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Santa Cruz Action Challenges Another UC Long-Range Plan

By Richard Brenneman
Tuesday October 24, 2006

Stephan Volker, the lawyer handling a lawsuit challenging UC Berkeley’s long-range plans, filed a similar action Monday in Santa Cruz. 

The Oakland lawyer filed a suit on behalf of nine Santa Cruz County residents challenging the environmental impact review for the Long Range Development Plan (LRDP) for that campus. 

Volker is waging a similar action in Alameda County Superior Court that challenges a settlement reached by the university and the City of Berkeley after the city filed a legal challenge to UC Berkeley’s Long Range Development Plan through 2020. 

Daily Planet Arts and Calendar Editor Anne Wagley is one of four plaintiffs in that action. 

In an announcement from his office, Volker said the UC Santa Cruz plan, which would almost double the size of the campus over the next 15 years, “failed to provide essential environmental reviews, thwarting informed public agency review and comment.” 

Among the arguments raised, the suit alleges that the university failed to provide an adequate baseline for evaluating impacts, failed to disclose that the university system was concentrating growth at the UCSC campus rather than at other nearby campuses, deprived the public of meaningful information on transportation and housing impacts and failed to offer meaningful mitigations. 

The action asked the court to issue a writ of mandate setting aside the LRDP and its environmental documents until the university complies with all provisions of the California Environmental Quality Act, which governs the impacts of new developments. 

The City of Berkeley’s challenge to the UC Berkeley LRDP ended in a settlement, negotiated and agreed to in secret, that resulted—among other things—in the creation of a new downtown plan for the city. 

The Downtown Area Plan Advisory Committee is currently laying the foundation for the plan.