AgdaPkt 2020-11-09 Joint SA PFA - Laserfiche WebLink

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Ms. Lindy Chan, Principal Planner City of Redwood City, Planning Services July 13, 2020 Page 2 With the foregoing in mind, the District requests that the City revise the Draft EIR to address the serious deficiencies identified in this letter, develop appropriate mitigation measures for impacts that are identified as significant, and then recirculate the revised Draft EIR as required by CEQA. (CEQA Guidelines § 15088.5.) The District addressed many of these issues with Developer at a meeting on February 25, 2020. Since that meeting, Developer has been entirely unresponsive to District's efforts to have further meetings, and further to discuss potential impacts related to Developer's numerous projects proposed throughout Redwood City and Menlo Park. The District is hopeful that collaboration with City and Developer, as outlined in this letter, will yield meaningful solutions that alleviate the impacts caused by the Project. District is prepared to provide information as necessary to assist City and Developer in addressing each of the District's concerns regarding the proposed Project. I. Background: Initial Study, Notices of Preparation, and District's Scoping Letters The District previously submitted comments to the City in response to the City's initial Notice of Preparation ("NOP") and Initial Study, on August 9, 2019. The City then substantially modified the Project by adding 249 residential units, slightly reducing the square footage dedicated to office use (by 19,000 sf), slightly reducing the number of square footage dedicated to the childcare facility (by 100 sf), and increasing the square footage dedicated to retail use by 1,000 s£ The City issued an updated NOP on the Project, without updating the analysis contained in the Initial Study, on January 29, 2020. In response to the City's updated NOP, the District submitted an updated comment letter on February 28, 2020. Copies of both of the District's comment letters (referred to as the "Prior Comment Letters") are attached hereto, and incorporated herein by this reference. Through both Prior Comment Letters, the District specifically requested that the Draft EIR include a description and evaluation of certain information needed to determine whether impacts related to schools are potentially significant. The Prior Comment Letters contain six general areas the District believes must be addressed by the Draft EIR in order to adequately evaluate the school impacts: population, housing, transportation/traffic, noise, air quality, and public services (including schools). Within those categories, the District described 27 subcategories that it requested be evaluated in the Draft EIR. Most of the subcategories were nevertheless not addressed at all in the Draft EIR, and the ones that were addressed received no more than a cursory review. Because such information and environmental analysis was not included in the Draft EIR, the document is inadequate as set forth in more detail below. II. The Draft EIR does not meet its purpose as an informational document because it fails to provide an adequate description of the environmental setting related to schools. One of CEQA's basic purposes is to inform government decision -makers and the public about the potential significant environmental effects of proposed projects and to disclose to the public the reasons for approval of a project that may have significant environmental effects. (CEQA