CEQA
CEQA and Local Land Use Regulations: Shakedown Street
Local Government Discretion Has Powerful Political Support
Eric’s post the other day about CEQA and local land use regulation states an important and often-overlooked truth: environmental review can only hold up a project if it is discretionary. If local land use regulations state clearly what a developer can and cannot do, then no amount of environmental review could change a decision, and …
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CONTINUE READINGCEQA and Local Land-Use Regulations
California gubernatorial candidates debate the role of CEQA and local land-use regulations in the state’s housing crisis
The first (and probably only) debate in the California governor’s race happened earlier this week between Democratic nominee Gavin Newsom and Republican nominee John Cox. Appropriately enough both candidates were asked how they were going to address the state’s housing crisis. Newsom’s response was an ambitious target of 500,000 new homes/year through 2025 (far higher …
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CONTINUE READINGMitigating Increased Driving Miles From New Projects Under CEQA
New Berkeley Law/CLEE report released today; Webinar discussion on Tuesday, October 30th
California law now requires developers of new projects, like apartment buildings, offices, and roads, to reduce the amount of overall driving miles the projects generate. Senate Bill 743 (Steinberg, 2013) authorized this change in the method of analyzing transportation impacts under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), from auto delay to vehicle miles traveled (VMT). …
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CONTINUE READINGWhat is the role of CEQA in California’s housing crisis?
Ongoing research suggests that CEQA is more a symptom than the cause of the problem.
This blog post was authored by Moira O’Neill, Giulia Gualco-Nelson, and Eric Biber. Discussions about what laws and regulations might drive up housing costs continue in California. One reoccurring theme in the media is the question of whether the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) significantly contributes to the housing crisis in California by either driving …
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CONTINUE READINGHere we go again…
Two more proposals to provide CEQA relief to sports stadiums
It’s another legislative season in Sacramento, so yet another opportunity for legislators to hand out regulatory goodies to large corporations and wealthy people, in the form of CEQA “streamlining” for the construction of sports stadiums. There are two bills currently in the queue: AB 734 which would benefit the Oakland A’s and AB 987 which …
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CONTINUE READINGSB 827 and the Concept of Deregulation
When land-use deregulation gets characterized as regulation, and why
Perhaps the biggest topic in land-use law and housing affordability in California over the past couple of months has been a piece of legislation introduced by State Senator Wiener, SB 827. Ethan has blogged quite a bit about the bill – the basic concept of the legislation is to eliminate or significantly restrict a number …
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CONTINUE READINGSurveying the Landscape of Local Zoning and CEQA
First report from Berkeley/Columbia research project shows how Bay Area residential developments negotiate land-use and CEQA review
A group of interdisciplinary researchers from law and planning (which I am part of) just released its first report on how CEQA and land-use law shape the process of regulating and approving residential developments in five Bay Area cities. (I first posted about our research here.) I’ve included the Executive Summary below, and the full …
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CONTINUE READINGComprehensive New State Survey Shows California Environmental Quality Act Rarely Impedes New Projects
Study covered all state-led projects over a 5-year period
A constant complaint from many business leaders and their allies is the high cost of complying with the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), the state’s signature environmental law which requires environmental review for major new projects. But a new survey from the State of California shows that the law rarely affects most projects where the …
CONTINUE READINGIs CEQA the problem?
Developing a better understanding of how land-use law and housing production interact in California
On Friday, the Governor signed a package of housing bills intended to help address the soaring costs of housing in many metro areas in California. Follow-up coverage of that bill package has (rightly) indicated that those bills are a drop in the bucket in terms of addressing California’s housing crisis. One theme that emerges in …
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CONTINUE READINGThe CEQA Exemption that Ate LA
A bold attempt to get a huge exemption from state’s marquee environmental law
The California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) is a state law that requires full analysis, public disclosure, and where feasible, mitigation of environmental impacts from state and local government projects, including permits for private development. I’ve written before about the problematic nature of exempting specific projects from CEQA. In general, my concern is that once you …
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