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8.A. - Page 400 <br />Members of the Planning Commission <br />City of Redwood City <br />February 14, 2013 <br />Page 2 <br />sources." Schoen v. Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (1997) 58 Ca1.AppAth <br />556, 573-574. Here, as you are no doubt aware, the City never certified the Final EIR <br />prepared for a prior version of the Project. Nor did the City ever consider any version of <br />the proposed project together with an EIR, as the applicant withdrew its application prior <br />to the City Council hearing.' Instead, after LWANA/Save Laurel Way appealed the <br />Planning Commission's certification of the EIR, the City Council considered the <br />adequacy of the EIR standing alone, found it to be deficient in several crucial areas, and <br />directed staff to undertake additional analysis. Given this decision by the City Council, <br />the public expected (reasonably) that the City would prepare a revised Draft EIR., <br />correcting the deficiencies in the original EIR, and then recirculate the revised Draft EIR <br />for public comment. <br />Rather than following this direction, however, the City has now issued a <br />"Revised Final EIR" and has scheduled a hearing on the Project and Final EIR for <br />February 26, just 21 days after issuing the revised document. This action, which is a <br />blatant end -run around CEQA's requirement that lead agencies provide a public comment <br />period for draft and recirculated EIRs and responses to comments received during that <br />period, is improper for at least three reasons. <br />First, the RFEIR, issued nearly three years after the original draft EIR and <br />nearly 18 months after the City Council concluded the original ETR was inadequate, <br />contains significant new information requiring further public comment and review. See <br />CEQA Guidelines § 15088.5(a) (defining new information to mean "changes to the <br />project.. . as well as additional data or other information"). As the RFEIR repeatedly <br />emphasizes, the project analyzed in the RFEIR differs from that analyzed in the original <br />EIR. Indeed, the RFEIR refers to the Project as a "new project." The RFEIR also contains <br />significant new information, including a new or revised Mitigation Monitoring and <br />Reporting Program, sewer line analysis, analysis of size information for existing <br />residences in the Project vicinity, Project plans, and geological and geotechnical reports. <br />Courts have required recirculation for much less extensive modifications. See, e.g., Mira <br />Monte Homeowners Assoc. v. County of San Buenaventura, 165 Cal.App.3d 357 (1985). <br />x To prevent such disjointed review from happening again in the future, the City <br />now provides that "applications for which an environmental document must be approved <br />shall be acted upon by the Planning Commission concurrently and together with <br />environmental review and shall not be separated nor heard, acted upon or determined <br />separately." Redwood City Zoning Ordinance, Section 1.8. <br />SHUTE, X911fMY <br />s;WFINSERGERi.•P <br />