In a lengthy published opinion filed May 21, 2013, the First District Court of Appeal reversed a judgment granting a writ of mandate and upheld as legally adequate under CEQA the Marin Municipal Water District’s EIR for...more
6/7/2013
- CEQA Environmental Impact Report Infrastructure Water
There has been a lot of buzz around proposed SB 731, which is working its way through the State Legislature and will be heard Monday, May 20, in the Senate Appropriations Committee. Notwithstanding the hype and hopes, I think...more
5/20/2013
- CEQA CEQA Reform Proposed Legislation
Repetitive CEQA review and analysis is expensive, unnecessary, unproductive, and inimical to the goals of certainty and finality in the environmental review process. In 2011, to address these concerns in the infill...more
5/9/2013
- CEQA Infill Development Urban Planning & Development
In its terse, no-nonsense opinion in Alliance For the Protection of the Auburn Community v. County of Placer, et al. (2013) 215 Cal.App.4th 25, ordered published onApril 2, 2013, the Third District Court of Appeal affirmed a...more
5/2/2013
- CEQA Excusable Neglect Statute of Limitations
Ruling from the bench at a March 29, 2013 hearing, Alameda County Superior Court Judge Frank Roesch found a key provision of an ambitious CEQA reform law championed by Senator Darrell Steinberg to be unconstitutional....more
4/9/2013
- AB 900 CEQA CEQA Reform Writ of Mandamus
On February 22, 2013, Senator President Pro Tempore Darrell Steinberg introduced SB 731, a bill the Senator’s website press release described as “outlining the detailed intent that strengthens [CEQA’s] protection of the...more
2/27/2013
- CEQA CEQA Reform Environmental Impact Report Mitigation
Hot on the heels of Governor Jerry Brown’s 2013 State of the State address, which raised the need for CEQA reform (as noted in my immediately-preceding blog post), a trio of former California governors has echoed and...more
2/6/2013
- Caltrans CEQA CEQA Reform Jerry Brown
In his 2013 State of the State address delivered on January 24, 2013, Governor Jerry Brown focused on education, health care, jobs, and the interrelated areas of climate change, water, transportation and the high speed rail...more
2/4/2013
- CEQA Jerry Brown
The Respondent City of Berkeley and Real Parties (Kapors) filed their joint Reply Brief on the Merits in the California Supreme Court in a much-watched categorical exemption case, Berkeley Hillside Preservation, et al. v....more
12/17/2012
- CEQA Environmental Impact Report Exemptions
Meaningful CEQA reform is a topic much discussed by politicians and stakeholders, but its realization remains elusive. For example, in-fill exemptions are fettered with multitudes of complex and convoluted conditions and...more
12/13/2012
- CEQA Competition Public Policy Standing
