The Flanders Foundation v. City of Carmel-by-the-Sea

*607 Opinion

Appellant 1 City of Carmel-by-the-Sea (the City) appeals from the trial court’s judgment granting a mandate petition filed by respondent The Flanders Foundation (the Foundation). The Foundation successfully challenged the City’s certification of a final environmental impact report (FEIR) for, and its approval of, a project to sell a City-owned property known as the Flanders Mansion property (the Mansion property), which consists of a large residence on a parcel of land surrounded on all sides by a City-owned park.

The City challenges the trial court’s findings that (1) the FEIR did not adequately consider the potential environmental impacts associated with the application of the Surplus Land Act (Gov. Code, § 54220 et seq.) to the City’s sale of the Mansion property, and (2) the FEIR did not adequately respond to a comment suggesting the alternative of selling the structure with a smaller parcel of land. The City contends that the impact of the Surplus Land Act was too speculative to raise any reasonably foreseeable potential environmental impact and maintains that the FEIR adequately responded to the comment suggesting a reduction in the size of the parcel.

In its…