CORRESPONDENCE - 11A - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

manatt Santa Ana City Council December 16, 2019 Page 2 mix, the development envelope, development setbacks and parking requirements. City staff and the City environmental consultant prepared a comprehensive analysis of the October 2019 Project in the Clarification of the 2525 Main Street Project, dated October, 2019, which was attached to the Final F,IR as Exhibit E (the "Clarification"). The Clarification concluded that the October 2019 Project would create less impacts than the Original Project and that the previously prepared Final EIR, as clarified, adequately addressed the potential environmental impacts of the October 2019 Project. Project opponents have submitted written comments objecting to the October 2019 Project on several grounds, many of which simply reflect their opposition to the October 2019 Project. Several of the comments raise legal questions that we wish to provide a response. These issues are the assertion that the Final EIR needs to be recirculated for public comment due to the modifications made to the Original Project over the course of its consideration by the City, the assertion that the October 2019 Project is inconsistent with the City's General Plan, and the assertion that the approval of the October 2019 Project would result in illegal spot zoning. 1. Do Modifications to the Original Project Require Recirculation of the Final EIR? No. Section 15088.5 of the CEQA Guidelines (14 Cal. Code of Regs. § 15088.5) sets forth the criteria for recirculation of a Draft EIR before it is certified by the lead agency (i.e., the City). Section 15088.5 provides that a lead agency is required to recirculate a Draft EIR only when significant new information is added to the Draft EIR before certification. New information can include "changes in the project or environmental setting as well as additional data or other information but new information" but is not significant "unless the EIR is changed in a way that deprives the public of a meaningful opportunity to comment upon a substantial adverse environmental effect of the project or a feasible way to mitigate or avoid such an effect (including a feasible project alternative) that the project's proponents have declined to implement". (Id) "Significant new information" may also include the identification of a new significant environmental impact that would result from the project or from a new mitigation measure proposed to be implemented, or a substantial increase in the severity of an environmental impact which would result unless mitigation measures are adopted that reduce the impact to a level of insignificance. (Id.) As demonstrated in the Clarification, the changes to the Original Project that are reflected in the October 2019 Project do not constitute "significant new information." Because, among other things, the number of units proposed in the October 2019 Project have been substantially reduced as compared to the Original Project, the environmental impacts have been reduced. As such, the analysis that was in the Final EIR, and addressed in the Clarification, demonstrate that the October 2109 Project will not result in any new significant environmental impacts, nor substantially increase the severity of previously -analyzed environmental impacts.