September 29, 2026
CEQA litigation delayed voter-approved Del Mar Heights Elementary rebuild for years, split students between two campuses and added roughly $8 million in costs for local taxpayers
Prop 45 establishes firm timelines for legal challenges to essential school projects while maintaining environmental review and public input
Sacramento, CA — For four years, students at Del Mar Heights Elementary waited to return to their neighborhood school as litigation delayed a voter-approved rebuild, split students between two campuses and added roughly $8 million in costs for local taxpayers — a real-world example of the costly delays Proposition 45 is designed to address.
Prop 45, the Building an Affordable California Act, establishes clear, enforceable timelines for the review and approval of essential projects, including schools and classrooms. It also requires courts to resolve legal challenges to essential projects within 270 days, rather than allowing litigation to drag on for years.
The Del Mar Union School District began planning the rebuild of the 60-year-old Del Mar Heights Elementary campus in 2018, and local voters passed Measure MM to fund school construction and modernization. The new campus was designed to replace aging facilities, modernize classrooms and improve traffic flow and student safety. But in June 2020, NIMBY group “Save the Field” filed the first of several CEQA lawsuits, arguing that the modernization project might obstruct ocean views and reduce the size of the school’s playing field.
“It is beyond disappointing that these folks have gone to extraordinary lengths to try and stop or delay the reconstruction of our neighborhood school, especially after we changed the design three times to accommodate their views,” said Erica Halpern, then-president of the Del Mar Union School District Board of Trustees in 2022.
Under the original construction schedule, Del Mar Heights would have reopened for the 2021-22 school year. Instead, the frivolous CEQA litigation kept the new campus from opening until August 2024 — four years after the lawsuits began. As the litigation dragged on, kindergarten through third graders attended class at Del Mar Hills, while fourth through sixth graders were bussed to Ocean Air School, leaving families with children at two different schools, creating confusion around pickup times and causing stress for families.
The delays also came at a significant cost to taxpayers. The district approved millions of dollars in additional construction costs resulting from litigation delays, on top of legal expenses. A Del Mar Union School District trustee estimated that litigation ultimately cost the district roughly $8 million that otherwise would not have been spent.
Prop 45 addresses exactly this kind of uncertainty. Prop 45 streamlines approvals for schools, housing, water infrastructure, clean energy, transportation, hospitals and health care facilities, schools, broadband, and wildfire prevention. It sets clear, enforceable timelines and greater accountability so California can build faster and more affordably while maintaining strong environmental, labor, and tribal cultural resource protections and preserving local decision-making.
The San Diego Union-Tribune Editorial Board urged Californians to vote YES on Prop 45, calling the Building an Affordable California Act a “modest CEQA reform” that would make California’s project approval process “fairer, less expensive and considerably more predictable.” In its endorsement, the board argues that CEQA has been abused for decades to block or stall needed projects – like Del Mar Heights Elementary Modernization Project – and takes direct aim at false claims that Prop 45 would gut environmental protections, noting that “local governments would still have considerable authority in the approval process” and “activists wouldn’t be muzzled.”
BACKGROUND: Prop 45, the Building an Affordable California Act, modernizes California’s project approval and permitting process for essential projects — including housing, water infrastructure, clean energy, transportation infrastructure, hospitals and health care facilities, schools, broadband, and wildfire prevention projects — by establishing clear timelines, improving accountability, and reducing unnecessary delays, while preserving strong environmental, labor, and tribal cultural resource protections. Prop 45 is supported by a broad and growing coalition of 160+ organizations, including affordable housing advocates, civil rights leaders, clean energy builders, water providers, agricultural groups, and business organizations statewide.
Learn More: YESonProp45.com