Golden Gate Land Holdings LLC v. East Bay Regional Park District

Appellant Golden Gate Land Holdings LLC (Golden Gate) owns 140 acres of land straddling the border of Albany and Berkeley, on the east shore of San Francisco Bay. The site includes the Golden Gate Fields racetrack. The East Bay Regional Park District (the District) approved a resolution of necessity to condemn eight shoreline acres of Golden Gate’s property to help complete the Eastshore State Park (Eastshore Park), and to construct a segment of the San Francisco Bay Trail (the Bay Trail). The District concluded that the project was exempt from the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA; Pub. Resources Code, § 21000 et seq.) 1 and posted a notice of exemption. Golden Gate petitioned the superior court for a writ of mandate seeking to vacate the District’s resolution of necessity, arguing that CEQA required preparation of an environmental impact report (EIR) and that the District had violated eminent domain law.

*358 The trial court granted the petition, but declined to direct the District to set aside its approval of the resolution of necessity. The court instead ordered the District to vacate only its CEQA exemption finding, permitting the District to leave its…