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
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CEQA Identified By Assembly Select Committee Report As Among Obstacles To Permitting Reform Needed To Meet State’s Housing and Climate Goals
By Arthur F. Coon on
Posted in Affordable Housing, Climate Change/GHG, Energy, Land Use, Legislation, Reform, Uncategorized
The “California Assembly Select Committee on Permitting Reform Final Report – March 2025” (the “Report”), published earlier this month, sounds an alarm bell regarding the need to overhaul the state’s “failed approach to permitting” if it is to have any hope of addressing its interconnected housing and climate crises. Citing a housing shortage of 2.5 million units, 200,000 homeless persons, unaffordable rents, and increasing temperatures, droughts, flooding, and wildfires, the 35-page Report observes that “California will need to facilitate new construction [of housing, clean energy generation, storage and transmission infrastructure, and climate resiliency projects] at an unprecedented scale” – something achievable “only if governments consistently issue permits in a manner that is timely, transparent, consistent, and outcomes-oriented[.]”Continue Reading CEQA Identified By Assembly Select Committee Report As Among Obstacles To Permitting Reform Needed To Meet State’s Housing and Climate Goals
Second District Affirms Judgment Rejecting CEQA And Other Challenges To CARB’s “Technology-Forcing” Emissions-Control Regulation For At-Berth Tanker And Other Ships
By Arthur F. Coon on
Posted in Administrative Record, CEQA Guidelines, Certified Regulatory Program, Climate Change/GHG, Cumulative Effects, Energy, Environmental Justice, Exemptions, Land Use, Lead Agency, Legislation, Litigation, Mitigation, Piecemealing, Resources, Responses to Comments, Standard of Review, Uncategorized
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
Following Up Earlier Order Suspending CEQA Review and Coastal Act Permitting Requirements To Facilitate Rebuilding After LA/Ventura County Fires, Governor Issues Executive Order N-14-25 To Quash “Legally Erroneous” Coastal Commission Guidance
By Arthur F. Coon on
On January 27, 2025, Governor Gavin Newsom issued Executive Order N-14-25 (the “EO”) pursuant to his statutory powers to suspend regulatory statutes during a state of emergency that would impede mitigation of the effects of the emergency. (See, Gov. Code, § 8571.) The new EO followed (by two weeks) an earlier order, Executive Order N-4-25, which suspended CEQA review and Coastal Act permitting requirements to facilitate rapid rebuilding after the disastrous LA/Ventura County wildfires. (I blogged on the earlier Executive Order here.)Continue Reading Following Up Earlier Order Suspending CEQA Review and Coastal Act Permitting Requirements To Facilitate Rebuilding After LA/Ventura County Fires, Governor Issues Executive Order N-14-25 To Quash “Legally Erroneous” Coastal Commission Guidance
Governor Issues Executive Order N-4-25 Suspending CEQA Review And Coastal Act Permitting Requirements To Facilitate Rapid Rebuilding Of Properties Destroyed Or Damaged By Los Angeles And Ventura County Fires
By Arthur F. Coon on
On January 12, 2025, Governor Gavin Newsom issued Executive Order N-4-25 (the “EO”) pursuant to Government Code section 8571, which authorizes the Governor to suspend regulatory statutes during a state of emergency upon determining that strict compliance “would in any way prevent, hinder, or delay the mitigation of the effects of the emergency.” (Gov. Code, § 8571.) The Governor had previously, on January 7, 2025, proclaimed a State of Emergency to exist in Los Angeles and Ventura Counties due to fire and windstorm conditions.Continue Reading Governor Issues Executive Order N-4-25 Suspending CEQA Review And Coastal Act Permitting Requirements To Facilitate Rapid Rebuilding Of Properties Destroyed Or Damaged By Los Angeles And Ventura County Fires
In Writ Action Attacking Vesting Tentative Map Approval, Second District Holds Plaintiffs’ Failure to Comply With Subdivision Map Act Statute of Limitations’90-Day Service-Of-Summons Requirement Does Not Bar Major “Portion” of CEQA Cause of Action Alleging “Procedural Violations Unique to CEQA” And Other Claims That Could Not Be Brought Under Map Act
By Arthur F. Coon on
In a published opinion filed October 21, 2024, the Second District Court of Appeal (Div. 7) reversed a judgment entered after the trial court granted without leave a real party developer’s motion for judgment on the pleadings, based on statute of limitations grounds, in a writ of mandate action alleging CEQA and Planning and Zoning Law causes of action and challenging the permit and vesting tentative map approvals for a residential subdivision project. Santa Clarita Organization for Planning the Environment et al v. County of Los Angeles (Williams Homes, Inc., Real Party in Interest) (2024) 105 Cal.App.5th 1143. The Court held that judgment on the pleadings was improper as to the CEQA claim because Government Code section 66499.37, the Subdivision Map Act’s (SMA) statute of limitations requiring filing and service of summons within 90 days in subdivision-related actions, could not completely dispose of that cause of action. The Court reasoned this was so because most of the claims alleged in that cause of action were “procedural violations” and other claims “unique to CEQA” that could not have been brought under the SMA. The Second District’s opinion is poorly reasoned and concerning because it appears to diverge from the statute’s plain language, as well as from prior caselaw construing it to have an extremely broad application to any subdivision-related action, and to read into it a new and significant limitation on its reach, essentially making it applicable only to actions attacking a subdivision decision based on legal theories that are or could be brought under the SMA.Continue Reading In Writ Action Attacking Vesting Tentative Map Approval, Second District Holds Plaintiffs’ Failure to Comply With Subdivision Map Act Statute of Limitations’90-Day Service-Of-Summons Requirement Does Not Bar Major “Portion” of CEQA Cause of Action Alleging “Procedural Violations Unique to CEQA” And Other Claims That Could Not Be Brought Under Map Act
Delay Denied: First District Affirms Trial Court’s Denial of Seventh ADA Continuance Request Made In CEQA Case Under California Rules of Court, Rule 1.100, Due To Burden On Trial Court’s Docket Management And Excessive Delay Contrary To Fundamental Nature of Expedited CEQA Proceeding
By Matthew C. Henderson & Arthur F. Coon on
Posted in Litigation, Uncategorized
Lawyers, like all humans, experience the full gamut of life’s difficulties. Sometimes those intrude into the practice of law itself, up to and including CEQA litigation. On September 26, 2024, the First District Court of Appeal filed its published its opinion in Friends of the South Fork Gualala v. Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (2024) 105 Cal.App.5th 517, a case dealing with such an unfortunate circumstance, in which the Court had to address the conflicting needs of a lawyer confronting a serious mental illness, the needs of the litigants, and the needs of the functioning of the trial court. Despite its tangential relationship to the substantive or procedural provisions of CEQA, the case is worth reviewing for the guidance it provides practitioners and litigants dealing with such a scenario in the context of a writ proceeding entitled to calendar preference under CEQA. Continue Reading Delay Denied: First District Affirms Trial Court’s Denial of Seventh ADA Continuance Request Made In CEQA Case Under California Rules of Court, Rule 1.100, Due To Burden On Trial Court’s Docket Management And Excessive Delay Contrary To Fundamental Nature of Expedited CEQA Proceeding
Ninth Circuit Squashes RICO Lawsuit Seeking Federal Remedy For Abusive and Extortionate CEQA Litigation
By Matthew C. Henderson on
Litigation abuse is all too familiar to those engaged in the herculean task of getting new development approved in California. See, for instance, Jennifer Hernandez’s 2022 report for the Center for Jobs & the Economy, titled “Anti-Housing CEQA Lawsuits Filed in 2020 Challenge Nearly 50% of California’s 100,000 Annual Housing Production” and blogged on here. Or a 2022 case out of the First District, Tiburon Open Space Committee v. County of Marin (2022) 78 Cal.App.5th 700 (blogged on here), in which the court lamented the fact that CEQA can “be manipulated to be a formidable tool of obstruction” and concluded with the rather dire observation that “[s]omething is very wrong with this picture.” Continue Reading Ninth Circuit Squashes RICO Lawsuit Seeking Federal Remedy For Abusive and Extortionate CEQA Litigation
Third Time’s the Charm: Third District Crowns State the Winner By Legislative Decree In Third Published CEQA Decision Arising From Capitol Renovation Project
“Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”
– Dylan Thomas
In a published decision filed October 7, 2024, the Third District Court of Appeal affirmed the trial court’s judgment rejecting a CEQA challenge to the revised EIR for the State Capitol renovation project based on recent legislation exempting that project from CEQA. Save Our Capitol! v. Department of General Services (Joint Committee on Rules of the California State Senate and Assembly) (2024) 101 Cal.App.5th 1237. This was the Court’s third published appellate decision in the CEQA litigation over the controversial project; see my posts dated January 2 and January 23, 2023 and May 23, 2024, covering the Court’s initial two published decisions finding flaws in the project EIR, and in the trial court’s premature discharge of the remedial writ, and my post dated July 11, 2024 covering the dispositive statutory CEQA exemption enacted through SB 174.Continue Reading Third Time’s the Charm: Third District Crowns State the Winner By Legislative Decree In Third Published CEQA Decision Arising From Capitol Renovation Project
First District Denies Rehearing, Modifies Opinion in CEQA Guidelines Class 1 Categorical Exemption Case With No Change in Judgment
By Arthur F. Coon on
On October 7, 2024, the First District Court of Appeal (Div. 5) issued a 6-page “Order Denying Respondent’s Petition for Rehearing and Modifying Opinion [No Change in Judgment]” (the “Order”) in Sunflower Alliance v. California Department of Conservation, et al. (Reabold California, LLC) (2024) 104 Cal.App.5th 1135, a case upholding a CEQA Guidelines Class 1 categorical exemption for an oil well conversion project (my 9/9/24 post on which can be found here). The main thrust of the Order, a copy of which can be reviewed here, is to bolster the Opinion’s refutations of certain of Respondent Sunflower Alliance’s arguments, including its argument made on rehearing that the Secretary cannot have intended for categorical exemptions to call for an “early stage” assessment of environmental impacts; the Court called Sunflower’s position “wrong,” citing numerous examples of categorical exemptions calling for such assessments, which it noted function as limits on the application of the exemptions, and are also consistent with the agencies’ duty to consider environmental impacts when evidence in their records suggests an exception to the exemption may apply.Continue Reading First District Denies Rehearing, Modifies Opinion in CEQA Guidelines Class 1 Categorical Exemption Case With No Change in Judgment