First District Finds Noise Analysis by Non-Expert Attorneys Not Substantial Evidence

In Jensen v. City of Santa Rosa (2018) 23 Cal.App.5th 877, the First District upheld a negative declaration for a youth treatment center, finding that noise analysis offered by non-expert attorneys was not substantial evidence in support of a fair argument of a potentially significant noise impact from outdoor recreation activities and the parking lot at the center.

In 2014, Santa Rosa approved plans to convert the shuttered Warrack Hospital to the SAY Organization’s new Dream Center. SAY is a non-profit organization that provides housing, counseling, and job services to youth and families in Sonoma County. The facility would offer temporary housing, job skills training, health services, and enrichment activities. The property is in a developed area, surrounded by residential housing, offices, and a hospital.

SAY filed applications for a conditional use permit, rezoning, and design review to implement the project. The initial study/negative declaration concluded there would be no significant impacts, and the planning commission approved the project. Two neighbors appealed the decision to the city council on the basis that the city’s noise impact analysis was flawed. The neighbors filed suit after the city rejected their appeal. The lower court found for the city, and petitioners appealed.

The First District evaluated whether substantial evidence supported a fair argument that noise impacts from the project’s parking lot and outdoor recreation area could be significant, thus requiring an EIR.

Petitioners urged the court to reject the city’s noise study, and rely instead on their independently calculated findings purporting to show the project’s noise levels would be significant. Petitioners’ attorneys extrapolated their own analysis from a previous study conducted by noise experts for the city, for another project, at a different site. Petitioners also argued that the city’s noise ordinance set the maximum allowable noise levels, and any noise that would exceed those thresholds was a significant impact.

The court rejected all of petitioners’ arguments. First, the court rejected petitioners’ interpretation of the city’s noise ordinance, finding that its “base” noise values set the standard or normally acceptable levels, not maximum allowable levels, and thus, were not significance thresholds for CEQA’s purposes. Furthermore, the ordinance was not as inflexible and quantitative as petitioners alleged, but rather, allowed for experts to consider factors such as the noises’ level, intensity, nature, and duration when determining if impacts would be significant. Under this analysis, petitioners failed to identify any evidence in the record that noise impacts would exceed the allowable threshold.

The court rejected the petitioners’ contention that their noise calculations based on another study for a different project were substantial evidence that this project could result in noise impacts. Substantial evidence must be reasonable, credible, and of solid value. In testing for potential significant impacts, a party cannot just import the values of one study onto those of another, particularly in the absence of qualified expert opinion. Petitioners’ convoluted methodology and ultimate conclusions were based on speculation, rested on supposition and hypothesis, and were not confirmed by experts. The analysis also ignored key facts, such as limitations on parking lot use and hours of operation.

The court also noted that petitioners’ conclusions, which they drew from the different project’s noise study, were not presented to the city during the approval process, and did not appear in any part of the administrative record; rather the other study was simply attached to their comments during their city council appeal. Only during appellate briefing did petitioners present the calculations they extrapolated from the other study. For that reason alone, the court stated it was justified in rejecting the petitioners’ calculations.

Given the court’s conclusion that the offered evidence lacked the requisite foundation and credibility, petitioners failed to demonstrate, even under the comparatively low fair argument standard, that further environmental review was required.

(Bridget K. McDonald)