BILL ANALYSIS Ó ----------------------------------------------------------------- |SENATE RULES COMMITTEE | SB 734| |Office of Senate Floor Analyses | | |(916) 651-1520 Fax: (916) | | |327-4478 | | ----------------------------------------------------------------- UNFINISHED BUSINESS Bill No: SB 734 Author: Galgiani (D) Amended: 6/21/16 Vote: 27 - Urgency PRIOR VOTES NOT RELEVANT SENATE ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY COMMITTEE: 4-1, 8/10/16 (Pursuant to Senate Rule 29.10) AYES: Wieckowski, Gaines, Hill, Leno NOES: Bates NO VOTE RECORDED: Jackson, Pavley ASSEMBLY FLOOR: 61-10, 8/4/16 - See last page for vote SUBJECT: Environmental quality: Jobs and Economic Improvement Through Environmental Leadership Act of 2011 SOURCE: State Building and Construction Trades Council DIGEST: This bill extends for two years the expedited California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) judicial review procedures established by the Jobs and Economic Improvement Through Environmental Leadership Act (AB 900, Buchanan and Gordon, Chapter 354, Statutes of 2011). Assembly Amendments delete the Senate version of the bill relating to state land acquisitions, and insert the current language. ANALYSIS: SB 734 Page 2 Existing law: 1) Requires, under CEQA, lead agencies with the principal responsibility for carrying out or approving a proposed discretionary project to prepare a negative declaration, mitigated declaration, or environmental impact report (EIR) for this action, unless the project is exempt from CEQA (CEQA includes various statutory exemptions, as well as categorical exemptions in the CEQA guidelines). (Public Resources Code (PRC) §21000 et seq.). 2) Establishes CEQA administrative and judicial review procedures for an "environmental leadership development project", under the Jobs and Economic Improvement Through Environmental Leadership Act of 2011, which is part of CEQA. This bill: 1)Extends the operation of AB 900 by two years, so that the Governor must certify a project prior to January 1, 2018, the project must be approved prior to January 1, 2019, and AB 900 sunsets January 1, 2019. 2)Adds the following prevailing wage conditions and enforcement provisions: a) Requires contractors and subcontractors to pay to all construction workers employed in the execution of the project at least the general prevailing rate of per diem wages. b) Provides that this obligation may be enforced by the Labor Commissioner through the issuance of a civil wage and penalty assessment pursuant to relevant provisions of the Labor Code, unless all contractors and subcontractors performing work on the project are subject to a project labor agreement that requires the payment of prevailing wages and provides for enforcement through an arbitration SB 734 Page 3 procedure. 3)Requires a multifamily residential project certified under AB 900 to provide unbundled parking, such that private vehicle parking spaces are priced and rented or purchased separately from dwelling units, except for units subject to affordability restrictions in law that prescribe rent or sale prices, where the cost of parking spaces cannot be unbundled from the cost of dwelling units. Background 1)Previous, related bills. a) AB 900 and SB 292. AB 900 (Buchanan and Gordon) and SB 292 (Padilla, Chapter 353, Statutes of 2011) established expedited CEQA judicial review procedures for a limited number of projects. For AB 900, it was large-scale projects meeting extraordinary environmental standards and providing significant jobs and investment. For SB 292, it was a proposed downtown Los Angeles football stadium and convention center project achieving specified traffic and air quality mitigations. The stadium project subject to SB 292 has not proceeded. For these eligible projects, the bills provided for original jurisdiction by the Court of Appeal and a compressed schedule requiring the court to render a decision on any lawsuit within 175 days. This promised to reduce the existing judicial review timeline by 100 days or more, while creating new burdens for the courts and litigants to meet the shortened schedule. AB 900's provision granting original jurisdiction to the Court of Appeal was invalidated in 2013 by a decision in Alameda Superior Court in Planning and Conservation League v. State of California. SB 734 Page 4 b) SB 743 (Steinberg, Chapter 386, Statutes of 2013). Subsequent to the Alameda Superior Court holding mentioned above, SB 743 repealed the provision that gave original jurisdiction to the Court of Appeal and required Judicial Council to adopt a rule of court mandating lawsuits and any appeals to be resolved within 270 days. Also, SB 743 (Steinberg) established special CEQA procedures modeled on SB 292 for the Sacramento Kings arena project. Like SB 292, SB 743 applied to a single project and included specified traffic and air quality mitigations. CEQA lawsuits were filed against the Kings arena, and the lawsuits, including appeals, were resolved 267 days after certification of the record. 2)AB 900 projects to date. Six projects have been certified under AB 900. The deadline for AB 900 certification under current law has passed (which was January 1, 2016). According to the Office of Planning and Research, the following projects have had AB 900 applications submitted: McCoy Solar Energy Project (January 12, 2012). Apple Campus 2 (April 19, 2012). Soitec Solar Energy Project (January 7, 2013). 8150 Sunset Boulevard (January 31, 2014). Event Center and Mixed-Use Development at Mission Bay Blocks (The Golden State Warriors Arena) (February 17, 2014). Qualcomm Stadium Reconstruction Project (August 25, 2015). Comments 1)Purpose of bill. According to the author, "California is continually recovering from and preparing for future economic devastation. SB 734 will help large job producing green projects avoid delay and keep Californians working by extending the Governor's authority to certify a project to January 1, 2018." 2)Golden State Warriors Arena and two lawsuits. The proposed Golden State Warriors Arena and related development at Mission SB 734 Page 5 Bay in San Francisco, which has received AB 900 certification, has been challenged under CEQA. The case, Mission Bay Alliance et al. v Office of Community Investment and Infrastructure, was filed March 11, 2016. One of the plaintiffs, Mission Bay Alliance, which is a coalition of UCSF stakeholders, donors, faculty, and physicians, argues that the 18,500-seat arena would congest area streets with traffic, slowing down access to the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) Medical Center at Mission Bay, which is located across the street from the proposed arena. In addition, the plaintiff contends that the basketball arena in Mission Bay is at odds with the cluster of life science research and health care facilities that have been built in the neighborhood. On July 18, 2016, a trial court ruled in favor of the project sponsor, the Warriors; the decision has been appealed. The above lawsuit is one of two legal challenges filed by the Mission Bay Alliance in regards to the Warriors arena; the second of which is not CEQA-related. In the other lawsuit, filed in Alameda County, the plaintiffs seek to invalidate an agreement between UCSF and the Warriors, which included a $10 million Mission Bay Transportation Improvement Fund for controlling traffic flow in the area. The plaintiffs contend that the UCSF chancellor went beyond his authority in reaching this agreement without University of California Regents approval. This second lawsuit has yet to be decided. The Warriors team has stated that the lawsuits have delayed the opening of the arena by a year, to 2019. One lawsuit has special, fast-tracking CEQA-related litigation privileges and the other does not. Although AB 900 may speed up the litigation process for the CEQA case, the second lawsuit demonstrates that CEQA is not the only body of law for which there is to sue; rather, there is a cavalry of non-CEQA-related causes of action from which a plaintiff may choose and that are subject to standard civil procedure rules. AB 900 cannot expedite or insulate a project from non-CEQA-related litigation and does not guarantee that a project will be completed faster. 3)Should we expect more from AB 900 projects? SB 743 SB 734 Page 6 (Steinberg) required the Kings arena to be certified Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Gold, as well as minimize traffic and air quality impacts through project design or mitigation measures, including reducing to at least zero the net greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from private automobile trips to the arena, achieve reductions in GHG emissions from automobiles and light trucks that will exceed the GHG emission reduction targets for 2020 and 2035 adopted for the Sacramento region pursuant to SB 375 (Steinberg, Chapter 728, Statutes of 2008), and achieve a 15% reduction in vehicle-miles traveled per attendee. In contrast to SB 743, AB 900 requires lower LEED Silver certification, a 10% improvement in transportation efficiency over comparable projects, and zero net GHG emissions, with no requirement that the GHG emission reductions be from local sources. In comparing the requirements of SB 743 and AB 900, a question arises as to whether it would be more environmentally beneficial to the state to require AB 900 projects to meet similar standards as required in SB 743. 4)Equal justice for all? Court calendar preference and guaranteed time frames. Current law requires the courts to give CEQA-related cases preference over "all other civil actions? so that the action or proceeding shall be quickly heard and determined." (PRC §21167.1). In addition to this existing mandate, SB 734 provides that the courts must complete the judicial review process in a given time frame for certain CEQA-related actions or proceedings when specified criteria are met. As a consequence, such mandates on a court delay access for other cases as well as potentially exacerbating a court's backlog on civil documents such as filing a new civil complaint, processing answers and cross complaints, or processing a demurrer or summary judgment. As Judicial Council notes, "[S]etting an extremely tight timeline for SB 734 Page 7 deciding these cases has the practical effect of pushing other cases on the courts' dockets to the back of the line. This means that other cases, including cases that have statutorily mandated calendar preferences, such as juvenile cases, criminal cases, and civil cases in which a party is at risk of dying, will take longer to decide." This bill requires a court to make room on its calendar, potentially pushing other cases aside, to ensure that specified time frames are met on certain CEQA cases. Calendar preferences and guaranteed time frames create additional demands and burden on our courts that have very limited resources and a never-ending supply of cases to hear. 5)Projects queuing up. Although this bill is not specific to any particular projects, proponents of SB 734 have identified four projects that may apply for AB 900 certification if this bill is enacted: a) 6701 Sunset/Crossroads in Hollywood - Nine new mixed-use buildings, including residential, hotel, commercial office, retail, and restaurant uses, including up to 308 hotel rooms and 950 residential units, 84 of which will be affordable to low-income households (to replace 84 rent-controlled units the project will demolish). b) Yucca-Argyle Project in Hollywood - Mixed-use project with hotel, residential, and commercial uses, including 260 hotel rooms and 191 residential units, 39 of which will be affordable to low-income households. c) Barlow Hospital Project in Echo Park - Hospital replacement and residential development on a 25-acre site near Dodgers Stadium, including 400 new single-family homes, with no commitments to affordable housing to date. d) Hollywood Central Park - A 38-acre regional street level park created by capping US 101 between Hollywood and Santa Monica Boulevards. SB 734 Page 8 FISCAL EFFECT: Appropriation: No Fiscal Com.:YesLocal: Yes According to the Assembly Appropriations Committee, absorbable state costs. SUPPORT: (Verified8/10/16) State Building and Construction Trades Council (source) California Chamber of Commerce OPPOSITION: (Verified8/10/16) Air Conditioning Trade Association American Fire Sprinkler Association Associated Builders and Contractors - San Diego Chapter California League of Conservation Voters Judicial Council of California Plumbing-Heating-Cooling Contractors Association of California Sierra Club California Western Electrical Contractors Association ASSEMBLY FLOOR: 61-10, 8/4/16 AYES: Achadjian, Alejo, Arambula, Atkins, Baker, Bigelow, Bonilla, Bonta, Brown, Burke, Calderon, Campos, Chang, Chau, Chiu, Chu, Cooper, Dababneh, Daly, Dodd, Eggman, Frazier, Gallagher, Eduardo Garcia, Gatto, Gipson, Gomez, Gordon, Gray, Hadley, Holden, Irwin, Jones, Jones-Sawyer, Lackey, Levine, Linder, Lopez, Low, Mathis, Mayes, McCarty, Medina, Mullin, Nazarian, O'Donnell, Olsen, Quirk, Ridley-Thomas, Rodriguez, Salas, Santiago, Steinorth, Thurmond, Ting, Wagner, Weber, Wilk, Williams, Wood, Rendon NOES: Travis Allen, Brough, Dahle, Beth Gaines, Grove, Harper, Melendez, Obernolte, Patterson, Mark Stone NO VOTE RECORDED: Bloom, Chávez, Cooley, Cristina Garcia, Gonzalez, Roger Hernández, Kim, Maienschein, Waldron SB 734 Page 9 Prepared by:Joanne Roy / E.Q. / (916) 651-4108 8/10/16 16:16:52 **** END ****