Another Wildfire Evacuation CEQA Ruling Delays A Project
- William Fulton
- Feb 13, 2023
- 2 min read
The issue of wildfire evacuation routes is threatening to bring down another major development project – this time, a 536-unit residential project in the suburban Rancho Penasquitos area. A San Diego County Superior Court judge ruled that the city should have included an analysis of wildlife evacuation routes in the environmental impact report. The judge also ruled that the city should have considered the cumulative impact of the Junipers project and two other nearby pending projects but did not do so in the EIR. In the last year, wildfire evacuation routes have become a major issue under the California Environmental Quality Act. Among other cases, the Fanita Ranch project in nearby Santee was shut down by a different San Diego judge on wildfire evacuation issues last year. At a CEQA seminar in December, Ron Milam of Fehr & Peers expressed concern about wildfire evacuation as a CEQA issue, saying, ““This is one of those ones that if you’re not careful will expand.” Locally, the cumulative impact angle got more attention, especially from San Diego City Attorney Mara Elliott. The Junipers project, proposed by Lennar, is a gated community, which will redevelop the property that was the former location of a golf course. But two other projects are being developed nearby, including Minnenium PQ, a 313-unit apartment building, and The Trails at Carmel Highlands, which would add 826 homes. Local residents, organized as PQ-NE Action Group, argued in the CEQA lawsuit that the city should have considered the cumulative impact of all three projects. In San Franciscans for Reasonable Growth v. City and County of San Francisco (1984) 151 Cal. App. 3d 61, the seminal case on the issue, the First District court of Appeal said that projects “under environmental review” should be examined for their cumulative impact. This view was later added to the CEQA guidelines (Cal. Code Regs. Tit. 14, § 15355), which defines cumulative impact as “the change in the environment which results from the incremental impact of the project when added to other closely related past, present, and reasonably foreseeable probable future projects.” In the Junipers case, the city did not examine the cumulative impact of the three projects because the other two applications had not been “deemed complete” when the Notice of Preparation for the EIR was issued in 12018. But San Diego Superior Court Judge Ronald Frazier concluded:. “The city was clearly aware Millennium PQ and Trails were reasonably probably future projects. Thus, the EIR fails to comply with CEQA because it did not adequately consider the cumulative impact of Millennium PQ, Trails, and the Project.” The ruling raised Elliott’s ire. She told the San Diego Union-Tribune: “We disagree with the ruling, which could potentially require the city to restart the environmental review process whenever a second, unrelated project is proposed nearby, delaying completion of the first project.” The case is PQ-NE Action Group v. City of San Diego, No. 37-2021-00033583-CU-TT-CTL (tentative ruling filed February 2, 2023).