Friends of the College of San Mateo Gardens v. San Mateo County Community College District

I.

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL

BACKGROUND

A. The Facilities Master Plan, the Mitigated Negative Declaration, and the Addendum. The following factual background is taken from the Supreme Court’s opinion in San Mateo Gardens. Unless otherwise noted, we will use the same defined terms used in that opinion. “In 2006, [defendants] the San Mateo [County] Community College District and its Board of Trustees (collectively, District) adopted a facilities master plan (Plan) proposing nearly $1 billion in new construction and facilities renovations at the District’s three college campuses. At the College of San Mateo (College), the District’s Plan included a proposal to demolish certain buildings and renovate others. The buildings slated for renovation included the College’s ‘Building 20 complex,’ which includes a small cast-in-place concrete classroom and lab structure, greenhouse, lath house, surrounding garden space, and an interior courtyard. “In 2006, the District published an initial study and mitigated negative declaration [(MND)] analyzing the physical environmental effects of implementing the Plan’s proposed improvements at the College, including the proposed rehabilitation of…

This is a case brought under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) (Pub. Resources Code, 1 § 21000 et seq.) that is before us for a second time. In the first appeal, we affirmed the trial court’s ruling that defendant San Mateo County Community College District (District) violated CEQA when it responded to changes in a campus renovation project by issuing an addendum to a mitigated negative declaration. We held that the proposed changes constituted a “new” project not subject to an addendum. (Friends of College of San Mateo Gardens v. San Mateo County Community College Dist. (Sept. 26, 2013, A135892) [nonpub. opn.].) Our state Supreme Court reversed after concluding that we should not have assessed whether the changes constituted a new project, but should have instead assessed whether CEQA’s subsequent review provisions were applicable and, if so, whether the addendum was permissible under them. (Friends of College of San Mateo Gardens v. San Mateo County Community College Dist. (2016) 1 Cal.5th 937, 953 [ 207 Cal.Rptr.3d 314 , 378 P.3d 687 ] (San Mateo Gardens).)

Evaluating the project changes as directed, we now conclude that they amounted to a modified…

Concurring.—I concur in the result of this case. I seek to emphasize that the San Mateo County Community College District incorrectly relied on the addendum process to deal with the modifications of the project approved under the original negative declaration, as detailed in the lead opinion. I do not believe the addendum process was the appropriate method to address the changes contemplated by the District. While the addendum process is limited to instances concerning “minor technical *612 changes or additions” (Cal. Code Regs., tit. 14, § 15164, subd. (b)), the proposal reviewed in this case involved demolishing a major building and transforming into a parking lot an important garden space with unique trees and vegetation. Neither of these changes were discussed in the original negative declaration. These revisions exposed ‘“new, potentially significant environmental effects that had not previously been considered in connection with the earlier environmental study.” (Friends of College of San Mateo Gardens v. San Mateo Community College Dist. (2016) 1 Cal.5th 937, 958, fn. 6 [ 207 Cal.Rptr.3d 314 , 378 P.3d 687 ].) Clearly the employment of the addendum process in a subsequent…