CEQA YEAR IN REVIEW 2025 A Summary of Published Appellate Opinions involving the California Environmental Quality Act

In a striking departure from recent years, the courts of appeal published only eight CEQA opinions in 2025. Of these decisions, four found prejudicial CEQA violations in negative declarations and EIRs and provide important guidance for lead agencies and practitioners.

The first reported decision ever to hold that a lead agency failed to meet its tribal consultation obligations under CEQA is Koi Nation v. City of Clearlake. The case emphasized that AB 52, which added tribal cultural resources to CEQA analysis in 2014, imposes important duties on lead agencies, particularly with respect to tribe-suggested mitigation measures, that differ procedurally and substantively from those that apply to other environmental issues.

Two other decisions concluded that lead agencies failed to grapple successfully with the CEQA issues raised by climate change. In one, San Diego County tried to identify types of projects that it would treat as exempt from vehicle miles traveled (VMT) analysis. The court held that substantial evidence did not support two of the categories the County identified and that more detailed local data were required. Cleveland National Forest Foundation v. County of San Diego. In the second case, Center for Biological Diversity v. County of Los Angeles, the court held that the EIR for a large mixed-use development was fatally flawed because it stated that the project’s GHG emissions were “offset” by the state’s cap-and-trade program even though the project was not part of that program.

Finally, in the second round of San Diego’s Midway District litigation, the court of appeal held that the city still had not lawfully addressed the potential impacts of increasing the district’s building height limit from 30 feet to 100 feet. The court held that approval of the height increase would require analysis of issues such as redirection of noise and air pollution around taller buildings. Save Our Access v. City of San Diego.

CEQA IN RELATION TO OTHER STATUTES

Old Golden Oaks v. City of Amador, 111 Cal. App. 5th 794 (2025)

County’s Encroachment Permit Application Checklist Violated Permit Streamlining Act But Grading Permit Application Checklist Upheld

A Court of Appeal held that a catch-all provision in the County of Amador’s checklist for an encroachment permit requiring "other information as may be required" violated the Permit Streamlining Act. However, the court found that the County’s grading permit application checklist was sufficient to justify its determination that the developer’s application for that permit was incomplete, including for failure to include certain “information necessary to comply with CEQA.”

Tulare Lake Basin Water Storage District v. Department of Water Resources, 115 Cal. App. 5th 342 (2025)

Preliminary Geotechnical Work for Delta Project Not Subject to CEQA Piecemealing Prohibition

The Third District Court of Appeal has held that the Delta Reform Act’s certification-of-consistency requirement does not incorporate CEQA’s “whole-of-an-action” requirement and prohibition against piecemealing. The court reasoned that the purposes of the CEQA and the Delta Reform Act are different. While the anti-piecemealing requirement under CEQA is intended to inform and guide decision makers about all reasonably foreseeable environmental effects before project approval, the Delta Reform Act’s certification of consistency is prepared and submitted after project approval and, unlike an EIR, does not serve as an informational document.

EXEMPTIONS

Krovoza v. City of Davis, 117 Cal.App.5th 623 (2025)

Unusual Circumstances Exception to Categorical Exemption Not Established by Violation of Noise Ordinance.

The City of Davis decided to relocate noisy playground equipment within a park, relying on CEQA categorical exemptions. The court of appeal rejected neighbors’ claims that because the equipment in its original location violated the City’s noise ordinance, unusual circumstances existed that precluded application of the categorical exemptions to support the equipment’s relocation.

Assuming without deciding that use of the equipment did in fact violate the noise ordinance, the court noted that that was an existing condition. The city studied three different sites within the park for relocation of the equipment; the noise study established that if the equipment were moved to Location B, noise levels at the two nearest residential boundaries would be reduced compared to operation at the existing location.

For this reason, the court found the challengers had not met their burden to establish the “unusual circumstances” exception to the categorical exemptions: (1) that the project would have a significant effect on the environment; or (2) that the project had some feature distinguishing it from others in the exempt class and that there was a reasonable possibility of a significant environmental effect due to that unusual circumstance.

SIGNIFICANCE THRESHOLDS

Cleveland National Forest Foundation v. County of San Diego, 109 Cal. App. 5th 1257 (2025)

County Thresholds for Exempting Projects from Vehicle Miles Traveled Analysis Not Supported by Substantial Evidence.

A court of appeal rejected a county’s effort to identify development in “infill village areas” and small developments generating fewer than 110 daily vehicle trips as exempt from VMT analysis. The court held that the county should have provided data, not mere assumptions, showing that development in the infill village areas would actually result in lower VMT; the county also erred in expanding the areas it characterized as infill even though some of those areas did not match its own infill definition. As to the small-project threshold, the court found that the county’s adoption of a statewide threshold recommendation (fewer than 110 daily trips), without any evidence as to why that threshold was appropriate specifically for San Diego County, also did not satisfy the substantial-evidence test.

NEGATIVE DECLARATIONS

Koi Nation of Northern California v. City of Clearlake, 109 Cal. App. 5th 815 (2025)

Mitigated Negative Declaration Overturned for City’s Failure to Meet AB 52 Tribal Consultation Requirements

In the first published decision to overturn a project approval for failure to comply with AB 52, the First District Court of Appeal held that the City of Clearlake did not follow through on its obligations under CEQA’s tribal consultation requirements. The court overturned the City’s Mitigated Negative Declaration and project approvals.

AB 52 amended CEQA to require lead agencies to separately consider tribal cultural resources and to consult with tribal governments on the identification of such resources, potential impacts on the resources, and potential mitigation measures. Here, the City initiated consultation and the Tribe’s designated representative responded; his responses included requests for “retention of on-site tribal cultural monitors during development and all ground disturbance activities and the adoption of a specific protocol for handling human remains and cultural resources.” The City’s record showed no response and the Tribe’s representative learned that these measures were not part of the City’s plan for the project months later, when the City released an MND that did not include the measures. The City ultimately modified the project’s mitigation measures but still did not require monitoring.

The court of appeal held that the City never concluded AB 52’s consultation requirements. Specifically, a consultation is considered concluded when the parties “agree to measures to mitigate or avoid a significant effect, if a significant effect exists, on a tribal cultural resource” or when a party “acting in good faith and after reasonable effort, concludes that mutual agreement cannot be reached.” Labeling the City’s consultation effort “perfunctory at best,” the court held that the error was prejudicial and required the City to rescind its adoption of the MND and its project approvals.

ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT REPORTS

Center for Biological Diversity v. County of Los Angeles, 112 Cal. App. 5th 317 (2025)

Tejon Ranch EIR Overturned For Misleading Discussion of Greenhouse Gas Emissions

The Second District Court of Appeal has held that it was prejudicially misleading for a mixed-use development project EIR to offset GHG reductions from the state’s cap-and-trade program against the GHG emissions that were calculated for the project itself. Whereas cap-and-trade offsets may properly be included in the CEQA analysis of a project proposed by a “covered entity” that participates in the cap-and-trade program, the court held that the same is not true for a real estate development project proposed by a non-covered entity.

The EIR’s Updated GHG Table 3 estimated the project’s total unmitigated greenhouse gas emissions as 157,642 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent per year. But in the same table, the report stated that that number was reduced to 6,834 metric tons when cap-and-trade offsets were applied. The EIR arrived at this 96-percent reduction by showing the project’s net GHG emissions “at zero for each category deemed subject to the cap-and-trade program,” including electric power, natural gas, and transportation fuels.

The court held that the County “failed to proceed in the manner required by law when it applied the cap-and-trade program to the Centennial project’s estimated unmitigated greenhouse gas emissions, which minimized the project’s environmental impact and rendered the EIR prejudicially misleading.” The court reasoned that the project was not a covered entity under the cap-and-trade program and that the CEQA Guidelines’ “additionality” requirement for mitigation foreclosed “applying an energy provider’s or fuel supplier’s obligatory cap-and-trade compliance to offset the estimated greenhouse gas emissions of a land-use project.”

Save Our Access v. City of San Diego, 115 Cal. App. 5th 388 (2025)

San Diego’s Approval of Ballot Initiative Raising Height Limit in Coastal Neighborhood Violated CEQA (Again)

After a previous attempt was invalidated on CEQA grounds, the City prepared and certified a Supplemental EIR (SEIR) purporting to analyze the environmental impacts of increasing the building height limit in its “Midway District” from 30 to 100 feet. In 2022 voters approved that increase. A second round of litigation ensued, in which Save Our Access argued that while the SEIR evaluated the impacts to visual resources and neighborhood character from raising the height limit, it failed to evaluate other impacts.

The Court of Appeal rejected the City’s position again, identifying multiple topics—noise, air quality and greenhouse gases, biological resources, and geologic hazards—that, in its view, had not been sufficiently addressed in either the City’s original program EIR or its SEIR. For example, with respect to noise, the court determined that because the PEIR had assumed that the 30-foot height limit would remain in place, it had not assessed whether taller buildings could reflect and refract more ambient noise, or whether constructing taller buildings would itself increase noise. And with respect to air quality, the court reasoned that the program EIR had not evaluated whether taller buildings would “interact with air flow or other atmospheric conditions that help dissipate emissions or odors.”

CEQA LITIGATION

Citizens for a Better Eureka v. City of Eureka, 111 Cal. App. 5th 1114 (2025)

Failure to Timely Join an Indispensable Party Identified After CEQA Suit was Filed Mandated Dismissal

A Court of Appeal upheld the dismissal of a CEQA action for failure to timely name a developer that became a real party in interest during the pendency of the action.

On April 4, 2023, the City of Eureka adopted a resolution authorizing the removal of a public garage in order to facilitate development of affordable housing, relying on a Class 12 exemption under CEQA for the disposal of surplus government property.

On May 5, CBE filed a petition challenging the April 4 Resolution, alleging the City piecemealed the project, which it characterized as including both removal of the garage and development of affordable housing, such that the project did not qualify for a Class 12 exemption.

On July 18, the City adopted a Resolution selecting the Wiyot Tribe as the “preferred proposer” for the affordable housing development, relying on CEQA sections 21159.21 and 21159.23 and CEQA Guidelines sections 15192 and 15194 to exempt the affordable housing development. On July 19, the City filed a notice of exemption listing the Tribe as the affordable housing project developer.

On December 22, the City and Tribe entered into an MOU for the affordable housing development. That same day, CBE moved for a preliminary injunction against the City to enjoin any approvals of the affordable housing development. The Tribe moved to dismiss the petition on the basis that CBE failed to join the Tribe as a necessary and indispensable party, and that the statutory date to join the Tribe had expired.

The First District relied on (1) CBE’s piecemealing theory to hold that the “project” challenged comprised both the removal of the garage and the affordable housing development, and (2) the City’s identification of the Tribe as the "proposed developer" of the affordable housing project on the July 19 notice of exemption.

The court reasoned that “CBE plainly knew that the redevelopment of the lot would eventually and necessarily require a developer.” Accordingly, “CBE had a duty to add the Tribe, as a real party in interest, when the July notice of exemption and award of redevelopment rights took place.” The issuance of successive approvals and filing of successive notices of exemption did not relieve CBE of an ongoing duty—imposed by its own legal theory—to add real parties of interest as they may be identified. The Tribe, as developer, was an indispensable party, and the time to add the Tribe had clearly run; therefore, the appropriate remedy was dismissal of the action.