The California Supreme Court ruled on Monday that California State University was obliged to pay for a range of civic and environmental improvements to its Monterey Bay campus if it wanted to proceed with plans to expand it.

The unanimous ruling resolved a nearly decade-old dispute in which the university argued that, as a state agency providing a public benefit, it should be exempted from paying the full costs of water and sewer upgrades, roadway improvements, and fire-prevention services, among other things that environmental-impact statements had said were needed on the proposed larger campus.

The total cost of the improvements has been estimated at $20-million, the Associated Press reported, and the expansion is required by the campus’s booming enrollment. The campus opened in 1995 on an abandoned Army base called Fort Ord (The Chronicle, November 30, 1994).