Downey Cares v. Downey Community Development Commission

—The Downey Community Development Commission and City of Downey appeal from a judgment granting a peremptory writ of mandate invalidating an ordinance of the City of Downey which amended the city’s 1978 redevelopment plan.

In 1978 the City of Downey adopted a redevelopment plan involving a 116-acre project area. On July 10, 1984, the city council adopted, by a three-to-two vote, ordinance No. 759, which amended tfie 1978 plan by adding another 386 acres in an area known as the Firestone Corridor. Plaintiffs Downey Cares and Paul Sarvis, opponents of the amendment, filed this action, challenging the validity of the amendment on numerous grounds. Andrews Rancho del Norte, Andrews Rancho del Sur, David Logan and Anthony Lavier, who are other affected property owners, were nominally defendants (hereinafter the Andrews-Logan defendants) but aligned themselves with plaintiffs in opposing the amendment, and urged various grounds for invalidating the amendment.

The trial court reached only two of the grounds raised, concluding that the amendment was invalid on each of those grounds. The trial court issued a writ of mandate invalidating the ordinance primarily upon the ground…