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including policies designed to retain the surrounding transitional uses. The Port is one of the region's great assets; it serves as a principal distribution point for construction materials and supplies that form the foundation of Silicon Valley's economy. There are no known options for establishing a replacement port and related industries elsewhere along the Bayfront. The General Plan recognizes that the Port supports a range of synergistic uses: a concrete batch plant, heavy industrial recycling, and many related light industries. As the General Plan notes, Port -related, Port -dependent and other light -industrial uses are extremely important to the Bay Area economy, generating diverse, local jobs for residents of all skill and education levels (at higher wages than service -sector jobs), as well as to create and supponjobs in multiple other business sectors. These related industrial land uses are dependent upon the irreplaceable rail infrastructure, nearby freeway access, and land use mix currently present in the Port area. Light industrial facilities serve as important buffers between the Port/heavy industry and incompatible uses. The Harbor View site is one of those buffers, assigned to light industrial use to help protect the long-term viability of the Port and Redwood City's industrial base. If the land use remains as is, the Harbor View site can support more than 800,000 sq feet of low-rise buildings and nearly 1800 jobs, many of which will be high -paying blue collarjobs that will contribute to Redwood City's economy long after the short-term construction jobs associated with the development go away. The Jay Paul Company purchased the site with the intent to build a hi -tech office park in full knowledge of, and in direct contradiction to, the City's General Plan. The City is under no obligation to consider a project that will convert an ideal location for industrial uses to a commercial office park, with its attendant increases in traffic and other impacts over what is currently permitted. Approving a Project with These "Significant and Unavoidable" Traffic Impacts Cannot be Justified Traffic impacts will be "significant and unavoidable" according to the DEIR; they will negatively impact the ability of businesses on Seaport Blvd. to efficiently transport goods and significantly lengthen commute times for Redwood City residents and thousands of Peninsula commuters. The DEIR projects that the average vehicle miles traveled per day per employee will be 26 miles, indicating that many, if not most, employees will be living far from Harbor View and traveling to work by car. The project would employ more than 4500 workers, provide parking for over 3500 cars, and produce more than 8000 car trips/day. This is not the kind of transit -oriented development that the General Plan wishes to promote. These significant unavoidable impacts occur despite the required mitigations or the traffic benefits that the developer proposes. Jay Paul's proposed contribution to the Highway 101/Woodside Road interchange does not address the fact that projections on the benefits from those interchange improvements only considered traffic generated by development outlined in the General Plan. The contribution to the cost doesn't mitigate the impacts from the project, and therefore cannot be justified with a statement of overriding considerations. Redwood City Neighbors United, P.O. Box 416, Redwood City, CA • infoQrcnu.org