In Stop Syar Expansion v. County of Napa (2021) 63 Cal.App.5th 444, the First District Court of Appeal upheld Napa County’s Environmental Impact Report (EIR) for the expansion of Syar Industries, Inc.’s aggregate mining operations at a local quarry. Citizen group Stop Syar Expansion (“SSE”) filed a Petition for Writ of Mandate under CEQA claiming that the EIR was deficient on 16 counts, including in its analysis of greenhouse gas emissions, water usage baseline, water quality, and general plan consistency. The trial court denied the Petition for Writ of Mandate, and SSE appealed, raising five issues. The Court of Appeal affirmed, holding that SSE did not exhaust administrative remedies because it failed to raise specific issues in the administrative proceedings as required by the Napa County Code. Additionally, the Court denied SSE’s general plan consistency claim under CEQA, holding that general plan consistency is properly reviewed with traditional mandamus under Code of Civil Procedure section 1085.
The Court held that SSE failed to meet the jurisdictional requirement of exhaustion of administrative remedies with regard to a number of its claims. The Court looked to the County Code, which required “identification of the specific factual or legal determination of the approving authority which is being appealed, and the basis for such appeal.” Because the County Code required identification of the specific issue, the Court found that prior case law allowing the project opponent to exhaust administrative remedies with only general issue identification was inapplicable.
Applying this standard, the Court held that SSE failed to exhaust its administrative remedies as to the issue of whether the EIR properly assessed truck emission impacts by using a baseline production number averaged over...
