{"id":210,"date":"2025-07-11T15:41:51","date_gmt":"2025-07-11T19:41:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/energyenvironmental\/?p=210"},"modified":"2025-12-04T12:48:31","modified_gmt":"2025-12-04T16:48:31","slug":"california-overhauls-ceqa-with-reforms-designed-to-accelerate-housing-and-infrastructure-development","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/energyenvironmental\/2025\/07\/11\/california-overhauls-ceqa-with-reforms-designed-to-accelerate-housing-and-infrastructure-development\/","title":{"rendered":"California Overhauls CEQA with Reforms Designed to Accelerate Housing and Infrastructure Development"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By David Amerikaner<\/a>, <\/strong>Louis<\/strong> C. Formisano<\/strong><\/a> and Matthew L. Capone<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

On June 30, 2025, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed into law a suite of bills significantly revising the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), marking what the governor described as \u201cthe most consequential housing reform in modern history.\u201d These changes are designed to streamline environmental review processes for a range of projects, with the goal of expediting housing construction and the development of critical infrastructure statewide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Among these changes are expanded exemptions from CEQA for infill housing development projects that meet local zoning, density and objective planning standards \u2013 provided the development projects are not, amongst other requirements, located on environmentally sensitive or hazardous sites. In instances where an infill housing development fails to meet the new CEQA exemption because of a single condition, only that single condition needs to be analyzed under CEQA. The specific focus on infill housing development projects in this legislation is aimed to remedy a shortage of urban housing in California and to steer construction projects away from undeveloped land. To that end, the Governor\u2019s Office of Land Use and Climate Innovation is tasked with developing, by July 1, 2027, a map of urban infill sites eligible for the CEQA exemption.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The legislative package also creates new CEQA exemptions for health centers and rural clinics, childcare facilities, food banks, farmworker housing, wildfire risk mitigation projects and parks while also streamlining environmental reviews for certain housing projects that are ineligible for an existing CEQA exemption. In addition, specified projects related to California\u2019s high-speed rail project and certain advanced manufacturing projects are now exempt from CEQA review.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For developers, municipalities, and project managers looking to better understand the full scope of these CEQA reforms and potential impacts on currently existing or prospective projects, contact the environmental and land use attorneys at Duane Morris, LLP.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By David Amerikaner, Louis C. Formisano and Matthew L. Capone On June 30, 2025, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed into law a suite of bills significantly revising the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), marking what the governor described as \u201cthe most consequential housing reform in modern history.\u201d These changes are designed to streamline environmental review processes for a range of … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “California Overhauls CEQA with Reforms Designed to Accelerate Housing and Infrastructure Development”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"ppma_author":[5,138,167,168],"class_list":["post-210","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"authors":[{"term_id":5,"user_id":6,"is_guest":0,"slug":"duanemorris3","display_name":"Duane Morris","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/843ff6e7a8fe5fc92109b47a45f34b6cf0ea499e6e788db23456c838b0ae6747?s=96&d=blank&r=g","author_category":"1","last_name":"Sullivan","first_name":"Margaret","job_title":"","user_url":"http:\/\/www.duanemorris.com","description":"Visit the Duane Morris website.<\/a>"},{"term_id":138,"user_id":513,"is_guest":0,"slug":"dbamerikaner","display_name":"David Amerikaner","avatar_url":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/energyenvironmental\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/54\/2024\/12\/amerikanerdavid-100x100.jpg","author_category":"","last_name":"Amerikaner","first_name":"David","job_title":"","user_url":"https:\/\/www.duanemorris.com\/attorneys\/davidamerikaner.html","description":"Read David's bio.<\/a>"},{"term_id":167,"user_id":714,"is_guest":0,"slug":"lformisano","display_name":"Louis C. Formisano","avatar_url":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/energyenvironmental\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/54\/2025\/03\/formisanolouis-100x100.jpg","author_category":"","last_name":"Formisano","first_name":"Louis","job_title":"","user_url":"https:\/\/www.duanemorris.com\/attorneys\/louisformisano.html","description":"Read Louis's bio.<\/a>"},{"term_id":168,"user_id":715,"is_guest":0,"slug":"mlcapone","display_name":"Matthew L. Capone","avatar_url":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/energyenvironmental\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/54\/2025\/03\/caponematt-100x100.jpg","author_category":"","last_name":"Capone","first_name":"Matthew","job_title":"","user_url":"https:\/\/www.duanemorris.com\/attorneys\/matthewcapone.html","description":"Read Matthew's bio.<\/a>"}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/energyenvironmental\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/energyenvironmental\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/energyenvironmental\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/energyenvironmental\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/energyenvironmental\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=210"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/energyenvironmental\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/energyenvironmental\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/energyenvironmental\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/energyenvironmental\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=210"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/energyenvironmental\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}