California Air Resources Board

Permanently exempts active transportation plans, pedestrian plans, and bicycle transportation plans for the restriping of streets and highways, bicycle parking and storage, and signal timing to improve street and highway intersection operations from CEQA. This bill expands the project types applicable for the CEQA exemption of certain transportation-related projects and extends the exemption from January 1, 2030, to January 1, 2040. The bill extends and expands other CEQA exemptions for public projects related to transit and requires certain CEQA-exempt projects that exceed a specified dollar amount to meet certain criteria.

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Requires that a housing development project within a specified distance of a transit-oriented development (TOD) stop, be an allowed use as a transit-oriented housing development on any site zoned for residential, mixed, or commercial development, if the development complies with applicable requirements. Among these requirements, the bill requires a project to include at least 5 dwelling units and establish requirements concerning height limits, density, and residential floor area ratio in accordance with a development’s proximity to specified tiers of TOD stops. The bill provides that a local government that denies a project meeting the requirements of these provisions located in a high-resource area, as defined, would be presumed in violation of the Housing Accountability Act and immediately liable for penalties, beginning on January 1, 2027. These provisions do not apply to a local agency until July 1, 2026, or within unincorporated areas of counties until the 7th regional housing needs allocation cycle. The bill specifies that a development proposed pursuant to these provisions is eligible for streamlined, ministerial approval pursuant to specified law, except that the bill exempts a project under these provisions from specified requirements and specifies that the project is required to comply with certain affordability requirements, under that law.

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Would have authorized a project to satisfy the CEQA mitigation requirements for transportation impacts by contributing an amount of money per vehicle mile traveled, as determined by the Office of Land Use and Climate Innovation (LCI), to the Transit-Oriented Development Implementation Fund for the purposes of the Transit-Oriented Development Implementation Program. The bill would have required LCI, on or before July 1, 2029, and at least once every 3 years thereafter, to update the price per vehicle mile traveled based on specified factors. The bill also would have required, upon appropriation by the Legislature, the contributions to be available to the department to fund developments located in the same region with preference given to specified projects. Was not heard in the Assembly Housing and Community Development Committee.

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Authorizes up to 35 projects per year that are exclusively for noncommercial wildfire fuels reduction in timberland, less than 1,500 acres in size, and paid for in part or in whole with public funds, to prepare a timber harvesting plan as an alternative to complying with CEQA. The provision expires on January 1, 2031. Was not heard in the Senate Committee of Natural Resources and Water Committee.

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Would have required, on or before July 1, 2027, the Office of Land Use and Climate Innovation (LUCI) to consult with regional, local, State, and federal agencies to develop a technical advisory on thresholds of significance for greenhouse gas and noise pollution effects on the environment to assist local agencies. The technical advisory would have provided suggested thresholds of significance for all areas of the State, as specified, and would have provided that lead agencies may elect to adopt the suggested thresholds of significance. Held on suspense in the Senate Appropriations Committee.

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Expands the Permit Streamlining Act, limits certain Coastal Commission housing appeals, accelerates coastal permitting, and makes permanent key provisions of the Housing Accountability Act and Housing Crisis Act. The bill also freezes new residential building standards through 2031 with exceptions for emergency, fire, and conservation-related updates. Establishes a revolving fund to reinvest equity from stabilized affordable housing into new developments through the Affordable Housing Excess Equity Program, and by establishing a statewide CEQA Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) Mitigation Bank to provide an optional compliance tool to allow developers to more effectively fulfill their existing CEQA mitigation obligations by funding location-efficient affordable housing and infrastructure projects.

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Streamlines CEQA review for housing development projects that meet all but one eligibility criteria for specified CEQA exemptions. The bill also exempts from CEQA new agricultural employee housing projects, wildfire risk reduction projects, the State's climate adaptation strategy, day care centers, rural health clinics, food banks, advanced manufacturing facilities, high speed rail and passenger rail stations, certain community water system projects, and makes additional changes to existing CEQA exemptions. It also requires the Office of Land Use and Climate Innovation to map the eligible urban infill sites within every urbanized area or urban cluster in the state by July 1, 2027. The bill also excludes staff notes and internal agency communications from the administrative record that a lead agency must compile under CEQA when requested by a CEQA plaintiff or petitioner in an action or proceeding to attack, review, set aside, void, or annul certain acts or decisions of a public agency, with specified exceptions.

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Requires the California Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery to develop a Program Environmental Impact Report (PEIR) for small and medium compost facilities under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) by January 1, 2027, and specifies that the PEIR shall streamline the process with which jurisdictions can develop and site compost facilities.

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Requires the Department of Housing and Community Development, by Jan 1, 2028, to conduct a study, in consultation with CARB and other State, local and industry entities, on the use of vehicle miles traveled (VMT) as a metric for transportation impacts in housing developments pursuant to the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). The study must include analysis of the implementation and outcomes of CEQA VMT guidance as it pertains to housing and how VMT impacts and mitigation measures are identified, measured, deployed and available at the local, regional, and statewide level and in rural, suburban, and urban areas, among other topics. Implementation is contingent upon appropriation, as specified.

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Summary 

Removes the requirement for public agencies to issue CEQA’s existing Statement of Overriding Concern for traffic only, when approving or carrying out a housing development project, as defined, a commercial project, or an industrial project. Hearing in the Senate Environmental Quality Committee canceled at the author's request.

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