On October 21, 2025, the California Chamber of Commerce (the “Chamber”) announced it had filed a voter initiative to modernize and streamline the review process for building the state’s most essential infrastructure projects. On November 25, 2025, the Chamber filed amendments to clarify and add further substance to the provisions of that proposed initiative measure, which is entitled the “Building an Affordable California Act” (“BACA”). BACA would make numerous significant changes to the permitting and CEQA review processes for “Essential Projects,” which are defined therein as specific types of housing, water, clean energy, public health, education, broadband internet access, and transportation projects. In broad strokes, BACA would make five categories of changes to the various review processes for Essential Projects.
First, BACA sets out the universe of Essential Projects, actions, and public agencies that are subject to its streamlining proposals and clarifies how its new provisions would interact with other laws. Second, it includes various changes to the tribal consultation process and the process for determining the completeness of Essential Project applications. Third, BACA would make changes to the process for reviewing and acting on applications for Essential Projects, setting specific timelines for all public agencies to review complete applications and creating a process for addressing public agency failures to make timely completeness determinations on applications; it would further redefine the scope of public comment included in the administrative record, and how environmental impacts are determined. Fourth, it would create a new, optional and streamlined scoping process for CEQA review of Essential Projects, while also creating a new optional streamlined alternatives analysis process that would require an EIR to analyze only one applicant-developed alternative in addition to the no-project alternative. Lastly, BACA would create a new streamlined process for judicial review of Essential Projects mirroring that provided by other CEQA provisions, such as those applicable to Environmental Leadership Development Projects, while also restricting the judicial standard of review to substantial evidence; it would further limit available writ remedies for CEQA non-compliance and preclude blanket project “set aside” remedies.
BACA’s Findings and Declarations
BACA contains extensive prefatory findings and declarations characterizing itself as a long-overdue modernization of California’s development project-approval system. BACA’s proponents declare that the state’s current permitting and environmental-review framework is “too slow, too bureaucratic, and too costly” for the categories of infrastructure projects BACA defines as “Essential Projects.” It finds that delays caused by “unnecessary red tape, bureaucratic delays, and excessive lawsuits” significantly increase California’s cost of living.
The text of BACA’s findings draws a direct connection between permitting delays and the state’s housing crisis, and asserts that prolonged approval timelines add “tens of thousands of dollars” to the price of a new home and inflate rents and mortgage payments. BACA’s findings extend this logic across other sectors, such as water and wastewater facilities, schools, hospitals, transportation improvements, wildfire-mitigation projects, and clean-energy infrastructure, positing that approval delays increase construction costs for critical public-benefit projects, with statewide adverse economic consequences. However, it is notable that two of the state’s most significant and controversial transportation and water infrastructure efforts, the High-Speed Rail project and the Delta Conveyance project, are expressly excluded from BACA’s definition of “Essential Projects.” This carve-out likely reflects a political calculus that their inclusion may make the initiative more difficult to pass with voters.
Bolstering its case for reform, BACA emphasizes that many of California’s core permitting statutes are more than 50 years old and predate modern environmental-protection regimes, and asserts that this outdated framework now impedes rather than advances environmental and public-health goals by slowing projects intended to reduce GHG emissions, improve resilience, or expand clean-energy capacity. BACA thus frames itself not as a retreat from environmental standards, but as a structural update meant to improve the speed and efficiency of approval processes consistent with current environmental priorities. Within this context, BACA presents itself as a comprehensive effort to reduce administrative delay, streamline procedural requirements, and discourage frivolous and obstructive litigation. Its findings repeatedly stress that “every year of delay” worsens affordability challenges across California’s housing, transportation, electricity, water, and health care sectors. Per the measure, faster delivery of Essential Projects will lower long-term costs while generating “well-paying jobs” across multiple sectors.
Ultimately, BACA’s findings support the initiative’s purpose and through line: to “make California more affordable” by expediting Essential Projects without weakening what the measure describes as the state’s “strongest-in-the-world” environmental protections. The proponents frame permitting reform as not only compatible with California’s long-term environmental and climate goals, but as a necessary precondition to achieving them.
Application of BACA to Essential Projects
BACA’s universe of qualifying “Essential Projects” includes housing, clean energy, water infrastructure, public health and safety facilities, educational facilities, broadband, and transportation improvements. The initiative posits these categories of projects as central to California’s affordability and overall quality of life, setting the stage for its procedural reforms to facilitate them.
While the measure would impose new procedures and strict review timelines on public agencies, it would also explicitly preserve their existing discretion. Nothing in BACA’s text would compel approval of a project, nor exempt Essential Projects from CEQA review or other environmental requirements. Instead, the initiative would create a uniform, deadline-driven procedural framework that applies across all land-use entitlements, including legislative and discretionary approvals, and programmatic, plan or project-level reviews. BACA thus expressly aims to implement a uniform review framework while maintaining the substantive legal standards applicable to project approvals.
The measure would also establish a pathway for applicants with pending Essential Project applications to withdraw and resubmit those applications after BACA takes effect in order to opt into the new timelines. As it relates to California’s hot button issue of housing, BACA defines essential housing projects as any project that contains residential units only, is a mixed-use development, transitional housing, emergency shelters, supportive housing, farmworker housing, student housing, and senior housing. Of particular interest in this regard is how the initiative defines mixed-use development that will qualify as an essential housing project. Under BACA, a mixed-use development project is defined as a project consisting of residential and nonresidential units that meets any of the following three conditions:
- At least 2/3 of the project’s new or converted square footage is designated for residential use;
- At least half of the project’s new or converted square footage is designated for residential use and the project:
- a. Includes at least 500 net new residential units, and
- b. No portion of the project is dedicated for hotels, or any other transient occupancy lodging, except as a residential hotel; or
- At least half of the project’s net new or converted square footage is designated for residential use and the project:
- a. Includes at least 500 net new residential units, and
- b. The project involves the demolition or conversion of at least 100,000 square feet of nonresidential use to residential use, and
- c. The project demolishes at least half of the existing nonresidential uses on the site, and
- d. No portion of the project is dedicated for hotels, or any other transient occupancy lodging, except as a residential hotel.
In addition, the nonresidential components of a mixed use project may not include any heavy industrial, extractive, port, refinery, or hazardous materials uses or designations. Another key feature of BACA’s mixed-use definition is that it clarifies that the distance between any nonresidential use and existing off-site residential uses must be determined by state law, not local ordinance. This obviously shifts a meaningful amount of siting authority away from local governments, which traditionally regulate land-use buffers through local regulations. By standardizing distance requirements at the state level, BACA appears aimed at reducing local discretion that could otherwise be used to thwart, downsize, or delay essential housing projects.
The initiative would also preserve vested rights under state housing laws such as the Housing Accountability Act, SB 330, and the Builder’s Remedy, with those rights relating back to the date of the original preliminary application or the date where vesting occurs under another applicable law. At the same time, under BACA, agencies could not reopen completeness determinations for resubmitted applications already deemed complete prior to the measure’s effective date. For purposes of BACA’s processing deadlines, however, in the case of a resubmission they would run from the date on which it is submitted.
BACA also provides that when only part of a larger development qualifies as an “Essential Project,” that qualifying portion can move forward independently under its streamlined procedures. Conversely, if the entire project meets the definition of an Essential Project, it may be implemented in multiple phases without requiring each phase to separately satisfy the Essential Project criteria.
BACA’s text further clarifies how the initiative interacts with CEQA and other statutory streamlining mechanisms. Applicants may rely solely on BACA’s procedures or combine them with other tools that could expedite approval even further, signaling the measure’s intent to allow strategic layering of streamlining provisions. For essential housing specifically, BACA extends AB 130’s labor requirements, mandating prevailing wages for essential housing projects over 85 feet in height statewide and for San Francisco projects with at least 50 units. This feature reflects the new legislative compromise under AB 130, which pairs accelerated housing approvals with clearly defined labor standards designed to protect workers while supporting efficient project delivery.
Completeness of Essential Project Applications
BACA would establish a new comprehensive and accelerated completeness framework for Essential Project applications, including a particular focus on reforming and front-loading tribal consultation.
First, BACA contains a detailed early-screening and consultation process to identify and address potential impacts on tribal cultural resources before an Essential Project application is deemed complete. BACA defines tribal cultural resources in terms of both the sources through which a resource may qualify as a tribal cultural resource and the entities whose determinations carry legal effect. In addition to resources listed or eligible for listing in the California Register or a local register, the initiative would recognize resources included in the National Register of Historic Places, identified by the Native American Heritage Commission (“NAHC”) as sacred places, or listed in a tribal government register maintained by a federally approved Tribal Historic Preservation Officer. This definition departs from that in the current Public Resources Code by not including a resource determined by the lead agency “in its discretion,” thereby creating greater predictability for project sponsors regarding tribal cultural resources. Accordingly, whereas the current Public Resource Code allows a lead agency to determine significance based on substantial evidence and specified criteria, the initiative would give dispositive legal weight to official tribal, federal, and NAHC designations without requiring (or allowing) an independent significance determination by the lead agency.
Once an applicant submits a preliminary application, written notice, or full application, the lead agency would be required to begin early discussions with Consulting Tribes, conduct a records search within 20 days, and share all existing project and cultural-resource information. Consulting Tribes could then request a meet-and-confer to review known resources and explore avoidance, preservation, and treatment options, with the results documented by the agency. If a tribe did not respond within 30 days, the initial screening would end. The subsequent tribal consultation phase would require iterative information sharing and collaborative development of mitigation measures, which would become enforceable conditions of approval if agreed upon. Ultimately, an Essential Project could be approved only after good-faith tribal consultation concludes, agreed-upon mitigation measures are incorporated, and the agency documents with substantial evidence why avoidance is infeasible and what measures will be incorporated to minimize impacts in accordance with CEQA.
Second, BACA would layer a completeness determination process onto Essential Project application review, imposing strict obligations in that regard upon public agencies. More specifically, agencies would be required to determine an application’s completeness within 30 days of receiving the application, and failure to do so would result in the application being deemed complete by operation of law. In addition, agencies would be prohibited from determining or deeming an application to be incomplete based on an applicant’s failure to include items not included in the agency’s publicly available submittal checklist, or based on standards that did not exist when the application was filed. If an agency found an application incomplete, it would be required to provide an exhaustive, itemized corrections list identifying every deficiency; applicants would then have 90 days to submit additional information or a revised application, unless the applicant required more time and notified the public agency of an estimated future date when it may be able to submit a revised application. Agencies would only be allowed to review an applicant’s resubmission against the original corrections list and would be required to provide a completeness determination within 30 days, or the resubmitted application would be deemed complete.
Lastly, BACA includes an administrative appeals process whereby an applicant could appeal any incompleteness determination to the agency’s planning commission, planning director, or other designated official, and a final written decision on the appeal would be required to be issued within 60 days. If the agency failed to meet that deadline, the application would be deemed complete as a matter of law. Applicants could also seek judicial review within 90 days of a final adverse written determination. Taken together, these provisions aim to substantially constrain agency discretion at the stage of reviewing applications for completeness, ensuring that Essential Project applications would move quickly into merits and environmental review, and thereby preventing agencies from using iterative information requests to delay projects from moving forward.
Review of Completed Applications for Essential Projects
BACA would impose timelines for review of complete applications of Essential Projects. Under BACA, once an application is deemed complete, the lead agency would have 30 days to decide what type of CEQA document will be prepared. From that point, BACA includes deadlines for completing environmental review as follows:
1. 365 days to certify an EIR;
2. 180 days to adopt a negative declaration or mitigated negative declaration; and,
3. 90 days to complete documentation for an exemption, addendum, or determination that no further CEQA review is required.
An interesting and somewhat surprising feature of BACA is that, under its definitional provisions, these particular deadlines are not measured in calendar days, but in “days” that do not include weekends or state court holidays, which will extend these periods and make their calculation more complex. To reinforce these deadlines, BACA also includes an enforcement mechanism that would force the local agency to move more quickly with its environmental review. If a lead agency failed to meet the applicable EIR, ND/MND, or exemption documentation deadline, the applicant could require the agency to hold a public hearing on the project. Within 60 days of the applicant’s request, the agency would be required to complete all environmental review documentation and place the project on the agenda of its highest-ranking decision-making body. At that hearing, the agency would be required to issue a final written determination to approve or disapprove the project. If, within that 60 day period, the local jurisdiction issues a final written determination to approve the project, the agency and applicant could agree to cancel that meeting. In addition, the initiative would require any necessary planning commission or planning director recommendation on the project to occur within 30 days of the applicant’s request before a public meeting.
BACA would also standardize and shorten public comment periods for Essential Projects, while prohibiting the tolling of public comment periods. Mitigated negative declarations and similar documents requiring public review would receive a 20-day comment period, while draft EIRs and supplemental EIRs would receive 45 days. BACA would further limit the administrative record to include only comments submitted during the designated comment period, or at least 72 hours before a noticed public hearing. (Note that this provision may be in tension with a later BACA provision stating that the record includes verbal testimony at a noticed and recorded public hearing.) The administrative record must also include any responses by the lead agency or the applicant to comments submitted during the public comment period, including comments received through the BACA-established process. It should further include any applicant responses to questions from the agency or materials demonstrating that the project complies with the procedures required under BACA. By so limiting both the duration of comment periods and the scope of written comments that can form part of the record, the initiative aims to preclude eleventh-hour “document dumps” and “late hits” by project opponents, and would ideally narrow the range of issues raised in the process and minimize opportunities for delay.
BACA would also clarify that proponents of Essential Projects are granted significant discretion in selecting the written statutes, regulations, ordinances, and standards that can apply to the project. It would allow applicants for Essential Projects to vest into any significance thresholds that a public agency has published, adopted, or routinely used as of the date the applicant submits a preapplication or application. Under BACA, if the applicant makes that election, the agency must apply those existing thresholds when evaluating the project’s environmental impacts.
Lastly, the initiative would extend the timeline-enforcement regime to all subsequent permits and approvals needed for an Essential Project. Lead agencies would be required to issue final written decisions on any necessary approvals within 90 days of certifying an EIR or adopting an ND/MND, while non-lead agencies (i.e., responsible and trustee agencies) would be required to issue their decisions within 90 days of the completeness determination for the permit or approval they are considering. Under BACA, if a public agency misses its deadline, the applicant may force a hearing, and the agency must issue a final written determination within 45 days of the request. As with those governing CEQA review, these timelines could only be modified by mutual written agreement. If an applicant chooses to challenge any adverse determination in court, they would need to commence those actions within 90 days of an adverse final written determination.
Preliminary Scoping Process and Streamlined Alternatives Analysis for Essential Projects
BACA would also create a voluntary pre-filing CEQA scoping and alternatives analysis process for Essential Projects. Under this process, which would need to be completed within 60 days of notice, applicants would be able to choose to engage in the preliminary scoping process, which requires providing the lead agency with a written notice outlining the project’s location, size, principal components, anticipated permits, and potential resource impacts. Following notice, the applicant and lead agency would have to conduct at least two public meetings to discuss the project and identify potentially impacted resources, with the lead agency maintaining a record of the meetings. Applicants could also optionally convene public meetings or virtual sessions to solicit additional feedback.
Following completion of this preliminary scoping process, applicants would be required to develop a single proposed alternative to the Essential Project that incorporates feedback received during the preliminary scoping process (unless the applicant wants to submit additional alternatives at their own discretion). This applicant-developed alternative would be required to remain consistent with the project’s fundamental purpose, be compatible with local zoning and land use policies where practicable, and could include onsite or offsite improvements or operational modifications designed to substantially lessen environmental impacts. In the EIR for the Essential Project, only three alternatives would be required to be analyzed: the proposed Essential Project, the applicant’s single proposed alternative (certified by the agency as compliant), and the “no project” alternative, which would consider reasonably foreseeable outcomes if the project is not approved. Agencies would be explicitly prohibited from requiring additional alternatives beyond these, thus streamlining the analysis and reducing potential delays. Within 15 days after the closing of the scoping process, the applicant would have to submit a written submittal describing the project, the proposed alternative, and the no project alternative, and the lead agency would have 15 days to certify compliance. This certification would be final subject only to an administrative appeal to be filed within five days. The lead agency would retain discretion to approve the original project, the applicant’s alternative, or the “no project” alternative. Overall, this provision of BACA is designed to provide early clarity on project scope and potential impacts while limiting procedural burdens and potential litigation targets – such as CEQA’s frequently litigated “range of reasonable alternatives” requirement – thus also ensuring that Essential Projects enter formal CEQA review with a well-defined and circumscribed project and alternatives analysis.
Judicial Review of Essential Projects
The final substantive piece of BACA extends certain judicial review streamlining mechanisms to, and alters judicial standards of review and available writ remedies for, Essential Projects. Under this article of the initiative, any challenge to a public agency’s determination, finding, or decision regarding an Essential Project would be required to be based on whether the agency complied with objective, quantifiable, and pre-existing laws that were in effect on the date the application was submitted. “Objective” is defined by BACA as describing those laws that do not involve subjective judgment and are verifiable against external, uniform benchmarks available and knowable by both the applicant and the public agency before the application’s submission. “Existing laws,” as defined in BACA, refers to the “formally adopted legal requirements contained in statutes, regulations, rules, standards, or ordinances that existed and were in effect on the date an application for an essential project was submitted to a public agency.” A lead agency may only impose standards that did not exist when the applicant submitted its project application if the agency made a formal finding that these other standards are “necessary to mitigate or avoid a specific, adverse life-safety impact,” and it must inform the applicant of this finding within 72 hours. This provision is further constrained by BACA’s proposed Public Resources Code section 21029, which – akin to current Public Resources Code section 21083.1 – would prohibit courts from interpreting BACA, CEQA, or the CEQA Guidelines in a manner that would impose additional procedural or substantive requirements on projects beyond those expressly stated in the statutes and guidelines.
In challenges alleging CEQA noncompliance, courts would be limited to asking whether the agency’s approval is supported by substantial evidence in the record. In cases claiming that an agency failed to follow required public-participation procedures, a court could set aside the approval only if the agency’s failure was arbitrary and capricious and resulted in prejudicial error. Moreover, challenges to Essential Project approvals would have to be filed within 30 days of the filing of the agency’s notice of determination or notice of exemption, and would be required to be resolved within 270 days, including all appellate proceedings – mirroring the process established for Governor-certified Environmental Leadership Development Projects and infrastructure projects under SB 7 and SB 149. BACA allows “the court” to extend the 270-day deadline by up to an additional 90 days, but it does not specify whether “the court” refers to the trial court or an appellate court, or both types of court. If both trial and appellate courts may grant themselves extensions, then the 270-day deadline could effectively expand to as long as 540 days (if 90-day extensions were taken by the trial court, the Court of Appeal, and the Supreme Court) – thereby undermining to some unknown extent the judicial streamlining benefit intended for Essential Projects. BACA further instructs courts to review challenged agency determinations solely for substantial evidence support in the administrative record, rather than applying independent judgment or determining prejudicial abuse of discretion under other standards. The administrative record is also defined under BACA to encompass only documents required to be publicly distributed or posted by the agency, public comments submitted in accordance with the process established under BACA, and recorded testimony from noticed hearings. If a court were to find a determination deficient, it would be required to specifically identify the “part, phase, or activity of [the]… project” within the scope of the required new CEQA study; it could then issue a peremptory writ directing the agency to correct the specific deficiencies, but not affecting unidentified project parts, phases or activities. Critically, BACA would expressly limit the writ remedy in scope to the specific part of the project needing supplemental analysis or mitigation, and courts could not order the blanket rescission or set aside of project approvals – a type of order which, in the authors’ experience, is the usual and most common writ remedy granted under current CEQA practice.
Moreover, the judicial streamlining provisions in BACA also include protections against repetitive or serial litigation, barring challenges to project implementation, subsequent approvals, or minor modifications that do not create new significant impacts. In exceptional cases where clear and convincing evidence demonstrates a specific, unmitigable public safety risk, courts could issue temporary injunctions to halt only the portion of the project causing that risk, pending a cure by the agency, which cure could include a finding that mitigation of the environmental impacts to an insignificant level is infeasible.
If approved by voters, BACA would represent one of the most sweeping procedural and substantive overhauls to CEQA and related permitting processes since the statute’s enactment over fifty years ago. Earlier this summer, the Governor signed AB 130 and SB 131 into law, creating significant CEQA exemptions and streamlining procedures; BACA would build on those and prior reforms for housing projects while also extending similar procedural efficiencies to a much broader range of critical infrastructure projects that the state urgently needs. It would make procedural changes that would impose strict mandatory deadlines on all public agencies, sharply curtail the scope of permissible public comment, and significantly constrain agency discretion both at the application completeness determination stage and during environmental review. These changes would materially alter how agencies process complex essential projects and would require applicants and lead agencies alike to adjust their internal procedures, staffing, and scheduling practices to comply with the initiative’s timelines.
For project proponents, BACA would offer several potentially significant advantages. The initiative would guarantee early application completeness determinations, reduce the required scope of alternatives analysis, and substantially insulate applications from shifting regulatory baselines. In addition, BACA’s judicial review provisions would provide a degree of predictability not currently available under existing law. The availability of a timeline-enforcement mechanism, including mandatory hearings when agencies miss deadlines, could offer applicants additional leverage to move stalled projects forward.
As with prior CEQA-related initiatives, the practical implications of BACA if it is adopted will ultimately depend on how courts interpret and apply its provisions and how quickly state and local agencies adapt their procedures. Toward that end, the initiative provides that it “should be interpreted and implemented in a manner to afford the fullest possible weight to the interest of, and the approval and provision of, essential projects” and further states that “courts … shall not interpret [it or any part of CEQA] in a manner which imposes procedural or substantive requirements upon essential projects beyond those explicitly stated[.]” It also declares that “streamlining review and approval of essential projects … is a matter of statewide concern” as to which area BACA “occupies the field[.]” Finally, in this regard, BACA provides that it “shall be liberally construed to give effect to its intent and purposes” and provides for a continuous appropriation to pay independent counsel for its legal defense if the Governor and Attorney General fail to fully and rigorously defend it against legal challenge.
BACA concludes with several procedural safeguards designed to insulate its provisions from shifting political winds. If adopted, any future amendment to BACA would require approval by a two-thirds vote of each house of the Legislature, through a bill required to be in print for at least 12 business days before a vote in either chamber. In practice, the supermajority threshold would deter piecemeal weakening of the law and ensure that future modifications reflect broad, bipartisan consensus. The extended publication requirement also increases transparency by giving the public, stakeholders, and state agencies more time to evaluate proposed amendments – a transparency that, for better or worse, has been conspicuously absent from the process pursued for recent CEQA reform legislation.
Conclusion and Implications
If adopted, BACA would create a fundamentally different process – albeit one modeled in significant part after that already in place for favored housing and other development projects – for a large class of other “essential projects,” including not only housing, but water, clean-energy, public health, broadband, and transportation projects. Whether BACA would ultimately accelerate essential project delivery or generate new compliance and litigation challenges should it pass would be tested in the first wave of Essential Projects electing to proceed under its framework. Does BACA have a realistic chance of passage in “blue-state” California, even in this unique era of YIMBY activism, “abundance” agendas, and unprecedented legislative CEQA reform? It would seem to be a heavy lift, particularly if influential state officials like the Governor or Attorney General oppose it, but the Chamber has apparently proceeded in accordance with Pliny the Elder’s reported proclamation that “Fortune favors the bold!” Regardless of its ultimate fate and possible future outcomes, the initiative represents an ambitious and audacious effort aimed at untangling the complex, often Byzantine regulatory framework that has long slowed the approval of Essential Projects in California.
Questions? Please contact Arthur F. Coon of Miller Starr Regalia. Miller Starr Regalia has had a well-established reputation as a leading real estate law firm for more than sixty years. For nearly all that time, the firm also has written Miller & Starr, California Real Estate 4th, a 12-volume treatise on California real estate law. “The Book” is the most widely used and judicially recognized real estate treatise in California and is cited by practicing attorneys and courts throughout the state. The firm has expertise in all real property matters, including full-service litigation and dispute resolution services, transactions, acquisitions, dispositions, leasing, financing, common interest development, construction, management, eminent domain and inverse condemnation, title insurance, environmental law and land use. For more information, visit www.msrlegal.com