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Environmental Review/CEQA

What is Environmental Review?

The California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) requires local and state governments to consider the possible environmental effects of a project before approval and provides guidelines for that process.

During an environmental review, the Planning Division checks discretionary applications for those effects while looking at the project entitlement. The goal is to inform decision-makers and the public about these effects. Common types of environmental impact include:

  • traffic
  • noise
  • groundwater contamination
  • archaeological resources
  • vegetation
  • wildlife

If there are significant environmental impacts found, measures to eliminate or reduce these impacts must be made. State and city policies determine the impact thresholds and ways to ensure that such impacts are lessened.

On the other side, Categorical Exemptions are projects that are exempt from environmental review. Exempt projects generally include small-scale new construction, some changes of use, some additions, and other small projects.

What happens during the process?

The flowchart below outlines the order of events an applicant may encounter during environmental review.

Environmental Review Flowchart
  1. Submit project application on the Permitting Online Portal.
  2. CEQA Determination.
    • If exempt, go to Step 3.
    • If not exempt, go to Step 4.
  3. Project exempt from CEQA.
    • Go to Step 13.
  4. If not exempt, prepare a project description, prepare an Initial Study, and initiate a Tribal consultation to check for potentially significant impacts.
    • If a Negative Declaration (ND) or Mitigated Negative Declaration (MND) is necessary, go to Step 5.
    • If an Environmental Impact Report (EIR) is necessary, go to Step 9.
  5. Prepare a ND or MND.
  6. If none or the impacts can be mitigated, file a Notice of Intent to Adopt ND/MND with the State Clearinghouse (SCH) and/or County Clerk-Recorder’s Office.
  7. Publish the Draft ND/MND.
  8. After a 20- or 30-day public review, consider and adopt Final ND/MND.
    • Go to Step 13.
  9. File a Notice of Preparation of Environmental Impact Report (EIR) and prepare the EIR.
  10. If there are impacts that cannot be mitigated, file a Notice of Completion and Notice of Availability with State Clearinghouse (SCH) and the County Clerk-Recorder’s Office.
  11. Publish the draft EIR.
  12. After a 45-day public review, prepare responses to comments and the Final EIR for consideration and certification.
  13. Decision on the project from the decision-making body.
  14. File a Notice of Determination or Notice of Exemption with SCH and the County Clerk-Recorder’s Office.

Key Terminology

Initial Study (IS)
Negative Declaration/Mitigated Negative Declaration (ND/MND)
Environmental Impact Report (EIR)

CEQA Documents for Neighboring Cities

Neighbor Cities Map highlighting cities surrounding Santa Clara - Sunnyvale, San Jose, and Cupertino.

The City of Santa Clara shares borders with three neighboring cities - San Jose, Sunnyvale, and Cupertino. The City does not manage projects, environmental reviews, or web content for other cities. They manage their own projects and environmental reviews, but sometimes the projects in one city can affect another city.

Santa Clara residents may use the links below to get information about our neighboring cities’ projects and/or CEQA details:

The City of Santa Clara's responses to other jurisdictions’ CEQA project documents may be posted here as they become available.

Last Updated:
06-20-2025