Getting it Right: Examining the Local Land Use Entitlement Process in California to Inform Policy and Process

We found that these local governments are imposing discretionary review processes on all residential development projects of five or more units within their borders. [W]hat drives whether and how environmental review occurs for residential projects is local land-use law. Our data shows that in many cases, these cities appear to impose redundant or multiple layers of discretionary review on projects.
We also found that the processes by which local governments review residential development projects under their zoning ordinances and under CEQA varies from city to city. As a result, developers seeking to construct residential projects often must learn to navigate very different and complicated land-use systems, even if they work in the same region. This appears to particularly burden smaller development projects. Our data also shows that these cities rely on streamlined CEQA procedures for the majority of their residential projects, including many large projects. The effectiveness, however, of those streamlined procedures in terms of reducing timeframes for project approval varies greatly from city to city, indicating that a range of non-legal factors (such as practices in planning departments, or the amount of resources dedicated to planning) may impact development timelines.

Moria O’Neill, Giulia Gualco-Nelson, and Eric Biber

UC Berkeley

February 2018

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