Court of Appeal Upholds Transit-Oriented Development Surrounding Los Angeles’ Expo Line

California’s Second District Court of Appeal upheld the City of Los Angeles’s legislative actions related to the Metro Exposition Light Rail Transit Line (commonly known as the Expo Line) in a February 2024 ruling that supports the City’s transit-oriented development efforts. (See Fix the City, Inc. v. City of Los Angeles, No. B318346, 2024 WL 1012368 (Cal. Ct. App. Feb. 8, 2024), as modified on denial of reh’g (Feb. 27, 2024), as modified (Mar. 7, 2024).)

In its opinion, the Court upheld the City’s Exposition Corridor Transit Neighborhood Plan (the Expo Plan), and related zoning changes. Specifically, it (1) affirmed the City’s demurrer on the Expo Plan challenge, which the lower court sustained as untimely under a de novo review, and (2) found the City did not abuse its discretion in finding that the zoning changes were consistent with the City’s General Plan. In its March revisions, the Court determined that the initially unpublished opinion should be published exempting the analysis on General Plan consistency.

The Expo Plan “consider[s] how land use regulations can foster building design and a mix of uses around the transit stations that will encourage transit use and improve mobility for everyone,” and focuses on the neighborhood surrounding the Expo Line, a 15.2-mile-long light rail line along Exposition Boulevard between downtown Los Angeles and the City of Santa Monica. In July 2018, the City Council adopted corresponding amendments to the Community Plan — a subset of the City’s General Plan, which is split into 35 regional Community Plans — adopted the zoning changes, and certified the Final Environmental Impact Report, but deferred adoption of the Expo Plan until the City Attorney’s Office completed its legal review. The Expo Plan was adopted more than a year later on November 5, 2019.

Between the two rounds of adoption, however, plaintiff and appellant Fix the City, Inc. (FTC) filed a petition on October 25, 2018 against the Expo Plan and the zoning changes as inconsistent with the General Plan’s mandatory policies. Its challenge focused on the City’s infrastructure capacity and increases in population density stemming from the Expo Plan and zoning changes.

FTC never updated its petition following the passage of the Expo Plan. This proved to be a fatal error; the City filed a motion for judgment, arguing that FTC’s challenge to the Expo Plan adoption was untimely because it was not filed within 90 days of adoption as required under Government Code Section 65009. Although FTC was twice given leave to amend, the lower court ultimately sustained the City’s demurrer to FTC’s second amended petition, finding the challenge to the Expo Plan to be untimely and denying additional leave to amend. The Court of Appeal affirmed judgment. It held that courts “take a restrictive approach to applying section 65009’s limitations period, in light of its express acknowledgment of California’s housing crisis and its emphasis on reducing delays and restraints on completion of projects without the cloud of potential litigation.” Additionally, it found uncompelling FTC’s argument that under the relation back doctrine, its challenge to the November 2019 Expo Plan was timely, holding that the July 2018 and November 2019 actions were “two distinct legislative acts.” Although not published, the Court also found that FTC failed to show the City abused its discretion in its determination of General Plan consistency because the policies FTC cited were not “fundamental, mandatory, and clear.”

Ultimately, this case affirms the need to closely comply with appeal timelines in land use litigation, particularly as even similar legislative actions may be considered distinct when trying to extend a statute of limitations by relating one back to older events. More broadly, the case supports the City’s ongoing efforts to promote transit- oriented development. The City’s Transit Oriented Communities (TOC) program offers special development incentives for providing affordable housing near qualifying transit stops. This trend towards transit-oriented development also mirrors recent state initiatives such as AB 2097, which generally prohibits jurisdictions from enforcing parking requirements within half a mile of a major transit stop.