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10/11/2010 Attachment 1.A No Project Alternative would not achieve the City's goals and objectives for the project to the same degree as the New General Plan, the No Project Alternative is not considered a feasible alternative and has been rejected from further consideration. 2. Alternative 2 -- Reduced Development Alternative a) Findings. Alternative 2, the Reduced Development Alternative, is discussed at pages 5 -14 to 5 -24 of the Draft EIR. The Draft EIR's authors concluded that Alternative 2 is the environmentally superior alternative (p. 5 -35 to 5 -36), but the City hereby rejects Alternative 2 as infeasible because it would not avoid or substantially lessen any of the New General Plan's significant environmental effects and would not achieve the City's goals and objectives for the Project to the same degree as the New General Plan. b) Explanation. There are two significant differences between the proposed New General Plan and Alternative 2. The first relates to the level of non- residential development permitted under each proposal. The second relates to the level of residential development permitted on two significant sites located near the Downtown area. Alternative 2 would permit substantially less non - residential development throughout the Plan area than the proposed New General Plan, because Alternative 2 would establish lower maximum floor /area ratios (FARs) than the New General Plan for several land use designations. These reduced FAR areas include the Commercial — Regional, Commercial — Office Professional /Technology, Mixed Use — Corridor, Mixed Use — Neighborhood, and Mixed Use — Live /Work designations. Under the New General Plan, the maximum FAR in these areas would be 1.0. Under Alternative 2, the maximum FARs for these designations would be 0.75. This difference would be expected to result in the New General Plan producing more than 1.7 million additional square feet of non - residential development. (See DEIR at p. 5 -16 (Table 5 -2)) Due to this additional non - residential development, the New General Plan would also be expected to generate more than 2,600 additional jobs compared to Alternative 2. (DEIR at p. 5 -16 (Table 5-2)) Alternative 2 would also permit substantially less residential development than the New General Plan, because Alternative 2 would apply different land use designations to two specific sites near the Downtown area, known as the "Dodge" site and the " Syufy" site. Under the New General Plan, the Dodge site, which consists of property along the west side of Veterans Boulevard between Brewster Avenue and Whipple Avenue, would be designated Mixed Use — Corridor. This designation would allow for the development of approximately 185 new residential units on the parcel, and possibly more with a density bonus, along with some residential development. Under Alternative 2, the Dodge site would be designated Commercial — Regional, which would not allow any residential development. Similarly, under the New General Plan, the Syufy site, which consists of several contiguous parcels located north of U.S. 101 and bordered by East Bayshore Road and ATTY /RESO /RESO.2055 /ATTACHMENT1.A 33 #15059 10/13/10 MUFF # 601