Correspondence - Item #15 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

Santa Ana City Council November 18, 2024 Page 4 CEQA provides that a changed project may only undergo a streamlined subsequent environmental review under certain circumstances that trigger either a subsequent EIR, a supplemental EIR, or an addendum to a previously certified EIR. (See CEQA Guidelines §§ 15162-64.) An addendum to a previously certified EIR is appropriate only when the necessary changes or additions do not trigger a subsequent or supplemental EIR, meaning the changes or additions are minor and do not involve new significant environmental effects or a substantial increase in the severity of previously identified significant effects. (CEQA Guidelines §§ 15162 and 15164.) In all cases, though, CEQA's "subsequent review provisions apply only to a previously approved project that has been subject to environmental review; the provisions do not apply if the agency has proposed a new project not previously analyzed in the original environmental document." (Martis Camp Community Association v. County of Placer (2020) 53 Ca1.App.5th 569, 606 n.26 [emphasis added]; see also Friends of College of San Mateo Gardens v. San Mateo County Community College Dist. (2016) 1 Cal.5th 937, 950 [CEQA's "subsequent review provisions . . . have no application if the agency has proposed a new project that has not previously been subject to review."].) The Staff Report asks the City to certify an addendum based on the GP PEIR that did not review the environmental impacts of the Amended Ordinance or even acknowledge the existence of STRs in the City. The Amended Ordinance therefore "has not previously been subject to review" under CEQA and the use of an addendum or any other subsequent environmental review pathway is insufficient to comply with CEQA. Further,Friends of College of San Mateo Gardens held that in order for a lead agency to rely on a previously certified CEQA document, that document must "retain informational value" as to the new project. (Friends of College of San Mateo Gardens v. San Mateo County Community College Dist. (2017) 11 Cal.App.5th 596, 605.) Here, because the GP PEIR does not analyze the impacts of banning short term rentals or even mention short term rentals at all, it retains no informational value as to the Amended Ordinance. Indeed, the GP PEIR offers no informational value on the reasonably foreseeable direct,indirect and cumulative impacts from the STR ban because the GP PEIR analysis completely ignores STRs. The Proposed Ordinance is a new project constituting a substantial change from the conditions contemplated in the GP PEIR. In a case with similar facts as this one, a court rejected the argument that a city's zoning code had always prohibited STRs and instead held that an ordinance expressly banning STRs was an amendment to the city's local coastal plan requiring Coastal Commission approval. (Keen v. City of Manhattan Beach (2022) 77 Cal.App.5th 142, 148-49.) Here, like in Keen, the Amended Ordinance does not maintain the "legal status quo" and therefore is a new project and the City cannot rely on previously approved documents that did not contemplate the impacts of the Amended Ordinance. Moreover,the environmental document prepared for the General Plan was a program EIR. "When a program EIR is employed, if a later proposal is not either the same as or within the scope of the project described in the program EIR . . . it is treated as a new project and must be fully analyzed." (Save Our Access v. City of San Diego (2023) 92 Cal.App.5th 819, 845.) [internal quotations and citations omitted].) A program EIR that does not include any discussion or analysis of a later proposed activity is not adequate to inform the public of the environmental effects of that later activity such that the later activity is outside the scope of the program EIR. (Id. at 852-53.) The 4