San Franciscans Upholding the Downtown Plan v. City and County of San Francisco

In San Franciscans Upholding the Downtown Plan v. City and County of San Francisco (2002) 102 Cal.App.4th 656, the appellate court upheld the board of supervisors' express determination that the project in question was consistent with the city's general plan and its priority policies. "Courts accord great deference to a local governmental agency's determination of consistency with its own general plan, recognizing that 'the body which adopted the general plan policies in its legislative capacity has unique competence to interpret those policies when applying them in its adjudicatory capacity. . Because policies in a general plan reflect a range of competing interests, the governmental agency must be allowed to weigh and balance the plan's policies when applying them, and it has broad discretion to construe its policies in light of the plan's purposes. . A reviewing court's role "is simply to decide whether the city officials considered the applicable policies and the extent to which the proposed project conforms with those policies." .' . Moreover, state law does not require precise conformity of a proposed project with the land use designation for a site, or an exact match between the project and the applicable general plan. . Instead, a finding of consistency requires only that the proposed project be 'compatible with the objectives, policies, general land uses, and programs specified in' the applicable plan. The courts have interpreted this provision as requiring that a project be '"in agreement or harmony with"' the terms of the applicable plan, not in rigid conformity with every detail thereof. ." (Id. at pp. 677-678.)