Court Holds Amendments to Heritage Tree Ordinance Are not Exempt from CEQA
by Derek P. Cole on November 16, 2015
posted in CEQA, Recent Court Decisions,
The California Environmental Quality Act (“CEQA”) exempts governmental actions to protect natural resources and the environment from the requirement to prepare an environmental impact report. In a recent case, a court clarified what standard agencies must meet to justify the use of these exemptions, known by practitioners as the “Class 7” and “Class 8” exemptions. In Save Our Big Trees v. City of Santa Cruz, the San Jose-based Sixth District Court of Appeal held that a city’s use of both exemptions could not be used to justify amendment of its heritage tree ordinance, which was ... Continue Reading
