AgdaPkt 2013-09-23 Closed and Regular

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8.A. - Page 435 Mayor Aguirre and Members of the City Council April 15, 2013 Page 3 little to address these concerns and thus remains inadequate. Moreover, the Revised Final EIR fails to address the Project's patent inconsistency with the City's new general plan, which was adopted after the original Final EIR was issued and contains numerous policies governing resource protection that must be applied to the Project. The Planning Commission was obviously struck by the dramatic impact this Project would have on the environment at and around the Project site, repeatedly noting, among other things, that the proposed houses were oversized and seriously out of character with the surrounding community and questioning whether some of the steeper lots were even buildable. Despite these serious concerns, the Planning Commission certified the EIR for the Project, which concludes that the Project will have no significant impacts whatsoever—no impact on aesthetics, general plan consistency, traffic, public safety, biological resources, water quality, etc. These two conclusions --(1) that the proposed roadway and houses are dramatically out of scale for the community and steep slopes and (2) that the Project would not have any significant impacts—are wholly irreconcilable. It is up to the City Council, once again, to ensure that the environmental review for this Project is adequate. The City Must Conduct Its Own Research to Determine Whether All of the Substandard Lots are Truly Legal Non -Conforming Lots. The only reason the City is even considering allowing the construction of 5,000 square foot residences on 7,000 square foot lots with 30-45% slopes is because it accepted as fact the applicant's assertion that the substandard lots are legal non -conforming. Under the City's zoning ordinance, a developer would need at least 30,000 square feet to develop any residence on such steeply sloped lots. Redwood City Zoning Code § 32.2(A).3 This increased minimum lot size requirement for steeply sloped lots reflects what each Planning Commissioner plainly saw as a fundamental problem with the proposed Project: it attempts to cram too many large residences on too small lots. Given this obvious incongruity, the City must make every effort to verify that the proposed lots are, in fact, legal nonconforming. SLW submitted evidence and recent caselaw to the Planning Commission demonstrating that courts will not recognize a 1926 subdivision map as creating legal lots in compliance with the modern Map Act. If 3 Although various Planning Commissioners repeatedly asked to see this zoning code provision during the March 26 hearing, staff did not provide it to them. A copy of this provision, including the chart showing the increasing minimum lot sizes for increasingly sloped lots, is attached to this letter.