Navigating Environmental Restrictions on Alternative Project Delivery for Complex Infrastructure Projects
On-Demand Webinar | Charting a Course for Offshore Wind Energy in California
[WEBINAR] Update on the California Environmental Quality Act: What’s New for 2018
[WEBINAR] Building a Solar Energy Project in 2018
How Trump's Infrastructure Plan Impacts the Energy Industry
BB&K's Charity Schiller Discusses CEQA Baseline
California’s housing crisis has necessitated innovative legislative solutions at the state and local level to increase the supply of affordable housing across the state. Cities are required by state law to plan for a...more
In Center for Biological Diversity v. County of San Benito (2024) 104 Cal.App.5th 22, the Court of Appeal held that the statute of limitations for two CEQA challenges did not begin to run until the Board of Supervisors had...more
The Court of Appeal held that before issuing a CEQA Class 32 exemption, the City of Los Angeles was required to assess whether the project was consistent not only with the applicable zoning ordinance but also with the area’s...more
A California Court of Appeal upheld the California Department of Conservation Geologic Energy Management Division’s determination that a project to convert a plugged oil well into a wastewater disposal well fit within the...more
Introduction - On March 29, 2024, the First District Court of Appeal issued its partially published opinion in the case of Vichy Springs Resort, Inc. v. City of Ukiah (2024) 101 Cal.App.5th 46....more
In a partially published opinion filed March 29, 2024, the First District Court of Appeal (Div. 4) rejected contentions that the pre-judgment completion of construction of a shooting range mooted a CEQA challenge to the...more
City of Los Angeles - The Processes and Procedures Ordinance Becomes Operative January 22, 2024 - The city council adopted the Processes and Procedures Ordinance amending the Los Angeles Municipal Code (LAMC) to...more
On December 14, 2023, Mayor Breed approved “Housing Constraints Legislation” passed by the City and County of San Francisco (City) Board of Supervisors, which is intended to streamline housing production, as required by the...more
On June 13, 2023, the Second Appellate District affirmed the City of Pomona’s use of a statutory exemption for its Commercial Cannabis Overlay Permit Program under California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) Guidelines...more
In a lengthy published decision, the Court of Appeal upheld the City of Oakland’s environmental impact report (EIR) for the proposed Oakland A’s MLB stadium and mixed use project, rejecting numerous challenges and affirming...more
The courts issued 16 published CEQA decisions in 2022, continuing a trend of fewer published opinions than the pattern established in earlier years. The only California Supreme Court opinion, County of Butte v. Department of...more
The First District Court of Appeal overturned the City of San Francisco’s decision that Saint Ignatius High School’s project to install four permanent 90-foot-tall athletic field lights was exempt from CEQA. Saint Ignatius...more
The City of Thousand Oaks violated the Ralph M. Brown Act by adopting a CEQA exemption without having listed the exemption as an item on its agenda for at least 72 hours before the meeting. G.I. Industries v. City of Thousand...more
The Ninth Circuit held that statutory language defining the scope of operations of Twitchell Dam was sufficiently broad to potentially include releases of water to facilitate migration of Southern California Steelhead to the...more
The Court of Appeal held that the City of Mount Shasta violated CEQA by approving a wastewater permit for a water bottling plant without making specific findings as to each potentially significant impact identified as...more
A California Court of Appeal held that CEQA’s issue exhaustion requirement did not preclude a challenge to Inyo County’s exemption determinations for condemnation proceedings and expanded operation of unlined landfills...more
California Senate Bill (SB) 10, which Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law on Sept. 16, 2021, and will take effect on Jan. 1, 2022, provides that local agencies may adopt an ordinance to allow up to 10 dwelling units on any...more
In Santa Clara Valley Water District v. San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board, No. A157127, 2020 WL 7706795 (Cal. Ct. App. Dec. 29, 2020), the court ruled that CEQA does not constrain an agency’s authority to...more
A Summary of Published Appellate Opinions Involving the California Environmental Quality Act - Despite relatively few published opinions this year, there were significant appellate court rulings on a range of topics,...more
On remand from the California Supreme Court’s decision in Sierra Club v. County of Fresno, 6 Cal.5th 502 (2018) (“Friant Ranch I”), a court of appeal has held that CEQA requires full decertification – not partial...more
Where a county ordinance allowed for exercise of discretion in some circumstances regarding issuance of well construction permits, such permits could not categorically be classified as ministerial and hence exempt from CEQA...more
On August 27, 2020, in Protecting Our Water and Environmental Resources v. County of Stanislaus, Case No. S251709 (“Protecting Our Water”), the California Supreme Court held that the County in that instance could not...more
The increasing mandates and incentives for the rapid deployment of energy storage are resulting in a boom in the deployment of utility-scale battery energy storage systems (BESS). In the first installment of our series...more
On Tuesday, February 25, 2020, the Fifth Appellate District invalidated Kern County’s 2015 Oil and Gas Ordinance (the “Ordinance”), which was intended to streamline the permitting process for a variety of oil and gas...more
Land Use, Telecommunications, Environmental and More - As noted in Part I of this two-part series, California lawmakers passed a number of new laws last year that greatly impact how public agencies serve their...more