Opinion ID: 2824890
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Marina decision.

Text: As noted, our decision in Marina, supra, 39 Cal.4th 341, addressed a challenge to the Board‘s EIR for an earlier campus expansion project. In that EIR, the Board had found that to expand CSUMB would significantly affect drainage, water supply, traffic, wastewater management and fire protection throughout Fort Ord, the former military base on which the campus was located, as well as vehicular traffic in the neighboring municipalities of Seaside and the City of Marina. (Id. at pp. 349–350.) Nevertheless, the Board refused to share the cost of mitigating these impacts with the public entities responsible for undertaking the necessary infrastructure improvements. Any payment for that purpose, the Board asserted in its EIR, would amount to an unlawful assessment of CSU or a gift of public funds. (Id. at pp. 352–353.) Based on these legal assumptions, the Board found that mitigation was infeasible and that overriding considerations justified certifying the EIR and approving the Master Plan despite the unmitigated effects. (Id. at pp. 351–354.) We concluded the Board had abused its discretion in certifying the EIR because the finding of infeasibility and statement of overriding considerations depended on erroneous legal assumptions. (Marina, supra, 39 Cal.4th at pp. 368– 369.) Prominent among those assumptions was that the campus‘s geographical boundaries defined the extent of the Board‘s duty to mitigate. To the contrary, as we explained, ―CEQA requires a public agency to mitigate or avoid its projects‘ significant effects not just on the agency‘s own property but ‗on the environment‘ (Pub. Resources Code, § 21002.1, subd. (b), italics added), with ‗environment‘ defined for these purposes as ‗the physical conditions which exist within the area which will be affected by a proposed project‘ (id., § 21060.5, italics added).‖ (Marina, at p. 360.) 12 The same erroneous assumption had also led the Board to find that off-site mitigation was the responsibility of other agencies. (Marina, 39 Cal.4th at p. 366.) CEQA does permit a lead agency to determine that mitigation measures necessary to avoid a project‘s environmental effects ―are within the responsibility and jurisdiction of another public agency and have been, or can and should be, adopted by that other agency.‖ (Pub. Resources Code, § 21081, subd. (a)(2).) However, as we explained, the Board shared with other agencies the responsibility for mitigating CSUMB‘s effects on regional infrastructure, and a lead agency may disclaim responsibility ―only when the other agency said to have responsibility has exclusive responsibility.‖ (Marina, at p. 366, citing CEQA Guidelines, § 15091, subd. (c) [―The finding in subdivision (a)(2) shall not be made if the agency making the finding has concurrent jurisdiction with another agency to deal with identified feasible mitigation measures or alternatives‖].) Having explained that the Board‘s duty to mitigate extended beyond the boundaries of the campus, we dismissed as ―beside the point‖ the Board‘s argument that it ―lack[ed] the power to construct infrastructure improvements away from campus on land [the Board did] not own and control . . . .‖ (Marina, supra, 39 Cal.4th at p. 367.) ―Certainly,‖ we acknowledged, ―the [Board] may not enter the land of others to widen roads and lay sewer pipe; CEQA gives the [Board] no such power. (See Pub. Resources Code, § 21004 [‗[i]n mitigating or avoiding a significant effect of a project on the environment, a public agency may exercise only those express or implied powers provided by law other than this division.‘].) [But] CEQA does not,‖ we continued, ―limit a public agency‘s obligation to mitigate or avoid significant environmental effects to effects occurring on the agency‘s own property. (See Pub. Resources Code, §§ 21002.1, subd. (b), 21060.5.) CEQA also provides that ‗[a]ll state agencies . . . shall request in their budgets the funds necessary to protect the environment in relation to 13 problems caused by their activities.‘ (Id., § 21106.) Thus,‖ we concluded, ―if the [Board] cannot adequately mitigate or avoid CSUMB‘s off-campus environmental effects by performing acts on the campus, then to pay a third party . . . to perform the necessary acts off campus may well represent a feasible alternative.‖ (Marina, at p. 367.)