Exhibit O - Comment Letters Part 2 — Fresno City Council, December 18, 2025 (part 3 of 3)

“Provide a safe and reliable transportation network that serves all people and respects the environment.”

1. SR 180 EB Ramp at Clovis Avenue

2. SR 180 WB Ramp at Clovis Avenue

3. SR 180 EB Ramp at Fowler Avenue

4. SR 180 WB Ramp at Fowler Avenue

5. SR 180 EB Ramp at Temperance Avenue

6. SR 180 WB Ramp at Temperance Avenue

7. SR 180 / De Wolf Avenue Intersection

8. SR 180 / Highland Avenue Intersection

9. SR 180 / McCall Avenue Intersection
The TIA references Caltrans' letter dated August 16, 2024, which states that auxiliary lanes can be used for additional vehicle storage. However, Caltrans does not recommend this practice. According to Index 62.1 of the Caltrans Highway Design Manual (HDM), an auxiliary lane is defined as:
“The portion of the roadway for weaving, truck climbing, speed change, or for other purposes supplementary to through movement.”
The planned use of auxiliary lanes for vehicle storage is inconsistent with their intended function and may result in operational inefficiencies or safety concerns.

Additionally, the TIA identifies locations with potential safety impacts due to vehicle queuing that are not currently recommended for mitigation. Based on Table 12: 2035 Project and No Project Queue Analyses Results, these locations include:
 SR 180 Eastbound Ramp at Clovis Avenue
 SR 180 Eastbound Ramp at Temperance Avenue
Recommendation: Caltrans recommends that the City of Fresno consider mitigation strategies outlined in Appendix B of the Caltrans Local Development Review Safety Review Practitioners Guidance at these locations to address potential safety hazards caused by vehicle queues.

2. Roadway Impact and Complete Streets Considerations
The SEDA project is anticipated to increase traffic volumes on De Wolf Avenue and McCall Avenue, both of which are projected to experience reduced traffic performance by 2035. To accommodate the forecasted growth and enhance northsouth connectivity, the proposed widening of these roadways from one lane per direction to two lanes is deemed appropriate.

In alignment with the Fresno Complete Streets Policy (2019), the TIA also recommends upgrading these roadways to Complete Streets standards. Doing so would improve accessibility and safety for all users, including pedestrians, cyclists, and transit passengers.

Recommendation: To maximize the benefits of the Complete Streets upgrades, Caltrans encourages the City of Fresno to:
 Ensure compliance with Caltrans HDM standards: All Complete Streets improvements should adhere to Caltrans Highway Design Manual (HDM) 1313
Mx. Adrienne Asadoorian– Southeast Development Area Specific Plan – Recirculated DEIR March 21, 2025

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“Provide a safe and reliable transportation network that serves all people and respects the environment.” standards, including specifications for bike lanes, sidewalks, and pedestrian paths, to promote consistency, safety, and accessibility.  Enhance future transit stop amenities: When planning for future transit stop locations, consider incorporating appropriate amenities such as shelters, seating, and ADA-compliant infrastructure to improve multimodal access and passenger comfort.

3. Multimodal and Active Transportation Considerations
The SEDA project proposes new pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure and plans for transit connectivity to central Fresno via Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) routes. These features aim to reduce vehicle dependency and support multimodal transportation.

Recommendation: To strengthen the project’s multimodal connectivity, Caltrans recommends that the City of Fresno consider:
 Incorporating Class IV bikeways (separated cycle tracks) where feasible to enhance cyclist safety.
 Implementing transit signal priority (TSP) at key intersections to improve BRT travel times and reliability.
 Planning for future transit station expansions, including park-and-ride facilities, to accommodate anticipated ridership growth.

4. Safety and Collision Considerations
The Preliminary Safety Assessment identifies 629 reported collisions within the project area between 2019 and 2023.

The report also highlights pedestrian and bicycle incidents, with seven pedestrianinvolved collisions and six bicycle-involved collisions.

Recommendation: To enhance safety for all road users, Caltrans encourages the City of Fresno to consider the following strategies:
 Enhancing pedestrian visibility through the installation of high-visibility crosswalks and flashing beacons at locations with higher pedestrian activity or collision history.
 Reducing vehicle speeds in areas with frequent conflicts by implementing traffic calming measures and targeted enforcement.
 Improving roadway design by incorporating features such as curb extensions and pedestrian refuge islands, which can reduce crossing distances and enhance safety.
 Strengthening bicycle infrastructure by incorporating protective elements, such as separated bike lanes, to enhance safety and comfort for cyclists.

5. Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) and Trip Generation Considerations The SEDA project is projected to generate:
 94,477 PM peak hour trips
 866,452 total daily trips
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“Provide a safe and reliable transportation network that serves all people and respects the environment.” The project’s mixed-use design is expected to reduce VMT impacts by shortening travel distances for residents’ daily needs.

Recommendation: To further mitigate VMT impacts, Caltrans suggests that the City of Fresno consider:
 Implementing Transportation Demand Management (TDM) strategies, including transit subsidies, carpool incentives, and shared parking facilities.  Conducting a sensitivity analysis on VMT impacts with and without the planned BRT routes to evaluate the project’s reliance on transit infrastructure.

6. Conclusion
Caltrans appreciates the opportunity to review the Fresno Southeast Development Area (SEDA) Specific Plan – Transportation Impact Analysis. The comments and recommendations provided are intended to assist the City of Fresno in its evaluation of the project by identifying potential transportation impacts and offering considerations for mitigation and design enhancements.

Please note that the comments provided in this letter are in addition to Caltrans’ previous correspondence, including the following:
 Caltrans Comment Letter dated August 16, 2024
 Caltrans Comment Letter dated November 17, 2023
 Caltrans Comment Letter dated August 25, 2023
 Caltrans Comment Letter dated March 18, 2022
For your reference, copies of these previous letters are attached herein. All comments from the previous letters remain applicable in whole or in part unless explicitly superseded by this letter.

Caltrans remains available to collaborate with the city and provide additional technical support as needed. Should you have any questions or require further information, please feel free to contact Keyomi Jones at
Sincerely,
David Padilla, Branch Chief,
Local Development Review Branch
Attachments: Caltrans Comment Letter dated August 16, 2024 Caltrans Comment Letter dated November 17, 2023
Caltrans Comment Letter dated August 25, 2023
Caltrans Comment Letter dated March 18, 2022
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Ms. Pagoulatos
Re: Recirculated Program EIR
March 21, 2025

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G:\Agencies\FresnoCity\EIR\Southeast Development Area (SEDA) Specific Plan\SEDA Draft EIR-20250207\Comments\Recirculated PEIRSEDA-20250321-FINAL.docx a. Small/Medium Canal Crossings – The majority of the proposed planned will impact existing pipelines and small open channel canals. FID will require all open channels and existing pipelines impacted by the project area development be upgraded to meet FID’s then-current standards for urban, rural, industrial areas. The majority of FID’s facilities that lie within the proposed Planning Area do not meet FID’s urban specifications, including road or highway crossings. The majority of the existing pipelines are monolithic cast-in-place concrete pipe (CIPCP), low head/thin wall PVC, and non-reinforced mortar jointed concrete pipeline. These pipelines were designed for a rural environment and will fail if they are not replaced as development occurs.
b. Large Canal Crossing – There are large canals called Gould No. 97, Fresno No. 3, Mill No. 36, and Fancher No. 6 that will more than likely be too large to be contained within a pipeline. Development impacts to these facilities shall require designs that protect the canal’s integrity for an urban setting including the need for access and full right-of-way widths for FID’s operations and maintenance needs.

2. FID’s facilities that are within the Planning Area carry irrigation water for FID users, recharge water for the City of Fresno, and flood waters during the winter months. In addition to FID’s facilities, private facilities also traverse the Planned Area.

3. Canal Access – FID will continue to access the Canal from public roads. In order to access the maintenance bank with our larger equipment, FID requires a drive approach wide enough to accommodate the equipment. FID requires a 50-feet wide drive approach narrowing to a 20-feet wide drive banks. The 50-feet width is defined as starting from the end portion of a bridge/railing outward (away from the bridge). Every road and canal intersection is different and therefore each access will be different. The major factors affecting the proposed width will be the angle of the road intersecting the Canal, grade of canal bank vs. City road, median vs. no median, etc.
a. If guard railings extend beyond attachment points at each wing-wall, they will obstruct FID’s access to the canal and additional right-of-way will need to be acquired. FID will require the developer to demonstrate FID’s longest vehicle will be able to make the turns onto the drive banks. FID’s right-ofway is a minimum 20 feet from the canal hinge on both sides of the canal, and FID will require the developer acquire and dedicate to FID exclusive easements for this purpose.
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4. Canal Banks – If there will be any work on canal banks, the following will apply:
a. All in-channel disturbed soil shall be concrete lined (both side slopes and bottom). FID will require reinforced concrete to limit the on-going maintenance that typically occurs with gunite or shotcrete slope protection.

b. Drive banks must be sloped a minimum of 2% away with a maximum of 4% from the canal with provisions made for rainfall. Drainage will not be accepted into the Canal and must be routed away from FID property/drive banks. Runoff must be conveyed to nearby public streets or drainage system by drainage swales or other FID acceptable alternatives outside FID’s easements/property.
c. All existing trees, bushes, debris, old canal structures, pumps, canal gates, and other non- or in-active FID and private structures must be removed within FID’s property/easement and the City’s project limits.

5. Trail - It is FID’s understanding that many trails are master-planned within the Southeast Development Area. Southeast Development Area Specific Plan area is not considered as existing development under the Master Trail Agreement (MTA) between the City of Fresno and FID and as such will be treated as a “New Growth Area”. As with other new developments with trails along the canals, FID will not allow the trail to encroach or overlap FID’s canal easement unless allowed by FID and an agreement is in place for this purpose. The following requirements are intended for trail projects adjacent to FID-owned properties and rights-of-ways for open canals:
a. FID will not allow the trail easement to be in common use with FID-owned property or easements.
b. FID requires all trail improvements be placed outside of FID-owned properties and easements.
c. FID will not allow any portion of a tree canopy to encroach within its properties or easements.
d. FID’s canals will not accept any drainage from the trail or the canal bank. e. FID may require some improvements be made to the canal depending on the existing canal condition, the proposed trail, and the adjacent development.
f. City parks that are adjacent to open canals are treated the same as trails, therefore the same requirements shall apply.
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G:\Agencies\FresnoCity\EIR\Southeast Development Area (SEDA) Specific Plan\SEDA Draft EIR-20250207\Comments\Recirculated PEIRSEDA-20250321-FINAL.docx Water Supply Impact

1. The document acknowledges that the maximum percentage of FID surface water supply that the City can obtain is 29 percent under the Cooperative Agreement between the City of Fresno and FID. The City’s service area is expected to surpass 29 percent of FID’s service area between 2025 and 2030. If the City of Fresno exceeds 29 percent prior to full development within SEDA, the document must consider how to address future development based on water consumption beyond the limits of the agreement and evaluate the potential impacts.

2. The document must consider whether the City’s Water Master Plan that is currently being updated may impact the developments within the Planning Area.

The report must consider and evaluate the City’s growth within the planning area and any other concerns including climate change, and whether the City’s Water Master Plan can still provide the necessary guidance for the City.

3. The City of Fresno has implemented many of the projects previously proposed in the City’s Water Master Plan. The Proposed document should consider and evaluated whether the constructed projects have resulted in benefits that were anticipated.

4. The proposed land use (or changes in land use) should be such that the need for water is minimized and/or reduced so that groundwater impacts to the proposed project area and any surrounding areas are eliminated.

5. If treated surface water is used and the City has a deficit water supply or groundwater levels continue to drop, the City must acquire additional water from a water purveyor, such as FID for that purpose, so as to not impact water supplies to or create greater water supply deficits in other areas of the City or in the groundwater basin. Water supply issues must be resolved before any further “hardening” of the water supply demand is allowed to take place.

6. The potential for increase in water consumption by the project will result in additional groundwater overdraft. There is a significant cone of depression beneath the City of Fresno. FID is concerned that the increased water demand due to a change in land use may have a significant impact to the groundwater quantity and/or quality underneath the City of Fresno, FID and the Kings Groundwater Sub-basin. The “demand” side of water consumed needs to be evaluated or scrutinized as much as the “supply” side of the water supply. Many of the areas are historically native, and/or rural residential with minimal to no water use. Under current circumstances the project area is experiencing a 1319
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G:\Agencies\FresnoCity\EIR\Southeast Development Area (SEDA) Specific Plan\SEDA Draft EIR-20250207\Comments\Recirculated PEIRSEDA-20250321-FINAL.docx modest but continuing groundwater overdraft. Should the proposed project result in a significant increase in dependence on groundwater, this deficit will increase.

FID recommends the City of Fresno require proposed projects balance anticipated groundwater use with sufficient recharge of imported surface water in order to preclude increasing the area’s existing groundwater overdraft problem.

7. California enacted landmark legislation in 2014 known as the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA). The act requires the formation of local groundwater sustainability agencies (GSAs) that must assess conditions in their local water basins and adopt locally-based management plans. FID and the City of Fresno are members of the North Kings Groundwater Sustainability Agency which will manage the groundwater basin within the FID service area. This area is in an over drafted groundwater basin and SGMA will impact all users of groundwater and those who rely on it. The City of Fresno should consider the impacts of the project on the City’s ability to comply with the requirements of SGMA.

COMMENTS ON SPECIFIC SECTIONS:

Hydrology and Water Quality

1. The Southeast Development Area Specific Plan requires routing of stormwater through several conveyance facilities through the Plan Area. FMFCD will need to update its Storm Drainage and Flood Control Master Plan for the Plan Area.

FMFCD will be required to convey discharges to FID’s larger canals where capacity constraints are not an issue. The City of Fresno will need to consider this with its Mitigation Measures Policy MM HYD-3e and the design of stormwater detention basins and expanded capacity for stormwater.

Resource Conservation and Resilience Element

1. Policy RC-6-I Natural Recharge. While FID appreciates the support of the City to remove unnecessary concrete from its existing canals, FID encourages a policy revision to ensure alignment with FID policies, procedures and practices, preventing any conflicts that could impact implementation. FID utilizes concrete lining for many reasons and purposes; therefore a coordinated approach will help achieve the best outcome for all parties.

2. The City of Fresno should consider acquiring property and constructing Cityowned recharge basins to increase groundwater recharge in the Plan Area or look at other drainage facilities which might better align with the Natural Recharge Policy than the use of FID facilities.
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G:\Agencies\FresnoCity\EIR\Southeast Development Area (SEDA) Specific Plan\SEDA Draft EIR-20250207\Comments\Recirculated PEIRSEDA-20250321-FINAL.docx Open Space, Schools, and Public Facilities

1. Policy OS-1.1 Joint Use of Open Spaces. While FID appreciates the support of the City to establish a joint use agreement to provide access to areas adjacent to Canals and Creeks, however, as previously stated, the Southeast Development Area Specific Plan area is considered a “New Growth Area” and is not covered under the existing MTA for trails atop FID’s canal banks. All Trails proposed within the Plan area shall be located outside FID’s drive banks, maintenance roads, and points of access.

2. The City of Fresno will also need to take into consideration Trails over FID Pipelines and Easements. City of Fresno and FID joint-use agreements, common-use agreements or encroachment agreements must not restrict or impair FID’s ability to maintain and operate its facilities unless all impacts can be fully mitigated.

Thank you for making available to us the Recirculated Draft Program Environmental Impact Report for the Southeast Development Area Specific Plan for our review and allowing us the opportunity to provide comments. We appreciate the opportunity to comment on the subject RDPEIR. While it is difficult to envision all of the potential impacts without all of the improvement details and impact report, we have attempted to provide you with as much information as possible. We reserve the right to provide additional comments as the Plan Area develops and/or when more detailed information becomes available. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me

Sincerely,
Laurence Kimura, P.E.

Chief Engineer
Exhibit
1321
1322
2907 S. Maple Avenue
Fresno, California 93725-2208
Telephone: (559) 233-7161
Fax: (559) 233-8227
CONVEYANCE. COMMITMENT. CUSTOMER SERVICE.

BOARD OF DIRECTORS President RYAN JACOBSEN Vice-President JERRY PRIETO, JR. CHRISTOPHER WOOLF GEORGE PORTER GREGORY BEBERIAN General Manager BILL STRETCH March 21, 2025
Sophia Pagoulatos, Planning Manager
Development and Resource Management Department
City of Fresno
2600 Fresno Street, Room 3065
Fresno, CA 93721
RE: Recirculated Draft Program Environmental Impact Report of the Southeast Development Area Specific Plan for the City of Fresno
FID Facilities: Various
Dear Ms. Pagoulatos:

The Fresno Irrigation District (FID) has reviewed the Recirculated Draft Program Environmental Impact Report (RDPEIR) of the Southeast Development Area Specific Plan for the City of Fresno (Project). We appreciate the opportunity to review and comment on the subject documents for the proposed project. We also appreciate the City of Fresno acknowledging receiving FID’s August 25, 2023, comments on the Draft Program Environmental Impact Report and incorporating them into this RDPEIR.

Similar to the comments previously provided, FID’s comments are as follows:

Impacted Facilities

1. FID has many canals within the Project Area as shown on the attached FID exhibit map. The facilities include: Fresno No. 3, Fancher No. 6, Mill No. 36, Briggs No. 7, Gould No. 97, Gray Colony No. 111, Eisen No. 11, Temperance No. 37, Hanson No. 129, East Branch No. 5, and Kutner Colony S. Br. No. 329.

FID’s canals range from smaller diameter pipelines to large open canals. In most cases, the existing facilities will need to be upgraded to meet then-current urban standards, increase accessibility or relocated by the developer to accommodate new urban developments which will require new pipelines and new exclusive easements. FID will impose the same conditions on future projects as it would with any other project located within the common boundary of the City of Fresno and FID. FID will require that it review and approve all maps and plans which impact FID canals and easements.

Comments submitted via email
to:
[email protected]
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Re: Recirculated Program EIR
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3. Canal Access – FID will continue to access the Canal from public roads. In order to access the maintenance bank with our larger equipment, FID requires a drive approach wide enough to accommodate the equipment. FID requires a 50-feet wide drive approach narrowing to a 20-feet wide drive banks. The 50-feet width is defined as starting from the end portion of a bridge/railing outward (away from the bridge). Every road and canal intersection is different and therefore each access will be different. The major factors affecting the proposed width will be the angle of the road intersecting the Canal, grade of canal bank vs. City road, median vs. no median, etc.
a. If guard railings extend beyond attachment points at each wing-wall, they will obstruct FID’s access to the canal and additional right-of-way will need to be acquired. FID will require the developer to demonstrate FID’s longest vehicle will be able to make the turns onto the drive banks. FID’s right-ofway is a minimum 20 feet from the canal hinge on both sides of the canal, and FID will require the developer acquire and dedicate to FID exclusive easements for this purpose.
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5. Trail - It is FID’s understanding that many trails are master-planned within the Southeast Development Area. Southeast Development Area Specific Plan area is not considered as existing development under the Master Trail Agreement (MTA) between the City of Fresno and FID and as such will be treated as a “New Growth Area”. As with other new developments with trails along the canals, FID will not allow the trail to encroach or overlap FID’s canal easement unless allowed by FID and an agreement is in place for this purpose. The following requirements are intended for trail projects adjacent to FID-owned properties and rights-of-ways for open canals:
a. FID will not allow the trail easement to be in common use with FID-owned property or easements.
b. FID requires all trail improvements be placed outside of FID-owned properties and easements.
c. FID will not allow any portion of a tree canopy to encroach within its properties or easements.
d. FID’s canals will not accept any drainage from the trail or the canal bank. e. FID may require some improvements be made to the canal depending on the existing canal condition, the proposed trail, and the adjacent development.
f. City parks that are adjacent to open canals are treated the same as trails, therefore the same requirements shall apply.
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G:\Agencies\FresnoCity\EIR\Southeast Development Area (SEDA) Specific Plan\SEDA Draft EIR-20250207\Comments\Recirculated PEIRSEDA-20250321-FINAL.docx Water Supply Impact

2. The document must consider whether the City’s Water Master Plan that is currently being updated may impact the developments within the Planning Area.

6. The potential for increase in water consumption by the project will result in additional groundwater overdraft. There is a significant cone of depression beneath the City of Fresno. FID is concerned that the increased water demand due to a change in land use may have a significant impact to the groundwater quantity and/or quality underneath the City of Fresno, FID and the Kings Groundwater Sub-basin. The “demand” side of water consumed needs to be evaluated or scrutinized as much as the “supply” side of the water supply. Many of the areas are historically native, and/or rural residential with minimal to no water use. Under current circumstances the project area is experiencing a 1326
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COMMENTS ON SPECIFIC SECTIONS:

Hydrology and Water Quality

Resource Conservation and Resilience Element

2. The City of Fresno should consider acquiring property and constructing Cityowned recharge basins to increase groundwater recharge in the Plan Area or look at other drainage facilities which might better align with the Natural Recharge Policy than the use of FID facilities.
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Chief Engineer
Exhibit
1328
1329
State of California – Natural Resources Agency GAVIN NEWSOM, Governor DEPARTMENT OF FISH AND WILDLIFE CHARLTON H. BONHAM, Director Central Region
1234 East Shaw Avenue
Fresno, California 93710
(559) 243-4005
www.wildlife.ca.gov
Conserving California’s Wildlife Since 1870
March 24, 2025
Sophia Pagoulatos, Planning Manager
City of Fresno, Planning and Development Department
2600 Fresno Street, Room 3065
Fresno, California 93721
(559) 621-8062
[email protected]
Subject: Recirculated Draft Program Environmental Impact Report (RPEIR) for the Proposed Southeast Development Area (SEDA) Specific Plan Project (Project)
State Clearinghouse No.: 2022020486
Dear Sophia Pagoulatos:

The California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) received a RPEIR from City of Fresno, as Lead Agency, for the above-referenced Project pursuant the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and CEQA Guidelines.1
Thank you for the opportunity to provide comments and recommendations regarding those activities involved in the Project that may affect California fish and wildlife.

Likewise, CDFW appreciates the opportunity to provide comments regarding those aspects of the Project that CDFW, by law, may be required to carry out or approve through the exercise of its own regulatory authority under the Fish and Game Code.

CDFW previously commented on the Notice of Preparation on March 25, 2022, the Draft Program Environmental Impact Report on August 30, 2023, and on the Partial Recirculated Draft Program Environmental Impact Report on November 22, 2023, for this Project. Based on the information provided in the RPEIR, CDFW recommends referring to these comment letters for biological resource surveys and mitigation measures and recommends incorporating these comments to adequately identify and/or mitigate the Project’s potential impacts on biological resources. In addition to the

1 CEQA is codified in the California Public Resources Code in section 21000 et seq. The “CEQA Guidelines” are found in Title 14 of the California Code of Regulations, commencing with section 15000.

Docusign Envelope ID: 2748C526-481B-4CE5-83BC-AD9D263BA7D1 1330
Sophia Pagoulatos, Planning Manager
City of Fresno
March 24, 2025

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recommendations from these comment letters, CDFW offers the following editorial comments and suggestions in order to improve the document.

Nesting Birds: CDFW recommends that Project construction be timed to avoid the bird nesting season; however, if ground-disturbing or vegetation-disturbing activities must occur during the breeding season (February 1 through September 15), the Project applicant is responsible for ensuring that implementation of the Project does not result in violation of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act or relevant Fish and Game Codes.

To evaluate Project-related impacts on nesting birds, CDFW recommends that a qualified biologist conduct a habitat assessment and analysis of impacts to nesting birds as part of the biological technical studies prior to approval of subsequent projects resulting from this DPEIR. Prior to ground-disturbance activities, surveys for active nests should be conducted, regardless of the initial results, no more than 10 days prior to the start of ground or vegetation disturbance to maximize the probability that nests, that could potentially be impacted, are detected. Surveys should cover a sufficient area around the Project site to identify nests and determine their status. A sufficient area means any area potentially affected by the Project. In addition to direct impacts (i.e., nest destruction), noise, vibration, and movement of workers or equipment could also affect nests. Prior to initiation of construction activities, CDFW recommends that a qualified biologist conduct a survey to establish a behavioral baseline of all identified nests. Once construction begins, CDFW recommends having a qualified biologist continuously monitor nests to detect behavioral changes resulting from the Project. If behavioral changes occur, CDFW recommends halting the work causing that change and consulting with CDFW for additional avoidance and minimization measures.

If continuous monitoring of identified nests by a qualified biologist is not feasible, CDFW recommends a minimum no-disturbance buffer of 250 feet around active nests of nonlisted bird species and a 500-foot no-disturbance buffer around active nests of nonlisted raptors. These buffers are advised to remain in place until the breeding season has ended or until a qualified biologist has determined that the birds have fledged and are no longer reliant upon the nest or on-site parental care for survival. Variance from these no-disturbance buffers is possible when there is compelling biological or ecological reason to do so, such as when the construction areas would be concealed from a nest site by topography. CDFW recommends that a qualified biologist advise and support any variance from these buffers and notify CDFW in advance of implementing a variance.

Docusign Envelope ID: 2748C526-481B-4CE5-83BC-AD9D263BA7D1 1331
Sophia Pagoulatos, Planning Manager
City of Fresno
March 24, 2025

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Lake and Streambed Alteration: The DPEIR acknowledges that there are a number of existing Fresno Irrigation District facilities, most or all of which are modified streams that cross the Project. Project activities that substantially change the bed, bank, and channel of any river, stream, or lake are subject to CDFW’s regulatory authority pursuant Fish and Game Code section 1600 et seq., even when heavily modified. Fish and Game Code section 1602 requires an entity to notify CDFW prior to commencing any activity that may (a) substantially divert or obstruct the natural flow of any river, stream, or lake; (b) substantially change or use any material from the bed, bank, or channel of any river, stream, or lake (including the removal of riparian vegetation): (c) deposit debris, waste or other materials that could pass into any river, stream, or lake. “Any river, stream, or lake” includes those that are ephemeral or intermittent as well as those that are perennial and may include those that are highly modified such as canals and retention basins.

CDFW is required to comply with CEQA in the issuance of a Lake or Streambed Alteration Agreement (LSAA); therefore, if the CEQA document approved for the Project does not adequately describe the Project and its impacts to lakes or streams, a subsequent CEQA analysis may be necessary for LSAA issuance. For information on notification requirements, please refer to CDFW’s website (https://wildlife.ca.gov/Conservation/LSA) or contact CDFW staff in the Central Region Lake and Streambed Alteration Program at (559) 243-4593.

ENVIRONMENTAL DATA
CEQA requires that information developed in environmental impact reports and negative declarations be incorporated into a database, which may be used to make subsequent or supplemental environmental determinations (Pub. Resources Code, § 21003, subd. (e)). Accordingly, please report any special-status species and natural communities detected during Project surveys to the California Natural Diversity Database (CNDDB). The CNDDB field survey form can be found at the following link:
https://www.wildlife.ca.gov/Data/CNDDB/Submitting-Data. The completed form can be mailed electronically to the CNDDB at the following email address:

[email protected]. The types of information reported to the CNDDB can be found at the following link: https://www.wildlife.ca.gov/Data/CNDDB/Plants-and-Animals.

FILING FEES
The Project, as proposed, could have an impact on biological resources, and an assessment of filing fees is necessary. Fees are payable upon filing of the Notice of Determination by the Lead Agency and serve to help defray the cost of environmental review by CDFW. Payment of the fee is required in order for the underlying project approval to be operative, vested, and final (Cal. Code Regs, tit. 14, § 753.5; Fish & G.

Code, § 711.4; Pub. Resources Code, § 21089).

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Sophia Pagoulatos, Planning Manager
City of Fresno
March 24, 2025

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CONCLUSION
CDFW appreciates the opportunity to comment on the DPEIR to assist the City of Fresno in identifying and mitigating Project impacts on biological resources.

More information on survey and monitoring protocols for sensitive species can be found at CDFW’s website (https://www.wildlife.ca.gov/Conservation/Survey-Protocols). If you have any questions regarding this letter or further coordination, please contact Marile Colindres, Environmental Scientist, at the address provided on this letterhead, by telephone at ( , or by electronic mail at .

Sincerely,
Julie A. Vance
Regional Manager
ec: State Clearinghouse
Governor’s Office of Planning and Research
[email protected]
Docusign Envelope ID: 2748C526-481B-4CE5-83BC-AD9D263BA7D1 1333
From: Susie Rodriguez
To: LongRangePlanning
Subject: fresno annexation of existing propeties
Date: Monday, February 24, 2025 8:27:42 PM
External Email: Use caution with links and attachments
i/m a homeowner at My husband and i moved here in 2015
and not one word mentioned regarding annexation, So we were shocked to hear about this horrible plan for annexation and very unfair. We are both retired and in no way able to afford the outrages mentioned cost to hook up to the city. if Fresno City wants established homeowners to belong to the City, i feel Fresno City needs to pay for all expenses. i understand new development needing to be hooked up to the City, but very unfair for established homeowners to be forced to hook up to the City, we already paid for our water pump and septic tank and having to pay to remove is unfair!!! We chose to live here with our acreage and beautiful trees, now our trees will all die due to lack of water because we will be metered and can’t afford to pay outrages prices. Please leave existing properties owners alone, people are going to be forced out of Fresno and less property taxes will be collected. A better solution would be to improve existing unoccupied properties in the City and make Fresno a better place to live!!! it makes sense to leave existing homeowners alone.
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Brian and Candice Ruck
3/21/2025
City of Fresno Planning and Development Department Sophia Pagoulatos, Planning Manager 2600 Fresno Street, Room 3065 Fresno, CA 93721
[email protected]
CC:

District 1: Annalisa Perea: [email protected]
District 2: Mike Karbassi: [email protected]
District 3: Miguel Arias: [email protected]
District 4: Tyler Maxwell: [email protected]
District 5: Special Election on March 18th
District 6: Nick Richardson: [email protected] District 7: Nelson Esparza: [email protected]
City Clerk: Todd Stermer: [email protected]
Subject: Strong Opposition and Comments on Recirculated Draft Environmental Impact Report (EIR) for the Southeast Development Area (SEDA) Dear Ms. Pagoulatos and Fresno City Council Members,
We, Brian and Candice Ruck (the Ruck family), reside within the proposed Southeast Development Area (SEDA), specifically in the proposed "rural cluster" rezoning area. Our property consists of 2.18 acres currently serviced by a private water well and septic system. We strongly oppose this rezoning and submit detailed questions and concerns regarding specific sections of the Recirculated Draft EIR as outlined below:

Section 3.2 Agricultural Resources
Comment: We strongly oppose any potential restrictions or limitations placed upon our property concerning agricultural activities, water usage, pesticide and herbicide application, and other routine farm operations following rezoning. What authority does the city have to impose such restrictions, and 1 1335
how will this impact our property rights and ability to pass the land to our children? Furthermore, we oppose any restrictions on farm animals, including pigs, sheep, goats, cows, horses, and chickens, currently permitted under our existing zoning.

Section 3.18 Utilities and Service Systems
Comment: We strongly oppose being forced to financially bear the significant costs of transitioning from private water wells and septic systems to city utilities, especially considering our property has two residential units. Please provide documentation supporting cost estimations, clarify whether property taxes will increase to finance these utilities, and disclose plans for funding this massive infrastructure build-out. Additionally, Policy RC-7-b indicates that all customers will be charged the true, full cost of their water supply. Does this mean existing homeowners will be required to immediately pay the full hookup cost to metered city water upon rezoning, and if so, when will this requirement take effect? Are there any financial assistance or phased-in payment plans available to mitigate the impact on property owners? How does the city intend to avoid destroying existing property values with these significant costs?
Additionally, we are concerned about potential impacts on trash services, recycling, and compost services. Currently serviced by a 3-yard dumpster, how will these services change, and who will service them once rezoned? Section 3.11 Land Use and Planning
Comment: We strongly oppose rezoning without clear documentation of how it will affect future property rights, zoning restrictions, and property tax implications, especially concerning inheritance by our heirs. Please provide official documentation and policy references for these impacts. 2 1336
Section 3.1 Aesthetics
Comment: Given the city’s documented inability to enforce existing lighting regulations, we strongly oppose any lighting proposals that will negatively impact our rural atmosphere. What enforceable strategies does the city plan to use?
Sections 3.13 Noise and 3.17 Transportation
Comment: We strongly oppose the increased noise, traffic congestion, dust, and related disturbances resulting from the project, particularly traffic impacts from the Terry Bradley Education Center. How will the city effectively mitigate these impacts, reduce local road speed limits, and enforce traffic safety?
Social Equity and Trails: We strongly oppose plans to build walking and bike trails that cut through our front yard, increasing exposure to vehicle exhaust fumes directly at our front door and affecting many other homes. How does the city justify negatively impacting the health and quality of life of existing residents under the guise of social equity.

Sections 3.11 Land Use and 3.15 Public Services
Comment: We strongly oppose the trail system proposed along our property line due to concerns about security, maintenance, and management of homelessness, vandalism, and crime. Given the city's documented challenges with current parks and trails, how will the city address these serious safety concerns?
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Section 3.17 Transportation Road and Eminent Domain Concerns Comment: We strongly oppose taking parts of our front yard for road expansion. Specifically, how much land will be taken, and what is the projected traffic increase on Fancher Avenue? Additionally, since our property extends to the middle of Fancher Creek Canal, we strongly oppose and will not grant permission to build a trail through our private property. Given that legal easements require voluntary agreement or eminent domain, how does the city intend to justify or proceed with eminent domain without explicit property owner consent? Additionally, how will the legal status of any forced easements change if the property is sold or passed down to our children? Section 3.15 Public Services
Comment: We strongly oppose the project moving forward without detailed information on school infrastructure. When will schools be built, and who will pay for their construction and operation?
Emergency Services: We strongly oppose proceeding without clarity on the number of fire stations planned, response times, and funding sources for emergency services.

Sections 3.18 Utilities, 3.17 Transportation Fiscal Responsibility and Infrastructure
Comment: We strongly oppose forcing residents to bear financial burdens without transparency about spending on city officials, meetings, legal defense, and infrastructure. How will the city support an additional 45,000 homes without exacerbating current utility shortages?
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Section 3.11 Land Use Employment and Housing Concerns
Comment: We strongly oppose rezoning plans that propose fewer jobs than households (.822 jobs per household), leading to increased commuting and traffic impacts. How does the city plan to address this? Sections 3.2 Agricultural Resources, 3.4 Biological Resources Environmental and Agricultural Impact
Comment: We strongly oppose converting prime farmland into urban development. What specific agricultural practices will be permitted in proposed buffer zones, and under whose regulatory authority? Section 3.3 Air Quality Health Impacts and Clean Air Act Compliance
Comment: Given the EIR explicitly states significant unavoidable air quality impacts, potentially violating compliance with the Clean Air Act, who will be held accountable for the adverse health effects on current residents? This proposed project represents severe sacrifices, financial burdens, and health risks on existing residents. The current plan contains hundreds of statements outlining ambitious goals and intentions, yet lacks clear explanations on how these will be practically implemented or financed. Our primary question is simple but essential: How exactly does the city plan to fund the numerous projects and commitments outlined in this extensive 800-page document? Without a transparent and realistic funding strategy, these promises risk becoming unfunded mandates that significantly burden existing residents.

Given Fresno’s documented history of questionable and unethical development practices, including investigations into permit approvals and regulatory violations, what assurances can the city provide to protect existing property owners' rights and 5 1339
investments? Why has the city not prioritized revitalizing and redeveloping existing underutilized or vacant areas within city limits?
Thank you for your attention to our concerns,
Brian Ruck and Candice Ruck
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Greenfield Coalition Comment Letter – SEDA Recirculated PEIR – March 24, 2025 March 24, 2025
City of Fresno
Planning and Development Department
Sophia Pagoulatos, Planning Manager
2600 Fresno Street, Room 3065
Fresno, CA 93721
Sent by email: [email protected]
RE: Greenfield Coalition Comments on 2025 Recirculated draft Program Environmental Impact Report for Southeast Development Area Plan (2025 SEDA Draft PEIR) Dear Ms. Pagoulatos:

On behalf of the Greenfield Coalition, for which Regenerate California Innovation (RCI) acts as fiscal agent, we respectfully request the City incorporate the following comments and references regarding the Southeast Development Area Specific Plan and Recirculated draft Program Environmental Impact Report into the record of this matter, and provide substantive responses to these comments.

The Greenfield Coalition is a group of citizens and leaders in Fresno, California who are committed to preserving our city’s agricultural land and green spaces, revitalizing our urban core, and advocating for responsible growth and urban planning. We envision a Fresno where all communities - new and historic - thrive with equitable investment, safe neighborhoods, vibrant schools and businesses, and sustainable infrastructure. Through research and advocacy, we strive to protect our existing communities and environment, and aim to create a resilient city that cherishes its heritage while embracing innovative solutions for sustainable growth.i

1. This Greenfield Coalition comment letter fully incorporates the Public Comments on the 2025 Recirculated draft Program Environmental Impact Report for Southeast Development Area Plan (SEDA Draft PEIR) submitted on behalf of the Fresno Madera Tulare and Kings Counties Central Labor Council and Regenerate California Innovation (RCI), by Patience Milrod, Lawyer, submitted to the City of Fresno on March 24, 2025. 1341
Greenfield Coalition Comment Letter – SEDA Recirculated PEIR – March 24, 2025

2. We highlight comments and questions below that emerge from our review of the 2025 SEDA Draft PEIR, which are organized around the purpose statements of CEQA assessment as outlined by The Governor’s Office of Planning and Research. ii We
generally find that the 2025 SEDA Draft PEIR is substantively and technically deficient and fails to adequately:
a. Inform City of Fresno government decisionmakers and the public about the potential environmental effects of proposed SEDA project activities; b. Identify the ways that environmental damage by the SEDA project can be avoided or significantly reduced;
c. Prevent significant, avoidable environmental damage by requiring changes in the SEDA project either by the adoption of alternatives or imposition of appropriate mitigation measures; and
d. Disclose to the public ‘why’ the SEDA project should be approved with significant environmental impacts that cannot be mitigated to a less than significant level.

3. Failure of the 2025 SEDA Draft PEIR to adequately inform City of Fresno government decisionmakers and the public about the potential environmental effects of proposed SEDA project activities:
a. The 2025 SEDA Draft PEIR incorporates out-of-date future population growth and housing demand estimates.
iii This results in misrepresentation and extreme
overstatement of the demand for the SEDA project, and appropriately elevates the question of the factual need for the SEDA project to move forward at all. If the SEDA project is unnecessary from a future population and housing demand standpoint, how are the significant unavoidable environmental impacts produced by development of SEDA justified?
b. The 2025 SEDA Draft PEIR fails to provide a timely SEDA buildout focused public facilities financing plan and a comprehensive fiscal impact analysis of the long-term and perpetual operating costs the City is obligated to bear for the full buildout of the SEDA plan area. These deficiencies must be corrected for there to be full public disclosure of the evaluation of all environmental and related plan impacts and to provide an adequate basis for prudent well-informed decision making by City of Fresno government officials. The lack of rigorous and comprehensive financial and fiscal analyses raises critical questions about the sustainability of City General Fund resources and the City’s fiscal solvency going forward. How can a City with pervasive and unmitigated cumulative urban decay, blight, and increasing negative environmental impacts, take on 9,000 acres of additional fiscal responsibility and adequately address huge existing public infrastructure and service deficits as well as meet future needs for public facilities, safety, other municipal services and 1342
Greenfield Coalition Comment Letter – SEDA Recirculated PEIR – March 24, 2025 environmental quality?

4. Failure of the 2025 SEDA Draft PEIR to adequately identify the ways that environmental damage by the SEDA project can be avoided or significantly reduced:
a. The 2025 SEDA Draft PEIR contributes to the real environmental damage the SEDA project could otherwise avoid, by incorporating false and unsupportable General Plan consistency analyses, violating standards for General Plan consistency. (PIER, Table 3.11-1: General Plan Consistency Analysis, Page 3.11-24). Contrary to consistency statements in the 2025 SEDA Draft PEIR, the SEDA plan detracts from and does not support a General Plan focus on infill development within the existing city limits, will not enhance existing residential neighborhoods through regulations, code enforcement, and compatible infill development, and will compete through SEDA planned land uses, design, and development intensities with demand for Downtown development and related investment.
iv Most of the General Plan
consistency analysis provided in the 2025 SEDA Draft PEIR is not only substantively and technically deficient, it is speciously false, confusing the public and decision makers about potential negative environmental and other impacts of SEDA. b. The 2025 SEDA Draft PEIR does not disclose or mitigate the environmental impacts of directing billions of dollars into SEDA infrastructure, forcing scarce city resources away from existing neighborhoods, commercial districts and Downtown.

5. Failure of the 2025 SEDA Draft PEIR to adequately prevent significant, avoidable environmental damage by requiring changes in the SEDA project either by the adoption of alternatives or imposition of appropriate mitigation measures:
a. The 2025 SEDA Draft PEIR inappropriately recommends a piecemeal and confusing approach for plan impact analysis and mitigation, resulting in substantively and technically deficient cumulative impact analyses. The 2025 SEDA Draft PEIR does not supply plan level analysis and mitigation, punting to case-by-case future development project application environmental reviews and mitigation, which prevents prevention of significant, avoidable environmental damage. The public and decision makers are clearly not provided with the adequate assessments of SEDA impacts required by CEQA.
b. The 2025 SEDA Draft PEIR dismisses the need for evaluation of project alternatives (like an Infill Development Alternative and/or a West Area Neighborhood Specific Plan Alternative, for example), because of the scale of SEDA development proposed and its land use impacts. However, as noted above, the scale of SEDA plan is no longer justified by current relevant future 1343
Greenfield Coalition Comment Letter – SEDA Recirculated PEIR – March 24, 2025 population growth and housing demand projections. As evaluated by the City of Fresno in a detailed parcel analysis in current Housing Element documents, existing city of Fresno infill housing development capacities can absorb multiples of realistic housing demand for the entire city for decades into the future.
v Also, the Recirculated Draft EIR for the West Area Neighborhoods Specific Plan released for public review and comment on March 12, 2025, indicates a capacity for total housing units well above what is errantly proposed by SEDA.vi Not evaluating these types of plan/project alternatives through the 2025 SEDA Draft PEIR diminishes the efficacy and relevance of the CEQA assessment.

6. Failure of the 2025 SEDA Draft PEIR to adequately disclose to the public ‘why’ the SEDA project should be approved with significant environmental impacts that cannot be mitigated to a less than significant level:
a. Restating again that the 2025 SEDA Draft PEIR fails to meet standards for public involvement by failing to provide timely circulation for public comment of a SEDA focused public facilities financing plan and a comprehensive fiscal impact analysis of the SEDA buildout on the sustainability of City General Funds and the City’s fiscal solvency going forward.
b. If you combine the comments in our letter above, and all the detailed comments and references contained in the Public Comments on the 2025 Recirculated draft Program Environmental Impact Report for Southeast Development Area Plan (SEDA Draft PEIR) submitted on behalf of the Fresno Madera Tulare and Kings Counties Central Labor Council and Regenerate California Innovation (RCI), by Patience Milrod, Lawyer, submitted to the City of Fresno on March 24, 2025, it is apparent that the 2025 SEDA Draft PEIR fails to adequately disclose to the public why the SEDA project should be approved with significant environmental impacts that cannot be mitigated to a less than significant level.

7. In summary, the City of Fresno fails to provide a substantive and technically accurate CEQA assessment through the 2025 SEDA Draft PEIR that fully informs the public and decision makers as required; fails to provide a factual and believable ‘why’ the SEDA plan should move forward; and fails as a tool capable of providing a defense for legislative actions to approve and implement the Draft SEDA Specific Plan. Major critical and comprehensive analyses are missing and much work is still required to demonstrate evidence for conclusions and findings in the 2025 SEDA Draft PEIR. The Draft SEDA plan and EIR should be pulled from consideration in public hearings, and if not, denied by the Fresno City Council. In any event, a citywide and regional effort with extensive community and business involvement should be initiated by the City to comprehensively update the City of Fresno General Plan with the most contemporary factual data and relevant future population, economic and fiscal trend analyses.
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Greenfield Coalition Comment Letter – SEDA Recirculated PEIR – March 24, 2025

8. With respect to the vision and goals of the Greenfield Coalition – Elevating infill infrastructure, community revitalization, housing development, economic opportunity and health and well-being within the existing city limits is our priority.

We see this happening through focused City efforts working alongside residents, businesses and developers. The action items below are being discussed by different local community groups and developers and merit consideration as effective tools to make infill development feasible and competitive at the scale needed in Fresno.
a. By-Right Fast-Track Infill Housing – 90-120 day streamlined entitlement, permitting and ministerial map approvals for 1 to 50 Units of Single Family (SF), Multiple-Family (MF), ADUs, and Junior ADUs related Infill Housing already allowed by existing zoning. By-Right Fast-Track process and timeline to include single coordinated system of all City departments and interagency partner sign-offs and approvals. b. City Initiates Proactive Infill Infrastructure Development and Land Assembly to support all possible/feasible infill housing units on parcels identified by Housing Element
c. Combine Affordable Infill Housing and Transportation Sales Tax Initiative – Or create companion complementary sales tax initiatives
d. Maximize All Possible Financing District and Other Options – including EIFDs, NIFTIs, Revolving Loan Funds, Housing Bonds, etc.
e. Leverage the Housing Element to Advance Tenant & Community Opportunity to Purchase Policies – TOPA-COPAvii
Respectfully submitted,
KR Bergthold
Keith Bergthold, CEO, Regenerate California Innovation, On behalf of the Greenfield Coalition –
i Greenfield Coalition Website:
ii THE GOVERNOR'S OFFICE OF PLANNING AND RESEARCH, CEQA 101:
https://lci.ca.gov/ceqa/docs/20210809-CEQA_101.pdf
iii Milrod, 3-24-25 SEDA Comment Letter: In December of 2024, the City paid First Carbon Solutions an additional $153,636 to author a second Recirculated draft PEIR (see endnote ‘iv’ below); at that point, the accurate DOF and FCOG population data were readily available. In fact, when one now follows the link provided in the Recirculated PEIR at footnote 5 on page 3.14-2, one finds FCOG’s October 2024 updated data https://www.fresnocog.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/2024-Fresno-COG-2023-2060- Growth-Projections-REPORT.pdf), which show a Fresno population in 2025 of 595,370 (not the PEIR’s 621,540 - SEDA PEIR, at p. 3.14-2). FCOG’s updated data report a 2050 Fresno City population of 646,260 (not the PEIR’s 728,200). The accurate, FCOG, data show a Fresno City increase of 50,890 people between 2025 and 2050, not the almost 107,000 predicted in the PEIR. The accurate, FCOG, data yield only an additional 16,963 households 1345
Greenfield Coalition Comment Letter – SEDA Recirculated PEIR – March 24, 2025 by 2050, well under half of the 35,553 households the PEIR’s figures would project.

These errors in growth projections are fundamental: According to SEDA, its plans for 45,000 new housing units would comprise planned growth of only 31% percent of the total planned capacity for the City (PEIR, p. 3.14-13 – Section 3.14.4 - Project Impacts and Mitigation Measures). However, using accurate, FCOG, growth figures, it is clear that SEDA development would amount to almost three times (265%) the actual housing needs for all of Fresno City by 2050. Such a glut of new homes on the market, and the public investment necessary to launch it, would shatter the General Plan’s goals for infill development and revitalization of Fresno City existing neighborhoods.
iv SEDA Recirculated Draft PEIR (2-7-25): https://files.ceqanet.opr.ca.gov/276421- 4/attachment/E7xfuoY9aiwTd1F4Br6y2xPNwz9jb4qYaGAHTppQZrJ9eAd4pBW8DIVTfVOghV wTqrTF1qJYWqMyxlEl0
v APPENDIX 1E: CITY OF FRESNO - Fresno Multi-Jurisdictional 2023-2031 Housing Element, December 2024: https://www.fresno.gov/wpcontent/uploads/2024/12/Appendix-1E_Fresno_December-2024-10w309.pdf vi Recirculated Draft EIR for the West Area Neighborhoods Specific Plan:
https://www.fresno.gov/planning/plans-projects-under-review/#west-area-neighborhoodsspecific-plan vii TOPA-COPA: https://publicadvocates.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/topa-copapolicies.pdf 1346
From:

To:

Subject: SEDA
Date: Sunday, March 16, 2025 2:12:33 PM
External Email: Use caution with links and attachments
I am a homeowner in the area of . In recent years, many new housing tracts have popped up in the area, causing traffic jams, accidents and additional noise from traffic.

Additional housing in this rural neighborhood is already interfering with my right to quiet enjoyment of my home.

This is an agricultural neighborhood, that's why we moved out here, to enjoy the peace and quiet.

I am also upset at the idea of having to be forced to hook up to a city sewer line. I have a well and septic I've already paid for, why should I pay for a sewer?
Fresnos budget is short 20 million short of current needs, fix that first.

Patti Bibb
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From: Laurie Tidyman-Jones
To: LongRangePlanning
Subject: SEDA
Date: Wednesday, March 12, 2025 7:29:16 AM
External Email: Use caution with links and attachments
According to the Fresno city planning Department, Tanning is to reflect citizens and that we are to receive a red carpet invite for input and change Is that why 400 letters of concern about Seda were tossed? Is it that why the demanded Revised EIR report is just a push for the project with the same illogical Assumptions based on inaccurate data?
Is that why it is attempting to avoid costly mitigation for the massive development’s environmental impacts, particularly regarding greenhouse gas emissions and vehicle miles traveled (VMT)? This affects every single citizen!
(“According to city documents, SEDA would increase Fresno’s annual carbon emissions by approximately 500,000 tons – effectively wiping out the city’s progress on climate goals for the next two decades. The project’s estimated emissions could carry a hefty $25.5 million annual price tag to clean up emissions, according to standard federal accounting measures.”) Is that whyFresno officials are making an extraordinary claim: due to the area’s planned 1-to-1 jobs-to-housing ratio, residents in this car-dependent suburban development will drive over 80% less than standard planning models predict — somehow making them even less car-dependent than downtown San Franciscans, according to official data from the state’s air resources board, and even New Yorkers”?
Is that why A plan that would cost one to $3 billion in infrastructure is more important to you than enhancing and taking care of a city that is already 22 million in the hole? Is this a red carpet two people already living in Fresno and the house?
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City of Fresno

Page 2 ends

2 (NOA) for a Recirculated Draft Program Environmental Impact Report (PEIR) should be referred to the FMFCD.

Fresno Metropolitan Flood Control District
5469 E. Olive Avenue
Fresno, CA 93727
(559) 456-3292
[email protected]
 According to FEMA FIRM Panel 2135H, 1595H and 1695H, portions of the area of the subject Southeast Development Area (SEDA) above Tulare Avenue are within Flood Zone A, Flood Zone AE and Floodway Areas in Zone AE. Floodway Zone AE, which are subject to flooding from the 100-year storm, and shaded Flood Zone X. Floodway Areas in Zone AE refers to the channel of a stream plus adjacent floodplain areas that must be kept free of encroachment so that the 1% annual chance flood can be carried without substantial increases in flood heights according to FEMA FIRM.

Fresno County Policy Planning:

According to Impact AG-1, there are approximately 2,475 acres of Prime Farmland, approximately 1,352 acres of Farmland of Statewide Importance, approximately 1,189 acres of Farmland of Local Importance, and approximately 1,725 acres of Unique Farmland for a total of 6,741 acres within the Southeast Development Area Specific Plan (Plan Area) that are being utilized for agricultural uses. Most of the 6,741 acres will be converted to urban uses.

Per MM AG-1, project proponents, prior to initiation of grading activities, shall compensate for the loss of Prime Farmland, Farmland of Statewide Importance, and Unique Farmland within the Plan Area by preserving an equivalent type and quantity of land at a 1:1 ratio through recordation of a conservation easement, or other recorded instrument, such as a covenant or deed that restricts the preserved land in perpetuity to agricultural uses.

The MM AG-1 states, in the alternative, if the city adopts a Farmland Preservation Program pursuant to Fresno General Plan Policy RC-9-c, project proponents may compensate for the loss of Prime Farmland, Farmland of Statewide Importance, and Unique Farmland by complying with the adopted Farmland Preservation Program.

Since there is no Farmland Preservation Program has been developed and may not be developed to address mitigating the loss of 6,741 acres of important farmland to nonagricultural uses, the EIR must address how the City of Fresno will implement MM AG-1 for the equivalent type and quantity of land at a 1:1 ratio for the loss of 6,741 acres of farmland. The EIR should address whether the city or a non-profit organization (on behalf of the city) will administer the implementation of MM AG-1. 1353
City of Fresno

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3 Conflict of the Specific Plan with lands under the Williamson Act contract.

The implementation of the proposed Specific Plan would result in conversion of significant acreage of Williamson Act contracted lands to non-agricultural uses. Lands have been placed under the Williamson Act contract to preserve productive contracted farmland for the production of food and fiber.

Under the Impact AG-2 (Project-level Conflict with Existing Zoning or Williamson Act Contract), the DEIR states that the Plan Area includes a large acreage of land enrolled in the Williamson Act program which restricts the use of contracted land to agricultural uses. The DEIR states that the continued implementation of the approved General Plan and the proposed Specific Plan could conflict with existing Williamson Act Contracts because non-agricultural uses are allowed on the land under a Williamson Act Contract.

It should be noted that this is an error. Non-agricultural uses are not permitted on land enrolled in the Williamson Act program. The DEIR should be corrected to state that:
“non-agricultural uses are not allowed on land under a Williamson Act Contract”.

The DEIR states that while the policies included in the Specific Plan would directly limit farmland conversion and thereby help to preserve agriculture in the Plan Area and implementation of MM AG-1 would reduce impacts related to the conversion of Farmland to nonagricultural use, buildout of the proposed project would still result in the conversion of Williamson Act land to nonagricultural uses. Therefore, this impact would be significant and unavoidable without any available mitigation to reduce it to a lessthan-significant level. It should be noted that MM AG-1 states that the project proponents shall compensate for the loss of Prime Farmland, Farmland of Statewide Importance, and Unique Farmland within the Fresno Southeast Development Area Specific Plan Area. Although the implementation of MM AG-1 may not reduce the impact to a less-than-significant level, it will substantially reduce the impact of the conversion of productive agricultural land to non-agricultural uses.

The DEIR does not address whether the City of Fresno will annex lands that are under the Williamson Act contract or not. The comment letter dated March 14, 2022, sent to the City of Fresno during the Notice of Preparation period by the California Department of Conservation (Department) staff, requested that the Department be notified in the event of Williamson Act contract land being non-renewed or removed from the Williamson Act contract through contract cancellation.

The County of Fresno staff recommends that the EIR address how the city will handle parcels within the Specific Plan area that are restricted by Williamson Act contracts.

County staff further recommend that the Policy Planning Unit of the Fresno County Public Works and Planning be notified if the city will carry the Williamson Act contracts 1354
City of Fresno

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4 on parcels that will be included within the Specific Plan area or if such parcels will be removed from the Williamson Act program.

If you have any questions, please email me at [email protected] or call me at (559) 600-4224.

This concludes Fresno County comments on the proposed project.

Sincerely,
Arianna Brown
Arianna Brown, Planner -- Development Services and Capital Projects Division "G:\4360Devs&Pln\PROJSEC\PROJDOCS\Environmental\OAR\City of Fresno\Southeast Development Area Specific Plan\2025\SEDA City of Fresno - Response Letter.docx"
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L E G A L A D M I N I S T R A T O R
L Y N N M . H O F F M A N
March 24, 2025
VIA EMAIL [[email protected]] & U.S. MAIL
Sophia Pagoulatos, Planning Manager
Planning & Development Department

CITY OF FRESNO
2600 Fresno Street, Room 3065
Fresno, CA 93721
Re: Recirculated Draft Environmental Impact Report
for Specific Plan for the Southeast Development
Area
Dear Ms. Pagoulatos:

Thank you for the opportunity to submit comments on the Recirculated Draft Environmental Impact Report (“RDEIR”) for the Southeast Development Area Specific Plan (“SEDA”) that is currently being proposed by the City of Fresno (the “City”). I am submitting these comments on behalf of InvestFresno and landowners within the plan area.

Founded in 2023, InvestFresno includes a diverse coalition of Fresnans dedicated to building a healthy and sustainable economy that elevates the community of Fresno for all of its residents. InvestFresno is committed to working with community leaders, business owners and residents to help raise the local standard of living, create more career opportunities, improve local neighborhoods, and strengthen community services.

My clients generally support the SEDA and applaud the City’s stated intent to bring “45,000 homes and 37,000 jobs” to the plan area by 2050. However, they likewise believe the SEDA and the related RDEIR can be improved in several material respects to help achieve these 1356

WANGER JONES HELSLEY PC
Sophia Pagoulatos, Planning Manager
Planning & Development Department
March 24, 2025

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important objectives, while at the same time fulfilling the City’s obligations under the California Environmental Quality Act, Pub. Resources Code, § 21000, et seq. (“CEQA”) and State Planning and Zoning Law, Govt. Code, § 65000, et seq. (“PZL”).

A. The City Should Promote—and Should Not Reduce or Eliminate— Manufacturing and Other Employment-Generating Land Uses Across the City of Fresno, Including the SEDA Plan Area
As an initial matter, InvestFresno continues to be concerned about job-creating land uses being written out of the City’s long-range planning documents. Over the past decade, the City’s long-range planning documents have been gradually eliminating job-creating zoning districts throughout the City. For example, the 2017 Southwest Specific Plan (“SWSP”) eliminated all industrially-zoned property from the plan area,1resulting in existing businesses having to undertake the expensive and lengthy process of seeking rezones and plan amendments to avoid legal non-conformities. The proposed Central South Area Specific Plan (“CSASP”) likewise does not include any properties zoned industrial within that plan area.2 The West Area Neighborhoods Specific Plan land use map shows less than five small properties—all adjacent to S.R. 99 and containing existing development—as zoned light industrial, with no heavy industrial zoning.3 The recent South Central Specific Plan sought to downzone virtually all undeveloped properties within the plan area from light industrial (IL) and heavy industrial (IH).4 And aside from a small handful of properties along the S.R. 180 corridor in West Fresno, along Golden State Boulevard in Northwest Fresno, and within the Palm Bluffs area, there are no undeveloped industrial-zoned properties elsewhere in the City. There is currently little room for new manufacturing or general industrial growth within the City’s jurisdictional boundaries. The dearth of land available for manufacturing and other heavy and light industrial development in the City will not only reduce economic investment in the City, it will steer economic investment elsewhere.

This is of significant concern to InvestFresno, as the SEDA does not include any properties with an IL or IH land use designation. Instead, the SEDA contemplates the introduction of a new zoning concept entitled “Flexible Research & Development” district, described as follows:
1 https://opr.ca.gov/docs/20200624-Southwest_Fresno_Plan-case-study.pdf [“Key outcomes of the SWSP development process include a new zoning map that prohibits further industrial development in the community”].
2 https://www.fresno.gov/wpcontent/uploads/2023/03/Fresno_Central_Southeast_Area_Subsequent_MND_signed.pdf 3 https://www.fresno.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/2023-Planned-Land-Use-Map.pdf 4 https://www.fresno.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/1 South-Central-Specific-PlanNovember-2024.pdf 1357

WANGER JONES HELSLEY PC
Sophia Pagoulatos, Planning Manager
Planning & Development Department
March 24, 2025

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Flexible Research and Development Districts are primarily located west of the Briggs Canal and/ or south of Jensen Avenue and are intended to promote uses such as research and development, light manufacturing, product testing centers, and office development. This area could also include compatible commercial uses such as restaurants, coffee shops, cafes, printing and publishing, dry cleaners, and supporting businesses.

Having access in these areas to regional transportation corridors (both road and rail) is critical, however, residential uses will not be allowed in Flexible Research and Development areas.
(SEDA at 15.) Although unclear, the Flexible Research and Development District does not include any references to IL or IH land uses. This assumption appears to be consistent with the analysis, as shown by tables in the RDEIR containing only land use assumptions for employment districts other than IL or IH. (See RDEIR at 3.18-57 [Table 3.18-1].) Moreover, Table 11 of the Traffic Study only includes inputs for Housing, Retail/Commercial, Office, and Government/Civic land uses. (See Traffic Study at 27.)
My clients are very concerned about the elimination of IL and IH zoning, which undermines the creation of jobs in the City. This is particularly true for high-quality manufacturing jobs. Most manufacturing uses fall within the definition of “General Industrial.” However, most of the land use designations that could fall within the Flexible Research and Development Districts do not allow General Industrial uses. And those that do, such as the Regional Business Park (RBP) and Business Park (BP) zoning districts, require that new or expanded manufacturing uses—no matter how small—go through the cumbersome conditional use permit (CUP) process, which in the City of Fresno typically means a full EIR must be prepared. For all but the largest manufacturing projects, a CUP requirement will render a new manufacturing project nonviable.

The fact that the land uses contemplated in the SEDA is unclear is of significant concern. If the City’s intent is to eliminate IL and IH land use designations in the plan area, the City should be up front about that, instead of forcing a member of the public to guess at the City’s intentions by reviewing which land uses are omitted in the tables of an EIR or a technical report.

At the very least, the City should update the Project Description, and recirculate both the SEDA and the accompanying RDEIR, so the public knows the City is once again seeking to eliminate industrial land uses from yet another plan area.

Better yet, the City should recognize that “manufacturing,” “industrial,” and “jobcreators” are not dirty words. Instead of reflexively downzoning or eliminating industrial zoning, the City should instead work with stakeholders to provide clear and feasible mitigation that will avoid potential impacts to sensitive receptors.
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WANGER JONES HELSLEY PC
Sophia Pagoulatos, Planning Manager
Planning & Development Department
March 24, 2025

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The elimination of IL and IH zoning districts within the SEDA is not only bad policy, but contrary to the significant investment by numerous local entities to support the growth of manufacturing in the Fresno area and provide pathways to high-quality jobs:
• State Center Community College Training Institute Welding Program. This long-standing, no-cost accelerated welding program provides critical skills to residents, significantly reducing the financial burden of training.5 • Good Jobs Challenge Manufacturing Training. The Good Jobs Challenge supports programs at Fresno City College and Reedley College, including (i) a nine-month Maintenance Mechanics program at Fresno City College, which recently graduated its first cohort on January 31, 2025; and (ii) shortterm, entry-level training programs for manufacturing production workers and machine operators at both Reedley College and Fresno City College.6 • Federation for Advanced Manufacturing Education (FAME) Chapter. The first FAME Chapter west of the Rocky Mountains was just recently launched with Reedley College as the partner institution. This program, announced at the San Joaquin Valley Manufacturing Alliance’s (SJVMA) “Valley Made” summit in October 2024, will provide advanced manufacturing technicians with robust training and employer-sponsored onthe-job experience. The first cohort is scheduled to enroll in August 2025.7 For the above programs to succeed, and for the City of Fresno and its residents to realize the benefit of these programs, it is critical that the City incentivize investment in highquality manufacturing jobs. The City should not increase barriers to development, such as making high-quality manufacturing projects subject to a conditional use permit, as the SEDA appears to contemplate.

B. The SEDA Has the Potential to Create Agricultural Non-Conformities One of the stated goals and objectives of the SEDA is to preserve the long-term viability of agricultural land uses. However, if the City eliminates light industrial and heavy industrial zoning, agricultural land uses would be undermined within the Flexible Research and Development District. This is because most agricultural land uses are either not permitted within 5 https://www.scccd.edu/departments/educational-services-and-institutionaleffectiveness/training-institute/welding-program.html 6 https://abc30.com/post/accelerated-workforce-programs-scccd-are-preparing-studentsnew-careers/15416253/ 7 https://fame-usa.com/fame-program-locations-original/california-fame-trash/centralvalley-chapter/ 1359

WANGER JONES HELSLEY PC
Sophia Pagoulatos, Planning Manager
Planning & Development Department
March 24, 2025

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the zoning districts mentioned in the definition of the Flexible Research and Development District, or subject to a CUP.
• Agricultural Processing: is not allowed in the Office (O) Zone District, and subject to a CUP in Business Park (RB) and Regional Business Park (RBP) Zoning Districts. This land use is permitted in the IL and IH Zoning Districts.
• Agricultural Support Services: is not allowed in the Office (O) Zone District, and subject to a CUP in Business Park (RB) Zoning District. This land use is permitted in the IL, IH, and RBP Zoning Districts. • Crop Cultivation: This land use is permitted in the IL and IH Zoning Districts—and not the O, BP, or RBP Zoning Districts.
• Produce Stand: This land use is permitted in the IL and IH Zoning Districts—and not the O, BP, or RBP Zoning Districts.
• Urban Farm: This land use is permitted in the IL and IH Zoning Districts— and not the O, BP, or RBP Zoning Districts.

In short, if the City’s intention is to preserve the viability of agricultural land uses, it should authorized those land uses in the applicable zoning districts instead of creating legal nonconforming uses.

C. To Ensure SEDA is Consistent with the Goals and Policies of the City’s General Plan, the City Should Allow Industrial Land Uses California’s Planning and Zoning Law (“PZL”) requires that all municipalities adopt a general plan. (Govt. Code, § 65300.) While charter cities are not subject to some of the PZL’s consistency requirements, the Government Code expressly requires that a charter city’s general plan to be internally consistent. (See Govt. Code, § 65300.5.) Moreover, a subsequent project that is not consistent with a charter city’s general plan gives rise to a presumption that the project approval constitutes an abuse of discretion. (See, e.g., City of Del Mar v. City of San Diego (1982) 133 Cal.App.3d 401, 414-15.) A “project is consistent with the general plan if, considering all its aspects, it will further the objectives and policies of the general plan and not obstruct their attainment.” (Corona-Norco, supra, 17 Cal.App.4th at 994.) While perfect conformity may not be required, “a project must be compatible with the objectives and policies of the general plan.” (Endangered Habitats League, Inc. v. County of Orange (2005) 131 Cal.App.4th 777, 782 [emphasis added] [citing Families Unafraid to Uphold Rural etc. County v. Board of Supers. (1998) 62 Cal.App.4th 1332, 1336].) “A project is inconsistent if it conflicts with a general plan policy that is fundamental, mandatory, and clear.” 1360

WANGER JONES HELSLEY PC
Sophia Pagoulatos, Planning Manager
Planning & Development Department
March 24, 2025

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(Endangered Habitats, supra, 131 Cal.App.4th at 782 [citing Families Unafraid, supra, 62 Cal.App.4th at 1341-42].)
To the extent the SEDA disallows all Light Industrial and Heavy Industrial land uses, the SEDA would conflict with several objectives and policies of the City of Fresno’s General Plan. For instance, ED-1 of the General Plan emphasizes the need to support economic development by “maintaining a strong working relationship with the business community and improving the business climate for current and future business” (General Plan at 2-21.) Indeed, expanding and retaining industrial industries within the City of Fresno is the “‘bread and butter’ of a solid economic development program . . . .” (General Plan at 2-13.) To implement this objective, ED-1-d encourages the City to “[e]xplore increasing the amount of land properly zoned, consistent with the General Plan, and ready to be expeditiously developed, redeveloped, and/or revitalized for economic development and job creation purposes.” (General Plan at 2-21 [emphasis added].) Yet the SEDA contemplates the downzoning of several industrially-zoned properties.

Further, to the extent the Flexible Research and Development District does not allow Light Industrial and Heavy Industrial land uses, the SEDA would not include any such uses, and the SEDA would have the opposite effect of increasing land zoned for economic development and job creation purposes. Indeed, the downzoning of properties away from heavy and light industrial land uses within the SEDA—combined with the City’s limited opportunities for industrial growth or expansion—would consequently steer existing and potential economic investment elsewhere.

Such results conflict with several other General Plan policies and objectives including:
• Policy ED-3: “Attract and recruit businesses and offer incentives for economic development.” (General Plan at 2-23.) To implement this objective, ED-3-a encourages the City to adopt and implement programs to expand existing businesses and attract new businesses. Eliminating and/or downzoning industrially-zoned properties would diminish the City’s capability of attracting and recruiting new and existing businesses to invest in the City.
• Policy LU-7: “Plan and support industrial development to promote job growth.” (General Plan at 3-54.) The City is intended to “[p]romote industrial land use clusters to maximize the operational efficiency of similar activities.” (Id. at 3-55 [Policy LU-7-c].) The General Plan notes a need to provide relatively high-income jobs to promote economic development.

Several industrial businesses, including manufacturing, provide generally high paying jobs and opportunities for advancement. (See id., Table 2.5.) 1361

WANGER JONES HELSLEY PC
Sophia Pagoulatos, Planning Manager
Planning & Development Department
March 24, 2025

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To foster these job opportunities, industrial development is critical. If industrial development dissipates, the opportunities for job growth also disappear.

To the extent the SEDA eliminates light and heavy industrial land uses, the SEDA would also be internally inconsistent with several of the proposed goals and policies in that document:
• Policy UF-1.3 seeks to promote “employment-generating development within the Plan Area to expand Fresno’s employment base beyond traditional industries (as specified in the policies of the Economic Opportunity Chapter).” However, only a limited number of employmentgenerating land uses are permitted within the Flexible Research and Development District, and several land uses permitted under light industrial and heavy industrial zoning are either not permitted or only permitted subject to a CUP.
• Objective UF-4 contemplates that the City would “[a]ttract high-profile businesses to create bustling and desirable Employment Districts,” yet this would be exceedingly difficult if the land uses are restricted to those specifically mentioned under the definition of the Flexible Research and Development District.
• Policy EO-1.2 contemplates that the City would build on its “current workforce development efforts by providing career technical education, apprenticeship, and other upskilling opportunities for those who live or work in the SEDA.” However, as noted above, if the land uses are restricted to those identified in the definition of the Flexible Research and Development District, most manufacturing projects could only be permitted subject to a CUP, which would frustrate development.
• Objective EO-2 contemplates that the City would target growth “industries in which Fresno has a competitive advantage.” The City, however, has a competitive advantage in the field of manufacturing due to its workforce and training programs. However, if the land uses are restricted to those identified in the definition of the Flexible Research and Development District, it would become more difficult to develop manufacturing land uses.
• Policy EO-2.1 seeks to promote “industry clusters that build on Fresno’s local strengths,” including: “Advanced Manufacturing, Clean Energy, Construction, Food Processing, Healthcare, Information Processing, Logistics & Distribution, Software Development, Tourism, and Water 1362
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From: MyEmail
To: LongRangePlanning
Subject: 3.10 Hydrology
Date: Monday, March 17, 2025 9:58:43 AM
External Email: Use caution with links and attachments
How will the city support the demand for water and sewage, I doubt the Fowler trunks line can support the demand for thousand of new homes and busineses. Thirty five years ago the water tabel was thirty feet at Clinton and Locan, now it is pushing ninety feet. On top of the demand for water and sewage the demand for electricy will increase to support the water and sewag infracture, and all the new homes. You need to look into the cost of electricy, read your PG&E bill from what was a few years ago to what it is today.

3.6 Energy
Where will all the electrical energy come from, there are no new electrical plants being built. Canada can cut a portion of our power supply the next time Trump pissses Canada off. In case you don't understand everything you are proposing depends on a secure source energy. What happened to all the Biomass powerplants that were bilt in Fresno County that are no longer in operation. 1364
From: Mary Ann Quann
To: LongRangePlanning
Subject: SEDA comments
Date: Sunday, March 16, 2025 9:26:09 AM
External Email: Use caution with links and attachments
I'm opposed to continuing with the SEDA plans. I don't see that encouraging infill projects and addressing current infrastructure needs in Fresno is being addressed.

Mary Ann Quann M.D.
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Via Email [[email protected]] and United States Mail Sophia Pagoulatos, Planning Manager
Planning & Development Department

CITY OF FRESNO
2600 Fresno Street, Room 3065
Fresno, CA 93721
Re: Recirculated Draft Environmental Impact Report for Specific Plan for the Southeast Development Area
Dear Ms. Pagoulatos:

Parga Partners Limited Partnership (Fowler Packing) appreciates the opportunity to submit comments on the Recirculated Draft Environmental Impact Report (RDEIR) for the Southeast Development Area Specific Plan (SEDA) that is currently being proposed by the City of Fresno (the City). Fowler Packing has owned property within the SEDA plan area for decades and has a vested interest in the future growth and development of the community.

Flexibility in Land Use Distribution
As landowners with contiguous land holdings within the SEDA plan area, we request that the City provide flexibility in the placement of land use designations on our properties. Specifically, we seek the ability to adjust the location of land use polygons within our contiguous parcels, provided that the overall densities, acreages, and land use mix analyzed in the RDEIR remain consistent.

This flexibility is essential to ensure efficient site planning, optimize infrastructure investments, and respond to evolving market conditions while remaining aligned with the intent and goals of the SEDA.

Light Industrial & Manufacturing Uses in Flexible Research & Development Fowler Packing owns land within the SEDA plan area designated for Flexible Research & Development. We request clarification on whether the RDEIR has considered light industrial and manufacturing uses within this designation. Specifically, could the City confirm that the thresholds analyzed in the RDEIR would allow for light industrial and manufacturing uses within the Flexible Research & Development land use designation?
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1367
City of Fresno
Planning and Development Department
Sophia Pagoulatos, Planning Manager
2600 Fresno Street, Room 3065
Fresno, California 93721
March 17, 2025
Subject: Comments regarding the SEDA EIR
I am a property owner in the SEPO area. I hereby respectfully offer the following comments in response to the latest EIR.

AGRICULTURAL RESOURCES:

Under Project Objectives, it is stated “Respect the major economic and cultural role of agriculture in the Valley”. The entire SEDA project shows a lack of respect for agriculture in the valley. Impact AG-1 states SEDA “would establish a buffer between the urban area of the plan and the surrounding agricultural land”. Obviously, this shows no respect for existing agricultural properties within the plan area. An example is turning existing agricultural land into Section 8 housing. Item 3.2-10 will create opportunities for small farms from 2-20 acres. What happens to the “small farms” that already exist. According to Policy HC-5-g basically states that owners of agricultural farms less than 50 acres are to be outlawed. There are also comments about “Community Farming “. This sounds like the beginning introduction into Communism.

LAND USE AND PLANNING:

Under Project Objectives the new plan will accommodate 40,000 to 45,000 new dwelling units. The original estimated annual population growth through 2050 was 1.5%. The revised population growth estimate is .18%. This would revise dwelling units needed to 5,300. There are currently 8,200 vacant “infill” areas available in the city limits which would accommodate 134,000 dwelling units. This vacant land would more than accommodate the actual growth beyond 2050. AND THE INFRASTRUCTURE ALREADY EXISTS. This means the SEDA plan is completely unnecessary. Your plan also includes town centers and commercial areas. I believe time, energy and finances should be focused on infill and actual revitalization of downtown Fresno. This would also decrease finances required for public services, fire, police etc. 1368
TRANSPORTATION AND TRAFFIC:

Under Project Objectives, the plan would include major transit lines and ensure that schools and major town centers can be reached with or without a car. In a recent trip into Fresno, I encountered 4 fax buses on my travels, all empty and in service. Fresno residents drive cars to go places, period. Also stated, reduce energy consumption to help meet standards for greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution. The proposed plan will exceed SJVAPCD thresholds and air quality plans facing millions of dollars in fees. Can someone please explain why expressways, arterials, drives and collector streets are all called scenic once you have removed all the agricultural. Who pays for SR-180 ramps at DeWolf, Highland and McCall?
UTILITIES AND SERVICE SYSTEMS:

Under Project Description, Fiscal Responsibility is a major goal of the plan. Fiscal Responsibility would be accomplished by infill and fixing downtown not by the SEDA plan. The cost of infrastructure for SEDA would be massive. I don’t see in the EIR any estimates regarding Fresno City funds, costs of developers and fees. Project Objectives states to provide self-financing for the development and ongoing maintenance of SEDA.

Again, no estimates on how this will be accomplished. Are we in for another “High Speed Rail” that the costs by the time the plan is completed, if it ever is, have become unsustainable? Obviously, all properties will need to be connected to City systems, which may not be feasible to handle 45,000 new dwelling units. The only financial estimate I have heard is that existing farms would be forced to connect to water and sewer at perhaps $100,000 depending on how far we are set back from the street. Also required to cap our wells and remove septic systems. This cost is not feasible for most property owners. Also, the cost of watering an orchard, vegetables and lawns on a city water meter is unsustainable. Is the purpose of this plan to force all farmers to sell to developers for the city to provide 45,000 new unneeded dwelling units? I’m sure housing developers are chomping at the bit for this plan. I’m sure there are no donations being made to election campaigns.

In conclusion it should be very obvious that I am against this plan. We moved out here to enjoy the area and have our little farm. SEDA would put an end to our dreams. Based on what I have brought up above I firmly believe that SEDA is completely unnecessary. Thank you for taking the time to read and understand my comments.

Sincerely,
Larry Muzny
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From:

To: LongRangePlanning
Cc: District1; District2; District3; District4; District5; District6; District7; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected] Subject: Comments on Recirculated Draft PEIR for Fresno Southeast Development Area Specific Plan Project - Mark and Dale Reitz
Date: Monday, March 17, 2025 11:26:20 AM
Attachments: Comments to Recirculated Draft PEIR SEDA Reitz 3-15-2025 Final.pdf External Email: Use caution with links and attachments
Attached are our comments to this Recirculated Draft PEIR for Fresno Southeast Development Area Specific Plan Project per the Notice of Availability dated February 7, 2025.

We appreciate your work and look forward to successful adoption of the Alternative 2, Consolidated Business Park Alternative as requested in our letters and past discussions with you and at the neighborhood meetings.

Please keep us on your list for notifications of further responses to comments and upcoming meetings.

Thank you,
Mark and Dale Reitz
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From: Eric Schmidt
To: LongRangePlanning
Subject: SEDA opposition
Date: Wednesday, March 5, 2025 5:49:49 AM
External Email: Use caution with links and attachments
To City of Fresno,
I want to voice my opposition to the SEDA project, once called SEGA. Renaming to sound better (development) over (growth) is all smoke and mirrors. This project is very selfish by the city of Fresno to do nothing but a land grab. It still will not provide the money needed for City economics. There are ways to do infill around some projects such as Sanger West High School and Clovis South High School.

The biggest things in my mind are the land, water and air pollution. Pouring concrete over the most fertile soils in the world is the idea I have seen from the city of Fresno over the years.

You will never get that back.

The eastern edge of Fresno County is actually one of the most fertile and one with water. This does make it attractive for the city but at the cost of economics.

This is nothing but money/land grab for taxes the city wants for its unbalanced budgets in the coming years. Go after something else. Leave this area alone.

I farm in this area and DO NOT support this project. There are other ways.

Thank you - Concerned Farmer
1371
From: Maricela Reyes
To: LongRangePlanning
Cc: Andrew Janz; Annalisa Perea
Subject: SEDA public comment from District 1 resident Maricela Reyes Date: Monday, March 17, 2025 9:56:06 AM
External Email: Use caution with links and attachments
Dear Fresno Long Range Planning Team,
I am a City of Fresno District 1 resident writing in response to the new proposed SEDA Environmental Impact Report draft.

I strongly object to the SEDA plan described in the Recirculated Draft PEIR and urge all City leaders to wholeheartedly reject SEDA in full.

SEDA will harm the City of Fresno, our neighborhoods, and Fresno residents.

The harm is likely to be profound and last for decades.

My objections include, but are not limited to, the following five key concerns:

The City of Fresno is in debt. Approving SEDA is fiscally irresponsible. Approving SEDA invites significant additional debt with no guarantee of future development to offset it. This debt will be a burden on city residents, tax payers, and businesses for years to come.

The SEDA plan is dangerously outdated, based on a wildly inaccurate presumed growth rate. This plan assumes a growth rate ten times greater than our current - and declining - growth rate.

SEDA will direct our clearly limited resources away from existing neighborhoods and their profound infrastructure needs. One example: the people in West Fresno have been working for years to get infrastructure changes described in the West Area Specific Plan to improve pedestrian safety, storm drainage, traffic flow, cyclist safety, and green space. I believe successfully implementing their West Area Specific Plan is more important than implementing SEDA - and we have every reason to believe approving SEDA will imperil this and similar plans in our existing neighborhoods.

SEDA will harm Fresno businesses. I hear business owners asking for improvements to sidewalks, parking, drainage, traffic flow, and lighting.

Thriving businesses support a thriving Fresno, and they deserve better.

Investing in SEDA without clear assurance that SEDA will NOT redirect the City's already minimal infrastructure attention away from our existing business districts will be a blow to our existing businesses.

SEDA will destroy existing communities of county residents who have no voice in this process. I have listened to the upset voices of people currently living in the area that would be transformed by SEDA. 1372
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“Provide a safe and reliable transportation network that serves all people and respects the environment.” DISTRICT 6 OFFICE
1352 WEST OLIVE AVENUE |P.O. BOX 12616 |FRESNO, CA 93778-2616 (559) 981-7284 | FAX (559) 488-4195 | TTY 711
www.dot.ca.gov
August 16, 2024
FRE-180-R64.104
Southeast Development Area Specific Plan
Queuing Analysis
SCH #2022020486
GTS #: https://ld-igr-gts.dot.ca.gov/district/6/report/25659

SENT VIA EMAIL
Mx. Adrienne Asadoorian
City of Fresno
2600 Fresno Street
Fresno, Ca 93721
[email protected]
Dear Mx. Asadoorian:

Caltrans has completed the review of queuing analysis for the Southeast Development Area Specific Plan.

The proposed development area covers nearly 9,000 acres and is bounded on the north by the Gould Canal, on the east by McCall and Highland Avenues, on the south by Jensen and North Avenues, and on the West by Locan, Temperance, and Minnewawa Avenues.

The mission of Caltrans is to provide a safe and reliable transportation network that serves all people and respects the environment. The Local Development Review (LDR) process reviews land use projects and plans through the lenses of our mission and state planning priorities of infill, conservation, and travel‐efficient development. To ensure a safe and efficient transportation system, we encourage early consultation and coordination with local jurisdictions and project proponents on all development projects that utilize the multimodal transportation network.

Caltrans provides the following comments consistent with the State’s smart mobility goals that support a vibrant economy and sustainable communities:

1. Caltrans recommended that any additional right-turn capacity be achieved through widening rather than reducing left-turn capacity. As a result, the document 1374
Mx. Adrienne Asadoorian - Southeast Development Area Specific Plan, Queuing Analysis August 16, 2024

Page 2 ends

“Provide a safe and reliable transportation network that serves all people and respects the environment.” now states the queuing analysis spreadsheet has been revised to use auxiliary lanes for additional storage, instead of the originally proposed restriping of the eastbound State Route (SR) 180 off-ramp lanes at Clovis Avenue and Temperance Avenue.

As stated, we request that the city coordinate with Caltrans to determine if and when extending turn lanes at De Wolf and McCall Avenues on SR-180 are necessary to ensure mitigation is in place before approving related development projects.

If you have any other questions, please call or email: Keyomi Jones, Associate Transportation Planner at

Sincerely,
Mr. Dave Padilla, Branch Chief,
Transportation Planning – North
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Main Office Phone:
310-798-2400
Direct Dial:
310-798-2400 x 1
Carstens, Black & Minteer LLP
700 North Pacific Coast Highway, Suite 200
Hermosa Beach, CA 90277
www.cbcearthlaw.com
Douglas P. Carstens
Email Address:
[email protected]
December 9, 2025
City of Fresno Planning and Development Department
Sophia Pagoulatos, Planning Manager
2600 Fresno Street, Room 3065, Fresno California 93721
Email: [email protected]
Re: Objections to Final Environmental Impact Report for Fresno Southeast Development Area (SEDA) Specific Plan Project City of Fresno, Fresno County, California State Clearinghouse Number 2022020486 and SEDA Project Approval; Objection to Statement of Overriding Considerations In Support of SEDA
Dear Ms. Pagoulatos,
On behalf of the Sierra Club, Central Valley Partnership, and League of Women Voters we object to the approval of the Southeast Development Area (SEDA) project and to the certification of the final environmental impact report (FEIR) in support of the project. We previously submitted comments on the Draft EIR (DEIR) on August 28, 2023 and March 5, 2025 which we incorporate by reference.

We find upon review of the FEIR that the City has failed to adequately respond to our comments, failed to require sufficient mitigation of identified adverse impacts, and has continued to fail to conduct necessary analysis including but not limited to human health impacts from massive air pollution generated by the massive, sprawling Project.1

1 The SEDA project would be a massive development project with extensive impacts that must be carefully planned and mitigated. It has been accurately described as follows:
[the project will] transform nearly 9,000 acres southeast of Fresno into a new Clovis on Fancher Creek.

The project up for the city council’s vote will be one of the biggest suburban sprawl projects in Fresno’s history. The Dyer administration’s plan includes 45,000 homes and up to 150,000 people, on a stretch of land that is currently a City of Fresno
December 9, 2025

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The City must remedy these failures before continuing its review of the SEDA Project.

The City cannot approve the SEDA Project, and cannot base its approval on a statement of overriding considerations because of the general plan inconsistencies, statutory violations, and failures to comply with CEQA identified in this letter, our prior letters, and the letters of other commenters in the SEDA process which we incorporate by reference.

We urge the City to either deny approval of SEDA altogether or to continue the December 18, 2025 hearing of the matter so that the legal deficiencies can be fixed.

A. Previous Comments on the Draft EIR Were Not Adequately Addressed.

We and other commenters submitted comments regarding, among other defects, farmland conservation, greenhouse gas mitigation, air quality impacts and mitigation, and the necessity for a health impact analysis. None of these previous comments were adequately addressed.

1. Farmland Loss Must Be Effectively Mitigated.

The FEIR fails to respond to suggestions for mitigation measures for farmland conservation.

The Project will convert a huge swath of land currently used for agriculture into urban areas where only vestiges of agriculture, such as community gardens, might remain. The Plan’s proposed development will effectively eliminate approximately 6,741 acres in agricultural production, which are specified as 2,475 acres of Prime Farmland, and approximately 1,352 acres of Farmland of Statewide Importance, 1,189 acres of Farmland of local importance, and approximately 1,725 acres of Unique Farmland. (DEIR p. 3.2-16.) This land has value not only for its capacity to produce food and fiber, but also as a carbon sink to mitigate some GHG emissions and their effect on climate patchwork stretch of farmland, rural homesteads, two-lane country roads, and stop-signs.

Known as the Southeast Development Area (SEDA), the transformed community would rival the size of Clovis – 16 times the size of the Copper River project in northeast Fresno, and seven times as large as Riverstone and Tesoro Viejo, the major new communities across the San Joaquin River in Madera. (Weaver, Fresnoland, August 25, 2023, “Another Clovis, but in southeast Fresno? City moves forward on mega-development plans” , available at https://fresnoland.org/2023/08/25/city-of-fresno-eyes-seda/. ) City of Fresno
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change by sequestering carbon (see Center for Biological Diversity letter at pp.10-11, pdf pp.192-183.)
Mitigation for impacts of the Project on agricultural land are profoundly inadequate, consisting of a single mitigation measure that allows individual projects within SEDA to preserve agricultural land (not explicitly required to be within the SEDA area) on an acre-for-acre basis (MM AG-1), and the mere possibility of complying with a Farmland Preservation Plan that has been promised by the City for over a decade but never adopted nor meaningfully implemented. (RDEIR, p. 3.2-16.) Comment SC-CVP-LWV-3 raises the lack of funding for the SEDA plan. The FEIR claims that this is a non-CEQA issue. However, funding for mitigation measures is a central issue covered by CEQA. The City cannot properly rule out various measures as financially infeasible without a plan that addresses the financing that is available for the SEDA project. This issue of lack of information about SEDA funding relates to every mitigation measure in SEDA that requires funding so is not just limited to farmland mitigation.

Comment SC-CVP-LWV-6 raised the possibility of imposing urban growth boundaries as a mitigation measure for farmland impacts. The FEIR responds that this issue does not raise environmental issues. However, urban growth boundaries are a necessary mitigation measure for farmland impacts. The EIR improperly dismisses this suggestion as a non-environmental issue. An alternative that includes addressing an urban growth boundary should have been included in the EIR.

The California Council of Land Trusts has developed a handbook entitled “Conserving California’s Harvest – A Model Mitigation Program and Ordinance for Local Governments.” In order to provide the City with information about how the Farmland Conservation mitigation program should have been discussed and implemented in the SEDA EIR and Project approval, we present this link and incorporate the entire handbook by reference: https://calandtrusts.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/conservingcalifornias-harvest-web-version-6.26.14.pdf. This handbook presents various farmland mitigation techniques that should be implemented as part of the SEDA approval, not deferred to a future process of mitigation measure development. Measures such as the following can be implemented now at the plan level, with further measures implemented at the project level. Chapters 4-7 of the handbook provide information and case studies about Fee Acquisition and Project Mitigation Bank, Conservation Easement with Advanced Mitigation Credits, In-Lieu Fees, and Conservation Easements. There is no reason these feasible mitigation measures cannot be developed and adopted now as part of the SEDA process. CEQA requires adoption of enforceable mitigation measures that are feasible prior to adopting a statement of overriding considerations. The adoption of effective mitigation measures may not be deferred to a future process because there is no reason development of such measures at this point is infeasible.

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Yolo County is one of many counties that have adopted an effective farmland conservation ordinance. (See https://calandtrusts.org/resources/conserving-californiasharvest/fmp/.) We incorporate this ordinance by reference as an example of a feasible mitigation measure that the City must adopt prior to accepting significant loss of farmland. See https://calandtrusts.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Yolo-CountyAgricultural-Conservation-Easement-Program.pdf.

The Transitional Rural Residential Anx Overlay does not protect landowners’ current rights so is likely to lead to loss of agricultural land to agricultural use. Residents could potentially loose their private water wells and septic systems and be forced to hook to the City of Fresno’s infrastructure potentially costing exorbitant amounts in the range of $100,000 or more. Residents are only allowed to keep their private water wells for irrigation if their parcels are over two net acres. Many of their properties, while zoned rural residential, are under two net acres; many are over two net acres. The ANX overlay also limits the number of chickens residents can keep from 500 hens and roosters to 24 hens only under the overlay. Residents are currently allowed under Fresno County ordinances to keep nearly 5 cattle or horses per acre, but under the ANX overlay would be limited to two and a limit of 10 no matter the size of property. Sheep and goat herds will be limited in size due to the overlay. Thus, the various restrictions would have the effect of eliminating current viable agricultural land uses. The proposed annexation overlay contains numerous restrictions with a negative impact on continued agricultural uses; these restrictions must be eliminated or the effects of the restrictions must be identified and mitigated.

2. Greenhouse Gas Impacts Must Be Effectively Mitigated.

The EIR fails to propose all feasible mitigation measures and the City fails to require such mitigation for greenhouse gas emissions impacts. The California Attorney General and Governor’s Office of Planning and Research- now Land Use and Climate Innovation- have extensive guidance on mitigation of GHG impacts that must be incorporated in the approval of SEDA.

Sample mitigation measures are set forth in this document which we incorporate by reference: https://lci.ca.gov/docs/june08-ceqa.pdf?. See especially Attachment 3 and pages 18-20. For example, with regard to Land Use and Transportation, the following measures and others listed in Attachment 3 are recommended:

LAND USE AND TRANSPORTATION
• Implement land use strategies to encourage jobs/housing proximity, promote transit-oriented development, and encourage high density development along transit corridors. Encourage compact, mixed-use City of Fresno
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projects, forming urban villages designed to maximize affordable housing and encourage walking, bicycling and the use of public transit systems. • Encourage infill, redevelopment, and higher density development, whether in incorporated or unincorporated settings
• Encourage new developments to integrate housing, civic and retail amenities (jobs, schools, parks, shopping opportunities) to help reduce VMT resulting from discretionary automobile trips.
• Apply advanced technology systems and management strategies to improve operational efficiency of transportation systems and movement of people, goods and services.
• Incorporate features into project design that would accommodate the supply of frequent, reliable and convenient public transit. • Implement street improvements that are designed to relieve pressure on a region’s most congested roadways and intersections.
• Limit idling time for commercial vehicles, including delivery and construction vehicles.

Each and every mitigation measure identified in this document for GHG emissions must be adopted or the City must explain why they are infeasible. The City cannot adopt a statement of overriding considerations without adopting these measures or explaining why the City determines them to be infeasible.

3. Nitrous Oxide Impacts Must Be Effectively Mitigated.

Our comments and those of other commenters pointed out the massive amount of smog-forming Nitrous Oxides that would potentially be generated by the SEDA approval. (See CLC/RCI comment 31 including chart illustrating SEDA’s huge and negative effect on Valley air quality.)
The Final EIR refers to the use of MM-AIR-1c to address industrial or warehouse projects and MM-AIR-1d to address future site-specific approvals. However, mitigation must occur at the regional planning level as well as at the local project planning level.

The City fails to sufficiently plan for mitigation at the regional level.

The Attorney General provides guidance on mitigation measures for air pollution impacts. The AG’s July 22, 2019 letter regarding the City of Fresno’s South Industrial Priority Area (SIPA) provides relevant suggestions for mitigation measures. (See https://oag.ca.gov/sites/all/files/agweb/pdfs/environment/comments-fresno-southindustrial-priority-area-specific-plan-08-02-2019.pdf .) We incorporate that letter by reference and require that you respond to each mitigation measure suggested, as well as require compliance with AB 617 as discussed in that letter (pages 6-7).

By way of example, but without limiting, the following list is suggested:

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x. Requiring buffer zones between industrial uses, including warehouses, and sensitive receptors;
x Ensuring that operations of diesel trucks or equipment on site are as far from sensitive receptors as possible;
x Limiting the size of the [SEDA] away from City and County residents and sensitive receptors;
x Limiting the maximum amount of industrial space, including warehouse space, that can be built in the [SEDA];
x Limiting operation and construction days and times;
x Establishing and enforcing truck routes that avoid sensitive receptors; x Requiring special consideration and mitigation for warehouses with cold storage capability, including requiring the use of zero-emission or all-electric, plug-in capable transport refrigeration units and electrical hookups at all loading docks; x Establishing fleet requirements for warehouse tenants and carriers serving tenants, such as requiring the exclusive use of zero-emission delivery trucks and vans and requiring any Class 8 trucks entering the site use zero-emissions technology or meet CARB's lowest optional NOx emissions standard; x Requiring installation of indoor air filtration at nearby schools and residences; x Requiring installation of indoor air filtration and climate control at new warehouses to reduce-impacts on workers;
x Requiring electric vehicle charging infrastructure for both cars and trucks necessary to support zero-emission vehicles and equipment on site; x Requiring and enforcing no idling policies;
x Requiring the use of electric-powered yard equipment onsite x Requiring that all construction equipment meet Tier 4 emission standards; x Constructing new or improved transit stops, sidewalks, bicycle lanes, crosswalks, and traffic control or traffic safety measures, such as speed bumps or speed limits;
x Improving vegetation and tree canopy for communities in and around the [SEDA] to avoid the “heat island effect;”
x Requiring methods to reduce employee vehicle traffic, such as van shuttles, transit and carpool incentives, and providing bicycle parking and facilities for employees;
x Requiring installation of solar panels with backup energy storage on each building roof area with a capacity that matches the maximum allowed for distributed solar connections to the grid; and
x Adhering to green building standards.

As stated in the Attorney General’s letter and applicable here, adoption of such measures cannot be deferred to a future date.

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4. Human Health Impacts Must Be Analyzed and Mitigated.

The Final EIR claims that there are no means by which the human health impacts of the approval of SEDA can be analyzed and that human health impacts would be analyzed at the project proposal rather than programmatic EIR level, and therefore fails to analyze or sufficiently mitigate these impacts. (See Response SC-CVP-LWV 13 and CLC/RCI-30.) The EIR’s non-responsive comment is particularly disturbing and legally inadequate because commenters noted ways in which other jurisdictions have been able to analyze such impacts.

The City’s response to comments from multiple organizations that an analysis of the human health impacts of the air pollutant emissions as required by the California Supreme Court in Sierra Club v. County of Fresno (2018) 6 Cal.5th 502, at pp. 517-520 (commonly referred to as Friant Ranch) is that such an areawide predictive air quality analysis is not possible. The record says otherwise.

In their comment letter, the Fresno Madera Tulare and Kings Counties Central Labor Council together with Regenerate California Innovation (RCI) presented a table with emissions data drawn from SJVAPCD and the Project DEIR showing the magnitude of the Project’s expected nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions compared to the NOx emissions of the entire San Joaquin Valley. (Resp. to Comments at p. 1-212, p.238-239 of pdf.) That table shows that the Project’s NOx emissions in 2026, SEDA’s emissions will increase the overall Valley emissions by 151%, in 2031 SEDA will increase overall Valley NOx emissions by131%, and in 2036 it will increase overall Valley NOx emissions by just short of 200%. Given the serious human health impacts of NOx by itself (RDEIR, p. 3.3-12), let alone of NOx when combined with reactive organic gases (ROG) in sunlight to form ozone (Id.), it is imperative that the City do everything it possibly can to predict the consequences of approving this Project before doing so. That includes a Friant Ranch analysis.

Our client’s comment letter referred to Cal State San Diego’s ability to perform a Friant Ranch analysis, which we incorporated in the Project’s record by reference.2

The RDEIR already performed an analysis showing that the Project would exceed the SJVAPCD’s regional emissions significance threshold, stating:
2 For the City’s convenience, we repeat the link at which the analysis may be found, and again incorporate this entire 45 page document into the record here: Microsoft Word - SDSU Friant Ranch Evaluation_12.23.19.docx; https://missionvalley.sdsu.edu/pdfs/feir/appendices/4-2-3- sdsu-mv-health-effects-memo.pdf
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Full build out of the proposed project would result in the generation of substantial long term criteria air pollutant emissions that would exceed the SJVAPCD regional significance thresholds and would therefore not be considered consistent with the existing AQPs.
(Rep. to Comments, p. 1-212; p. 239 of pdf.) Apparently, the SJVAPCD has sufficient information to determine inconsistency of the Project with regional significance thresholds and with the regional Air Quality Plans. The City must explain why it cannot perform some type of a Friant Ranch analysis. It clearly has data on Project emissions and on health impacts from the relevant air contaminants, it must prove, not just state, that these data are insufficient to perform the analysis.

Such an analysis of Project impacts on public health is especially crucial for this Project, given the enormity of its pollutant emissions.

Even where there are not standardized calculations to address an impact, the DEIR may not fail to conduct an analysis. In Berkeley Keep Jets Over the Bay Committee v.

Board of Port Com'rs (2001) 91 Cal.App.4th 1344, an EIR was found deficient because, among other reasons, it professed an inability to analyze toxic air contaminant impacts. (Id. at pp. 1370-1371.) The Court of Appeal found this failed to meet the requirements of CEQA.

The fact that a single methodology does not currently exist that would provide the Port with a precise, or “universally accepted,” quantification of the human health risk from TAC [Toxic Air Contaminant] exposure does not excuse the preparation of any health risk assessment--it requires the Port to do the necessary work to educate itself about the different methodologies that are available. The Guidelines recognize that “[d]rafting an EIR ... involves some degree of forecasting. While foreseeing the unforeseeable is not possible, an agency must use its best efforts to find out and disclose all that it reasonably can.” (Guidelines, § 15144, italics added.) “If, after thorough investigation, a lead agency finds that a particular impact is too speculative for evaluation, the agency should note its conclusion and terminate discussion of the impact.” (Guidelines, § 15145, italics added.) (Berkeley Keep Jets Over the Bay Committee v. Board of Port Com'rs (2001) 91 Cal.App.4th 1344, 1370-1371.)
A number of public agencies have performed a Friant Ranch analysis, demonstrating that it is technically feasible and can produce information that is useful and valid. A prime example of this application is the Sacramento Metropolitan Air Quality Management District (SMAQMD), which in 2020 produced Guidance to City of Fresno
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Address The Friant Ranch Ruling For CEQA Projects in The Sacramento Metropolitan Air District (SMAQMD Guidance), available
at http://www.airquality.org/LandUseTransportation/Documents/SMAQMDFriantRanch FinalOct2020.pdf; last visited 11/28/25. The SMAQMD Guidance states that, inter alia, it:

Provides insight on the health effects that may result from a project emitting at the maximum thresholds of significance (TOS) levels in the Five-Air-District Region for oxides of nitrogen (NOX), volatile organic compounds (VOCs), and PM, in addition to levels of CO and oxides of sulfur (SOX) calculated proportional to NOX (as described in Section 4.1).

This information can be used in environmental documents to provide a conservative estimate of the health effects of criteria pollutant emissions at the significance thresholds or below.
(SMAQMD Guidance, p. 2.)
SMAQMD performed photochemical grid modeling, looking at over 40 locations in its jurisdiction where new projects could be sited (based on General Plan classification and zoning, among other factors), and then estimated generic emissions from such new projects, and calculated the amount by which ambient air concentrations of pollutants would change when those emissions were added to the mix.

The District then was able to run a health impacts model using those ambient concentrations predictions as inputs to a health benefits model (SMAQMD used the Benefits Mapping and Analysis Program [BenMAP] used by U.S. EPA [SMAQMD Guidance, pp. 4-5]), enabling it to predict what health hazards could result, e.g., predicting rates of increases in asthma attacks based on increased ozone concentrations when a new project’s NOx or VOC emissions were added to the District’s inventory, or increased incidences of myocardial infarctions when PM2.5 emissions rose. (SMAQMD Guidance, pp. 6-7.) Generic modeling was set up for new sources emitting at SMAQMD’s significance threshold levels, and at higher levels. SMAQMD has made this modeling system available to the public, enabling a developer to choose a relevant location, input the emissions data for its own proposed project, and run the model, thereby getting reasonable estimates of health impacts for its particular project. (SMAQMD Guidance, Appdx. F).

The SJVAPCD could provide a similar service, using, for example, the Comprehensive Air Quality Model with Extensions (CAMx) to determine the effects of ozone precursor emissions changes on ozone formation. CARB and the APCD used this technique in the 2004 Extreme Ozone Attainment Demonstration Plan.

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The CAMx modeling used data collected during the Central California Ozone Study (CCOS) in the summer of 2000, data which the APCD still has and which could be used (https://www.valleyair.org/aqinfo/CCAQS/CCAQSidx.htm), last visited 3/23/21). The current data could be updated based on data in the APCD’s current emissions inventory, and supplemented where necessary by estimates developed through growth projection techniques commonly used by the APCD.

Alternatively, the City could arrange to run a comparable air quality and health effects model, as California State University at Dominguez Hills did for the EIR it performed on its recent Long Range Development Plan. The EIR described its modeling in this way:

An analysis of the potential health effects of the project’s criteria pollutant emissions was prepared by Ramboll US Corporation. (See EIR Appdx. B.4, which contains detailed information regarding the methodology, input parameters, limitations and uncertainties associated with this analysis.) The analysis focuses on health effects attributable to ozone and particulate matter, as those are the criteria pollutants considered by the USEPA in its Benefits Mapping and Analysis Program (BenMAP), the analytical model it relies on and publicly distributes for use in estimating the health effects of air pollution. A photochemical grid model (CAMx) was used to estimate the incremental increase in ambient air quality concentrations as a result of project-related emissions.

California State University Dominguez Hills Campus Master Plan EIR, p. 3.2-25, available at https://www.csudh.edu/Assets/csudh-sites/fpdc/docs/campus-masterplan/2019/final-environmental-impact-report-09-11-19.pdf.) We incorporate this entire 758-page document by reference.

This process is very similar to the use of CAMx and BenMAP by SMAQMD. See also 2020 Mineta San Jose International Airport Master Plan Amendment Integrated EIR, Supplemental Air Quality Analysis, at Introduction, p. 2, available at https://www.sanjoseca.gov/Home/ShowDocument?id=61650; last visited 11/28/25. We incorporate this entire 45-page document by reference.

It is simply not the case that a Friant Ranch analysis, disclosing to the decision makers and the public the connection between increased air pollutant emissions from a project and resulting impacts on human health, cannot be done. It can be and it has been done. A Friant Ranch type of human health risk analysis must be done for this Project.

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5. Water Supply Comments Are Not Sufficiently Addressed.

Among other comments which were also insufficiently answered, we raised the point that the EIR only addresses water supplies out to 2035, not out to 2050. (March 24, 2025 Letter, p. 27.) The response refers to Master Response 8, which does little more than cite various sections of the Draft EIR, which were identified as deficient in our comment letter in the first place. The Draft EIR’s analysis is deficient and the Final EIR’s responses to comments about the deficiencies of this analysis is legally inadequate.

The EIR has failed to identify analysis to show certainty of water capacity to serve the proposed SEDA plan. During the Planning Commission hearing, Peter Vang asked how was water certainty to serve SEDA determined. Phil Ault stated analysis was collaborated with Fresno Flood Control District. We have been informed that Fresno Metropolitan Flood Control District (FMFCD) denied they analyzed capacity for water to serve SEDA. When questioned by FMFCD, Mr. Ault stated he mis- spoke and meant Fresno Irrigation District (FID). We further understand that FID also denied analyzing water capacity to serve SEDA.

6. Environmental Justice Groups’ Comments are Improperly Dismissed.

We specifically requested that the FEIR address the comments made by various environmental and social justice groups in connection with the Notice of Preparation. (March 24, 2025 Letter, p. 28-29.) The FEIR improperly dodges answering these questions as beyond the scope of the FEIR.

7. Affordability of Housing Must be Ensured.

We commented that affordability of housing in the SEDA area must be ensured. (March 24, 2025 Letter, p. 29-30.) The FEIR dismisses this comment as a non-CEQA issue. (Response to SC-CVP-LWV-25). Ensuring affordability of housing is a high priority in California and must be viewed as an environmental as well as social, fiscal, and other type of issue.

When Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors approved the Tejon Ranch Centennial Development in northern Los Angeles County, they required an 18% inclusionary housing set aside. (https://www.cbsnews.com/losangeles/news/la-countyapproves-controversial-20k-home-development-in-antelope-valley/.) There is no evidence showing that a similar or greater inclusionary housing requirement as part of the SEDA approval would be infeasible.

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8. Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) Are Insufficiently Analyzed or Mitigated.

First, we note that there is no substantial evidence supporting the future provision of high-quality transit to SEDA, therefore no substantial evidence supporting the facially incredible VMT numbers in the EIR. (See CBD letter at p. 113 observing that New York City, a remarkably transit-rich city, has a per capita VMT rate of 15.2.) The Response to Comments cites the City’s thresholds of significance to justify its approach to reporting and analyzing VMT:

The City of Fresno CEQA standards for land use plans, such as SEDA, states that the project should compare the base year existing VMT per capita and/or VMT per employee with the horizon year with project VMT per capita and/or VMT per employee. If the horizon year with project VMT is higher than the base year, then there will be an impact.
(Resp. to Comments at p. 1-173, p. 199 of pdf.) However, the City’s thresholds do not excuse it from CEQA’s mandate that a lead agency “must use its best efforts to find out and disclose all that it reasonably can.” (CEQA Guidelines sec. 15144.) As to VMT, the RDEIR has not disclosed all that it reasonably can about SEDA VMT. The RDEIR does not provide the full environmental disclosure CEQA requires even of programmatic EIRs. Instead, it provides selective disclosure, focusing its analysis only on the per capita rate of VMT, and carefully declining to provide full disclosure as to the total, collective VMT that SEDA residents as a whole are projected to rack up.

Further, it only analyzes VMT for the time period ending in 2035, and not for the buildout horizon for the Project of 2050. (Appdx. H4 ,pp. 8, 13.) The computer model used to
predict Project VMT, the Fresno Council of Governments (FCOG)’s Activity Based Model (ABM) only forecasts VMT out to 2035. (Appdx. H, p. 13.) Hence, its VMT analysis does not even purport to encompass the full VMT impacts of the Project. The model predicts that:
3 The FEIR is not consecutively paginated, making page number citation impossible. This letter refers to individual comment letters by the name of the commenting entity and the internal page number of that comment, or by the number of the pdf page where the comment appears.
4 Note that the RDEIR has both an Appendix H (Transportation) and an Exhibit H (Responses to Comments). Material in this letter from Exhibit H is identified as from “Resp.to Comments” to avoid confusion.

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While total VMT is projected to increase due to population and employment growth, the VMT per Service Population is expected to decrease from 45.72 in the ‘No Project’ scenario to 5.07 in the ‘With Project’ scenario. (Appdx. H, p. 26.) In fact, the model predicts that the total SEDA VMT for 2035 - fifteen years short of full build-out – will nearly triple over the baseline conditions, from 371,397 miles per year to 974,369 miles per year. (Appdx. H, pp. 23, 26, respectively.) Appendix H does not, and due to the limitations of the ABM cannot, make any prediction as to the total Project VMT at full build-out.

However, Appendix B, the technical Air Quality appendix, does. It predicts that maximum total Project VMT will reach 150,601,353 miles per year. (Appdx. B, p. 24, Trip Summary Information.) The RDEIR’s focus on per-person VMT at the 2035 buildout level obscures the full amount of driving that the vast increase in population predicted for SEDA will cause. It also obscures the resulting emissions of GHGs that this driving will cause. Appendix B predicts that the total emissions of GHGs due to mobile sources (i.e., vehicle emissions) will be a whopping 63,331.7086 metric tons per year, measured as carbon dioxide equivalent.5
(Appdx. B, p. 9, Mitigated Operational.) The RDEIR does not analyze the significance of this level of GHG emissions, but its failure to present these data in the text of the RDEIR, rather than in a pair of technical appendices, is by itself a violation of CEQA’s full disclosure mandate. (Vineyard Area Citizens for Responsible Growth v. City of Rancho Cordova (2007) 40 Cal.4th 412, 442 [“[I]nformation ‘scattered here and there in EIR appendices' or a report ‘buried in an appendix,’ is not a substitute for ‘a good faith reasoned analysis.’”] (internal quotation marks omitted.)
Additionally, with the SEDA plan revolving around walkable communities to reduce VMT, it is contrary to this purpose that the City has removed the trails map.

B. Other Comments Are Incorporated by Reference and We Object to the Failure to Adequately Address Them.

We join the comments of other commenters to have identified various shortcomings and defects of the analysis and find that their comments have not been sufficiently addressed either. Specifically, we join the comments of the Center for Biological Diversity, the Southeast Property Owners’ Association, the Fresno Madera 5 Because the various greenhouse gases have vastly different global-warming capacity, they are often expressed as the amount of carbon dioxide that would have equal warming potency (CO2 equivalence, or CO2e
).

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Tulare and Kings Counties Central Labor Council, Regenerate California Innovation, and the County of Fresno and request legally adequate responses to their comment letters.

C. General Plan Inconsistencies and Inadequacies Prevent Approval of the SEDA Project.

We objected that, among other inconsistencies and failures to comply with the City of Fresno General Plan, the SEDA project would be inconsistent with general plan farm preservation policies, GHG reduction requirements, environmental justice requirements, and sustainable communities strategies. The Final EIR fails to adequately address these comments. SEDA cannot be approved because not only does it violate CEQA’s requirements for certification of legally compliant environmental review, but it also violates Planning and Zoning Law requirements for vertical and horizontal consistency of a specific plan with polices of the general plan.

D. A Statement of Overriding Considerations Cannot Be Approved Because it Would Be Insupportable.

A statement of overriding considerations pursuant to Public Resources Code section 21081 and CEQA Guidelines section 15091 would be required to approve the Project. The Planning Commission staff report notes the need for such a statement of overriding considerations but none was provided to the Planning Commission to form recommendations. No such statement of overriding considerations is supportable.

The City, and any responsible agencies granting approvals, would have to find that all feasible mitigation measures have been adopted, that there are no feasible environmentally superior alternatives available, and that Project benefits outweigh the Project’s significant impacts. Because the identified impacts are so extensive and funding has not been identified to pay for SEDA, neither the City nor any responsible agencies should override those impacts to approve the risky Project that does not carry sufficient benefits to local communities. The statement of overriding considerations cannot identify specific benefits of the project that override its impacts; there are no such overriding benefits.

The courts have unequivocally required a specific finding to ensure all feasible mitigation measures for significant impacts have been approved before adopting a statement of overriding considerations has been addressed. (See, e.g., Uphold Our Heritage v. Town of Woodside, supra, 147 Cal.App.4th at 603 [“A statement of overriding considerations is required, and offers a proper basis for approving a project despite the existence of unmitigated environmental effects, only when the measures necessary to mitigate or avoid those effects have properly been found to be infeasible,’” City of Fresno
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quoting City of Marina v. Board of Trustees of California State University (2006) 39 Cal.4th 341, 368].)
The Supreme Court has emphasized that mitigation measures must be shown to be “truly infeasible” before adopting a statement of overriding considerations in the context of infrastructure improvements. (City of Marina v. Board of Trustees of California State University (2006) 39 Cal.4th 341, 368–369 [“CEQA does not authorize an agency to proceed with a project that will have significant, unmitigated effects on the environment, based simply on a weighing of those effects against the project's benefits, unless the measures necessary to mitigate those effects are truly infeasible.”]) E. Procedural Violations and Irregularities Demand Recirculation of the EIR and a Longer Period for Public Review and Involvement.

Because the City has apparently revised the proposed SEDA Project, the EIR should be recirculated for further public review and comment. While it is not possible to determine exactly, it appears that the Project recommended by the Planning Commission is different from the proposed Project. Therefore, the Project should be more precisely defined and the EIR recirculated with an accurate project description.

The City should extend the time to review the Final EIR and SEDA project by continuing the approval hearing from December 18, 2025 into 2026. The Final EIR was only released shortly before the November Planning Commission hearing and left insufficient time for the public and public agencies to comment on it prior to Planning Commission approval. With the intervening Thanksgiving Holiday between the Planning Commission and City Council consideration of the SEDA Project and the end of year holidays, the City should take up the SEDA project in the new year, not in December. A rushed process of approval fails to provide a fair chance for public understanding and participation in the monumental decision about the City’s future growth.

The City did not respond to earlier comments on earlier versions of the DEIR or any other letters submitted at that time. The Final EIR should disclose and respond to all previously submitted comment letters on the various versions of the DEIR.

F. The RDEIR Cannot, By Itself, Support Approval of Individual Future Projects.

The SEDA RDEIR is inadequate to support approval of future SEDA projects without further CEQA review. Perhaps its chief inadequacy in this regard is that it does not demonstrate that it has imposed all feasible mitigation on this major, health-damaging Project. Rather, it explicitly shifts the future burden both of analysis and of mitigation to each individual project, showing a pattern of abdicating responsibility at the City level for reducing pollutant emissions and other Project impacts. (See, e.g., pdf pp. 39,356,442.) Deferral of almost all mitigation to project level without including restrictions or City of Fresno
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mandatory directives as to project design eliminates any claim of substantial evidence that adequate, effective mitigation will be imposed at the project level. Examples are lack of proof that transit service, let alone high-quality transit, will be provided, and lack of performance standards for mitigation measures. Approval of the Specific Plan for SEDA is the point at which comprehensive mitigation measures can and must be adopted. See Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) letter at pp.12-13 for mitigation measures that should be adopted at a program level. Further, there is no Checklist in the RDEIR upon which to claim the Government Code section 65457 exemption for individual project approvals based on the current RDEIR. The FEIR explicitly acknowledges this in Master Response 5 – Clarification of Programmatic Document, explaining:
[A] Program EIR is not expected to analyze site-specific or project-specific environmental impacts nor provide the level of detail found in a Project EIR. (FEIR, p. 2-9, p. 15 of pdf.) Master Response 5 is relied upon throughout the Response to Comment document to explain the absence of project-specific analysis. (See, e.g., FEIR pp.1-13 [p.39 of pdf],1-43 [p. 69 of pdf, and FEIR p. 1-68 [p.94 of pdf.]) G. The City’s General Plan Failings Identified by the Court of Appeal Have Not Been Rectified or Would be Repeated in SEDA.

In litigation brought by the South Fresno Community Alliance to challenge the City of Fresno’s approval of a program EIR for the ongoing implementation of its General Plan in 2021, the Court of Appeal rendered a decision filed August 6, 2024 that stated:

As explained below, the City failed to properly describe the environmental setting, failed to substantiate its GHG analysis vis-à-vis state targets, improperly deferred air quality mitigation measures, unjustifiably found traffic mitigation infeasible, failed to analyze potential impacts on pedestrians, inadequately addressed groundwater decline, and failed to reasonably discuss project alternatives. We reverse the judgment and order appropriate relief in the disposition. (South Fresno Community Alliance v. City of Fresno (Cal. Ct. App., Aug. 6, 2024, No.

F086180) 2024 WL 3663122, at *2 (Opinion).) The City is unfortunately repeating many of the mistakes, errors, and omissions it made in its approvals in that litigation with the present SEDA approval. We incorporate this entire opinion in this letter by reference.

Among other comments we have made, the City must also identify every sensitive receptor in SEDA (Opinion, p. 14), must mandate measurable reductions in air pollution to achieve standards (Opinion, p. 20), cannot assume state goals for GHG reductions apply locally without supporting evidence (Opinion, p. 30), cannot allow non-land-useconforming projects to move forward while emitting GHG at a level deemed significant City of Fresno
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so long as they otherwise demonstrate consistency with various general plan policies (Opinion, p. 33), cannot fail to explain why VMT mitigation is infeasible at the general plan level and defer that discussion to future EIRs (Opinion, p. 38), must consider consideration of potential safety issues to pedestrians and bicyclists (Opinion, p. 40), and must ensure complete discussion of groundwater usage mitigation measures (Opinion, p.

43.)
Conclusion.

The RDEIR must be revised and recirculated with sufficient information about mitigation measures and feasible alternatives to the environmentally damaging and unfunded SEDA project.

Thank you for your consideration of these comments.

Sincerely,

Douglas P. Carstens
Michelle Black

Enclosure 1:

Court of Appeal decision filed in South Fresno Community Alliance v. City of Fresno (Cal. Ct. App., Aug. 6, 2024, No. F086180) 2024 WL 3663122.

ENCLOSURE 1
Filed 8/6/24 South Fresno Community Alliance v. City of Fresno CA5

NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS
California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for publication or ordered published, except as specified by rule 8.1115(b). This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

FIFTH APPELLATE DISTRICT

SOUTH FRESNO COMMUNITY ALLIANCE,
Plaintiff and Appellant,
v.

CITY OF FRESNO, et al.,
Defendants and Respondents.

F086180
(Super. Ct. No. 21CECG03237)

OPINION
APPEAL from a judgment of the Superior Court of Fresno County. Jeffrey Y.

Hamilton, Jr., Judge.

Shute, Mihaly & Weinberger, Ellison Folk, Marlene Dehlinger, Mindy K. Jian; Leadership Counsel for Justice and Accountability, Ashley Werner and Phoebe S. Seaton, for Plaintiff and Appellant.

Andrew Janz, City Attorney, Talia Kolluri, Assistant City Attorney; Aleshire & Wynder, Anthony R. Taylor, John W. Fox, and Michael C. Huston, for Defendants and Respondents.
-ooOoo-

2. In 2014, the City of Fresno (Fresno or the City) adopted its current general plan.1 At the same time, it certified completing a Master Environmental Impact Report (MEIR), in compliance with the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA; Pub. Resources Code,2 § 21000 et seq.). Five years later, the City proposed amending its general plan to comply with state law3 while also completing a new Program Environmental Impact Report (PEIR) to continue implementing that plan, i.e., the project in this case. The PEIR included a Greenhouse Gas Reduction Plan Update (Guidelines,4 § 15183.5). The City indeed, in 2021, amended its general plan and certified completing the new PEIR.

South Fresno Community Alliance (Alliance) filed a petition for writ of mandate in the superior court, challenging the project approval and PEIR’s compliance with CEQA. (§§ 21168 & 21168.5.) Alliance raised numerous arguments, generally alleging that Fresno failed “to complete a thorough analysis of the significant adverse impacts of 1 By law, “each city and county must ‘adopt a comprehensive, long-term general plan’ for its own ‘physical development’ as well as ‘any land outside its boundaries which in the planning agency’s judgment bears relation to its planning.’ ” (Orange Citizens for Parks & Recreation v. Superior Court (2016) 2 Cal.5th 141, 152.) The general plan essentially becomes “ ‘the “constitution for all future developments” within the city or county.’ ” (Ibid.)
2 Undesignated statutory references are to the Public Resources Code. 3 In 2013, the Legislature enacted Senate Bill No. 743 (Reg. Sess. 2013-2014), which essentially changed the metric for analyzing transportation related impacts from level of service to vehicle miles traveled. This change in law was a major force underlying the new EIR.
4 Guidelines references are to California Code of Regulations, title 14, section 15000 et. seq. “The CEQA Guidelines …, promulgated by the state Natural Resources Agency …, are statutorily mandated to provide ‘criteria for public agencies to follow in determining whether or not a proposed project may have a ‘significant effect on the environment.” ’ (§ 21083, subd. (b).) We give the Guidelines great weight in interpreting CEQA, except where they are clearly unauthorized or erroneous.’ ” (Center for Biological Diversity v. Department of Fish & Wildlife (2015) 62 Cal.4th 204, 217, fn. 4 (Fish & Wildlife).)

3. [the] General Plan,” and by including “vague, nonbinding policies … to reduce [greenhouse gas (GHG)] emissions ….” Fresno, for its part, resisted.

The superior court denied the petition and entered judgment in Fresno’s favor. It concluded Alliance “fail[ed] to challenge the substantive changes to the … General Plan[] and inappropriately challenge[d] the already approved project as a whole, after the time to raise the[] challenges ha[d] long expired.” It also found “there [were] no allegations … asserting that subsequent review of a previously certified EIR [was] required.”
Alliance raises numerous issues on appeal, in several of which we find merit. As explained below, the City failed to properly describe the environmental setting, failed to substantiate its GHG analysis vis-à-vis state targets, improperly deferred air quality mitigation measures, unjustifiably found traffic mitigation infeasible, failed to analyze potential impacts on pedestrians, inadequately addressed groundwater decline, and failed to reasonably discuss project alternatives. We reverse the judgment and order appropriate relief in the disposition.

BACKGROUND
When Fresno implemented its current general plan in 2014, it concurrently adopted a MEIR. The general plan has a “horizon year of 2035.” The plan defines horizon as the “level of development predicted to occur by 2035 ….” In 2019, Fresno proposed adopting a PEIR because a MEIR is legally valid for only five years (§ 21157.6). In connection with this proposal, the City publicly announced, and described the project as, “updating the existing [MEIR] and converting it to a [PEIR]” with an intention to conform to state law “related to Vehicle Miles Traveled [VMT]” and to update its “Greenhouse Gas Reduction Plan.” These changes would allow Fresno to “continue[] implement[ing]” its general plan and “to streamline [that] implementation … with updated environmental analysis, regulatory framework, and mitigation measures ….”

4. The PEIR analyzed numerous impacts including air quality, GHG emissions, hydrology, and transportation. During the environmental review process required by CEQA, several comments were submitted challenging various portions of the PEIR.

Pertinent here, those comments raised concerns with air quality, GHG emissions, hydrology, and transportation.

In September 2021, the Fresno City Council passed resolution Nos. 2021-269 and 2021-270, certifying the City completed the PEIR in compliance with CEQA, and adopted a statement of overriding considerations, approving the general plan amendment. (See Guidelines §§ 15090(a)(1) [certification], 15092 [project approval], 15093 [statement of overriding considerations].) The PEIR and statement of overriding considerations, together, identified GHG emissions and decreased groundwater levels as potentially significant impacts mitigated to less than significant. It also found impacts to air quality and transportation were significant and unavoidable. Finally, it concluded “economic and social considerations outweigh[ed] the remaining environmental effects of approval and implementation of the project.”
After the City approved the project, Alliance filed a petition in the trial court seeking a writ of mandate. The petition alleged various CEQA violations: “Us[ing] an inaccurate, incomplete, conflicted and inconsistent project description,” “[f]ail[ing] to consider an adequate range of feasible alternatives,” “using” an improper “baseline,” “[f]ail[ing] to adequately disclose, analyze, or mitigate” impacts relating to “air quality and sensitive populations,” “climate change,” “cyclists, pedestrians, and transit riders,” “and groundwater.” Alliance sought to “vacate and set aside” “the PEIR and associated approvals,” order compliance with CEQA, declare the PEIR “inadequate,” and declare it and the “GHG Plan” insufficient to “streamline” future project analyses.

The City opposed the petition in its entirety, raising several procedural and substantive defenses. The trial court denied the writ petition. It concluded Alliance “fail[ed] to challenge the substantive changes to the project, the 2014 General Plan, and

5. inappropriately challenge[d] the already approved project as a whole, after the time to raise th[o]se challenges ha[d] long expired.”

DISCUSSION
Alliance raises several issues on appeal.5 Generally, it contends the PEIR 1) improperly described the project’s environmental setting, 2) failed to discuss specific health consequences, 3) inadequately mitigated construction-related dust, 4) unlawfully deferred air quality mitigation, 5) improperly analyzed GHG emissions, 6) failed to mitigate traffic-related impacts, 7) did not mitigate groundwater decline, and 9) inadequately discussed project alternatives. Fresno opposes each point, raising various procedural and substantive arguments. Each party’s positions are discussed in further detail below.

As mentioned, we find merit in Alliance’s arguments related to environmental setting, GHG analysis, air quality mitigation, traffic mitigation, groundwater mitigation, and project alternatives. Accordingly, we reverse the judgment.

I. CEQA Overview and Reviewing Standard
“ ‘The foremost principle under CEQA is that the Legislature intended the act “to be interpreted in such manner as to afford the fullest possible protection to the environment within the reasonable scope of the statutory language.” ’ [Citation.] ‘With narrow exceptions, CEQA requires an EIR whenever a public agency proposes to approve or to carry out a project that may have a significant effect on the environment. [Citations.]’ [Citations.] The basic purpose of an EIR is to ‘provide public agencies and the public in general with detailed information about the effect [that] a proposed project is likely to have on the environment; to list ways in which the significant effects of such a project might be minimized; and to indicate alternatives to such a project.’ [Citations.] 5 After we address procedural points, the issues are discussed in the order presented in Alliance’s opening brief.

6. ‘Because the EIR must be certified or rejected by public officials, it is a document of accountability. If CEQA is scrupulously followed, the public will know the basis on which its responsible officials either approve or reject environmentally significant action, and the public, being duly informed, can respond accordingly to action with which it disagrees.’ [Citation.] The EIR ‘protects not only the environment but also informed self-government.’ ” (Sierra Club v. County of Fresno (2018) 6 Cal.5th 502, 511-512, fn. omitted (Sierra Club).) “The fundamental goal of an EIR is to inform decision makers and the public of any significant adverse effects a project is likely to have on the physical environment.” (Neighbors for Smart Rail v. Exposition Metro Line Construction Authority (2013) 57 Cal.4th 439, 447 (Neighbors).)
“The standard of review in a CEQA case, as provided in sections 21168.5 and 21005, is abuse of discretion.” (Sierra Club, supra, 6 Cal.5th at p. 512.) “While we determine de novo whether [a lead] agency has employed the correct procedures, “scrupulously enforc[ing] all legislatively mandated CEQA requirements” [citation], we accord greater deference to the agency’s substantive factual conclusions. In reviewing for substantial evidence, the reviewing court “may not set aside an agency’s approval of an EIR on the ground that an opposite conclusion would have been equally or more reasonable[.]’ ” (Ibid.)
“ ‘Substantial evidence challenges are resolved much as substantial evidence claims in any other setting: a reviewing court will resolve reasonable doubts in favor of the administrative decision, and will not set aside an agency’s determination on the ground that the opposite conclusion would have been equally or more reasonable. [Citations.] [¶] A claim that an agency failed to act in a manner required by law presents other considerations. Noncompliance with substantive requirements of CEQA or noncompliance with information disclosure provisions ‘which precludes relevant information from being presented to the public agency ... may constitute prejudicial abuse of discretion within the meaning of Sections 21168 and 21168.5, regardless of whether a

7. different outcome would have resulted if the public agency had complied with those provisions.” [Citation.] ... [W]hen an agency fails to proceed [as CEQA requires], harmless error analysis is inapplicable. The failure to comply with the law subverts the purposes of CEQA if it omits material necessary to informed decisionmaking and informed public participation. Case law is clear that, in such cases, the error is prejudicial.” (Sierra Club, supra, 6 Cal.5th at p. 515.) CEQA does “not require technical perfection or scientific certainty[.]” (Sierra Club, supra, 6 Cal.5th at p. 515.) Reviewing courts look “ ‘ “ ‘not for an exhaustive analysis but for adequacy, completeness[,] and a good-faith effort at full disclosure.’ ” ’ ” (Ibid.)
II. Tiering and Program EIRs
“CEQA … permits the environmental analysis for long-term, multipart projects to be ‘tiered[.]’ ” (Vineyard Area Citizens for Responsible Growth, Inc. v. City of Rancho Cordova (2007) 40 Cal.4th 412, 429 (Vineyard).) A program EIR “is a type of EIR that agencies often use to examine a broad program or plan that will be followed by more narrow, related projects, which can be analyzed in more focused CEQA documents that ‘tier’ from the program EIR.” (Save Berkeley’s Neighborhoods v. Regents of University of California (2020) 51 Cal.App.5th 226, 236.) “A tiered EIR is required for a later project consistent with the larger program if the project may cause significant environmental effects that were not examined in the prior EIR.” (Ibid.) “[T]he broad overall impacts analyzed in an EIR at the first-tier programmatic level need not be reassessed as each of the project’s subsequent, narrower phases is approved, but tiering ‘is not a device for deferring the identification of significant environmental impacts that the adoption of a specific plan can be expected to cause.’ ” (Vineyard, supra, 40 Cal.4th at p. 429, fn. omitted.) “Tiering is proper ‘when it helps a public agency to focus upon the issues ripe for decision at each level of environmental review and in order to exclude duplicative analysis of environmental effects examined in

8. previous environmental impact reports.’ ” (In re Bay-Delta etc. (2008) 43 Cal.4th 1143, 1170 (Bay-Delta).)
“While proper tiering of environmental review allows an agency to defer analysis of certain details of later phases of long-term linked or complex projects until those phases are up for approval, CEQA’s demand for meaningful information ‘is not satisfied by simply stating information will be provided in the future.’ ” (Vineyard, supra, 40 Cal.4th at p. 431.) “ ‘Tiering does not excuse the lead agency from adequately analyzing reasonably foreseeable significant environmental impacts of the project and does not justify deferring such analysis to a later tier EIR or negative declaration.’ [Citation.] Tiering is properly used to defer analysis of environmental impacts and mitigation measures to later phases when the impacts or mitigation measures are not determined by the first-tier approval decision but are specific to the later phases.” (Ibid.) “[T]he sufficiency of a program EIR must be reviewed in light of what is reasonably feasible, given the nature and scope of the project.” (Center for Biological Diversity v. California Department of Conservation, etc. (2019) 36 Cal.App.5th 210, 230 (Conservation).) “The level of specificity required in an EIR is determined by the nature of the project and the rule of reason.” (Fish & Wildlife, supra, 234 Cal.App.4th at p. 233.)
III. Procedural Issues
Preliminarily, we first consider Fresno’s arguments the PEIR is beyond challenge and that Alliance did not exhaust administrative remedies because it failed to raise certain points during the public review segment mandated by CEQA. We reject each argument.

A. The PEIR is Subject to Challenge
The City alleges Alliance “does not challenge the PEIR with respect to analysis of a project requiring … approval, but [instead challenges] analysis of [Fresno’s] already approved 2014 General Plan as a whole.” It concludes Alliance’s “challenges are time barred.” We disagree.

9. The City in this case opted to adopt a new EIR when amending its general plan, rather than seeking to extend the MEIR’s viability under section 21157.6. That section provides a MEIR “shall not be used” if it was certified “more than five years prior to the filing of an application for [a] subsequent project.” (§ 21157.6, subds. (a) & (a)(1).) An exception exists, however, “if the lead agency reviews the adequacy of the [MEIR] and” either “finds [1)] no substantial changes have occurred with respect to the circumstances under which the [MEIR] was certified or[, 2)] that no new information … has become available” or it “[p]repares an initial study and, pursuant to the” study’s findings, either 3) “[c]ertifies a subsequent or supplemental [EIR],” or 4) “[a]pproves a mitigated negative declaration” addressing “substantial changes that have occurred with respect to the circumstances under which the” MEIR was certified. (§ 21157.6, subds. (b) & (b)(1)-(2).) Fresno did not follow this statute in this case, instead opting to adopt a new EIR.

CEQA applies to “project[s] proposed to be carried out or approved ….” (§ 21080, subd. (a).) A project includes “amendment of local General Plans ….” (Guidelines, § 15378, subd. (a)(1).) Accordingly, the choice to instead adopt an entirely new PEIR when amending its general plan obligated the City to fully comply with CEQA, insofar is it related to the amended general plan.6 B. Exhaustion
Fresno contends Alliance, during CEQA’s public review mandate, failed to properly challenge “GHG emissions calculation methodology,” mitigation measure “AIR-3.1,” and mitigation measure “HYD-2.1.” It concludes it “had no opportunity to consider and respond to these [points] at the administrative level and [Alliance] is barred from challenging the PEIR on these grounds” on appeal. We disagree the points were not properly raised below.
6 The amendment did not propose any land use changes.

10. i. Additional Background
The PEIR contains several mitigation measures including AIR-3.1 and HYD-2.1.

These are discussed in detail post. Generally, AIR-3.1 deals with air quality impacts related to certain large “industrial or warehousing land uses” “within a 1,000 feet of a sensitive land use ….” HYD-2.1 deals with groundwater depletion.

Throughout the public review process, Alliance submitted multiple, detailed letters objecting to the PEIR. Alliance’s various letters asserted the PEIR “fail[ed] to comprehensively address how it will ‘ensure conformity’ ” “ ‘with the mandates of [the] California Supreme Court in the Newhall Ranch case,’ ” inadequately mitigated air quality impacts because the mitigation measures were improper, and failed to discuss “current groundwater availability for residential communities and households which rely on domestic wells for their everyday water needs ….”
ii. Analysis
“ ‘ “In order to attack a decision that is subject to CEQA, the alleged grounds for noncompliance must have been presented to the public agency, and the person attacking the decision must have raised some objection during the administrative proceedings. (§ 21177, subds. (a), (b).)” [Citation.] Although an issue must first have been raised during the administrative process to be preserved for judicial review, it may be argued in court by a different person. [Citation.]’ [Citation.] ‘ “[T]he objections must be sufficiently specific so that the agency has the opportunity to evaluate and respond to them.” [Citation.] This requirement is known as the exhaustion doctrine. [Citation.] The rationale behind this rule is that the public agency should have the opportunity to receive and respond to articulated factual issues and legal theories before its actions are subjected to judicial review.’ ” (Save the Hill Group v. City of Livermore (2022) 76 Cal.App.5th 1092, 1104-1105.)
Alliance sufficiently raised the GHG methodology, air quality mitigation, and groundwater depletion issues. The reference to “the Newhall Ranch case” is to the

11. California Supreme Court’s seminal decision on GHG methodology: Center for Biological Diversity v. Department of Fish and Wildlife (2015) 62 Cal.4th 204 (Newhall Ranch). It derives its short cite from the underlying “development called Newhall Ranch.”7 (Id. at p. 213.)
Next, while it is true, as Fresno argues, Alliance did not specifically challenge AIR-3.1—instead challenging related air quality mitigation measures—we find it sufficiently preserved the challenge. Without a doubt, Fresno was aware its air quality mitigation measures were challenged as inadequate. The points raised by Alliance relative to the other air quality mitigation measures were identical and the City declined to make any changes to those challenged measures. Because we will also find fault in the related mitigation measures, post, there is no practical reason to impose a bar to challenging AIR-3.1. Put simply, the City was “ ‘fairly apprise[d]’ ” of the concerns relating to air quality mitigation. (Preservation Action Council of San Jose v. City of San Jose (2023) 91 Cal.App.5th 517, 542.)
Last, Fresno was clearly on notice its groundwater mitigation relative to presentday wells was at issue. In sum, there is no exhaustion bar to review any issue in this case.

IV. Existing Environmental Setting
“[A]n EIR must delineate environmental conditions prevailing absent the project, defining a ‘baseline’ against which predicted effects can be described and quantified.” (Neighbors, supra, 57 Cal.4th at p. 447.) Here, Alliance faults the PEIR’s environmental setting for “fail[ing] to identify the locations and numbers of sensitive receptors— including schools, day care facilities, and even entire neighborhoods—in and around the areas [] the General Plan targets for industrial expansion.” It similarly decries a failure to 7 CEQA litigators, including the parties in this case, and some case law, often refer to this Supreme Court decision as Newhall Ranch.

12. “disclose the localized existing pollution burdens and the disproportionate health impacts faced by residents in these parts of the city.”
Fresno suggests “[t]he PEIR accurately and sufficiently describes the environmental setting and baseline for air quality … including sensitive receptors ….” Alliance has the better argument.

A. Additional Background
The City’s general plan establishes policies about future growth for its “Planning Area” which encompasses about 106,000 acres. The Planning Area includes both land within the city’s limits and approximately 33,800 acres in unincorporated areas slated for future growth. Accordingly, the PEIR describes the existing environmental setting as follows: “The study area for project impact regarding air quality is the City of Fresno Planning Area and proximate sensitive receptors potentially impacted by a project within the Planning Area.” The PEIR notes the study area is within the San Joaquin Valley Air Basin and the regional agency with jurisdiction over air quality in the air basin is the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District (SJVAPCD). The baseline date for the existing environment was May 16, 2019.

The PEIR defines “sensitive receptors” as individuals who are sensitive to air pollution including children, the elderly, and persons with preexisting respiratory or cardiovascular illness. It also refers to the SJVAPCD characterizing sensitive receptors as locations housing or attracting children, the elderly, people with illnesses, or other who are especially sensitive to air pollutants. Examples given are residences, schools, hospitals, and convalescent facilities.

The PEIR also mentions the Air Quality Land Use Handbook’s statement describing sensitive land uses as homes, medical facilities, daycare centers, schools, and playgrounds. Finally, the PEIR states “[t]here are many sensitive receptors throughout the city ….”

13. Alliance, in a comment letter, pointed out the PEIR “include[d] no description about the location of existing sensitive receptors which may be exposed to air pollution ….” Specifically, it asked Fresno to “identify the location of sensitive receptors in relation to areas designated for industrial and warehouse development and other land uses which may be expected to generate substantial quantities of toxic air contaminants as well as to roadways expected to experience high volumes of diesel truck traffic and car traffic ….” Alliance’s letter also asserted the PEIR did not describe the existing, localized pollution to “vulnerable communities” in “South Fresno[.]” In response, Fresno stated “[p]rogrammatic analysis [could not] include an identification of the location of all existing sensitive receptors ….” It added that the PEIR “include[d] a detailed discussion regarding the South Central [Community Emissions Reduction Plan (CERP)],” which itself contained an “analysis describing the sources of pollution impacting [South Fresno], as well as the location of sensitive receptors” in the area.

The PEIR does include a section about the “South Central Fresno CERP.” It explains the CERP was adopted by the California Air Resources Board and describes “the sources of pollution impacting” South Fresno, including the sensitive receptors in the area. Its purpose is “to focus on reducing” air pollution and emissions in South Central Fresno.

B. Analysis
An EIR “must include a description of the physical environmental conditions in the vicinity of the project. This environmental setting will normally constitute the baseline physical conditions by which a lead agency determines whether an impact is significant. The description of the environmental setting shall be no longer than is necessary to provide an understanding of the significant effects of the proposed project and its alternatives. The purpose of this requirement is to give the public and decision

14. makers the most accurate and understandable picture practically possible of the project’s likely near-term and long-term impacts.”8 (Guidelines, § 15125(a).) “If the description of the environmental setting ‘ “is inaccurate, incomplete or misleading, the EIR does not comply with CEQA. [Citation.] ‘Without accurate and complete information pertaining to the setting of the project and surrounding uses, it cannot be found that the [EIR] adequately investigated and discussed the environmental impacts of the development project.’ ” ’ ” (Cleveland National Forest Foundation v. San Diego Assn. of Governments (2017) 17 Cal.App.5th 413, 439-440 (San Diego).) “The fact more precise information may be available during the next tier of environmental review does not excuse [a lead agency] from providing what information it reasonably can now.” (Id. at p. 440.) “While foreseeing the unforeseeable is not possible, an agency must use its best efforts to find out and disclose all that it reasonably can.” (Guidelines, § 15144.)
Alliance here asked Fresno to include information in the PEIR regarding sensitive receptors in South Fresno. Fresno declined, claiming it could not identify “all existing sensitive receptors ….” The claim is not supported by substantial evidence, because Fresno simultaneously acknowledged sensitive receptors in South Fresno were identified in the CERP.9 The CERP is not a substitute for information in the PEIR.10 The error by 8 A future baseline is appropriate if “justified by unusual aspects of the project or the surrounding conditions.” (Neighbors, supra, 57 Cal.4th at p. 451.) 9 The CERP is included in the record on appeal and indeed contains a map identifying sensitive receptors throughout Fresno.
10 The PEIR discusses the CERP. It does not, however, meaningfully describe sensitive receptors or the pollution in South Fresno. In sum, it states the CERP “was adopted by [the California Air Resources Board]” in 2019 “and [was] now in the implementation phase. The CERP includes a technical analysis describing the sources of pollution impacting the community, as well as the location of sensitive receptors within the community. Sources of pollution that are of particular concern to South Central Fresno are highlighted, and possible strategies for reducing pollution impacts from these sources are evaluated.”

15. omission, however, is not prejudicial. Alliance has not articulated any prejudice relating to the omission, simply stating instead the omission “precluded ‘ informed decisionmaking ….’ ” We reject the blanket statement. Notably, we find no other error in the environmental setting description.

V. Air Quality Impacts
An EIR must “make[] a reasonable effort to substantively connect a project’s air quality impacts to likely health consequences.” (Sierra Club, supra, 6 Cal.5th at p. 510.) Alliance asserts the PEIR “fails to meet this standard.” Specifically, Alliance contends the PEIR unreasonably assumes greater analysis relative to air quality impacts was not possible. For example, it criticizes using an incorporated-by-reference brief from the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District (SJVAPCD) in 2015 to supply an explanation in the PEIR that “currently available modeling tools are not equipped to provide a meaningful analysis ….” Fresno responds by claiming the PEIR “expressly explains” its limited analysis and “supports [the] explanation with substantial evidence.” We agree for two reasons.

First, the SJVAPCD brief was properly incorporated by reference. (Guidelines, § 15150.) That brief indeed explains why a more meaningful analysis is not possible for “localized health impacts associated with” air quality impacts.11 Second, while it is true the SJVAPCD brief was authored—as Alliance points out—several years prior to the PEIR in this case, there is no evidence its analysis relative to analyzing air quality impacts is outdated. Alliance bears the burden to demonstrate otherwise, and it has failed to discharge that burden. (Santa Rita Union School District v.

City of Salinas (2023) 94 Cal.App.5th 298, 332 [EIRs are presumed correct and 11 The SJVAPCD brief cites difficulties including “wind transport,” “[m]etereology, the presence of sunlight, and other complex chemical factors,” and the simple fact current models are regional in nature, i.e., “not accurate when applied at the local level.”

16. challenger bears burden of proving error].) The PEIR conclusion no further analysis was possible is supported by substantial evidence.12
VI. Construction Related Dust Mitigation
The PEIR concludes “fugitive dust impacts from construction are … less than significant” due to mandated compliance with SJVAPCD “Regulation VIII ….” Alliance suggests the conclusion “is based on flawed reasoning” because the regulation itself acknowledges it “ ‘may not be sufficient to reduce project specific emissions to less than significant levels’ ” in every instance.

Fresno argues the context in which the PEIR analyzes “construction-related fugitive dust impacts” is “implementation of the General Plan ….” In other words, it argues “[f]ugitive dust impacts are inherently variable, and analysis of such impacts will vary according to project.” We agree with Fresno that the PEIR properly concludes dust impacts are less than significant at the program level.

A. Additional Background
A SJVAPCD document entitled “Guidance for Assessing and Mitigating Air Quality Impacts” describes Regulation VIII as “requiring actions to prevent, reduce or mitigate anthropogenic fugitive dust emissions.” It highlights “measures to control fugitive dust” and notes “compliance with … Regulation VIII substantially reduces project specific fugitive dust emissions, [but] may not be sufficient to reduce project specific emissions to less than significant levels.” It later restates this qualifier, stating certain projects may “warrant additional … reductions necessary to minimize dust emissions to less than significant levels.”
Rule 8021, part of Regulation VIII, lists the requirements for abating dust. These measures include utilizing water, “wind barriers,” controlling vehicles, and ceasing 12 Similarly, the PEIR explains toxic emissions are controlled by permits issued by SJVAPCD, rendering it impossible to forecast those emissions and associated risk.

17. activity when dust exceeds a certain threshold. The rule also requires a “Dust Control Plan” whenever construction “will include 10 acres or more of disturbed surface area for residential developments, or 5 acres or more of disturbed surface area for non-residential development, or will include moving, depositing, or relocating more than 2,500 cubic yards per day of bulk materials on at least three days.” The PEIR also includes mitigation measure “AIR-2.1[.]” This mitigation measure requires “future discretionary project[s]” to “prepare and submit … a technical assessment evaluating potential project construction phase-related air quality impacts,” including dust. If the assessment reveals “the potential to exceed … SJVAPCD” thresholds, projects must incorporate additional mitigation measures to reduce emissions.

B. Analysis
Regulation VIII and AIR-2.1 combine to support the PEIR’s conclusion “fugitive dust impacts from construction are … less than significant.” Fresno correctly points out the PEIR is focused on implementing the city’s general plan, and not a specific, concrete development. The conclusion dust impacts are less than significant is proper at the program level. (Conservation, supra, 36 Cal.App.5th at p. 230; Fish & Wildlife, supra, 234 Cal.App.4th at p. 233.)
Dust mitigation—Regulation VIII and AIR-2.1—will apply broadly to all future projects within the city.13 To the extent some projects might demand additional mitigation, the mitigation measures sufficiently capture the outliers: additional mitigation is necessary to remain within the SJVAPCD threshold level.14 13 Alliance does not argue the dust mitigation measures are vague, nonbinding, or deferred.
14 Alliance asserts no “threshold of significance specific to fugitive dust exists ….” Our review, however, reveals otherwise. Regulation VIII equates “fine particulate matter” to “fugitive dust emissions” and there is indeed a performance standard for fine particulate matter in the record.

18. VII. Air Quality Mitigation
Next, Alliance believes the PEIR “improperly defer[s] mitigation of air quality impacts” and “fails to justify its rejection of feasible measures that would mitigate air quality impacts.” We address each in turn.

A. Deferring Specific Details of Mitigation
“ ‘Formulation of mitigation measures shall not be deferred until some future time.’ [Citation.] ‘However, the specific details of a mitigation measure … may be developed after project approval when it is impractical or infeasible to include those details during the project’s environmental review provided that the agency (1) commits itself to the mitigation, (2) adopts specific performance standards the mitigation will achieve, and (3) identifies the type(s) of potential action(s) that can feasibly achieve that performance standard and that will [be] considered, analyzed, and potentially incorporated in the mitigation measure.’ [Citations.] Where an EIR improperly defers mitigation, the approving agency abuses its discretion by failing to proceed as required by law.” (Golden Door Properties, LLC v. County of San Diego (2020) 50 Cal.App.5th 467, 518-519 (Golden Door), quoting Guidelines, § 15126.4, subd. (a)(1)(B).) Alliance suggests the PEIR’s three air quality mitigation measures—described below—“unlawfully defer[]” mitigation because “they [] lack objective performance standards[] and [] include a menu of ‘possible’ mitigating actions,” inviting discretion “without requiring” any particular reductions. Fresno argues the measures are compliant with the law; we disagree, as explained below.
i. Additional Background
The PEIR contains, as pertinent, three air quality mitigation measures—AIR-2.1,

2.2, and 3.1. Measure AIR-2.1 applies to future, proposed project “construction phaserelated air quality impacts.” It states that “[i]f construction related air pollutants are determined to have the potential to exceed the SJVAPCD-adopted threshold of significance,” then project applicants are required to “incorporate mitigation measures

19. into construction plans to reduce air pollutant emissions during construction activities.” It then lists several possible measures, for example, “power supply meters … whenever feasible,” restricting equipment and vehicle idling, limiting vehicle routes, and removing vegetation only as necessary.

AIR-2.2 is modeled identically to AIR-2.1 but applies to “operation-related air quality impacts.” “If operation-related air pollutants are determined to have the potential to exceed the SJVACPD-adopted thresholds of significance,” then project applicants are required to “incorporate mitigation measures to reduce air pollutant emissions during operational activities.” It also includes possible mitigation measures, including “demonstrat[ing] an adequate number of electrical service connections,” “consider[ing] energy storage,” restricting equipment and vehicle idling, installing electric vehicle chargers, maximizing “solar panels,” optimizing paint colors to reflect heat, and maximizing tree planting.

AIR-3.1 applies to “new industrial or warehousing [projects] that[] have the potential to generate 100 or more truck trips per day or have 40 or more trucks with operating diesel-powered transport refrigeration units[] and [] are within 1,000 feet of a sensitive land use (e.g., residential, schools, hospitals, or nursing homes) ….” These projects are required to “submit a Health Risk Assessment [] to the City ….” If the assessment “shows that the incremental health risks exceed their respective thresholds, as established by the SJVAPCD at the time a project is considered,” then applicants must “identify and demonstrate best available control technologies … to reduce [those] risks to an acceptable level.” The measure includes such potential technologies. ii. Analysis
The air quality mitigation measures—AIR-2.1, 2.2, and 3.1—do not comply with Guidelines section 15126.4 because they fail to mandate reduction at a specific level. In general, we agree identifying specific details for air quality mitigation at the program level is appropriately deferred because there are no individual projects currently

20. proposed. We also agree the measures in this case commit to mitigation and identify performance standards. Where the air quality mitigation measures fall short, however, is in their consistent failure to demand measurable reductions to achieve those standards.

AIR-2.1 and 2.2 simply require “measures to reduce air pollutant emissions ….” AIR-3.1 requires reductions “to an acceptable level.” These “generalized goal[s]” violate CEQA as they do not “ensure the mitigation goal,” i.e., emissions below SJVAPCD thresholds, “will be achieved.” (See Golden Door, supra, 50 Cal.App.5th at pp. 519- 520.)
While it is certainly likely the PEIR intended and meant to require reducing emissions below SJVAPCD thresholds, as presently worded it simply does not require that reduction. In other words, there is no standard “which could be corrected in a court mandamus proceeding.” (Sierra Club, supra, 6 Cal.5th at p. 526.) “Simply stating a generalized goal for mitigating an impact does not allow the measure to qualify” as a deferred mitigation measure. (King & Gardiner Farms, LLC v. County of Kern (2020) 45 Cal.App.5th 814, 856 (King & Gardner).) In sum, “reduc[ing] air pollutant emissions” and “reduc[ing] risks to an acceptable level” are not objectively enforceable standards.15
15 Relatedly, Alliance points out mandating mitigation measures only when “ ‘absolutely necessary’ ” or “ ‘feasible’ ” is not permissible. While true, because the issue in this case involves deferred mitigation, the measure need only identify “potential action(s) that can feasibly achieve” the performance standard. (Guidelines, § 15126.4, subd. (a)(1)(B).) The identified actions are not final and, because the relief granted in the disposition includes setting aside the project’s approval and accompanying certifications, Fresno may ensure its listed potential actions are not vague and do not invite discretion, e.g., failing to define “adequate” in “demonstrate an adequate number of electrical service connections ….” (See Golden Door, supra, 50 Cal.App.5th at pp. 520-521 [mitigation must contain “objective and measurable standard for what ‘feasible’ ” means]; King & Gardiner, supra, 45 Cal.App.5th at p. 862 [mitigation must be enforceable through objective standard]; Endangered Habitats League, Inc. v. County of Orange (2005) 131 Cal.App.4th 777, 793-794 [lead agency’s satisfaction is not an objective standard].)

21. B. Rejecting Proposed Mitigation
During relevant comment periods, both SJVAPCD and Alliance recommended additional air quality impact mitigation. Fresno declined to adopt any additional mitigation measures relative to air quality.

Alliance now asserts Fresno “fail[ed] to justify its rejection of feasible measures that would mitigate air quality impacts.” Fresno responds by claiming SJVAPCD merely offered suggestions—not actual mitigation measures—but does not explicitly address Alliance’s proposed mitigation. We conclude Fresno’s responses to the various comments at issue were adequate.
i. Additional Background
Consistent with law, Fresno solicited public comment on the PEIR prior to its certification. (See, generally, § 21092.) Both SJVAPCD and Alliance commented on the PEIR’s air quality mitigation.

SJVAPCD made several suggestions regarding mitigation. Relevant here, it suggested adding “language” to the general plan to establish a “policy” to “reduce vehicle miles traveled [].” Similarly, it recommended “guidance supported by policy requiring future development projects to evaluate heavy-duty truck routing patterns to help limit emission exposure to residential communities and sensitive receptors.” Further, it asked the City to “assess the emission reductions measures and strategies contained in the CERP, and address them … as appropriate.” It also offered specific changes to AIR-2.1 and 2.2, e.g., requiring “the cleanest reasonably available off-road construction fleets and practices” and implementing “zero and near-zero [emissions] technologies[.]” Alliance pointed out several mitigation measures promulgated by the Attorney General in a “document [en]titled ‘Warehouse Projects: Best Practices and Mitigation Measures to Comply with the California Environmental Quality Act.’ ” It asked Fresno to “review the mitigation measures contained in the document and incorporate them as appropriate ….”

22. The City rejected every proposal. It declined to modify mitigation measures AIR2.1 and 2.2 because “individual development projects” were “currently unknown” and the measures already required “applicants to prepare a technical assessment” analyzing air quality impacts “prior to approval[.]” In declining to add language to the general plan to combat VMT, Fresno replied the general plan already “include[d] several policies to reduce VMT ….” Responding to the suggestion that Fresno analyze and incorporate CERP strategies, the City stated “revisions to the … General Plan … [were] limited to specific changes related to VMT and compliance with legislative updates.” It also noted the general plan “include[d] several policies and objectives that direct coordination with the SJVAPCD to achieve compliance with State and federal air quality standards,” and the facts mitigation measures AIR-3.1 and 3.2 required projects to prepare “Health Risk Assessment” reports, and abide by “buffer” distances when “siting … sensitive land uses to avoid incompatibilities with the [California Air Resources Board’s] recommended Air Quality and Land Use Handbook.”
Relating to a “policy for heavy-duty truck routing analysis,” Fresno reiterated it was simply amending the general plan to adopt new VMT standards, AIR-2.2 already captured “[t]ruck routing patterns and … emissions,” and “updated guidance on VMT analysis,” i.e., the amendments to the general plan, would also apply. Finally, responding to Alliance’s suggestion to incorporate mitigation measures promulgated by the Attorney General, the City stated “[t]he measures suggested by [Alliance] may be appropriate at the project level when specific impacts are anticipated to occur as a direct result of … future actions. … However, because there [was] not enough information regarding future projects to quantify emissions at [the] time, it [could not] be determined whether potential impacts could be reduced to less-than-significant levels.” ii. Analysis
“CEQA provides that public agencies should not approve a project if there are feasible mitigation measures that would substantially lessen the significant environmental

23. effects of the project. [Citation.] An agency may reject a mitigation measure if it finds it to be infeasible. [Citation.] A feasible mitigation measure is one that is capable of being accomplished in a successful manner within a reasonable period of time, taking into account economic, environmental, social, legal, and technological factors.” (Covington v.

Great Basin Unified Air Pollution Control Dist. (2019) 43 Cal.App.5th 867, 878 (Covington).)
“A lead agency must evaluate comments to a … EIR and prepare written responses that describe the disposition of any ‘significant environmental issue’ raised. [Citation.] Where a significant environmental issue is raised, the lead agency must address the concern ‘in detail giving reasons why specific comments and suggestions were not accepted. There must be good faith, reasoned analysis in response. Conclusory statements unsupported by factual information will not suffice.’ [Citation.] The level of detail in the response may correspond to the level of detail in the comment, so that a general response is sufficient to a general comment, but a more detailed response is needed for a more detailed comment. [Citation.] The EIR ‘must respond to specific suggestions for mitigating a significant environmental impact unless the suggested mitigation is facially infeasible. [Citations.] While the response need not be exhaustive, it should evince good faith and a reasoned analysis.’ ” (Covington, supra, 43 Cal.App.5th at pp. 878-879.) “[A]n agency need not”, however, “ ‘adopt every nickel and dime mitigation scheme brought to its attention or proposed in the project EIR,’ but it must incorporate ‘feasible mitigation measures’ ‘when such measures would “substantially lessen” a significant environmental effect.’ ” (Id. at p. 879.) Nor need it analyze “ ‘ “ ‘every imaginable alternative or mitigation measure.’ ” ’ ” (Gilroy Citizens for Responsible Planning v. City of Gilroy (2006) 140 Cal.App.4th 911, 935.) The responses to comments in this case were not unreasoned or in bad faith.

While it is true Fresno declined every suggestion at issue, that itself does not evidence bad faith or unreasonableness.

24. The comments in this case were undoubtedly detailed and full. Fresno’s response to each suggestion fully considered the comment and fully responded to it. In general, Fresno explained the suggestions were duplicative or overlapped with already existing general plan policies or involved unwarranted speculation. “CEQA does not require a lead agency to conduct every test or perform all research, study, and experimentation recommended or demanded by commentors.” (Guidelines, § 15204, subd. (a); Cleveland National Forest Foundation v. San Diego Assn. of Governments (2017) 3 Cal.5th 497, 512 (Cleveland).)
For example, because it is unknown how exactly the city will develop, Fresno believed it was unclear whether the specific mitigation Alliance proposed—the Attorney General’s warehouse recommendations—would effectively reduce air quality impacts. (Cf. Sierra Club, supra, 6 Cal.5th at p. 515 [CEQA does not demand perfection or scientific certainty].) That response is reasonable and in good faith. As to specific modifications to AIR-2.1 and 2.2 suggested by SJVAPCD, Fresno noted final mitigation measures were yet to be determined. This is consistent with its decision to defer specific, detailed mitigation. (See VII., A., ante, Guidelines, § 15126.4.) We find no error in Fresno’s responses. These challenges lack merit.

VIII. Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Issues
A primary purpose underlying the PEIR was Fresno’s decision to update its GHG emissions reduction plan, permitting it to streamline GHG analysis for future projects.

Alliance contends the GHG “analysis and proposed mitigation measure[s] do not comply with CEQA.” It raises five distinct points to support the contention.

First, Alliance believes the GHG analysis is fundamentally flawed because it assumes “statewide reduction target percentages can be directly used to calculate [Fresno] emission goals.” Second, it faults Fresno for failing “to analyze … GHG emissions over the lifetime of the [p]roject[.]” Third, it claims the GHG analysis is faulty because it is based on an improper method.

25. Fourth, Alliance asserts “[t]he GHG mitigation measures are vague and unenforceable.” Fifth, it argues the GHG plan is insufficient to allow “streamlining future development” pursuant to Guidelines section 15183.5, subdivision (b).

We find merit in Alliance’s challenge to the GHG plan’s faulty assumption regarding statewide reduction targets. That faulty assumption undermines the plan’s use in streamlining analysis. We reject the remaining contentions.

A. Additional Background
“In June 2005, Governor Schwarzenegger signed Executive Order No. S-3-05, which set overall greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets for California. [Citation.] The Executive Order established three general benchmarks: (1) reduce emissions to 2000 levels by 2010; (2) reduce emissions to 1990 levels by 2020; and (3) reduce emissions to 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050.” (Cleveland, supra, 3 Cal.5th at p. 504.) “In 2006, shortly after the Executive Order was issued, the Legislature enacted the California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 (Stats. 2006, ch. 488, adding Health & Saf. Code, § 38500 et seq.), commonly known as Assembly Bill No. 32 (2005–2006 Reg. Sess.).

Assembly Bill No. 32 partially adopted the Executive Order’s goals by directing [California Air Resources Board] to ‘determine what the statewide greenhouse gas emissions level was in 1990, and approve in a public hearing, a statewide greenhouse gas emissions limit that is equivalent to that level, to be achieved by 2020.’ ” (Cleveland, supra, at p. 505.)
“[T]he Legislature in 2016 enacted Senate Bill No. 32 (SB 32) (2015–2016 Reg.

Sess.), adding Health and Safety Code section 38566, which adopts a goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent below 1990 levels by the year 2030. This 40 percent reduction is widely acknowledged as a necessary interim target to ensure that California meets its longer-range goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions to 80 percent below 1990 levels by the year 2050.” (Cleveland, supra, 3 Cal.5th at pp. 518- 519.)

26. The PEIR explains the “GHG Reduction Plan” in this case “includes strategies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that align with State targets.” It projects emissions for the years 2020, 2030, and 2035. To calculate projected emissions, the plan assumed “[b]usiness-as-usual” scenarios, i.e., “without any further action[s] to reduce” GHG emissions, and looks forward “using population, households, and employment growth rate[s] from” a previously calculated Fresno County growth projection.16 Emissions are grouped by “[s]ector” as follows: transportation, commercial energy, residential energy, fugitive emissions, solid waste, industrial energy, and agriculture.

An adjusted business-as-usual reduction is next calculated by “appl[ying] emission reductions achieved by Statewide regulations, programs, and measures” and subtracting those reductions from the business-as-usual projections. A “[s]tate-aligned target” is then calculated for 2020, 2030, and 2035 by applying a rote percentage reduction for each year consistent with the state’s goal for each year.17 Fresno then concludes additional reductions are necessary to meet the State’s goal-emission-reduction in 2030 and 2035.

The PEIR then discusses additional reductions from “local measures,” including “the development of [a] land use pattern and transportation system envisioned by the … General Plan, enforcement of City ordinances and design standards, and direct reductions from energy conservation projects, and alternative fuels use.” With these additional reductions, the PEIR concludes Fresno will meet and exceed the State’s goal-emissionreduction in 2030 and 2035.

The PEIR acknowledges the 2035 goal keeps the city on a path to achieve the 2050 goal. The GHG Reduction Plan notes “[t]he 2035 forecast year correspond[s] to 16 The growth projection is from the “Fresno Council of Governments” in 2017. 17 The state does not have a 2035 goal; it instead has a 2050 goal established by executive order. (Cleveland, supra, 3 Cal.5th at p. 504.)

27. the … General Plan horizon and will allow [Fresno] to develop long-term strategies to continue GHG reductions.”
The PEIR states “the General Plan growth rate would result in buildout by the year 2056, [but] given current methods and the State’s goals and targets, 2035 is a reasonable forecast for GHG [analysis] and is in-line with State emission reduction targets.” It then introduces mitigation measure “GHG-1.1.”
GHG-1.1 states, in full:
“Prior to the City’s approval of subsequent discretionary projects, the Director of the City Planning and Development Department, or designee, shall confirm that development projects are consistent with the … GHG Reduction Plan … and shall implement all measures deemed applicable to the project through the GHG Reduction Plan []-Project
Consistency Checklist ….”
The PEIR concludes GHG mitigation will result in a “[l]ess [t]han [s]ignifiant [i]mpact” on the environment from the city’s GHG emissions.

The checklist is included in the Plan, which is an appendix to the PEIR. It is intended “to help [Fresno] provide a streamlined review process for new development projects that are subject to discretionary review pursuant to … Guidelines [s]ection 15183.5.” “Projects that meet the requirements of th[e] [c]hecklist will be deemed to be consistent with the Fresno GHG Reduction Plan … and will be found to have a less than significant contribution to cumulative GHG” emissions. “Projects that do not meet the requirements in th[e] [c]hecklist will be deemed to be inconsistent with the Fresno GHG Reduction Plan … and must prepare a project-specific analysis of GHG emissions, including quantification of existing and projected GHG emissions and incorporation of the measures in th[e] [c]hecklist to the extent feasible.” The checklist specifically “[n]ote[s] that not all the measures in the checklist are applicable to all projects” but “projects should comply with applicable measures ….”

28. The checklist itself is five pages long and separated into three categories: project information, land use consistency, and mitigation consistency. Project information generally seeks background information on the project—size, land use, and a brief description of the project. Land use consistency simply asks if the project is “consistent with the approved General Plan, Specific Plan, and Community Plan planned land use and zoning designations[.]” If a “proposed project is not consistent with the approved planned land use and zoning designation(s), then [applicants must] provide estimated GHG project emissions under both existing and proposed designation(s) for comparison.” If the comparison reveals the proposed project’s estimated emissions are equivalent to or less than a conforming land use, “the project’s GHG impact is [deemed] less than significant.” If, instead, the comparison reveals greater emissions, “the project’s GHG impact is [deemed] significant.” The applicant must then demonstrate “consistency with applicable [general plan] objectives and policies … or provide analysis and measures to incorporate into the project to bring [estimated] GHG emissions to a level that is less than or equal to the estimated” emissions of a conforming use.

Finally, the checklist seeks consistency with applicable “Land Use and Transportation Demand Strategies,” “Electric Vehicle Strategies,” “Energy Conservation Strategies,” “Water Conservation Strategies,” and “Waste Diversion and Recycling Strategies[.]” These strategies cite directly to numerous policies found within the general plan.

B. Faulty Assumptions; Newhall Ranch
The California Supreme Court has held “consisten[cy] with meeting statewide [GHG] emission reduction goals” is an appropriate metric under CEQA. (Newhall Ranch, supra, 62 Cal.4th at p. 213.) Alliance contends the PEIR “here improperly assumes that statewide reduction target percentages can be directly used to calculate [Fresno’s] emission goals.” It also criticizes the PEIR for “assum[ing] that the generalized statewide reduction percentages from the implementation of statewide

29. measures”—used to calculate adjusted-business-as-usual emissions without additional local reductions—“would result in the same percentage reductions in local GHG emissions.”
The City argues “statewide reduction targets [are] proper.” It states “the Newhall Ranch case” sanctions using “statewide goals” and suggests “comparison to state-aligned reduction targets” is appropriate “at the [general] plan level ….” It also defends its decisions to categorize emissions by sector and assuming “reductions from statewide programs” “will be equally effective in Fresno as [in] the state as a whole ….” We agree Fresno may categorize emissions by sector and fairly assume statewide reduction programs will effectively apply in the city—“a lead agency enjoys substantial discretion in its choice of methodology.” (Newhall Ranch, supra, 62 Cal.4th at p. 228.) However, we disagree the PEIR complies with the Newhall Ranch decision. Ultimately, Fresno failed to substantiate its analytical assumption the state’s GHG emission targets were appropriate for Fresno itself.

It is true Newhall Ranch explicitly sanctions, as proper under CEQA, using “statewide goal[s] for greenhouse gas reduction, rather than a numerical threshold” to evaluate a project’s GHG emissions. (Newhall Ranch, supra, 62 Cal.4th at p. 221.) The case further explains, however, that substantial evidence must support the conclusion the project-at-issue’s reduction target is equally effective “as [the target] for the entire state population and economy.” (Id. at pp. 225-226.)
The reason for an adequate, fuller analysis is because “a greater degree of reduction may be needed from new land use projects than from the [state] as a whole … ‘given that past and current sources of emissions, which are substantially less efficient than [new developments], will continue to exist and emit’ ” GHG. (Newhall Ranch, supra, 62 Cal.4th at p. 226.) An EIR cannot “simply assume that the level of effort required in one context … will suffice in the other ….” (Id. at p. 227.) An EIR must disclose why the same target reduction is appropriate because, for example, development

30. “density averages” in land use at the statewide level may differ from a specific location within the state. (Id. at pp. 226-227.)
Here, the PEIR does not explain why the “[s]tate-aligned target” metric is appropriate for the City’s general plan. Fresno attempts to distinguish Newhall Ranch as a case involving “a development with specific project characteristics” and not a general plan. The distinction is immaterial in our view as CEQA does not apply any less to a large city’s general plan.

For support, Fresno turns to Tsakopoulos Investments, LLC v. County of Sacramento (2023) 95 Cal.App.5th 280. There, the Court of Appeal recently upheld an EIR because it “did not compare the project’s greenhouse gas emissions to the statewide business-as-usual goal ….” (Id. at p. 307, emphasis in original.) Instead, the lead agency there “developed [local] thresholds of significance for different sectors and then compared the project’s emissions against those numeric thresholds of significance.” (Ibid.)
In contrast, Fresno here did compare its projected GHG emissions to the statewide goal. Although it properly calculated projected emissions by categorizing local sectors, it did not calculate any local significance threshold and simply applied the state’s reduction goal. Because this approach—assuming the state’s goal applies locally without supporting evidence—was rejected in Newhall Ranch, supra, the PEIR fails to comply with CEQA. The fact this case involves a program EIR does not alter the law.

C. Analyzing GHG Emissions Over the Project’s Lifetime
Alliance faults the PEIR for “fail[ing] to analyze the General Plan’s GHG emissions over the lifetime of the [p]roject.” It argues the PEIR “admits that ‘General Plan growth rate would result in buildout by the year 2056’ ” but only analyzes emissions through 2035.

Fresno argues “[t]here is no law requiring [it] to project GHG emissions for General Plan buildout in 2050 or beyond.” It also suggests its “projections through

31. 2035 … correspond[] to the … General Plan[, 2035] horizon” year. We agree Fresno was not required to analyze emissions through 2050 or beyond, and its decision not to do so is justifiable.
“In determining the significance of a project’s greenhouse gas emissions … [a lead] agency’s analysis should consider a timeframe that is appropriate for the project.” (Guidelines, § 15064.4, subd. (b).) Here, 2035 is an appropriate timeframe for two reasons. One, 2035 projections underlie the original general plan as they formed the basis for analysis under the MEIR. Two, the new PEIR does not eschew the 2050 target.

The PEIR explicitly acknowledges, multiple times, the state’s 2050 goal to reduce emissions to 80% below 1990 levels, and that “continued reduction goals should be implemented to keep the State on a path toward the 2050 goal.” As noted, the state has targeted emission reductions for 2030 and 2050. The City here selected reducing emissions in 2035, beyond those required in 2030, as an interim target and benchmark toward achieving the 2050 goal.

Because there is currently no specific statewide plan or law in place to achieve the 2050 emissions-reduction goal, and the City uses 2035 as an interim target year on its “path toward the 2050 goal,” analysis through 2035 is not improper. (Cf. Cleveland, supra, 3 Cal.5th at p. 517 [lead agency properly declined “to adopt the 2050 goal as a measure of significance”].) As stated in the PEIR, the interim 2035 target will allow Fresno “to develop long-term strategies to continue GHG reductions.” In sum, Fresno has not ignored the state’s 2050 goal in reducing GHG emissions under the general plan. Rather, it explicitly selected an interim year by which to achieve advanced reductions and reassess strategies at that point. That interim year is an appropriate timeframe in this case. (Guidelines, § 15064.4, subd. (b).) D. Business-as-Usual Projections Do Not Lack Foundation Alliance argues the PEIR “violates CEQA by failing to include the full scope of emissions from development under the General Plan.” It contends the PEIR’s

32. “population-based metrics” to project growth fail to account for “industrial development” in the future and its attendant “ ‘thousands of [daily] … truck trips.’ ” Fresno counters its “methodology” choice to project growth based on population is entitled to deference. It also asserts its methodology properly accounts for industrial development. We agree.

Again, “[a] lead agency enjoys substantial discretion in its choice of methodology.” (Newhall Ranch, supra, 62 Cal.4th at p. 228.) The City here chose to categorize emissions by sector, i.e., transportation, residential, industrial, etc. The PEIR adequately discloses sectors including transportation, industrial, commercial capture the projected emissions from future industrial development.

Alliance bears the burden to prove Fresno’s methodology does not account for future industrial development. It has failed to discharge that burden. Although the PEIR is not perfect in this regard, Fresno did not abuse its discretion in selecting this methodology and the PEIR contains enough information to perform its public-informing function—here, that its projections are based on population growth and account for growth in industry and attendant transportation. (Sierra Club, supra, 6 Cal.5th at p. 522 [courts do not demand “perfection” but look for “ ‘ “ ‘adequacy, completeness, and a good faith effort at full disclosure.’ ” ’ ”].)
E. GHG Emission Mitigation Measures Are Ineffective
As noted, the PEIR mitigates the general plan’s GHG emissions via its GHG Reduction Plan and checklist. Alliance suggests the plan and checklist “do not indicate that a future project proponent need do anything more than fill out the [c]hecklist.” In other words, Alliance believes the checklist “does not actually guarantee any mitigation.” Fresno points out GHG-1.1—the GHG emissions mitigation measure in the PEIR—requires projects to implement all applicable measures in the checklist. It contends any inconsistency with the checklist will require “a project-specific GHG analysis, including quantification of existing and projected GHG emissions attributable to

33. that particular project.” It adds, “[t]o get below a level of significance, additional mitigation beyond the GHG Plan would be required as part of that future environmental review for that project, or project features would have to be incorporated to be below a level of significance.”
In our view, contrary to Fresno’s argument on appeal, the problem is neither GHG-1.1 nor the GHG Reduction Plan actually demand projects inconsistent with designated land uses achieve GHG emissions “below” a significant level. While inconsistent projects must generate their own GHG emissions analysis, it does not follow reducing emissions to a less-than-significant level is also required.

Put simply, the PEIR does not assure mitigation will occur because the checklist allows non-land-use-conforming projects to move forward while emitting GHG at a level deemed significant so long as they otherwise demonstrate consistency with various general plan policies. This approach violates CEQA as it demonstrates internal inconsistency with the PEIR’s finding GHG mitigation will result in a less than significant impact on the environment.18 (§ 21081.6, subd. (b) [mitigation measures must be “fully enforceable”]; Guidelines, § 15126.4, subd. (a)(2) [same]; see Sierra Club, supra, 6 Cal.5th at p. 523 [“Mitigation measures need not include precise quantitative performance standards, but they must be at least partially effective, even if they cannot mitigate significant impacts to less than significant levels.”].) F. GHG Reduction Plan and Future Streamlining
CEQA specifically permits “[l]ead agencies [to] analyze and mitigate the significant effects of greenhouse gas emissions at a programmatic level, such as in a general plan, a long range development plan, or a separate plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Later project-specific environmental documents may tier from and/or 18 The possibility the checklist allows approval of projects with GHG emissions significantly impacting the environment is the sole error we find on this point. We find no other error with GHG-1.1 and the checklist.

34. incorporate by reference that existing programmatic review.” (Guidelines, § 15183.5, subd. (a).)
The CEQA Guidelines provide, “A plan for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions should:
“(A) Quantify greenhouse gas emissions, both existing and projected over a specified time period, resulting from
activities within a defined geographic area;
“(B) Establish a level, based on substantial evidence, below which the contribution to greenhouse gas emissions from activities covered by the plan would not be cumulatively considerable;
“(C) Identify and analyze the greenhouse gas emissions
resulting from specific actions or categories of actions anticipated within the geographic area;
“(D) Specify measures or a group of measures, including performance standards, that substantial evidence
demonstrates, if implemented on a project-by-project basis, would collectively achieve the specified emissions level; “(E) Establish a mechanism to monitor the plan’s progress toward achieving the level and to require amendment if the plan is not achieving specified levels;
“(F) Be adopted in a public process following environmental review.” (Guidelines, § 15138.5, subd. (b)(1).)
“Once an agency has adopted such a plan, it ‘may fulfill its duty under CEQA to consider the significance of an individual project’s greenhouse gas emissions by analyzing whether the project is consistent with the broader plan. If a project is found to be consistent with the broad plan, that finding provides sufficient evidence for the agency to conclude the project has no significant impact due to greenhouse gas emissions.’ ” (IBC Business Owners for Sensible Development v. City of Irvine (2023) 88 Cal.App.5th 100, 127.)

35. A. Additional Background
The GHG Reduction Plan recognizes “[r]egular monitoring is important to ensure programs function as they were originally intended.” It states Fresno “would be responsible for developing a protocol for monitoring the effectiveness of emission reduction programs as well as for undertaking emission inventory updates.” It then identifies “key components of a GHG Plan monitoring program,” and notes Fresno “could compile data obtained from the checklist annually to monitor and track the progress on GHG reductions,” or transform an existing “permit tracking system … into a GHG reduction monitoring tool ….”
B. Analysis
As noted, the GHG Reduction Plan in this case is intended to serve as a programmatic analysis from which to streamline future GHG analysis. Alliance contends the plan “fails to meet [the above] requirements.” It argues the plan “fails to adequately quantify the full scope of GHG emissions for the lifetime of the projected buildout of the General Plan,” “fails to set reduction targets through project buildout,” and “substantial evidence does not support the GHG Plan’s inventory of projected emissions, the adjusted statewide target for emissions in Fresno, nor the conclusion that the specified reduction measures will achieve the reduction targets.”
We have already analyzed these contentions. (See VIII., B., C., D., & E., ante.) We disagree the plan fails to analyze GHG emissions through the project’s lifetime, fails to set reduction targets through the project’s lifetime, and fails to support its selected inventory of projected emissions. We agree the plan improperly adopts a statewide target as appropriate for Fresno19 and also that GHG emissions reduction measures will effectively achieve that improper target.
19 To reiterate, a statewide target might be appropriate for Fresno, but substantial evidence, i.e., analysis, must support that conclusion. The PEIR in this case does not demonstrate the required analysis.

36. Alliance also argues the plan “does not establish a mechanism to monitor progress” which would “require amendment [to] the plan [if it] is not achieving” its goal. (See Guidelines, § 15183.5, subd. (b)(1)(E).) Fresno counters the plan “provides for a mechanism to monitor … progress towards achieving reduction targets and … specifies the tracking tools used to monitor the plan’s progress.” The GHG plan clearly does not establish a mechanism to monitor progress.

Rather, it recognizes various components to a monitoring mechanism and suggests methods to track progress. It does not, however, establish an actual program. For all these reasons, the plan is not eligible to streamline GHG analysis.20 IX. Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT)
Relative to VMT, Alliance argues the PEIR fails to mitigate VMT and fails to analyze “impacts on pedestrians, cyclists, and transit riders.” We address each in turn.

A. Additional Background
“In 2018, California adopted … Guidelines section 15064.3, which changed the measure of traffic impact from level of service (LOS) to vehicle miles traveled [].” (Olen Properties Corp. v. City of Newport Beach (2023) 93 Cal.App.5th 270, 275, fn. omitted.) VMT “refers to the amount and distance of automobile travel attributable to a project.” (Guidelines, § 15064.3, subd. (a).)
According to the PEIR, future projects creating “significant impacts under VMT would be required to address their impacts through … measures such as car sharing, improved transit, enhanced bicycle infrastructure, design modifications, or mitigation 20 Fresno also contends the GHG Reduction Plan is beyond challenge because such a plan is not mandatory under CEQA. The City also points out Guidelines section 15183.5 states such plans “should,” not must or shall, include the elements discussed above. The California Supreme Court has held such plans are viable to streamline future analysis only “if sufficiently detailed and adequately supported ….” (Newhall Ranch, supra, 62 Cal.4th at p. 230.) The GHG Plan in this case insufficiently supports its statewide reduction targets and fails to include a mechanism to monitor progress—these faults render it inadequate. (Ibid.)

37. fees ….” Fresno adopted local “VMT thresholds, allowing “project impacts [to] be evaluated to determine the significance and identify mitigation measures ….” The PEIR concludes “continued implementation of the … General Plan would result in a significant impact related to … transportation impacts ….” It then “recommend[s] that when [Fresno] plans to update its General Plan Mobility and Transportation Element, it should strive to lower the General Plan (2035) VMT per capita compared to existing conditions.” Fresno’s “[g]uidelines for VMT [t]hresholds,” mentioned by the PEIR, “include[] a summary of the VMT mitigation measures and project alternatives that could be used to reduce VMT at a project-level.” “[B]ecause … future projects [were] unknown …, VMT impacts [were found] significant and unavoidable at a plan level.”
Elsewhere, the City officially found VMT impacts were “significant and unavoidable” due to infeasible mitigation and alternatives. In its statement of overriding considerations, it stated “[n]o feasible mitigation measures [were] available to mitigate [transportation impacts] to a less-than-significant level at the plan level.” “The City’s Guidelines for VMT Thresholds,” however, as noted in the statement, “include[d] a summary of … VMT mitigation measures and project alternatives that could be used to reduce VMT at a project-level.”
B. VMT Mitigation
Alliance points out the PEIR “does not propose that any VMT mitigation be adopted as part of the General Plan’s environmental review.” Fresno argues it found VMT impacts were “significant and unavoidable at the plan level.” It claims that “finding is supported by substantial evidence in the record, including that in 2020 [it] developed and adopted separate VMT CEQA significance thresholds ….” Ultimately, it concludes: “Because future development projects are unknown [], VMT impacts are better analyzed at the project level, which falls in line with the tiering approach established by CEQA.”

38. “[A]n EIR’s designation of a particular adverse environmental effect as ‘significant’ does not excuse [its] failure to reasonably describe the nature and magnitude of the adverse effect.” (Cleveland, supra, 3 Cal.5th at p. 514.) The PEIR here fails utterly to discuss any mitigation, instead leaving the discussion for another day. This approach violates CEQA—there is no substantial evidence in the record explaining why mitigation at the plan level is infeasible. For example, even if “future development projects are unknown,” there is no explanation why plan-level mitigation measure is infeasible.

Tiering is not an excuse to defer environmental analysis. (Vineyard, supra, 40 Cal.4th at p. 431.) “CEQA’s demand for meaningful information ‘is not satisfied by simply stating information will be provided in the future.’ ” (Ibid.) “[I]f known impacts are not analyzed and addressed in a program EIR, they may potentially escape analysis in a later tier EIR.” (San Diego, supra, 17 Cal.App.5th at p. 440.) To be sure, increased VMT, as Fresno necessarily acknowledges, is a reasonably foreseeable effect of continuing to implement the general plan. (Guidelines, § 15152, subd. (b) [“Tiering does not excuse the lead agency from adequately analyzing reasonably foreseeable significant environmental effects of the project and does not justify deferring such analysis to a later tier EIR or negative declaration.”].) The dearth of information in the PEIR explaining why VMT mitigation is infeasible at the general plan level and instead deferring that discussion to future EIRs violates CEQA.21 (See Vineyard, supra, 40 Cal.4th at p. 445 [EIR must “disclose ‘the “analytic route the … agency traveled from evidence to action ….” ’ ”].) In other words, simply concluding 21 Neither does the discussion in the PEIR qualify as deferred mitigation under Guidelines section 15126.4. (See, e.g., King & Gardiner, supra, 45 Cal.App.5th at p. 856 [“generalized goal” of mitigation is not a “specific performance” standard].) We do not necessarily preclude Fresno from concluding VMT mitigation is infeasible at the general plan level, rather we hold only that the PEIR fails to justify that conclusion.

39. mitigation is infeasible, without adequate discussion supported by evidence, is insufficient to comply with CEQA.

C. Fully Analyzing Traffic-Related Impacts
Separately, Alliance challenges the PEIR’s alleged failure to “analyze or mitigate significant impacts on pedestrians, cyclists, and transit riders.” It contends it presented evidence “show[ing] a sharp increase in pedestrian fatality rates in recent years, as well as increases in risks to cyclists,” risks it attributes to industrial development.

Fresno defends the PEIR by claiming CEQA does not require an EIR for a general plan to analyze impacts from increased traffic on pedestrians, cyclists, and transit riders.

Specifically, it contends “CEQA does not require an agency to turn a program EIR for its existing general plan into a transportation policy document or infrastructure improvement program, requiring construction of sidewalks, street lights, storm drains, and bike lanes ….” We find otherwise.
i. Additional Background
Various individuals and groups commented on the fact the PEIR did not address pedestrian safety. For example, a local school district superintendent complained the “PEIR fails to analyze how the General Plan impacts pedestrian and bicyclist safety,” adding that “[t]his [was] a huge issue for neighborhoods burdened by truck traffic from new and existing warehouses and other industrial development.” Another resident wrote a letter describing increased traffic and “truck terminals and truck stops” built over “the last few years ….” She mentioned “construction cover[ing her] house with dust,” complained “truck traffic during … construction was … extremely loud,” “construction caused vibrations” strong enough to shake her house, “pedestrians” in the “neighborhood” are fearful to walk, and “noticed more accidents because of the traffic from … warehouses.”
Similarly, Alliance commented the PEIR “fails entirely to analyze how implementation of the General Plan would affect programs, plans, ordinances, and

40. policies pertaining to bicycles, pedestrians[,] and transit.” It noted “[t]he failure to address pedestrian safety is particularly concerning given recent trends in pedestrian fatalities.”
An apparent expert retained by Alliance authored a report as part of Alliance’s comment on the PEIR. The expert asserted “recent statistics reveal that pedestrians and bicyclists are increasingly in danger” on the road, but the PEIR “includes no consideration of potential safety issues for these individuals.” Fresno did respond to these comments. In sum, it stated the PEIR “does not address potential project-level impacts resulting from future projects that would be developed under the approved General Plan.” In other words, Fresno did not believe pedestrian impacts were a program-level issue. It also stated the “proposed project … evaluates potential environmental impacts at a program level” and that “program-level analysis allows for future analysis of projects to use the PEIR as a starting point, but requires that specific impacts to pedestrians, cyclists, and transit riders be analyzed during review of future discretionary projects.”
ii. Analysis
“An EIR must set forth in detail ‘[a]ll significant effects on the environment of the proposed project.’ ” (Visalia Retail, LP v. City of Visalia (2018) 20 Cal.App.5th 1, 13 (Visalia).) “ ‘[I]n preparing an EIR, the agency must consider and resolve every fair argument that can be made about the possible significant environmental effects of a project ....’ ” (Ibid.)
Because Fresno did not consider and resolve whether traffic-related impacts to pedestrians, cyclists, and transit riders were significant effects of the project, the initial question for us is whether there is a fair argument, based on substantial evidence in the record as a whole, that there may be significant effects. (See Visalia, supra, 20 Cal.App.5th at pp. 13, 17.) We conclude the record discloses the requisite fair argument.

41. The record contains significant evidence industrial development under the general plan has resulted in increased traffic, impacting pedestrians, cyclists, and transit riders.

Various individuals complained the city was unsafe for pedestrian travel. An alleged expert witness illuminated the dangers to pedestrians generally and highlighted the PEIR’s failure to address those dangers.

Again, tiering is not an excuse to defer environmental analysis. (Vineyard, supra, 40 Cal.4th at p. 431.) “CEQA’s demand for meaningful information ‘is not satisfied by simply stating information will be provided in the future.’ ” (Ibid.) CEQA requires a “lead agency [to] adequately analyz[e] reasonably foreseeable significant environmental effects of the project ….” (Guidelines, § 15152, subd. (b).) The PEIR here does not justify its decision not to address pedestrian impacts at the program level.

The Second District Court of Appeal has found error in a lead agency’s failure to consider or address a project’s possible “significant impacts to pedestrian safety.” (City of Maywood v. Los Angeles Unified School Dist. (2012) 208 Cal.App.4th 362, 395.) Fresno attempts to distinguish the case by arguing it “cannot be extrapolated to apply [to] a program EIR analyzing a large city’s General Plan ….” It also points out “Appendix G of the Guidelines does not require specific analysis of General Plan implementation on bicycle and pedestrian facilities.” We disagree for two reasons.

First, there is no reason to believe CEQA does not require analyzing a project’s potential significant impacts on pedestrian safety. The Guidelines make no exception for program EIRs to forego analyzing reasonably foreseeable impacts. (See San Diego, supra, 17 Cal.App.5th at p. 440.) Second, Appendix G is simply a “a sample form that may be tailored to satisfy [an] individual agenc[y’s] needs and project circumstances.” The form explicitly notes “[s]ubstantial evidence of potential impacts that are not listed … must also be considered.” (Guidelines, Appendix G.) In sum, we hold the record contained sufficient evidence to support a fair argument traffic-related impacts to pedestrians were potentially significant, even at the

42. program level. Accordingly, Fresno must consider or address the potential impact in the PEIR.

X. Groundwater Mitigation
The PEIR acknowledges impacts to groundwater are potentially significant. It states: “Implementation of the project would substantially decrease groundwater supplies or interfere substantially with groundwater recharge ….” To address the potential significant impact, the PEIR contains one mitigation measure related to groundwater— HYD-2.1. It states, in full, “The City shall continue to be an active participant in the North Kings Groundwater Sustainability Agency and the implementation of the North Kings Groundwater Sustainability Plan in order to ensure that the Kings Subbasin has balanced levels of pumping and recharge.”22 It concludes this mitigation reduces impacts to groundwater to a less-than-significant level.

Alliance contends the mitigation measure “is vague, speculative, unenforceable, and ineffective.” It argues sustainable groundwater management by 2040, as discussed 22 The Legislature enacted the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act in 2014. (Wat. Code, § 10720 et seq.) “The Legislature’s stated intent in enacting the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act was ‘to do all of the following: [¶] (a) To provide for the sustainable management of groundwater basins. [¶] (b) To enhance local management of groundwater consistent with rights to use or store groundwater and Section 2 of Article X of the California Constitution. … [T]o preserve the security of water rights in the state to the greatest extent possible consistent with the sustainable management of groundwater. [¶] (c) To establish minimum standards for sustainable groundwater management. [¶] (d) To provide local groundwater agencies with the authority and the technical and financial assistance necessary to sustainably manage groundwater. [¶] (e) To avoid or minimize subsidence. [¶] (f) To improve data collection and understanding about groundwater. [¶] (g) To increase groundwater storage and remove impediments to recharge. [¶] (h) To manage groundwater basins through the actions of local governmental agencies to the greatest extent feasible, while minimizing state intervention to only when necessary to ensure that local agencies manage groundwater in a sustainable manner.’ (Wat. Code, § 10720.1.)” (Center for Biological Diversity v. County of San Bernardino (2016) 247 Cal.App.4th 326, 335-336.)

43. below, “does not alleviate the significant impact that will have already deprived numerous households of access to groundwater supply in the interim.” The City argues impacts to groundwater are addressable only “by ensuring” the subbasin “is managed in a sustainable fashion ….” It believes HYD-2.1 achieves exactly that, and “[c]ompliance with state law” designed to achieve groundwater sustainability is sufficient mitigation for implementing its general plan, justifying its chosen mitigation as compliant with CEQA. Fresno also contends, “to the extent” Alliance challenges the groundwater plan itself, such plans are exempt from “CEQA review.” We conclude HYD-2.1 is an appropriate, enforceable mitigation measure.

However, the PEIR fails to justify not discussing any specific groundwater mitigation in the interim, i.e., prior to 2040. No substantial evidence supports the implied conclusion impacts to groundwater in the interim are reduced to a less-than-significant level.

A. Additional Background
The PEIR states Fresno “is creating an overdraft of the Kings Groundwater Subbasin aquifer as defined by the California State Department of Water Resources.” “In November 2019,” Fresno adopted the North Kings Groundwater Sustainability plan “with the sustainability goal to ensure that by 2040 the Kings Groundwater Subbasin …, in which Fresno is located, is being managed in a sustainable manner to maintain a reliable water supply ….” “[C]ontinued implementation of the … General Plan could result in significant impacts to groundwater levels within the Kings Sub-basin if the [projected] increase in water demand is met through an increase of water supply from increased groundwater pumping.”
During the environmental review process, Alliance submitted multiple comment letters related to groundwater sustainability. In the first, it provided a “[f]ocused [t]echnical [r]eview” of the North Kings Groundwater Sustainability Plan. It concluded the plan did “not include a thorough analysis of impacts to key beneficial users in the subbasin, particularly domestic well users and members of disadvantaged

44. communities ….” Alliance lamented the fact the plan did “ ‘not require … maintain[ing] current water levels or prevent[ing] any wells from going dry[].’ ” In a second letter, Alliance described “numerous households and entire neighborhoods … lost access to water in their homes as their wells ran dry” in the years leading up to the general plan amendment. It noted the Groundwater Sustainability Plan allowed for “a 107-foot decline in groundwater levels” “which can mean the difference between flowing and dry taps,” and the fact “[a] potentially balanced water demand in 20 years will not alleviate the significant impact that occurs should households lose access to water supply in the present.”
Others, too, commented on groundwater issues. For example, at a planning commission meeting during the certification process, an individual bemoaned he “recently had three residential wells go dry,” attributing the loss to “all this development,” e.g., “the Amazon facility ….” Fresno essentially responded to all groundwater mitigation issues by claiming “the underground movement of water within the aquifer is not anticipated to affect domestic wells” because groundwater “balance[]” will obtain by “the year 2040 ….”
C. Analysis
“[A] condition requiring compliance with regulations is a common and reasonable mitigation measure, and may be proper where it is reasonable to expect compliance.” (Oakland Heritage Alliance v. City of Oakland (2011) 195 Cal.App.4th 884, 906.) The mitigation measure in this case properly commits Fresno to comply with state law and the regional groundwater sustainability plan. (See Water Code, § 10720 et seq.) There is no reason to believe Fresno will not comply with state law.

Where the PEIR comes up short, however, is in its failure to assess groundwater levels relative to domestic wells throughout the city prior to 2040. As described above, Fresno was aware people expressed concern about groundwater levels in the present—the record contains ample evidence regarding wells today. The record does not currently

45. justify concluding interim impacts to domestic wells are less than significant due to participation in the North Kings Groundwater Sustainability Agency and implementing its attendant Plan.

For example, the PEIR does not explain why no mitigation measures specifically addressing groundwater between the present and 2040 are considered. We recognize it is possible no such mitigation is feasible but, if so, then the PEIR must adequately explain why and support that conclusion with evidence.23 At bottom, a conclusory statement that groundwater use will achieve balance in 2040 is insufficient to alleviate a present concern.

XI. Project Alternatives
Alliance complains the PEIR “fails to analyze a reasonable range of alternatives.

Fresno argues “CEQA does not require consideration of alternatives to an already approved project.” It otherwise contends the alternatives “considered were reasonable in the context of the project being analyzed.” We agree with Alliance.

A. Additional Background
The PEIR considered two alternatives: a “No Project Alternative” and a “Net Zero Energy Consumption Alternative.” “Under the No Project Alternative, development within the Planning Area would continue to be implemented in accordance with the [existing] General Plan; however, changes to the Mobility and Transportation Element”—reflecting VMT analysis—“and updates to the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Plan would not be implemented.” “Under the No Project Alternative, similar to the proposed project, development would continue as allowed under the [existing] General Plan because no changes to land use designations would occur.” “Overall, impacts resulting from the No Project Alternative would be similar to the proposed project, as 23 It is also possible groundwater concerns are unfounded. That is a question for a lead agency to address. We hold only that the record contains enough evidence to warrant a deeper look.

46. significant unavoidable impacts related to aesthetics, agricultural resources, air quality, noise, transportation, and utility and service systems would continue to occur.” “Under the Net Zero Energy Consumption Alternative, both residential and nonresidential development would be required to achieve net zero energy consumption in 2020.” “By achieving net zero energy consumption for non-residential development in 2020, the city would reduce overall GHG emissions.” “Under this alternative, impacts associated with greenhouse gas emissions would be reduced by requiring that development achieve a net zero energy consumption. Although the proposed project would not result in potentially significant impacts related to energy, this alternative would require less energy consumption than continued implementation of the [existing] General Plan because, new non-residential development would be required to achieve net zero energy consumption ten years before the required compliance year of 2030.” (See Cal. Code Regs., tit. 24, pt. 11.) “As a result, potential impacts resulting from the Net Zero Energy Consumption Alternative would be less than the proposed project, potential impacts related to energy and greenhouse gases would be fewer.” Fresno rejected both alternatives. It rejected the No Project Alternative because it achieved the project’s objectives at “a lesser level” and failed to implement “current … law” regarding VMT. It rejected the Net Zero Energy Consumption Alternative because it was “not … feasible to require next [sic] zero energy consumption in 2020.” B. Analysis
We first address Fresno’s argument CEQA did not require it to consider alternatives in this case. Because we disagree with that argument, we then analyze the alternatives Fresno did consider.
i. Requirement to Consider Alternatives
Fresno claims “CEQA does not mandate consideration of feasible alternatives to [a] project” where that project is “not being considered for approval ….” It bases this claim on Conservation, supra, 36 Cal.App.5th 210. There, the appellate court rejected

47. several challenges because it concluded the lead agency did not carry out a program or project as defined under CEQA. (Id. at p. 227.) Instead, the lead agency simply “overs[aw] a regulatory program” and prepared a unique EIR “to provide the public with detailed information” “about the environmental effects of well stimulation treatments such as hydraulic fracturing and acid well stimulation” pursuant to a bill passed by the Legislature. (Id. at p. 227, 217.)
In contrast, the lead agency in this case—Fresno—clearly is carrying out its general plan. To carry out its general plan, it chose to adopt a new PEIR, instead of continuing to use its older MEIR. (See § 21157.6 [lead agency may utilize older MEIR if it makes specific findings under statute].) Accordingly, the decision to adopt a PEIR entails fully complying with CEQA and its alternatives sections. (See III., ante.) ii. Alternatives Analysis
“CEQA requires an EIR to identify feasible alternatives that could avoid or substantially lessen the project’s significant environmental effects. (§§ 21002, 21100, subd. (b)(4).) ‘[I]t is the policy of the state that public agencies should not approve projects as proposed if there are feasible alternatives or feasible mitigation measures available which would substantially lessen the significant environmental effects of such projects[.]’ (§ 21002.) [¶] The EIR must describe a range of reasonable alternatives to the project ‘which would feasibly attain most of the basic objectives of the project but would avoid or substantially lessen any of the significant effects of the project.’ (Guidelines, § 15126.6, subd. (a).) The EIR must evaluate the alternatives’ comparative merits. (Guidelines, § 15126.6, subd. (a).)” (Save Our Capitol! v. Department of General Services (2023) 87 Cal.App.5th 655, 702-703 (Save).) “CEQA establishes no categorical legal imperative as to the scope of alternatives to be analyzed in an EIR. Each case must be evaluated on its facts ….” (Citizens of Goleta Valley v. Board of Supervisors (1990) 52 Cal.3d 553, 566; Tiburon Open Space Committee v. County of Marin (2022) 78 Cal.App.5th 700, 741 (Tiburon).) “An EIR

48. need not consider every conceivable alternative to a project or alternatives that are infeasible.” (Bay-Delta, supra, 43 Cal.4th at p. 1163.) “ ‘There is no ironclad rule governing the nature or scope of the alternatives to be discussed other than the rule of reason.’ ” (Ibid.)
“The rule of reason ‘requires the EIR to set forth only those alternatives necessary to permit a reasoned choice’ and to ‘examine in detail only the ones that the lead agency determines could feasibly attain most of the basic objectives of the project.’ [Citation.] An EIR does not have to consider alternatives ‘whose effect cannot be reasonably ascertained and whose implementation is remote and speculative.’ ” (Bay-Delta, supra, 43 Cal.4th at p. 1163.) “[A]n EIR should not exclude an alternative from detailed consideration merely because it ‘would impede to some degree the attainment of the project objectives.’ ” (Id. at p. 1165; Guidelines, § 15126.6.) A lead agency is not “required to consider specific alternatives proposed by members of the public or other outside agencies.” (Save, supra, 87 Cal.App.5th at p. 703.) “We will uphold an agency’s choice of alternatives unless they ‘are manifestly unreasonable and … do not contribute to a reasonable range of alternatives.’ ” (Tiburon, supra, 78 Cal.App.5th at p. 741.) “An agency’s finding of infeasibility for this purpose is ‘entitled to great deference’ and ‘ “presumed correct.” ’ ” (Los Angeles Conservancy v.

City of West Hollywood (2017) 18 Cal.App.5th 1031, 1041.) The alternatives discussion in the PEIR here does little to meaningfully “inform[] decisionmaking and public participation.” (Guidelines, § 15126.6, subd. (a).) Although the “No Project” alternative is necessary to evaluate, here it results in little change because the general plan already exists. The only difference between the amended general plan and the prior general plan was replacing level-of-service-traffic-analysis language with VMT standards. In sum, the “No Project” alternative does not contribute to “a range of reasonable alternatives” in this case.

49. The “Net Zero” alternative, on the other hand, is an “environmentally superior alternative” project. (Guidelines, § 15126.6, subd. (e)(2).) The City, however, rejected it as infeasible without any meaningful discussion. The PEIR does not explain why it is infeasible, or even why it could not implement the “Net Zero” mandate in a year interim to 2030. No evidence supports the City’s infeasibility conclusion.

Taken together, the two alternatives discussed in this matter do not comprise a reasonable range of alternatives. The alternatives discussion here is inadequate when judged against the rule of reason because it fails to inform the public regarding the proposed project, i.e., amended general plan with intent to streamline environmental analysis under new PEIR. To support its conclusion regarding alternatives, the City should explain why no alternatives are feasible, supporting the explanation with evidence, or it should discuss at least one potentially feasible alternative.

CONCLUSION
The PEIR in this case contains several prejudicial errors: 1) air quality mitigation measures AIR-2.1, 2.2, and 3.1 violated Guidelines section 15126.4 because they do not contain objectively enforceable standards, 2) it inappropriately assumes statewide-GHGreduction targets are appropriate for Fresno, undermining its ability to streamline GHG analysis for future projects, 3) the conclusion VMT mitigation is infeasible is not justified, 4) it failed to analyze traffic-related impacts on pedestrians, cyclists, and transit riders, notwithstanding evidence in the record indicating a potential significant impact, 5) it failed to address groundwater mitigation in the present, and 6) it failed to consider a reasonable range of alternatives. Under section 21168.9, subdivision (b), correcting these errors is “necessary to achieve compliance with” CEQA.

50. DISPOSITION
The City’s request for judicial notice is granted.24
The judgment is reversed and the matter remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. The trial court is directed to vacate the order denying the petition for writ of mandate and enter a new order granting the petition.

The trial court shall issue a peremptory writ of mandate compelling the City to (1) set aside resolution Nos. 2021-269 and 2021-270 which certified the PEIR was completed in compliance with CEQA and adopted the general plan amendment, and (2) take corrective action consistent with this opinion prior to certifying a revised PEIR was completed. (§ 21168.9, subd. (b).)
The peremptory writ of mandate shall state the trial court retains jurisdiction over the proceedings by requiring the City to file a return to the writ. (§ 21168.9, subd. (b).) The trial court may, in its discretion, require or allow the City to file an initial return explaining the action it intends to undertake to satisfy the issued writ.

Costs are awarded to Alliance. (Cal. Rules of Court, rule 8.278.) SNAUFFER, J.

WE CONCUR:

FRANSON, Acting P. J.

MEEHAN, J.
24 The City filed a request to judicially notice two exhibits from the trial court record and one exhibit relating to CEQA Guidelines. We grant the request.

Sunnyside Property Owners Association
Serving Southeast Fresno for Over Eighty Years
December 8, 2025
Honorable Mike Karbassi, President
Mayor Jerry Dyer, and
Fresno City Councilmembers
2600 Fresno Street #3260
Fresno, CA 93721
By email to: [email protected]
RE: City Council Meeting 12/18/25 ID 25-1247
Proposed Southeast Development Area Specific Plan Project Thank you for allowing us the opportunity to comment on the proposed Southeast Development Area Specific Plan (SEDA). The Board of Directors of the Sunnyside Property Owners Association (SPOA) submits the following.

While we recognize the recently approved tax sharing agreement between the county and city allocates 51% to the city for future annexations within the SEDA area if the Specific Plan is adopted, that same memorandum of understanding requires an annexation strategy for areas on the city’s eastern limits to avoid the future creation of county islands or irregular boundaries.

Even though the Sunnyside area is not formally addressed in this planning document, county residents who reside within the City of Fresno’s Sphere of Influence outside of SEDA will be impacted as well. As a Neighborhood Association whose members include both city and county residents, we are concerned that city rate payers would bear the costs of new infrastructure to support the residents and businesses in the newly annexed area to the east, and county residents would be pressured by future annexation requirements and the costs associated with mandatory sewer and water connections.

Therefore, we share the same concerns raised by residents in the proposed SEDA and members of the Greenfield Coalition. How will the city develop and pay for the infrastructure for 45,000 additional homes? Will developers be required to pay the true cost of building in the newly annexed area? And most importantly, will the city core be sacrificed to build on the fringe?
LAFCO Resolution USOI-144 requires an emphasis on the retention of characteristics that make neighborhoods desirable places to live. The environmental document for the SEDA fails to adequately address and mitigate impacts associated with the Specific Plan’s implementation and a Public Facilities Financing Plan to pay for it.

We would ask that council seriously consider the ramifications and costs associated with the infrastructure needs for north SEDA. County residents between the city’s eastern boundary and the Clovis Unified School District should not have to subsidize that cost.

Respectfully,
Sue Williams
Corresponding Secretary

From: Adrienne Asadoorian
To: Jennifer Laird
Subject: FW: [Possible Scam Fraud]Opposition to SEDA
Date: Thursday, December 11, 2025 4:24:49 PM
Additional public comment.

Adrienne Asadoorian-Gilbert | Supervising Planner
Long Range Planning | Planning & Development
City of Fresno | 2600 Fresno St | Fresno CA 93721
559.621.8339
[email protected]
Resources: Long Range Plans | GIS Data Hub
Citywide Development Code | Plans & Projects Under Review From: Chris Baeza <[email protected]>
Sent: Thursday, December 11, 2025 9:56 AM
To: Miguel Arias <[email protected]>; District3 <[email protected]>; Clerk <[email protected]>; Jerry Dyer <[email protected]>; CityManager <[email protected]> Cc: District7 <[email protected]>; Nelson Esparza <[email protected]>; District6 <[email protected]>; Nick Richardson <[email protected]>; District5 <[email protected]>; Brandon Vang <[email protected]>; District4 <[email protected]>; Tyler Maxwell <[email protected]>; District2 <[email protected]>; Mike Karbassi <[email protected]>; District1 <[email protected]>; Annalisa Perea <[email protected]>; LongRangePlanning <[email protected]>
Subject: [Possible Scam Fraud]Opposition to SEDA
External Email: Use caution with links and attachments
WARNING: Your email security system has determined the message below may be a potential threat.

The sender may pose as a friend by using a compromised email account, claiming to be stranded abroad, and needing cash to get home.

If you do not know the sender or cannot verify the integrity of the message, please do not respond or click on links in the message. Depending on the security settings, clickable URLs may have been modified to provide additional security.

Greetings Mr. Arias, City Council Members, and Mr. Mayor, I am a resident of District 3, and an involved member of the Fresno community. Since moving to this city in 2021, I have worked in a local nonprofit, I have lived on the north end of town and south side of town, have attended church on both sides of town, and more recently involved in the local arts community.

I am writing to express my strong opposition to the SEDA project. I oppose the project for the following reasons:

1. The massive cost of this project, both for the city and for the current land owners.

2. The amount of land that would be removed from food production.

3. The huge amount of money that would be directed away from existing Fresno neighborhoods and schools.

4. The amount of money that would be taken from Fresno Unified and given to Clovis Unified.

5. The focus on new development, when our existing neighborhoods desperately need resources and maintenance from the city.

I urge you to vote no on SEDA, and prioritize the Fresno that you were elected to serve.

Thank you,
Christopher J Baeza
1412 N. Vagedes Ave.

Fresno, CA 93728
From: Adrienne Asadoorian
To: Jennifer Laird
Subject: FW: [Possible Scam Fraud]Opposition to the SEDA Project Date: Thursday, December 11, 2025 4:24:32 PM
Additional public comment
Adrienne Asadoorian-Gilbert | Supervising Planner
Long Range Planning | Planning & Development
City of Fresno | 2600 Fresno St | Fresno CA 93721
559.621.8339
[email protected]
Resources: Long Range Plans | GIS Data Hub
Citywide Development Code | Plans & Projects Under Review From: Lydia Baeza <[email protected]>
Sent: Thursday, December 11, 2025 9:18 AM
To: Miguel Arias <[email protected]>; District3 <[email protected]>; Jerry Dyer <[email protected]>; Clerk <[email protected]>; CityManager <[email protected]> Cc: LongRangePlanning <[email protected]>; Annalisa Perea <[email protected]>; District1 <[email protected]>; Mike Karbassi <[email protected]>; District2 <[email protected]>; Tyler Maxwell <[email protected]>; District4 <[email protected]>; Brandon Vang <[email protected]>; District5 <[email protected]>; Nick Richardson <[email protected]>; District6 <[email protected]>; Nelson Esparza <[email protected]>; District7 <[email protected]> Subject: [Possible Scam Fraud]Opposition to the SEDA Project External Email: Use caution with links and attachments
WARNING: Your email security system has determined the message below may be a potential threat.

The sender may pose as a friend by using a compromised email account, claiming to be stranded abroad, and needing cash to get home.

Greetings Mr. Arias, City Council Members, and Mr. Mayor, I am a resident of District 3, and an involved member of the Fresno community. I got my bachelor's at Fresno State, have worked in local nonprofits, have attended church in town, and have been involved in the community since I came here for college in 2012.

I am writing to express my strong opposition to the SEDA project. I oppose the project for the following reasons:

1. The massive cost of this project, both for the city and for land owners.

2. The amount of land that would be removed from food production.

3. The huge amount of money that would be directed away from existing Fresno neighborhoods and schools.

4. The amount of money that would be taken from Fresno Unified and given to Clovis Unified.

5. The focus on new development, when our existing neighborhoods desperately need resources and maintenance from the city.

I urge you to vote no on SEDA, and prioritize the Fresno that you were elected to serve.

Thank you,
Lydia Baeza
1412 N. Vagedes Ave.

Fresno, CA 93728
From: Adrienne Asadoorian
To: Jennifer Laird
Subject: FW: [Possible Scam Fraud]Opposition to SEDA
Date: Thursday, December 11, 2025 4:24:49 PM
Additional public comment.