On June 30, 2025, Governor Newsom signed AB 130 and SB 131 into immediately effective law as budget trailer bills, marking a historic effort to accelerate housing production and to reform the CEQA review process that has been...more
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...more
On May 14, 2025, Senator Scott Wiener issued a press release stating that, on that morning, “Governor Gavin Newsom announced that he supports the strongest ever reforms of [CEQA],” referring to Newsom’s proposal to include in...more
5/20/2025
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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...more
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...more
On February 20, 2025, Senator Scott Wiener introduced Senate Bill No. 607 (SB 607), a proposed law that is relatively short in text length, but which would engender major CEQA reforms if enacted as currently drafted. The...more
3/6/2025
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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...more
2/6/2025
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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...more
11/22/2024
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Exemptions ,
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Redevelopment ,
Standard of Review
In an opinion filed June 27, and later ordered published (with slight modifications) on July 18, 2024, the First District Court of Appeal affirmed the trial court’s judgment denying a writ petition challenging the City of...more
“It ain’t over ‘til it’s over.” Yogi Berra and Lenny Kravitz - In a unanimous opinion filed on June 6, 2024, the California Supreme Court reversed the judgment of the First District Court of Appeal in the controversial...more
6/11/2024
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Universities
On September 7, 2023, Governor Newsom signed into law AB 1307, urgency legislation which took effect immediately and added to the Public Resources Code a new Section 21085, which reads: “For purposes of this division, for...more
In an opinion filed June 28, 2023, and later ordered published on July 25, 2023, the Second District Court of Appeal (Div. 5) affirmed a judgment granting a writ of mandate setting aside (1) the City of Los Angeles’ (City)...more
On May 17, 2020, the California Supreme Court granted review of the First District Court of Appeal’s controversial and much criticized published decision in Make UC a Good Neighbor v. Regents of University of California...more
In a published opinion filed February 24, 2023, the First District Court of Appeal (Div. 5) reversed a judgment upholding the adequacy of the EIR for the University of California, Berkeley’s long range campus development plan...more
On February 15, 2023, the California Supreme Court denied the petitions for review and issued an order decertifying the Second District Court of Appeal’s controversial (and previously published) opinion in G.I. Industries v....more
A 10-page article by Holland & Knight’s Jennifer Hernandez, published this month by the Center for Jobs & the Economy/California Business Roundtable, documents that CEQA litigation targeted nearly 50,000 housing units –...more
On March 7, 2022, the Second District Court of Appeal (Div. 4) filed its published opinion in Southwest Regional Council of Carpenters, et al. v. City of Los Angeles, et al (The Icon at Panorama, LLC, Real Party in Interest)...more
On May 12, 2022, the First District Court of Appeal filed a 108-page published opinion affirming a judgment denying a CEQA writ petition that challenged Marin County’s approval of a 43-lot single-family residential...more
In an opinion filed November 15, and later ordered published on December 14, 2021, the Sixth District Court of Appeal reaffirmed the basic CEQA principle that required environmental review and analysis must precede project...more
As we rapidly approach the end of a year of COVID-related challenges and uncertainties, CEQA practitioners may want to review the year’s key legislation impacting CEQA and its application, which was contained in the handful...more
As another year draws near its close, a number of notable recent CEQA developments in both the legislative and regulatory arenas have occurred that bear mention.
SB 35 (Wiener), perhaps the “poster child” of the numerous...more
AB 890 (Medina – D), recently sent to Governor Brown for action by October 15, seeks to amend Government Code § 65867.5 and to add §§ 65363 and 65850.10 to prevent development agreements and certain types of land use planning...more
Following up on their 2015 report covering all CEQA lawsuits filed during the 2010-2012 period, Holland & Knight lawyers Jennifer Hernandez, David Friedman and Stephanie DeHerrera recently released a portion of the sequel –...more
As summer rapidly approaches, and we continue to experience a (from my perspective welcome) “mini-drought” of published CEQA cases, I’ll briefly report on some recent legislative developments of possible...more