Lawsuit may delay development approvals
| Friday, Aug 14 2009 04:35 PM
Last Updated Friday, Aug 14 2009 04:37 PM
A lawsuit challenging Bakersfield-area traffic impact fees could trigger a delay for city building projects Wednesday.
Three development projects -- including the controversial The Canyons tract on the Kern River bluffs -- will likely have their review postponed three weeks.
A lawsuit filed against the city of Bakersfield and county of Kern last week challenges the legality of the metropolitan fee on development that is designed to raise money for roads and freeways.
City Manager Alan Tandy has said the lawsuit creates "a situation where no applicant can be environmentally processed."
Council members can continue to approve projects, knowing they are vulnerable to environmental challenge. Or the council can stop all zone changes and general plan amendments.
City spokeswoman Rhonda Smiley said the council needs to confront those issues and find answers.
"We do not know how to deal with them at this time. We'll have to have council direction," she said. "The council has to know what the options are."
City Planning Director Jim Eggert said the three projects -- a 25-acre commercial project at Verdugo Lane and Rosedale Highway, an apartment rezoning on Gosford Road at Berkshire Road and The Canyons -- will be delayed until Sept. 9.
"It's just really is a practical measure," Smiley said.
City Attorney Ginny Gennaro said she can't comment on the specifics of what will be discussed in her closed session briefing of council members.
But she said in general, they will talk about the impact of the lawsuit on projects now and in the future and "how to protect the city's interests in light of the lawsuit."
"We need time to present the facts and a strategy," Gennaro said.
Bob Decker, who represents the home builders association, said his organization is not overly concerned about the delay.
"That's a more effective process than staff making a decision unilaterally," he said. "We don't want to see projects be delayed. But the greater issue in our position is the increase in the traffic impact fee."
City staffers argue that, with the impact fee in question, the city cannot effectively fight legal challenges launched against projects.
"We have been sued 15 times since 2005 on CEQA matters," Gennaro said. "A key issue of many of them was traffic mitigation."
Decker said the city is causing the problem by claiming the projects' environmental justification might be invalid because of the lawsuit.
"We are not shouting that this impact fee ordinance doesn't meet CEQA -- they are. They've used this moratorium as a tool to create pressure on the building community to drop the lawsuit," Decker said. "The city and the county forget sometimes how much good, how much economic benefit, we add to the region."
Bakersfield City Councilman David Couch said it isn't certain what will happen Wednesday.
"I have to believe that cooler heads are going to prevail," he said.
