Legal News

Schiavone development case resurfaces

By Richard Binder

The city of Riverside spent $132,826 in public money in 2007 and 2008 defending and settling an environmental group's legal challenge to a subdivision being developed by Riverside City Councilman Frank Schiavone.

The group, Friends of Riverside's Hills, sued the city in early 2007 for approving the councilman's plan for nine homes on half-acre lots a few miles southeast of downtown Riverside. They alleged the city had wrongly interpreted city land-use code by allowing Schiavone to include private streets in the square footage of his lots, which had to be at least a half-acre to meet zoning requirements. Another group, Save Riverside, obtained public records of the case and posted them, along with a report of its findings, on its Web site yesterday morning.

Schiavone said his political enemies are bringing the issue up now to hurt his re-election bid.

City Attorney Gregory Priamos said he could not recall another case in which the city picked up legal costs in a lawsuit over a developer's project.

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Full post as published by Legal Pad | LA on May 20, 2009 (boomark / email).