CEQA
Blog
Permanent Solutions or Band-Aids: Solving the Decades-Old California Homelessness Crisis
California’s budget last year contained $12 billion, a record number, to address homelessness. Yet, California has the largest homeless population in the nation with, as of January 2020, around 161,500 individuals. California is one of the few states that experienced one of the largest homelessness increases between 2019-2020 with a ...
Pacific Research Institute
April 25, 2022
CEQA
Chris Carr Highlighted For His New Study “The CEQA Gauntlet” and Quoted in Bloomberg
Chris Carr’s new study “The CEQA Gauntlet” was featured and quoted in the Bloomberg piece “Berkeley Housing Battle Revives Debate Over Environmental Law”. Carr discusses the problems CEQA poses today with Bloomberg. “You can be sure the authors of CEQA didn’t think about the Boschian hellscape we have today,” said ...
Pacific Research Institute
April 20, 2022
Blog
Can California Tackle Zoning Run Amok in 2022?
The numbers are in on the cost of living in California, and it ain’t pretty: According to an analysis by the real estate listing service Zillow, as reported in the New York Times, home prices went up by a startling 12.3 percent between November 2020 and 2021. In suburban areas ...
M. Nolan Gray
April 12, 2022
Blog
Rent Control Can’t Stop Soaring Housing Rents
California’s “Been There, Done That” California’s sky-high rental housing rates are now being felt by the rest of the country. Apartment List’s most recent report in February showed that rents grew 17.6 percent annually for all housing types and increased 0.6 percent over the month. This tracks the Bureau of ...
Rowena Itchon
March 28, 2022
CEQA
UC Berkeley Case Shows Why Comprehensive Reform Badly Needed to End CEQA Abuse
By Chris Carr The California Supreme Court last week declined to stay a lower court order in a case involving a housing and classroom complex under construction on the UC Berkeley campus. This will effectively shut the door to one of America’s finest public universities for thousands of prospective students. ...
Pacific Research Institute
March 23, 2022
California
Chris Carr Featured in Nor Cal Record in Article on UC Berkeley Case
By Sarah Downey Last week’s legislative action to exempt the University of California at Berkeley from a long-standing state environmental law, is raising questions about how the statute could be further reformed to help not just schools but a host of infrastructure, housing, wildfire protection, and other projects. What’s clear ...
Pacific Research Institute
March 21, 2022
Blog
What’s Next for CEQA Reform After Berkeley Vote?
Responding to the public outrage, California lawmakers took unusually swift action in passing CEQA reform legislation this week. Senate Bill 118 responds to a CEQA lawsuit filed by a neighborhood group challenging a housing and classroom project under construction on the UC Berkeley campus. Earlier this month, the California Supreme ...
Tim Anaya
March 18, 2022
Blog
Here’s Something to Inspire A CEQA Overhaul
The California Environmental Quality Act, often used as a blunt instrument to crush needed housing development, has become a “Swiss cheese” law due to all the carveouts that have been created to allow favored construction projects to go forward while others are mired in bureaucracy and legal limbo. It’s another ...
Kerry Jackson
March 14, 2022
Business & Economics
The Problems with CEQA – with Chris Carr
The California Environmental Quality Act, or CEQA, is a 50-year-old law responsible for holding up many projects in the state due to its labyrinthian process and its vulnerability to lawsuits. Across the state, housing developments, schools, hospitals, even bike paths and wildfire mitigation efforts have been stymied by CEQA. Chris ...
Pacific Research Institute
March 7, 2022
California
How NIMBYS and CEQA Undermined a World-Class California University
Recently, Bay Area NIMBYs made international headlines when they convinced an Alameda County judge to order UC Berkeley to freeze enrollment. Casting students as an environmental nuisance, the decision could result in 5,100 fewer admission letters going out next month, and nearly $60 million in losses for the University of ...
M. Nolan Gray
March 3, 2022
Permanent Solutions or Band-Aids: Solving the Decades-Old California Homelessness Crisis
California’s budget last year contained $12 billion, a record number, to address homelessness. Yet, California has the largest homeless population in the nation with, as of January 2020, around 161,500 individuals. California is one of the few states that experienced one of the largest homelessness increases between 2019-2020 with a ...
Chris Carr Highlighted For His New Study “The CEQA Gauntlet” and Quoted in Bloomberg
Chris Carr’s new study “The CEQA Gauntlet” was featured and quoted in the Bloomberg piece “Berkeley Housing Battle Revives Debate Over Environmental Law”. Carr discusses the problems CEQA poses today with Bloomberg. “You can be sure the authors of CEQA didn’t think about the Boschian hellscape we have today,” said ...
Can California Tackle Zoning Run Amok in 2022?
The numbers are in on the cost of living in California, and it ain’t pretty: According to an analysis by the real estate listing service Zillow, as reported in the New York Times, home prices went up by a startling 12.3 percent between November 2020 and 2021. In suburban areas ...
Rent Control Can’t Stop Soaring Housing Rents
California’s “Been There, Done That” California’s sky-high rental housing rates are now being felt by the rest of the country. Apartment List’s most recent report in February showed that rents grew 17.6 percent annually for all housing types and increased 0.6 percent over the month. This tracks the Bureau of ...
UC Berkeley Case Shows Why Comprehensive Reform Badly Needed to End CEQA Abuse
By Chris Carr The California Supreme Court last week declined to stay a lower court order in a case involving a housing and classroom complex under construction on the UC Berkeley campus. This will effectively shut the door to one of America’s finest public universities for thousands of prospective students. ...
Chris Carr Featured in Nor Cal Record in Article on UC Berkeley Case
By Sarah Downey Last week’s legislative action to exempt the University of California at Berkeley from a long-standing state environmental law, is raising questions about how the statute could be further reformed to help not just schools but a host of infrastructure, housing, wildfire protection, and other projects. What’s clear ...
What’s Next for CEQA Reform After Berkeley Vote?
Responding to the public outrage, California lawmakers took unusually swift action in passing CEQA reform legislation this week. Senate Bill 118 responds to a CEQA lawsuit filed by a neighborhood group challenging a housing and classroom project under construction on the UC Berkeley campus. Earlier this month, the California Supreme ...
Here’s Something to Inspire A CEQA Overhaul
The California Environmental Quality Act, often used as a blunt instrument to crush needed housing development, has become a “Swiss cheese” law due to all the carveouts that have been created to allow favored construction projects to go forward while others are mired in bureaucracy and legal limbo. It’s another ...
The Problems with CEQA – with Chris Carr
The California Environmental Quality Act, or CEQA, is a 50-year-old law responsible for holding up many projects in the state due to its labyrinthian process and its vulnerability to lawsuits. Across the state, housing developments, schools, hospitals, even bike paths and wildfire mitigation efforts have been stymied by CEQA. Chris ...
How NIMBYS and CEQA Undermined a World-Class California University
Recently, Bay Area NIMBYs made international headlines when they convinced an Alameda County judge to order UC Berkeley to freeze enrollment. Casting students as an environmental nuisance, the decision could result in 5,100 fewer admission letters going out next month, and nearly $60 million in losses for the University of ...