California multifamily developer guides
CEQA & Environmental Review
CEQA exposure drives entitlement timelines. How infill exemptions and the 2025 reforms work, why ministerial approvals skip CEQA entirely, and how historic and coastal overlays change the analysis.
CEQA exemptions and the 2025 reforms: defusing the schedule bomb
CEQA is less a study cost than a lawsuit option sold to your opponents — the exemption architecture, rebuilt in 2025, is how housing projects take that option off the table.
Read the guide →Ministerial paths: when CEQA never starts
No discretion, no CEQA. The statutes that make housing approval ministerial are the strongest schedule tool in California land use — as long as nothing in your permit chain re-introduces judgment.
Read the guide →Historic and coastal overlays: where extra review comes back
A 45-year-old building or a coastal-zone parcel changes the entitlement map: historic status can defeat exemptions, and the coastal overlay adds its own permit — screen both in escrow, not after.
Read the guide →The EIR path: process, timeline, cost and litigation risk
The Guidelines promise a one-year EIR; contested urban reality is 18–30 months and seven figures — underwrite the record and the writ, not just the document.
Read the guide →VMT analysis under SB 743: traffic studies without LOS
SB 743 flipped the traffic study: driving less — roughly 15% below average VMT in most adopting cities — is the test, and infill near transit is presumptively clean.
Read the guide →Class 32 and the AB 130 infill exemption: clearing CEQA on urban sites
Class 32 wins on evidence, AB 130 wins on architecture — a statutory exemption is immune to the unusual-circumstances doctrine that stalks every categorical one.
Read the guide →More developer guides
- Density Bonus & Zoning Incentives
- Entitlements & Streamlined Approvals
- Rent Control & Tenant Protections
- Demolition, Replacement Housing & Relocation
- Impact Fees, Exactions & Special Taxes
- Affordable Housing Finance: LIHTC, Bonds & Rental Subsidies
- Building Codes & Construction Standards
- Subdivision, Condo Maps & Development Agreements
- Site Selection & Development Due Diligence
Every rule cited in these guides links to the verbatim statute or regulation in the California Code Library and the federal housing-law library.
Apply these rules to a real parcel
Ask the AI how ceqa & environmental play out in a specific city or county — grounded in the code text.