CEQA - California Environmental Quality Act

For the developers in CA - What is your experience with it and why is it such a big deal?

Context: I used to do redevelopment so I never really had to deal with the process until now, at a new firm, my project is getting drawn out because of all the crap we have to do along with the appeal process.

I know a lot of developers hate it, but never understood why - I’m starting to feel the pain though. Is it the process, bureaucracy, or the actual guidelines that frustrates developers?

4 Comments
 

Passing along information for future monkeys eager to learn. Spoke with a few other CA Developers to get their take:

  1. CEQA requires you to do an assessment of potential impacts on the environment - noise, pollution, traffic, birds, fart etc. the issue is that it's not clear cut as to what is an actual impact vs not so it's very subjective. This invites neighbors to be upset about anything.
  1. Your consultants are supposed to be the "experts" in their field, but can easily be questioned by a commissioner who has absolutely no technical background or a nimby who read an article on Qanon Daily.
  1. There's no obstacle to file an appeal other than a simple fee. Any lawyer who represents the opposition can file a cookie cutter appeal with no real backing. This appeal prolongs your project and could eventually move it up a level in terms of review.

Even if you checked all the boxes and your experts and staff confirm there is no impact or provide solutions to mitigate impacts, it is still easy for anyone to sue, appeal, or drag out your project because of CEQA. And to the previous comment, there are a lot of assholes in CA who will do this to drag your project out just for the hell of it.

 
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In order to satisfy the CEQA process for a significant development project, many developers are forced to process an Environmental Impact Report which basically responds to every individual assessment item and the project's potential impact on same. The EIR process along can take about a year and costs upwards of $1M between legal assistance in drafting the report and all of the related consultant fees. 

The assessment items number in the dozens. Any individual assessment item can be used as the basis for a lawsuit against the project and railroad the entitlements. It's why developing in CA is so complicated. Not only do you have to figure out how to navigate the complexities of CEQA, you have to figure out how to manage the risks of (often) of a seven figure carry, with a multi year entitlement period that can get railroaded for all of these minute CEQA reasons, in addition to other NIMBY issues. 

 

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