California Environmental Quality Act: transit priority projects.

The California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) requires a lead agency, as defined, to prepare, or cause to be prepared, and certify the completion of, an environmental impact report on a project that it proposes to carry out or approve that may have a significant effect on the environment or to adopt a negative declaration if it finds that the project will not have that effect. CEQA also requires a lead agency to prepare a mitigated negative declaration for a project that may have a significant effect on the environment if revisions in the project would avoid or mitigate that effect and there is no substantial evidence that the project, as revised, would have a significant effect on the environment. CEQA provides for limited CEQA review or exempts from its requirements transit priority projects meeting certain requirements, including the requirement that the project be within 12 mile of a major transit stop or high-quality transit corridor included in a regional transportation plan. CEQA specifies that a project is considered to be within 12 mile of a major transit stop or high-quality transit corridor if, among other things, all parcels within the project have no more than 25% of their area farther than 12 mile from the stop or corridor. This bill, for a transit priority project to meet the requirements for limited CEQA review, would increase that percentage to 50%.