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8.A. - Page 278 Finger Ave. Praject FEIR Comments June 15, 2012 Page 7 of 12 is why most CEQA documents on projects with potentially significant visual impacts include them. For example, the City of Belmont is current�y using a set of 3 such simulations in an Initial 5tudy on a lOQ-foot roaaway extension and a sin�Ie 2,500-sq, ft. house. 'Fhese simulations are essential to supparting any conc�usions on the project's visual imgacfis. In response to the City's refusal to include this critical information, local residents contracted to prepared simulations themselves. These sirnulations, submitted by the F'APC under separate cover, indicate a significant change in �he site's visual quality, consistent with the concerns aver adverse aesthetic impacts described above. Failure to include these simulations in the �TR is a substantive failure on the part of the Lead Agency. The response should be revised and EIR should be recirculated given the new simulations. Responses G-33 and G-34 The response correctly identifies the issue of significance with respect to aesthetic impacts as related to the number af viewers. The respanse then focuses on private views "of a dozen or so" nearby residents. This campletely ignares the gist of the comment, v+rhi�h r�vas that t�e significance of the impacts ignored t'he combination af pubiic and prti�ate r�iezus, and therefore is similar to the Ocean Vzew EsEates confext. Further the response fails to consider the opinions of over 751oca1 residents who signed staternents specifieally expressing their cancern with the aesthetic impacts of the project. This failure, in carnbination vvith the lack of substantial eaidence of lack of significance, as discussed with respe�t to Response G-26, above results in a failure to adequately address this important subject. Response G-34's conclusion that the EIR aesthetics analysis assessed the impact of combined impacts of all elements of the pxoJect is entirely unsupported. The referenced canclusion that the praject "would reinforce the de�eloped character of Finger Avenue...rather than the semi-rural aesthetic° on the north side of Finger merely states the obvious, but does not evaluate the significance of that change as mandated hy CEQA. It does, however, support the local residents' contention of a significant impact due to the loss of the semi-rural character (the significance of which is never evaluated in the EIR). Response G-36 The response continues to claim, in the absence of any st�pporting evidence or anaIysis, t�at exis#ing st�ructures on the site wonld be likely to fail in an ear#hquake. In £act, as nated in the comment, the structures apparently sut�rived the 1906 Magnitude 7.8 earthquake. It further ciaims that retrofitting efforts "are likely to be substantial and expensive", again in the absence of any supparting information vr economic ana�ysis. Given that in this neighborhood, tear-downs and recanstructions are considered feasible, alt of these claims of expense leading to infeasibility are speculative, at best. CEQA does not permit speruIation.