Supreme Court of California

In this case, the Court of Appeal invalidated defendant City of Berkeley's approval of a permit application to build a 6,478 square foot house with an attached 3,394 square foot garage. In approving the permit, the City relied on two of the class exemptions the Secretary of the Natural Resources Agency has established pursuant to the Legislature's mandate, Class 3 (California Code of Regulations title 14 section 15303) and Class 32 (section 15332). The judgment of the Court of Appeal is reversed, where: 1) a potentially significant environmental effect is not alone sufficient to trigger the unusual circumstances exception; 2) if unusual circumstances are established, an agency should apply the fair argument standard in determining whether there is a reasonable possibility that those circumstance will produce "a significant effect" within the meaning of CEQA; and 3) in determining whether there were unusual circumstances, the Court of Appeal wrongfully judged the project relative to the typical circumstances related to an otherwise "typically exempt project" rather than the typical circumstances in one particular neighborhood.

Appellate Information

• Decided 03/02/2015
• Published 03/02/2015

Judges

• Chin

Court

• Supreme Court of California

Counsel