Prop 45 Curbs CEQA Abuses That Kept El Cerrito Students in Portable Classrooms for Nearly Four Years
October 1, 2026
CEQA litigation delayed a voter-approved replacement for seismically unsafe Portola Middle School for nearly four years, leaving students in portable classrooms and adding more than $10 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 nearly four years, Portola Middle School students in El Cerrito were left in portable classrooms at a seismically unsafe campus as frivolous CEQA litigation delayed a voter-approved replacement school.
These delays added more than $10 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, bringing predictability to California’s broken permitting process so the state can build what it needs faster and more affordably.
Local voters passed Measure D in 2002 to support funding a new Portola Middle School. After the campus was deemed seismically unsafe, the West Contra Costa Unified School District moved to replace it by converting and expanding a nearby elementary school. But in January 2009, despite extensive public review and mitigation, opponents filed a CEQA lawsuit arguing the district needed to further study the effects of reassigning students to nearby schools. Courts rejected the lawsuit at every level, but by then students had spent years in portable classrooms at a seismically unsafe campus, without a gym or a library.
“Kids who were supposed to be in the first classes there will be in college before its doors open,“ said Kensington parent Bobbie Dowling when the district finally broke ground on the new school in 2013.
The delays also came at a significant cost to taxpayers. The frivolous CEQA litigation added more than $10 million in litigation and construction-delay costs.
Prop 45 addresses exactly this kind of endless delay that is getting in the way of the essential projects we need. 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.
California’s affordability crisis is tied directly to how long and how much it costs to build essential projects. Years of unnecessary delays drive up the cost of housing, energy, water, transportation and other essentials, costs ultimately passed on to families, ratepayers and taxpayers. Experts estimate Prop 45 could cut costly delays by 2 to 10+ years, lowering costs, getting critical projects built sooner, and improving quality of life for Californians
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