CEQA Year in Review—2019

The past year saw several trailblazing opinions, indicating that courts continue to grapple with some of CEQA's core policies. The California Supreme Court weighed in on the threshold question of what is a "project" that is subject to CEQA. A court of appeal also addressed the same threshold issue, holding that agency inaction is not a project subject to CEQA,even where the agency's failure to act would result in significant adverse environmental impacts. Two courts of appeal addressed another concept that is central to CEQA's application: the level of specificity needed in a project description. The baseline for an EIR's impact analysis once again surfaced as an issue in a case that featured conversion of a vacant apartment building to a hotel. In a blockbuster opinion, a court of appeal held that courts can no longer consider challenges to the adequacy of level-of-service-based traffic analyses. The summaries in the CEQA Year in Review are intended to identify the key issues in the cases decided in 2019. Click here to read the full report.