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 10 of 14 SCAQMD level. Ex. B, pp. 6-10. Such an analysis would be similar in form to the air quality modeling and traffic modeling typically conducted as part of a CEQA review. The failure to address the project's formaldehyde emissions is contrary to the California Supreme Court's decision in California Building Industry Assn v. Bay Area Air Quality Mgmt. Dist. (2015) 62 CalAth 369, 386 ("CBIA'). At issue in CBIA was whether the Air District could enact CEQA guidelines that advised lead agencies that they must analyze the impacts of adjacent environmental conditions on a project. The Supreme Court held that CEQA does not generally require lead agencies to consider the environment's effects on a project. CBIA, 62 CalAth at 800-801. However, to the extent a project may exacerbate existing adverse environmental conditions at or near a project site, those would still have to be considered pursuant to CEQA. Id. at 801 ("CEQA calls upon an agency to evaluate existing conditions in order to assess whether a project could exacerbate hazards that are already present"). In so holding, the Court expressly held that CEQA's statutory language required lead agencies to disclose and analyze "impacts on a project's users or residents that arise from the project's effects on the environment." Id. at 800 (emphasis added). The carcinogenic formaldehyde emissions identified by Mr. Offermann are not an existing environmental condition. Those emissions to the air will be from the Project. Residents and employees will be users of the Project. Currently, there is presumably little if any formaldehyde emissions at the site. Once the project is built, emissions will begin at levels that pose significant health risks. Rather than excusing the City from addressing the impacts of carcinogens emitted into the indoor air from the project, the Supreme Court in CBIA expressly finds that this type of effect by the project on the environment and a 11project's users and residents" must be addressed in the CEQA process. The Supreme Court's reasoning is well-grounded in CEQA's statutory language. CEQA expressly includes a project's effects on human beings as an effect on the environment that must be addressed in an environmental review. "Section 21083(b)(3)'s express language, for example, requires a finding of a `significant effect on the environment' (§ 21083(b)) whenever the `environmental effects of a project will cause substantial adverse effects on human beings, either directly or indirectly."' CBIA, 62 CalAth at 800 (emphasis in original). Likewise, "the Legislature has made clear —in declarations accompanying CEQA's enactment —that public health and safety are of great importance in the statutory scheme." Id., citing e.g., §§ 21000, subds. (b), (c), (d), (g), 21001, subds. (b), (d). It goes without saying that the hundreds of future residents and employees of the project are human beings and the health and safety of those people is as important to CEQA's safeguards as nearby residents currently living near the project site.