January 2014

The Governor’s Office of Planning and Research (OPR) will undertake a comprehensive review of the CEQA Guidelines (14 Cal.Code Regs., §15000 et seq) this year and is currently soliciting public input – to be provided not later than COB on February 14, 2014 – on specific possible topics it has developed as a result of stakeholder suggestions and published on its website.  OPR’s 7-page document, dated December 30, 2013, and entitled “Possible Topics to be Addressed in the 2014 CEQA Guidelines Update,” can be found at http://www.opr.ca.gov/docs/PossibleTopics2014CEQAGuidelinesUpdate.pdf.
Continue Reading OPR To Review Specific CEQA Guidelines Topics Proposed For 2014 Update, Solicits Public Input

The California Building Industry Association (CBIA) laid out its case that CEQA contains no general directive requiring analysis of the existing environment’s impacts on a future project in a 50-page opening brief filed in the California Supreme Court on January 10, 2014.  California Building Industry Association v. Bay Area Quality Management District, Supreme Court Case No. S213478.  The Supreme Court recently granted review of the case, which involves the CBIA’s challenge to BAAQMD’s 2010 CEQA Thresholds of Significance and implementing guidelines For Toxic Air Contaminants (TACs) and particulate matter (PM2.5), limited solely to the “CEQA-in-reverse” issue.  (See “Supreme Court Will Review “CEQA-In-Reverse” Issue in CBIA Case Challenging 2010 BAAQMD Air Quality Guidelines,” by Arthur F. Coon, posted 12/9/13.)
Continue Reading CEQA-In-Reverse Case Opening Brief Filed In California Supreme Court

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 single-use plastic bags in favor of alternatives deemed environmentally superior.  The First District Court of Appeal’s opinion in Save the Plastic Bag Coalition v. City and County of San Francisco (1st Dist., Div. 2, 2014) 222 Cal.App.4th 863, Case No. A137056, which was filed December 10, 2013, and later ordered published on January 3, 2014, extended the existing CEQA precedents to a local ordinance covering a significantly larger urban area – San Francisco – while showing little tolerance for the Coalition’s contrary arguments.
Continue Reading “Bag It!” – Third Published CEQA “Bag Ban” Decision Upholds San Francisco’s Ordinance as Categorically Exempt While Slamming Plaintiff’s Arguments

In an opinion recently ordered published, the First District Court of Appeal extensively reviewed the relevant case law and expressed skepticism that CEQA would operate in reverse to require analysis of potential impacts on a mixed-use project’s construction workers and future residents from pre-existing soil contamination at the project site.  Yet, while illuminating its tentative views on this important CEQA issue, the Court stopped short of expressly relying on them, and instead upheld the project’s challenged Mitigated Negative Declaration (MND) based on plaintiffs’ failure to identify substantial evidence in the administrative record supporting a fair argument that disturbance of the site’s contaminated soils may have a significant effect on the environment.  Parker Shattuck Neighbors, et al, v. Berkeley City Council, et al (CityCentric Investments, LLC, et al, Real Parties in Interest), 222 Cal.App.4th 768, Case No. A136873 (1st Dist., Div. 4 2013), filed 11/7/13; pub. order 12/4/13 (rec’d from court 12/30/13).
Continue Reading First District “Doubts” CEQA Operates In Reverse, Upholds Mitigated Negative Declaration For Urban Infill Project Despite Soil and Groundwater Contamination In Parker Shattuck Neighbors