Citizens for Ceres v. City of Ceres
F070988M
| Cal. Ct. App. | Oct 4, 2016Background
- The City of Ceres certified an EIR and approved a shopping-center redevelopment anchored by a new Wal‑Mart Supercenter; Citizens for Ceres filed a CEQA writ petition challenging the EIR.
- Trial court denied Citizens’ petition; Citizens appealed. Wal‑Mart and others prevailed below and sought costs, including $48,889.71 Wal‑Mart reimbursed the city for preparing the administrative record.
- Key contested issues on appeal: adequacy of EIR mitigation for urban decay, analysis of landfill and recycling impacts (including PLA packaging), correlation of air pollution to health effects, sufficiency of the city’s statement of overriding considerations, and whether a prevailing real party (Wal‑Mart) may recover administrative‑record preparation costs paid to the lead agency.
- The Court of Appeal affirmed the decision on the merits (rejecting Citizens’ CEQA challenges) but reversed the trial court’s denial of Wal‑Mart’s claimed administrative‑record costs and remanded to determine reasonableness.
- The opinion analyzes CEQA standards (substantial evidence, Guidelines §§15126.2, 15130, appendix G) and distinguishes prior cases, notably Bakersfield Citizens and Hayward Area Planning.
Issues
| Issue | Plaintiff's Argument | Defendant's Argument | Held |
|---|---|---|---|
| Urban decay mitigation | EIR failed to mitigate potential urban decay from supermarket closures (beyond old Wal‑Mart); mitigation was insufficient or deferred. | EIR identified decay risk for old Wal‑Mart and required a supplemental maintenance agreement; other vacancies were unlikely or manageable under city anti‑blight ordinances. | Affirmed — substantial evidence supports city’s findings; mitigation for old Wal‑Mart adequate; no unlawful deferral. |
| Solid waste (landfill & recycling, PLA) | EIR failed to analyze adequate landfill capacity when Fink Rd. permit may expire, failed to analyze impacts to recycling/PLA handling, and omitted quantitative cumulative analysis. | EIR showed landfill contingency plans (permit extension, land for new landfill), recycling contractor capacity, and that increased recycling is not inherently an adverse environmental impact. | Affirmed — substantial evidence supports EIR conclusions; landfill plans sufficient; recyclable waste/PLA did not present substantial evidence of a significant environmental impact. |
| Air pollution → health correlation | EIR must correlate emissions (even if individually insignificant) to concrete health effects; Bakersfield Citizens requires deeper quantification of health impacts of cumulative air pollution. | Cumulative impact was significant but based on uncertain future projects; for an individually insignificant contribution to a cumulative impact, detailed quantitative health correlation is not required here. | Affirmed — on these facts the EIR’s pollutant identification and description of associated health effects sufficed; Bakersfield Citizens does not mandate quantitative health correlation for the kind of cumulatively based finding present here. |
| Recovery of administrative‑record preparation costs | Citizens: Hayward Area Planning and §21167.6 bar a real party in interest from recovering record‑preparation costs when petitioner requested the agency prepare the record and did not consent to a third party’s role. | Wal‑Mart: §21167.6 limits methods for preparing the record but does not bar a prevailing real party who reimbursed the agency from recovering reasonable costs under Code Civ. Proc. §§1032, 1033.5. | Reversed (on costs ruling) — prevailing real party may seek recovery for reasonable administrative‑record costs when the record was prepared in a statutorily approved manner; remanded to assess reasonableness. |
Key Cases Cited
- Bakersfield Citizens for Local Control v. City of Bakersfield, 124 Cal.App.4th 1184 (2004) (EIRs must correlate identified air quality impacts to resulting health effects when those impacts are significant)
- Hayward Area Planning Assn. v. City of Hayward, 128 Cal.App.4th 176 (2005) (discusses limits on who should prepare and recover costs for administrative record under §21167.6)
- Vineyard Area Citizens for Responsible Growth, Inc. v. City of Rancho Cordova, 40 Cal.4th 412 (2007) (caution about relying on speculative future resources—"paper water" principle)
- Woodward Park Homeowners Assn., Inc. v. City of Fresno, 150 Cal.App.4th 683 (2007) (EIR as CEQA’s ‘‘heart’’; mitigation obligations)
- Kings County Farm Bureau v. City of Hanford, 221 Cal.App.3d 692 (1990) (useful example of comparing project emissions to regional totals to give sense of proportion)