For the second time in two years, the California Legislature handed a one-off regulation to bypass the California Environmental High quality Act. And this time, the optics aren’t good: In June, the Legislature exempted its personal new workplace constructing undertaking from CEQA.
The brand new regulation handed rapidly. Even Sen. John Laird of Santa Cruz, one of many state’s main environmentalists, expressed concern about the way in which CEQA was driving delays and subsequently the price of the undertaking, which is kind of the identical concern that builders have been expressing endlessly about CEQA.
The state workplace constructing exemption comes on the heels of the same motion final 12 months that saved a UC Berkeley dorm and condo undertaking alive on the location of Individuals’s Park, regardless of a courtroom discovering that noisy college students within the new residences may represent a big environmental influence that required CEQA evaluation and mitigation.
Everyone likes to hate the California Environmental High quality Act — besides the environmentalists, neighborhood teams and unions that use it and infrequently abuse it. These teams have sufficient political energy to create an everlasting stalemate in Sacramento over whether or not and the best way to reform CEQA. Minus rational reform, the Legislature exempts tasks one after the other, punching holes within the regulation — let’s name it the Swiss cheese method to public coverage. Legislators ought to have extra braveness.
CEQA was handed in 1970, as environmentalism took off. It was carried within the Legislature by a Republican — Assemblymember (and later Gov.) Pete Wilson — and it was signed by a Republican — Gov. Ronald Reagan. The regulation doesn’t defend the setting instantly. Somewhat, it requires cities and counties to investigate and decrease the probably environmental impact of latest improvement. It additionally offers nearly anyone standing to problem that evaluation and the mitigation effort in courtroom, so long as the lawsuit is filed inside 90 days of the native authorities’s “closing” allowing choice.
CEQA’s proponents argue that they’re simply attempting to make tasks higher, which regularly does occur. However CEQA offers a lot of alternatives for third events to sluggish issues down and to attempt to kill proposed tasks for a lot of causes — easy NIMBYism, for instance, or competitors amongst rival builders — that don’t have anything to do with actual environmental issues. And it can provide unions leverage to extract labor concessions from builders and their business tenants that isn’t simply obtainable in any other case.
It’s troublesome to place a quantity on the price of CEQA, although one current research confirmed that in 2020, about 40% of the proposed housing items in California have been topic to some sort of CEQA lawsuits. Clearly a lot of these items have been constructed ultimately — not all CEQA lawsuits are profitable — however the litigation slows issues down and provides expense and uncertainty to the method.
Because of the efforts of state Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), some inexpensive housing tasks now get a free go from CEQA — so long as they use union labor. Yard “accent dwelling items” are exempt. Different infill housing tasks — new housing on vacant tons and underused tons in current communities — generally qualify for an exemption, too, and cities are utilizing these potential exemptions extra usually. Some tasks designated by the state as vital additionally get faster decision in courtroom, as was the case just lately with the Websites Reservoir in Colusa County.
To a sure extent, the Swiss cheese method in these instances is smart. Incremental change is simpler than wholesale reform. But it surely has additionally led to large inequities.
when you’re constructing houses for school college students, you may get a CEQA break. But when UC or Cal State needs to construct lecture rooms and labs for those self same college students, likelihood is they’ll have to organize a protracted and costly environmental influence report. And, after all, when you’re constructing houses for the scholars after they graduate, you don’t get a CEQA break — until you’re constructing in sure areas or for sure earnings teams.
And whereas massive infrastructure tasks just like the Websites Reservoir might qualify for streamlined courtroom evaluate, it’s on the governor’s discretion. There are not any set standards that mechanically fast-track a undertaking.
It’s time to cease punching holes in CEQA and repair it as an alternative. The state ought to streamline CEQA evaluate for tasks that meet California’s coverage objectives on local weather, in addition to assembly native plans and ordinances that assist these objectives. A constant customary must be utilized in each case.
Setting requirements would additionally assist to finish the usage of CEQA as blackmail. If environmental teams, neighborhood associations or unions need land-use planning to assist them meet their objectives, they need to interact in that battle when the land-use insurance policies are being made, not on a project-by-project foundation utilizing CEQA as a cudgel.
Typical knowledge would counsel that such reforms are politically troublesome if not inconceivable to attain. However what number of holes does the Legislature should punch in CEQA — both for the state’s personal tasks or these of politically influential mates — earlier than the Swiss cheese method leaves the state’s progress and improvement insurance policies in shreds?
William Fulton is editor and writer of “California Planning & Growth Report.” He’s a former mayor of Ventura and planning director of San Diego.
