In a published opinion filed October 21, 2021, the First District Court of Appeal affirmed the trial court’s order finding the real party developers of a UC Berkeley campus development project – undertaken for the University’s benefit, and in which it had a strong vested interest – were necessary parties, but were not indispensable parties to a CEQA action challenging the project EIR under the factors of the Code of Civil Procedure (“CCP”) § 389(b).  While the action was thus properly dismissed as against those real parties upon their demurrers due to plaintiff’s failure to join them within CEQA’s 30-day limitations period, it was not required to be dismissed in its entirety and could continue to final adjudication among the remaining parties.  Save Berkeley’s Neighborhoods v. The Regents of the University of California (Collegiate Housing Foundation, American Campus Communities, et al, Real Parties in Interest) (2021) 70 Cal.App.5th 705.
Continue Reading A Teaching Moment? First District Affirms CEQA Action Demurrer Order Finding Late-Joined Developers of UC Berkeley Campus Project Were Necessary, But Not Indispensable, Real Parties In Interest

In an opinion filed on August 24, and certified for partial publication on September 22, 2021, the Third District Court of Appeal reversed a judgment upholding Placer County’s EIR for a 94-acre resort development project in the Olympic (formerly Squaw) Valley area – site of the 1960 Winter Olympics near the iconic Lake Tahoe.  Sierra Watch v. County of Placer (Squaw Valley Real Estate, LLC, Real Party in Interest) (2021) 69 Cal.App.5th 1.  The published portions of the 51-page opinion found faults in the EIR’s description of the environmental setting and related water and air quality impact analyses, and errors in its analysis and mitigation of construction noise impacts.  Nearly half of the opinion remained unpublished; those portions of it (1) upheld the EIR’s climate change analysis (rejecting appellant Sierra Watch’s arguments challenging it as meritless, moot, or forfeited), (2) upheld most of the EIR’s wildfire impacts analysis (finding merit in one of appellant’s eight arguments, relating to underestimation of evacuation times), and (3) held the EIR’s traffic impacts analysis improperly relied on deferred mitigation.  (The unpublished portions of the opinion will not be discussed further in this post.)
Continue Reading Let’s Get Regional: Third District Holds Olympic Valley Resort Project EIR’s Environmental Setting Description and Analysis Violated CEQA’s Requirement To Place Special Emphasis On Unique Regional Environmental Resources By Failing To Sufficiently Consider Lake Tahoe

Against the backdrop of another severe drought, water supply and impact issues continue to be points of contention for water agencies, water users, conservation groups, and the state.  And, of course, litigation over water is not limited to water rights and usage, but extends to related environmental review under CEQA.  On September 22, 2021, the Third District Court of Appeal issued a published opinion in Central Delta Water Agency v. Department of Water Resources (2021) 69 Cal.App.5th 170, disposing of several consolidated cases and analyzing operation of the state’s massive State Water Project (SWP) through a CEQA lens.  While the case does not break any new legal ground, it applies well-recognized CEQA principles to a lengthy and complex fact pattern involving multiple rounds of lengthy litigation, settlement, and EIR preparation.
Continue Reading Third District Affirms CEQA And Attorneys’ Fees Judgments In Favor Of Department Of Water Resources In Monterey Agreement And Amendment Litigation

On September 13, 2011, I began the endeavor of writing Miller Starr Regalia’s CEQA Developments blog.  Ten years and 358 blog posts later, it continues to be a challenging and rewarding task.  Since my inaugural post (which can be viewed here) was a “top ten” list of CEQA litigation mistakes to avoid, I thought an appropriate tenth anniversary post might be a list of the ten most significant CEQA case law developments over the past decade.  My “top ten” list is definitely subjective, is limited to Supreme Court decisions, and (by its very nature) fails to include many important judicial developments.  Nonetheless, here it is (with the decisions listed in no particular order):
Continue Reading A Decade of CEQA Developments

In a published opinion filed August 19, 2021, the Second District Court of Appeal reversed a judgment of the Los Angeles County Superior Court that found fault with the EIR for an improvement project within the San Gabriel Mountains National Monument portion of the Angeles National Forest.  Save Our Access–San Gabriel Mountains v. Watershed Conservation Authority (2021) 68 Cal.App.5th 8.  The trial court had rejected plaintiff’s claims that CEQA required the EIR to analyze alternatives beyond the “no project” alternative, and that the project was inconsistent with applicable land use and management plans, but issued a writ requiring additional analysis of the project’s parking reduction “impacts.”  In resolving the ensuing appeals of both parties, the Court of Appeal reversed the judgment on the parking issue, finding that reduction in parking is a social not environmental, impact and that plaintiff had failed to identify any secondary adverse physical effects on the environment resulting from the reduction.  It affirmed the remainder of the judgment denying plaintiff’s other claims, and reversed the trial court’s fee award to plaintiff as compelled by its disposition of the merits.
Continue Reading Second District Confirms Parking Is (Still) Not A CEQA Impact, Reverses Judgment That Found EIR For San Gabriel Mountains Wilderness Recreation And Preservation Project Deficient For Not Sufficiently Analyzing “Impact” Of Reducing Recreational Parking

In an 85-page opinion filed March 25, and modified and certified for partial publication on April 23, 2021, the First District Court of Appeal affirmed the Napa County Superior Court’s judgment denying a writ petition challenging the County’s EIR and approvals for an expansion of Syar Industries, Inc.’s (Syar) aggregate mining operations at a quarry that has existed since the 1800s.  Stop Syar Expansion v. County of Napa (1st Dist. 2021) 63 Cal.App.5th 444.  The Court belatedly published about 25 pages of its lengthy opinion, which portions addressed basic CEQA principles, including standard of review and exhaustion principles, and the interplay of CEQA and general plan consistency issues.
Continue Reading First District Affirms Judgment Rejecting CEQA and General Plan Consistency Challenges to Napa County’s EIR for Syar Quarry Expansion Project, Addresses Significant Exhaustion and Land Use Issues

Falling more into the category of “spring cleaning” than “breaking news,” readers should note that a Second District decision, published last spring and covered in this blog, was ordered depublished by the California Supreme Court late last summer.
Continue Reading Supreme Court Denies Review of And Depublishes Second District Refinery Project Case Addressing CEQA Baseline Issues

In a published opinion filed on August 17, 2020, the Third District Court of Appeal mostly affirmed the trial court’s judgment upholding Placer County’s partial abandonment of public easement rights in an emergency access/public transit road connecting two Lake Tahoe-area residential subdivisions; the County took the action to resolve disputes that had arisen after one subdivision’s residents began using the road as an all-purpose public road and short-cut through the other subdivision to get to Northstar-at-Tahoe.  Martis Camp Community Association v. County of Placer, et al. (Retreat at Northstar Association, et al., Real Parties in Interest) (2020) 53 Cal.App.5th 569.  My partner Bryan Wenter’s post covers the land use issues at the heart of the case, and can be found here; readers should consult that post for the case’s factual background and primary holdings.  This post covers the CEQA issue at the “tail end” of the opinion, which involved application of CEQA’s “subsequent review” rules to County’s partial road abandonment project.
Continue Reading Hitting A CEQA Snag: Third District Affirms Rejection of Statutory Road Abandonment And Brown Act Challenges And Inverse Condemnation Claim, But Holds Placer County Violated CEQA By Adopting Addendum To Wrong Project’s EIR

In a mammoth 132-page published opinion (with an additional five pages of appendices) filed on June 12, 2020, the Fourth District Court of Appeal (Division One) mostly affirmed the trial court’s judgment invalidating San Diego County’s approvals of a 2018 Climate Action Plan (CAP), related Guidelines for Determining Significance, and related Supplemental EIR (SEIR).  The opinion – which marked “the third time the County’s attempt to adopt a viable climate action plan and related CEQA documents” had been before the Court – resolved consolidated appeals in three cases, in which the lead plaintiffs were Golden Door Properties, LLC and the Sierra Club.  (Golden Door Properties, LLC v. County of San Diego (2020) 50 Cal.App.5th 467.)  While the Court of Appeal reversed the trial court’s findings that the CAP was inconsistent with the County’s General Plan (applying the familiar highly deferential standard of review to the County’s consistency determination), that several of the County’s responses to SEIR comments were inadequate, and that the SEIR’s geographical scope of study for cumulative impacts was inconsistent, it otherwise affirmed the trial court’s findings of significant CEQA violations affecting the CAP and SEIR.
Continue Reading Third Time Is Not The Charm: Fourth District Affirms Judgment Setting Aside San Diego County’s Climate Action Plan And Related Supplemental EIR Approvals Due To CEQA Violations

In a published 2-1 majority opinion filed April 7, 2020, written by Justice Wiley and joined by Presiding Justice Bigelow, the Second District Court of Appeal (Div. 8) affirmed a judgment upholding the EIR for Tesoro’s “Los Angeles Refinery Integration and Compliance Project.”  Communities for a Better Environment v. South Coast Air Quality Management District (Tesoro Refining and Marketing Company, LLC, Real Party in Interest) (2d Dist. 2020) 47 Cal.App.5th 588.  The project involved Tesoro’s adjacent Carson and Wilmington oil refining facilities, which date from the early 1900s, and sought (1) to better integrate those facilities to increase flexibility in output ratios (e.g., of gasoline and jet fuel) to respond to market demands, and (2) to increase regulatory compliance by reducing air pollution.
Continue Reading Back To CEQA Basics: Second District Teaches That CEQA Requires Judicial Deference To Lead Agency’s Chosen Baseline, Failure To Administratively Exhaust “Exact Issue” Results In Forfeiture, And An EIR Is Not Faulty For Omitting Immaterial Information