City won't freeze development
| Friday, Aug 21 2009 05:27 PM
Last Updated Friday, Aug 21 2009 05:30 PM
There will be no development freeze in Bakersfield.
Bakersfield City Council members had this week discussed the possibility of a freeze in private session with their attorney after postponing review of three development projects until Sept. 9.
Bakersfield City Attorney Ginny Gennaro released a statement Friday afternoon making it clear the city would allow proposed developments to proceed "at their own risk."
The city will also caution developers that there could be longer environmental and legal delays to their projects.
"The city is taking great caution and acting appropriately," Councilman Ken Weir said Friday.
The possibility of a freeze was raised two weeks ago when the Home Builders Association of Kern County launched a lawsuit against the city and Kern County. The suit claims a recent increase in traffic impacts fees on development is illegal.
City Manager Alan Tandy said the legal challenge to the impact fee threw all developments' environmental status into question.
The city, he said, could be forced to either deny projects or let projects move forward with less than sufficient environmental justification.
Bob Decker of the HBA said all land developments face the risk of lawsuit alone.
"They're all at your own risk anyway," he said.
But he said the city has made the right move.
"I'm glad that they're not standing in the way," he said. "We don't see our lawsuit standing in the way of environmental compliance."
Gennaro's release states the city believes the HBA lawsuit will make the process for approving land use changes longer and more difficult.
"Litigation with the HBA could cause delays or we could have a situation where those projects would get sued themselves," said Councilman Zack Scrivner.
If a project does get sued over environmental issues, the city will continue to expect the developer to pay for its legal defense. Additionally, Scrivner said, "the city would want the lawsuit with the HBA to be concluded before the lawsuit against them would proceed."
Gennaro said which suits would be delayed would "depend on what the basis of the CEQA lawsuit is."
The city would request delays on suits targeting traffic impacts as CEQA violations on a case-by-case basis.
In a related development Friday, Gennaro said the city won in a legal duel over traffic impacts tied to a Winco foods development.
Opponents of the project had claimed that the impact fee was too low -- not too high, as developers are claiming.
Kern County Superior Court Judge Kenneth Twisselman ruled the city's environmental review of the project's traffic impact was valid, Gennaro said.
