Litigation abuse is all too familiar to those engaged in the herculean task of getting new development approved in California.  See, for instance, Jennifer Hernandez’s 2022 report for the Center for Jobs & the Economy, titled “Anti-Housing CEQA Lawsuits Filed in 2020 Challenge Nearly 50% of California’s 100,000 Annual Housing Production” and blogged on here.  Or a 2022 case out of the First District, Tiburon Open Space Committee v. County of Marin (2022) 78 Cal.App.5th 700 (blogged on here), in which the court lamented the fact that CEQA can “be manipulated to be a formidable tool of obstruction” and concluded with the rather dire observation that “[s]omething is very wrong with this picture.” 

“Do not go gentle into that good night.  Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

– Dylan Thomas

In a published decision filed October 7, 2024, the Third District Court of Appeal affirmed the trial court’s judgment rejecting a CEQA challenge to the revised EIR for the State Capitol renovation project based on recent legislation exempting that project from CEQA.  Save Our Capitol! v. Department of General Services (Joint Committee on Rules of the California State Senate and Assembly) (2024) 101 Cal.App.5th 1237.  This was the Court’s third published appellate decision in the CEQA litigation over the controversial project; see my posts dated January 2 and January 23, 2023 and May 23, 2024, covering the Court’s initial two published decisions finding flaws in the project EIR, and in the trial court’s premature discharge of the remedial writ, and my post dated July 11, 2024 covering the dispositive statutory CEQA exemption enacted through SB 174.