CHICO — The legal challenge to a hotel approved in California Park, simmering for the better part of a year, started heating up this week with a brief hearing in Butte County Superior Court.
A case management conference Wednesday morning proved procedural, with Judge Virginia Gingery granting a request to continue the proceedings at another hearing, which Gingery scheduled for Feb. 28. The lawsuit — California Park Homeowners Association v. City of Chico — was filed in October 2022. Apart from a change of judges in October, after Gov. Gavin Newsom appointed Gingery to the bench, this was the first hearing since a conference in April.
The suit involves two sets of neighbors, the California Park Association and the Sierra Sunrise Village Property Owners Association, challenging the city and the Chico City Council for approving a four-story TownPlace Suites hotel at Highway 32 and Bruce Road, on Sierra Sunrise Terrace. The litigation names the hotel owner, Bakersfield-based Continuum Hospitality LLC, as a party of interest.
“We exhausted all avenues with the city and filed a civil lawsuit early in the process,” Valerie Priola, president of the Sierra Sunrise association, said by phone Thursday. “Both parties are actively engaged in negotiations.”
Priola declined to comment further, and City Manager Mark Sorensen said he hadn’t received an update from counsel on the case management conference.
Aligned as a group called No Hotel California Park, neighbors — predominantly seniors and retirees — spent years battling the proposed project. The city Planning Commission denied the application, but the City Council supported the developer’s appeal and moved the project forward in September 2022 pending a design approval, which the Architectural Review and Historic Preservation Board granted in April.
The lawsuit challenges the city’s decision based on the California Environmental Quality Act.
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