country — roughly a million more than Florida, the state with the second most. More than a third of Californians live in HOA communities, and nearly two-thirds of homeowners are a part of HOAs, according to the California Assn. of Homeowners Assns. In San Ramon in Contra Costa County, a woman was fined for replacing her lawn with drought-tolerant plants. In Oakland, HOAs are installing surveillance cameras to track cars and sharing the data with police. Last year, a Times investigation dove into allegations of grand theft and money laundering inside a Santa Monica co-op. Kim, a resident of Shadow Ridge in Oak Park in Ventura County, wanted to remove a blockage in the doorway between her office and dining room. The previous owner had filled the top of the entry with drywall to cover up plumbing pipes, but Kim grew tired of ducking to get under it. The HOA denied her initial request to fix it since the work required briefly shutting off shared water and rerouting pipes. But Kim had her contractor do it anyway. It was an hourlong fix. A few months later, the complex's general manager spotted the unauthorized renovation. The next day, she received four violation letters: one for the door, one for installing an EV charger in her garage, one for having her dog off-leash and one for an unpermitted rug on her balcony. "It's a door within my home that no one else sees and no one else is affected by," Kim said. "It felt like accidentally tapping someone in the hallway and getting the death penalty." She resolved the dog and rug violations and is appealing the EV charger one. But she refused to change the doorway back. On June 27, Kim received a letter saying that since the renovation rerouted shared plumbing lines, she'd have to pay to fill the doorway back in, plus pay $100. If she didn't resolve the issue by July 10, she'd get slapped with fines of up to $500 for every day it wasn't fixed. But after AB 130 went into law, the deadline came and went. She hasn't heard a peep from her HOA, which didn't respond to a request for comment. "It was a big relief. Having a daily $500 fine hanging over my head was a huge source of anxiety," Kim said. She acknowledged that the new blanket of rules will probably allow homeowners to get away with things they shouldn't. But for now, she's just happy to stop banging her head on drywall every time she walks through her dining room. Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times. Solve the daily Crossword
Los Angeles Times
01-08-2025
- Los Angeles Times
She faced $500 daily HOA fines for an unapproved door in her home. A new state law saved her
Jinah Kim's HOA said she couldn't fix a doorway inside her condo. She did it anyway. She figured it was fine. After all, the doorway was completely inside her home, separating an office and dining room. But when the complex's manager peeked into her place through the open garage door one day in March and saw the renovation, she received a notice the next day. The privacy intrusion was shocking, but the cost of noncompliance was even worse: a single $100 fine at first, then up to $500 per day — $3,500 per week — starting July 10 until she changed the doorway back. But on July 1, when Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill 130 into law, her HOA nightmare vanished with the stroke of a pen, and her fee for defiance was capped at $100. 'It's a game changer,' Kim said. 'For years, HOAs have been able to bend entire communities to their will on a whim. This stops that.' Industry experts and HOA lobbyists were taken by surprise in June when Newsom pushed AB 130 through the state Legislature and signed it into law — not because it passed, but because it included a last-minute update redefining HOA law in California. The overall goal of the bill is to expedite housing by easing California Environmental Quality Act regulations for many projects, but it also amends the Davis-Stirling Act, the framework that governs homeowners associations. The biggest change? HOA fines are now capped at $100 per violation unless there are health or safety impacts. Want to paint your house neon green? $100. Erect a giant Halloween skeleton on your front lawn year-round? $100. The bill also bans interest and late fees on violations and prohibits HOAs from disciplining homeowners as long as they address violations before the hearing. It allows homeowners to request internal dispute resolution if they don't agree with the board's findings at hearings. It's a massive win for disgruntled homeowners, who have long claimed that California HOAs are too aggressive, stringent and overbearing. It's a startling blow for HOAs, which were left blindsided by the changes. Dyanne Peters, an attorney with Tinnelly Law Group who practices HOA law, said her firm was tracking the legislation, but in a different bill. The HOA language was originally part of Senate Bill 681, a housing bill authored by state Sen. Aisha Wahab (D-Hayward). Peters said HOA lobbyists were making headway negotiating the bill and coming to a mutual agreement, but on June 27, the HOA language from SB 681 was added into AB 130 and passed three days later, leaving the HOA industry reeling. 'As an industry, this came as a shock,' she said. 'Everyone is scrambling to get a handle on the changes.' Peters said no one likes paying fines, but noted that fines aren't a money-making tool for HOAs. Instead, they're used as deterrents for actions that disrupt communities. For example, if a neighborhood doesn't allow homes to be used as short-term rentals such as Airbnbs, but a homeowner shirking the rules only has to pay $100 one time, they'll probably just pay the fine and keep renting out their home. Or if a resident wants to build a huge fence but doesn't want to deal with the architectural approval process, they'll just eat the $100 and build whatever they want. 'It's frustrating because these new rules are handcuffing homeowners associations,' Peters said. 'It takes away the ability for HOAs to govern their own communities. Clients are calling us asking, 'What's the point?'' However, the bill added a lifeline for HOAs by specifying that fines can be greater than $100 if they 'result in an adverse health or safety impact on the common area or another association member's property.' Peters said associations should go through their current rules and see which could be health or safety violations, and then adopt resolutions that specify in writing that certain actions, such as speeding or having aggressive pets, have health or safety impacts and therefore qualify for fines greater than $100. Luke Carlson, an attorney who represents homeowners in HOA disputes, called the bill a 'long-overdue course correction.' 'AB 130 is more than a law — it's a signal that Sacramento is finally starting to hear the voices of homeowners who've suffered in silence for too long,' said Carlson, who authored the book 'Bad HOA: The Homeowner's Guide to Going to War and Reclaiming Your Power.' Carlson said HOAs in Southern California are uniquely aggressive because of soaring home prices. Property values are high — and so are the stakes for maintaining a problem-free community that keeps those values high. But he said when an association is bad, it tends to feed off its own power, making arbitrary decisions or giving out preferential treatment until someone pushes back. 'Everyone agrees bad HOAs are a bad thing, and it takes legislative reform to stop them,' he said. HOA horror stories abound in California, the state with the most HOAs (more than 50,000) and the most homes within HOAs (4.68 million) in the country — roughly a million more than Florida, the state with the second most. More than a third of Californians live in HOA communities, and nearly two-thirds of homeowners are a part of HOAs, according to the California Assn. of Homeowners Assns. In San Ramon in Contra Costa County, a woman was fined for replacing her lawn with drought-tolerant plants. In Oakland, HOAs are installing surveillance cameras to track cars and sharing the data with police. Last year, a Times investigation dove into allegations of grand theft and money laundering inside a Santa Monica co-op. Kim, a resident of Shadow Ridge in Oak Park in Ventura County, wanted to remove a blockage in the doorway between her office and dining room. The previous owner had filled the top of the entry with drywall to cover up plumbing pipes, but Kim grew tired of ducking to get under it. The HOA denied her initial request to fix it since the work required briefly shutting off shared water and rerouting pipes. But Kim had her contractor do it anyway. It was an hourlong fix. A few months later, the complex's general manager spotted the unauthorized renovation. The next day, she received four violation letters: one for the door, one for installing an EV charger in her garage, one for having her dog off-leash and one for an unpermitted rug on her balcony. 'It's a door within my home that no one else sees and no one else is affected by,' Kim said. 'It felt like accidentally tapping someone in the hallway and getting the death penalty.' She resolved the dog and rug violations and is appealing the EV charger one. But she refused to change the doorway back. On June 27, Kim received a letter saying that since the renovation rerouted shared plumbing lines, she'd have to pay to fill the doorway back in, plus pay $100. If she didn't resolve the issue by July 10, she'd get slapped with fines of up to $500 for every day it wasn't fixed. But after AB 130 went into law, the deadline came and went. She hasn't heard a peep from her HOA, which didn't respond to a request for comment. 'It was a big relief. Having a daily $500 fine hanging over my head was a huge source of anxiety,' Kim said. She acknowledged that the new blanket of rules will probably allow homeowners to get away with things they shouldn't. But for now, she's just happy to stop banging her head on drywall every time she walks through her dining room.
Politico
31-07-2025
- Politico
Newsom blinks on fire rebuilding
With help from Alex Nieves, Noah Baustin, Jennifer Yachnin and Nico Portuondo HOT ZONES: Gov. Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass initially sided with builders by easing permitting rules in wildfire-hit areas. Now they're taking a different tack. Newsom issued an executive order late Wednesday allowing Los Angeles and surrounding areas to restrict development in high severity burn areas. It's a carveout to 2021's SB 9, which allows property owners to build as many as four units on land previously reserved for single-family homes. The order recognizes 'the need for local discretion in recovery and that not all laws are designed for rebuilding entire communities destroyed by fires overnight,' Newsom said in a statement. The move plunges Newsom into the long-combustible politics of building in fire-prone areas — with a twist of Los Angeles wealth and political muscle. The order is a response to pressure from LA City Councilmember Traci Park, who sent a letter to Newsom Monday calling for a pause on increased density in her Pacific Palisades district and citing the 'overt risks' of evacuating more people from fire-prone regions. Bass quickly backed the call, saying Tuesday that added development in the Palisades 'could fundamentally alter the safety of the area.' It's a shift from the immediate aftermath of the firestorm, when Bass and Newsom rushed to waive permitting requirements under the California Environmental Quality Act and the California Coastal Act in the name of speeding up rebuilding. Environmental groups who criticized those moves as reckless are now cheering the reversal. 'We're definitely happy to see that the state and local officials are recognizing the risk of building in these very high fire-prone areas,' said Elizabeth Reid-Wainscoat of the Center for Biological Diversity. She urged the state to go even further and block new development outright in burn zones, saying California needs 'neighborhoods that are safe, affordable and near transit and job centers.' The political pressure hasn't just come from the left. Online right-wing voices recently fueled a social media backlash against a bill from Sen. Ben Allen that would have created a new authority to acquire burned properties and offer them back at discounted rates. Allen paused the bill earlier this month. Now Newsom's executive order is drawing fire from the opposite direction. Pro-housing advocates warn it could set a dangerous precedent where wealthy, well-organized communities can carve themselves out of state housing law under the banner of 'fire safety.' 'If safety becomes a political football, then we're in deep trouble,' said Matt Lewis of California YIMBY. 'What does this say for all the places that don't have the power and influence when they burn?' He also questioned how much development the order would materially affect. Neither county nor city planning officials responded Wednesday to questions about how many property owners had applied for an SB 9 development in the burn scars, but a Park spokesperson said they had heard of seven. Even within the Democratic fold, the issue has proved divisive. Sen. Henry Stern, whose district includes much of western LA County, voted against SB 9 in 2021, citing his family's harrowing evacuation from Malibu during the Woolsey Fire. 'I had a very lonely vote on that bill,' Stern later said. He now has some company. — CvK Did someone forward you this newsletter? Sign up here! HARRIS OUT: Start your engines, former Rep. Katie Porter, Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis, former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, former U.S. Health Secretary Xavier Becerra and other 2026 gubernatorial contenders. Former Vice President Kamala Harris announced Wednesday that she's not running for governor, ending her flirtation with a run that would have upended the current field. Harris, with her near-universal name identification, strong approval ratings among Democrats and a national fundraising network, would have begun the 2026 race as an imposing frontrunner, POLITICO's Melanie Mason reports. Her entry would have also put more eyes on her complicated climate policy record as gas prices and energy affordability loom as top issues in the race to replace Newsom. Harris pledged during her 2019 presidential campaign to reject fossil fuel donations — joining most of the field — and called for a ban on fracking, while promising to prosecute oil companies over their contributions to climate change. She backed away from those positions during her 2024 race against President Donald Trump, arguing during a debate in Pennsylvania that the Biden-Harris administration oversaw the largest increase in domestic oil production in U.S. history. — AN COLD COMFORT: Climate change and good news are rare bedfellows. But researchers from UC San Diego and Stanford University have found a potential sliver of sunshine. California could see 53,500 fewer deaths and 244,000 fewer hospitalizations as extreme cold becomes rarer between now and 2050, according to a paper published Wednesday in the academic journal Science Advances. That reduction in hospitalizations could save the state $53 million in healthcare costs, the researchers wrote. But there's a catch. As cold days slacken, high temperatures will send more people to the ER, to the tune of $52 million for 1.5 million excess visits through 2050, they found. 'Heat can harm health even when it doesn't kill,' said UC San Diego assistant professor Carlos Gould, one of the study's authors. — NB ANOTHER RAY: Solar power is under a barrage of attacks from the Trump administration, but one of the industry's top voices still sees room for optimism. Abigail Ross Hopper, CEO of the Solar Energy Industries Association, pointed to rapidly growing energy demand and last-minute Senate compromises that give clean energy projects until July 4, 2026 to start construction or the end of 2027 to begin service and still qualify for federal subsidies — rather than ending them immediately, Nico Portuondo writes for POLITICO's E&E News. 'I do think that the transition period of one year to commence construction will allow companies to pivot,' Hopper said. 'I think the sort of the word of the day, or even the rest of the year, is pivoting.' SEIA more than doubled its spending in the second quarter of 2025 to $950,000, according to lobbying disclosure reports, and launched several efforts to emphasize the impact of Inflation Reduction Act tax incentives on red states and districts. Hopper credits that effort for helping secure extra time that lawmakers like Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski fought for. Senate Republicans are still fighting for clean energy projects as the Trump administration has taken more steps to disrupt the industry in recent days, including the Interior Department's order calling for the identification of any 'preferential treatment' toward wind and solar facilities. 'They are stranding capital by precipitously ramping down some of these programs. They're going to probably regret it,' said North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis. Read the full Q&A with Hopper on POLITICO Pro. — AN, NP RIVER RHETORIC: California's top Colorado River water official says the state is supportive of the direction negotiations are headed, but that states in the river's lower basin need assurances they'll receive their fair share. JB Hamby, chair of the Colorado River Board of California, said in an email Tuesday that multi-state discussions around a concept known as 'natural flow', based on how much water would travel downstream without human intervention, could send 55 to 75 percent of its flow to California, Arizona and Nevada, a figure 'we believe that provides enough room to negotiate a balanced, reasonable release number.' Hamby emphasized, however, that a deal won't be reached without guarantees that states in the upper basin — Colorado, Wyoming, Utah and New Mexico — will meet their end of the bargain, Jennifer Yachnin reports for POLITICO's E&E News. 'Without clear, binding commitments from all parties — including reductions or conservation — there can be no seven-state agreement,' Hamby said. Hamby warned that without those commitments, the lower basin states could demand their share under a provision of a 1922 compact that's never been invoked. The seven states face a November deadline to reach a water sharing deal or have federal officials step in with their own plan. — AN, JY — Newsom is circulating a legislative proposal to bolster a fund that covers utilities' liability in case they spark a fire — to the tune of another $18 billion, according to Bloomberg. — The United Nations' top official is calling on major tech firms to fully power data centers with renewable energy by 2030. — Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy writes in an op-ed that Newsom's defense of high-speed rail shows he 'has no clue what functional government looks like.'
