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In a partially published 102-page opinion filed June 26, 2025, the Second District Court of Appeal (Div. 7) resolved cross-appeals by affirming the trial court’s judgment invalidating Los Angeles County’s 2019 EIR certification and project approvals for the Centennial Specific Plan, a 12,323-acre development on the historic Tejon Ranch in the County’s Antelope Valley Area south of Kern County.  Center for Biological Diversity v. County of Los Angeles (Centennial Founders, LLC, et al., Real Parties in Interest) (2025) _____ Cal.App.5th _____.  The Court of Appeal agreed with the trial court in all respects, holding the EIR’s GHG and off-site wildfire impacts analyses were deficient, while rejecting challenges to its analyses, discussion, and mitigation for wildlife movement corridors and native vegetation and to its alternatives analysis.  (Per this blog’s standard practice, this post will discuss only the published portion of the opinion, which addressed only the GHG issues.)Continue Reading “Double Counting” or Redundant Mitigation?  Second District Holds CEQA Guidelines’ Additionality Requirement Precludes Applying Upstream Energy or Fuel Providers’ Obligatory Cap-and-Trade Compliance To Offset Land Use Project’s Estimated GHG Emissions, Invalidates “Prejudicially Misleading” EIR For Massive LA County Centennial Project On That And Other Grounds

In an opinion filed May 14, and later ordered published on June 11, 2025, the First District Court of Appeal (Div. 3) affirmed a judgment dismissing a CEQA action challenging an approval for a City parking lot redevelopment/affordable housing project due to the Petitioner’s failure to timely join the necessary and indispensable real party developer of the project’s housing component.  Citizens for a Better Eureka v. City of Eureka (Wiyot Tribe, Real Party in Interest) (2025) 111 Cal.App.5th 1114.Continue Reading First District Affirms Judgment Dismissing CEQA Action Based On Petitioner’s Failure To Join Indispensable Real Party Developer Within Statute of Limitations Period

Like a gift to land use lawyers that never stops giving, the strange and wondrous interrelationship between CEQA and the Permit Streamlining Act (“PSA”; Gov. Code, § 65920 et seq) continues to inspire litigation and require judicial explication.  In a terse 8-page published opinion filed May 30, 2025, the Third District Court of Appeal explained the finer points of the rules governing PSA-required permit submittal checklists and completeness determinations and how they interact with CEQA when the latter applies to the permit at issue.  Old Golden Oaks LLC v. County of Amador (2025) 111 Cal.App.5th 794.  (And, it can be noted, CEQA should virtually always apply to “development projects” subject to the PSA, which do not include ministerial projects.  (Gov. Code § 65928).)Continue Reading Third District Holds County Could Require Supplemental Environmental Information From Grading Permit Applicant As Condition of Application Completeness Determination Where Permit Submittal Checklist Alerted Applicant CEQA Compliance Would Be Required

In a published opinion filed March 27, 2025, the Fourth District Court of Appeal (Div. 1) reversed the trial court’s judgment denying a writ petition, and held that two screening thresholds of significance for vehicle miles traveled (VMT) impacts adopted by the County of San Diego as part of its 2022 Transportation Study Guide were invalid because they were unsupported by any substantial evidence.  Cleveland National Forest Foundation, et al. v. County of San Diego (2025) 109 Cal.App.5th 1257.Continue Reading Fourth District Invalidates San Diego County’s “Infill” And “Small Project” VMT Screening Thresholds As Lacking Substantial Evidence Support

In a published opinion filed March 14, 2025, the First District Court of Appeal (Div. 2) reversed the trial court’s judgment upholding a Mitigated Negative Declaration (MND) for a four-story, 75-room hotel/meeting hall/parking lot project on a 2.8-acre parcel in the City of Clearlake (“City”), due to the City’s failure to lawfully conduct a tribal cultural resources consultation with plaintiff and appellant Koi Nation of Northern California as required by AB 52.  Koi Nation of Northern California v. City of Clearlake (2025) 109 Cal.App.5th 815.Continue Reading First District Voids Clearlake Hotel Project MND for City’s Failure to Conduct Adequate CEQA AB 52 Tribal Cultural Resources Consultation

On February 13, 2025, the Second District Court of Appeal (Div. 7) filed its 71-page published opinion affirming the trial court’s judgment rejecting CEQA safety hazard and cumulative impacts analysis challenges – as well as Administrative Procedure Act (“APA”) and generic “arbitrary and capricious” writ challenges – to the California Air Resources Board’s (“CARB”) August 2020 decision adopting the “Control Measure For Ocean-Going Vessels At Berth” (the “Regulation,” codified at 17 Cal. Code Regs. § 93130 et seq).  Western States Petroleum Association v. California Air Resources Board (2025) 108 Cal.App.5th 938.Continue Reading Second District Affirms Judgment Rejecting CEQA And Other Challenges To CARB’s “Technology-Forcing” Emissions-Control Regulation For At-Berth Tanker And Other Ships

On November 22, 2024, the First District Court of Appeal’s (Div. 4) partially-published opinion in People of the State of California ex rel. Bonta v. County of Lake (Lotusland Investment Holdings, Inc., et al. Real Parties in Interest) (2024) 105 Cal.App.5th 1222 (No. A165677) became final.  The published part of the decision addresses several significant CEQA topic areas, including the adequacy of an EIR’s discussions of impacts related to a large rural resort development project’s wildfire risks and water supply impacts, and the propriety of a lead agency’s condition of approval imposing a carbon credit purchase obligation to potentially mitigate the project’s significant and unavoidable greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in light of acknowledged uncertainty as to whether such credits would be available.  (As a matter of disclosure, Respondent County of Lake was represented in the trial and appellate proceedings in this case by this post’s authors, Miller Starr Regalia attorneys Arthur Coon and Matthew Henderson.)Continue Reading First District Addresses Significant CEQA Issues Relating to Wildfire Risk, GHG Emissions, and Water Supply Impacts in Lake County Resort Development Case

In an important opinion filed October 21, and later ordered published on November 18, 2024 (at the request of the California State Association of Counties and the Rural County Representatives of California), the Sixth District Court of Appeal interpreted key terms in the CEQA Guidelines Class 32 categorical exemption, which applies to “in-fill development” projects that meet specified criteria, including being “substantially surrounded by urban uses.”  In doing so, the Court upheld a low-population city’s use of the exemption for a Grocery Outlet project near Highway 101.  Working Families of Monterey County, et al. v. King City Planning Commission (Best Development Group, LLC, Real Party in Interest) (2024) 106 Cal.App.5th 833.Continue Reading Sixth District Affirms Judgment Upholding Application of CEQA Guidelines Class 32 Infill Development Exemption To Project On Parcel Substantially Surrounded By Urban Uses In Small-Population City

In a partially published opinion filed October 31, 2024, the Second District Court of Appeal (Div. 1) held, in light of AB 1307 and the Supreme Court’s decision in Make UC a Good Neighbor v. Regents of University of California (2024) 16 Cal.5th 43 (”Make UC II”), that noise from residents congregating on a USC-area residential housing project’s rooftop decks “do[es] not constitute a significant environmental effect impeding application of the Class 32 exemption[,]” including through attempted invocation of the unusual-circumstances exception.  West Adams Heritage Association et al. v. City of Los Angeles (Robert Champion at al, Real Parties in Interest) (2024) 106 Cal.App.5th 395.  The Court held that reversal was required for another reason, however, as the City failed to determine the project’s consistency with an applicable redevelopment plan, which the City had by ordinance incorporated into its applicable zoning, prior to granting the exemption.  (In the unpublished portion of its opinion, which won’t be further discussed in detail here, the Court also rejected appellants’ CEQA challenges to the infill exemption based on alleged significant traffic safety, historical resources, and cumulative impacts.)Continue Reading Fight On! After Grant and Transfer, Second District Holds Upon Reconsideration that Resident Noise Does Not Preclude CEQA Class 32 Infill Exemption for USC Area Housing Development Project; But Also Holds City Must First Find Project Consistent With Redevelopment Plan Incorporated Into Zoning Before Granting Exemption

“It’s like déjà vu all over again.”
Yogi Berra

In a (mostly) published opinion filed October 24, 2024, the Second District Court of Appeal (Div. 2) affirmed the trial court’s judgment denying a writ petition in a CEQA action challenging the County of Los Angeles’ (County) adoption of a comprehensive update to its North Area Plan (NAP) and Community Standards District (CSD), the general plan and zoning provisions governing the 21,000-acre Santa Monica Mountains North Area, one of County’s “most significant ecological and scenic resources.” The Court rejected a vintner’s attack on the FEIR’s project description based on the legal theory that it was “retroactively render[ed] ‘unstable’” by County’s adoption of zoning containing a complete prohibition of new vineyards in the North Area, whereas the zoning standards described in the EIR merely “heavily regulated” vineyards. John M. Gooden v. County of Los Angeles, et al. (2024) 106 Cal. App. 5th 1. While the opinion undoubtedly reached a correct result, it did so through problematic reasoning; it announced an ostensibly new and subjective standard to be applied on de novo review to certain EIR project description challenges—i.e., those based on an approved project’s “deviation” from the EIR’s project description—that will foreseeably prove problematic in its application in future cases.Continue Reading Down Another CEQA “Rabbit Hole”: Second District Upholds Project Description in Los Angeles County’s EIR For North Area General Plan and Zoning Update Against “Retroactive Instability” Challenge Based On Minor Change In Adopted Zoning Prohibiting New Vineyards; But Applies New Subjective Test De Novo and Outside Established Analytic Framework for Recirculation Challenges