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Executive Sum 1.6.4 ALTERNATIVE 3 -REDUCED INTENSITY AND REDUCED DENSITY ALTERNATIVE Alternative 3 assumes that the County would reduce the number of residential units and the overall square footage of commercial and mixed -uses that would be built on the site, while still meeting most of the Project objectives. This alternative would provide 1,998 dwelling units, 1,000,000 square feet of corporate office uses, 200,000 square feet of retail uses, and a 242 -room hotel. This Alternative is discussed in greater detail in Section 5.4.4. Compared to the Project, although this Alternative would substantially lessen impacts, it would not avoid any of the significant unavoidable impacts to Air Quality, Land Use and Planning (interim), Population and Housing, Recreation (interim), and Transportation/Traffic for the proposed Project. Impacts would be incrementally reduced because the level of development is reduced. This Alternative would result in 35,179 Average Daily Trips (ADT) compared to 46,746 ADT under the proposed Project. Additionally, due to reduced population and building square footage, there would be reduced consumer project volatile organic compound (VOC) and long- term criteria pollutant emissions, though the impact would remain significant and unavoidable. This alternative would generate less total GHG Emissions than the Project. However, because it would have a lower GHG Emissions service population metric compared to the Project, this alternative would have greater impacts under the applicable SCAQMD efficiency metric based significance thresholds. This Alternative would fully meet 10 out of the 11 Project objectives, and is partially consistent with Objective 1. Under this alternative, employment would increase compared to existing conditions as a total of 4,576 jobs would be created. However, compared to the proposed Project, this alternative results in fewer jobs, and therefore, this objective of fully utilizing the County real estate asset is only partially met. As discussed below, this Alternative has been identified as the environmentally superior alternative. 1.6.5 ENVIRONMENTALLY SUPERIOR ALTERNATIVE The No Project/No Development Alternative (Alternative 1a) and the No Project/Institutional Entitlements Alternative (Alternative 1b) would have the least impacts to the environment. Alternative 1a would have no significant and unavoidable impacts associated with Air Quality, GHG Emissions, Land Use and Planning (interim), Population and Housing, Recreation (short- term), and Transportation/Traffic. However, the beneficial impacts of the proposed Project associated with provision of additional housing, infrastructure improvements, and improvements to the existing visual character of the site would not occur, and none of the Project objectives would be met. Similarly, Alternative 1b would reduce impacts compared to the proposed Project and avoid significant impacts to Air Quality, Land Use and Planning (interim), Population and Housing, and Recreation (short-term); the significant and unavoidable impacts for Transportation/Traffic and GHG Emissions would not be avoided and only two of the Project objectives would be met. Further, CEQA requires the identification of an environmentally superior alternative. Section 15126.6(e)(2) of the State CEQA Guidelines states that if the No Project Alternative is the environmentally superior alternative then the EIR shall also identify an environmentally superior alternative among the other alternatives. EL TORO, 100 -ACRE PARCEL DEVELOPMENT PLAN 1-7 PROGRAM ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT REPORT