SB 743

Is the Second Time the Charm? It’s Time to Comment on CEQA’s Proposed New Transportation Guidelines

Published on: February 22, 2016 | By Linda Klein

Less than one week remains to comment on important proposed changes to the CEQA Guidelines that flow from the 2013 adoption of “SB 743.” Once phased in, these Guidelines will change the evaluation of a project’s potential transportation impacts and, if the Guidelines function as the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research (OPR) desires, alter the pattern of California land development. Under the Guidelines, vehicle miles traveled (VMT) will replace level of service (LOS) as the standard a lead agency must measure a project’s traffic impacts. Under the new metric, what was mitigation for traffic impacts, such as the widening of roads, will soon be considered a significant impact. Accordingly, the implications of these Guidelines go beyond the need for traffic engineers to retool their traffic models (itself a complex task).

Of course changing CEQA is bound to be controversial. OPR’s first Guideline proposal generated numerous and diverse comments, reflecting differences among California’s lead agencies’ size and access to transit, and stakeholders’ individual (often ideological) views on transportation. As a result, OPR issued a second set of proposed Guidelines on January 20, 2016, which can be viewed on OPR’s website. Comments on this latest draft must be submitted to CEQA.Guidelines@resources.ca.gov by 5:00pm on February 29, 2016.

Practical Implications of the New Guidelines

OPR proposes to revise Appendix G, which is the heart of the proposed Guidelines. Although Appendix G is provided for guidance only, agencies typically follow it almost to the letter. As proposed, the transportation significance thresholds in Appendix G would eliminate questions related to LOS and instead focus on VMTs, including whether a project would induce additional automobile travel by increasing physical roadway capacity. In addition, OPR proposes technical guidance, to be published as a separate document, to help lead agencies implement the new Guidelines. This technical guidance includes recommended quantitative thresholds and analysis methods for determining the transportation impacts from various types of projects, including residential, retail, office, and roadway development. Following are some of the practical consequences that we foresee resulting from the proposed changes: Continue reading

OPR Releases Preliminary Discussion Draft of Proposed Changes to CEQA Guidelines; CEQA Stakeholders are Invited to Submit Comments

Published on: August 31, 2015 | By Michael Zischke, James Purvis and Christian H. Cebrian

As California developers and public agencies well know, the entitlement process in our state is driven by CEQA, the California Environmental Quality Act. CEQA, in turn, functions pursuant to the CEQA statute and the “CEQA Guidelines.” If you’ve ever wondered who writes those CEQA Guidelines, the answer is “the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research,” or “OPR.” The CEQA Guidelines reflect OPR’s interpretation of CEQA’s statutory requirements, its reading of case law construing CEQA, and its take on “practical planning considerations.” As a result, this little known operation in the Governor’s office plays a pivotal role in California’s entitlement process. CEQA Guidelines are formally adopted by the Natural Resources Agency following review by the Office of Administrative Law, but OPR basically writes the Guidelines.

This year, OPR is engaged in two separate endeavors to amend the CEQA Guidelines. One ongoing effort is the product of SB 743, legislation adopted in 2013 which likely will revolutionize the way traffic impacts in California are evaluated and mitigated by focusing on vehicles miles travelled (VMT) rather than level of service (LOS). We have discussed with you in prior “Lay of the Land” posts the potential implications of the new SB 743 Guidelines being prepared by OPR.

The other effort began two years ago, when OPR announced its intent to consider a broad range of revisions to the CEQA Guidelines. OPR solicited public comments and received a very large number of comments making a wide variety of suggestions. Since then, OPR has been considering the many comments and suggestions received, and OPR has now, on August 13, released a preliminary draft of proposed Guidelines amendments based on the public suggestions and OPR’s own ideas. The public is invited to comment, through October 12, and this is an important opportunity for stakeholders in the CEQA process to evaluate the proposals and weigh in with comments. In contrast to recent Guideline amendments on particular topics such as greenhouse gas emissions, this is the first overall update of the Guidelines in many years. Continue reading

The Potential Impacts of SB 743: Did the Legislature Double Dribble?

Published on: December 7, 2014 | By JoAnn Hadfield, Tim Paone, and Tony Petros

Co-contributors: PlaceWorks, Tim Paone of Cox Castle & Nicholson, and Tony Petros of LSA Associates and a member of the Newport Beach City Council.

It went in as a bill to streamline approval of a basketball arena. It came out, in addition, as legislation that revolutionizes the way traffic impacts are evaluated under CEQA. SB 743 will change the focus of CEQA traffic impact analysis from avoiding or mitigating congestion to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and promoting multimodal transportation and infill development. It eliminates traditional “level of service” (LOS) analysis as the measure of traffic impacts and replaces it with “vehicle miles traveled” (VMT). The Governor’s Office of Planning and Research (OPR) was directed to prepare CEQA guidelines to implement this change. A “discussion draft” of proposed Guidelines was released in August. When and if approved, the Guidelines will take effect in “transit priority areas” immediately and then statewide in 2016.

Under the Guidelines, VMT measures “the amount and distance that a project might cause people to drive,” rather than congestion and delay. Changing the traffic methodology is intended to result in more sustainable communities. But will the Legislature’s direction be circumvented by local agencies whose residents (and voters) care more about how long it takes to get to work, school, and the grocery store than they do about global warming, sustainable living, and terms such as “multi-modal”? And what does SB 743 portend for California’s roadway infrastructure? Consider these facts: Continue reading