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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
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 Sixth District Court of Appeal, in Santa Rita Union School District v. City of Salinas (2023), 94 Cal.App.5th 298, reversed the lower court, finding that the City of Salinas’ (“City”) final programmatic environmental...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
In Citizens’ Committee to Complete the Refuge v. City of Newark (2021) 74 Cal.App.5th 460, the First District Court of Appeal affirmed the trial court’s ruling that a residential project in a specific plan area in the city of...more
In an opinion filed on December 16, 2021, and belatedly ordered published on January 13, 2022, the Fourth District Court of Appeal rejected a CEQA challenge to a small multifamily project in the City of Santa Cruz. Ocean...more
California Department of Fish and Wildlife Annual Adjustments - The California Department of Fish and Wildlife announced an increase in filing fees for all California Environmental Quality Act Notices of Determination...more
The process for approving changes in airport operations and development projects may now be more complicated, time-consuming, expensive and uncertain, due to a new federal appeals court decision. The decision faults the...more
In Rimler v. City of New York, 2019 N.Y. Slip Op. 03599 (2d Dept, May 8, 2019), which involved a challenge to the issuance of a negative declaration, the Appellate Division, Second Department, affirmed a judgment of the...more
In February, the San Francisco Planning Department issued the first quarterly performance report for implementation of its Process Improvements Plan, a program intended to overhaul the project review process. ...more
An application was made for a site plan to the Planning Board of the City of Poughkeepsie for a 24 two-bedroom unit condominium complex in four buildings on a 3.4 acre parcel adjacent to an historic district. ...more
On May 10, 2018, the San Francisco Planning Commission voted unanimously to adopt the Central SoMa Plan and its Implementation Program by certifying the EIR and recommending approval of implementing legislation, with...more
In a decision that allows progress on development of new housing in a time of great need in California, a California appellate court upheld a trial court ruling that had rejected several legal challenges to a residential...more
Welcome to CEQA News You Can Use, a quarterly publication of Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, LLP’s Natural Resources lawyers. This publication is intended to provide quick, useful bites of CEQA news that we hope can be a...more
In Miranda Holdings v. Town Board of Town of Orchard Park, ____ N.Y.S. 3d, ____, 2017 WL 2884633 (4th Dept. July 7, 2017), Petitioner, Miranda, proposed a commercial structure that included a restaurant with a drive-through...more
The California Court of Appeal for the Sixth Appellate District recently held, in Aptos Council v. County of Santa Cruz, 10 Cal. App. 5th 266 (2017) that environmental review under the California Environmental Quality Act...more
On May 4, 2016, the California Supreme Court heard oral argument in Friends of the College of San Mateo Gardens v. San Mateo County Community College District (Case No. S214061), which addresses the standard of review that...more