In a published opinion filed in consolidated appeals on September 28, 2018, the Fourth District Court of Appeal (Div. 1) affirmed the trial court’s judgment invalidating San Diego County’s adoption of a 2016 Guidance Document that established a generally applicable threshold of significance for GHG analysis of 4.9 metric tons of CO2e per service population per year. Golden Door Properties, LLC v. County of San Diego/Sierra Club, LLC v. County of San Diego (2018) ___ Cal.App.5th ___. The Court held the case was ripe because the 2016 Guidance Document’s GHG “Efficiency Metric” set forth the threshold of significance as generally applicable to project proposals; it held the document violated CEQA because it was not formally adopted by ordinance, rule, resolution or regulation through a public review process, and was not supported by substantial evidence adequately explaining how its service population number derived from statewide data constituted an appropriate GHG metric to use for all projects in unincorporated San Diego County. (CEQA Guidelines, §§ 15064.7(b), (c); Center for Biological Diversity v. California Department of Fish and Wildlife (2015) 62 Cal.4th 204, 227 (“CBD”).) The Court also held County’s adoption of the threshold of significance in advance of its required Climate Action Plan (CAP) constituted improper “piecemealing [of] environmental regulations” in violation of the Court’s earlier decision and the trial court’s second supplemental writ in the same litigation, which treated the CAP and thresholds of significance based on it as a single CEQA project and required completion of the CAP prior to the adoption of the thresholds of significance.
Litigation
Fourth District Holds CEQA Challenge To Ministerial Approval Of Development Project Modifications Barred By Res Judicata, Water Supply Assessment Not Required
By Arthur F. Coon on
“Birds of a feather flock together.” — Proverb
The Fourth District Court of Appeal (Div. 2) affirmed a judgment entered after the sustaining of a demurrer without leave, holding that a mandate action brought by The Inland Oversight Committee (IOC), CREED-21, and Highland Hills Homeowners Association (HOA) alleging CEQA and Water Code violations was barred by res judicata (based on the final judgment in the HOA’s prior related CEQA action), and failure to state a claim. The Inland Oversight Committee v. City of San Ramon (First American Title Insurance Company) (2018) ___ Cal.App.5th ___. (The Court’s opinion, filed September 14 and later ordered published on September 27, 2018, denied the parties’ motions to dismiss and strike and related requests for judicial notice as moot in light of its disposition on the merits.)
Fourth District Holds City Violated CEQA By Refusing To Recognize Exemption For Single Family Residence Project And Attempting To Subject Owner’s Already Authorized And Completed Demolition Action To Retroactive Environmental Review (Yet Absolves City From Liability For Regulatory Taking)
By Arthur F. Coon on
In a published opinion filed September 18, 2018, the Fourth District Court of Appeal (Div. 1) affirmed a judgment granting a writ setting aside the City of San Diego’s (City) decision to subject a coastal development permit (CDP) application for construction of a single family home on a vacant La Jolla lot to CEQA review. Francis A. Bottini, Jr. v. City of San Diego (2018) ___ Cal.App.5th ___.
Arguing Impacts By Proxy: Fourth District Holds CEQA Does Not Require EIR Absent Evidence That Subdivision Approval Actually Violated Applicable Land Use Regulations Adopted to Mitigate Environmental Impacts
By Arthur F. Coon on
In an opinion filed August 10, and later ordered published on September 7, 2018, the Fourth District Court of Appeal (Div. 2) affirmed a judgment denying Friends of Riverside’s Hills’ (FRH) writ petition challenging a residential development permit and related Negative Declaration issued by the City of Riverside (City) for a six-home, 11-acre subdivision in an environmentally sensitive area. Friends of Riverside’s Hills v. City of Riverside (Carlton R. Lofgren, as Trustee, etc., et al., Real Parties in Interest) (2018) ___ Cal.App.5th ____.
Second District Applies CEQA’s “Subsequent Review” Rules to Uphold EIR Addendum for Revised Target Superstore Project Including “Spot-Zoning” Specific Plan Amendment Authorizing Use
By Arthur F. Coon on
In a lengthy published opinion filed August 23, 2018, the Second District Court of Appeal reversed the trial court’s judgment, and upheld the City of Los Angeles’ addendum to a prior project-level EIR for a Target Superstore as legally sufficient CEQA compliance for a revised plan-level project which amended a specific plan so as to authorize that same development. Citizens Coalition Los Angeles v. City of Los Angeles (Target Corporation, Real Party in Interest) (2018) 26 Cal.App.5th 561. The Court further held the specific plan amendment was not impermissible “spot zoning,” even if approved only to authorize the site-specific Superstore project, because there was a “reasonable basis” for the City to find it was in the public interest. While these holdings are not surprising, some of the analysis used to reach the Court’s clearly correct CEQA holding – which analogizes subsequent review rules to piecemealing concepts – is novel and potentially confusing, as discussed below.
“Growing Pains”: First District Holds Program EIR for San Francisco’s General Plan Housing Element Amendment Complies with CEQA
In a lengthy published opinion filed on August 22, 2018, the First District Court of Appeal (Div. 4) affirmed the trial court’s judgment rejecting various CEQA challenges to the City of San Francisco’s (“City”) Program EIR analyzing the environmental impacts of its 2009 General Plan Housing Element, which it adopted on June 29, 2011. San Franciscans for Livable Neighborhoods v. City and County of San Francisco (2018) 26 Cal.App.5th 596. San Franciscans for Livable Neighborhoods (“SFLN”), an unincorporated association comprised of more than a dozen neighborhood organizations, had challenged the EIR – mostly unsuccessfully – in the trial court. It then appealed from adverse portions of the judgment concerning the EIR’s baseline and impact analyses for traffic, water supply, land use, and visual resources impacts; the City’s decision not to recirculate the EIR; the EIR’s alternatives analysis; and the feasibility of certain proposed mitigation measures.
Context Matters: First District Holds CEQA Requires EIR, Not MND, To Analyze Mixed-Use Project’s Potentially Significant Aesthetic And Traffic Impacts On Fremont’s Niles Historical District
In an opinion filed July 16, and belatedly ordered published on August 9, 2018, the First District Court of Appeal (Division 5) affirmed the trial court’s judgment setting aside the City of Fremont’s approvals of a mixed residential/retail project (“Project”) and related Mitigated Negative Declaration (“MND”), and ordering preparation of an EIR based on the Project’s potentially significant aesthetic and traffic impacts on the Niles historical district. Protect Niles v. City of Fremont (Doug Rich, et al., Real Parties in Interest) (2018) 25 Cal.App.5th 1129. The opinion is a good reminder of the legal vulnerability of any species of negative declaration under CEQA’s applicable “fair argument” standard of review. It also provides guidance in the areas of mootness; analysis of aesthetic, historical resources, traffic level of service (“LOS”), and traffic safety impacts; the operation of traffic thresholds of significance; and the nature of substantial evidence sufficient to support a “fair argument,” both generally and in the unique “historical district” context presented by this particular case.
Second District Holds CEQA Does Not Apply to San Luis Obispo County’s Issuance of Well Construction Permits Under Its Ministerial Governing Ordinance
By Arthur F. Coon on
In an opinion filed June 28, and later ordered published on July 27, 2018, the Second District Court of Appeal (Div. 6) affirmed the trial court’s judgment dismissing on demurrer a writ petition seeking to compel the County of San Luis Obispo to comply with CEQA in issuing well construction permits to four agricultural enterprises, mostly for vineyard irrigation. The Court held County’s governing local ordinance, which addresses only water quality issues and incorporates fixed technical standards for well construction from relevant Department of Water Resources (DWR) Bulletins, established a ministerial scheme for issuing such permits and does not confer “discretion to shape a well permit to mitigate environmental damage arising from groundwater overuse.” California Water Impact Network v. County of San Luis Obispo (Justin Vineyards and Winery, LLC et al., Real Parties in Interest) (2018) 25 Cal.App.5th 666.
“Sauce For The Gander”: Second District Holds CEQA’s Broad Definition Of “Project” Also Applies In Determining Scope of Activity To Which Statutory Exemption Applies
By Arthur F. Coon on
In a published decision filed June 12, 2018, the Second District Court of Appeal (Div. 6) held that the same broad definition of a “project” that mandates more extensive CEQA review of activities undertaken or approved by public agencies also applies in determining the scope of statutory exemptions that serve to exempt certain projects from CEQA review. County of Ventura v. City of Moorpark, Broad Beach Geologic Hazard Abatement District (2018) ___ Cal.App.5th ___. The Court of Appeal affirmed the trial court’s judgment to the extent it rejected Ventura County’s CEQA, preemption, and extraterritorial regulation challenges to a settlement agreement between the City of Moorpark and the Broad Beach Geologic Hazard Abatement District (BBGHAD), a state law entity created to carry out a Malibu beach restoration project. But it reversed with directions to declare void (as unlawful abdications of BBGHAD’s police power) certain of the settlement agreement’s provisions which severely limited BBGHAD’s authority to modify project haul routes in the event of changed circumstances.
Filtering The CEQA Noise: First District Upholds Santa Rosa’s Negative Declaration For “Dream Center” Youth Housing Project, Holds Non-Expert Predictions Of Significant Noise Impacts Failed To Raise “Fair Argument” Supported By Substantial Evidence
By Arthur F. Coon on
A development project’s potential noise impacts can implicate complex and technical issues under CEQA, particularly where those impacts are asserted, in litigation by project opponents challenging a negative declaration, as the sole basis an EIR should have been required. Such was certainly the case in Charles T. Jensen v. City of Santa Rosa (Social Advocates For Youth, Real Party in Interest) (1st Dist. 2018) 23 Cal.App.5th 877, a dense 24-page opinion filed by the Court of Appeal for the First Appellate District (Division 4) on May 1, and later ordered certified for publication on May 24, 2018.