Fogarty suit TKO’d

Yuba City developer Tom Fogarty hit the wall recently on his $17 million lawsuit against the city of Chico, when the California Supreme Court decided not to hear his appeal of a lower-court decision that threw out the suit on a technicality.

Fogarty filed the suit in 2005, after the City Council made a last-minute change in his 340-acre, 1,300-unit Oak Valley subdivision near Highway 32 and Bruce Road. Fogarty insisted the change cost him $17 million and was illegal, but a local judge and the 3rd District Court of Appeals both held that he’d missed the 90-day deadline for serving the city with the suit.

In December 2005 he sold phase one of the development, 43 acres, to Reynen & Bardis. That company redesigned the project, and last month the city Planning Commission approved it, with Chairman Jon Luvaas noting that it was “a dramatic improvement” on the original.