Reform of the California Environmental Quality Act has become a mantra for many California politicians over the last several years, all the way up to Gov. Brown, who found himself frustrated by CEQA a during his years as mayor of Oakland.
One person’s reform can sometimes be another’s disaster. California may be about to find out what CEQA reform could really mean.
The arenas for this are two medium-sized nearby communities, Inglewood and Carson, both with ambitions to become somewhat like Arlington, Texas, the not-quite-Dallas home of the Dallas Cowboys football team.
Officials in both cities, drooling over the potential of revenue that might come from hosting NFL teams like the St. Louis Rams, Oakland Raiders and San Diego Chargers, are going full steam on two stadium proposals. Inglewood’s would be built by a development team headed by Rams owner Stan Kroenke, the other by a joint venture of the sometime rival Raiders and Chargers.
Even if both billion-dollar-plus stadia win eventual civic approvals (both are well on their way), it’s almost inconceivable both could be built. Their sites are only10 miles apart, both a short hop from the already super-congested 405. Who would make that choice, if it comes, and how that choice might be made are still unknowns.
These are the classic projects for which CEQA was designed. The 1970s-era act, signed by Gov. Reagan, requires a detailed environmental impact report for almost all major projects. None will be needed for either of these two gigantic projects because of a “reform” quietly introduced by the state Supreme Court last August, before Mr. Brown’s latest two appointees were seated.
As originally written, CEQA allowed exceptions to the EIR requirement if voters approve ballot measures okaying projects. A 1996 vote, for example, allowed the Giants’ AT&T Park to move forward without an EIR.
Ignoring the People
The new court ruling allows city councils to outright adopt, with no popular vote, local initiatives that already have qualified for the ballot. Projects involved don’t need EIRs. Both big stadia employed this loophole (er, reform) and construction on one, or both, could begin as early as next winter with no input at all from local voters, other than those who signed petitions.
Both development groups spent a total of no more than $2.5 million to qualify the local initiatives in their relatively small cities, compared with potential costs of $100 million or more if they’d been forced to do EIRs.
Meanwhile, whatever air pollution, traffic, economic or other difficulties and benefits the presence of one or both stadia might mean for surrounding South Bay cities like Torrance, Hermosa Beach, Manhattan Beach, El Segundo, Hawthorne and other points only slightly farther away will simply happen. No one will quantify the effects of the projects, either during the construction phase or as they draw huge crowds for football games, concerts and other events. Nor will the effects of other commercial and residential development tied to them be known ahead of time.
Yes, CEQA has been used many times by folks with not-in-my-backyard mentalities to stymie developments that might have been constructive. CEQA has prevented many potentially destructive projects, and mitigated potential damage from thousands of others that did get built, but somewhat differently than initially proposed.
Few would argue that AT&T Park has had a mostly positive influence on its Mission Bay area, but that project was fully debated before the voters before it was built.
Not so for these new stadia, thanks to the state’s highest court.
Over more than 40 years, CEQA has become a tradition, like it or not. What’s going on now may turn into a classic example of what can happen when people throw out a tradition. Often they discover why that tradition became established in the first place.
Californians soon will know the full effects, good or bad, of the change the state Supreme Court made to the CEQA tradition. The hope here is that it’s all positive. No one knows, and that may lead to unforeseen problems.
Mr. Elias may be contacted at tdelias@aol.com. His book, “The Burzynski Breakthrough: The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It,” is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For ‘more Elias columns, go to www.californiafocus.net
