By Katherine Howard
If you thought that our local governments were implementing only emergency measures during the pandemic, you would be wrong. Despite the fact that the average citizen is focused on dealing with the coronavirus and social justice issues, the San Francisco Planning Department is pushing through City Hall a new policy that would limit environmental reviews for development projects. Bay Area residents need to weigh in on these actions now, before we lose important rights under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA).
The Planning Department's proposed ordinance to 'streamline' the CEQA process in San Francisco is known as SER - Standard Environmental Requirements. Under the SER ordinance, projects that formerly might have needed extensive review under CEQA would be approved unilaterally by Planning Department staff if the projects met specific requirements. This could eliminate a few months of review, but it could also eliminate public notice, public hearings, and input that could, and often does, result in a better project.
Some of the more detailed objections to the SER Ordinance were submitted in extensive letters to the Planning Department and Commissions by both the Sierra Club and Richard Drury, a prominent local CEQA attorney. These objections include the following:
- The proposed SER process will have a negative impact on transparency and public participation in the CEQA process. Many more projects will be given an exemption, called a Categorical Exemption, from the public review process. The timeline for the public to weigh in is much shorter with a Categorical Exemption than for the other CEQA categories of Mitigated Negative Declaration and Negative Declaration.
- Once the SER ordinance has been passed by the Board of Supervisors, the definition of what projects are categorically exempt under SER will be decided solely by the Planning Department and the Planning Commission in an ongoing process.
- The Planning Department has started to outline some of the mitigations that could be used to make a project categorically exempt. However, these mitigations are not subject to any kind of control by the SF Board of Supervisors. Not only could the currently proposed mitigations be modified at will by the SF Planning Department and the SF Planning Commission, but also new conditions could be added without consideration or approval by the Board of Supervisors. In other words, SER removes the Board of Supervisors from any decision-making on setting the actual standards that will be implemented — forever.
- Streamlining using standard conditions can preclude the possibility of a better environmental result; in fact, better alternatives to a project are often found only during a public review of the project.
- It is uncertain that the proposed SER process is even valid under state law.
SER is a long-term policy that will have an impact on planning decisions that affect all San Franciscans for many years to come.
Protect your rights under CEQA! Join with the Sierra Club in opposing the SER Ordinance. Contact the author for more information on what you can do: kathyhoward at earthlink.net.
Katherine Howard is a member of the Sierra Club San Francisco Group Executive Committee and Conservation Committee.