On 30 June 2025, Governor Newsom signed Assembly Bill 130 (AB 130) and Senate Bill 131 (SB 131) into law, introducing some of the most significant changes to the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) in recent history,...more
The California Legislature took another big swing to promote housing development in battling the continuing housing crisis when it passed Assembly Bill 130 (AB 130) and Senate Bill 131 (SB 131) earlier this year. AB 130...more
With the current housing shortage in California, coupled with recent regulatory changes, multifamily development is robust throughout the state. Perhaps the most consequential recent change is the reform of the California...more
This is the ninth update in our series covering AB 130 and SB 131, two bills that work substantive changes to the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and California housing law....more
Senate Bill (SB) 131 includes reforms to litigation procedure under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) intended to relieve the burden on CEQA litigants when preparing the CEQA administrative record and speed up...more
The California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) has long shaped the state’s development landscape, often entangling projects in lengthy permitting and litigation processes. That landscape has now shifted dramatically. ...more
Part one of a three-part series - Governor Gavin Newsom signed two sweeping budget trailer bills, Assembly Bill 130 (AB 130) and Senate Bill 131 (SB 131), into law on June 30, 2025, enacting meaningful changes to the...more
Two newly enacted California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) reform laws (AB 130 and SB 131) would significantly impact California’s infill housing sector. Our Environment, Land Use & Natural Resources Group unpacks what...more
Introduction - Last week, California enacted the most significant reforms to the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) since the mid-1970s. On June 30, Governor Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 131 and Assembly Bill 130...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
In part two of the 2024 Housing New Law Guidance series we cover important new housing legislation related to CEQA, code enforcement, housing development, the Housing Crisis Act (HCA), housing element, infill infrastructure...more
Effective July 1, 2023, a new chapter in the California Government Code provides for qualifying multifamily housing developments of five or more units to be a “by right” use and subject only to a streamlined ministerial...more
In Pacific Palisades Residents Association, Inc. v. City of Los Angeles et al. (March 8, 2023, Case No. B306658) __ Cal.App.2d __, the Second District issued a strong opinion affirming the trial court’s ruling that a proposed...more
In IBC Business Owners for Sensible Development v. City of Irvine et al. (Feb. 6 2023, Case No. G060850) ___ Cal.App.5th ___, the Fourth District Court of Appeal held that the City of Irvine (“City”) violated CEQA when it...more
In Protect Tustin Ranch v. City of Tustin, 70 Cal. App. 5th 951 (2021), the court of appeal upheld a city’s reliance on the infill development categorical exemption under CEQA for a new gas station in an existing shopping...more
In a recently published decision and a case of first impression, the California Court of Appeal has held that development limited to a 2.38-acre portion of an existing 12-acre shopping center qualified for the "infill...more
On April 20, 2021, the First District Court of Appeal filed its first published opinion interpreting California Senate Bill 35’s streamlining provisions in Ruegg & Ellsworth v. City of Berkeley. The Court held that the City...more
The California Legislature has enacted new Public Resources Code § 21159.25, effective as of January 1, 2019 (Stats. 2018, c. 670 (A.B. 1804)), which extends much of the substance of the existing CEQA Guidelines’ Class 32...more
On January 3, 2019 the Natural Resources Agency (“Agency”) announced that the long awaited comprehensive amendments to the CEQA Guidelines are now in effect. The last major update to the Guidelines was in the late 1990s. As a...more
This Corner Briefing highlights new Environmental Screening Levels (ESLs) established by the San Francisco Regional Water Quality Control Board on Jan. 24, 2019. The new ESLs have the potential for making sites that cleared...more
On March 22, 2018, the Second Appellate District certified for publication its opinion in Covina Residents for Responsible Development v. City of Covina, et al. (2018) 230 Cal.Rptr.3d 550, concerning a Mitigated Negative...more
Parking impacts (as distinguished from secondary impacts related to parking) associated with infill development in transit priority areas are exempt from environmental review under certain circumstances, a California...more
SB 743 was enacted in 2013 to further California’s efforts to reduce GHG emissions by encouraging transit-oriented, infill development – a strategy announced in SB 375, the “Sustainable Communities and Climate Protection Act...more
A general plan policy that limited the size of retail tenants in certain areas of a city was not likely to cause urban decay and was not inconsistent with other general plan policies encouraging infill development, the court...more
Great news for the Arizona infill development industry, as the long awaited “fix” to the three-quarters vote/supermajority statute (i.e. A.R.S. Section 9-462.04(G)) has finally made its way through the State Legislature and...more