April 9, 2024
Best Best & Krieger Of Counsel Brandon Kline recently authored an article in the Daily Journal providing detail about the passing of Assembly Bill 1307 solidifying social noise generated by residential project occupants is exempt from CEQA as an environmental impact. In May 2022, the California Supreme Court granted review of Make UC a Good Neighbor v. Regents of University of California involving UC Berkeley’s proposal to develop student housing at People’s Park.
As mentioned by Kline, “according to the UC Regents, under section 21085.2, subdivision (b), added by Assembly Bill 1307, universities such as UC Berkeley do not need to “consider alternatives to the location of the residential or mixed-use housing project” when certain conditions are met. The Senate Committee on Housing described this new code provision as a “narrow exemption from CEQA’s required alternative site analysis for university-built residential projects that were already evaluated in the university’s long-range development plan” that “will enable UC Berkeley to move forward expeditiously with its People’s Park project.”