A Superior Court judge ruled Thursday that the City of San Diego conducted inadequate reviews in last year’s approval of a proposed 12-story condominium and retail project in Hillcrest.

Ruling in a suit filed in October by Friends of San Diego, opponents of the proposed high-rise at 301 University Ave., Judge Linda Quinn voided the City Council’s September 2006 approval of the project.

The court said that the City of San Diego did not follow legal requirements in the preparation of an Environmental Impact Report (EIR), that 301 University would have a severe impact on the neighborhood, that a proper traffic analysis was not done, that 301 ignored serious community park shortages, that the city did not analyze the impact of construction or cumulative effects on the neighborhood and that the public alley should not have been sold to a developer.

The city is the party responsible for conducting appropriate reviews prior to project approval, but now that the court has ruled it did not do so, developer La Jolla Pacific Development will need to work with the city and its environmental consultants to move forward. The process will take at least six to eight months, according to developers.

Bruce Leidenberger, the firm’s president said it has “followed the rules and requests of the city to date. The judge ruled that the city has to clean it up in order to move forward, and that’s what we’re going to do in order to follow through with this project.”

The project has received intense scrutiny since developers initially proposed it more than three years ago.

“Our community plan says that projects must fit with the height scale and bulk of the existing neighborhood,” said Tom Mullaney, leader of Friends of San Diego, which brought the lawsuit, and a local business owner. “The height of 147 clearly doesn’t fit with the existing one- and two- story buildings. The bulk of this project was going to be a massive project covering all the way from Third to Fourth Avenue. So it was going to present a monolithic appearance across our skinny little University Avenue.”

The developer’s current plan includes a 10,250-square-foot retail space, containing a 1,300-square-foot gym, a public terrace and 96 one- to three-bedroom condominiums. The $65 million project would also provide three levels of aboveground residential parking and 121 underground public parking spaces on two levels.

Why did City Council conduct inadequate reviews?

Leidenberger said that La Jolla Pacific Development attended numerous meetings with development services to reconcile environmental issues with the project that arose during development. However, the city did not ask for an EIR, and District 3 Councilmember Toni Atkins, whose district includes Hillcrest, led a 7 – 1 vote to approve the controversial project last September, despite several community advisory groups voting against it. Atkins is currently on vacation and unavailable for comment.

According to Leidenberger, the process of approving the project, which has gone under several transformations, unfolded as follows: developers and city planners provided City Council with a Mitigated Negative Declaration (MND), a document that reflects the developer’s and city planner’s judgment and analysis of the effects a project will have.

Several draft versions of the MND were submitted beginning in January 2005. Last July, the city’ attorney’s office submitted a memo to the City Council stating the final MND was insufficient.

Leidenberger said the city later decided, however, that the MND would suffice.

However, now that the Superior Court has ruled the necessity of an EIR, which provides analysis of effects on traffic, community compatibility and other environmental concerns, the project is brought to a halt – at least until developers and city planners resubmit it.

“As developers, we will be sitting down this week with legal counsel and land use attorneys to discuss what is needed and what additional reports our consultants will have to do in order for them to complete their work,” Leidenberger said.

Councilmember Donna Frye, who cast the lone dissenting vote against the project, said that, “The project, as designed, particularly its bulk and scale, was out of character with the neighborhood. The court’s ruling provides justice for residents of Hillcrest and proves that public participation does make a difference.”