La Cañada Flintridge Quits Campaign To Appeal Builder's Remedy Project

After about two years of legal battles, the city of La Cañada Flintridge has stopped fighting a proposed 80-unit project within its borders.

A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge had ruled that the city needed to put $14M into a bond fund to continue the legal efforts, pushing the city to make the call that "the financial cost associated with the appeals process outweighs the potential outcomes of further litigation" and throw in the towel, according to a release from the city. 

The court also indicated it was leaning in favor of the applicant, developer Cedar Street Partners, with the bond fund decision, The Real Deal reported last week. 

The property was a builder's remedy project, which can be filed when a city's housing element isn't compliant with zoning regulations in the eyes of the state. Projects filed in this window, until recently, didn't need to follow any zoning or general plan requirements for the properties on which they were proposed. 

"We sought to defend against these litigations as best we could, but continuing the lawsuits is no longer in the best interest of the City," Mayor Mike Davitt said in a statement.

"This has been an uphill battle, and as our path narrows with recent litigation setbacks and recent State law changes that could be retroactively applied, we need to adjust course to sustain the long-term health of the City," Davitt said.  

In September 2019, Cedar Street Partners applied to build a five-story development with 80 apartments and 14 hotel rooms in La Cañada Flintridge. The Cedar Street project at 600 Foothill Blvd. wasn't the first new development proposed and fought over at the site, The Real Deal reported in 2023. 

The decision sends a message to cities about their odds trying to push back against housing laws, said Ryan Leaderman, a partner at Holland & Knight who previously represented the 600 Foothill project. 

"The message is, stop playing games with housing," Leaderman said. "There's going to be a price to pay when a city unlawfully denies a project."

There is no exact timeline of when shovels will be in the ground, but the city has said it would work to "chart a pathway forward that integrates the 600 Foothill project as reasonably as possible." 

Other cities, most notably Santa Monica, have wrestled with builder's remedy projects. 

There, a developer proposed more than a dozen projects containing about 4,000 units in the window when the city’s zoning rules fell out of compliance with state regulations. Ultimately, Santa Monica struck a deal with the developer, WS Communities, which will resubmit most of the projects it proposed while the city’s rules lapsed. That will result in WSC building fewer units than it originally wanted.

Cedar Street is looking to move forward quickly on the project it has waited years to construct. 

"The ball's in their court," Cedar Street partner Jonathan Curtis said of the city of La Cañada Flintridge.