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City of Los Angeles Planning Department - Annual Increase to Planning Applications and Affordable Housing Linkage Fees - On July 1, 2024, the annual increases to the Planning and Land Use Fees and the Affordable Housing...more
Welcome to “CEQA News You Can Use,” a quarterly production of Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, LLP’s Natural Resources lawyers. This publication provides quick, useful bites of CEQA news, which we hope can be a resource for...more
Following up on our earlier coverage of the new California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) exemption passed as part of budget trailer bill AB 130, another significant CEQA pathway was created through its companion...more
In a partially published 102-page opinion filed June 26, 2025, the Second District Court of Appeal (Div. 7) resolved cross-appeals by affirming the trial court’s judgment invalidating Los Angeles County’s 2019 EIR...more
On October 10, 2024, the California Fish and Game Commission (Commission) unanimously voted to designate the western burrowing owl (Athene cunicularia hypugaea) as a candidate species under the California Endangered Species...more
In a published opinion filed March 14, 2025, the First District Court of Appeal (Div. 2) reversed the trial court’s judgment upholding a Mitigated Negative Declaration (MND) for a four-story, 75-room hotel/meeting...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
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
The California Court of Appeal’s recent decision in V Lions Farming, LLC v. County of Kern provides important clarity on the use of agricultural conservation easements (ACEs) for mitigating the conversion of agricultural land...more
On November 22, 2024, the First District Court of Appeal’s (Div. 4) partially-published opinion in People of the State of California ex rel. Bonta v. County of Lake (Lotusland Investment Holdings, Inc., et al. Real Parties in...more
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
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...more
City of Los Angeles - Increase to Planning Applications and Affordable Housing Linkage Fees - On July 1, 2024, the fee for planning and land use applications increased by 3.5% based on the Consumer Price Index for All Urban...more
The California Supreme Court recently upheld the Environmental Impact Report (“EIR”) for the Long Range Development Plan (“LRDP”) for the University of California Berkeley (“UC Berkeley”) and a controversial housing project...more
City of Los Angeles - Proposed Citywide Adaptive Reuse Ordinance - In 1999, the city council adopted the Adaptive Reuse Ordinance (ARO) that enabled the conversion of commercial buildings constructed in the downtown area in...more
Several modest amendments to CEQA took effect on Jan. 1, 2024. Our CEQA News You Can Use team summarized a few of changes to keep in mind in the new year....more
In a published opinion filed on January 17, 2024, the Second District Court of Appeal (Div. 5) reversed a trial court judgment overturning a mitigated negative declaration (MND) and requiring an EIR for a 42-single family...more
2023 served up roughly the same number of published appellate CEQA cases as 2022 with a defense win percentage of over 80 percent, which has been the case in many, if not all, of the past ten years. A prominent theme of...more
The 2023 legislative session culminated in Governor Newsom signing dozens of land use bills. This post discusses the most important. The Legislature continued its multifaceted approach to addressing the housing crisis, with...more
City of Los Angeles - The Processes and Procedures Ordinance Becomes Operative January 22, 2024 - The city council adopted the Processes and Procedures Ordinance amending the Los Angeles Municipal Code (LAMC) to...more
The County of Santa Barbara’s proposed Agricultural Enterprise Ordinance would expand the range of activities on farms and ranches (all unincorporated lands zoned AG-II), and allow incidental food service at wine tasting...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
In this alert, Brownstein outlines Gov. Gavin Newsom’s latest swing at the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and provides the updates (and potentially what to expect) regarding two new bills introduced by Sen. Scott...more
Noisy college students, the new CEQA impact? Would you be surprised to learn that college students can throw noisy parties? Uh, no, but it may be a surprise that they constitute a potentially significant environmental impact...more
The EIR for a residential project has been struck down because its discussion of project alternatives did not analyze the possibility that public funds might be used to acquire the land for open space. Save the Hill Group v....more