When Is An Infill Parcel Not An Infill Parcel?
- William Fulton
- Nov 30, 2024
- 4 min read
Updated: Jan 21
What’s infill development and what’s not?
And how good does transit service have to be for new projects nearby to be regarded as “transit-oriented development”?
As a recent court ruling from, of all places, King City illustrates, there are lots of different definitions in California state law about these kinds of things – and interpreting those definitions makes a huge difference in whether projects move through the entitlement process quickly or grind through environmental review slowly.
The King City case appeared to be a classic case of a labor union using the California Environmental Quality Act to try to slow or kill a project involving a business that would threaten a nearby unionized business.
King City agreed to sell an old piece of redevelopment property to Grocery Outlet, the discount grocery chain. (Most Grocery Outlets are not unionized.) The property used to be a car sales lot and is completely surrounded by developed property, including a cemetery and Highway 101. So King City invoked the so-called Class 32 exemption under CEQA.
But the Grocery Outlet would be located less than a half-mile away from an existing Safeway store, where workers are represented by the United Food and Commercial Workers. Organizations and individuals affiliated with UFCW sued, claiming that a different set of definitions about infill development should apply, which the plaintiffs claimed the Grocery Outlet didn’t meet.
But that’s not the only confusing set of definitions we find in state law dealing with infill development. Transit-oriented development also sometimes qualifies for a CEQA exemption (as well as, in many cases, reduced parking requirements.) But TOD too is subject to various definitions, including a pretty significant change from a new law passed in 2024 and set to go into effect in 2025.
The Class 32 CEQA exemption that King City used for Grocery Outlet (CEQA Guidelines §15332) is pretty straightforward. Although it’s subject to some additional conditions, basically any development project that is less than five acres and “substantially surrounded by urban uses”. Cities are using the Class 32 exemption more and more these days, and the King City situation seemed typical.
