Bay Area Citizens v. Association of Bay Area Governments
2016 - 248 Cal.App.4th 966
FIRST APPELLATE DISTRICT UPHOLDS MTC AND ABAG’S APPROVAL OF PLAN BAY AREA
In a recently published opinion, Bay Area Citizens v. Association of Bay Area Governments, 2016 Cal. App. LEXIS 531, the First Appellate District affirmed the trial court’s judgment and upheld the approval of Plan Bay Area by the Bay Area Metropolitan Transportation Commission (“MTC”) and the Association of Bay Area Governments (“ABAG”) (collectively, “Agencies”). Thomas Law Group represented the Agencies in successfully defending against the suit.
Plan Bay Area is the regional transportation plan and sustainable communities strategy for the nine-county Bay Area region, adopted by the Agencies pursuant to SB 375. It establishes a plan for reducing greenhouse gas emissions by reducing vehicle miles traveled through combined land use and transportation strategies. Bay Area Citizens (“Citizens”) filed a petition in August 2013, challenging certification of the environmental impact report (“EIR”) prepared for Plan Bay Area under the requirements of the California Environmental Quality Act.
Citizens’ primary contention was that the Agencies failed to consider greenhouse gas emission reductions expected from existing statewide mandates, such as clean car and low carbon fuel standards. Due to this omission, Citizens contended that the Agencies unnecessarily imposed “draconian” high-density land use patterns to reduce vehicle miles traveled (“VMT”) to satisfy the California Air Resources Board’s (“CARB”) greenhouse gas emissions targets. The trial court rejected Citizens’ argument, holding that reliance on the statewide mandates to meet CARB’s targets under SB 375 was expressly prohibited by the legislation and would constitute improper double-counting of greenhouse gas emissions reductions.
The appellate court also rejected Citizens’ argument, calling its interpretation of SB 375 “absurd.” The court held that Citizens’ interpretation effectively made SB 375 superfluous because it would allow the Agencies to rely on reductions already expected from the statewide mandates without achieving additional SB 375 emission reductions through land use and transportation strategies. Pointing to CARB’s interpretation – that SB 375 calls for such strategies in addition to emissions reductions expected from the statewide mandates – the court concluded that Citizens’ interpretation was incorrect.
Turning to Citizens’ EIR contentions, the court found that because the Agencies properly interpreted the requirements of SB 375, Citizens’ challenge of Plan Bay Area’s EIR objectives was without merit. The court similarly rejected Citizens’ alternatives analysis arguments. Specifically, the court found that the “no project” alternative appropriately captured the continuation of existing regional policy. With regard to the Citizens’ proposed alternative, the court found that many of the aspects of the Citizens’ alternative were already captured in the other alternatives considered by the Agencies. Moreover, because the Citizens’ proposed alternative double-counted statewide emissions mandates, it was not feasible in light of the emission reduction requirements of SB 375.
Key Point: The court affirmed that metropolitan planning organizations may not rely on emissions reductions expected from pre-existing statewide mandates in order to meet CARB’s regional greenhouse gas emissions targets when preparing plans required under SB 375.