Legal Commentary on Planning and Development
An environmental impact report need not discuss impacts that are too speculative in nature for proper evaluation or assess economic costs not linked to a physical change in the environment. County of Butte v. Dept. of Water Resources, 90 Cal.App.5th 147 (2023).
In 2008, three local government entities challenged the California Department of Water…
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…
Do environmental groups have standing to sue to force state agencies to regulate greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act? In a case decided on October 17, the Ninth Circuit said no. Washington Environmental Councilv. Bellon, No. 12-35323 (9th Cir. Oct. 17, 2013).
The plaintiffs argued that several governmental agencies in Washington State …
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 …
The City of Kivalina sits on the tip of a six-mile barrier reef on the northwest coast of Alaska, about 70 miles north of the Arctic Circle. For decades, the city has experienced serious erosion problems from waves and sea storms. In recent years, the problems have gotten worse, threatening to destroy city buildings and …
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 agencies issued a notice of preparation under the California Environmental Quality Act seeking comments on the scope and content of the EIR for the proposed plan, which was developed in partnership with the Bay Area Air Quality Management District and the Bay Conservation and Development Commission. Comments on the notice of preparation are due by July 11, 2012.
The proposed plan, entitled “Plan Bay Area,” calls for housing and job growth around high-quality transit corridors, especially within areas identified by local jurisdictions as Priority Development Areas. The plan strives to attain per-capita GHG emissions reductions from cars and trucks of 7 percent by the year 2020 and 15 percent by the 2035, as compared with 2005 emissions levels.
The plan implements Senate Bill 375, which seeks to integrate regional land use and transportation planning to help lower the number of vehicle miles traveled through the adoption of a Sustainable Communities Strategy. SB 375 provides streamlined procedures under CEQA for qualifying residential, mixed-use and transit-oriented projects that are consistent with an approved SCS. The proposed plan would be the Bay Area’s first Sustainable Communities Strategy and would seek to take advantage of the CEQA incentives offered by SB 375, with the hope that local approvals of future qualifying development projects that implement the plan will face fewer hurdles and delays.
