Madrona Trial Court Ruling Upheald by State Appeals Court

Four days ago, judges in District Three of the Fourth Appellate District for the State of California affirmed, with modifications, an Orange County Superior Court ruling against the proposed Madrona project in the Brea portion of Carbon Canyon.

This suit filed by the preservation organization Hills for Everyone, along with three other entities, against the Old Standard Life Insurance Company and its OSLIC Holdings (under receivership with the State of Idaho), challenged the City of Brea's approval of the 162-unit project on the north side of the canyon between Olinda Village and the Chino Hills border on the grounds that the project failed to meet the city's own development standards for the canyon.

The city argued that, because the project dated back years before the adoption of the Carbon Canyon plan, Madrona was exempt from it, but the Superior Court ruling firmly rejected that contention.  Consequently, when an appeal was mounted, the city declined to join OSLIC Holdings (it helped that most of the council and some of the city staff were no longer in their positions).  Still, OSLIC persevered only to suffer this latest defeat.

The two main points upheld by the appellate court had to do with conflict in the city's woodlands management policy to protect, preserve and manage oak and walnut trees and associated woodland areas and that there was not "the necessary and critical analysis" concerning "compliance with slope grading requirements" in the Carbon Canyon plan.

There is much more to the ruling which spans thirty-seven pages of the mind-numbing legalese to be expected in such a document, but, for now, Hills for Everyone and its fellow litigants, as well as allies, associates, friends, supporters and whoever else was against the Madrona project duly deserves a massive "hurrah" for the huge undertaking it shepherded for many, many years.