Caltrans’s analysis of impacts to redwoods from  realignment of a one-mile stretch of Highway 101 has been rejected.  The court of appeal ruled that the project EIR both failed to identify any significance threshold for impacts to redwoods and impermissibly labeled mitigation measures as project features.  Lotus v. Department of Transportation, No. A137315 (First

A city council has sweeping authority to interpret the city’s general plan.  That authority trumped a successful referendum campaign designed to block a residential development project, according to the court’s decision  in Orange Citizens for Parks and Recreation v. Superior Court, Case No. G047013 (4th App. Dist., July 10, 2013).  The court held that

SB 731 (Steinberg)  CEQA Modernization Act of 2013.  (Last amended May 24, 2013.  Passed to Assembly May 30, 2013) 

  • Aesthetic Impacts in Transit Priority Areas Not Significant. Bill would provide that aesthetic impacts of a residential, mixed-use residential, or employment center project, as defined, within a “transit priority area,” shall not be considered

Out of 26 CEQA bills introduced early this year, eight have met the Legislature’s May 31 deadline to move from the state Senate to the Assembly or vice versa, and therefore are still considered viable.  (For more details, and an update on these bills, see our June 14 post).  For the most part, these

On March 5, 2013, the Council on Environmental Quality released a handbook intended to help agencies and practitioners coordinate environmental reviews under the National Environmental Policy Act with overlapping review requirements under the California Environmental Quality Act.  It also released a separate handbook on coordination of review under NEPA and the National Historic Preservation Act.