Cherry Valley Pass Acres and Neighbors v. City of Beaumont (Cherry Valley) (Nov 22, 2010) No. E049651, available at CourtWebsite
In a decision affirming the discretion of local agencies to determine the proper “baseline” when conducting environmental review, the Court of Appeal sided with Best Best & Krieger LLP attorneys Michelle Ouellette and Fernando Avila, and upheld the groundwater analysis in an environmental impact report (EIR) prepared for a 560-unit housing development. The decision in Cherry Valley Pass Acres and Neighbors v. City of Beaumont (Cherry Valley) also provided important guidance as to what types of circumstances support a finding that agricultural resources mitigation is infeasible, an issue that many agencies face while complying with the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA).
In Cherry Valley, a local opposition group challenged the recirculated EIR prepared for a 560-unit housing development, which was itself a scaled-down version of an earlier proposal. Project opponents argued that the City of Beaumont’s (City’s) baseline for water usage on the site was improper because it reflected the amount of water being pumped at the time the Notice of Preparation was released (when the site was an operating egg ranch), and not the minimal amount of water usage occurring at the time the recirculated EIR was released. The court disagreed, holding that the egg ranch’s vested, adjudicated groundwater rights and its history of water usage on the site supported the City’s use of that as a baseline.
The court also noted that the record contained ample evidence supporting a finding that on- and off-site mitigation for agricultural resources impacts, as well as project alternatives that lessened those impacts, would all be infeasible. Key to this determination were the facts that the City’s General Plan explicitly did not anticipate that agriculture could continue long-term and foresaw the eventual conversion of farmland and that the City’s financial analysis determined that various project alternatives that would preserve agricultural uses on-site were not viable.
The Cherry Valley decision represents an important reaffirmation of public agencies’ discretion to conduct environmental analysis and make determinations provided only that they are supported by substantial evidence, even in hotly-debated fields such as water supply and agricultural resources.
Source: www.bbklaw.com
