CEQA is playing a vital role in protecting communities from the LA gondola project

 I write to clarify some misimpressions about the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) created by the Daily Journal's May 5, 2025 reporting on Los Angeles Parks Alliance and The California Endowment v. Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (nonpub. opn. Court of Appeal case. No. B340838 and B340931, filed May 1, 2025).

CEQA is vital in protecting California's communities from adverse impacts. The story entitled "CEQA-caused delay in LA gondola not permanent, but untimely," fails to encompass the vital role CEQA plays in protecting the health and quality of life of the people and communities that will be impacted. In this case, community members who will be most burdened by the wholly privately owned gondola initiated by Frank McCourt, the former Dodgers' owner whose ownership ended in bankruptcy but who continues to own development rights over the Dodger Stadium parking lots.

At the heart of this CEQA challenge is the right and the ability of common citizens to hold powerful developers and bureaucracies to account. The Court's decision is a reminder of the critical and invaluable protections afforded by CEQA to the most vulnerable communities in California such as those persons living and working in Chinatown who will forever live in and under the shadow of the gondola and who must bear the brunt of a minimum of 25 months of 14 hour days (10 hour days on Saturdays and holidays) of unrelenting and, according to proponents,  "unmitigable" construction noises such as jackhammers, pile drivers, earthmovers and other ear-splitting sounds within a stone's throw of sensitive receptors such as childcare centers and people's apartments. Following construction, local residents will have to endure trolley-sized gondola cars passing over their homes and within feet of their windows every 7 minutes, 365 days per year at all hours of the day.

Proponents concede that the significant construction noise impacts involved in the case are above 90 decibels at levels the Department of Health considers to be "Clearly Unacceptable." Not every construction project has such severe construction noise impacts on sensitive receptors. The ruling will not be an impassable roadblock for major construction because, as noted in the story, CEQA is designed to make projects better for the public, not to stop them.

Additionally, CEQA has provisions under which lead agencies can approve a project despite its significant impacts after adopting all feasible mitigation measures. (Public Resources Code section 21081). The gondola project, with its potential to harm human health, was not found to have adopted such potentially feasible mitigation measures.

Perhaps rather than decrying a "CEQA-caused delay" to a privately owned $500 million gondola that the local community never wanted or asked for, and that the public may end up paying the tab for, there should be an examination of how in certain circumstances such as this one, thanks to CEQA, the voices of the community and the reality of the harm they are facing finally had their day in Court.