Newhall Ranch Could Help the L.A. River

LOS ANGELES—The recent California Supreme Court decision on the Newhall Ranch development on the Santa Clarita River may help the burgeoning L.A. River project avoid the ongoing legal battles. The Newhall Ranch development has some similarities with the L.A. River project, namely that both projects are on a riverbank, which, for Newhall Ranch, has resulted in copious legal issues over the past 20 years. The court's decision outlines the types of evidence required to prove CEQA compliance as well as other decisions unique to the riverside locations of both projects. According to Fernando Villa, a partner at Allen Matkins, the decision could provide a blueprint for the L.A. River projects and help them avoid CEQA lawsuits. To find out more about the potential parallels between the projects and how this court decision might apply to the L.A. River, we sat down with Villa for an exclusive interview.

GlobeSt.com: What are the key holdings in the Newhall Ranch decision that could apply to the L.A. River project?

Fernando Villa: In Newhall, the court said the environmental impact report was compliant and consistent with CEQA when it used as a significant threshold the standard of consistency with the California Air Resources Board scoping plan and the state's greenhouse gas emissions standards, which basically uses as a baseline certain emissions that were recurring and that reflect that baseline. The state has a statewide goal of a statewide 29% reduction from the baseline. The developer in Newhall argued that they could use the AB32 standard of reduction and our standard on a project specific basis is 31% from that baseline. The court agreed that was an acceptable standard, but disagreed that they had acceptable evidence to meet that standard. The bottom line is that they didn't have the evidentiary basis for how that project was going to achieve that goal. The court kicked the case back down to the trial court level, and gave the developer some options of how you can meet those goals. One option is to look at the data that supported the state scoping plan methodology and then you can see against that scoping plan if you comply; or, you can evaluate the projects compliance through regulatory programs that reduce global greenhouse gas emissions, and those regulatory programs are enacted by local agencies. Finally, the court said you could should compliance of greenhouse gas standards by relying on existing numerical thresholds of significance. That all sounds like technical mumbo jumbo, but essentially the court is saying that there are a handful of ways that the developer can show compliance.

GlobeSt.com: How do these decisions potentially impact the L.A. River project?

Villa: The L.A. River project has several projects that are being considered: there are mixed-use projects, the Olympic Village, parks, etc. Let's say, for example, a mixed-use project gets developers within the City of Los Angeles' jurisdiction. For any proposed development to comply with this standard, the developer would have the ability to say, 'we're going to measure our greenhouse gas emissions over the life of the project and have certain measures that are LEED compliant, solar power, carpool such that our carbon footprint will meet or exceed the greenhouse gas emission carbon goals. Or, the developer would be able to meet the Southern California Greenhouse Gas emissions standards, or the developer could meet the standards developed by the city itself. The key, no matter what standard is used, is that the Supreme Court is saying that you have to show specific evidence that can demonstrate your project's compliance with these greenhouse gas emissions. That is important because, while it is very technically driven, if you have an expert that knows what he or she is doing, they'll know how to model your greenhouse gas emissions, and with these three or four different standards, you can achieve satisfaction of those goals. The good news for the local community is that the developer is now obligated to demonstrate that it will become greener and will meet and exceed state law requirements for greenhouse gas emissions thresholds because if they don't, their project will get stopped.

GlobeSt.com: Will these court decisions help the L.A. River project mitigate legal issues down the road?

Villa: Yes, it absolutely provides a blueprint for the L.A. River project to follow if it wants to comply and successfully fend off a CEQA lawsuit challenge. There are some parallels between the projects that are being considered and the Newhall Ranch project. While Newhall Ranch may be a much bigger project, the L.A. River project, depending on which iterations will be pursued, will be quite substantial in and of itself. Like the Newhall Ranch decision, which has this ambitious master plan along the banks of the Santa Clarita River, the L.A. River project will have substantial commercial and mixed-use residential development a long the banks of the L.A. River.