A ballot initiative measure to amend the California Environmental Quality Act (“CEQA”) has qualified for the November 2026 statewide ballot, with the backing of the California Chamber of Commerce and a coalition of business, housing, healthcare, energy, and infrastructure organizations.
If approved by voters, the Building an Affordable California Act (“BACA”) would add a new chapter to CEQA for certain “essential projects,” including a wide array of housing projects,[1] as well as hospitals and medical facilities, clean energy facilities, educational facilities, and specified infrastructure/public improvement projects involving water, wildfire resilience and public safety, transportation, and broadband internet access.[2]
BACA would not exempt any project from CEQA, narrow the scope of environmental issues that need to be studied, or ensure approval of any particular project. But it would create an accelerated, and in some ways more predictable, process for qualifying projects that elect to use some or all of its procedures. Perhaps most significantly, it would create enforceable timelines for completing environmental review and judicial review, and fixed deadlines for public comment.
BACA is a detailed and complex measure—the full text submitted to the Secretary of State runs 41 pages. This summary focuses on the requirements to qualify for BACA treatment and key changes the measure would make to CEQA’s substance and process.
Tribal Consultation and Labor Requirements Apply
Any project that seeks to proceed under BACA must follow robust procedures relating to tribal consultation, beginning at the earlier of submittal of a preliminary application under any law (such as SB 330) or an essential project application.[3] These go beyond the standard notification and consultation requirements under AB 52, and in some respects beyond the tribal consultation provisions adopted for the AB 130 statutory CEQA exemption in 2025.
Additionally, essential projects that utilize the initiative would be subject to specified labor standards. All essential projects other than housing projects would generally be required to pay prevailing wages and use a skilled and trained workforce for construction, following the provisions established by AB 900/SB 7. For essential housing projects, certain prevailing wage requirements are triggered only for buildings over 85 feet in height and—in San Francisco only—for projects of 50 units or greater.[4] These mirror the provisions adopted for AB 130.
CEQA Clock Starts at Completeness
Under BACA, the determination that an essential project application is complete (or becomes “deemed complete” due to the public agency’s inaction) is an important milestone because many of the initiative’s review timelines and procedural protections begin at that point.
Like the process already available to housing projects under SB 330, BACA requires a public agency to make completeness determinations within 30 calendar days, prevents the agency from later requiring information that wasn’t identified in the initial “exhaustive” list of missing information, and can lead to applications being deemed complete if the agency misses its deadlines.[5]
Once an essential project application is determined or deemed complete, BACA would require the lead agency to identify the CEQA pathway and complete the corresponding CEQA determination within specified deadlines:
- EIR Certification: Within 365 business days (approximately 17 months)
- Adoption of Negative Declaration or Mitigated Negative Declaration: Within 180 business days (approximately 8.5 months)
- Adoption of Exemptions, Addenda, and Prior-review Determinations: Within 90 business days (approximately 4 months)
If an agency misses the applicable deadline to complete review, the applicant may request a meeting or hearing, and within 60 calendar days of receipt of the request, the agency must make a final written determination on the environmental review documentation and a final written determination to approve or disapprove the project.[6] All of these timelines may be extended, but only upon written request of the applicant.
Changes to Substantive Scope of Review
While BACA would not limit the types of environmental impacts or mitigation measures that must be analyzed, it would make two potentially significant changes to the scope of review.
- First, impacts are required to be analyzed only based on compliance with existing laws—meaning the lead agency can look only to formally adopted statutes, regulations, rules, standards, or ordinances that were in effect at the time the essential project application was submitted, with limited exceptions.[7] While the agency’s review is not expressly required to be limited to compliance with objective existing laws, that is the standard that will apply to judicial review of BACA projects, as discussed below, and so it will effectively guide the scope of agency review itself. If the agency has not adopted formal CEQA thresholds of significance, as most have not, then presumably that agency would be limited to evaluating compliance with independent legal requirements, such as building code standards, regulations adopted by a Regional Water Quality Control Board, or Air District guidelines.
- Second, where an EIR is required, the applicant may elect to opt into a process that provides preliminary scoping and streamlined alternatives analysis.[8] If the applicant selects this pathway, the evaluation of project alternatives would be limited to one “no project” alternative (as required by existing law) and one potentially feasible alternative proposed by the project applicant that is compatible with the project’s fundamental purpose. The applicant-developed alternative must be proposed early in the CEQA process, at the end of preliminary scoping period. This would differ from the current requirement to analyze a “reasonable range” of alternatives—the number of which is fact-specific—that are specifically intended to mitigate significant environmental impacts identified through the CEQA impacts analysis.
Shorter, Fixed Comment Periods
In keeping with the overall timelines above, the initiative would create fixed periods for public comment, limiting lead agencies’ ability to require longer review. (Recent examples in the Bay Area have included public agencies announcing comment periods of 60, 90, or even 180 days for draft EIRs.)
For a negative declaration, mitigated negative declaration, or other circulated document, the public comment period would be 20 calendar days. For a draft EIR or subsequent or supplemental EIR, the public comment period would be 45 calendar days.[9]
The initiative states that a public comment period “shall not be tolled or extended except by a court of competent jurisdiction.”[10]
The initiative also limits which comments are included in the administrative record. The record would include timely written and electronic comments and oral testimony at a noticed and recorded public hearing.[11] Limited exceptions would apply where significant project changes or previously unavailable information create issues that could not reasonably have been raised during the original comment period.[12]
This represents a departure from the common situation where new information can be introduced into the record after the public comment period, up to the time the project is approved. Under the proposal, comments submitted after the close of the public comment period generally would be excluded unless they relate to genuinely new issues arising from project changes or information that was not previously available.[13]
Judicial Review Would Be Subject to New Rules
The initiative would also somewhat narrow the administrative record for CEQA litigation, limit the scope of review to compliance with “objective existing laws,” and provide that project approvals are reviewed under a substantial evidence standard.[15] This would be a significant change from current law, where compliance is not necessarily fixed based on pre-existing standards, and depending on the specific form of CEQA document and claims at issue, the nature of judicial review is often less deferential to the public agency’s decision. If the court finds a deficiency in the agency’s CEQA review, the remedy must be narrowly tailored to prohibit only any part of the essential project that was affected by the agency’s noncompliance, rather than setting aside the entire approval.
Together, these provisions are intended to create a more defined process for resolving CEQA challenges to qualifying projects while maintaining opportunities for judicial review of agency decisions.
Vesting Protections for Projects Already in the Pipeline
An application for any essential project submitted before BACA’s effective date and not yet finally approved may be withdrawn and resubmitted under BACA after its effective date. If the application was previously determined or deemed complete, no further completeness review would be required to preserve those rights.[16]
For housing projects in particular, a pending application may be withdrawn and resubmitted under BACA without losing vested rights or other benefits acquired under laws including the Subdivision Map Act, the Housing Accountability Act (including the Builder’s Remedy), and the Housing Crisis Act of 2019 (SB 330).[17]
Practical Takeaways
BACA would not exempt any projects from CEQA or guarantee approval. But for “essential” projects that choose to qualify and use its procedures, it offers more predictable entitlement and judicial review timelines, a more favorable standard of review, and fixed and predictable standards, among other benefits. It does not supersede any existing exemptions or streamlining provisions for housing or other projects, although it expressly provides that it may be used in combination with other land use and environmental review laws and processes. If BACA becomes law, it may create additional opportunities to combine existing streamlining tools with the initiative’s new procedures, all of which should be carefully evaluated for individual projects.
[1] Proposed Pub. Resources Code, §§ 21013, 21028, subd. (l). (Unless otherwise noted, all statutory citations are to the proposed Public Resources Code text that would become effective if BACA is adopted by the voters.) The measure generally includes all projects that would qualify as “housing development projects” under the Housing Accountability Act. Notably, there is no minimum or maximum number of residential units to qualify as an essential housing project.
[2] §§ 21013, 21028, subds. (i), (j), (k), (n), (o), (p), (q).
[3] § 21015, subd. (d)(1); § 21016.
[4] § 21015, subd. (c)–(d).
[5] § 21017.
[6] §§ 21018–21020.
[7] § 21022, § 21028, subd. (r).
[8] § 21024.
[9] § 21021, subd. (a)(1)–(2).
[10] § 21021, subd. (b).
[11] § 21021, subd. (d).
[12] § 21021, subd. (d)(1)(A)–(D).
[13] § 21021, subd. (d)(2).
[14] § 21027, subd. (a)(1).
[15] § 21026, subds. (b), (c).
[16] § 21014, subd. (f).
[17] § 21014, subd. (f)(3).
