CEQA guidelines require only that a lead agency give detailed responses to comments that identify an important new matter not discussed in the draft environmental impact report or raise questions about a significant environmental issue, the Fourth District Court of Appeal ruled, allowing Orange County to proceed with a long-considered expansion of a county jail. City … Continue Reading
The California Supreme Court has agreed to review the appellate court decision Cleveland National Forest Foundation v. San Diego Association of Governments. As we previously reported, the court of appeal in that case invalidated the EIR for the San Diego Association of Government’s 2050 Regional Transportation Plan and Sustainable Communities Strategy. In its petition for … Continue Reading
The California Supreme Court has issued its long-awaited decision in Berkeley Hillside Preservation v. City of Berkeley, No. S201116 (March 2, 2015). The Court’s decision clears up some of the ambiguity that has surrounded the standard of review for challenges to CEQA exemptions under the unusual circumstances exception. In doing so, the Court rejected the … Continue Reading
An opponent of a Wal-Mart project was thwarted in his attempts to use an admittedly defective hearing notice as a basis for overturning project approvals. The court ruled that his claims were defeated by his failure to present evidence of prejudice and by a prior appellate decision. Roberson v. City of Rialto, No. E058187 (4th … Continue Reading
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 Dist., … Continue Reading
In December 2011, the Orange County Board of Supervisors passed a resolution authorizing the County to submit an application for $100 million in state funding to expand the James A. Musick Jail Facility to add over 500 beds. The City of Irvine, which sits adjacent to the jail, filed a lawsuit alleging that the County … Continue Reading
An environmental impact report must not only identify a proper significance threshold for a project’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions; it must then correctly apply that threshold. The EIR for a Wal-Mart Supercenter failed this test in Friends of Oroville v. City of Oroville, No. 070448 (3rd Dist., Aug. 19, 2013). Wal-Mart proposed to replace an … Continue Reading
A court of appeal today rejected a CEQA challenge to an air pollution control district’s published thresholds of significance for air pollution impacts. California Building Industry Association v Bay Area Air Quality Management District, No. 135335 (First District, July 13, 2013). The thresholds, contained in the District’s “CEQA Air Quality Guidelines,” were first adopted … Continue Reading
A 30-day limitations period for a challenge to a project that is exempted from CEQA by Government Code section 65457 applies rather than the 35-day limitations period that ordinarily applies after a notice of exemption is filed, according to the court in May v. City of Milpitas, No. H038338 (Sixth District, July 16, 2013). The statutes of … Continue Reading
The Sixth District Court of Appeal has given a boost to utility-scale solar projects by rejecting the types of Williamson Act and CEQA challenges that are often brought against those projects. Save Panoche Valley v. San Benito County, No. HO37599 (6th Dist. June 25, 2013). The case concerns the Panoche Valley Solar Farm, a solar photovoltaic facility in … Continue Reading
Every few years, with El Nino-like regularity, a wave of interest in CEQA reform sweeps through the business community, accompanied by pleas to the legislature to overhaul the statute. In the end, few substantive changes are made. This year is no exception. (See June 14th post). Many of the recurring concerns involve the unpredictability of … Continue Reading
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 significant impacts … Continue Reading
Perhaps reflecting a north-south division over the importance of a parking space, the Fourth District has held that impacts of a stadium project on parking, together with traffic, necessitated preparation of an EIR. Taxpayers for Accountable School Bond Spending v. San Diego Unified School District, No. D060999 (Fourth Dist. April 25, 2013). The court expressly … Continue Reading
In response to a business community campaign calling for broad CEQA reform, California State Senator Senate President pro Tempore Darrell Steinberg released his highly anticipated CEQA “modernization” bill, SB 731. So far, the bill is more remarkable for what it lacks, than for what it contains: A Co-author. 2012’s chief CEQA reform champion, Senator Michael … Continue Reading
In a case of first impression, a court of appeal has held that an attorney can be a named petitioner in a CEQA case, litigate the case on behalf of all of the petitioners, and then, if the litigation succeeds, obtain an award of attorneys’ fees from the defendants for her work. Healdsburg Citizens for Sustainable … Continue Reading
After wading through a detailed discussion relating to biological impacts (see Perkins Coie Update), the court in Preserve Wild Santee v. City of Santee dove into issues surrounding an EIR’s analysis of water supplies. The court found the EIR invalid in part because it failed to consider the uncertainty of State Water Project water supplies. … Continue Reading
The County of Siskiyou certified an Environmental Impact Report for a project to expand an existing manufacturing facility to accommodate a cogeneration power plant housed on one acre of a 300-acre site. Environmental groups claimed the EIR violated CEQA by failing to include adequate project alternatives and failing to fully disclose, analyze, and mitigate the … Continue Reading
Measures put on the ballot by a city council are not automatically exempt from CEQA even though they must be approved or disapproved by the voters. As shown in a recent appellate court decision, however, CEQA review is not required for a ballot measure that does not commit the city to a “project” as that … Continue Reading
After obtaining the necessary permit, T-Mobile installed wireless equipment on an existing utility pole in a residential neighborhood in San Francisco. The installation was part of a larger project to install similar equipment on existing utility poles scattered throughout the city. Residents living nearby sought to have the city’s decision to issue the permit overturned, … Continue Reading
Decisions by school districts and colleges to build new schools or expand existing ones frequently lead to CEQA challenges from local cities. In the most recent of these conflicts to reach the court of appeal, the City of Maywood won confirmation that it was eligible to recover attorneys’ fees from a school district, but saw … Continue Reading
Public agencies generally prefer not to prepare EIRs – at least for their own plans and projects – unless they have to. And CEQA attempts to avoid redundancy by encouraging reliance, to the extent possible, on a previously certified EIR to support the approval of a subsequent action. So, in 2008, when El Dorado County … Continue Reading
Two important, recurring CEQA questions are answered by a recent court of appeal decision in a case involving the EIR for a California State University campus master plan: whether CEQA requires funding of mitigation for a project’s effects on public services; and whether an adaptive mitigation program for traffic and parking impacts improperly defers decisions about mitigation. … Continue Reading
The Metropolitan Transportation Commission, the transportation planning agency for the nine-county San Francisco Bay Area, and the Association of Bay Area Governments have announced that they are going to prepare an Environmental Impact Report to evaluate the agencies’ proposed plan to reduce regional greenhouse gas emissions from cars and light duty trucks. On June 11, the … Continue Reading
The California Supreme Court has issued a landmark decision holding that the exhaustion doctrine – which requires parties to raise their claims at the administrative level before litigating them in court — applies to challenges to an agency decision that a project is exempt from CEQA. Overturning a 15-year-old precedent, the court ruled that if the decision-making … Continue Reading
