DID YOU KNOW That The City Thinks It Can Approve The Scope And Draft For An Environmental Impact Report Before It Is Clear What Will Actually Be In The Plan?

During last week’s Planning Commission Meeting Mr. Bill Ekern, Assistant City Manager for Redwood City informed the planning commission and the public that the city intends to create both the specific plan for the inner harbor (IHSP) and the environmental impact report (EIR) at the same time! Which means the city is creating an EIR for a plan that doesn’t exist yet.

According to Mr. Ekern, because of State Lands issues still under discussion the City is not including residential uses on the granted lands in the EIR. For the purposes of the environmental impact report, the city is not going to follow the direction of the Inner Harbor Task force to work with State Lands to find a way for Docktown to stay where is is, and is simply going to eliminate the community.

Mr. Ekern went further and noted that the City was not going to spend a lot of time discussing the forthcoming specific plan which might seem to be a logical and focused statement given that the discussion was supposed to be about the EIR, however this really doesn’t make sense.

As Cynthia Brown , a director with Environmental Science Associates (ESA) the consultants tasked with preparing the EIR, explained the framework of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) allows for EIR’s to inform, engage, disclose and avoid and/or reduce potential impacts of a specific plan with alternative and/or mitigation measures. The first step is to prepare a notice of preparation (NOP) then after that the next step is to prepare and publish a draft EIR. Ms. Brown suggested that people consider framing their questions in the format of “I request that the EIR for the Specific Plan consider….”

An EIR is supposed to make sure that proper transportation circulation, parking impacts, land use planning and even utility and service systems have been planned for but how to do that if you don’t know the particulars in question.

How are the consultants going to study these impacts if what exactly is planned for the Inner Harbor 1 development is unknown. As is what is planned for the Inner Harbor 2 development. Or even water dependant development.

Given the existing business and organizations in the area, Mr. Clem Maloney, Secretary of the Seaport Industrial Association, stated new development must be planned and designed in such a way as to properly co-exist with existing commercial and industrial uses. He suggested some solutions such as putting distance and physical barriers and separating truck and car drivers as much as possible.This all has to do to with proper land use compatibility.

The fact is that the inner harbor area and whatever forth coming development is finally approved for what was labeled as Inner Harbor 1 and Inner Harbor 2 share a traffic system with the port and the industrial zone. Traffic at the Woodside Interchange is extremely heavy now and extremely backed up.There is currently a 101/Woodside Interchange project expansion process being developed through CalTrans but at the speed the City of Redwood City wants the EIR developed there is no way that this EIR will be able to incorporate any decisions made through the CalTrans long-term strategic process.

Mr. Maloney further urged the commissioners to make sure and consider planning realistically in such a way so as not to overload the system. The reality as Mr Maloney noted is that the city needs to scale the intensity of the development to meet the infrastructure capacity and not allow the current capacity to be overwhelmed.

But how can this be done in anything but a sequential way?

First we need to understand what CalTrans is doing with the 101/Woodside interchange and what the State Lands Commission is going to allow in the Inner Harbor. Then we need to understand what the plans are for the Inner Harbor 1 and Inner Harbor 2 projects and only AFTER can a relevant and appropriate EIR be studied, drafted and finalized.

If you agree please let the City know by sending your comments in. Comments are being accepted through December 11th. You can mail them into City Hall or email innerharbor@redwoodcity.org or walk them in.