Latest CEQA Reform Effort a ‘Major Needle-Mover,’ Some Housing Advocates Say

Keith Menconi | Examiner staff writer reports that some housing advocates are cheering recent efforts by Senator Scott Weiner, SB 607 bill author and co-author Assemblymember Buffy Wicks for introducing this legislation.

North Bay Leadership Council is among those too cheering this latest push to reform California’s environmental review standards and get California building again.

“State Sen. Scott Wiener, who represents San Francisco, has put forward a bill — SB 607 — that would make a number of highly technical changes aimed at narrowing the scope of the California Environmental Quality Act, a decades-old environmental law that critics say has been harnessed to block all manner of projects throughout the state. The proposed changes, for the most part, expand the range of projects that receive exemptions from the environmental reviews required by CEQA.”

“The measure would offer welcome relief for housing developers, said Corey Smith, executive director of the San Francisco-based Housing Action Coalition, which advocates for home builders. The organization is among a number of other pro-housing development groups that have so far rallied in its support of Wiener’s proposal.”

“CEQA has made housing in places like San Francisco more expensive and take longer to build,” Smith said.

Menconi continues, “Wiener’s bill targets the rollback of CEQA’s reviews only to cover “environmentally friendly and environmentally neutral projects,” according to a press release from his office. But environmental legal experts say the changes could be far more sweeping.”

“It rips the heart out of CEQA,” said Richard Drury, an Oakland-based environmental lawyer who has litigated CEQA cases for decades.

“The law — first passed in 1970 — requires studies to determine the potential environmental impact from projects, including how they could affect air quality, waterways and noise pollution. Over the decades, however, critics say the measure has been extended well beyond the original intent of lawmakers, and used as a cudgel to block a broad range of projects — everything from new housing developments, to shelters for the homeless, to transportation infrastructure — by adding additional layers of review that often takes years to complete”, Menconi writes.

NBLC has been a long-spoken critic and supports reforms. In the 50 years since CEQA was passed, Congress and the Legislature have adopted more than 120 laws to protect the environment including air quality, water quality, species protection, greenhouse gas reduction, responsible land-use planning and more.  However, CEQA has not received a major update to take these new laws and the reality of the state’s housing crisis into account. As a result, many environmentally desirable projects are being held up by abusive CEQA lawsuits and unintended consequences of the law.

NBLC believes that compliance with California's stringent environmental standards should mean something, but instead, CEQA is being abused to stop projects that "play by the rules" and comply with all applicable standards—causing delays of years and increased taxpayer costs and sometimes even killing good projects altogether.

Menconi continues, “Wiener’s proposal, introduced last month, would expand upon existing CEQA exemptions put in place in recent years. Those include measures championed by Wiener that exclude student housing, certain transportation projects, and supportive housing for the homeless from CEQA review.

“I'm not one of these people who wants to get rid of CEQA,” said Wiener in an interview with The Examiner. “But I want it to be very focused on actually protecting the environment without preventing California from building all of the things that we need to succeed.”

The proposals make fine-grained tweaks to the complicated statutes undergirding the application of CEQA. They include changes that would limit the scope of CEQA reviews as well as the range of administrative records that would be included in environmental studies.”

Stakeholders on all sides agree that, after 50 years, there are important improvements that can be made to CEQA. These reforms must retain the foundation of the law – public disclosure and environmental protection – while limiting misuses and expanding exemptions for the critical projects that have little to do with the environment and jeopardize economic growth and environmental leadership.

North Bay Leadership Council (NBLC) representing business, education, hospitals, clean tech, transit, affordable housing and other organizations that support these moderate reforms to CEQA that will preserve its original intent – environmental protection and public disclosure – while furthering job creation, community renewal and our environment.