AgdaPkt 2013-09-23 Closed and Regular

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8.A. - Page 437 Mayor Aguirre and Members of the City Council April 15, 2013 Page 5 The Ci Cannot Defer Anal sis of the Pro'ect's Im acts b Re uirin a Subsequent PD Permit for Individual Residences. At the eleventh hour, staff informed the Planning Commission and the public that the Project would require only a "master PD Permit," which would authorize construction of the infrastructure and would approve the development of 16 residences only in concept. Individual PD Permits will then be required prior to the development of individual residences. If this last-minute bifurcation was meant to remedy the problem identified by SLW and others—i.e., that the EIR illegally defers site-specific geotechnical studies, stormwater mitigation, and other analyses and mitigation for the individual residences and the access road—it did not achieve its goal. Such deferral of analysis is prohibited by CEQA.S The City cannot avoid CEQA's requirement that project impacts be analyzed before project approval simply by bifurcating the approval process itself. For these reasons and the reasons stated in the attached documents, we urge the City Council to reverse the Planning Commission's unsupported decision to certify the EIR and approve the Project. Thank you for your attention to this appeal. Very truly yours, SHUTE, MIHALY & WEINBERGER LLP Winter King 469230.3 s In addition to the issues raised in SLW's earlier comments, it also appears that the RFEIR fails to adequately describe the location of the road or that it will likely require the removal of heritage trees and rock outcroppings outside of the delineated Project site. In addition, it appears that some of the stormwater treatment measures are also slated to be located where rock outcroppings exist. Obviously, such a location would not be appropriate for detention/diffusion basins. The City must analyze these impacts before taking action on the Project. l[1 F II I,AI) W1- I N l;llt('.11:.R,