The lessons taught by the Fifth District Court of Appeal in its recently-published decision in Protect Agricultural Land v. Stanislaus County Local Agency Formation Commission (City of Ceres, RPI), ___ Cal.App.4th ___, 2014...more
Plaintiff Save the Plastic Bag Coalition (Coalition) lost a third consecutive published appellate decision in its litigation campaign to require EIRs for virtually all local ordinances that ban or restrict the use of...more
The EIR has long been the judicially-proclaimed “heart of CEQA” because it represents the culmination of the statute’s environmentally-protective purposes and objectives. Yet the legal “expiration date” for the document...more
In a recent decision extensively analyzing and applying CEQA’s rules on alternatives analysis, recirculation, and a petitioner’s burden to show agency error, the Third District Court of Appeal affirmed the Nevada County...more
Nothing says “battle royal” quite like pitting several of California’s heavyweight environmental laws against one another in a “winner-take-all” litigation brawl....more
Judging by all the recent articles and blog posts written about it, many commenters believe the Court of Appeal’s recent decision in Taxpayers For Accountable School Bond Spending v. San Diego Unified School Dist....more
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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