Las Lomas Land Company, LLC v. City of Los Angeles

Las Lomas Land Company, LLC (Las Lomas), appeals a judgment dismissing its petition for writ of mandate and complaint against the City of Los Angeles (city) after the sustaining of a demurrer without leave to amend. The city terminated its environmental review of a proposed development project and rejected the project before the completion of a draft environmental impact report (EIR), after Las Lomas allegedly spent millions of dollars in an effort to comply with the city’s requirements. Las Lomas contends the city had a mandatory duty under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) (Pub. Resources Code, § 21000 et seq.) to complete and consider an EIR before rejecting the project. We disagree. We also conclude that the pleading fails to adequately allege due process and equal protection violations, and that the sustaining of the demurrer was proper. We conclude further that having expressly declined an opportunity to amend its pleading in the trial court, Las Lomas cannot seek leave to amend for the first time on appeal. We therefore affirm the judgment.

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

1. Factual Background

The city commenced efforts to expand its “sphere of…