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The Direction of CEQA “Reform” Under Proposed SB 731: One Step Up and Three Steps Back?

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

Towards Not Reinventing The CEQA Wheel: Resources Agency Adopts New CEQA Guidelines For Streamlined Review of Urban Infill...

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

Missing CEQA Statute of Limitations Is Not Excusable Neglect, Third District Holds

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

First District Holds CEQA Remedies Provision Allows Park District’s Eminent Domain Action To Proceed Pending Preparation of...

In Golden Gate Land Holdings LLC v. East Bay Regional Park District (4/12/13 1st Dist., Div. 5) _____ Cal.App.4th _____, 2013 WL 1491547, the First District Court of Appeal explored the scope and proper application of CEQA’s...more

4/25/2013 - CEQA Condemnation Eminent Domain Environmental Impact Report

Residential Project Exempt From CEQA Review Under Government Code Section 65457 As Consistent With Specific Plan For Which Program...

In a recently published opinion construing Government Code § 65457’s exemption from environmental review for a residential development consistent with a specific plan for which an EIR was previously certified, the First...more

4/11/2013 - CEQA Environmental Impact Report Environmental Review Greenhouse Gas Emissions Housing Developers Land Developers

AB 900 CEQA Reform Law Partially Struck Down

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

Spring CEQA Roundup

Spring is here, and it seems the judicial, legislative and executive branches of government have all been busy trying to “clean up” CEQA and related areas of the law in one way or another. Recent items of interest...more

3/21/2013 - CEQA Community Plan Implementation Overlay Handbooks Infill Development Land Use Courts Local Ordinance NEPA

Second District Rejects CEQA Challenge To EIR for Riverbed Sand And Gravel Mining Project, Upholds Santa Barbara County’s...

The Second District Court of Appeal upheld the County of Santa Barbara’s Final Revised Environmental Impact Report for a 30-year conditional use permit (CUP) for the Diamond Rock mine project. Save Cuyama Valley v. County of...more

3/12/2013 - CEQA Conditional Use Permit Environmental Impact Report Mining Water

“Bare-Bones” CEQA Reform Bill (SB 731) Introduced By Senator Steinberg; Senator Evans Proposes Legislation to Further Expand CEQA

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

Supreme Court Will Review CEQA Decision From Fifth District In Wal-Mart Citizen Initiative Case

After receiving three separate petitions for review, including petitions from real parties Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. and the City of Sonora, the California Supreme Court voted unanimously on February 13, 2013 to grant review of...more

2/18/2013 - Appeals CEQA Election Code 9214 Petitions for Review Wal-Mart

Perfect Storm for CEQA Reform In 2013? Former Govs Weigh In

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

Are Courts Actively Limiting CEQA’s Scope In The Absence Of Meaningful Legislative Reform?*

While no California Environmental Quality Act (“CEQA”) reform was achieved by the California Legislature in its last session, Senate President Pro-Tem Darrell Steinberg has indicated in a recently-issued statement that it...more

2/6/2013 - CEQA CEQA Reform Environmental Impact Report Exhaustion Doctrine Statute of Limitations Subdivision Map Act

CEQA Reform Goal Is Noted In Governor’s State of the State Address

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

Fourth District Applies CEQA’s “Murky” Piecemealing Tests To Reject “Project Definition” Challenge To Park Development in Banning...

Harmonizing CEQA’s rules and principles is, to say the least, not always easy, and is often quite challenging. The relevant concepts are often in tension, or are so malleable that they can be argued or construed to conflict....more

1/24/2013 - CEQA Environmental Impact Report Laurel Heights test Permits Project Definition

Recent Cases Show How CEQA’s Applicability And Substantive EIR Requirements Are Determined By Meaningful Agency Discretion

It is a fundamental precept of CEQA that it applies only to the discretionary approval of a project. If an agency has no discretion to deny or shape the project to address environmental concerns, CEQA review would be a...more

1/8/2013 - CEQA Environmental Impact Report Environmental Review Groundwater

Supreme Court Case Involving CEQA’s “Unusual Circumstances” Exception to Categorical Exemptions Now Fully Briefed by Parties;...

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

CEQA Standing Reform: Could Statutory Standing Requirements Feasibly Be Tightened To Bar Anti-Competitive Lawsuits Motivated By...

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

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