Will California Have To Exempt All Stadiums From Environmental Review?

28 October 2009 - 2:00pm

Now that Ed Roski's new stadium in the City of Industry is exempt from CEQA, Bill Fulton wonders whether California can deny the same competitive advantage to others.

"For the second time this year, we’ve been reminded that the California Environmental Quality Act is not a set of tablets brought down from Mount Whitney. It’s just a state law, and it can be changed whenever the Legislature and the governor can agree on changing it – especially during bad economic times.

The Los Angeles Times suggested the other day that it would be impossible now for the state to deny the same exemption to football stadiums in San Diego and the Bay Area. This could especially become an issue in San Diego. How can the city expect to keep the Chargers when it has to build a 'CEQA Stadium' and Industry – trying to lure the Chargers away – does not? You can see how, in theory at least, the whole CEQA house of cards could come tumbling down quickly."

Source: California Planning & Development Report, October 27, 2009
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If hundreds of people in your community raised reasonable concerns about a planning program you developed, how would you respond? Perhaps you might call a community meeting, or ask community elected officials to reach out to community leaders.