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5030 College Avenue

The City of San Diego failed to conduct the proper environmental reports for a 91-unit student-housing facility on the campus of San Diego State University, ruled a Superior Court judge on Friday, May 27. The decision means the project from Capstone Development is now on hold until an environmental study is completed.

A group of residents calling itself the College Area Residents Association filed a legal complaint against the city and Alabama-based developer Capstone Development Partners in February 2016, as first reported by the Reader. The complaint arrived after nearly a year of objections to what residents say is essentially a dormitory disguised as an apartment building.

Also, the city allowed the developer to use a 2004 environmental study for an unbuilt sorority housing project at the site (5030 College Avenue) along with an accompanying amendment to address potential environmental impacts.

In June 2015, also reported by the Reader, the College Area Planning Group voted against the project. Three months later, the city's planning commission followed their lead, denying the project due to the use of the outdated environmental report.

Executives from Capstone appealed the commission's decision to the city council while at the same time agreeing to reduce the size of the development from 94 units to 91 and limiting the number of beds to 351 from its original proposal of 365. Councilmembers agreed to the changes.

Residents then filed their lawsuit, arguing, according to the complaint, that they were left with "no adequate remedy at law unless this court grants the requested writ of mandate requiring [the City of San Diego] to set aside its approval of the project; set aside its adoption of the 2004 [document]; and prepare an environmental impact report addressing all issues set forth in this petition....

“In the absence of such remedy, [the city's] approval will remain in effect in violation of state law, and [the College Area Residents Association] will suffer irreparable harm because violations of applicable land use laws and regulations and significant adverse environmental impacts generated by the Project will have not been properly analyzed under [the California Environmental Quality Act]."

On May 27, judge Timothy Taylor sided with the residents while acknowledging that the residents would likely prevail on the merits of their argument.

"[The development may] well have been appropriate if the city had completed an [environmental impact report] in the first instance. But it did not…. There never was a full EIR (for the old project or for the current project)," read Taylor's May 25 tentative ruling made official on May 27.

Commenting on the use of the 2004 environmental review, Taylor continued, "A decade is a long time…. Moreover, the Project, while a little smaller than the one rejected by the planning commission, is still substantially larger than the one which was the subject of the 2004 [mitigated negative declaration]."

Taylor said that allowing the city and Capstone to use the outdated report could potentially "open the door to situations in which developers could acquire a permitted parcel involving a low impact use and negative declaration, bank the land for a decade, and then proceed with a far denser use and an Addendum and thereby almost completely evade environmental review. This is antithetical to [the California Environmental Quality Act], which expresses a preference for resolving doubts in favor of environmental review."

Taylor issued a preliminary injunction, barring any construction to take place. Capstone, however, will be allowed to prepare the site for future development.

A civil case management conference is scheduled for July 8. The final hearing is scheduled for November 4.