In Masonite Corporation v. County of Mendocino, (1st Dist. 2013) 218 Cal.App.4th 230, the First District Court of Appeal struck down the County of Mendocino’s certification of an environmental impact report (“EIR”) prepared for a use permit for Granite Construction’s Kunzler Terrace Mines project, which will be a sand and gravel quarry on 65 acres of land north of Ukiah near the Russian River (“Project”). Forty-five out of 65 acres of the Project site was vineyard land that the California Department of Conservation had designated as “prime farmland,” which would be lost as a result of the Project.

This month’s Land Use Update features: 1) a CEQA case clarifying several issues about what must be included in an administrative record, including attorney-client privilege issues; 2) a CEQA case focused on parking issues; 3) an unusual case involving the public nuisance exception to Coastal Commission jurisdiction under the Coastal Act.

1. In Citizens for Ceres v. Superior Court of Stanislaus County (2013) (5^th 2013) Case No. F065690, –Cal.Rptr.2d–, a case challenging an EIR prepared for a shopping center and Wal-Mart store under the California Environmental Quality Act,