Fee Based Traffic Mitigation In California

In Save Our Peninsula Committee v. Monterey County Bd. of Supervisors (2001) 87 Cal.App.4th 99, 141, the court ruled that a fee-based traffic mitigation program was adequate under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) where the fees were sufficiently tied to the actual mitigation of increased traffic impacts. the court stated, "All that is required by CEQA is that there be a reasonable plan for mitigation." (Ibid.) In Endangered Habitats League, Inc. v. County of Orange (2005) 131 Cal.App.4th 777, the court rejected the traffic mitigation plan. The board of supervisors failed to show that fees paid by the developer to a road improvement program would reduce traffic impacts on the thoroughfare in question to the level required under the general plan. (Endangered Habitats, supra,131 Cal.App.4th at pp. 784-785.) The court reached a similar result in Federation of Hillside and Canyon Assns. v. City of Los Angeles (2000) 83 Cal.App.4th 1252, where the city acknowledged there was "great uncertainty as to whether the mitigation measures would ever be funded or implemented." (Federation, supra, 83 Cal.App.4th at p. 1261.) In Federation the city adopted the mitigation measures without requiring that they be implemented as a condition of the development. (Ibid.)