Item 27 - Appeal Application Nos. 2020-03 and 2020-04 - Central Pointe Mixed-Use Development

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Central Pointe Mixed -Use Development Project November 9, 2020 Page 2 of 14 the MEMU EIR was a programmatic EIR, not a project -level EIR. No project -level EIR has been prepared for this Project but one is required; 2. the proposed Project is an entirely different project than what was analyzed in the MEMU EIR ("MEMU Project"); 3. the proposed Project will have new and different environmental impacts that were not analyzed in the MEMU EIR; 4. there is substantial evidence of new information of substantial importance, which was not known and could not have been known with the exercise of reasonable diligence at the time the MEMU EIR was certified as complete showing the Project will have a significant impacts not discussed in the MEMU EIR; 5. the City's traffic and hazard and hazardous materials conclusions are not supported by substantial evidence; and 6. the MEMU EIR recognized that the MEMU Project would have several significant and unmitigated environmental impacts. As such, a draft EIR is required to analyze and mitigate the impacts of the proposed Project. By opting not to proceed with the required SEIR or TEIR, the City has deprived the members of the public of the public review and circulation requirement available for EIRs. SAFER urges the Commission not to approve the Project, and instead to direct staff to prepare a Draft SEIR or TEIR for the Project, and to circulate the EIR for public review and comment prior to Project approval. I. PROJECT DESCRIPTION The Project involves a residential and commercial development that would consist of two buildings comprised of 644 residential units and 15,130 square feet of commercial space, 1,300 parking spaces and associated amenities and open space. The Project would be located at 1801 East Fourth Street, within the Metro East Mixed -Use Overlay Active Urban zoning district. II. CEQA REQUIRES THE CITY TO PREPARE A TIERED EIR FOR THE PROJECT. CEQA permits agencies to `tier' EIRs, in which general matters and environmental effects are considered in an EIR "prepared for a policy, plan, program or ordinance followed by narrower or site -specific [EIRs] which incorporate by reference the discussion in any prior [EIR] and which concentrate on the environmental effects which (a) are capable of being mitigated, or (b) were not analyzed as significant effects on the environment in the prior [EIR]." (Cal. Pub. Res. Code ("PRC") § 21068.5.) "[T]iering is appropriate when it helps a public agency to focus upon the issues ripe for decision at each level of environmental review and in order to exclude duplicative analysis of environmental effects examined in previous [EIRs]." (PRC § 21093.) The initial general