The Brief

A decade-spanning political battle between housing developers and defenders of California’s preeminent environmental law likely came to an end this afternoon with only a smattering of “no” votes.

The forces of housing won.

With the passage of a state budget-related housing bill, the California Environmental Quality Act will be a non-issue for a decisive swath of urban residential development in California.

In practice, that means most new apartment buildings will no longer face the open threat of environmental litigation.

It also means most urban developers will no longer have to study, predict and mitigate the ways that new housing might affect local traffic, air pollution, flora and fauna, noise levels, groundwater quality and objects of historic or archeological significance.

And it means that when housing advocates argue that the state isn’t doing enough to build more homes amid crippling rents and stratospheric prices, they won’t — with a few exceptions — have CEQA to blame anymore.

“Saying ‘no’ to housing in my community will no longer be state sanctioned,” said Assemblymember Buffy Wicks, an Oakland Democrat who introduced the CEQA law as a separate bill in March. “This isn't going to solve all of our housing problems in the state, but it is going to remove the single biggest impediment to building environmentally friendly housing.”

Unlike most environmental laws, which explicitly mandate, monitor or ban certain environmental behavior, CEQA is just a public disclosure requirement. The 54-year-old statute requires state and local governments to study and publicize the likely environmental impact of any decisions they make. That includes the permitting of new housing.

But for years, the building industry and “Yes in my backyard” activists have identified the law as a key culprit behind California’s housing shortage. That’s because the law allows any individual or group to sue if they argue that a required environmental study isn’t accurate, expansive or detailed enough. Such lawsuits — and even the mere threat of them —add a degree of delay, cost and uncertainty that make it impossible for the state to build its way to affordability, CEQA’s critics argue.

With today’s vote, the Legislature will be putting that argument to the test. Gov. Gavin Newsom, who spent much of last week cajoling the Legislature to pass the bill as part of his budget package, signed it on Monday evening.

Now the question is whether this monumental political and policy shift will actually result in more homes getting built in California’s cities.

Many of the bill’s backers are optimistic.

“I think when we look back on what hopefully is California finally beginning to confront this housing crisis, this year — 2025 — and this bill will be viewed as a turning point,” said Matt Haney, a Democrat who represents San Francisco in the Assembly where he chairs the housing committee.

On paper, the new law, unlike most that deal with housing approvals and environmental regulation, is actually pretty straightforward.

Urban “infill” housing developments — housing built in and around existing development — are no longer subject to CEQA.

There are some exceptions and qualifiers, but development boosters say they are relatively minor.

The exemption is “the most significant change to the California Environmental Quality Act’s effect on housing production since CEQA was passed,” said Louis Mirante, a lobbyist for the Bay Area Council, a business coalition that regularly pushes for legislation that makes it easier to build.

The bill is limited to projects under 20 acres, but that cap is only relevant to the biggest multi-block-spanning mega developments.

A certain level of density is required, but it really only precludes using the policy for single-family home construction.

Before any project can move forward, any affiliated tribal government will have to be notified first, but the consultation is put on a short timeline.

In order to qualify for the exemption, a proposed project must also be consistent with local zoning, the regulations that determine what types of buildings can be constructed where. But thanks to another CEQA-chopping bill authored by San Francisco Democratic Sen. Scott Wiener that exempts many changes to zoning rules from CEQA and which is also packed into the budget, that appears less likely to be a real constraint.

To buy off the ferocious opposition of the State Building and Construction Trades Council of California, a construction union umbrella group, the bill also includes some higher wage requirements.

But those rules are not likely to apply to most potential residential development projects. “The lion share of housing being built” in California will no longer be governed by CEQA, said Mark Rhoades, a planning and development consultant in Berkeley.

Take a massive five-story apartment building spanning a full city block, said Bill Fulton, a longtime urban planner and professor at UC San Diego.

“You don't have to worry about labor and you don't have to worry about CEQA? That’s a big deal,” he said.

CEQA seachange

What a difference nine years make.

Consider how things went back in 2016 when then-Gov. Jerry Brown tried to ram a CEQA fix for California’s rising housing costs through the state budget process. Brown’s big idea was to “streamline” the housing approval process, allowing developers to make an end-run around the California Environmental Quality Act, so long as they set aside a certain share of units for lower-income residents.

A coalition of construction labor unions, environmental interests and local government groups torched the idea. The proposal didn’t even get a vote.

Nearly a decade later, once again a Democratic governor opted to stuff a CEQA-trimming policy package through the budget process in the name of cheaper housing.

The measure passed overwhelmingly in both the Senate and Assembly — and this time it didn’t even include an affordability requirement.

Wicks’ proposal is somewhat narrower than the 2016 version, exempting only infill. New suburban-style subdivisions carved from farmland or undeveloped sagebrush will not qualify.

That infill focus has made it easier for the Democratic-controlled Legislature to swallow such a significant scaling back of California’s signature environmental law. Promoting denser urban development generally means using less land, constructing new housing that uses less energy and setting up new residents to do a lot less driving.

“When you are building housing in an existing community, that is environmentally beneficial, it is climate friendly, that is not something that should be subjected to potentially endless CEQA challenges and lawsuits,” Wiener said on the Senate floor on Monday just prior to the vote, when the measure passed 28 to 5.

Even so, Wicks’ proposal always looked like a long shot.

Since Brown’s failed gambit, lawmakers have managed to pass a raft of bills giving housing developers an escape route around CEQA. But those laws have always contained a trade-off. Developers get to skip CEQA, but in exchange they have to pay state-set “prevailing wages” (which typically work out to union-level pay), hire union workers outright, set aside a certain share of units for lower income residents, or some combination of the three.

These conditions were born of political necessity. A CEQA lawsuit — or even the suggestion of one — makes for a powerful negotiating tool. Organized labor groups, most especially the building trades council, have not been keen to give up that leverage without getting something in return.

As housing developers proved less willing to use the new streamlining laws than those bills’ sponsors and supporters had hoped, many pro-building advocates, academics and commentators began calling for environmental streamlining with no strings attached.

Wicks answered that call earlier this year. Under her proposal, infill developers would be allowed to ignore CEQA, full stop. That marked a major break from recent legislative precedent, and one that seemed a stretch, even with so many Democratic lawmakers carting around copies of Abundance.

The deal that almost wasn’t

Just last week, Wicks’ proposal seemed on the verge of collapse.

A version of the bill introduced last week included what amounted to a minor wage hike for the lowest paid construction workers, who are virtually all non-union. While the state’s carpenters’ union supported it, the trades council emphatically did not — with one of the groups’ associated lobbyists likening it to Jim Crow. The trades objected so strenuously — arguing that it set dangerous precedent and undercut apprenticeship programs — that lawmakers removed the proposed wage change.

Instead, developers working on projects that are entirely designated to be affordable would now be required to pay prevailing wages in order to take advantage of the new law.

Developers of any projects over 85 feet tall would be required to hire a certain share of union workers. There are added restrictions for construction in San Francisco specifically.

By the standards of prior housing streamlining bills, those are relatively modest concessions. Most developments over 85 feet use concrete and steel frame construction, which require a higher skilled labor force that is often unionized anyway.

Most entirely income-restricted housing projects make use of public subsidies that require paying union-level wages.

“Affordable housing is forced to play by different rules because the state has decided that if you are receiving public funds a certain wage should be attached to it,” said Ray Pearl, executive director of the California Housing Consortium, which advocates for affordable housing construction. The addition of a prevailing wage requirement for affordable housing “is a head scratcher,” he said. “But it really is reaffirming existing policy.”

That leaves every other type of housing project: Market rate and mixed-income apartment buildings under seven-or-so stories. For that type of construction, which defines the bulk of urban development in California, CEQA is soon to be entirely optional — no strings attached.

That this is the new trades-endorsed deal has been met with a perplexed kind of glee from some corners of the “yes in my backyard” movement. The new version of the bill “is now *even better,*” UC Davis law professor Chris Elmendorf marveled on Twitter.

Will it matter?

What will urban housing construction look like in California without CEQA?

There are no shortage of reasons not to build housing in California. Labor costs, even without regulatory requirements, are high. So are interest rates. Tariffs and aggressive immigration enforcement are more recent sources of uncertainty. Developers are always happy to complain about slow permitting, high local fees and inflexible building codes.

“It’s not the CEQA costs that are holding up housing,” said Rhoades, the Berkeley consultant.

“I don't think this is going to make more development happen,” he said of the budget bill. “It’s going to make development that is already happening a little easier.”

Critics of the half-century-old environmental law can and do point to specific projects — housing for students, housing near public transit, affordable housing built upon city-owned parking lots — that have been sued in the name of the environment as examples of “CEQA abuse.”

Under the new laws, such litigation will largely go away in California’s cities.

“The one thing we do know is that CEQA is a time suck,” said Ben Metcalf, managing director of UC Berkeley’s Terner Center for Housing Innovation and the former head of the state’s housing agency under Brown. “If you can just get out of that six months, nine months, twelve months of delay, that takes a whole cohort of projects and gets them in the ground sooner. In a state that’s facing a housing crisis, that’s not for nothing.”

But the more important consequence of CEQA, many of its critics regularly argue, has been its chilling effect.

How many new units of housing would have been built, but for concerns that they might become ensnared in environmental litigation? How many developers, anticipating a possible legal challenge, have preemptively pared back their plans? How many financiers of housing projects pulled out or demanded higher interest rates over such concerns?

California may soon find out.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

Data center builders don’t tell the public how much water they use, according to a new report — and the industry is encroaching into water-stressed and vulnerable communities.

The report, by the think tank Next10 and researchers at Santa Clara University, finds that planned data centers — the ganglia of artificial intelligence — are spreading to regions reliant on overtapped groundwater and strained surface water, with potentially major effects in the Central and Imperial Valleys.

But, reinforcing previous studies, the researchers found that a patchwork of state, federal and local policies allows data center operators to avoid publicly disclosing their actual water use.

California lawmakers tried to address this last year, but California Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed the measure. Now, the legislature is trying again, with bills mandating disclosures about water use and planning.

“We have this huge build out, and we have very little data,” said Irina Raicu, who directs the Internet Ethics program at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University.

Paired with California’s precarious water supplies, Raicu said, “It’s just not a good combination.”

Shaolei Ren, an expert on the environmental impacts of AI at UC Riverside who was not involved in the study, said the findings point to a much broader problem.

“Limited publicly available information about data center water use makes it difficult for communities, water providers and researchers to have meaningful public discussions and responsibly assess power-water trade-offs,” Ren said in an email.

Murky water use 

Few environmental impact reports for California’s data centers were publicly available online, the researchers found.

Raicu and co-author Iris Stewart-Frey, a professor of environmental science, went looking for the reports, meant to assess and disclose a project’s impacts for both nature and people under the landmark California Environmental Quality Act.

They found almost none. The ones they did find were largely for facilities in the city of Santa Clara.

Through interviews with planning officials, they discovered that projects can slip through with little environmental review if they fall under certain size or water use thresholds, or if they meet a city or county’s criteria for other approval pathways. These include something called ministerial approval, which requires planning agencies to approve a project that meets local zoning and other standards.

Even for data centers that undergo more stringent environmental scrutiny, the researchers found that documentation is rarely available to the public.

In the few cases the planning documents were posted publicly, the information — on the data center’s owner or operator, size, type of cooling system, the amount of water used, whether it’s recycled or potable — was often “missing, contradictory, or vague,” the report said.

The researchers said they contacted water providers in areas where data centers cluster, seeking usage data. None responded.

A shift to vulnerable regions

California’s data centers mostly cluster in the south San Francisco Bay Area and the city of Los Angeles, with smaller concentrations in Sacramento and San Diego.

But the report noted large, planned projects in rural and less affluent regions — like in Santa Clara County’s Gilroy, as well as in the heavily agricultural Imperial Valley.

“They need a bunch of cheap land,” Raicu. “If we’re not careful, they will end up being pitched, very convincingly, to communities that have real needs — without enough attention being paid to the water part.”

Khara Boender, director of state policy for the Data Center Coalition, which has opposed bills mandating more granular water-use reporting, said in an email the industry is “committed to being a good neighbor.”

Boender argues that data centers collectively “used significantly less water than other essential industries in 2025, including the agriculture, power, food and beverage, and semiconductor sectors,” but the coalition offers no data to back that up.

Collective use matters less than local impacts in a state where each community has its own mix of water supplies and strains, according to a previous study published by a team at UC Berkeley.

Whether data centers use a lot or a little water relative to agriculture or other industries, “what matters most is the scale of new local use compared to available local supply,” the Berkeley team concluded earlier this year. “Unfortunately, this picture is clouded by data deficiencies.”

In this week’s report, the Santa Clara University team drilled into those local supplies and community vulnerabilities to anticipated expansion.

“We’re at the brink of this happening in California,” Stewart-Frey, the environmental scientist, said. Her report, she added, isn’t advocating against data centers. But “communities should know what they’re getting themselves into.”

Debates over proposed data centers are erupting in a Kern County desert community with dwindling groundwater and in the hot Imperial Valley, which draws from the strained Colorado River. 

Monterey Park residents in the San Gabriel Valley successfully opposed one data center project over environmental concerns and inadequate information and secured an upcoming vote on a citywide ban.

In a letter to city officials, a representative for the developer dismissed opponents as “rage-baiting an uninformed mob to pressure your decisionmaking.”

Raicu pushed back. “If those communities are uninformed about the issue — whose fault is that? Who should be informing the people so that you don’t have this kind of pushback, if there is no need for it?”

New laws v. Big Tech

Last year, Assemblymember Diane Papan, a Democrat from San Mateo, authored a bill requiring data center operators to report estimated or actual water use to their water supplier when seeking or renewing a business license or permit.

Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed the measure amid industry pressure, saying he was “reluctant to impose rigid reporting requirements about operational details on this sector without understanding the full impact on businesses and the consumers of their technology.”

Now, Papan is trying again with two bills. One largely reprises last year’s measure, with additional reporting required to the city and county. The other would bar local governments from approving new or expanded data centers unless the developer discloses information about their water use and plans.

It would also set other requirements — like prohibiting development in overdrafted groundwater basins in places like the San Joaquin Valley, unless state water managers OK it.

“You cannot manage what you have not and cannot measure,” Papan said. “The public likes transparency, and they should.”

Both bills cleared a key legislative chokepoint this week but face staunch opposition from the tech industry and business groups.

“If they run out of water, guess what happens? And they can’t cool their systems — are they going to succeed?” Papan said. “To which I say, help us help you.”

Nestled between Historic Filipinotown and Echo Park is a bookstore turned artisan craft space turned food market, all within 900 square feet. Every Sunday, A Good Used Book on Glendale Boulevard transforms from a retail bookstore into what they call “Sunday Funday Market.”

Founders Jenny Yang and Chris Capizzi spent seven years operating as a pop-up without a brick-and-mortar location. Opening their doors to local vendors pays homage to their own roots selling at Los Angeles markets, from the Melrose Trading Post to the Pasadena Rose Bowl Flea Market.

“Mega giant online sellers have the scale and the resources and the patience and the reach to capture most people,” Capizzi said. “Whereas for us, I think we have to be really creative — we have to band together.”

Nestled between Historic Filipinotown and Echo Park is a bookstore turned artisan craft space turned food market, all within 900 square feet. Every Sunday, A Good Used Book on Glendale Boulevard transforms from a retail bookstore into what they call “Sunday Funday Market.”

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Yang and Capizzi’s long history of vending at markets taught them how isolating running a small business can be. At their market, they aim to build connections with each vendor and strategize the best timing and layout so everyone can succeed.

“[Amazon and Barnes & Noble] are Goliath, and we’re not even David — we’re just the ant underneath David’s foot,” Capizzi said. “I think we can do what we do and try to get as many people, at our level or even smaller, to get together.”

Weekly markets at A Good Used Book have captivated the neighborhood since its opening in October 2023, with charming names like “Sunday Funday,” “Saturday School” and “Hi-Fi Friday Night,” plus hand-drawn flyers by well-known artist Noah Harmon. Now, it’s become a weekly occurrence where LA pop-ups can display their own crafts, allowing local readers to indulge in a little more than a pocket paperback.

Each week holds a Pandora’s box of niche snacks, crafts or trinkets you didn’t know you needed, ranging from Southeast Asian-inspired trail mix to natural incense sticks to vintage Japanese audio equipment. One week you might be enticed to adopt a kitten from a rescue booth outside, another week you might impulsively get a stick-and-poke tattoo in the back of the store.

Nestled between Historic Filipinotown and Echo Park is a bookstore turned artisan craft space turned food market, all within 900 square feet. Every Sunday, A Good Used Book on Glendale Boulevard transforms from a retail bookstore into what they call “Sunday Funday Market.”

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Nick Ducassi

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The LA Local

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On one sunny Sunday afternoon, Brandon Stanciell hand-tossed fresh pizza dough on the sidewalk outside the bookstore. His 2-year-old pop-up, Pizza Ananda, which he named after his daughter, is an homage to her and to Italian cooking, a hobby he started during paternity leave. An hour before the market closed, Stanciell had already sold out and garnished his last pepperoni-and-hot-honey pie for one lucky customer.

“I love that places like this allow us all to meet at once to share what we have and give it to the community around us,” Stanciell said.

Nestled between Historic Filipinotown and Echo Park is a bookstore turned artisan craft space turned food market, all within 900 square feet. Every Sunday, A Good Used Book on Glendale Boulevard transforms from a retail bookstore into what they call “Sunday Funday Market.”

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Nick Ducassi

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The LA Local

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For the owners, building a community market is about deepening relationships with the people who walk through their doors. In an increasingly digital landscape, it is also a reciprocal partnership among local businesses.

“A lot of people talk about community building nowadays as a marketing strategy,” Capizzi said. “But I think the actual community building comes from talking to each vendor and each customer and being a consistent presence in the neighborhood.”

Nestled between Historic Filipinotown and Echo Park is a bookstore turned artisan craft space turned food market, all within 900 square feet. Every Sunday, A Good Used Book on Glendale Boulevard transforms from a retail bookstore into what they call “Sunday Funday Market.”

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Nick Ducassi

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The LA Local

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While customers browsed for unique titles, Gerin del Carmen worked her booth of ceramic dishware, oyster-shaped trinket holders and vases resembling miniature boxes. As a ceramicist, del Carmen draws from her Filipino heritage, including the Balikbayan boxes that represent immigrants sending gifts to family in the Philippines.

“Sharing the community and your space is such a big deal. This is not a huge, gigantic Barnes & Noble store,” del Carmen said. “It has so much foot traffic, and the fact that [the owners] are setting up and sharing the space once or twice a week with other vendors and other artists is huge.”

Yang and Capizzi may think of themselves as an “ant underneath David’s foot,” but A Good Used Book is building a colony of vendors, rooted in community.

Whether you and your friends are looking for a brunch spot to cater to everyone's palates, or taking a trip to the historic Grand Central Market, food halls make for an easy, affordable place to satisfy cravings — especially in SoCal, where diverse selections of dishes reign supreme.

But these spaces fill a void much deeper than our appetites. They bring new life to old storefronts, factories or even airfields (see list below), and can offer a way to keep dollars within the community by becoming a hub for local businesses.

With that said, here's a short list of food halls where you'll get more than just a killer meal.

For good vibes

BLVD MRKT food hall on the corner of 6th Street and Whittier Boulevard in downtown Montebello.

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BLVD MRKT is an open-air food hall in downtown Montebello that feels like a party. The 8,500-square-foot space currently has five eateries, or "concepts" as they're known in the restaurant industry, and hosts live DJs every Friday night and Sunday during brunch. They also host Open Vinyl Night on the second and forth Tuesday of every month, where patrons get $2 off beers and margaritas from Alchemy Craft if they bring a vinyl record to be played in the BLVD courtyard.

The space is pet-friendly and has growing concepts like Los Taquero Mucho, which offers classic al pastor, grilled chicken and slow-cooked carnitas tacos, as well as specialty flavors like vegan tacos with whiskil sautéed in coconut milk, and Pork Belly Cochinita Pibil Tacos, perfect for those who crave crispy, slow-roasted pork with a hint of sweetness.

Los Taquero Mucho participates in BLVD's incubator program, run by co-founders Barney and Evelyn Santos. The program offers mentorship to local entrepreneurs until they can set up shop permanently.

Pork Belly Cochinita Pibil Tacos with salsa from Los Taquero Mucho at BLVD MRKT in Montebello.

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BLVD MRKT is part of the couple's commercial real estate development firm, Gentefy. Its mission is to invest in retail and hospitality projects that ignite economic development and revitalization in Black and brown neighborhoods.

"Blvd Mrkt is our first project," Barney Santos wrote in a text message. "It was our social proof to prove to banks, investors and cities that a socially conscious business model could exist in a traditionally overlooked area."

VCHOS Pupuseria Moderna also has a spot in the BLVD courtyard, offering handmade pupusas with filling choices such as shrimp with spinach and cheese, and tender beef birria with a side of consommé, onions and cilantro. Coffee lovers can get an Oaxacan Mocha at Cafe Santo, or stop by Cold Pizza for a wood-fired slice.

For eclectic tastes

Rodeo 39 Public Market in Stanton.

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An O.C. favorite, Rodeo 39 Public Market lives on Highway 39, also known as Beach Boulevard, in Stanton. This 40,000-square-foot space is an eclectic mix of more than 20 food and drink concepts and retailers. There are three outdoor patios and five murals, plus an arcade, tattoo shop and photo booth. Food options cover everything from Lil' Breezy's adobo breakfast burritos to Cajun crab fries at The Crawfish Hut.

Mural by artist David Flores outside of Joystix arcade at Rodeo 39 Public Market.

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Rodeo's menu choices make it well-suited for a casual weekend brunch. At its entrance sits Here & There, where you can grab a coffee or matcha latte, or try one of their signature drinks like the Iced Vienna, a combination of milk with caramelly demerara sugar and your choice of matcha or espresso, topped with sweet cream and garnished with sea salt. The result is a drink that's smooth and not too sweet.

Eggyo bulgogi egg sandwich with spicy mayo at Rodeo 39 Public Market.

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Eggyo, a recent addition to Rodeo, offers Korean corn dogs and fluffy egg sandwiches on crispy, house-baked milk bread. Try the bulgogi option with spicy mayo for a savory kick. If you crave a cocktail, venture over to CAPO, which also serves craft beer. Or just sit on one of their sun-filled patios while you decide what to try.

For a page from history

The Hangar in Long Beach.

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The Hangar is a 17,000-square-foot food hall that pays homage to Long Beach's aviation history. It sits on former Boeing Co. land where military and commercial aircraft were built. Today, it serves as a dining destination at the Long Beach Exchange Shopping Center, or LBX, neighboring the city's international airport.

This space currently has a mix of 14 food concepts and two retail shops. Patrons can enjoy local favorites outside their flagship locations, like the Joe's Special bagel sandwich from Cassidy's Corner Cafe, with bacon, egg and the star of the show — tangy jalapeño cream cheese. Fans of spice can try Jay Bird's Nashville Hot Chicken, which offers chicken sandwiches and tenders, and Blazin' Fries, all with six levels of heat.

Historic aviation photos are displayed above food concepts at The Hangar food hall at LBX in Long Beach

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Inside, there are vintage pictures of aircraft that were built at the site, and a wall of clocks showing the time in cities named Long Beach across the country.

A Pan Am Hawaii travel poster (left) and a TWA Spain travel poster (right) at the patio of The Hangar food hall.

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Outside, you'll find patio seating with umbrellas where you can sit and watch the occasional plane fly overhead. Or sit and enjoy the adjacent display of towering Pan Am and TWA posters promoting travel to Hawaii, Spain and Paris.

For fun and work

Mercado La Paloma on Grand Avenue in South L.A.

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Open since 2001, the approximately 34,000-square-foot Mercado La Paloma sits in the Figueroa corridor of South L.A., and is known for its focus on community, art and culture. From rotating art exhibits to colorful tiled tabletops, this space feels like it was made to nurture creativity.

Interior of Mercado La Paloma.

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There are meeting rooms to rent starting at $25 an hour. It's a space where locals can bring their laptop to work or study, or have a long conversation with a friend, with bites from six acclaimed restaurants.

Holbox's Erizo dish at Mercado La Paloma.

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At the Mercado, visit Holbox for Michelin-starred seafood dishes like Erizo — velvety sea urchin laid atop a bed of tender scallop ceviche. The combination is fresh, flavorful and oceanic. Tip: If you can swing it, come on a weekday to avoid a long line, or order ahead.

For something sweet, walk over to Oaxacacalifornia Cafe & Juice Bar for a Spicy Pineapple Juice with a gingery kick, or go for the classic pairing of Hot Oaxacan Chocolate, made with your choice of water or milk, and light-as-air conchas crowned with a solid layer of vanilla or chocolate streusel.