Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Mitchell Beckloff has ordered Los Angeles County to rescind the Centennial project’s 2019 approvals pending correction of a number of inadequacies the Court identified in the project’s original environmental impact report. The ruling comes after nearly four years of litigation over the County’s approval of Centennial.
Tejon Ranch Co. is considering options to reinstate project approvals, such as working with Los Angeles County to complete the additional environmental analysis required by the Court’s ruling.
“While we are disappointed in the Court’s ruling, we remain committed to Centennial’s ultimate development,” said Hugh F. McMahon, Tejon Ranch Co.’s executive vice president of real estate. “Tejon Ranch has a legacy of environmental stewardship and using its land to meet major needs in California. More than ever, the state desperately needs the 19,333 housing units Centennial will provide, including the nearly 3,500 affordable units.”
The community of more than 19,300 homes, including 3,480 affordable housing units, and 10.1 million square feet of commercial and industrial space, is planned for an area of northwest Los Angeles County identified in the Antelope Valley Areawide Plan (AVAP) as an Economic Opportunity Area with appropriate zoning and land use designations allowing for residential and commercial real estate development. One of the litigants in the Centennial case, the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD), unsuccessfully fought to overturn Los Angeles County’s approval of the AVAP, with its legal challenge being denied by both the Superior and Appellate Court
The May 2019 final approval of Centennial by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors was the subject of two separate legal challenges filed under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA).
Although CBD/CNPS did not prevail in any of their arguments against the project, Judge Beckloff later decided in February 2022 to grant CBD prevailing party status on the two claims on which Climate Resolved prevailed. The Company now has the option of appealing the Court’s February 2022 decision and the Court’s March 24, 2023 judgment.
The Court’s judgment requires the County to rescind all County approvals for the Centennial project pending further CEQA compliance, which may include further environmental analysis of the project’s GHG and offsite fire risk impacts. Any further environmental review of the Centennial project would assume implementation of the CR settlement terms – net zero GHG and funding for community wildfire protection measures – which already address the two deficiencies identified by the Court.
Click here to read the full report from Tejon Ranch.
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