Mission Bay Alliance v. Office of Community Investment and Infrastructure

The California Court of Appeal affirmed the denial of two petitions that challenged the environmental review and permitting for an arena for the National Basketball Association’s Golden State Warriors and associated development in San Francisco. Among the arguments rejected by the appellate court was the petitioners’ contention that the environmental review was inadequate due to its “exclusive reliance” on the project’s compliance with San Francisco’s greenhouse gas strategy to determine that the project would not have a significant effect on greenhouse gas emissions. The court said that guidelines issued pursuant to the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) explicitly authorized reliance on performance-based standards such as the greenhouse gas strategy and that the environmental impact report was not required to quantify expected emissions and the amount by which those emissions would be reduced by implementation of the greenhouse gas strategy and mitigation measures. The court also noted that in Center for Biological Diversity v. Department of Fish & Wildlife, No. S217763 (2015), the California Supreme Court had “expressed approval for a methodology that uses consistency with greenhouse gas reduction plans as a significance criterion for project emissions under CEQA.” The appellate court said that, contrary to the petitioners’ argument, the Supreme Court had not held that quantification was necessary in every case.

Environmental groups asked the California Court of Appeal for permission to file an amicus curiae brief in support of the appellants challenging the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) review for a mixed-use development project that includes a new arena for the National Basketball Association’s Golden State Warriors. One of the amicus brief’s primary arguments was that the project’s CEQA review did not provide sufficient information regarding the project’s greenhouse gas impacts. The brief said that the project proponent had not demonstrated that its commitment to implement the project in accordance with San Francisco’s greenhouse gas strategy would lead to reductions in greenhouse gases, and that the environmental impact report provided no information regarding the magnitude of the project’s greenhouse gas emissions.