Court Opinion

ID: 9731888
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 16:00:51.360967+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:21.767881
License: Public Domain

NEWSOM, J., Concurring.
I concur in what I conceive to be the clear holding of the majority that the Santa Clara Board of Supervisors acted illegally in adopting a negative declaration for the proposed sewage disposal system.
I write this separate concurrence, however, because I wish to disassociate myself from the conclusions—all of them dicta, I believe—stated on page *612609, beginning with the word “But” and continuing to the end of the published part of the majority opinion.
Thus, I find nothing “absurd” in the view that pouring septic effluents into a leach field near a public reservoir should constitute a “project” under applicable law, if only because, as the majority opinion puts it, “the history of conventional septic tank use in Santa Clara ... is one of environmental degradation.” And, indeed, as the majority further notes, the Santa Clara Board itself recognized the “growth inducing potential” of the system proposed in the present case.
As this court said in an almost identical context, “ [w]e of course recognize that it is presently impossible to determine with specificity the number, nature or location of replacement construction projects. Until such projects are proposed, their impact—individually and in the aggregate—cannot be gauged with exactitude. But that the ordinance reasonably portends possible future environmental impacts flowing from the cumulative effect of probable replacement construction projects seems undeniable. And even before specific projects are commenced the City may be able to state—at least in general terms—that the ordinance will have an impact upon the environment, or to dismiss that possibility. Without a threshold evaluation, however, the City leaves its constituents in ignorance of the avoidable dangers CEQA intended to avert. If a ‘project’ poses the possibility of significantly influencing the environment, as the subject ordinance clearly seems to do, the inability of the City to identify impacts ought not to relieve it of the responsibility to prepare an appropriate EIR in accordance with section 21151.” Terminal Plaza Corp. v. City and County of San Francisco (1986) 177 Cal.App.3d 892, 904-905 [223 Cal.Rptr. 379].)
I wish also to state my entire disagreement with the majority’s view that this case serves to illustrate “how an opponent of development can delay, or, sometimes, abort a project.” To my mind, it serves rather to illustrate the wisdom of a law which permits citizens vigilant in the public interest to force local government to think before it acts.
Appellants’ petition for review by the Supreme Court was denied January 29, 1987.