Description: Challenge to San Diego County's approval of residential developments, allegedly without complying with requirements for enforceable measures to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions.
-
Sierra Club v. County of San Diego
Case Documents:
Filing Date Type File Action Taken Summary 12/21/2021 Opinion Download Trial court judgment for plaintiff affirmed. California Court of Appeal Agreed that Greenhouse Gas Mitigation Measures for San Diego Housing Projects Were Inadequate. The California Court of Appeal affirmed a trial court judgment that San Diego County’s greenhouse gas mitigation measures for two housing developments were inadequate under CEQA. The appellate court found that the mitigation measures suffered from the same deficiencies that the court previously identified in 2020 in Golden Door Properties, LLC v. County of San Diego for mitigation measures included in EIR for the County’s Climate Action Plan: they lacked enforceable performance standards and they impermissibly delegated and deferred the determination of whether greenhouse gas offsets were real, permanent, verifiable, quantifiable, enforceable, and additional. The court did not weigh in on whether the mitigation measures were compliant with the County’s general plan update since the general plan’s greenhouse gas-related provisions remained in flux due to ongoing litigation and because the mitigation measures had already been deemed not to comply with CEQA. -
Sierra Club v. County of San Diego
Case Documents:
Filing Date Type File Action Taken Summary 07/09/2019 Petition for Writ of Mandate Download Second amended petition for writ of mandate and complaint for declaratory relief filed. 08/23/2018 Petition for Writ of Mandate Download Petition for writ of mandate and complaint for declaratory relief filed. Sierra Club Challenged San Diego County Approval of Developments, Alleging Failure to Ensure Mitigation of Greenhouse Gas Emissions. Sierra Club filed a lawsuit in California Superior Court against San Diego County charging that the County’s approvals of three residential developments did not require enforceable measures to mitigate the projects’ impacts on greenhouse gas emissions and climate as required by the California Environmental Quality Act. The petition alleged that the approval of the “three large residential development projects in the County’s rural back-country areas” would result in just under 4,000 new residential units and over 800,000 square feet of commercial office space. Sierra Club further alleged that the County allowed the projects’ impacts to be mitigated with off-site greenhouse gas emissions offsets “anywhere in the world” at the discretion of a County planning official. Sierra Club contended that allowing offsets outside San Diego County violated a mitigation measure adopted for the County’s general plan. Sierra Club also restated its challenge—previously made in separate lawsuits filed in March 2018—to the County’s Climate Action Plan, which Sierra Club alleges also did not satisfy the general plan’s mitigation requirements.