Examples of CEQA weaponization
Last month, California passed legislation exempting infill housing from CEQA.
What is CEQA? Ben Christopher, Cal Matters: One of the biggest obstacles to building new CA housing has now vanished.
Unlike most environmental laws, which explicitly mandate, monitor or ban certain environmental behavior, CEQA is just a public disclosure requirement. The 54-year-old statute requires state and local governments to study and publicize the likely environmental impact of any decisions they make. That includes the permitting of new housing.
The law allows any individual or group to sue if they argue that a required environmental study isn’t accurate, expansive or detailed enough. Such lawsuits — and even the mere threat of them —add a degree of delay, cost and uncertainty that make it impossible for the state to build its way to affordability, CEQA’s critics argue.
Jae Hendrix of YIMBY Action explains what’s changed. California Passes Transformational CEQA Reform Law, Ending Decades of Environmental and Housing Policy Failure.
Under the new law, infill housing projects under 85 feet tall and on parcels that are at least 75% surrounded by existing development will no longer be required to conduct duplicative environmental studies just to avoid lawsuits. This will dramatically reduce the time and cost of building homes in existing cities—where housing is most needed and where it does the most to reduce emissions.
Examples of how CEQA has been weaponized
Jay Parsons on Twitter:
All the articles portraying California's CEQA rollback as a blow to environmentalism inspired me to look for egregious examples of how CEQA has been weaponized to stall/block housing development.
Here are 10 crazy cases I found.
1) A trade union used CEQA to claim a proposed Sunnyvale apartment project "will be a bloodbath of birds due to the proposed building's reflective windows." June 2019.
2) A student housing project in Berkeley was delayed by a lawsuit alleging that new housing would violate CEQA because it would create "noise pollution." June 2024.
3) A 63-unit housing project in San Francisco was blocked "because it briefly shades a park’s basketball court after 6pm," citing CEQA. April 2019.
4) The town of Woodside used CEQA to declare itself a "mountain lion sanctuary" in an attempt to block affordable housing projects from getting built. February 2022.
5) A developer spent 10+ years trying to build a 222-unit apartment project near a BART station in Oakland, delayed by CEQA challenges from "a coalition of labor groups" using the name "East Bay Residents for Responsible Development." December 2021.
6) Construction was delayed for years on a 30-story apartment tower in Hollywood by a CEQA lawsuit claiming the city didn't adequately study impacts on traffic and safety. September 2017.
7) A San Francisco apartment project was delayed for years, first by claims that it would displace an "historic" laundromat and then by using CEQA to complain about the "shadows" created by a new structure. June 2018.
8) Opponents filed a CEQA lawsuit to try to block affordable housing from getting built on surface parking lots in Downtown Menlo Park.
9) Opponents used CEQA in filing four different lawsuits trying to stop affordable housing from getting built on parking lots in the town of Eureka.
10) Opponents tried to block a tiny homes project to house the homeless in Sacramento, using CEQA to claim "the city didn’t take into account the environmental impact or health implications."
More
Beyond NIMBYism: antigrowth activism, political ideology, and the origins of the housing crisis. Lecture by Jacob Anbinder, March 2024.