The California Chamber of Commerce has filed the Building an Affordable California Act (BACA) voter initiative, a comprehensive reform that will modernize California’s project approval process and remove longstanding barriers that have stalled the state’s most essential developments.

If enacted, BACA would deliver the most meaningful CEQA reform in decades, streamlining today’s uncertain, time-consuming, and litigation-prone process with enforceable timelines, objective standards, and clear, consistent rules for agency action. Focus has been placed on permitting steps where the development community has witnessed repetitive procedural delays.

BACA applies to a wide range of essential projects that improve affordability and quality of life, such as:

• Housing, including senior care facilities, student housing, commercial-to-residential conversions, transitional housing, emergency shelters, farmworker housing, and thoughtful master planned communities
• Hospitals, clinics and other medical facilities
• Police stations, fire stations, and other public safety projects
• Clean energy projects, including wind, solar, geothermal, and hydrogen fueling projects
• Water reservoirs, pipelines, and other infrastructure
• Bridges, roads, EV charging systems, and transportation infrastructure
• Wildfire risk reduction projects, such as fuel breaks and vegetation management

BACA’s Distinct Approach to Reform

BACA takes a fundamentally different approach from the limited CEQA exemptions and piecemeal streamlining that have defined past legislative reforms.

In recent years, the Legislature has enacted laws aimed at streamlining local land-use review for narrow types of projects — particularly for infill housing — but most have stopped short of addressing CEQA more globally. The CEQA process, and the associated lawsuits continue to result in multi-year delays, often starving projects until they are no longer feasible to develop.

When the Legislature has tried to confront CEQA directly, the results have been limited. Laws such as Assembly Bill 130 and Senate Bill 35 created new exemptions, but only for projects that meet a long and complex set of locational, acreage, and other project requirements. These laundry lists of eligibility criteria greatly limit the number of developments able to utilize the exemption pathways and, in practice, few housing developments can qualify. Intentions have been laudable, but most builders remain mired in eligibility battles and, otherwise, the same, drawn-out environmental review and litigation cycles. There is sufficient ambiguity in the law that cities and counties hostile to development and NIMBYs have been successful in opposing projects that address California’s housing shortage, climate goals, and long-term prosperity.

BACA breaks this pattern. It modernizes the agency review process for essential projects—tackling delays head-on by imposing enforceable CEQA deadlines, setting clear timetables for follow-on permits needed to begin construction, and strengthening judicial review to curb meritless litigation based on subjective considerations.

Key Reforms

1. Enforceable Deadlines for Application Completeness Determination

Under BACA, all essential projects are granted a streamlined application completeness review process. First, an application’s completeness must be judged against a written submittal checklist the agency has developed prior to the date of submittal, to prevent arbitrary decisions. The agency must issue a written determination of completeness or incompleteness within 30 days of application submittal; otherwise, the application is automatically deemed complete.

If deemed incomplete, the lead agency must provide a single, exhaustive list of missing items. Future requests are limited to the items included on that list, ending the cycle of new information demands that frequently delay projects. The applicant then has 90 days to revise or supplement the application, after which the agency again has 30 days to determine application completeness.

Applicants may appeal a determination of incompleteness to the agency’s planning authority or, if none exists, the agency’s highest-ranking decision-making body of the agency, which must issue a final determination within 60 calendar days, or the application is deemed complete. 

2. Vested Rights and Limiting the Standards Applicable to Project Evaluation and CEQA Alternatives

Under BACA, agencies must evaluate essential projects based on the laws (including but not limited to statutes, regulations, and ordinances) in place when the date that the project’s application was submitted. This requirement prevents midstream policy changes from derailing approved or pending projects. For CEQA review, when a written standard exists for a resource category, the analysis must rely solely on that standard. Applicants may voluntarily waive these vested rights if they prefer to proceed under newer laws.

BACA also establishes an optional process for streamlined alternatives analysis. Under this process, the applicant opts into the benefit if it provides the lead agency with a preliminary overview sufficient to inform the agency and public of the project’s key features, and engages in at least two meetings with the agency to discuss potential alternatives. The applicant may then propose one alternative for evaluation in the EIR. The analysis is limited to the applicant’s proposed alternative, the project itself, and a “no project” alternative—unless specifically requested by the applicant. This ends the practice of lead agencies and project opponents forcing excessive alternatives analyses that delay projects and drive up costs.

3. Enforceable CEQA Deadlines

BACA sets strict timelines on CEQA review to prevent the open-ended processes that stall essential projects. Once an application is deemed complete, the lead agency must:

• Determine the level of environmental review (e.g. - exemption, negative declaration, mitigated negative declaration, environmental impact report) within 30 business days
• Complete any exemption or addendum documentation within 90 business days;
• Adopt a negative or mitigated negative declarations within 180 business; or
• Certify any EIRs within 365 business days of application completeness.

If a lead agency misses these deadlines, the applicant may request a public hearing. The agency must complete its CEQA documentation and act on the project within 60 calendar days, unless extended by mutual written consent.

BACA also sets strict public comment periods for mitigated negative declarations and draft environmental impact reports. These comment periods may not be tolled or extended (except by a court), and late comments shall not be considered.

4. Enforceable Project Approval Deadlines

Once CEQA review is completed, the lead agency must issue a final decision on any permit, authorization, or approval within 90 calendar days of certifying the EIR, adopting a negative declaration or mitigated negative declaration, or determination of exemption. Any other public agency with approval authority over an aspect of the project must likewise issue its final written decision within 90 calendar days of deeming or determining the application to be complete.

If an agency fails to meet these deadlines, the applicant may request a public hearing, which must occur within 45 calendar days, unless extended by mutual agreement.

These provisions ensure that projects move efficiently from CEQA review to actual construction.

5. Stronger and More Predictable Judicial Review Standards

BACA reforms CEQA litigation to reduce meritless lawsuits and restore predictability to project approvals. Any legal challenge must demonstrate that the approved CEQA document failed to comply with objective, quantifiable, and written standards that existed on the date the project application was submitted. Lawsuits based on subjective or unpublished standards cannot be used as a basis to overturn a CEQA approval.

CEQA lawsuits must be filed within 30 calendar days of the lead agency’s notice of determination or exemption, and all proceedings—including appeals—must be completed within 270 calendar days. Courts must apply the substantial evidence standard, upholding an agency’s CEQA findings when supported by evidence in the record, even if other conclusions could also be drawn.

BACA directs courts to interpret the Act liberally to favor timely, predictable delivery of essential projects consistent with environmental and labor standards. These provisions curb delay tactics, bring greater certainty to judicial outcomes, and ensure that CEQA challenges are focused on objective, substantive issues rather than procedural technicalities.

6. Preserving Environmental and Tribal Protections

BACA maintains all existing state and federal environmental protections, ensuring that essential projects continue to comply with the Endangered Species Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act, the Toxic Substances Control Act, the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act, the Environmental Quality Improvement Act, the Global Warming Solutions Act, the California Coastal Act, or the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act.

The tribal consultation process under Assembly Bill 52 remains fully intact, with added provisions requiring early engagement between project applicants and federally recognized tribes.

Essential housing projects remain subject to the labor standards under the recently enacted Assembly Bill 130. All other essential projects are subject to the labor standards applicable to environmental leadership development projects described in PRC Section 21183.5.

Together, these safeguards ensure that BACA cuts red tape, not corners — delivering faster, fairer approvals while upholding California’s strong environmental, worker and cultural protections.

Delivering Real CEQA Reform With Teeth — Modernizing California’s Approval System to Build Faster, Fairer, and More Affordably

BACA is not another incremental fix — it’s the first comprehensive CEQA reform with real teeth. By imposing firm deadlines, establishing objective standards, and holding agencies and litigants accountable, BACA replaces uncertainty and delay with a clear, enforceable framework that makes project delivery predictable and more affordable.

For the first time in decades, essential housing, clean energy, health care, water, and infrastructure projects will be able to move from approval to construction on a defined timeline — lowering costs, creating good-paying jobs, and making California more affordable — while preserving the state’s strong environmental and labor protections.

Learn more about BACA and how the California Chamber is working to drive real change to fix our broken process here.

For More Information, Please Contact:

Niran Somasundaram

Senior Counsel

San Francisco, CA

Sean Marciniak

Partner

San Francisco, CA