Description: Lawsuit challenging the environmental review for a mixed-use development in San Diego County.
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Elfin Forest Harmony Grove Town Council v. County of San Diego
Case Documents:
Filing Date Type File Action Taken Summary 10/14/2021 Opinion Download Final judgment of trial court affirmed in part and reversed in part and trial court directed to issue a new writ of mandate and judgment. California Appellate Court Rejected Carbon Offset Mitigation Measures for Development Project. The California Court of Appeal ruled that greenhouse gas mitigation measures imposed by San Diego County for a 111-acre mixed-use development lacked objective performance criteria to ensure their effectiveness and that they improperly deferred mitigation. The court found that the mitigation measures—which required the project applicant to purchase and retire carbon credits to offset the project’s construction and operations emissions—shared some of the same deficiencies that the Court of Appeals identified in a case in which it invalidated mitigation measures provided for in the County’s Climate Action Plan. In particular, the court said the absence of protocols to ensure that carbon offsets were real, permanent, quantifiable, verifiable, and enforceable was a “fatal deficiency.” Because the measures did not provide reasonable assurance that emissions reductions would occur, the court found they were invalid under the California Environmental Quality Act. -
Elfin Forest Harmony Grove Town Council v. County of San Diego
Case Documents:
Filing Date Type File Action Taken Summary 08/24/2018 Petition for Writ of Mandate Download Verified petition for writ of mandate and complaint for declaratory and injunctive relief filed.