The California Environmental Quality Act was established to protect the environment as well as wild animals from development. It is now used by some to stop all forms of development.
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UC Berkeley applicants are finally able to exhale. On Monday, Governor Gavin Newsom signed legislation that ended a dispute between the university of Berkeley and a Berkeley neighborhood organization. The legislation overrides a court ruling that would have cut the freshman class by almost 3,000 students. After the group sued the university, it was ordered to limit its enrollment. It claimed that the school had not studied the environmental effects of increasing student enrollment.
The issue’s central focus was the California Environmental Quality ActThe 1970 law was meant to protect the environment from development. It is now used by some to prevent all types of development, even in densely populated places. Some even blame CEQA to the shortage of housing, which is driving up prices as well as contributing to homelessness.