May 2013

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 Jerry Brown probably had it right when he predicted last month that CEQA reform would not be accomplished in 2013.  While the debate has been vigorous, the political stars are simply not aligned to do what needs to be done to modernize and streamline the venerable 43-year old law.
Continue Reading The Direction of CEQA “Reform” Under Proposed SB 731: One Step Up and Three Steps Back?

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 development context, the legislature enacted SB 226 adding Public Resources Code §§ 21094.5 and 21094.5.5 to CEQA.  These sections provided for streamlined CEQA review for qualifying “infill” projects and directed OPR to prepare, and to transmit to the Secretary of the Natural Resources Agency for adoption, implementing guidelines.

Under the authorizing legislation, a qualifying “infill project” is one that includes residential, retail/commercial, transit, school, and/or public office buildings and is “located within an urban area on a site that has been previously developed, or on a vacant site where at least 75 percent of the perimeter of the site adjoins, or is separated only by an improved public right-of-way from, parcels that are developed with qualified urban uses.”  (Pub. Resources Code, § 21094.5(e)(1)(B)).  The legislation further provides that “[a] lead agency’s determination pursuant to this section shall be supported by substantial evidence.”  (§ 21094.5(a)(1).)Continue Reading Towards Not Reinventing The CEQA Wheel: Resources Agency Adopts New CEQA Guidelines For Streamlined Review of Urban Infill 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 on April 2, 2013, the Third District Court of Appeal affirmed a judgment entered after sustaining a demurrer to a CEQA action without leave on statute of limitations grounds