WATSONVILLE PILOTS ASSOCIATION et al.,Plaintiffs and Appellants v. ITY OF WATSONVILLE et al., Defendants and Appellants and CALIFORNIA DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION, DIVISION OF AERONAUTICS, Defendant and Respondent.

In this case, the Sixth District Court of Appeal invalidated the City of Watsonville’s approval of an EIR for the City’s 2030 General Plan update. The 2030 General Plan contemplated development of 2,250 single-family and multi-family dwelling units in an unincorporated area of Santa Cruz County known as Buena Vista and located adjacent to the Watsonville Municipal Airport. The Watsonville Pilots Association challenged the City’s certification of the EIR on the basis that it failed to (i) adequately analyze the 2030 General Plan’s impact on aviation related to the Watsonville Airport, (ii) adequately analyze a reasonable range of alternatives, and (iii) adequately analyze the impact of supplying water to new development contemplated by the 2030 General Plan. The Court agreed with Watsonville Pilots with respect to the EIR’s analysis of aviation impacts, but upheld the EIR’s analysis of water supply impacts. The Court also found that the EIR failed to adequately analyze a reasonable range of project alternatives. With respect to aviation impacts, the EIR acknowledged that portions of the Buena Vista planning area would be located within the Airport’s flight zone and, therefore, the Airport had the potential to create a safety hazard for people working and residing in the planning area. However, the EIR deferred consideration of this potential impact to a future specific plan for the Buena Vista area and asserted that implementation measures and policies of the 2030 General Plan would protect adjacent development from airport safety hazards. According to the Court, the EIR’s analysis of aviation safety hazards relating to future growth was inadequate, but not on the theory that the analysis was improperly deferred for future consideration. Instead, the Court faulted the EIR for its failure to address safety criteria set forth in the Airport Planning Land Use Handbook prepared by the Aeronautics Division of the California Department of Transportation (the “Handbook”). According to the Court, state aeronautics law required the City to incorporate into the 2030 General Plan the safety criteria set forth in the Handbook because an Airport Land Use Commission had not been formed in Santa Cruz County. Since the 2030 General Plan did not incorporate the required safety criteria, the EIR never discussed conflicts between such safety criteria and the contemplated development of the Buena Vista planning area. In the Court’s view, without such discussion, the EIR failed to adequately analyze the project’s impacts related to aviation safety. The Court also considered a challenge to the adequacy of the EIR’s alternatives analysis. As certified, the EIR evaluated three alternatives to the 2030 General Plan. Alternative 1 would have the same level of development, but all new development would be within the City’s existing city limits. Alternative 2 would have the same level of development, but only half of the new development would be located in the City’s future growth areas, while the balance would be located within the City’s existing city limits. Alternative 3 was the statutorily mandated “no project” alternative. The Watsonville Pilots Association argued that the EIR was also required to analyze a reduced density alternative and the Court agreed. The court rejected the city’s argument that the required “no project” alternative provided sufficient analysis of reduced development, noting that the purpose of the alternatives analysis is to allow decisionmakers to determine whether there is an environmental superior alternative that reduces impacts but meets most project objectives, whereas the no project alternative inherently does not meet any project objectives. Also, the court noted that the impacts of the project were primarily due to the impacts of growth, so some consideration of a reduced growth alternative was required.