Fund for Environmental Defense v. County of Orange

*1542 Opinion

Appellants, Fund for Environmental Defense and Charlotte Clarke (referred to collectively as Fund), challenge the Orange County Board of Supervisors’ (Board) December 1986 decision to issue a use permit to real party in interest Nichols Institute Reference Laboratories (Nichols) for development of a medical research and laboratory complex on property surrounded by Caspers Wilderness Park.

Nichols originally applied for a use permit on this property in 1980. In October 1981 the Board certified Final EIR 234 (addended) covering the proposed development and an amendment of the County General Plan to allow for a new zoning category applicable to the Nichols project. 1 Based on EIR 234, Nichols’ use permit application was approved in 1981. In July 1983 the Orange County Zoning Code was amended to add the “Research/Open Space Park District” category and in September 1983 the Nichols site was rezoned under this new designation.

The Nichols site consists of approximately 100 acres located some 9 miles northeast of the City of San Juan Capistrano. The site is bordered on the north by the Ortega Highway (State Route 74) and on the southwest by the Lucas Canyon haul road…

Our rivers may be murky, the air opaque, and the Pacific clouded with sewage and sludge; but Public Resources Code section 21166 is as clear as they once were. It requires the preparation of a supplemental environmental impact report in three instances, i.e., where: “(a) Substantial changes are proposed in the project which will require major revisions of the environmental impact report, [fl] (b) Substantial changes occur with respect to the circumstances under which the project is being undertaken which will require major revisions in the environmental impact report, [fl] (c) New information, which was not known and could not have been known at the time the environmental impact report was certified as complete, becomes *1556 available.” (Pub. Resources Code, § 21166.) All three subdivisions are applicable here.

The 106-page addendum to the EIR must be classified as a major revision reflecting both substantial changes in the project and in the circumstances surrounding it, if for no other reason than the project is now to be constructed in the center of a public wilderness park rather than on its periphery. (See, e.g., Concerned Citizens of Costa Mesa, Inc. v. 32nd Dist.…

Rutan & Tucker and Robert S. Bower for Real Party in Interest and Respondent.

OPINION

SCOVILLE, P.J.

Appellants, Fund for Environmental Defense and Charlotte Clarke (referred to collectively as Fund), challenge the Orange County Board of Supervisors' (Board) December 1986 decision to issue a use permit to real party in interest Nichols Institute Reference Laboratories (Nichols) for development of a medical research and laboratory complex on property surrounded by Caspers Wilderness Park.

Nichols originally applied for a use permit on this property in 1980. In October 1981 the Board certified Final EIR 234 (addended) covering the proposed development and an amendment of the County General Plan to allow for a new zoning category applicable to the Nichols project. [1] Based on EIR 234, Nichols' use permit application was approved in 1981. In July 1983 the Orange County Zoning Code was amended to add the "Research/Open Space Park District" category and in September 1983 the Nichols site was rezoned under this new designation.

The Nichols site consists of approximately 100 acres located some 9 miles northeast of the City of San Juan Capistrano. The site is bordered on the north by…