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Local Guidelines for Implementing the California Environmental Quality Act (2019) ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT REPORT 2019 City of Santa Ana Local Guidelines 7-11 ©Best Best & Krieger LLP When incorporation by reference is used, the incorporated part of the referenced document shall be briefly summarized, if possible, or briefly described if the data or information cannot be summarized. The relationship between the incorporated document and the EIR, Negative Declaration, or Mitigated Negative Declaration shall be described. When information from an environmental document that has previously been reviewed through the state review system (“State Clearinghouse”) is incorporated by the City, the state identification number of the incorporated document should be included in the summary or text of the EIR. 7.17 STANDARDS FOR ADEQUACY OF AN EIR. An EIR should be prepared with a sufficient degree of analysis to provide decision-makers with information that enables them to make a decision that takes into account the environmental consequences of the project. The evaluation of environmental effects need not be exhaustive, but must be within the scope of what is reasonably feasible. The EIR should be written and presented in such a way that it can be understood by governmental decision-makers and members of the public. A good faith effort at completeness is necessary. The adequacy of an EIR is assessed in terms of what is reasonable in light of factors such as the magnitude of the project at issue, the severity of its likely environmental impacts, and the geographic scope of the project. CEQA does not require a Lead Agency to conduct every test or perform all research, study, and experimentation recommended or demanded by commenters, but CEQA does require the Lead Agency to make a good faith, reasoned response to timely comments raising significant environmental issues. There is no need to unreasonably delay adoption of an EIR in order to include results of studies in progress, even if those studies will shed some additional light on subjects related to the project. 7.18 FORM AND CONTENT OF EIR. The text of the EIR should normally be less than 150 pages. For proposals of unusual scope or complexity, the EIR may be longer than 150 pages but should normally be less than 300 pages. The required contents of an EIR are set forth in Sections 15122 through 15132 of the State CEQA Guidelines. In brief, the EIR must contain: (a) A table of contents or an index; (b) A brief summary of the proposed project, including each significant effect with proposed mitigation measures and alternatives, areas of known controversy and issues to be resolved including the choice among alternatives, how to mitigate the significant effects and whether there are any significant and unavoidable impacts (generally, the summary should be less than fifteen (15) pages); (c) A description of the proposed project, including its underlying purpose and a list of permit and other approvals required to implement the project (see Local Guidelines Section 7.24 regarding analysis of future project expansion); (d) A description of the environmental setting, which includes the project’s physical environmental conditions from both a local and regional perspective at the time the Notice of Preparation is published, or if no Notice of Preparation is published, at the time environmental analysis begins. (State CEQA Guidelines Section 15125.) This 3 -107