The City of San Diego was not required to obtain a coastal development permit for a transitional housing project because the Coastal Commission had certified the City’s local coastal program, whose provisions therefore applied in lieu of the Commission’s regulations. Citizens for South Bay Coastal Access v. City of San Diego, 45 Cal. App.

The Second District Court of Appeal held that a project’s potentially significant environmental impacts required preparation of an EIR rather than the mitigated negative declaration adopted by the City. Save the Agoura Cornell Knoll et al. v. City of Agoura Hills et al., 46 Cal.App.5th 665 (2020).

The project consisted of 35 residential apartment units plus retail, restaurant, and office space on an 8.2-acre site located in Agoura Hills. The City approved a Mitigated Negative Declaration for the project, finding no substantial evidence of a significant effect on the environment because the project incorporated mitigation measures it believed would reduce potential impacts to a less-than-significant level.

  1. Impacts on Cultural Resources

The court of appeal determined the MND’s mitigation measures were insufficient to avoid or reduce potential impacts to archeological and tribal cultural resources to a less-than-significant level. The proposed  measures, it found, lacked an analysis of whether the resources within the proposed construction site could be avoided. Nor did the measures specify performance criteria for evaluating the feasibility of avoidance as an alternative to excavation. Further, substantial evidence provided by an expert in Native American archeology and history demonstrated that the project could likely cause significant permanent damage to the site and the proposed data recovery program was inadequate to mitigate that damage.

  1. Impacts on Sensitive Plant Species

The project site contained three special-status plant species that would be significantly impacted by project grading, landscaping, and fuel modification activities. The court found that, even with the proposed mitigation measures, the project could still have a significant impact on these sensitive plant species. It concluded that the mitigation measures improperly deferred formulation of certain mitigation efforts, failed to describe specific performance criteria to ensure that mitigation would be effective, relied on outdated botanical surveys of the area, and did not provide feasible alternatives if proposed salvage and replanting efforts failed.
Continue Reading Mitigated Negative Declaration Inadequate for Mixed-Use Project

A Riverside County zoning ordinance that removed religious assemblies as a permissible use in a particular zone did not violate the equal terms provision of the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Person’s Act (RLUIPA) because it prohibited both religious and secular institutions alike from staging events without charging a fee. Calvary Chapel Bible Fellowship v.