Court of Appeal Upholds San Jose’s Eighth Addendum to Airport Master Plan EIR

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The First District Court of Appeal held that changes to the City of San Jose’s Airport Master Plan did not constitute a new project as a matter of law and did not require supplemental review under Public Resources Code section 21166. The court ordered publication of the opinion – Citizens Against Airport Pollution v. City of San Jose (June 6, 2014, Case No. H038781) – on July 2, 2014.

The center of the dispute was an addendum to the City of San Jose’s 1997 EIR prepared for its International Airport Master Plan. The city had also prepared a Supplemental EIR for the plan in 2003. The addendum, which was the city’s eighth addendum to the 1997 EIR, assessed the impacts of proposed amendments to the Airport Master Plan, including changes to the size and location of future air cargo facilities, the replacement of air cargo facilities with 44 acres of general aviation facilities, and the modification of two taxiways to provide better access for corporate jets.

Petitioner Citizens Against Airport Pollution’s (CAAP) primary argument was that the amendments to the Airport Master Plan addressed in the eighth addendum constituted a new project as a matter of law, and therefore, an EIR addendum was barred under CEQA. Alternatively, CAAP argued that an EIR addendum could not be used to analyze the environmental impacts of the plan changes, since those changes were substantial and required major revisions to the EIR with respect to noise, greenhouse gas emissions, toxic air contaminants, and biological resources.

The Court of Appeal was not persuaded by CAAP’s argument that the changes to the Airport Master Plan constituted a new project as a matter of law, and that the city was therefore required to prepare a new EIR. The court confirmed that the an agency’s determination on whether supplemental environmental review is required is review under the substantial evidence test, distinguishing previous cases that applied the “fair argument” standard to the question of whether a subsequent approval was “within the scope” of a previous approval.

The court next turned to CAAP’s alternative argument that the city was required to prepare a supplemental EIR for the plan amendments because they were “substantial changes” requiring “major revisions” in the EIR. CAAP claimed that there would be new or more severe impacts in several areas including noise, greenhouse gas emissions, air quality, and biological resources.

Notably, the court rejected CAAP’s argument that the city was required to analyze Greenhouse Gas Emissions for the project since CEQA Guidelines section 15064.5, which requires analysis of GHG impacts in EIRs, was added to the Guidelines after the 1997 and 2003 EIRs were prepared. Relying on CREED v. City of San Diego (2011) 196 Cal.App.4th 515, the court held that the potential for GHG impacts was not substantial new information triggering the need for a supplemental EIR. Rather, the potential for GHG impacts have been known since well before the first EIR for the Master Plan was adopted.

The court also held that there was substantial evidence demonstrating that there would be no new or more severe impacts to biological resources. The addendum acknowledged that the project changes would result in the loss of four acres of burrowing owl habitat and included mitigation measures to mitigate the impact. The court explained that mitigation measures can be modified in an addendum if there is a legitimate reason and the changes are supported by substantial evidence. The mitigation measures in the addendum met that standard because they completely offset the loss of the four acres by establishing new permanent habitat. Moreover, the mitigation measure was only a change in the location of habitual preserved under a burrowing owl mitigation plan that as established for the 1997 EIR and it would be managed within the parameters of the established plan.

The court also upheld the city’s determination that potential changes in noise and air quality impacts did not trigger a supplemental environmental review because jet engines of today and the future are quieter and cleaner than the engines of 1997.