The majority today holds that the words “negligible or no expansion of existing or former use” mean “negligible or no expansion of existing or former use.” I agree, of course. Who wouldn’t?”
— Concurring Opinion of Associate Justice Leondra R. Kruger
In an opinion filed on June 25, 2026, the California Supreme Court reversed the…
On June 30, 2026, the Governor’s Office of Land Use and Climate Innovation (LCI) released its long-awaited Statewide Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) Mitigation Program Guidance (“Guidance”), implementing one of the more significant (and perhaps one of the least discussed) provisions of last summer’s AB 130. While much of the attention surrounding AB 130 focused on…
For a long time, one of the central tensions in California land use law has been the uneasy relationship between Housing Element Law and CEQA. Under Housing Element Law, local governments are required to identify and rezone sites to accommodate their Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA). At the same time, those same rezonings have generally…
In a partially published opinion filed June 5, 2026, the First District Court of Appeal (Div. 1) affirmed a judgment entered after Defendant and Respondent Bay Area Toll Authority’s (BATA) demurrer brought on statute of limitations grounds to a CEQA action challenging the “Bay Lights 360” Bay Bridge illumination project was sustained without leave to…
“Fishing is an art of patience and timing.” – Daan Uijterwaal
In a published opinion filed May 29, 2026, the First District Court of Appeal (Div. 3) affirmed a judgment denying a petition for a writ of ordinary mandamus to compel public agency respondents, including the City and County of San Francisco (“City”) and the…
Parties intervening in a CEQA case and actively litigating to defend the agency’s challenged decision in order to protect a direct and immediate interest are subject to being held jointly and severally liable for a successful plaintiff’s attorneys’ fees under Code of Civil Procedure section 1021.5, just like respondent agencies and real parties who similarly…
In an important published opinion filed March 26, 2026, the First District Court of Appeal (Div. 2) affirmed a trial court’s judgment denying the third CEQA writ petition filed over the last fifteen years challenging Caltrans’ EIR for a project to improve a one-mile stretch of U.S. Highway 101 running through Richardson Grove State Park…
In a lengthy published opinion filed March 5, 2026, the Second District Court of Appeal (Div. 6) affirmed the trial court’s judgment adopting a “physical solution,” to be implemented by a watermaster, in a multiparty, three-phase litigation adjudicating competing groundwater rights in a Ventura County basin pursuant to the procedures of Code of Civil Procedure section 830 et seq. …
In a published opinion filed March 4, 2026, the Third District Court of Appeal affirmed the trial court’s post-judgment order denying losing CEQA plaintiffs’ motion for attorneys’ fees brought pursuant to Code of Civil Procedure (“CCP”) section 1021.5 under a catalyst theory. Physicians for Social Responsibility – Los Angeles et al. v Department of Toxic Substances Control…
In a partially published opinion filed on February 2, 2026, the First District Court of Appeal (Div. 3) addressed a “weighty issue . . . affecting the CEQA responsibilities of local governments throughout the state” in reversing the trial court’s judgment granting a writ petition challenging the adequacy of the Town of Tiburon’s (“Town”) program…
