Campus Pointe target of lawsuit by city of Fresno
Fresno Bee 4/19/07
The city and the university have been talking for more than a month about the 45-acre development's likely effects on streets, parks and police services and are "making some progress," Assistant City Manager Jon Ruiz said.
But the city filed a lawsuit anyway to beat a 30-day legal deadline for retaining its right to challenge the project's March 14 approval by the California State University system's board of trustees.
"We've filed to really preserve or protect the city's interests," Ruiz said.
Campus Pointe would be built east of the Save Mart Center arena by Fresno developer Ed Kashian and would have 540 apartments, a 200-room hotel and 230,000 square feet of retail and office space.
By the time the trustees voted, city officials had already requested more than $3 million in fees.
Negotiations since then have not led to a conclusion, although "we're getting closer," Ruiz said.
The fees sought by the city included $322,785 for fire protection, $808,031 for streets, $515,877 for police protection and $1,492,560 for parks. Typically, such fees would be put toward capital costs of new facilities, including streets, parks and police or fire stations.
The city's lawsuit alleges procedural violations of laws governing environmental review of the Campus Pointe project.
It also reasserts the city's stance that because Campus Pointe will be developed by a private company, not the university, it is not exempt from city planning and zoning rules as the university maintains.
Debbie Astone, executive director of the CSU Fresno Association, a nonprofit auxiliary that would oversee Campus Pointe, said Wednesday that the university had not yet seen the city's lawsuit but that only the parks and police fees remained under discussion.
"University representatives have and will continue to work toward an agreement with the city of Fresno, and we are confident these issues can be resolved outside of a courtroom," she said in a statement issued by the university.
The city's lawsuit is the second seeking to overturn Campus Pointe's approval by the CSU trustees.
The owners and managers of the Sierra Vista Mall in Clovis filed suit in Sacramento County Superior Court last week. Plans for Campus Pointe include a 14-screen theater that could compete with Sierra Vista's 16-screen Criterion Cinemas, which opened in December.