Cities charged with preparing EIRs for proposed projects often look to their general plans and other adopted policies to set thresholds of significance for assessing environmental impacts. A lead agency’s discretion to select a particular significance threshold has long been afforded deference under CEQA’s “substantial evidence” standard of review. Potential impacts assessed under a general plan-based significance threshold have similarly enjoyed deferential review under the substantial evidence standard. However, in East Sacramento Partnerships for a Livable City v. City of Sacramento (2016) 5 Cal.App.5th 281, as modified on denial of rehearing, the Third Appellate District appears to have relied on the less deferential “fair argument” standard in holding that compliance with a general plan policy does not conclusively establish there is no significant environmental impact. In so holding, the court found that the City of Sacramento (“the City”) failed to adequately address the traffic impacts related to a development project.
Limitations on Subsequent Review Under CEQA
Since the California Supreme Court’s 2016 ruling in Friends of the College of San Mateo Gardens v. San Mateo County Community College District, California appeals courts have issued a spate of decisions addressing subsequent review under the California Environmental Quality Act (“CEQA”), including two in the last two months of 2016. In both cases, the appeals court upheld the agency’s decision not to undertake further environmental review.
Banning Ranch Conservancy v. City of Newport Beach
On March 30, 2017, in the first of at least three CEQA rulings expected this year, the California Supreme Court issued its long-awaited decision in Banning Ranch Conservancy v. City of Newport Beach. In a unanimous opinion authored by Justice Carol Corrigan, the Court invalidated an EIR for the coastal development at Banning Ranch approved by the City of Newport Beach. Despite the fact that the EIR addressed in detail the project’s physical impacts on wetlands and sensitive habitats, the Court nevertheless held that it failed to adequately disclose and consider the controversy surrounding the potential presence of Environmentally Sensitive Habitat Areas (“ESHA”) under the Coastal Act. This decision falls within a growing line of cases mandating inclusion of non-CEQA regulatory requirements within the confines of the CEQA environmental review process, and in a manner that places ever greater burdens on lead agencies and EIR preparers.
Fourth Appellate District Upholds EIR for 200-Acre Specific Plan Development in Riverside County
In its February 14 decision (certified for publication on March 15) in Residents Against Specific Plan 380 v. County of Riverside, the Fourth Appellate District upheld the County of Riverside’s (“County’s”) approval of a master-planned community. The opinion provides helpful guidance for lead agencies and applicants in understanding when changes made to a project in direct response to public comments after publication of a Final EIR do not necessitate recirculation. The decision also reaffirms that where defects in a notice are not prejudicial, unwinding of the approval is not required.
The case involves a proposed 200-acre development in the French Valley region of Riverside County, containing a mixture of residential, mixed use, commercial, and open space uses (“Project”). The Project, which was proposed by the Hanna Marital Trust (“Trust”), required approval of a specific plan (known as Specific Plan 380), a general plan amendment, and a zoning change.
Downey Brand Partners to Speak at AEP 2017 State Conference in San Francisco
I am pleased to announce that both Christian Marsh and I will be participating in panel discussions at the Association of Environmental Professionals’ 2017 State Conference, entitled “Bridging the Gap” and taking place in San Francisco from May 18 through May 21 (view schedule of events). As stated by AEP, “the conference seeks to ‘bridge the gap’ between CEQA practitioners and the technical experts they rely on, between CEQA and planning, and among other related local, regional, statewide, and national environmental issues.”
Fifth District Allows Real Party to Recover Costs of Record Preparation
On, September 12, 2015, the Fifth District Court of Appeal issued its opinion in Citizens for Ceres v. City of Ceres (2016) _Cal.App.5th_. The opinion authorized real-parties-in-interest to recover costs of record preparation, as long as the record was prepared in a manner prescribed by Public Resources Code section 21167.6. The petitioners in this action challenged the EIR for a new shopping center anchored by a Wal-Mart on a variety of grounds, including that the project did not adequately mitigate for urban decay impacts and that the EIR failed to set forth an adequate long-term plan for solid waste disposal. The trial court upheld the EIR on all grounds but rejected real-party-in-interest Wal-Mart’s motion to recover costs associated with preparing the record, based on Public Resources Code section 21167.6 and the principles elucidated in Hayward Area Planning Assn. v. City of Hayward (2005) 128 Cal.App.4th 176.
California Supreme Court Rejects “New Project Test” and Defers to Agencies on Whether Project Modifications Require Subsequent Environmental Review
On September 19, in a long-awaited and unanimous decision, the California Supreme Court issued its decision in Friends of the College of San Mateo Gardens v. San Mateo County Community College District. The opinion, authored by the Court’s newest justice, Leondra Kruger, resolves a split among the Courts of Appeal regarding the proper procedures for addressing changes to a project that have already been subject to CEQA review. The Court clarified that such changes are not subject to an independent, “new project” threshold test, and that an agency’s decision that no EIR is required as a result of proposed modifications to a previously-approved project is subject to review for substantial evidence. The decision also affirmed the validity of CEQA Guidelines section 15162 and its application of the principles of finality and subsequent review to projects originally approved with a negative declaration.
Air District CEQA Guidelines Partially Invalidated For Mandating “CEQA-In-Reverse” Analysis, Following Remand From California Supreme Court
On remand from the California Supreme Court, the First Appellate District has issued its second ruling in California Building Industry Assn. v. Bay Area Air Quality Management District. In this case, CBIA challenged BAAQMD’s 2010 “CEQA Air Quality Guidelines”—specifically, the Guidelines’ thresholds and methods for assessing the effects of siting new sensitive receptors (residences) near existing sources of toxic air contaminants and other harmful air emissions, such as freeways. Last year, the California Supreme Court held that CEQA “does not generally require an agency to consider the effects of existing environmental conditions on a proposed project’s future users or residents” (so-called ‘CEQA-in-Reverse’). Requiring analysis of the existing environment’s effects on a project, the Supreme Court emphasized, would “impermissibly expand the scope of CEQA.” The Supreme Court remanded the case to the First District Court of Appeal to apply its general ruling to the specific aspects of the BAAQMD Guidelines still in dispute.
IN UNPUBLISHED OPINION, COURT OF APPEAL UPHOLDS CEQA REVIEW FOR FRESNO’S FULTON MALL PROJECT
The City of Fresno’s Fulton Street lies in the heart of its downtown and was once a bustling commerce center lined with numerous retailers. Suburbanization drew those retailers to the periphery of town in the 1950s. In the early 1960s, in an attempt to revive its urban core, the City turned Fulton Street into Fulton
Appellate Court Upholds Bay Area’s SB 375 Sustainable Communities Strategy
Since the passage of AB 32 in 2006, the methods for climate change analysis under CEQA have taken a number of turns. Most recently, the California Supreme Court in Center for Biological Diversity v. Department of Fish & Wildlife (2015) 62 Cal.4th 204, concluded that an EIR for a major development project (Newhall Ranch) lacked substantial evidence to show that the project’s reductions in emissions would be consistent with AB 32’s statewide goal for greenhouse gas (GHG) reductions by the year 2020. In a harbinger of its impending opinion in Cleveland National Forest v. San Diego Assoc. of Governments, the Court suggested that AB 32’s goal for 2020 may become less and less relevant as 2020 fast approaches. The Supreme Court’s opinion did state, however, that “[w]hile the burden of CEQA’s mandate in this context can be substantial, methods for complying with CEQA do exist”—expressly referencing consistency with regional climate action plans or sustainable communities strategies under SB 375.
On June 30, the First Appellate District issued an opinion that offered some hope to agencies struggling with climate analysis by rejecting a challenge to the regional GHG reduction mandates of “Plan Bay Area,” the sustainable communities strategy developed by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) and Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) to comply with the requirements of SB 375. In Bay Area Citizens v. Association of Bay Area Governments, the appeals court rejected petitioner’s argument that the EIR for the Plan should have taken into account reductions in GHGs that will occur under statewide GHG reduction mandates.