Rule 3.2223.Petition

Rule 3.2223 turns the general label “streamlined CEQA project” into something a court clerk and opposing counsel can spot at a glance. The petition must flag its own status directly below the case number on the first page, so nobody has to dig through the pleading to learn that expedited procedures apply.

The petition then has to identify which statutory track put it there — the project proponent’s notice to the lead agency that it invoked one of the specific streamlined statutes, the Governor’s certification of an environmental leadership project, or the project’s status as an Old Town Center project. For several of the categories carrying mandatory trial-court cost payments — media campus, leadership development, the Oakland ballpark and Inglewood arena projects, energy infrastructure and semiconductor projects, water-related projects, and leadership transit projects — the petition must also alert the applicant that it owes the payments described in Rule 3.2240, and the further payments due if the case reaches the Court of Appeal.

Finally, the petition must be verified, meaning the petitioner swears to its contents under penalty of perjury rather than merely asserting them through counsel. That formality matters more here than in an ordinary civil complaint, given how quickly the rest of the streamlined schedule moves once the case is filed.