Riverside Takes UCR To Court Amid Development Concerns: Report

RIVERSIDE, CA — The city of Riverside is taking University of California, Riverside to court, alleging that the university is moving ahead with a development plan that ignores impacts on air pollution, wastewater, stormwater and light pollution, The Press-Enterprise reported.

And despite a plan to expand the campus footprint further into the city, Riverside says the university doesn't intend to pay for extended burdens on police, mass transit and city parks, the newspaper reported.

The city has requested a court order against the University of California Regents over the campus' long-range development plan, which outlines campus growth over the next 15 years.

“The existing sewer lines and water lines and electrical will have to be upgraded in order to support that. Well, who’s going to pay for that? UCR likes to push the costs of their growth onto other people … They push it off onto the neighborhood. They push it off onto the city," Kevin Dawson, co-chair of the University Neighborhood Association told The PE.

Meanwhile, the university has responded with its own legal action, objecting to fees the city intends to impose on the campus to connect sewer lines to planned campus housing.

“While we are disappointed that the city has taken this step, UCR has already defeated one challenge against the LRDP. We hope we will succeed in doing so again," UC spokesperson Ryan King told The PE.

Read more in The Press-Enterprise here.