The Governor’s Office of Land Use and Climate Innovation (“LCI”) has announced it is extending the public comment period through December 31, 2025, for a proposed rulemaking to increase the application fee for projects (excluding exempt housing projects) applying for judicial streamlining benefits under CEQA from $39,000 to $100,000. Pursuant to LCI’s initial October 17, 2025 notice of the rulemaking, the public comment period would have closed on December 1, 2025. LCI will not hold a public hearing on the proposed rulemaking unless an interested person requests the same at least 15 days prior to the close of the public comment period.
LCI’s proposed fee increase affects project certification applications made pursuant to SB 7 (2021 legislation authorizing the Governor to certify Environmental Leadership Development Projects (ELDPs) investing over $100 million in California’s economy and meeting heightened environmental and labor standards) and SB 149 (2023 legislation expanding the list of projects eligible for certification for judicial streamlining to include certain “green” infrastructure projects). (Those interested in more detail on the criteria for and the beneficial procedural mechanics of CEQA judicial streamlining, which aims to reduce lawsuit-related delays in project implementation from 3-5 years to around 270 days, can review my July 14, 2023 post discussing SB 149 here; see also Pub. Resources Code, § 21183 et seq. (SB 7); § 21189.84 et seq. (SB 149).)
LCI’s fee increase proposal, which aims to recoup part of its program implementation costs, is assertedly based on the personnel costs of the streamlining certification program divided by the number of anticipated applications under it through the statutory sunset date of January 1, 2034 (i.e., the deadline for all applications to be certified). LCI estimates it will receive four applications annually, and that half of those will be for fee-exempt affordable housing projects, such that (as I perceive its math) its estimated $1.8 million in personnel costs for processing applications, divided by the remaining 18 anticipated project certification applications, results in the $100,000 application fee. LCI notes that, given the requirement that ELDPs result in at least a $100 million investment in California’s economy, the proposed increased fee represents only about 1% of an applicant’s total investment.
Pursuant to existing law, of course, the applicants for certified projects benefitting from CEQA judicial streamlining must also pay prevailing wages for labor, all the costs of the trial and appellate courts hearing the expedited project challenges, and the costs of preparing the administrative record concurrent with project review and certification, as specified by the lead agency. For those few “mega-projects” that can afford to “pay to play” in the rarified air of CEQA’s judicial streamlining arena, the new fee increase, then, is probably, as LCI reasons, just a “drop in the bucket.”
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