In a partially published opinion issued on June 25, 2020, the First District Court of Appeal in Save Berkeley’s Neighborhoods v. Regents of the University of California (2020) 51 Cal.App.5th 226 reversed a trial court judgment on a demurrer and held that Public Resources Code section 21080.09 does not exempt the U.C. Regents from analyzing the environmental impacts of decisions to increase student enrollment at U.C. Berkeley in exceedance of projected enrollment numbers in their long range development plan EIRs.

Background

In 2005, the U.C. Regents adopted a long range development plan to guide the growth and development of the U.C. Berkeley campus through the year 2020. As is required under Public Resources Code section 21080.09, which pertains specifically to long range development plans at public higher education campuses, the Regents certified a program EIR for the plan. The 2005 development plan projected that, by the year 2020, U.C. Berkeley’s enrollment would increase by 1,650 students and that the university would add 2,500 new beds for students, and the EIR analyzed the potential environmental impacts based on these figures.

In 2018, Save Berkeley’s Neighborhoods, a California non-profit formed “to improve Berkeley’s quality of life and protect its environment,” filed a petition for writ of mandate alleging that, beginning in 2007, the U.C. regents made a series of discretionary decisions that would increase the university’s enrollment well beyond the projections in the 2005 EIR. Under CEQA, Save Berkeley argued, student enrollment projections were part of the project description, and the U.C. Regents changed the project when they approved enrollment increases beyond the 2005 projections. Furthermore, Save Berkeley argued, such increases in student enrollment caused and will continue to cause new significant environmental impacts, including increased use of off-campus housing, displacement of tenants, traffic impacts, noise, and increased reliance on public services. As a result, Save Berkeley argued that CEQA requires the preparation of a new or subsequent EIR. Notably, Save Berkeley alleged it did not learn of the decisions to increase enrollment until October 2017.

In the trial court, the U.C. Regents demurred on grounds that under section 21080.09 enrollment increases are not the “project” or a change in the project that might trigger subsequent environmental review. The Regents also argued the claims were time barred by the statute of limitations or were moot because a Notice of Preparation had recently been issued for a new project that would include analyze impacts from current and foreseeable campus population levels. The trial court sustained the demurrer without leave to amend on grounds that the petition was time barred and that the “project” for purposes of CEQA is the development and land use plan, thus, changes in enrollment are not project changes requiring subsequent CEQA review. Save Berkeley appealed.

Appellate Decision

The First District Court of Appeal reversed, finding the petition sufficient to state a cause of action and survive a demurrer. While the court began by noting that nobody disputes that the 2005 EIR could no longer be challenged because the statute of limitations expired, it then framed the issue as whether changes to the project—i.e., decisions to increase enrollment—required some form of CEQA review.

The U.C. Regents primarily argued that section 21080.09 effectively exempts analysis of increases in enrollment until a plan or physical development project is approved because there is no mention of the word “enrollment” in section 21080.09’s  definition of a “long range development plan.”. The Court of Appeal rejected this argument and pointed to CEQA’s broad definition of a “project” in Public Resources Code section 21065.. As the court explained, while section 21080.9 instructs that the effects of enrollment increases are to be considered in an EIR for a long range development plan, the statute does not state that enrollment changes need only be analyzed in the context of an EIR for a development plan or physical development. In short, section 21080.09 “does not address subsequent enrollment decisions, much less exempt them from CEQA,” and “a public university’s decision to increase enrollment levels can be a ‘project’ subject to CEQA whether or not it is related to a development plan.”

The court had no trouble concluding that Save Berkeley had stated a valid cause of action under CEQA. Accepting the allegations in the petition as true, as is required for a demurrer, Save Berkeley had plead that discretionary decisions since the 2005 EIR to increase enrollment have caused and continue to cause significant environmental impacts not analyzed in the 2005 EIR, which is sufficient to trigger the need for subsequent review under CEQA. The court’s opinion left open how such review could be accomplished, such as through the use of tiering from the 2005 EIR or the preparation of a subsequent or supplement EIR depending on the magnitude of the revisions necessary.

Collin McCarthy