2025.03.04 Speaker Card - PC - Laserfiche WebLink

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www.lfrep.com Dear Members of the Redwood City Council & Planning Commission, As you know, Longfellow Real Estate Partners first submitted our pre -application for the Redwood LIFE Evolve project in May 2021. During the four years since that submittal, we and the City and the community have invested countless hours meeting, investigating, discussing, and asking and answering questions about the project, its design, benefits and viability. We have held dozens of meetings with community members, sent thousands of mailers to the surrounding community, held multiple open houses, and have engaged openly and in good faith with a wide range of interested parties. When we last met with the City Council in the summer of 2023, Council directed City staff to lead a two-fold effort: • First, to undertake an initial investigation (dubbed a “Sensitivity Analysis”) to understand if there were environmental factors that could inform a reduced project alternative, and • Second, to work with the community and Longfellow to develop a consensus around a reduced project alternative that would be studied alongside the original project application in a dual -track EIR. City Council requested a project status update in eighteen months. Here we are, eighteen months later, and the City’s team has completed those tasks. The Sensitivity Analysis, while giving a helpful preview of the issues and topics that will be addressed in much more detail in the EIR, showed no significant environmental factors that would preclude development at the site and showed that, as expected, the most meaningful project component to adjust is project size. Therefore, instead of leaning on environmental factors, the City (and Longfellow) looked primarily to community voices to develop two reduced project alternatives. Alternative #1 presents a reduction of net new square footage of about 10% from the project application; Alternative #2 takes a much larger cut and reduces the net new square footage by 20%. Alternative #2 also materially increases the distance of new buildings to the nearest neighbors to 250 feet, doubles the setback of buildings from the slough, increases the acreage of open space by over five acres, reduces vehicle trips and parking spaces, and reduces the total number of new life science buildings by three. The response in the community has been positive and many Redwood Shores neighbors are now coalescing around Alternative #2. This consensus is best demonstrated by Stop Redwood LIFE, which represents over 1,500 petition signers from Redwood Shores who were all previously opposed to the original project application. Stop Redwood LIFE circulated a survey in February describing Alternative #2 and asking their supporters whether Alternative #2 is acceptable. Over 65% of the 129 respondents voted ”YES .” We now ask that City Council direct staff to proceed