Helping exempt projects from CEQA review: a new role for SFBARF?

[Issi Romem]

Hi folks,

As you probably already know, CEQA is often used by opponents of proposed projects to stall and expense the projects to death. UrbanLand magazine says that an existing loophole, reinforced by a recent California Supreme Court decision implies that "[n]ow, a project can avoid months of costly CEQA-related delays if a developer raises enough signatures for an initiative and the council or board simply ratifies the project."

Can SFBARF raise signatures in favor of projects? 

If the signatures do not need to come from local residents but can instead come from potential residents -- a big "if" that is not clear from the article -- this can be a great opportunity to support the expansion of housing supply.

Issi

[Mike Schiraldi]

How would we identify which uses of CEQA are abusive, and which are
good-faith efforts to exercise reasonable environmental prudence? We
probably don't want to interfere with the latter, both because that
leads to disasters like the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard Superfund
site, and also because it undermines our credibility when we go to the
Sierra Club to advocate for the environmental benefits of urban
density.

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[Adina Levin]

Also, aren't projects that fall under an Area Plan already covered by the plan without a need for an additional environmental impact report?

To the best of my knowledge only projects that require separate EIRs are really big ones like Treasure Island.

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[gar...@gmail.com]

Do we want really big projects to be delayed for years due to the inevitable CEQA law-suits? The treasure island project was delayed for 3 years for just this reason: http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/blog/real-estate/2014/10/treasure-island-lennar-wilson-meany-court-sf.html

+1 for helping housing along in this manner if possible.

[Aaron]

In an ideal scenario, this would the case: a project would obtain a community plan exemption. However, Planning sometimes requires a negative declaration or a "focused" EIR (1601 Mariposa!) if impacts are deemed to have exceeded those which are described in the plan.