FRESNO, CALIFORNIA 93728
.COM
December 3, 2024
City Council
City of Fresno
by email to [email protected]
RE: Council Agenda December 5, 2024
Agenda Item ID 24-1618
Consultant Services Agreement between the City of Fresno and FCS International, Inc. (FCS), regarding environmental planning and consulting services for the Southeast Development Area (SEDA) Specific Plan Environmental Impact Report (EIR)
Dear Council President Perea and City Council Members:
On behalf of the Fresno Madera Tulare and Kings Counties Central Labor Council, the Central Valley IAF, and Regenerate California Innovation (RCI), please incorporate the following comments regarding the proposed new contract with FCS International for preparation of a revised Draft PEIR for the City’s Southeast Development Area Specific Plan into the record of the SEDA project.
1. FCS’s failure to perform its 2020 contract with the City requires either amendment of the proposed contract, or denial of “uniquely qualified” status for this consultant.
In November of 2020 the City contracted with this same consultant to prepare the Draft Program EIR for SEDA. That contract— at a cost of $625,000— obligated the consultant to perform essential investigations and analyses, most importantly: an infrastructure evaluation; an infrastructure cost analysis and funding matrix; a plan to allocate improvement costs; an analysis of cost burdens and project financial feasibility; and an evaluation of financing mechanisms, a financing strategy, and nexus findings, culminating in a draft financing plan and nexus study.
1 We are informed that FCS comprehensively failed to produce these deliverables, and that— to
1 See, Consultant Service Agreement between City of Fresno (City) and FirstCarbon Solutions (Consultant), Southeast Development Area Specific Plan, executed November 4, 2020, Exhibit A, Attachment A: Scope of Services, pp. 21-24, Subtasks 1.1.2 through 1.1.9, and Subtask 1.2.
Public comment— 2024 FCS contract December 3, 2024 2
the extent they are being done at all— it is City staff who have been attempting to complete them. The November 2020 contract was a flat-fee contract. As far as we are aware, FCS was paid the full amount, even though it did not fully perform.
We therefore respectfully request that the City disclose whether or not it paid the full $625,000 on the uncompleted contract.
If the 2020 contract was fully paid out, we request that:
the proposed contract be amended to explicitly incorporate, on a no-cost basis, each of the unperformed tasks from the November 2020 contract (Subtasks 1.1.2 through 1.1.9, and Subtask 1.2); or
the proposed contract amount be reduced by an amount equivalent to City’s cost to complete these deliverables; or
this Council deny the request that FCS be designated “uniquely qualified” within the meaning of FMC 4-107(h) and Administrative Order 6-19,2 and that it issue an RFP for a consultant capable of completing the necessary work.
2. The proposed contract fails to require FCS to perform new analyses based on current population projections.
In July of this year, the California Department of Finance updated its population projections to reflect growth to 2070. California’s population as a whole is now projected to grow by less than 2 million people (from 39,541,722 in 2020 to 41,179,366 in 2070), amounting to a 0.08% annual gain compounded over 50 years. Fresno County over the same period is projected to grow only slightly more on a percentage basis: 0.18% annually, compounded over 50 years— a total increase of less than 100,000.
3 The proposed contract acknowledges (p. 23) that the new PEIR can no longer tier from, or incorporate by reference, the General Plan PEIR or rely on the programs or policies in the General Plan Amendment. Therefore, the Amended PEIR cannot rely on the now-outdated and inaccurate City of Fresno General Plan population estimates for 2035, which reflected 1.5% annual population growth rates in the decade previous to General Plan adoption— a quarter- million additional City residents by 2035.
4 This would have been more than twice as many new
residents, in half the time, as now predicted by the State of California.
It is essential that this error be corrected first, in order to ensure that other analyses are reality-
2 See, Selection Criteria, pp. 2-3: specifically, as failing to meet Criterion #3 (“demonstrated record of success by the consultant on work previously performed for the City”), Criterion #5 (“consultant has adequate staff to perform the work within the time allowance”), and Criterion #7 (“ability of the consultant to work effectively with City staff, other public agencies, and related parties,” including subconsultants).
3 See, https://dof.ca.gov/forecasting/demographics/projections/ and P-2A Total Population for California and Counties.
4 See SEDA PEIR, p. 3.14-13: “The population potential for the Plan Area is within the population growth anticipated by the General Plan, which anticipates growth of up to 226,000 additional residents by 2035, consistent with the proposed project. Accordingly, implementation of the proposed project would not exceed the City’s anticipated population growth.” Public comment— 2024 FCS contract December 3, 2024 3
based and prudent: overstating Fresno population growth rates by almost tenfold5 will lead to overstating the demand for SEDA homes, gross overinvestment in SEDA infrastructure, and fiscally disastrous consequences for the City as a whole. However, the proposed contract scope “assumes that any changes subsequently made to the Project Description will not be to an extent that would require revisions to any previous modeling or impact analysis discussions.”6 We therefore request that the FCS contract be amended to require FCS to obtain most- recent California Department of Finance population projections for the City of Fresno, to be used in the Project Description and to be applied to modeling throughout the Amended PEIR, including analyses required for accurate assessment and mitigation of environmental impacts not previously addressed (see 4, infra).
3. The proposed contract fails to require FCS to analyze the West Area Neighborhoods Specific Plan Area as an alternative to SEDA as a prioritized growth area.
Given the (rumored) $1 billion+ infrastructure investment SEDA will require, and the historical disinclination of Fresno developers to defray the cost of operating such improvements for the life of the developments, it is important to assess as project alternatives such developable areas as are already provided with infrastructure.
For example, directing new residential growth to the West Area Neighborhoods Specific Plan area, located west of freeway 99 and north of Clinton Avenue, would build on major transportation access and commercial improvements now in place (such as Veterans Boulevard and the Marketplace at El Paseo Regional Shopping Center), implement past City promises and commitments to the area, and meet decades of neglected community needs for completing long sought-after public infrastructure and increased public and commercial services.
The West Area Neighborhoods Specific Plan and EIR are apparently being revised after public input in 2022/2023 and are supposed to be recirculated for public review soon. Approximately 42,000 people already live in the plan area in 14,000 to 15,000 existing dwelling units. The first draft Specific Plan calls for at least 40,000 additional housing units, and we understand the second draft will increase that number. SEDA itself anticipates still another 45,000 units, bringing Fresno’s planned-for new homes to at least 85,000 (not including any central-city infill construction at all).
However, based on the new Department of Finance projections noted above, the whole County of Fresno
7 only needs an additional 33,000 housing units in total over the next 50 years to meet new state population forecasts – all of which can be accommodated in the West Area Neighborhoods Specific Plan area based on proposed City plans. Barring dramatic new growth trends, opening SEDA is unnecessary, fiscally questionable, and counter-productive to meeting long term existing community resident needs in the West Area and other central and south Fresno areas.
While prudent comprehensive fiscal impact and transparent infrastructure cost analyses are still needed for the West Area, it appears to be a much more beneficial and fact-based priority for future City greenfield development than SEDA
5 Fresno General Plan estimate of 1.5% per year is 8.3 times DoF’s projection of 0.18% per year. 6 See, FCS Scope of Work, p. 24, Task 1.
7 Historically, the City of Fresno’s share of Fresno County’s population has averaged 55%.