Property owners who acted illegally by blocking parking on a public street fronting their houses were not entitled to use the County's alleged noncompliance with CEQA as a defense to actions enforcing encroachment laws.  Anderson v. County of Santa Barbara, 94 Cal.App.5th 554 (2023).

An environmental impact report need not discuss impacts that are too speculative in nature for proper evaluation or assess economic costs not linked to a physical change in the environment. County of Butte v. Dept. of Water Resources, 90 Cal.App.5th 147 (2023).

The Court of Appeal upheld the City's determination that compensatory mitigation for the loss of a historic building in the form of funding of other historic preservation was not feasible because there were no other buildings in the downtown areas with the same architectural style, period of significance, and purpose. Preservation Action Council of San Jose v.

The appellate court invalidated the City's reliance on CEQA's Class 32 in-fill exemption to approve construction of a hotel because the project included demolition of affordable housing and thereby conflicted with General Plan policies favoring preservation of such housing. United Neighborhoods for Los Angeles v. City of Los Angeles, 93 Cal.App.5th 1074 (2023).

In Save Our Access v. City of San Diego, 92 Cal. App.

Contribution claims brought under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) are not barred by prior environmental litigation if the property at issue and types of claims brought are distinct from previous claims. GP Vincent III v. Estate of Beard, No. 21-16555 (9th. Cir. May 17, 2023).

The Court of Appeal upheld the City of Newport Beach's reliance on an EIR addendum to approve a residential project whose impacts had been evaluated in a 2006 Program EIR for a general plan update. Olen Properties Corp. v. City of Newport Beach, 93 Cal. App. 5th 270 (2023).

The Court of Appeal held that the addition of cannabis retailers to existing commercial neighborhoods through an overlay zoning district was exempt from CEQA as consistent with the existing General Plan and related EIR. Lucas v. City of Pomona, 92 Cal.App.5th 508 (2023).

The court of appeal upheld the project description in the EIR for the University of California, Berkeley's fire hazard vegetation reduction plan, holding that it contained sufficient information to understand the plan's environmental impacts, including objective criteria for vegetation removal, even though it did not include a detailed tree inventory or disclose the exact number of trees that w