Court Holds EIR's Analysis of Energy Impacts Adequate under CEQA and Upholds City's Finding That Traffic Mitigation outside City Boundaries Would be Infeasible

For the first time, a court has addressed the question whether an EIR’s evaluation of energy impacts is sufficient under CEQA. Further, the court upheld a city’s determination that payment of fees for traffic improvements on county land, outside city limits, would not constitute feasible mitigation because the county had no reasonable plan for collecting such fees or implementing the needed roadway improvements.

Tracy First v. City of Tracy, 177 Cal. App. 4th 1 (2009), involved an approximately 95,000 square foot WinCo store in the city of Tracy. The EIR for the project evaluated both the southern portion of the project site, upon which the store would be built, as well as the northern portion of the site, for which no specific building had been proposed. The petitioner, Tracy First, challenged the city’s approval of the project on numerous grounds under CEQA, including claims that: (1) the analysis of energy impacts was inadequate; (2) the conclusion that funding traffic improvements would not feasibly mitigate traffic impacts was not supported by the evidence; and (3) the city council’s approval of the amended EIR without remanding the matter back to the planning commission was improper. The court rejected all these claims.

The court held that the EIR sufficiently analyzed energy impacts when it included a general discussion of energy conservation measures as to the whole project and a more specific discussion of energy impacts and conservation measures with respect to the southern portion of the site, where the WinCo building had been proposed. In particular, the court found relevant the EIR’s discussion of the specified actions to be taken at the time building plans were submitted that would promote energy conservation, such as insulation, energy-efficient heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems, solar-reflective roofing, energy efficient indoor and outdoor lighting, heat reclamation from air conditioning systems to heat water, and skylights. The court also focused on the additional, more detailed analysis of the energy impacts of the specific WinCo store proposed to be built. Using a similar store for comparison, the EIR detailed the energy consumption required for such a store, catalogued the actions to be taken to conserve energy, and noted that proposed design features would result in the store being 25 percent more efficient than required under Title 24’s building energy efficiency standards. In addressing petitioner’s argument that the EIR improperly relied on compliance with Title 24 energy efficiency standards, the court disagreed. It concluded that the EIR’s discussion of compliance with these standards is proper, and emphasized the standards’ relevance to the analysis since they are designed to “reduce the wasteful, inefficient and unnecessary consumption of energy,” as specified under CEQA. 

Regarding traffic impacts, the EIR identified significant impacts to two intersections outside of the city’s jurisdiction, in an unincorporated county area, and identified improvements to mitigate these impacts. However, the county’s Traffic Impact Fee (TIF) program did not include these specific intersections as projects to be funded by the TIF, and there was no plan or project in place to implement these improvements. The city concluded that requiring the developer to fund the intersection improvements was not feasible mitigation, so the impacts remained significant and unavoidable. The court upheld the city’s infeasibility determination, since the intersections were not under the city’s control and there was no existing plan for the county to improve those intersections.

The court also addressed procedural matters. The planning commission considered the Draft EIR and recommended that the council certify it. The city council then requested further analysis regarding energy, air quality and urban decay impacts. This additional analysis was subsequently recirculated for public comment. After considering the amended EIR, the city council certified it and approved the project without sending the matter back to the planning commission for further consideration. Petitioner argued that the council was required to remand the amended EIR back to the planning commission. The court rejected this contention as well. It noted that while there are statutes requiring remand to the planning commission when changes are made to certain projects, there is no provision in CEQA or in the city’s municipal ordinances requiring the city council to remand the project to the planning commission when amendments are made to the EIR but not to the project.