Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday signed into law a bill that will remake California's landmark environmental protection rules, an overhaul that he says is essential to address the state’s housing shortage and resulting homelessness crisis.
Newsom had threatened to reject the state budget passed last Friday unless lawmakers overhauled the California Environmental Quality Act, or CEQA, a 1970s law that requires strict examination of any new development for its impact on the environment.
“The environmental impact report in particular became a source of controversy,” University of San Diego law professor Mary Jo Wiggins said, regarding CEQA. “Because over time the legislature added new requirements and these became tripwires for developers and they became opportunities for litigation as well.”
Wiggins, an expert on land use, said as the state grew, so did the issues between development and CEQA requirements.
Now, she said, there’s a balancing act between “the need to protect the environment with the need to make sure we’re utilizing the land that we have to its highest and best use.”
The governor and housing advocates maintain that CEQA, while well-intentioned at the time, put up bureaucratic roadblocks that have made it increasingly difficult to build housing in the most populous state in the country.
“I think over the 50 years that CEQA’s been implemented, it’s been used for various reasons and by various sides, various factions — to slow down and otherwise frustrate development,” Nolen Communities partner Sean Kilkenny said.
He said the North County San Diego developer doesn't plan to take advantage of the new legislation at the moment.
Kilkenny also noted that the new law only pertains to urban “infill” housing developments — housing built in and around existing development.
“This isn't the first time that we’ve seen exemptions nor is it the first time that the state has tried to spur housing,” he said.
Lawmakers passed the transformative measure despite opposition from environmental groups.
“In a time when the Federal government is rolling back environmental protections, its sad that the Governor is following suit by ramming through this deregulation via the budget process,” Sierra Club San Diego Chapter Chair Lisa Ross said in a statement.
USD’s Wiggins said that CEQA has not been abolished, and the new law does not affect environmentally sensitive habitats.
Newsom called it a step toward solving the state's housing affordability problem.
“This was too urgent, too important, to allow the process to unfold as it has for the last generation,” he told reporters at a news conference after signing the bill.
Earlier this year, Newsom waived some CEQA rules for victims of wildfires in Southern California, creating an opening for the state to re-examine the law that critics say hampers development and drives up building costs.
The state budget passed last week pared back a number of progressive priorities, including a landmark health care expansion for low-income adult immigrants without legal status, to close a $12 billion deficit.
