Towards Responsibility in Planning v. City Council

In this case a citizens’ group, Towards Responsibility in Planning (TRIP), challenges decisions of the San Jose City Council (City) to rezone several properties in North Coyote Valley from agricultural to campus/industrial. The landholders, the Koll Company (Koll), Tandem Computers, Inc. (Tandem), and Sobrato Development Companies (Sobrato), who seek to develop their properties in conformance with the new zoning, are real parties in interest. TRIP’S contentions are these:

None of these claims has merit. We affirm the judgment of the superior court which had denied TRIP’S petition for a writ of mandate.

Background

The process which culminated in the challenged zoning decisions began in 1982 when Koll and Sobrato submitted applications for redesignation of their lands from agricultural to campus/industrial under the City’s general plan. City responded by establishing an “Economic Development Task Force” (the task force) to perform a comprehensive review of City’s economic development program and to prepare recommendations on the specific parcels in Coyote Valley. The task force engaged in an extensive fact-finding effort in order to evaluate San Jose’s industrial land…