Yolo Land and Water Defense v. County of Yolo (Oct. 3, 2024) 105 Cal.App.5th 710

Yolo Land and Water Defense (YLWD) challenged the County of Yolo’s EIR certified for approval of a 319-acre sand and gravel mine. Both the trial court and Court of Appeal dismissed YLWD’s challenge, finding the EIR to be adequate under CEQA. Although YLWD sought relief on a number

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of alleged inadequacies in the EIR, only a portion of the decision has been published. The following summary focuses solely on the published portion.

As allowed under Public Resources Code Section 21167.6, YLWD opted to prepare the administrative record that was to be the basis of the litigation. It asked the County of Yolo to produce the documents that constituted the administrative record, over 29,000 pages of material. The trial court awarded the County of Yolo the cost incurred in collecting the record materials and certifying the accuracy of the record. The Court of Appeal upheld this award.

As the prevailing party, the County of Yolo is eligible to recover “any reasonable costs” it incurred in association with preparing the administrative record; “[t]hat appellants elected to prepare the record under section 21167.6, subdivision (b)(2) did not mean the County had no costs associated with preparation of the administrative record, and it did not preclude an award of record preparation costs to the County.” Furthermore: “Under section 21167.6 and Code of Civil Procedure sections 1032 and 1094.5, appellants must pay any reasonable costs the County actually incurred associated with the preparation of the administrative record.”