Land Use Battles a Blight on City Budgets

You may be familiar with a spate of recent municipal bankruptcies in California. But in Mammoth Lakes, "It was not pensions or plummeting property values or questionable
accounting practices that pushed the tiny mountain resort town over the
edge: It was a $43-million court judgment in a lawsuit brought by a
developer after the town tried to back out of an agreement," note Abby Sewell and Jessica Garrison.

Unfortunately, the case of Mammoth Lakes is becoming less the exception, and more the rule, as the financial peril caused by land use disputes becomes a common drain on city finances throughout California.

"Peacocks, radio antennas, strip clubs and landslides have all sparked
high-profile cases, as well as the more common suits - such as the one
in Mammoth Lakes - by developers who were denied approval for a project
or neighbors and environmentalists trying to stall big-box stores or
large residential projects on sensitive land," report Sewell and Garrison. 

"These cases often
drag on for years, sometimes consuming millions of dollars in legal
bills even before the issues are resolved. A Times review found that in
several Los Angeles County cities, land-use litigation amounted to the
lion's share of their legal bills."