CORRESPONDENCE - 75E (IN OPPOSITION)

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9. The EIR identifies one "significant and unavoidable" impact associated with this project, which pertains to aesthetics. CECA guidelines Section 15126.6 (c) requires that "an EIR analyze a reasonable range of alternatives to the proposed project that could feasibly avoid or reduce any significant unavoidable impacts of the project." However the project management team's selection of alternatives for the proposed project failed to list the most obvious alternative, development of the property into single family homes. The Developer was asked in one of the neighborhood meetings if they would consider developing the property with single family homes and the response was that they are in the multi -family home development business and would not consider any other alternative. To most people it is obvious that if an alternative to the project was single family homes it would meet the CEQA guidelines of selecting an alternative that could "feasibly avoid or reduce any significant unavoidable impacts of the project" namely the aesthetic significant impact. When this was pointed out to the project management team as a response to the draft EIR their response was "The alternative to develop the site with single-family residences ... is not a variation of the proposed project or allowed under the existing General Plan land use designation and zoning for the project site. In addition, the project's underlying purpose is to develop multi -family residential uses on the project site. A single-family residential alternative would not meet the project's objective." The refusal of the project management team and the assertions that single-family residential would not meet the project's objective can be read more realistically as that single-family residential, while it would eliminate the aesthetics significant impact, would not meet the Developer's requirements. Again this is evidence that the project management team has approached this project with a desire to meet the Developer's requirements over the expressed concerns of the residents of Park Santiago. 10. The City of Santa Ana General Plan currently identifies the Floor Area Ratio (FAR) for North Main Street to be 1.5. As noted in the Request For Planning Commission Action, the proposed project has a Floor Area Ratio of 2.28, significantly more than the City of Santa Ana General Plan allows. If the project were to be designed using a FAR of 1.5 it would represent a 35% reduction in the size of the project) This is additional evidence that the project management team is siding with the Developer's requests and attempting to dictate revisions to the General Plan to allow the Developer's plan. 11. In the Request For Planning Commission Action the project management team in the Neighborhood Character section readily admits that the "project is not in character with the neighborhood, which it shares two sides with, as the neighborhood is comprised of single-family dwellings and the project is a high density multi family housing project." The Park Santiago neighborhood is comprised of homes of varying styles including colonial, Spanish, ranch and craftsman, several over 100 years old. The project as planned is designed in a modern contemporary architectural style which as admitted by the project management team doesn't fit the character of the neighborhood. However, instead of working with the Developer to provide an architectural design (Spanish for example) that would fit better with the existing Park Santiago neighborhood, they wrote it off as unavoidable. This is additional evidence that the project management team has taken on the Developer's desires with little to no consideration of the desires of the Park Santiago residents.