Category: Land use

By Greg Rowe

The California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) requires an Environmental Impact Report (EIR) to examine the potential impacts of a range of reasonable alternatives to the proposed project and evaluate the comparative merits of the alternatives. Under CEQA, the purpose of studying alternatives is to allow meaningful analysis and comparison of alternatives that could reduce significant environmental impacts as compared to the proposed project.

The alternatives must be feasible, meet most or all of the project objectives, and avoid or substantially lessen one or more of the project’s significant impacts. Alternatives are generally evaluated in a qualitative manner rather than to the same degree of exactitude as the proposed project. A “no project” alternative is always included. The “no project” alternative for a project that would develop vacant land would in most cases be the “Environmentally Superior Alternative (ESA),” but not building the project would fail to achieve any of the project objectives.

As a result, the alternative that best avoids or mitigates the most impacts is typically identified as the ESA, but the lead agency (the City of Davis in this case) is not obligated to substitute this alternative for the proposed project. In fact, because alternatives are generally analyzed qualitatively, a lead agency could not approve an alternative consistent with CEQA unless that alternative was also analyzed at the project-specific (i.e. detailed) level, such as the Biological Resources Preservation Alternative (BRPA) for the Village Farms project.

Alternatives are selected after the project’s impact analysis has been completed and the project’s potential impacts to the environment are known.  This is a logical sequence because it is impossible to know if an alternative would produce fewer impacts if the potential project’s impacts are not yet  revealed, just as a doctor cannot consider alternative treatments for a patient before the ailment and its source are known.

In my experience working with EIRs since 1984, once the impact analysis has been completed, there typically will be a meeting among the EIR consultant, the client (in this case, the City of Davis) and potentially the project proponent (in this case, the developer).  For a project such as Village Farms, the EIR consultant and city planning staff would use their professional experience and knowledge of the area and CEQA to devise a range of reasonable alternatives, with which the project proponent may or may not concur. In other words, the selection of alternatives is an objective process based on impartial judgment and professional experience. It should not influenced by political or financial considerations.

A knowledgeable but now retired land use consultant once told me that in his long experience, impacts to biological resources, traffic, and air quality tend to be the primary factors that influence the identification of alternatives. Typical alternatives might include any or all of the following:

• The same footprint or area but with fewer units (meaning lower density).
• A smaller physical footprint but with the same number of units, which would typically avoid impacts on sensitive biological resources on the property.
• A reduced project area footprint that includes the same number of housing units, but with a different mix of housing types.   
• A lower number of housing units on a smaller footprint.   
• Developing the project at an entirely different location, if acquiring such land for an alternative is feasible.

By Eileen M. Samitz

The Partially Recirculated Village Draft EIR has included the five alternatives in Chapter 7,  “Alternatives Analysis” from the original DEIR. This opens that door to comment on adding the “reduced footprint” alternative proposed by Davis citizens requested at  the Dec, 12, 2023 City Council meeting. This alternative should have been included, which is similar to the “environmentally superior” reduced footprint alternative which was included in the previous Covell Village Draft EIR. Because this “Alternative Analysis” chapter is included in the Partially Recirculated DEIR, comments on the Alternatives Analysis are now “in-scope” until Jan 2nd at 5 pm. That means the city has to evaluate and respond to all significant points you make related to this topic. It’s your right under CEQA. Here’s a definition of what makes a point significant:

“A “significant point” is a substantive comment that raises a material environmental issue or identifies a   specific deficiency in the EIR’s analysis, conclusions, or mitigation such that the agency must address it with a reasoned written response grounded in the record (not a mere acknowledgment).”

Because the Village Farms process has been so aberrant and fast-tracked from the beginning, our public input has been compressed timewise. Because all of this was piled on during the holidays, including back-to-back public meetings, we now only have until this Friday Jan. 2, at 5pm to submit our comments to ask for this reduced footprint alternative.

By Roberta Millstein

In an earlier article, I mentioned that there was a recirculated (and partial) Draft Environmental Impact Report (DEIR) for the Village Farms proposal, necessitated by “new information” related to the City’s overall Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP) capacity.” I also noted that the City was taking public comment on the recirculated (partial) DEIR, with comments due by 5 PM, January 2. As that day is very soon upon us, I thought I would share my own comments here.

Anyone thinking of submitting their own comments should note the following:

“Pursuant to CEQA Guidelines Section 15088.5(f)(2), the City of Davis directs that public comments must be restricted to the newly circulated information contained in this document related to wastewater treatment capacity. The City is not obligated to respond to any new comments that are directed to the portions of the Draft EIR that were not revised and are not being recirculated in this document.”

Comments must be directed to:

Dara Dungworth, Principal Planner
City of Davis Department of Community Development
23 Russell Boulevard, Suite 2
Davis, CA 95616
ddungworth@cityofdavis.org

My public comments (submitted earlier today) are as follows:

By Roberta Millstein

At last night’s Planning Commission meeting, I was the only (!) oral commenter, via the call-in option. I raised a series of concerns about the process and timeline for evaluating the Village Farms proposal, which I will paste in below. Yet neither staff nor any member of the Planning Commission chose to acknowledge the existence of my concerns, much less respond to them. I will let the reader decide whether I am making a mountain out of a molehill (possibly) or whether the Planning Commission shirked its duty by not even discussing the concerns.

As background, the sole point of the meeting was to decide whether to “continue” the Dec 2 meeting until Dec 17, to “to allow for the final negotiations of the project’s draft development agreement to be completed such that the Planning Commission can take action before the draft is forwarded to the City Council for consideration.”

Here is the slightly longer version of my comments that I emailed to members of the Planning Commission prior to the meeting, differing primarily in the second paragraph which I had to cut for time in my oral comments.