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Honorable Mayor Foust and Members of the City Council February 26, 2008 Page 3 property that is not only outside the City's boundaries but that is entirely within the corporate boundaries and sphere of influence of Woodside. Second, the environmental review conducted by the City fails to comply with the requirements of the CEQA because it does not consider the impacts of the City's proposed approval of the general plan amendment, pre-zoning and entitlements for the project. For purposes of CEOA, a "project" refers to the whole of an action and must encompass all components of the activity being approved. 14 Cal. Code Regs. ~ 15378. Where the impacts relevant to a project are covered in a previously prepared negative declaration, future environmental documents may build upon it. 14 Cal. Code Regs. ~ 15152, 15385. But as responsible agency, the City must comply with CEOA before making any decisions on the general plan amendment, pre-zoning and entitlements. and cannot rely upon the District's MND, which does not consider the required actions to be taken by the City. See 14 Cal. Code Regs. ~ 15096(f) fA responsible agency must consider the environmental effects of the project as'shown in the negative declaration prior to reaching its decision on a project.]; 14 Cal. Code Regs. 9 15096(h) [A responsible agency cannot rely on the lead agency's findings and must make and adopt its own findings.].) Here, the City has prepared a "Technical Addendum" to the MND "to address minor technical text and map changes to the MND" and concludes that the changes do not result in any new significant environmental impacts. Planning Commission Staff Report (Feb. 19,2008) , p. 7. In fact, the change identified in the Addendum is that the entire project site was discovered to be within the boundaries of Woodside after the District adopted the MND. Although the Property, currently zoned Suburban Residential under the Woodside Zoning Ordinance, will be re-zoned to Medium Housing Residential under the City Zoning Ordinance, the Initial Study and MND indicate that the Project will have no impact on Land Use and Planning, despite the obvious impacts of this land use designation change. Moreover, the proposed Project is inconsistent even with the Medium Housing Residential District zoning designation that the City proposes to apply to the Project site. Section 8.5 of the zoning ordinance states that within the Medium Housing Residential District, "[n]o structure shall exceed thirty-five (35) feet in height, and no accessory building shall exceed fourteen (14) feet in height." Section 2.51 defines "Height of Building>> as "the vertical distance from any point of the roof to the finished or natural grade, whichever is lower, directly below that point" The Project as approved by the Commission is for building heights ranging from 29 feet to 39 feet. exceeding the maximum height limitation by 4 feet. Even if the City lawfully approves a pre-zoning of the project site, the Development Permit cannot be approved without either a reduction of the height of the residential structures. relocation of the structures to a location farther removed from the hilltop, or a variance from the zoning ordinance. WOOH\.~6817\727726.1 78 Page 25