AB 239: California Environmental Quality Act: urbanized areas.

The California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) requires a lead agency, as defined, to prepare, or cause to be prepared, and certify the completion of, an environmental impact report on a project that it proposes to carry out or approve that may have a significant effect on the environment or to adopt a negative declaration if it finds that the project will not have that effect. CEQA also requires a lead agency to prepare a mitigated negative declaration for a project that may have a significant effect on the environment if revisions in the project would avoid or mitigate that effect and there is no substantial evidence that the project, as revised, would have a significant effect on the environment. CEQA defines the terms urban area and urbanized area to mean, among other things, an unincorporated area that is completely surrounded by one or more incorporated cities and the population density of the unincorporated area at least equals the population density of the surrounding city or cities.

This bill would instead specify that the population density of the unincorporated area be at least 1,000 persons per square mile.