BILL ANALYSIS Ó
AB 779
Page 1
ASSEMBLY THIRD READING
AB
779 (Cristina Garcia)
As Amended June 1, 2015
Majority vote
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|Committee |Votes |Ayes |Noes |
| | | | |
| | | | |
|----------------+------+--------------------+---------------------|
|Transportation |15-0 |Frazier, Achadjian, | |
| | |Baker, Bloom, | |
| | |Campos, Chu, Daly, | |
| | |Dodd, Eduardo | |
| | |Garcia, Gomez, Kim, | |
| | |Linder, Medina, | |
| | |Melendez, O'Donnell | |
| | | | |
|----------------+------+--------------------+---------------------|
|Natural |9-0 |Williams, Dahle, | |
|Resources | | | |
| | | | |
| | |Cristina Garcia, | |
| | |Hadley, Harper, | |
| | |McCarty, Rendon, | |
| | |Mark Stone, Wood | |
| | | | |
|----------------+------+--------------------+---------------------|
|Appropriations |12-0 |Gomez, Bonta, | |
| | |Calderon, Daly, | |
| | |Eggman, | |
AB 779
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| | | | |
| | | | |
| | |Eduardo Garcia, | |
| | |Gordon, Holden, | |
| | |Quirk, Rendon, | |
| | |Weber, Wood | |
| | | | |
| | | | |
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SUMMARY: Authorizes the Office of Planning and Research (OPR) to
determine, for the purposes of CEQA (California Environmental
Quality Act) review, that transportation impacts from residential
and mixed-use projects in transit priority areas do not meet the
threshold of "significant."
FISCAL EFFECT: According to the Assembly Appropriations
Committee, negligible fiscal impact.
COMMENTS: SB 743 (Steinberg), Chapter 386, Statutes of 2013,
among other things, directed OPR to propose revisions to the CEQA
Guidelines (California Code of Regulations Title 14) to establish
new criteria for determining the significance of transportation
impacts of projects within transit priority areas that are not
based on level of service (LOS). This 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 LOS has been criticized as an outdated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
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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 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 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.
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
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than making it easier to move these types of projects forward.
To address this concern, this bill clarifies that OPR may
determine that residential and mixed-use projects in transit
priority areas do not meet the threshold of "significant" for the
purposes of CEQA, particularly when the VMT metric is used.
Analysis Prepared by:
Victoria Alvarez / TRANS. / (916) 319-2093 FN:
0000778