In Sierra Club v. County of Sonoma, (A147340, May 22, 2017) the First District Court of Appeal affirmed that a decision to issue a permit will trigger the duty to comply with CEQA only when the agency has the ability and authority to mitigate the project’s environmental impacts to some degree.

The Agricultural Commissioner of Sonoma County issued an erosion-control permit that allowed the applicants to establish a vineyard on former rangeland under the county’s vineyard and orchard development ordinance. The commissioner reviewed the application and property for conformance with a lengthy list of standards set out in the ordinance and used a form checklist to indicate whether applicable standards were met. The commissioner determined issuance of the permit was ministerial and therefore exempt from CEQA.

CEQA Only Applies When the Agency Has Discretion to Mitigate a Project’s Environmental Impacts to a Meaningful Degree

Environmental groups challenged the commissioner’s determination, alleging the permit approval was discretionary because of the broad and vague substantive standards of the ordinance. Those standards provide guidance on proper grading, drainage improvements, and vineyard and orchard site development. The environmental groups argued the ordinance gave the commissioner broad discretion both to interpret and apply those standards and to require measures to mitigate environmental impacts that might occur.

The trial court upheld the commissioner’s decision and the court of appeal affirmed. The court’s opinion focuses on the functional distinction between discretionary projects which are subject to CEQA, and ministerial activities which are exempt: whether applicable permitting standards give the agency the discretion to deny a permit or impose mitigation measures based on the project’s environmental impacts, or instead require the agency to approve the project if it is found to comply with permitting standards, whether or not it might adversely affect the environment.

The court of appeal first acknowledged that some provisions of the ordinance required that the commissioner exercise discretion when applying them to a proposed project. It explained, however, that the discretion-conferring provisions of the ordinance would only be relevant to the analysis if they actually applied to the project. Here, the court held that only three provisions of the ordinance that could be interpreted as involving a discretionary determination applied to the project. But none of those provisions gave the commissioner the authority to exercise judgment or deliberation in deciding whether to approve the application or to mitigate environmental impacts in a meaningful way.
Continue Reading A Project Is Not Discretionary If the Agency Lacks Authority to Require Mitigation

The court of appeal upheld the County of Riverside’s decision to approve development of a master-planned community, rejecting claims that the County violated CEQA by (1) filing an inadequate notice of determination; (2) failing to recirculate the final EIR after the project was modified; and (3) failing to consider and adopt feasible air quality mitigation

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