In Central Delta Water Agency v. Department of Water Resources (2021) 69 Cal.App.5th 170, the Third District Court of Appeal considered three consolidated appeals arising out of long-term water contracts that have been the subject of repeated rounds of environmental review and litigation lasting decades. In each of the consolidated cases, the Court of Appeal set forth the respective trial courts’ reasoning and rulings at length, and affirmed them in full.
GHG Mitigation Once More Found Lacking in San Diego County EIR; Fourth District Also Identifies General Plan Inconsistency but Upholds Wildfire and Air Quality Analyses in Unpublished Opinion
In the unpublished Elfin Forest Harmony Grove Town Council v. County of San Diego (Oct. 14, 2021, Nos. D077611, D078101) [2021 Cal. App. Unpub. LEXIS 6474], the Fourth District Court of Appeal found that the County of San Diego’s (County) approval of the Harmony Grove Village project’s (Project) environmental impact report (EIR) did not employ
Fourth District Finds Failure to Evaluate Consistency with CAP Rendered MND Incomplete Despite no Fair Argument of Inconsistency; Rejects Piecemealing, Project Description, and Aesthetic Impacts Claims, and Others as Barred by a Failure to Exhaust Administrative Remedies
In McCann v. City of San Diego (2021) 70 Cal.App.5th 51, the Fourth District Court of Appeal found that the Plaintiff, Margaret McCann (McCann), was barred from bringing a judicial action challenging the City’s approval of projects for undergrounding utility lines because she failed to exhaust the City of San Diego’s (City’s) administrative appeal process. With regard to a second set of undergrounding projects also challenged by McCann, the Court ruled that the City’s mitigated negative declaration (MND) failed to adequately examine whether the projects were consistent with the City’s Climate Action Plan (CAP). However, it ruled in favor of the City on the Plaintiff’s allegation regarding aesthetic impacts, concluding that generalized claims and reliance on the comments of a single speaker did not support a fair argument and, further, case law suggests that small utility boxes do not require preparation of an environmental impact report (EIR).