California Court of Appeal

Trial court's grant of a peremptory writ of mandate compelling a city council to set aside its approval of the proposed project and its certification of the Final Environmental Impact Report (FEIR), is affirmed where: 1) the decision makers and the public lacked complete information because an improper baseline was used for determining traffic and related impacts; 2) even if assuming that the decision to use projected 2020 conditions as a "baseline" did not constitute a failure to proceed in a manner required by law, the administrative record does not contain substantial evidence to support the decision to deviate from the norm; and 3) the EIR, by using future traffic conditions as it "baseline" did not adequately explain to an engaged public how the proposed project was expected to change the present conditions in which they currently lived.

Appellate Information

• Decided 12/16/2010
• Published 12/16/2010

Judges

• ELIA

Court

• California Court of Appeal

Counsel

• For Appellant:
  
• David E. Kahn, Alexander T. Henson