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In response to Mayor Hartnett's questions regarding a legal vehicle for the property owners for cost sharing for an EIR, City Attorney Schricker said "CEQA regulations.... provide that the proponent or proponents of a project win fund the environmental documentation for that project." The five owners proposing the road improvement could agree to fund the EIR. "The project defines the application of CEQA. Their project may not be the only project.... what your policy says is that there should be a comprehensive Environmental Impact Report. There may be other owners interested in it as well.... The City would prefer to deal with one owner, simply for the purposes of administration of the contract, but once the money is deposited, the City would then retain the necessary consultants and proceed with the contract for the development of the EIR." Councilman Leipzig said Councilman Claire had made the right votes on the Hatfield and Scott properties. "The Hatfield property did not have, currently, any problems that anyone is aware of.... At the public hearing it was stated that the property had just been sold recently at some point, and that they had property inspections and so forth, and there were not problems noted at that time. The Council made a decision to anow the Hatfield development against the advice, I believe, of the staff and probably some neighbors at that time. The sky is falling, the sky is falling, we can't do this, and Council went ahead and did it.... It has been ten years and there are no problems after ten years. That is a pretty good indication that if you are going to have problems with a new home it is going to be within three or four years. I think there is nothing wrong with continuing development." Mayor Hartnett said he had "a sense that the majority of the Council had concerns about taking an action that would appear to have the effect of making it impossible for the applicant to build on his lot because of the condition being imposed. Namely that an ErR must first be prepared, and that the cost of the EIR may be prohibitive, such that it becomes impossible under his circumstances to proceed..... No one wishes to deprive him of a right to build under appropriate circumstances." Mayor Hartnett said as a matter of law it would not be impossible for him to build if the Council decided an EIR was required. Mayor Hartnett said "it might be impractical (to build) in the sense that he could not solely bear the cost of an EIR.... Once an ErR is done and paid for the information derived from that and mitigations that might be outlined, might be such that the buildable conditions that the City would then anow would make it more impractical to build. That is a genuine and legitimate fear of the applicant." Councilman Claire said he was "inclined to deny the appeal based on the fact that the variances are too significant from what the City has normally required others in the City to do." Councilman Claire said rezoning was not practical, and he expressed confidence in the existing zoning designation. MIS: CLAIRE/BUCHAN TO TABLE THIS ITEM TO SUCH TIME, HOPEFULLY QUICKLY, WHERE THE APPLICANT AND CITY STAFF CAN LOOK AT THE POTENTIAL OF COMBINING AND WORKING WITH THE OTHER PROPERTY OWNERS ON DEVELOPABLE PROPERTY IN THAT AREA TO SEE IF THERE CAN BE A FUNDING MECHANISM DERIVED FOR THE ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT REPORT, AND ALSO GIVE STAFF A CLEAR INDICATION THAT THERE CAN BE AN OPPORTUNITY FOR THE CITY TO PARTICIPATE IN THAT FUNDING GIVEN THE REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING MINUTE BOOK NO. 54 SEPTEMBER 16, 1996 MINUTES Page No. 480 PAGE 16