BILL ANALYSIS Ó
AB 779
Page 1
Date of Hearing: April 27, 2015
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON NATURAL RESOURCES
Das Williams, Chair
AB 779
(Cristina Garcia) - As Amended April 14, 2015
SUBJECT: Environmental quality: transit priority areas
SUMMARY: Delays the effective date of revised California
Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) guidelines to establish
criteria for determining the significance of transportation
impacts of projects within transit priority areas until July 1,
2017.
EXISTING LAW:
1)Requires, under CEQA, lead agencies with the principal
responsibility for carrying out or approving a proposed
project to prepare a negative declaration, mitigated negative
declaration, or environmental impact report (EIR) for this
action, unless the project is exempt from CEQA.
2)Requires the Office of Planning and Research (OPR) to prepare,
and the Secretary of the Natural Resources Agency to adopt,
guidelines for the implementation of CEQA by public agencies.
3)Requires OPR to propose revisions to the CEQA Guidelines to
establish new, non-"level of service" (LOS) criteria for
determining the significance of transportation impacts of
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projects within "transit priority areas." (LOS is a threshold
that defines a deficiency on the congestion management program
highway and roadway system which requires the preparation of a
deficiency plan.)
a) Defines "transit priority area" as an area within
one-half mile of a major transit stop (i.e., rail transit
station, a ferry terminal served by either a bus or rail
transit service, or the intersection of two or more major
bus routes) that is either existing or planned, if the
planned stop is scheduled to be completed within the
planning horizon of a specified federal transportation
plan.
b) Requires the criteria to promote the reduction of GHG
emissions, the development of multi-modal transportation
networks, and a diversity of land uses.
c) Requires OPR to recommend potential metrics to measure
transportation impacts, including vehicle miles traveled,
vehicle miles traveled per capita, automobile trip
generation rates, or automobile trips generated.
d) Authorizes OPR to establish criteria for models used to
analyze transportation impacts to ensure the models are
accurate, reliable, and consistent with the intent of this
section.
e) Provides that automobile delay, as described solely by
LOS or similar measures of capacity or congestion, shall
not support a finding of significance pursuant to CEQA,
except in locations specifically identified in the
guidelines, if any.
f) Provides that aesthetic and parking impacts of
residential, mixed-use, and employment center projects on
infill sites shall not be considered significant impacts on
the environment for purposes of CEQA, while also stating
that the authority of a lead agency to consider aesthetic
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impacts pursuant to local design review ordinances or other
discretionary powers is not affected.
FISCAL EFFECT: Unknown
COMMENTS:
SB 743 (Steinberg), Chapter 386, Statutes of 2013, among other
things, directed OPR to propose revisions to the CEQA Guidelines
to establish new criteria for determining the significance of
transportation impacts of projects within transit priority areas
that are not based on LOS. The bill additionally authorized,
but did not require, OPR to apply the new criteria outside of
transit priority areas.
LOS is a measure of vehicle delay at intersections and on
roadway segments and is expressed with a letter grade ranging
from A to F. LOS A represents free-flowing traffic, while LOS F
represents congested conditions. LOS has been criticized as an
outdated metric because it does not consider person delay and
neglects transit, pedestrians, and bicycles. Many believe that
an over-reliance on LOS considerations by planners has led to
widening intersections and roadways to move automobile traffic
faster at the expense of other modes of transportation. LOS has
also been criticized as a barrier to infill and transit-oriented
development. A traffic study using LOS might find that
greenfield developments perform well because there are so few
other cars around. An urban infill project, on the other hand,
might perform poorly because it would contribute to an already
congested condition, even though residents and consumers
associated with infill projects are less likely to rely on cars
for their transportation needs.
In response to SB 743, OPR published a preliminary evaluation of
potential alternatives to LOS in December, 2013. Based on
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comments received in response to that document, the office
released draft revisions to the CEQA Guidelines in August, 2014,
and accepted comments on the draft through November, 2014. The
draft proposed to replace the LOS analysis with an analysis of
the vehicle miles traveled (VMT) generated by a project as a
measure of the significance of a project's transportation
impacts.
OPR took a phased approach to implementation in the first draft,
proposing that the new analysis procedures would apply
immediately upon the effective date of the revised CEQA
Guidelines to projects located within one-half mile of major
transit stops and high-quality transit corridors, and statewide
after January 1, 2016. OPR additionally proposed allowing
jurisdictions to opt in to the new procedures regardless of
location from the time of adoption.
This bill delays any revisions to the CEQA Guidelines adopted
pursuant to SB 743 from becoming effective prior to July 1,
2017. The sponsor, the Infill Builders Federation, is concerned
that the revisions, as currently drafted, while intended to
benefit infill development, may actually put infill at a greater
disadvantage by requiring infill projects to undergo an untested
VMT analysis that initially will not apply to development
projects in other areas. The sponsor is concerned that this
places both an added analysis burden and potentially an added
litigation burden on infill rather than making it easier to move
these types of projects forward.
OPR has indicated that it is likely to issue a revised draft of
the guidelines based on the nearly 200 comments it received on
the first draft, although the timing of that draft and the
extent of the changes to the first draft it might contain are
uncertain. It is not clear when OPR expects that final
revisions will be formally adopted.
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REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION:
Support
The California Infill Federation (Sponsor)
Opposition
None on file.
Analysis Prepared by:Lawrence Lingbloom / NAT. RES. / (916)
319-2092