In County of Ventura v. City of Moorpark (2018) 24 Cal.App.5th 377, the Second Appellate District upheld a CEQA statutory exemption applied to a project undertaken by the State-created Broad Beach Geologic Hazard Abatement District (BBGHAD) and clarified that a “project” for CEQA consideration may be two separate activities if they serve a single purpose, have the same proponent, and are “inextricably linked.” Further, settlement agreement restrictions were not preempted by state law and do not constitute extraterritorial regulation. However, the abdication of BBGHAD’s police power in portions of the agreement was improper and therefore void.
The State created BBGHAD to address beach and sand dune erosion at Malibu’s Broad Beach. Here, BBGHAD was obliged to restore and restock sand at the beach. The project would involve shipments of 300,000 cubic yards of sand, four subsequent deposits of equal size at five year intervals, and additional shipments of 75,000 cubic yards on an as-needed basis (Project). The sand was to be collected from quarries 30-40 miles away from Broad Beach and transported by trucks to the beach. The initial deposit alone was estimated to require 44,000 one-way truck trips. Possible truck routes from the quarries to the beach required either traveling through the City of Moorpark (City) or on roads adjacent to the community.
In the Project’s planning stages, City officials expressed concern that hauling sand on these routes would negatively impact residents, and therefore entered into a settlement agreement with BBGHAD to manage traffic. BBGHAD agreed to specific haul routes, truck staging requirements, and changes in routes in response to settlement-defined road emergencies. Additionally, the settlement agreement could only be modified with the consent of all parties. Thereafter, the Coastal Commission approved a coastal development permit for the Project, incorporating the settlement agreement.
The County of Ventura (County) filed suit alleging that the settlement’s incorporation is preempted by state law, constitutes an illegal attempt by the City to regulate traffic outside of the City limits, and represents an abdication of BBGHAD’s state-granted police power.
The trial court found that the Project was statutorily exempt from CEQA, held that the settlement agreement was not preempted by the state’s Vehicle Code, and was not an improper attempt by the City to regulate traffic outside City limits. However, BBGHAD improperly contracted away its ability to amend the settlement agreement, therefore the trial court struck down the agreement’s mutual assent provision and held that BBGHAD must be able to modify the agreement in response to changed circumstances. The County timely appealed.
The Appellate Court affirmed the trial court’s ruling. In addition to its original claims, the County contended that the settlement agreement is an action distinct from the Broad Beach restoration project, thus beyond the scope of the exemption and subject to CEQA review. The Court disagreed, and found that the settlement agreement between the City and BBGHAD was part of the whole beach restoration effort and one project. The Court stated that when two activities are a coordinated endeavor to obtain an objective or are otherwise related to each other, they constitute a single project for purposes of CEQA. Here, the actions served the single purpose of abating a geologic hazard and were inextricably linked in achieving that goal. Only when the second activity is independent of and not a contemplated future part of the first activity may the two activities be reviewed separately.
Turning to the preemption argument, the Court found Vehicle Code section 21 was not implicated in the City’s settlement agreement. Vehicle Code section 21 prohibits local authorities from enacting resolutions or ordinances which affect state traffic restrictions. The Court found that because the agreement did not involve an ordinance or resolution (rather, it was the City acting under its contracting power), it was not preempted by Vehicle Code section 21. The Court further found that the agreement merely dictated the routes BBGHAD’s contractors and subcontractors must use when delivering on behalf of the Project. The agreement did not amount to a physical barrier which would redirect traffic, did not close roads, and did not restrict non-project related hauling.
The Court then addressed the extraterritorial regulation claim and held the City was within its contracting rights to further its implied necessary function of preventing public nuisances on their roads—like thousands of sand shipments. Additionally, the Court found the traffic restrictions on BBGHAD shipments were valid, as they only affected activity within the City limits.
Turning to the issue of infringements on BBGHAD’s police power, the Court found that as an entity of the State, BBGHAD was entitled to exercise a portion of the state’s police power. However, BBGHAD erred in part by contracting away its right to exercise its police power in the future. The agreement bound BBGHAD to surrender its discretion to haul routes in the future unless mutual assent was achieved between BBGHAD and the City. The Court found that this grant of veto power infringed upon the State’s police power therefore was invalid. In examining if this error was sufficient to render the entire agreement void, the Court weighed the agreement’s impact on the public and the expressed intentions of the parties, and determined that the aspects of the agreement which infringed on BBGHAD’s State-granted police power were severable from the rest of the agreement. Accordingly, the Court upheld the agreement in part and struck the agreement in part.
The Court affirmed the trial court’s judgement.
Key Point:
While incorporated settlement agreements with local authorities in project planning is allowable as part of one CEQA-defined “project”, when contracting with state entities, it is important to not infringe upon state police powers through the creation of modification clauses requiring assent from all parties.