In Sierra Club v. County of Fresno, the Supreme Court holds that Fresno County violated the California Environmental Quality Act when it provided the public with a partially inadequate environmental impact report before approving what the court called a “master-planned ‘pedestrian friendly’ community on a 942-acre site (formerly zoned agricultural).” The main points of contention concerned the EIR’s discussion of expected adverse air quality impacts from the development and the County’s adoption of measures to mitigate adverse effects.
The court’s unanimous opinion by Justice Ming Chin concludes, “When reviewing whether a discussion is sufficient to satisfy CEQA, a court must be satisfied that the EIR (1) includes sufficient detail to enable those who did not participate in its preparation to understand and to consider meaningfully the issues the proposed project raises . . . , and (2) makes a reasonable effort to substantively connect a project’s air quality impacts to likely health consequences.” The EIR didn’t meet that standard, the court finds. But the court also determines that the County was allowed to “leave open the possibility of employing better mitigation efforts consistent with improvements in technology” and to “adopt mitigation measures that do not reduce the project’s adverse impacts to less than significant levels, so long as the agency can demonstrate in good faith that the measures will at least be partially effective at mitigating the [p]roject’s impacts.”
The split decision is attributable to a dichotomous standard of judicial review. The court explained, “‘While we determine de novo whether the agency has employed the correct procedures, “scrupulously enforc[ing] all legislatively mandated CEQA requirements” . . . , we accord greater deference to the agency’s substantive factual conclusions.'”
The court affirms in part and reverses in part the Fifth District Court of Appeal. Like the Supreme Court, the appellate court found the EIR insufficient, but it also had dinged the County for its mitigation measures.
