For more than half a century the California Environmental Quality Act has been the centerpiece of state efforts to protect communities from air pollution, traffic congestion and sprawl.
Local lawmakers from both sides of the aisle think it’s time to revamp it.
They want to dial back the way the law, known as CEQA, is applied to housing projects, arguing that anti-growth groups use it to delay construction of new homes, even if there’s no real environmental risk.
“The process known as CEQA has been weaponized by people who don’t want to see projects built, to threaten to halt projects, to delay projects,” Assemblymember David Alvarez told me.
He’s one of the authors of a bill, AB 609, which would exempt housing development projects from CEQA requirements to speed housing construction in California. The exemptions would only apply to projects 20 acres or less, in urban areas or within city boundaries. So mega-housing tracts on hundreds of acres in the backcountry wouldn’t get a pass.
One of its other authors is Buffy Wicks, an Oakland Democrat who led a legislation package to fast track housing construction. Wicks has been on a tear to slash state regulations and released a report on her findings last month. CalMatters’ reporter Ben Christopher took a closer look at those bills in this article last week.
Even lawmakers who have made environmental protection their signature issue say CEQA is sometimes deployed in ways that undermine sustainability.
“In the past there was a mindset that thou shalt not touch CEQA, that it is a Holy Grail, and I reject that,” state Sen. Catherine Blakespear, chair of the Senate Committee on Environmental Quality, and former mayor of Encinitas, told me.
The Story of CEQA: The debate over the act is part of a broader conflict between state housing policy and local land use authority. Our Tigist Layne explored that tension in her story about how Encinitas city leaders are battling what they consider “overreaching” state housing laws.
Today, CEQA’s defenders are largely Democratic, but its original proponents were Republican. In 1970, then-Governor Ronald Reagan signed the act, a year after former President Richard Nixon passed the National Environmental Protection Act.
CEQA requires state agencies and local governments to analyze and disclose significant environmental effects of a proposed project, describe ways to minimize those problems, and identify alternatives to the project.
Environmental groups often invoke the law to protect sensitive habitat or species in wilderness areas. And they say it’s crucial to fighting urban environmental issues including air pollution, climate emissions and transportation problems.
For instance, developers of an apartment building that’s likely to generate more traffic might have to pay for road improvements to prevent that impact. Builders of a housing subdivision may need to suppress dust to protect air quality during construction.
Use or Misuse? But developers and business groups complain that it can also be a roadblock to construction of new homes and infrastructure.
As housing prices soar and homelessness grows, California has fallen far below the number of homes it needs to build each year.
“The housing shortage of 2.5 million has led to there being nearly 200,000 homeless people in the state, 80% of low-income households cannot afford the rent without sacrificing other basic needs, and only 1 in 6 households can afford the median priced home,” Wicks’ report states.
Between 1990 and 2021, San Diego County permitted 93,000 new homes: only about a third of what it needed to accommodate population growth during that period, the county stated in its August 2024 Housing Blueprint.
Senate Minority Leader Brian Jones said he’s firmly on the side of local land use control, after serving on the Santee City Council and working in commercial real estate. But he thinks cities that want to build new homes are being held hostage by court challenges under the law.
“Across the board I am opposed to the way CEQA is being used in California to prevent development,” Jones told me. “When a local city council votes to approve a project, it is my opinion that they are voting based on what they are hearing from their constituents, and what they want in their community. And then some law firm or environmental group sues under CEQA and holds it up for a number of years.”
Blakespear is on the same page as her colleagues. Although the law aims to ensure safe, sustainable development and public access to government decisions, people sometimes subvert that, she said.
“I believe we do need CEQA reform and we need CEQA exemptions and need to have CEQA used for the purposes it was designed for, which is environmental protection and transparency,” she told me. “CEQA has been used to stop projects, to delay projects, to make them enormously more expensive, and that is a misuse of the law.”
Other Ideas to Speed Up Housing Construction
Alvarez introduced another bill, AB 610, which would lock rules in place within city housing elements. He said it would provide certainty to builders that the regulations in effect when they receive their permits don’t change after they start building.
“What often happens is once that project gets approved, literally on the next day cities can turn around and add more restrictions” he said. “This says, once you create your document, you can’t add more rules.”
Blakespear said the state needs to be smarter about its regulations. It should focus on getting more housing, clean energy and broadband on the ground, instead of enforcing bureaucratic to-do lists.
“We need things to work better, we need things to be built faster, and we need to reduce the use of process at the expense of results,” she said.
Jones wants to ramp up production of building materials such as cement, timber, asphalt, iron, steel and glass within California, to make housing construction faster and less costly. He thinks the state should strengthen local governments’ land use authority and set them up for success.
“Communities should decide how to grow, but with that comes the responsibility to ensure there is enough housing for all Californians,” he said.
The Sacramento Report runs every Friday. Do you have tips, ideas or questions? Send them to me at deborah@voiceofsandiego.org.