The Cal Bears scored a victory in a recent legal challenge to a planned expansion of athletic facilities near the historic University of California football stadium in Berkeley.

The project opponents' playbook included a long list of California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) violations allegedly committed by the University of California (UC) Board of Regents. The blue and gold had a solid game plan. The regents used a tiered Environmental Impact Report (EIR), carrying forward relevant CEQA analysis from the first tier to a later document and providing detailed, site-specific analysis in the later tier.

Overview

A development project in Redding that would destroy critical habitat for endangered species may proceed because the affected habitat constitutes a small percentage of habitat available nationwide, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeal has ruled. 

The Ninth Circuit's decision puts a new twist on the debate over what constitutes "adverse modification" to critical habitat by upholding a black and white mathematical percentage formula applied by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS). Using the formula, a FWS biological opinion determine there would not be adverse modification or destruction of critical habitat of three species native to the Central Valley.

While land use litigation per se is not overly complex, it contains two procedural rules that occasionally trip up project opponents. A San Diego community group that challenged a condominium project recently tripped on both hurdles.

As CP&DR's Senior Editor Paul Shigley pointed out last week in his blog, retiring Chief Justice Ronald George of the California Supreme Court gained a well-earned reputation as a centrist and a unifier. 

The First District Court of Appeal determined that the California Environmental Quality Act exemption for infill development applies only to projects within the limits of an incorporated city.

An agreement between the County of San Diego and the state Department of Corrections to site a state prison reentry facility does not require the county to conduct environmental review prior to entering into the agreement because it did not constitute a commitment to a definite course of action, the Fourth District Court of Appeal has ruled. In the agreement, the county identified potential locations for the reentry facility in exchange for preference in the award of state financing for county jails.

In approving a redevelopment project that relies on a 20-year-old environmental impact report, the City of San Diego was not required to conduct supplemental environmental review on the issue of climate change, where the only discretionary action for a project was limited to project aesthetics, the Fourth District Court of Appeal has ruled.

The environmental impact report for a proposed human waste composting facility in San Bernardino County has been rejected by the Fourth District Court of Appeal for failure to examine an alternative facility that would be enclosed rather than open-air, as proposed. In addition, the court ruled the county should have completed a water supply assessment for the project.

In the first-ever appellate court decision regarding the California Environmental Quality Act and climate change, the First District Court of Appeal has held that the future development of a plan for greenhouse gas mitigation constituted improperly deferred mitigation. For that reason and others, the court ruled the environmental impact report for an oil refinery project was invalid.

After recently clearing its docket of California Environmental Quality Act cases, the state Supreme Court has accepted a new CEQA case for review.