Infill Infrastructure Grant Program of 2019.

Existing law establishes the Infill Infrastructure Grant Program of 2019, which requires the Department of Housing and Community Development, upon appropriation of funds by the Legislature, to establish and administer a grant program to allocate funds for capital improvement projects for the development of a qualifying infill project or qualifying infill area, as those terms are defined. 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. This bill would exempt from the requirements of CEQA a project financed pursuant to the Infill Infrastructure Grant Program of 2019, and would make all legal actions, proceedings, and decisions undertaken or made pursuant to the program exempt from CEQA. The bill would also make nonsubstantive changes to the program by renumbering a code section and updating erroneous cross-references.