From the California Supreme Court
Committee for Green Foothills v. Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors (Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University), No. S163680 (Feb. 11, 2010) available at CourtWebsite
Challenges to government actions under CEQA generally face unusually short statutes of limitation, most of which are triggered by the filing of a public notice, which reports an agency’s determination about the applicability of CEQA or the potential environmental impact of a project. An action challenging this determination must generally be brought within 30 days after the notice is filed.
This case involved a particular kind of challenge following a notice of determination (NOD). In the case, Santa Clara County entered into an agreement with Stanford University to dedicate easements and fund improvements for trails to satisfy certain conditions of a permit. The County found that the agreement did not require CEQA review because it contemplated that additional review and consideration was required by other jurisdictions before the improvements could be made. Therefore, the County filed an NOD that reported the agreement and indicated that the County had not approved any specific improvements for the trails. After 171 days had passed, the Committee for Green Foothills filed a CEQA challenge of the County's approval of the agreement.
After the trial court's rejection of the petition, and the Court of Appeal's reversal, the California Supreme Court granted review to confront the question of which statute of limitations should be applied when an NOD has been filed, but the underlying action alleges that no environmental review was undertaken. In such cases, it could either be the general 30-day limit on challenges following a notice or the longer 180-day period that is provided for a case alleging that no environmental determination was made. (See Public Resources Code §§ 21167, subds. (b), (c) & (e); 21167, subd. (a).)
The Supreme Court held that the filing of an NOD triggers a 30-day statute of limitations for all CEQA challenges to the decision announced in the notice. This interpretation is consistent with the language of section 21167 and the general approach of all notice-based statutes of limitation. The Court found that the Legislature clearly intended the 30-day statute to apply when an agency files an NOD, and this limitations period may not be extended based on the nature of the CEQA violation alleged.
