The Friends of Rose Canyon and other environmental groups filed a second lawsuit against the City of San Diego last week, days after a judge awarded them nearly a half-million dollars in attorney’s fees for the same suit against the city to stop the building of the Regents Road Bridge through the canyon.
The point of contention in the project remains an environmental impact report. The coalition filing suit claims the city jumped ahead in the process, continuing with the project’s final design and passing it at city council without waiting for the completion of the EIR.
The first suit brought by environmental groups ended Nov. 12, when a judge awarded the groups $450,000 in attorney’s fees. At that time the groups said the city was forced to do a turnaround regarding the Regents Road Bridge, rescind its approval and complete a new EIR.
But Friends of Rose Canyon and other groups have filed a new suit against the city, claiming the city isn’t waiting for the new EIR. Instead, the city is continuing with the final design while conducting the new EIR “” and that is in direct violation of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), said Debbie Knight, president of Friends of Rose Canyon.
“We sent them a detailed letter explaining why it was a violation to proceed with the project before you do an environmental review,” Knight said. “The city must consider less damaging alternatives.”
According to the lawsuit, the City Council “recognized in March 2007 [that the EIR] was a mandatory prerequisite ‘before any implementation, if any,’ of the Bridge “” [or the council] would violate the California Environmental Quality Act.” But the Friends of Rose Canyon contend that the city began seeking proposals to hire a consultant for an EIR.
The new lawsuit says that the city is violating the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) by skirting steps in the process, mainly by continuing the final design for the Regents Road Bridge before evaluating an EIR.
The Friends of Rose Canyon said the project that would extend Regents Road through University City by crossing Rose Canyon would cause environmental impacts in the canyon and cost the city “many tens of millions of dollars.”
According to Knight, the EIR must be completed prior to the design of the bridge to analyze any environmental damage in Rose Canyon. If the city spends millions on a final design, it will be less likely to scrap the design if it is proven to be damaging to the canyon.
“It’s a lot of money to risk,” Knight said. “A project cannot get approved until it has an approved EIR. The city’s main claim is that they have to do the final design, but they don’t because they already know exactly where all the bridge supports are “” they know all of these things from the first EIR.”