Item 30 - EIR No. 2020-03 and GPA No.2020-06 Santa Ana General Plan Update

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Santa Ana General Plan Update CEQA Findings of Fact and Statement Of Overriding Considerations -57- October 2021 opportunities for highly trained workers, make infeasible this project alternative identified in the Final Recirculated PEIR. This alternative would result in similar impacts to 11 impact categories, reduced impacts to 5 environmental impacts, and increase impacts to 4 categories. Impacts would be similar for agricultural resources, biological resources, cultural resources, energy, geology and soils, hazards and hazardous materials, hydrology and water quality, mineral resources, noise, tribal cultural resources, and wildfire. This alternative would reduce impacts for aesthetics, population and housing, public services, recreation, and utilities and service systems. Impacts to air quality, greenhouse gas emissions, land use and planning, and transportation would increase. This alternative does not mitigate any of the significant and unavoidable impacts associated with the GPU to a less than significant impact. It would also exceed the City’s VMT threshold. Overall, impacts under this alternative would decrease in comparison to the proposed project. The No Project/Current General Plan alternative would not achieve many of the proposed project objectives. The existing land use plan does not provide the opportunities to provide housing and employment at the levels required to meet local and regional goals. Moreover, the No Project alternative would not provide numerous general policies as included in the GPU to achieve these goals and invigorate communities. The current General Plan, however, protects established neighborhoods and several Specific Plans and Special Zoning areas would provide for infill opportunities, protect established neighborhoods, and result in mixed-use villages and bike- and pedestrian-friendly communities. Reduced Intensity Alternative (Reduced capacity for the 55 Freeway/Dyer and South Bristol focus areas) Under the GPU, the only areas that include revisions to land use designations to accommodate new growth are within the five focus areas. The majority of remaining growth would occur within previously approved Specific Plans and Special Zoning areas. A nominal amount of growth is assumed to occur in other areas of the city and would not require land use amendments. The Reduced Intensity Alternative would substantially reduce development capacity within two focus areas, 55 Freeway/Dyer and South Bristol Street, which accommodate approximately 65 percent of the housing unit growth and 72 percent of the nonresidential use (by building square footage) of the growth projected for the combined focus areas under the GPU. For the focus areas, the forecast buildout is based on development at approximately 80 percent of the maximum allowed development for each respective land use designation. For this alternative, development of the 55 Freeway/Dyer and South Bristol focus areas would be reduced to approximately 50 percent of the maximum allowed per the land use designations. This alternative would reduce housing units by a total of 5,383 and would reduce total building square footage by approximately 4.2 million square feet distributed between these two focus areas. This alternative would also reduce population by 19,825 and jobs by 9,184. Overall, this alternative would reduce the housing growth accommodated by the GPU land use changes by approximately 18 percent and reduce nonresidential building square footage by approximately 27 percent.