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May 19, 2021 <br />Page 26 <br /> <br /> <br />5005-004acp <br /> <br /> printed on recycled paper <br />actions in any proceeding brought in any State or Federal Court challenging the <br />City’s actions with respect to [the] project.”111 <br /> <br />Residents presumes that these terms on the Form are intended to apply to <br />the applicant seeking entitlements from the City for a development project, and not <br />to members of the public seeking to enforce the City’s compliance with local, State, <br />or federal land use and environmental laws, as Residents seek to do here. However, <br />in the event that the City subsequently seeks to charge Residents or its <br />representatives any of the above-described fees, Residents reserves its right to <br />object to additional Appeal fees as a violation of Residents’ due process rights to <br />petition the government, and/or to pay any subsequent fees under protest. <br /> <br />If the City were to require appellants to pay undetermined fees and costs <br />associated with an administrative appeal, as set forth in the Firm, the City would <br />violate appellants’ due process rights to a hearing. A party must first exhaust its <br />administrative remedies before it can bring a lawsuit challenging a CEQA <br />determination.112 If an appeal of a CEQA decision is available to a higher <br />administrative body and that remedy is not pursued, an action challenging the <br />agency decision is therefore barred. For CEQA decisions made by a nonelected <br />decision making body, CEQA specifically allows for appeals of these decisions to an <br />agency’s elected decision making body.113 Agencies have the power to charge <br />reasonable fees for filing administrative appeals of decisions.114 However, such a fee <br />cannot impose a burden upon the exercise of the due process right to a hearing.115 <br /> <br />Here, if members of the public seek to challenge the Board’s approval of the <br />Project, they must appeal the Planning Commission’s decision to the City Council, <br />as required by the City’s Zoning Code, as well as CEQA and State land use laws. <br />Just as the statute did in California Teachers Association, if the City were to charge <br />appellants for the entire (and, as yet, unknown) costs of both filing an <br />administrative appeal, and of challenging any future project approval in court, the <br />potentially substantial and unknown monetary obligation to challenge the City’s <br />decision to approve the Project will chill appellants’ required exercise of a due <br />process hearing in order to exhaust administrative remedies. It would also conflict <br /> <br />111 Id. <br />112 Pub. Res. Code § 21177; Tomlinson v. County of Alameda (2012) 54 Cal.4th. 281, 291. <br />113 See Pub. Res. Code § 21151(c). <br />114 See Friends of Glendora v. City of Glendora (2010) 182 Cal.App.4th 573, 579–80; see also Sea & <br />Sage Audubon Society, Inc. v. Planning Com. (1983) 34 Cal.3d 412, 419. <br />115 California Teachers Association v. State of California (1999) 20 Cal. 4th 327, 331-32; <br />85