BILL NUMBER: SB 731 INTRODUCED
BILL TEXT
INTRODUCED BY Senator Steinberg
FEBRUARY 22, 2013
An act relating to the environment.
LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST
SB 731, as introduced, Steinberg. Environment: California
Environmental Quality Act and sustainable communities strategy.
The California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) requires a lead
agency, as defined, to prepare, or cause to be prepared, and certify
the completion of, an environmental impact report (EIR) on a project
that it proposes to carry out or approve that may have a significant
effect on the environment or to adopt a negative declaration if it
finds that the project will not have that effect. CEQA also requires
a lead agency to prepare a mitigated negative declaration for a
project that may have a significant effect on the environment if
revisions in the project would avoid or mitigate that effect and
there is no substantial evidence that the project, as revised, would
have a significant effect on the environment.
This bill would state the intent of the Legislature to enact
legislation revising CEQA to, among other things, provide greater
certainty for smart infill development, streamline the law for
specified projects, and establish a threshold of significance for
specified impacts.
Existing law requires the regional transportation plan for regions
of the state with a metropolitan planning organization to each adopt
a sustainable communities strategy, as part of their regional
transportation plan, as specified, designed to achieve certain goals
for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from automobiles and
light trucks in a region. Existing law establishes the Strategic
Growth Council to manage and award grants and loans to support the
planning and development of sustainable communities strategies.
This bill would state the intent of the Legislature to provide
$30,000,000 annually to the council for the purposes of providing
planning incentive grants to local and regional agencies to update
and implement general plans, sustainable communities strategies, and
smart growth plans.
Vote: majority. Appropriation: no. Fiscal committee: no.
State-mandated local program: no.
THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA DO ENACT AS FOLLOWS:
SECTION 1. (a) It is the intent of the Legislature to enact
legislation to adopt provisions of Chapter 3 (commencing with Section
15000) of Division 6 of Title 14 of the California Code of
Regulations (CEQA Guidelines) that are intended to provide greater
certainty for smart infill development, such as Section 15183.3 of
the CEQA Guidelines and related appendices that implement Chapter 469
of the Statutes of 2011. It is further the intent of the Legislature
to explore amendments to expand the definition of "infill" and to
accommodate infill development in the Central Valley.
(b) It is the intent of the Legislature to explore amendments to
the California Environmental Quality Act (Division 13 (commencing
with Section 21000) of the Public Resources Code), to further
streamline the law for renewable energy projects, advanced
manufacturing projects, transit, bike, and pedestrian projects, and
renewable energy transmission projects.
(c) (1) It is the intent of the Legislature to update CEQA to
establish a threshold of significance for noise, aesthetics, parking,
and traffic levels of service, and thresholds relating to these land
use impacts, so that project meeting those thresholds are not
subject to further environmental review for those environmental
impacts. It is further the intent of the Legislature to review other
similar land-use- related impacts to determine if other thresholds of
significance can be set.
(2) It is not the intent of the Legislature to affect authority,
consistent with CEQA, for a local agency to impose its own, more
stringent thresholds.
(3) It is not the intent of the Legislature to replace full CEQA
analysis with state or local standards, with the exception of the
land use standards described in paragraph (1).
(d) It is the intent of the Legislature to amend Section 65456,
which exempts from CEQA projects undertaken pursuant to a specific
plan for which an EIR has been prepared, unless conditions specified
under Section 21166 of the Public Resources Code have occurred, to
define with greater specificity what "new information" means, and to
avoid duplicative CEQA review for projects and activities that comply
with that plan. It is further the intent of the Legislature to
review the possibility of defining other types of plans to determine
if similar treatment could be applied to those plans or portions of
those plans that are consistent with sustainable communities
strategies adopted pursuant to Section 65080 of the Government Code
or that have had a certified EIR within the past five years.
(e) It is the intent of the Legislature to enact amendments to
Section 21168.9 to establish clearer procedures for a trial court to
remand to a lead agency for remedying only those portions of an EIR,
negative declaration, or mitigated negative declaration found to be
in violation of CEQA, while retaining those portions that are not in
violation so that the violations can be corrected, recirculated for
public comment, and completed more efficiently and expeditiously. It
is further the intent of the Legislature to explore options under
which a court could allow project approvals to remain in place, and
for projects to proceed.
(f) It is the intent of the Legislature to amend Section 21091 of
the Public Resources Code and related provisions of law to establish
clear statutory rules under which "late hits" and "document dumps"
are prohibited or restricted prior to certification of an EIR, if a
project proponent or lead agency has not substantively changed the
draft EIR or substantively modified the project.
(g) It is the intent of the Legislature to provide $30 million
annually to the Strategic Growth Council for the purposes of
providing planning incentive grants to local and regional agencies to
update and implement general plans, sustainable communities
strategies, and smart growth plans pursuant to Chapter 728 of the
Statutes of 2008.