🚀 go-pugleaf

A lawsuit against San Clemente seeks to force local government 
to refund more than $9 million in beach-parking impact fees and 
interest that the city is holding after collecting fees over the 
last 23 years from homes built in parts of town outside the 
state-designated coastal zone.

In a lawsuit filed Wednesday in Orange County Superior Court, 
Brad Malamud says the beach parking fund has not produced any 
new parking for San Clemente's beaches. He said the money just 
sits in a fund, except for some funds he says the city spent 
improperly on parking studies and some the city spent to help 
buy a piece of land for beach parking. The parcel that the city 
purchased in 1994 at 1832 N. El Camino remains vacant, Malamud 
said.

City Manager George Scarborough could not be reached for comment 
Wednesday, after city business hours. Nor could City Attorney 
Jeff Goldfarb or Mayor Jim Evert.

"I didn't want to bring a lawsuit," Malamud said late Wednesday 
afternoon. "I wanted to work behind the scenes to work it out."

In May he appeared before the City Council, presenting his case 
and asking the council to order refunds. City Attorney Jeff 
Goldfarb said, at the time, that he would have to look into the 
assertions. Malamud said this week that he continued to press 
for answers until, in June, he received a letter from the city 
stating that the city "is not currently obligated to refund any 
money in the Beach Parking Impact Fee account."

The lawsuit names two property owners � Daniel Walker and Justin 
McCarthy � as plaintiffs against the city. The City Council 
enacted the fee in 1989 on the basis that homes built outside 
the California coastal zone would pay to mitigate an added 
demand for beach parking that the new homes' residents would 
create.

The suit asserts that "the anticipated need never arose and, 
notwithstanding the fact that the city may not lawfully use the 
funds for any purpose other than a refund, the city has failed 
to return these impact fees to the property owners that are 
entitled to them."

The suit estimates that the fund, with accumulated interest, now 
holds $9.7 million. Besides a refund, the lawsuit calls for a 
return of $337,280 that the city purportedly spent from the 
beach-parking fund to pay 70 percent of the purchase price of 
the parcel at 1832 N. El Camino Real.

Malamud estimated the parcel's current fair-market value at $2 
million and said that 70 percent of the fair-market value should 
be returned to the beach-parking fund to cover 17 years that the 
lot has sat with no parking paved and striped onto it.

The fee started out at $1,500 per home and was reduced in 1996 
to $750 plus inflationary increases, Malamud said. It could be 
back above $1,000 now, Malamud said. "We don't know how many 
lots there were," he added. The suit says "over 5,200 lots" but 
Malamud said it could be well over that. The fund also has been 
accruing interest for 23 years, he said.

http://www.ocregister.com/news/city-368716-parking-malamud.html