Key Points

  • A lot line adjustment under Government Code section 66412(d) is typically ministerial but is not always ministerial.
  • The Town of Los Gatos's acceptance of a common-law offer of dedication for a cul-de-sac easement was a discretionary act that let the town reject or condition the project on environmental grounds.
  • Because the approved project combined the lot line adjustment with acceptance of the dedication, it did not qualify for CEQA's ministerial exemption, and the town violated CEQA by relying on it.
  • The reason a dedication was offered, here to meet zoning frontage requirements, is immaterial to whether the approval is discretionary under Protecting Our Water.
  • Harmless-error analysis does not apply when an agency wrongly invokes the ministerial exemption; the judgment was reversed with directions to grant the writ petition.

A California appeals court has ruled that the Town of Los Gatos broke the state's main environmental law when it approved a boundary reshuffle of three residential lots without environmental review, because the approval included the town's acceptance of land for a new cul-de-sac, a step the court said the town was free to refuse.

A three-justice panel of the Sixth Appellate District unanimously reversed a Santa Clara County Superior Court judgment in the town's favor and directed the trial court to grant a petition for writ of mandate brought by Alison Steer, a neighboring homeowner. Justice Wilson wrote the opinion, joined by Acting Presiding Justice Grover and Justice Lie. The decision was filed Sept. 3 and certified for publication Oct. 5 on the application of interested parties.

Lot line adjustments, which redraw the boundaries among four or fewer adjoining parcels without creating new ones, are generally treated as ministerial under Government Code section 66412(d), meaning an agency approves them by applying fixed standards. Ministerial projects are exempt from the California Environmental Quality Act, or CEQA. The ruling holds that the exemption does not survive when an agency folds a separate discretionary decision into the approval. "Merely because approval of a lot line adjustment pursuant to Government Code section 66412, subdivision (d), is typically ministerial, it does not follow that it is always ministerial," Wilson wrote.

The application, submitted April 19, 2023, by architect Tony Jeans on behalf of owners Daran Goodsell, as trustee, and Mark von Kaenel, proposed to reconfigure three parcels in the town's R1-20 zone. One lot holds a single-family home; the other two are unimproved and had no street frontage, and one fell below the zone's 20,000-square-foot minimum. To give the two vacant lots the required frontage, the owners offered to dedicate an easement for a cul-de-sac at the end of an existing street, and the approval required the town engineer to accept the dedication. It was the owners' second application; Steer had also sued over the first.

Steer appealed the development review commission's approval to the planning commission and then to the Town Council, which denied her appeal at the conclusion of a Dec. 19, 2023, hearing. She argued the town had "made no effort to analyze the environmental impacts associated with the cul-de-sac," including tree removal, grading, hydrology and traffic. The next day the town filed a notice of exemption, concluding it had "no ability to exercise discretion to mitigate environmental impacts."

Superior Court Judge Theodore C. Zayner denied Steer's petition in January 2025. Relying on Sierra Club v. Napa County Board of Supervisors, a 2012 appellate decision that described section 66412(d) as a "prototypical ministerial approval process," the trial court found that any discretion in accepting the dedication was unrelated to environmental impacts and that it was not clear the town could have refused the offer.

The appeals court applied the California Supreme Court's test in Protecting Our Water & Environmental Resources v. County of Stanislaus, under which a project is discretionary if the agency can disapprove or condition it based on environmental concerns. Because the dedication was made under common law rather than a statute, Wilson wrote, the town could use its own judgment to accept it, reject it or reshape it. He noted that statutes governing dedications, such as Government Code section 7050, use the permissive phrase "may be accepted," and wrote that "there is no authority suggesting that a public agency is required to accept an offer of dedication in any circumstance."

The court rejected the town's argument that it had approved only a "paper" street that may never be built. Even if the cul-de-sac is never paved, Wilson wrote, the town's acceptance "created the cul-de-sac in the sense that the Town now has a property interest as reflected on the map as an extension of the existing street, together with possible liability and maintenance obligations."

The town had argued that the lot line application "placed the Town in a ministerial box" limiting it to the issues the statute allows. The panel disagreed. Section 66412(d) "does not place an agency in a ministerial box that strips it of any discretion it would otherwise have over a project approval," Wilson wrote, adding that the Legislature did not intend the statute "to provide a means of evading CEQA review merely by including a separate discretionary approval within the context of a lot line adjustment application."

The court distinguished Sierra Club, saying it held only that approvals under a specific Napa County ordinance were ministerial, and that the ordinance expressly excluded adjustments processed alongside a use permit "or other discretionary approval." It also rejected the trial court's focus on the dedication's purpose, which was to satisfy zoning rules. "It is immaterial why the offer of dedication was included in the application," Wilson wrote; what matters is "whether the agency can disapprove or condition approval of the project based on environmental concerns."

The panel did not evaluate Steer's claims of potential impacts involving fire safety, seismic stability, stormwater and trees. It also defined the project narrowly, excluding any future construction of the street or of homes on the vacant lots, and rejected Steer's argument that the owners gained a vested right to build the cul-de-sac.

Having found that the town "failed to proceed in the manner required by law and violated CEQA," the court held that harmless-error analysis does not apply when an agency wrongly relies on the ministerial exemption.

Steer was represented by Babak Naficy of the Law Office of Babak Naficy. The town was represented by Shannon Ball Jones.

The case returns to Santa Clara County Superior Court, which must enter a new order granting the writ of mandate consistent with Public Resources Code section 21168.9. Steer is entitled to her costs on appeal. The court declined to address any future approval the town might issue after remand, saying that doing so "would be premature and in the nature of an advisory opinion."