By Jeffrey Chine, Spencer Kallick, E. Bo Peterson, Heather Riley
Allen Matkins : jdsupra – excerpt
In Union of Medical Marijuana Patients, Inc. v. City of San Diego, the California Supreme Court considered the definition of a “project” under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). The Court held that a lead agency needs to consider reasonably foreseeable direct and indirect potential physical impacts on the environment at the outset of the CEQA process and rejected the efforts of the City of San Diego (City) to delay the environmental analysis of a zoning ordinance to a later date. As a consequence of the ruling, lead agencies may be forced to analyze the potential indirect impacts of activities, like zoning code changes, previously thought to be outside the reach of CEQA.
This case is important because the determination of what activities constitute a “project” is the first step in the CEQA evaluation process. If a proposed activity is found not to be a “project,” a lead agency may proceed without further CEQA review. The result of this case may well be that public agencies take a more conservative view and determine many more activities constitute a project, thus subjecting such activities to further CEQA review…(more)