In a series of decisions that had agency planners and environmental consultants scratching their heads, various courts of appeal last year held that every CEQA document must take account of existing conditions in assessing environmental impacts. (See Sunnyvale West Neighborhood Assoc. v. City of Sunnyvale City Council (6th Dist. 2010) 190 Cal.App.4th 1351; Pfeiffer v.
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First District Holds CEQA Baseline For Chevron Marine Terminal Lease Renewal Includes Existing Conditions and Structures, Finds No CEQA or Public Trust Violation In Lands Commission’s Alternatives Analysis
By Arthur F. Coon on
The CEQA “baseline” rules have received a lot of judicial attention in the last several years, and rightly so. The baseline or “environmental setting,” is the fundamental “benchmark” from which a project’s environmental impacts are measured. The baseline also determines the scope of the “reasonable range of [project] alternatives” required to be considered in an EIR, since “alternatives shall be limited to ones that avoid or substantially lessen any of the significant effects of the project.” (14 Cal. Code Regs., § 15126.6(f), emph. added.) By definition, adverse environmental conditions already existing as part of the baseline are not significant impacts of the proposed project.
Continue Reading First District Holds CEQA Baseline For Chevron Marine Terminal Lease Renewal Includes Existing Conditions and Structures, Finds No CEQA or Public Trust Violation In Lands Commission’s Alternatives Analysis