Stockton Citizens for Sensible Planning v. City of Stockton

The California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA or Act; Pub. Resources Code, § 21000 et seq.) seeks to ensure that public agencies will consider the environmental consequences of discretionary projects they propose to carry out or approve. On the other hand, the Act is sensitive to the particular need for finality and certainty in land use planning decisions. Accordingly, the Act provides “unusually short” limitations periods (Cal. Code Regs., tit. 14, §§ 15000 et seq. (CEQA Guidelines), 15112, subd. (a)) after which persons may no longer mount legal challenges, however meritorious, to actions taken under the Act’s auspices.

The shortest of all CEQA statutes of limitations applies to cases in which agencies have given valid public notice, under CEQA, of their CEQArelevant actions or decisions. The filing and posting of such a notice alerts the public that any lawsuit to attack the noticed action or decision on grounds it did not comply with CEQA must be mounted immediately.

Certain projects are statutorily exempt from CEQA, and these include “[m]inisterial projects”—those whose approval involves little or no exercise of discretion or judgment by the public agency. (§…