2019-090 - Adopting the Mitigated Negative Declaration

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*:/ : 11-1 h WA Education Center (CEC), which provides career -specific educational opportunities to adults. The 2.6-acie leased area is referred to as CEC Site. Although RSCCD's lease requires them to provide specific on site recreational activities; these activities have not been provided. The original 30-year agreement expired in November 2009, and because RSCCD did not fully satisfy its duties under the agreement to provide specific on -site recreational activities, RSCCD's request for the lease extension was refused. Instead, a five-year extension was granted to: 1) provide the requirements of the original lease, 2) vacate the property, or 3) provide replacement park property. RSCCD elected to provide replacement park property to replace the park facilities required under the lease with facilities of equal or greater value, and to continue to operate on the CEC Site. To this end, the RSCCD is currently pursuing a Federal Lands to Parks Land Exchange to remove the deed condition and transfer it to replacement parklands of an equivalent value in hopes that it may continue using the site for educational, not recreational, purposes. Due to the deed restrictions placed on FCC Site when it was conveyed from the federal government to the City of Santa Ana, approval from the National Park Service (NPS), a bureau of the Unified States Department of the Interior (DOH is required. Because NPS approval is required, the proposal to provide replacement park property must comply with the requirements of the National Environment Policy Act (NEPA. In 2012, the City prepared a Federal Lands to Parks Land Exchange request proposing a 1.25-acre site located along McFadden Avenue at Orange Avenue (McFadden Site) as a replacement for the CEC Site, and the following environmental documents were prepared for the McFadden Site in accordance with NEPA and CEQA. ■ National Park Service, Environmental Assessment, Proposed Pacific Electric Park Site, 2012 ■ City of Santa Ana, Mitigated Negative Declaration/Initial Study, Proposed Pacific Electric Park Site, 2012 Although the McFadden Site was subsequently determined to be insufficient to replace the CEC Site, McFadden Site was developed and opened in 2018 as the Pacific Electric Park. The City has since identified two additional properties, a 0.42-acre site located at the corner of 6th Street and Lacy Street (6th Street Site) and a 1.09-acre site at the corner of Raitt Street and Myrtle Street (Raitt Street Site), to be considered as part of the exchange. Therefore, the city proposes three replacement park sites totaling 2.76 acres as land exchange for the leased, 2.6-acre CEC Site. Figure 1, Regional Location, and Figure 2, Local Vicinity, show all three replacement park sites' relative locations to the Centennial Park. Federal Lands to Park Land Exchange Requirements indicate that replacement land must be of equivalent fair market and recreational value. The City of Santa Ana prepared the Recreational Value Assessment (RVA) for the three replacement park sites in August 2018 to provide justification of public recreational utility of the land proposed for exchange and its replacement The 2018 RVA concluded that the combined recreational value of the three proposed sites are of equivalent recreation value in comparison with the CEC Site at Centennial Park Because NPS approval is required, an Environmental Assessment (EA) has been prepared under a separate cover to satisfy the requirement of NEPA. 75C-39