Del Mar Terrace Conservancy, Inc. v. City Council

• Decision Date: 23 October 1992
• Docket Number: No. D015851,D015851
• Citation: 12 Cal.Rptr.2d 785,10 Cal.App.4th 712
• Court: California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals
• Parties: DEL MAR TERRACE CONSERVANCY, INC., Plaintiff and Appellant, v. CITY COUNCIL OF the CITY OF SAN DIEGO, et al., Defendants and Respondents.

Page 785

12 Cal.Rptr.2d 785

10 Cal.App.4th 712

DEL MAR TERRACE CONSERVANCY, INC., Plaintiff and Appellant, v. CITY COUNCIL OF the CITY OF SAN DIEGO, et al., Defendants and Respondents.

No. D015851.

Court of Appeal, Fourth District, Division 1, California.

Oct. 23, 1992.

As Modified on Denial of Rehearing Nov. 16, 1992.

Mulvaney, Kahan & Barry, John H. Reaves, Lawrence Kahan, Diane M. Racicot and Charles F. Bethel, San Diego, for plaintiff and appellant.

John W. Witt, City Atty., C. Alan Sumption, Chief Deputy City Atty., Leslie J. Girard, Deputy City Atty., Meyer, Peterson & Joseph and Jeffrey A. Joseph, San Diego, for defendants and respondents.

HUFFMAN, Associate Justice.

Del Mar Terrace Conservancy, Inc. (DMTC), a non-profit environmental and conservation organization, appeals the judgment of the superior court denying its petition for writ of mandate. DMTC based its petition on the theory that the City of San Diego (the City), through its city council, abused its discretion when it certified as complete the final environmental impact report (EIR) prepared on a 1.8-mile highway project, State Route (SR) 56 West.

The California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) is a co-sponsor of the SR 56 West project and is an additional respondent in these proceedings.

Relying both upon the administrative record that was before the city council at the time of the decision, and upon evidence extraneous to the record which the trial court declined to consider, DMTC argues on appeal that the certification of the EIR was made without the support of substantial evidence. (Pub.Resources Code, §§ 21168, 21168.5.) ¹ As a threshold matter, DMTC contends the trial court erroneously treated the matter as an administrative mandamus proceeding, whereas ordinary mandamus would have been more appropriate and would have permitted the extraneous evidence to be considered. DMTC goes on to make substantive arguments about the alleged inadequacy of the EIR, as follows: (1) the SR 56 West project represents an impermissible segmentation of the highway project when the whole of a proposed nine-mile SR 56 project is considered; (2) the EIR inadequately analyzes the cumulative impacts of the project; (3) feasible alternatives to the project are inadequately discussed in the EIR; and (4) the mitigation measures listed in the EIR are inaccurate, deficient and therefore inadequate.

We agree with DMTC that this petition properly sounded in ordinary mandamus because of the quasi-legislative nature of the City's conduct when it certified the EIR and amended the applicable land use plans in order to enable construction of the SR 56 West project. However, our review of the record discloses that this error by the trial court was not prejudicial. § 21005.) Judicial review of the adequacy of this EIR, conducted according to the same substantial evidence standard as used by the trial court, discloses that the EIR is sufficient as an informational document and that the decision of the city council is supported by substantial evidence. (Citizens of Goleta Valley v. Board of Supervisors (1990) 52 Cal.3d 553, 564, 276 Cal.Rptr. 410, 801 P.2d 1161.) We affirm the judgment of the trial court denying the petition for writ of mandate.

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

We set forth the general background of this dispute, reserving the more technical facts for our discussion of DMTC's substantive challenges to the adequacy of the EIR under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) (§ 21000 et seq.). Long-range planning for a proposed state route, SR 56, began in 1959 when the concept of an east-west state highway, extending from north of La Jolla to SR 67, east of Poway, was adopted as part of the state highway system. (Sts. & Hy.Code, §§ 300, 356.) ² The City had included a proposed SR 56 through its jurisdiction, although with no particular alignment, in the circulation element of its 1967 general plan, and in community plans for North City West and Sorrento Hills, dated 1975 and 1983, respectively. A proposed SR 56 has been included in other regional land use plans by the City and other agencies since 1983. The City enacted a transportation policy on May 13, 1985, which specified the development of an adequate transportation system for the northern portions of the City, including SR 56. The City and Caltrans (collectively sometimes referred to here as Respondents) have generally indicated in these plans that SR 56 is to connect Interstate 5 (I-5) and Interstate 15 (I-15).

The passage of two initiatives by the City's electorate affected land use planning concerning the proposed SR 56. In 1985, Proposition A, a managed growth initiative, was passed, designating a "Future Urbanizing Area" (FUA), that would be off limits to intensive development through 1995 without a citywide vote to approve such development. This FUA bisects SR 56 and runs for approximately three to four miles from east to west in the Carmel Valley Due to the operation of these initiatives, there was no land use plan for the FUA. Thus, the City and Caltrans, as co-applicants for this project, could not commit to an alignment for SR 56 through that area, nor could they plan for onramps, offramps, their locations or configurations. Because of the effect of the designation of the FUA, the City and Caltrans instead developed plans for an SR 56 East project from the interior of Rancho Penasquitos to I-15, and for an SR 56 West project to help motorists reach I-5 from the interior of North City West. These two projects were located at opposite ends of the FUA zone.

area. Then, in 1987, a different Proposition A, a transportation sales tax, was passed to create funding for designated regional transportation needs, including SR 56, but only outside the FUA zone. Around the time that the transportation sales tax was passed, Senate Bill 140 was passed to provide for matching state funds if a contract were awarded on the SR 56 project by June of 1991.

In addition to creating the two plans for the SR 56 West and SR 56 East projects, the City and Caltrans discussed for planning purposes the entirety of the SR 56 corridor. The record shows SR 56 West was designated as phase II and SR 56 East was designated as phase IV of an overall scheme. The remaining three phases were the I-5 widening project to connect SR 56 to I-5, the area in the FUA, and the portion from I-15 eastward to SR 67. Originally, beginning in December 1987, Caltrans had planned to file a negative declaration for purposes of complying with CEQA (§ 21064), but it eventually prepared separate draft EIR's for both the SR 56 West and SR 56 East projects. ³

Focusing specifically on the SR 56 West project: its EIR describes the project as converting a 1.8 mile section of Carmel Valley Road to a four-lane freeway, with expansion possibilities to six lanes. This project will commence .6 miles east of I-5 (not affecting the existing access from Carmel Valley Road to I-5, a different "phase"), and run to a point .5 miles east of an intersection with Carmel Country Road. The record shows that this highway will be built along existing Carmel Valley Road; that alignment is consistent with the City's general plan and the various community plans in the area, and alternative alignments were evaluated as being more environmentally damaging and more costly due to steep grades outside the valley. An alignment further south would also have conflicted with the I-5/805 interchange which could have caused hazardous weaving movements by motorists. Traffic projections prepared by the San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG) indicate extremely crowded traffic conditions will exist in the Carmel Valley area of I-5 by the year 2010. ⁴ The projections conclude that traffic will continue to increase even if the North City West community is not entirely built out and SR 56 is not connected to I-15.

In addition to the highway route alignment described in the draft EIR for the SR 56 West project, the project includes an extensive drainage and sediment control channel portion known as the Carmel Valley Restoration and Enhancement Project (CVREP). CVREP was developed when the California Coastal Commission conditionally accepted the design and construction of SR 56 West in a 1985 amendment to the North City West Local Coastal Program, provided that local waterways be protected. CVREP, to be created on the south wide of SR 56 West, will consist of a heavily vegetated, natural-appearing channel with riparian vegetation and an adjacent 50-foot landscaped greenbelt containing an equestrian trail, a marked bicycle lane, and a pedestrian path. CVREP includes a five-year monitoring and maintenance program, to be extended for the life of the project, if necessary. ⁵

The SR 56 West draft EIR was submitted for public notice and comment in June 1989. The stated objectives of the SR 56 West project included accommodation of existing and projected increases in traffic congestion in North City West, and the preparation of CVREP in compliance with the requirements of the North City West Local Coastal Program. Public workshops and hearings before the City's Transportation and Land Use Committee and the Planning Commission were conducted. In response to the notification of completion of the draft EIR, voluminous comments were received, considered, and responded to in the final EIR. DMTC participated actively in all stages of the hearings on SR 56 West and submitted its considerations in a letter, to which the final EIR extensively responds. ⁶ In April 1990, the City's Planning Commission voted not to certify the SR 56 West EIR, based on its concern that the discussion of alternatives was inadequate, the wetlands impacts were unnecessary, and the project had been "piecemealed."

Acting as the lead agency for certification of the EIR, the city council scheduled the matter for public hearing on April 24, 1990. At the hearing, DMTC presented its proposed ...