From Permits to Penalties: A Deep Dive Into Coastal Development Law
Navigating Environmental Restrictions on Alternative Project Delivery for Complex Infrastructure Projects
On-Demand Webinar | Charting a Course for Offshore Wind Energy in California
[WEBINAR] Update on the California Environmental Quality Act: What’s New for 2018
[WEBINAR] Building a Solar Energy Project in 2018
How Trump's Infrastructure Plan Impacts the Energy Industry
BB&K's Charity Schiller Discusses CEQA Baseline
In Citizens for a Better Eureka v. City of Eureka (2025) __ Cal. App. 5th __, the First District Court of Appeal affirmed a judgment dismissing a CEQA action that challenged an approval for the redevelopment of a City of...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
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...more
The County of San Diego’s thresholds for exempting certain projects from vehicle miles traveled (VMT) analysis were not supported by substantial evidence showing they were appropriate specifically for the County. Cleveland...more
City of Los Angeles - Expedited and Streamlined Review Process for Community Rebuilding - On March 18, 2025, Mayor Karen Bass issued Revised Emergency Executive Order No. 1 (EO 1) directing the Department of City Planning,...more
In Cleveland National Forest Foundation v. County of San Diego (2025) 109 Cal. App.5th 1257, the Fourth District Court of Appeal invalidated two thresholds of significance adopted by the County of San Diego (“County”) that in...more
On March 14, 2025, the California Court of Appeal for the First District issued the first published opinion interpreting Assembly Bill 52 (AB 52), the law governing tribal consultation procedures under the California...more
A California court of appeal has held that a lead agency conducting environmental review, under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), of “vehicle miles traveled” (VMT) impacts may not unquestioningly use thresholds...more
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
On January 21, 2025, Coblentz litigation partner Skye Langs presented for the Bar Association of San Francisco’s Real Property section on the following real estate and land use cases from 2024...more
In April 2021, a developer applied to the City of King City, California (City), for a proposed 18,000-square-foot Grocery Outlet store (Project). The Project site was a former 1.6-acre car sales lot adjacent to Highway 101...more
In late June, California’s Fourth District Court of Appeal upheld a Superior Court decision in Save Our Access v. City of San Diego, providing clarity for determining when a “later activity” is beyond the scope of an existing...more
The Court of Appeal upheld the City’s determination that compensatory mitigation for the loss of a historic building in the form of funding of other historic preservation was not feasible because there were no other buildings...more
Plaintiff did not exhaust administrative remedies when challenging the City’s approval of a homeowner’s development project on the ground that a Class 1 categorical exemption was inapplicable. Arcadians for Environmental...more
A local organization appealed the denial of its challenge to the approval of an affordable housing project and disputed the trial court’s order requiring it to post a bond. The Court of Appeal rejected plaintiff’s contentions...more
In Save the Hill Group v. City of Livermore et al., the First District Court of Appeal (Div. 5) reversed and remanded the superior court’s decision to uphold the reissued final environmental impact report (RFEIR) for a...more
In a published decision filed March 30, 2022, the First District Court of Appeal (Division 5) reversed a trial court judgment upholding the reissued final environmental impact report (“RFEIR”) for a 44-single family residence...more
In a sprawling, 123-page published opinion filed on February 14, 2022, the Third District Court of Appeal affirmed in part, and reversed in part, judgments in consolidated CEQA actions challenging Placer County’s EIR for its...more
During the week of August 19, 2019, both the Appellate and Supreme Courts of California issued decisive opinions clarifying the parameters of agency action subject to environmental review under the California Environmental...more
An EIR’s project description may identify alternative development schemes proposed for a single project, and the agency may approve a modified version of the project that incorporates elements of one of the alternatives...more
In Berkeley Hills Watershed Coalition v. City of Berkeley (2019) 31 Cal.App.5th 880 [certified for partial publication], the Court of the Appeal for the First District affirmed that the construction of three new single-family...more
A court challenge to a local agency’s decision to grant a coastal development permit becomes moot when the Coastal Commission accepts an appeal of the decision, the California court of appeal ruled in Fudge v. City of Laguna...more
In Fudge v. City of Laguna (G055711), published on February 13, 2019, the Fourth District Court of Appeal joined the First and Sixth Districts by reaffirming the need for a litigant to wait for the California Coastal...more
The court of appeal held that the City of St. Helena did not violate CEQA by approving a demolition permit and design review for a multi-family residential project without preparing an environmental impact report. McCorkle...more
On February 13, 2019, the Fourth District Court of Appeal in Fudge v. City of Laguna Beach (Feb. 13, 2019, G055711) __ Cal.App.5th ___, joined the First and Sixth Districts in holding that the Coastal Commission’s acceptance...more