Fresno City Council
December 18, 2025

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12 improvements and for the repairs and maintenance that legacy neighborhoods need to avoid falling into blight and decay.

LU-5 "Plan for a diverse housing stock that will support balanced urban growth, and make efficient use of resources and public facilities. Consistency Determination: Consistent. The proposed project would design and implement a vision that would allow the City to grow in ways that equitably expand the economy and housing stock while protecting public health. The proposed project represents an opportunity to meet emerging market demands, provide muchneeded diversity in housing stock, and enrich communities with safe, walkable, and inspiring urban environments."
IN FACT: Not consistent. The SEDA Plan, proposing intensive development of a 9,000- acre greenfields site, will require massive new construction of public facilities, whereas "efficient use" of resources and public facilities would dictate that the City satisfy its future housing needs in an area where such facilities already exist, such as the West Area Neighborhood Plan area, or the thousands of infill sites within the city limits. The effect of new growth into SEDA will not promote equity nor "enrich" existing neighborhoods (where Fresno's low-income housing stock is located), but will deprive those neighborhoods of resources they need to fight blight and decay. The Plan does not impose conditions of entitlement on SEDA developments that would be at all likely to supplement the City's stock of low-income housing. Finally, the public health protection claim here flies directly in the face of the air quality impacts data in the PEIR Appendix B, which show huge unmitigated increases in air pollutants, toxic air contaminants, and diesel particulate matter. Notwithstanding CEQA and California Supreme Court mandates, the EIR fails to calculate the ozone pollution that Plan development would generate, or to provide a human health impact analysis. A claim that the plan protects human health, on this record, is facially false.

LU-9 "Plan land uses, design, and development intensities to supplement and support, and not compete with, the Downtown. Consistency Determination: Consistent. The proposed project is a comprehensive plan for the nearly 9,000-acre Southeast Growth Area, located to the east of the Downtown. The proposed project concentrates residential development in Neighborhood Town Centers, consistent with the General Plan concept of complete neighborhoods. These uses would support the Downtown but would not compete with the Downtown."
IN FACT: Not consistent. The SEDA Plan area is ten miles from Fresno's Downtown. At best it will compete with Downtown, drawing away the private investments and public institutions that give an urban downtown core its crucial role in a city's life. More likely, the SEDA development will make it impossible for the City to supplement state grants to ensure completion of downtown infrastructure upgrades, essential to a thriving downtown. b. The SEDA Specific Plan violates California's Planning and Zoning Law in that its leapfrog approach to growth fundamentally contradicts the 2014 General Plan objectives, violating consistency requirements.

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California Government Code§ 65454 provides that "[n]o specific plan may be adopted or amended unless the proposed plan or amendment is consistent with the general plan." As of 2018, the Legislature's amendment of Government Code § 65700 applied this consistency requirement also to charter cities such as Fresno. Kennedy Commission v. City of Huntington Beach, 91 Cal.App.5th 436, 443, 308 Cal.Rptr.3d 461, 468 (2023), reh' g denied Oune 7, 2023), review denied Ouly 19, 2023).

Apart from and in addition to the many errors in the PEIR' s General Plan Consistency Analysis (see section 5.a., supra), the SEDA Plan is inconsistent in that it upends the 2014 General Plan's proposed growth trajectory, which calls for SEDA development to occur last, after Development Areas 1 and 2. 14 The General Plan explains that "[t]he pace of new development in the Development Areas needs to be balanced with the City's goals for achieving significant reinvestment within the 2012 Gty Limits."1s
In its 2014 General Plan, unusually for Fresno, the City Council purposefully declined to expand the City's Sphere of Influence based on a reasoned analysis of the effects suburban sprawl had created and would create into the future if not curbed. The 2014 General Plan explicitly chose a different path:

Continued growth outwards creates transportation and air quality issues, as well. The continued siting of major retail and commercial uses, as well as jobs, at Fresno's urban fringe is lengthening travel times and increasing traffic levels (and air pollution) disproportionately faster than the rate of population growth, due to inefficient location selection. Given the restrictions on and impacts of increasing Fresno's land area, the Plan promotes the highest and best use of land within Fresno's current city limits, phases growth into unincorporated areas of the SOI, and avoids de-investment in Downtown and established neighborhoods. Furthermore, certain patterns of land development can increase costs to the City in excess of related revenues and essentially reduce fiscal resources. The Plan seeks to discourage this type of development and, at the least, ensure that all development covers its fair share of public costs.16 The SEDA draft PEIR attempts to explain away its inconsistency with these goals and objectives, acknowledging that "SEDA was intended to be developed once other infill initiatives were given time to gain momentum," and that "there is still ample residential capacity within the current city limits and in Growth Area I (which includes the Southwest Fresno and the West Area Neighborhoods Specific Plan areas)." But then the PEIR goes on to argue that "there is a 14 2014 General Plan, Figure 1-3, Residential Capacity Allocation, which shows Development Areas ("DA"s) in order of priority; SEDA comprises DA-3 Southeast and DA-4 East, the City's fifth- and sixthlevel development priorities. The West Area Neighborhoods Specific Plan Area is labeled DA-1 North, and is the first-level priority for new development.
1s Id. at p. 3-19.
16 2014 General Plan, Ch.7, Resource Conservation & Resilience-§7.2 Use of Infrastructure & Resources, p.7-7
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sense of urgency about the current housing crisis and the City's ability to provide housing for the existing population and its natural growth as well as the unanticipated in-migration occurring at this time."17
But the facts do not support a "sense of urgency" -population growth has plummeted, taking with it the demand for new housing, and the City is already on track to adopt the proposed West Area Neighborhoods Specific Plan sometime in summer 2025.18 The West Area Plan is likely to result in housing units long before SEDA, since the West Area Plan will be implemented upon a platform of already-existing (if still incomplete) infrastructure, whereas SEDA will require construction of all significant urban-supporting public improvements.19 The West Area Plan alone will accommodate over 50,000 new housing units; when added to the 43,512 units20 on parcels zoned and appropriate for housing within existing City limits, the City will not need SEDA to meet its housing needs for many decades.

To allow SEDA to jump the line into first place is antithetical to how the City has planned its growth. Such reorganizing of development priorities is inconsistent with the General Plan, and creates significant adverse fiscal and environmental consequences for the City and its existing neighborhoods that the 2014 General Plan specifically intends to avoid by its new-growth priorities hierarchy.
c. CLC and RCI incorporate comments submitted on behalf of County of Fresno.

In support of their comment that the draft PEIR cannot be adopted under the 2014 General Plan, CLC and RCI hereby join, and incorporate by this reference, the portion of the September 4, 2023 comment letter on the 2023 draft SEDA PEIR, submitted by Jeffrey Reid on behalf of the County of Fresno, Department of Public Works and Planning, at pages 5 through 6 (Section C).

6. The City cannot approve the SEDA Specific Plan until it has complied with the prerequisites imposed via LAFCO Resolution USOI-144.

CLC and RCI join, and hereby incorporate by this reference, the portions of the September 4, 2023 comment letter on the 2023 draft SEDA PEIR submitted by Jeffrey Reid, on behalf of the County of Fresno, Department of Public Works and Planning, pages 1 through 3 (Section A), 17 SEDA Recirculated Draft PEIR, p. 2-1. The PEIR neither documents nor otherwise refers to "inmigration," anticipated or otherwise. 18 The West Area Plan was released for public comment on March 12, 2025, and is expected to go to the City Council during the summer. htt:J)s://www.fresno.gov/planning/plans-projects-underreview / #west-area-neighborhoods-specific-plan. 19 One of the important reasons the 2014 Plan put SEDA area last in line as a site for new housing was precisely that the area lacks public infrastructure to support extensive residential and commercial development. 2014 General Plan, p. 1-19.
2° Fresno Multi-Jurisdictional Housing Element, December 2024, Table lE-3.23: Housing Capacity by Community Plan/Specific Plan Area, p.lE-3-145.

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and pages 10-11 (Section H).

7. The SEDA Specific Plan violates California Planning and Zoning Law CEQA in that it omits components required by statute, and fails to meet standards for public involvement by failing to timely circulate for public comment an infrastructure plan and infrastructure financing plan.
a. Essential components are missing from the SEDA Plan documents.

California Government Code § 65451 mandates that every specific plan include certain "Required contents." Subsection (a) of the statute requires that a specific plan "include a text and a diagram or diagrams which specify all of the following in detail ... "(2) The proposed distribution, location, and extent and intensity of major components of public and private transportation, sewage, water, drainage, solid waste disposal, energy, and other essential facilities proposed to be located within the area covered by the plan and needed to support the land uses described in the plan.
"(4) A program of implementation measures including regulations, programs, public works projects, and financing measures necessary to carry out paragraphs (1), (2), and (3)." Neither the Specific Plan, nor the Recirculated Draft PEIR released for public comment on February 7, 2025 includes the text or diagrams specifying the "essential facilities proposed" for the Plan as required by§ 65451(a)(2), nor the implementation and financing measures required by§ 65451(a)(4).
b. The City has failed to release timely for public comment the missing components of the SEDA Plan proposal.

In adopting Title 7, Division 1, Chapter 3 of the Government Code, addressing Local Planning and Zoning, the California Legislature declared its intent "to provide an opportunity for each city and county to coordinate its local budget planning and local planning for federal and state program activities, such as community development, with the local land use planning process ... " Cal. Gov't Code§ 65300.9.

The SB2 Planning Grants Application included, at Schedule F, a Project Timeline and Budget, which called for release of the Public Review Draft of the Infrastructure Financing Plan and the Nexus Study at least three months in advance of City Council consideration of the Plan and associated documents. Nevertheless, and notwithstanding the explicit strictures of the statute, and promises made throughout the Specific Plan and its PEIR, the City has failed to release either an infrastructure plan disclosing the details required by§ 65451(a)(2), or an infrastructure budget, nexus study, and financing plan, as required by § 65451(a)(4).

Especially pertinent to the fiscal wisdom of City investment in SEDA infrastructure: the Consultant Service Agreement required a Qualitative Fiscal Review, but as of this writing, in the last few days of the public comment period for the Recirculated draft PEIR, no such review has been made public. Such a review should clarify "whether or not the existing targeted tax Comment letter - SEDA Recirculated PEIR March 24, 2025 12

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sharing parameters will remain feasible with the development of the SEDA Specific Plan."21 Withholding from the public such critical information is inconsistent with provisions of both the Planning and Zoning Law, and of CEQA. See, e.g., Cal. Gov't Code§ 65351,22 Pub. Res. Code§ 21000, et seq. ("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. The EIR process protects not only the environment but also informed self-government." Golden Door Praperties, LLC v. Superior Court of San Diego County, 53 Cal.App.5th 733, 763, 267 Cal.Rptr.3d 32, 55 (2020), as modified on denial of reh' g (Aug. 25, 2020) [citations omitted].) c. Failure to timely disclose documents related to SEDA infrastructure expenditures defeats CEQA' s requirement that all environmental impacts be disclosed, considered, and mitigated where possible.
i. Environmental impacts of construction and operation of infrastructure are neither disclosed nor mitigated.

Constructing utilities and other needed infrastructure for 9,000 acres' worth of residences, schools, businesses, parks, etc., will require grading, excavating, paving, and other soildisturbing activities that beyond peradventure will generate air pollution and greenhouse gases, among other impacts. Operation of the infrastructure will entail still further impacts.

The PEIR simply claims that project-level construction mitigation measures will be adequate to mitigate all impacts. However, given that the PEIR fails to mitigate air quality impacts for noninfrastructure activities, the additional impacts infrastructure construction will have on air quality must be analyzed in terms of the extent to which they will cumulatively contribute to air pollution. Operational impacts must also be evaluated.
ii. The PEIR Project Description fails to include information now known about infrastructure needs, or to calculate the environmental effects of those parts of the project.

The PEIR Project Description represents that at the time of circulation the City had already done infrastructure analyses, referencing a "Public Facilities Financing Plan" (p.2-3), and an Infrastructure Plan with "more closely specified" details about types of infrastructure to be constructed in the Specific Plan area.23 But the Recirculated PEIR includes none of the descriptive information required by Government Code§ 65451(a)(2), nor analysis either of the 21 Consultant Service Agreement between City of Fresno (City) and FirstCarbon Solutions (Consultant), Southeast Development Area Specific Plan, executed November 4, 2020, Exhibit A, Attachment A: Scope of Services, Task 1.2.
22 Addressing public involvement in proceedings related to a general plan, and made applicable to Specific Plan preparation, adoption, and amendment by Government Code§ 65453(a). 23 See, p.2-8, roads; p.2-17, "sustainable infrastructure," not otherwise specified; p.2-18, "holistically coordinated infrastructure," not otherwise specified.

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20 construction or the operational impacts of supplying that infrastructure, violating CEQA' s express purpose that agencies "give 'major consideration' to preventing damage to the environment when conducting their regulatory functions. (Pub.Resources Code, § 21000(g).)" See, Santiago County Water Dist. v. County of Orange, 118 Cal.App.3d 818, 829-831, 173 Cal.Rptr. 602, 607-609 (1981) [failure to account for impacts related to project water delivery facilities].

See also, San Joaquin Raptor,IJt\/ildlife Rescue Center v. County of Stanislaus, 27 Cal.App.4th 713, 730, 32 Cal.Rptr.2d 704 (1994), as modified (Sept. 12, 1994) [omission of reference to wastewater treatment plant recognized as necessary to the project resulted in an improperly "curtailed" and "distorted" project description.]
iii. The draft PEIR neither discloses nor mitigates environmental impacts of directing billions of dollars into SEDA infrastructure, forcing scarce city resources away from existing neighborhoods.

Although one of the claimed Project Objectives of the SEDA Plan is "fiscal responsibility," including "self-financing for the development and ongoing maintenance of the SEDA that does not reduce City of Fresno resources dedicated to other areas of the City or burden Fresno residents outside of the SEDA,"24 the Plan provides no evidence of such a "self-financing" approach to infrastructure. On the contrary, the Plan repeatedly promises that when infrastructure capacity falls short, the City will step in and pay.25 The as-yet-undisclosed documentation of infrastructure needs and funding mechanisms must either substantiate the fiscal responsibility of the Plan, or not. As of this moment, the public has no idea because there is no evidence in the record for the City's claim that development and ongoing maintenance will be "self-financing."
Unless there is proof of the "self-financing" claim, SEDA commits the City to massively expensive infrastructure that is not needed to accommodate Fresno's housing needs, and that directly conflicts with the General Plan by privileging new growth over strengthening established neighborhoods. In addition, it foreseeably, substantially, contributes to physical blight and decay, with resulting economic decline, in all non-SEDA areas of the City.26 As in Bakersfield Citizens for Local Control v. City of Bakersfield, 124 Cal.App.4th 1184, 1208, 22 Cal.Rptr.3d 203, 222 (2004), the SEDA PEIR has failed to comply with the information disclosure provisions of CEQA because it has omitted any meaningful consideration of the question whether the diversion of funding for infrastructure improvements could trigger a series of events that ultimately cause urban decay. Nor does the PEIR even contain a statement indicating that such a possibility had been considered, or reasons why it had been determined 24 SEDA Recirculated Draft EIR, passim, including pp. ES-2, 2-18. 25 For example, mitigation measures HYD-2b and HYD-2c require the Gty to "secure additional water supplies by securing additional water sources" where a proposed SEDA development would exceed existing water supply capacity.
26 See, Fresno Urban Decay Analysis, ECONorthwest, 2023 (copy attached); see also, Patterns of Sprawl in Fresno and the Central San Joaquin Valley, 2024, p.8 (copy attached).

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23 that urban decay was not a significant effect of the proposed project. d. CLC and RCI incorporate comments submitted on behalf of County of Fresno In support of their comment that the draft PEIR fails to include adequate planning details (including regarding public infrastructure) to permit a sufficient degree of analysis and public information regarding the environmental consequences of such a large greenfield development, CLC and RCI hereby join, and incorporate by this reference, the portions of the September 4, 2023 comment letter on the 2023 draft SEDA PEIR, submitted by Jeffrey on behalf of the County of Fresno, Department of Public Works and Planning, at pages 3 through 5 (Section B), and page 7 (Section D).
e. City must extend the public comment period on the SEDA Plan for 45 days after the infrastructure plan, infrastructure budget, nexus study, and financing plan have been released for review.

Failure to timely release the infrastructure-related studies and analyses for public comment deprives the public of a meaningful opportunity to comment upon substantial adverse environmental impacts of the proposed project or a feasible way to mitigate or avoid such an effect that the project's proponents have declined to implement. CEQA Guidelines,§ 15203, requires the lead agency to "provide adequate time for other public agencies and members of the public to review and comment on a draft EIR or negative declaration that it has prepared." It may be that the disclosure of the infrastructure documents constitutes significant new information within the meaning of Pub. Res. Code§ 21092.1 or CEQA Guidelines§ 15088.S(a) that requires recirculation of the PEIR. Even if not, the infrastructure information is crucial to evaluation of SEDA's environmental impacts. Therefore, the infrastructure documents are also subject to the 45-day public review period required by CEQA Guidelines, § 15105(a).

8. The SEDA Recirculated draft PEIR's Existing Conditions description is fatally inaccurate.

In its Introduction chapter, the SEDA draft PEIR includes a current city population figure, but no population projections. (p. 2-3 - 2.21) Projected population growth data appears, instead, in an "Existing Conditions" segment of the Population and Housing chapter. There, the PEIR describes historical population increases in the City and the County, using 2022 Census Bureau Quick Facts figures. (SEDA PEIR, pp. 3.14-1- 2, fn. 1, 2.) It relies on California Department of Finance for Fresno's average household size. (Id., p.3.14-2, fn. 3.) However, on the crucial question of projected population growth, the Recirculated PEIR continues to rely on Fresno Council of Governments' (FCOG) 2021 Fresno County growth projections to 2050, apparently last accessed May 20, 2022. (p.3.14-2, fn. 5.) The Gty's use of the FCOG figures in 2022 may have been the best information available at the time; there is no way to know, as the PEIR does not explain its choice of data sources.

But the PEIR has now been recirculated twice since the July 2023 release of the first version of the draft, once in October of 2023, and again in February of 2025 (current version). Well prior to the October 3, 2023 partial recirculation of the draft PEIR, the City was aware that the SEDA Comment letter - SEDA Recirculated PEIR March 24, 2025 15

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EIR' s population assumptions were materially inaccurate.27 As of August 2023, the California Department of Finance (DOF) had issued updated data very different from that cited in the July 2023 draft EIR.28 However, the October 2023 Partial Recirculated draft PEIR did not incorporate any corrections to its population projections.

In August of 2024, the Fifth District's South Fresno Community Alliance decision invalidated the City's General Plan update and Greenhouse Gas plan, requiring the current recirculation of the SEDA PEIR. By September of 2024, DOF had again updated its data to incorporate a finergrained analysis, and as of October of 2024, FCOG had corrected its own data based on the new information issued by the state.

In December of 2024, the City paid First Carbon Solutions an additional $153,636 to author a second Recirculated draft PEIR; 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, which show a Fresno population in 2025 of 595,370 (not the PEIR's 621,54029). 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 by 2050, well under half of the 35,553 households the PEIR' s figures would project. 30 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.31 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.

In its Reasons for Recirculation, the SEDA document describes South Fresno Community Alliance's invalidation of prior planning documents as constituting "substantial changes to the environmental setting," and therefore "significant new information" requiring recirculation (p.

ES-9); but the PEIR does not include corrected data nor otherwise respond to commenters' 27 CLC and RCI hereby incorporate by this reference the comment letter submitted by Keith Bergthold, dated August 28, 2023, and those portions of the August 28, 2023, comment letter submitted by Patience Milrod on behalf of CLC, IAF, and RO, at pages 3 through 5. (copies attached) 28 Please see Keith Bergthold August 28, 2023, comment letter. 29 SEDA PEIR, at p. 3.14-2.
30 At 3 persons per household, the SEDA PEIR Fresno Gty population growth figures would yield 35,553 new households.
31PEIR, p. 3.14-13 - Section 3.14.4- Project Impacts and Mitigation Measures.

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24 critique of population projections.32 Nor does the Recirculated draft PEIR explain why it relies on outdated and inaccurate data, except to say (using circular reasoning) that "This approach is consistent with requirements to maintain consistency with the General Plan." (p. 3.14-2.) This statement can only be read as an acknowledgement that the draft PEIR incorporates erroneous data into its environmental impact analyses-not only affecting calculations of housing demand, but also other impacts such as water quality, air quality, transportation, greenhouse gases, and infrastructure design, sequencing, and cost.

A knowing use of false data is antithetical to CEQA' s purpose of accurately informing decision makers and the public, especially when the plan in question creates such extensive unmitigated impacts on the environment as this one.

9. The SEDA draft PEIR fails to address Fresno's documented housing needs, proposing instead a more than doubling of the oversupply of single-family detached units.

The Plan itself does not commit to any particular number of homes at any particular price point; nor does it require as a mitigation measure that developers build so as to ensure any proportion of affordable-to-market-rate homes. But based on the SEDA proposed zoning map33, and on the City's application for the SEDA planning grant34, the SEDA Plan anticipates at most 9,000 potentially affordable multifamily units35 and 35,200 single-family units.

As it happens, the City's own One Fresno Housing Strategy acknowledges that the City's pressing needs are not for the single-family market-rate housing SEDA will supply, but for housing affordable to low-income residents: "Historic poor land use planning, inequitable fair housing practices and the basic imbalance of supply and demand have all led Fresno to its current state of needing approximately 15,000 new and converted affordable housing units between now and 2025 to meet our residents' needs." One Fresno Housing Strategy, April 2022, Mayor's Message, p. 2.

The One Fresno Housing Strategy makes clear that "Fresno needs 21,001 units for households who can afford no more than $500 on monthly housing costs," and "the City of Fresno has a glut of 28,310 single-family detached units over and above what Fresno households need based on household size." Id. at p. 38. These are not housing needs that SEDA' s 35,200 additional 32 In the 2025 West Area Neighborhoods Specific Plan draft EIR, the City acknowledged the new population reality of 0.2% growth, a small fraction of the growth assumed in the SEDA PEIR. See, Recirculated Draft EIR - West Area Neighborhoods Specific Plan, p. 3.12-1, Table 3.12.1-Environmental Setting-Demographics-Population Trends.
33 Southeast Development Area Specific Plan, Map 2.5-SEDA Proposed Land Use, p. 22. 34 Fresno City SB 2 Planning Grants Application, Section E, Project Description, p. 6. 35 Based on HCD's zoning standard of at least 16 units per acre (see, HCD By-Right Program Minimum Densities Table). However, density standards are only a rough proxy for affordability; at this pointsince the PEIR includes no enforceable mitigation measures imposed as conditions of entitlement-it is possible that not a single unit to be built in SEDA will be affordable to low-income families.

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single-family market rate homes will meet.

The City's own quantified assessment of Fresno's housing needs36 over most of the next decade shows more than adequate inventory for that new housing; not a single parcel from SEDA is needed to meet those goals.37
The SEDA Specific Plan's claim that "the acceleration of the current housing crisis has created a 'substantial shortage' of homes and therefore prioritized completion of the SEDA Plan"38 is demonstrably untrue. This claim cannot therefore be the basis for legitimate, evidence-based findings of overriding consideration.

10. The SEDA draft PEIR fails to analyze or to mitigate foreseeable and avoidable impacts on farmland.

CLC and RCI hereby join, and incorporate by this reference, the portions of the September 4, 2023, comment letter on the 2023 draft SEDA PEIR, submitted by Jeffrey Reid on behalf of the County of Fresno, Department of Public Works and Planning, found at pages 7 through 10 (Sections E, F, and G).

CLC and RCI hereby join, and incorporate by this reference, the portion of the March 24, 2025, comment letter submitted by Douglas Carstens and Michelle Black on behalf of the Sierra Club, Central Valley Partnership, and League of Women Voters entitled" Agricultural Resources and Forestry Resources Impacts are Not Sufficiently Mitigated."

11. Traffic impacts
a. The Recirculated SEDA draft PEIR materially underestimates VMT by significantly overestimating trip capture within SEDA.
i. At the time of recirculation, the City was aware of the PEIR's failure to accurately estimate VMT.

In support of their comment that the draft PEIR fails to accurately estimate VMT, CLC and RCI hereby incorporate by this reference the following comment letters submitted on the 2023 draft 36 See, FRFSNO MULTI-JURISDICTIONAL HOUSING ELEMENT, July 2023: Figure lE-2.2 Sites Inventory, Fresno 2023, p. lE-2-33; and Table lE-1.1, Summary of Quantified Objectives, 2023-2031, p. lE1-35. 37 The SEDA PEIR admits as much at p. 2-1: "While there is still ample residential capacity within the current city limits and in Growth Area I (which includes the Southwest Fresno and the West Area Neighborhoods Specific Plan areas), there is a sense of urgency about the current housing crisis and the Gty' s ability to provide housing for the existing population and its natural growth as well as the unanticipated in-migration occurring at this time." The PEIR includes no evidence justifying this supposed "urgency," and California Department of Finance population growth figures flatly contradict it.

Moreover, they do not reflect any "unanticipated in-migration occurring at this time," and the EIR offers no evidence in support of this apparently fictitious phenomenon. 38 Draft SEDA Specific Plan, p. 9.

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SEDAPEIR:
• California Department of Transportation, David Padilla, submitted August 25, 2023. • California Department of Transportation, David Padilla, submitted November 17, 2023. • Victoria Transport Policy Institute, Todd Litman, submitted August 21, 2023. • Sunnyside Property Owners Association, Sue Williams, submitted August 25, 2023. • County of Fresno, Department of Public Works and Planning, Jeffrey Reid, submitted November 7, 2023.
• CLC, IAF, and RCI, Patience Milrod, submitted August 28, 2023. • CLC, IAF, and RCI, Patience Milrod, submitted November 6, 2023. ii. VMT figures must be recalculated.

Notwithstanding multiple comments submitted after the release of each of the two 2023 PEIR drafts, the Recirculated draft PEIR has failed to correct the counterfactual assumptions it makes about internal trip capture within SEDA, fails to provide VMT per service population data for years prior to 2035, and continues simply to assert that VMT per service population will drop from 45.72 to 5.07 without addressing or explaining omission of interim-years data. Moreover, it incorrectly identifies a 2035 buildout horizon-though such a timeline conflicts with the General Plan estimate of only new 14,900 units in SEDA by that date, is not physically feasible, and inaccurately reflects the Specific Plan's buildout timeframe.39 Professionally adequate analysis would recognize that realistically only second-generation SEDA residents will be able to work, go to school, shop, and recreate within SEDA's boundaries to the extent claimed, since commercial and employment centers will lag a decade or two behind housing development and occupancy. This serious analytic error in turn generates drastically underestimated traffic impacts, which in turn results in material undercounting of air quality impacts, which in tum would invalidate any human health impact analysis based on these data, if such an analysis had been done.

As Victoria Transport Policy Institute points out, "the Plan's current analysis significantly underestimates vehicle traffic congestion, crash, emission and resulting air quality impacts.

Until more accurate travel modeling can be completed, and air quality impacts adjusted, this PEIR fails to predict the project's significant social and environmental impacts and so fails to provide the information that policy makers, practitioners and the general public need to make informed decisions." (August 25, 2023 comment letter, p.2.) CalTrans' letter notes that SEDA will create a VMT impact because it cannot accurately claim trip capture for decades after the project begins to be built out, as residential uses (which produce trips) are followed, "slowly over time," by commercial uses (trip attractors). CalTrans 39 See, e.g., Recirculated SEDA draft PEIR at p. ES-1, anticipating" approximately 45,000 homes and 37,000 jobs within the nearly 9,000-acre planning area by the year 2050." Comment letter - SEDA Recirculated PEIR March 24, 2025 19

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27 quantifies the net VMI increase from No Project Conditions as 162% and contradicts the PEIR's claimed VMI per service population claim.

CEQA Guidelines,§ 15064.3(b)(4) allows a lead agency to choose a methodology by which to evaluate vehicle miles traveled but requires that "[a]ny assumptions used to estimate vehicle miles traveled and any revisions to model outputs should be documented and explained in the environmental document prepared for the project." The PEIR' s choice of a 2035 horizon is unreasonable. In addition, the PEIR does not inform the reader how it calculates VMI either for the years between the project's initiation and its 2035 horizon, nor provide any data out through the (more realistic) 2050 actual buildout period. The PEIR's analysis is subject to Guidelines§ 15151' s standard of adequacy: "An evaluation of the environmental effects of a proposed project need not be exhaustive, but the sufficiency of an EIR is to be reviewed in the light of what is reasonably feasible." The missing calculations are reasonably feasible but have not been incorporated into the PEIR and their omission is unexplained. b. Traffic mitigation measures must be updated based on corrected data and analysis.

The 2025 PEIR does acknowledge, as the 2023 draft did not, that the Specific Plan "could conflict" with a program or policy related to transportation. (p. 3.17-31.) It claims the Specific Plan "is a comprehensive planning document" that "addresses wide-ranging infrastructure and community challenges" related to future growth. But, while noting that "[p]lanning at this scale allows design and phasing of infrastructure improvements that are more efficient, environmentally sensitive, and cost-effective," the Plan in fact incorporates no such design or phasing information.

Notwithstanding the almost one million daily trips the project will generate,40 and commenters' requests for quantifiable and enforceable mitigation measures, the Recirculated draft PEIR identifies exactly the same mitigation measures as the original draft PEIR. There is no evidence of effort to plan comprehensively, or at scale, to design and phase infrastructure so as to mitigate environmental impacts from VMTs. Instead, all mitigation measures defer mitigation to the implementing project level, except possibly MM TRANS-ld (bus service). The cumulative impacts analysis is likewise deferred to project-level approvals. (SEDA draft PEIR, pp.3.17-44 - 45.)
In its Executive Summary Matrix, the draft PEIR claims that the SEDA Specific Plan "would not conflict or be inconsistent with CEQA Guidelines,§ 15064.3(b)" (Table ES-1, p.ES-51), and lists that Guideline's criteria for assessing significance of transportation impacts at p.3.17-34.

However, the PEIR fails to provide sufficient accurate information to establish whether, or how, the rebuttable presumption of no significant transportation impacts would legitimately apply to the SEDA Specific Plan: The Plan imposes no enforceable mitigation measures as conditions of project-level approvals to ensure siting within 0.5 miles of transit; and, the claim that SEDA planning would reduce VMI below existing conditions is unsustainable on the evidence in the 40 Plan Area VMf with the project build out in 2035 is expected to be 974,369. SEDA Recirculated draft PEIR, p.3.17-32
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draftPEIR.

What the draft PEIR does not give us is a reasoned explanation of why it has not adopted, at the Plan level, the many recommended mitigation measures that could make accurate the Plan's claim to comprehensive planning. These include the mitigation measures suggested in CalTrans' August 2023 letter, the Emission Reduction Oean Air Measures recommended by the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District (copy attached), and the City's own 2020 VMT threshold guidelines document, which points out that "regional VMT mitigation is considered the most effective method for large-scale VMT reduction," and provides multiple mitigation options for community and general plans.41 As required by Section 15126.4 of the State CEQA Guidelines, "Where several measures are available to mitigate an impact, each should be discussed and the basis for selecting a particular measure should be identified. Formulation of mitigation measures shall not be deferred until some future time." [emphasis added]. This draft PEIR fails to fulfill this function.

12. The SEDA Recirculated draft PEIR fails to adequately analyze or mitigate greenhouse gas emissions from the SEDA project
CLC and RCI hereby join, and incorporate by this reference the portions of the March 24, 2025 comment letter submitted by Douglas Carstens and Michelle Black on behalf of the Sierra Oub, Central Valley Partnership, and League of Women Voters that relate to the PEIR's assessment, analysis, disclosure, and mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions due to SEDA projects' construction and operation activities.

13. The SEDA Recirculated draft PEIR fails to adequately identify, quantify, or mitigate air quality impacts.
a. The draft PEIR must include ozone calculations.

The draft PEIR' s Air Pollution Description and Health Effects discussion lists criterion pollutants, generally describes their adverse effects on human health, and identifies the regulatory programs intended to curb air pollution, including the ozone reduction/prevention plans for the San Joaquin Valley Air Basin nonattainment area. However, there is no discussion of the human health impacts of the additional pollution load this project contributes to Fresno's already-dirty air.

The PEIR does not calculate the anticipated parts per million (ppm) of ozone resulting from SEDA construction and operations; although NOx and ROG are estimated, the reader has no idea how much ozone will be produced (i.e., whether the amount of ozone resulting from the ROG and NOx pollution will bring the ozone ppm within the 0.10 to 0.40 range). Given that the measures for both the precursor pollutants exceed their respective thresholds of significance, 41 CEQA Guidelines for Vehicle Miles Traveled Thresholds (Fresno CEQA VMf Guide), adopted June 25, 2020, City of Fresno, p.40; for mitigation measures, see, Appendix C, Vehicle Miles Traveled Mitigation Measures for Community Plans and General Plans.

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30 this omission renders the draft PEIR' s air quality analysis inadequate. Sierra Club v. County of Fresno (2018) 6 Cal.5th 502, 520.

The ozone discussion must, of course do more than calculate the NOx + ROG figure but must also factor in the rising temperatures being experienced and expected to increase over the project implementation period. See SJV APCD Redesignation Request, Appendix B: Analysis of Meteorology Affecting Ozone Levels, p. B-8:
100
90 80
70 60
50 40
- oays=>95
--Days Exceeding 1-hr Ozone
Standard (San Joaquin County)
2012 2013 2014 2015 2017 2018 2019 2020 20212022
Figure B-7 Number of Days per Year with High Temperatures 2: 95°F at Stockton Airport (May-October) and Days Exceeding the 1-hour Ozone NAAQS (2012-2022) As importantly, ozone calculations must be based on an accurate VMT figure derived from realistic, evidence-based VMT projections that correct for the excessively optimistic internal trip capture assumptions of this Draft PEIR.
b. The draft PEIR must include a human health impact analysis The PEIR fails to include an analysis that correlates the project's emissions of air pollutants to its impacts on human health, rendering the draft PEIR' s air quality analysis inadequate. Sierra Club v. County of Fresno (2018) 6 Cal.5th 502, at pp. 517-520.

Because ozone is not confined to the site where it is generated, piecemealing human health impact analyses on a development-by-development basis, as the draft PEIR proposes, both grossly understates the health impacts, and makes their mitigation effectively impossible.

Moreover, the draft PEIR deliberately misleads the public and decision makers about the seriousness of the air quality impacts SEDA will create, by discussing ROG separately from NOx, and asserting that" direct exposure to ROG would not .. . result in health effects." See, p.

3.3-58. There is no mention of the toxic cocktail that ROG creates when it combines with NOx in the heat of a Central Valley summer afternoon. But ozone's effects on humans, especially children, are not trivial:

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approved for SEDA-adjacent South Central Fresna42: "Breathing ozone can trigger a variety of health problems, including chest pain, coughing, throat irritation, and congestion. It can reduce lung function and inflame the linings of the lungs. Repeated exposure may permanently scar lung tissue. Children are at a greater risk of experiencing negative health impacts because their lungs are still developing and they are more likely to be active outdoors when ozone levels are high, thus increasing their exposure. Studies have linked rising hospital admissions and emergency room visits to higher ozone levels." Appendix G:

Health Impacts of Air Pollution, p. G-17.

Fresno State University's Central Valley Health Policy Institute studied emergency room and hospital admissions in Fresno, Bakersfield, and Modesto on a daily basis for selected conditions, such as asthma and acute myocardial infarction (MI), that had been previously linked to air pollution in other studies. They determined that ozone was strongly linked to increased risk for asthma ER visits in children during the hottest summer months.

Moreover, asthma ER admissions are also strongly linked to increasing PM2.s across the Valley, with a higher risk in children. Further, risk for asthma hospitalizations increased dramatically with PM2.s in children and adults across the region. A moderate increase in risk of acute MI (heart attack) was also linked to PM2.s levels regionally, as were pneumonia ER visits in children and acute bronchitis ER visits in adults.43 Dr. Emanuel Alcala advised in his September 6, 2023, comment letter (copy attached and incorporated by this reference) that "incremental increases in ozone levels aloneindependent of the other pollutants the project will create-will have the following human health impacts: decreased lung function, decreased lung function growth in children, increased asthma-related emergency visits and hospital admissions, and mortality among older adults."
The PEIR is inadequate because, as in Bakersfield Citizens, "After reading the EIR[], the public would have no idea of the health consequences that result when more pollutants are added to a nonattainment basin." (Bakersfield Citizens, supra, at p. 1220.) The PEIR does not explain why it includes no quantified health impact projections "to inform the public how its bare numbers translate to create potential adverse impacts," nor to" explain what the agency does know and why, given existing scientific constraints, it cannot translate potential health impacts further." (Friant Ranch, supra, 6 Cal.5th at p. 521 [emphasis in original].) The PEIR offers no "explanation why it was not feasible to provide an analysis that connected the air quality effects to human health consequences." Id., 6 Cal.5th at p. 522.

In fact, such analysis is feasible, and should have been conducted here. In 2020, after the Friant Ranch decision, the Sacramento Metropolitan Air Quality Management District adopted 42 http://community.valleyair.org/selected-communities/south-central-fresno, incorporated by this reference.
43 Capitman & Tyner, The Impacts of Short-Term Changes in Air Quality on Emergency Room and Hospital Use in California's San Joaquin Valley, California State University, Fresno, June 2011.

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31 Guidance to Address the Friant Ranch Ruling for CEQA Projects in the Sacramento Metro Air District (copy attached), which sets out procedures for conducting a health effects analysis that would meet the Supreme Court's standard for disclosure of adverse health effects resulting from a CEQA project. The procedures rely on the Benefits Mapping and Analysis Program (BenMAP), a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) tool that estimates health impacts from ozone and PM2.s. At Section 6 and Appendix A. the Guidance provides technical procedures and details; at Appendix Git correlates emissions levels and pollutants with "health endpoints" 44 by geographic region and age range for strategic area projects.

As Dr. Alcala pointed out to the City in September of 2023, "the tools with which to conduct [a human health effects analysis] are readily available. For example, the Environmental Benefits Mapping and Analysis Program - Community Edition (BenMAP-CE) - not only estimates health impacts but also estimates economic values associated with health morbidity events." BenMAP, or some similar program, should and could have been used here to provide the information the public and decisionmakers need - including an assessment of ozone impacts on human health.
c. The PEIR is inconsistent with air quality attainment status, and conflicts with and obstructs implementation of the applicable air quality plan.

While the draft PEIR acknowledges as "a significant and unavoidable impact" that implementation of SEDA will conflict with and obstruct applicable air quality plans, it does not specify which plans, nor does it quantify the degree to which SEDA will obstruct their implementation. (See, p.3.3-42 - 43.)
A review however of the draft PEIR' s Appendix B can garner some idea of how SEDA air quality impacts will harm efforts to ensure healthy air in the Fresno Region. One example is comparing the PEIR's air quality impacts analysis with the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District's "Proposed 2023 Maintenance Plan and Redesignation Request for the Revoked 1-Hour Ozone Standard" (SJV APCD Redesignation Request) adopted by the Air District Board on June 15, 2023.45 The purpose of that document is to persuade the federal Environmental Protection Agency to terminate anti-backsliding provisions for the revoked 1- hour ozone standard, including Section 185 nonattainment fees. Toward that end, the document includes both proofs of compliance and a maintenance plan. It clearly does not factor in the ozone contributions SEDA would make to the Valley's pollution load.

Specifically, SJV APCD' s Redesignation Request, Appendix A: Emissions Inventory (pp. A-1 through A-4), projects annual anticipated pollution levels for NOx through 2036. A layperson - including a member of the public, the Planning Commission, or the City Council- gets a 44 These include: hospital admissions, all respiratory; mortality, non-accidental; emergency room visits, asthma; hospital admissions, asthma; mortality, all cause; hospital admissions, all cardiovascular (less myocardial infarctions); acute myocardial infarction, nonfatal. 45 See, SJV APCD 2023 Maintenance Plan and Redesignation Request for the Revoked 1-Hour Ozone Standard -see https: //ww2.valleyair.org/rules-and-planning/air-quality-plans/ ozone-plans/.

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32 graphic idea of SEDA's impact just by comparing the Air District's all-Valley numbers in identified years to the numbers this project alone will generate.

NOx -summer average in tonsjday46
Entire San Joaquin SEDA% increase
Year Valley, per SEDA, per PEIR
over total SJV SJVAPCD
2026 119.50 180.529 151.07%
2031 97.49 170.8218 175.22%
2036 84.13 168.2333 199.97%
This chart illustrates SEDA's huge and negative effect on Valley air quality: by 2036, SEDA alone is projected to produce double the amount of NOx being produced across the entire rest of the San Joaquin Valley. The document provides changes in VOC over time and does not sum up ROG separately; it will therefore be important for an adequate SEDA ozone analysis to determine, and to include as a point of comparison, how SEDA ROG emissions will compare to regionwide ROG production during the identified years, in order to report accurately the extent to which SEDA will impede achievement of regionwide air quality improvement goals.

The PEIR must acknowledge these data, explain them in the context of the SEDA proposal, and provide fact-based analysis of the proposal's air quality impacts that take these data into account. The draft PEIR' s passing confession that "Emissions of VOC and NOx that exceed the Valley Air District regional threshold would cumulatively contribute to the ozone nonattainment designation of the SJV AB" (p. 3.3-56) is inadequate. Exceedances at this scale require some effort beyond falling back on General Plan mitigation measures that never anticipated impacts of this magnitude.
d. Plan level and project level mitigation measures are inadequate, amounting to piecemealing of SEDA's regional air quality impacts.

The draft PEIR fails to propose plan-level mitigation measures that will have any mitigating effect on air quality impacts, although many tools and other resources are available for this purpose. The PEIR takes the position that plan-scale mitigations are infeasible, but this is inaccurate: the City's own 2020 VMT threshold guidelines document provides multiple mitigation options for community and general plans.47 It is objectively umeasonable, and an invitation to piecemealing that will defeat the whole purpose of a mitigation program, to 46 See, SJV APCD Adapted 2023 Maintenance Plan and Redesignation Request for the Revoked 1-Hour Ozone Standard, Appendix A: Emissions Inventory, p. A-4. Copy attached; available at https://www.valleyair.org/Workshops/postings/2023/06-15-23/maintenance-plan.pdf; last accessed March 24, 2025.
47 See, e.g., Fresno CEQA VMI Guide, and SJV APCD Emission Reduction Clean Air Measures-among many others.

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suggest that it is impossible to impose plan-scale mitigation measures as enforceable conditions of development in SEDA.

The draft PEIR falsely claims that it has adequately canvassed and incorporated available air quality mitigation measures, but that" due to the magnitude of emissions generated by the residential, office, and commercial land uses proposed as part of the proposed project, no mitigation measures are available that would reduce cumulative impacts below the Valley Air District's thresholds." That the PEIR cannot find measures to reduce (for example) 2026 NOx emissions from 180 tons per year to 10 does not mean there are no possible mitigations that would reduce NOx emissions to (for example) 50: "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." Laurel Heights Improvement Assn. v . Regents of University of California (1988) 47 Cal.3d 376,404; §§ 21051, 21100; Guidelines, § 15370. It is not an option in 2025 to effectively abandon the effort, when air pollution from this project would so massively exceed the entire total NOx output for the rest of the San Joaquin Valley, creating avoidable illness and death, and dooming City efforts to reduce climate change impacts.

Such specific mitigation measures as the plan does include are to be implemented at the project level; only AIR-la imposes use of low-VOC paints ("super-compliant architectural coatings") as a condition of approval. The others (AIR-lb through AIR-4) do not impose mitigation obligations unless preconditions are met. For AIR-lb and -le (respectively, construction- and operation-related air impacts), there is no need for air quality mitigation measures unless the project impacts exceed the Air District threshold of significance. By definition, project-level emissions will have (relative to the SEDA Plan as a whole) minimal potential impact on the environment.

For AIR-ld, mitigation for emission of Toxic Air Contaminants (TAC) or Diesel Particulate Matter (DPM) pollutants is only required at the project level, and only if both of two conditions are met: 1) if such emissions will occur within 1000 feet of a sensitive receptor; and 2) if a Health Risk Assessment shows incremental health risks for those sensitive receptors exceed Air District levels. Thus, a development project within SEDA could freely emit unmitigated TAC and/ or DPM so long as it is not sited near a sensitive receptor. This is a perverse outcome, defeating the purpose of SEDA, increasing in an unmeasured and unmitigated manner the toxic contaminants to which the general public will be exposed, and putting even non-sensitive receptors at unnecessary risk.48
Not surprisingly, though the PEIR acknowledges significant cumulative air quality impacts, the 48 It is also contrary to best practices, according to the Air District. SJV APCD comments on a Fresno community plan did not recommend limiting mitigation to uses near sensitive receptors, but rather prescribed one of two types of health impact analysis for every development project within the plan area.

See, comments on Recirculated Notice of Preparation of an Environmental Impact Report for Revisions to the Fresno South Central Specific Plan, May 14, 2021, p. 6, available at https: / /community. valleyair.org/ media /1 ywkdola / district-comments-20210313-nop-fresno-southcentral-specific-plan-5-14-21. pdf Comment letter - SEDA Recirculated PEIR March 24, 2025 26

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33 project-by-project approach to the issue would allow many projects to avoid air quality mitigation entirely, thus precluding effective mitigation of cumulative impacts. Thus, the Specific Plan's cumulative air quality impacts remain, according to the PEIR, "significant and unavoidable."
Piecemealing a project such as SEDA to avoid imposing mitigation is no more defensible than piecemealing to avoid environmental review. As the Fifth District pointed out in Los Angeles Dep't of Water & Power v. Cnty. of Inyo, 67 Cal. App. 5th 1018, 1035, 283 Cal.Rptr. 3d 119, 130 (2021), "CEQA contemplates consideration of environmental consequences at the earliest possible stage, even though more detailed environmental review may be necessary later. [Citation.] Consistent with this view, CEQA's requirements cannot be avoided by chopping a large project with significant adverse consequences into many little ones-each with a minimal potential impact on the environment. [Citation.] Piecemeal review is contrary to CEQA's requirements." The PEIR fails to demonstrate an honest effort to accurately calculate and to reduce VMTs, or an honest effort to apply any of the many available technologies, mechanisms, and strategies to mitigate air quality impacts. It fails as the informational document CEQA requires.

Moreover, the draft PEIR does not sufficiently account for its lack of specificity by assurances that a "Health Risk Assessment" (HRA) will be prepared later in the CEQA process, in connection with development-specific EIRs. (See, e.g., MM AIR-3.1, -3.2.) Sierra Club v. County of Fresno, supra, 6 Cal.5th at p. 521. For one thing, an HRA is required by the California Health & Safety Code, § 44306, only to evaluate and predict the dispersion of hazardous substances.

Secondly, a project-specific HRA is inadequate for assessing plan-scale impacts or for devising plan-scale mitigation measures-the very purpose of a Program Environmental Impact Report, but not remotely achieved by the SEDA draft PEIR.

The draft PEIR also fails to propose mitigation measures that will significantly reduce transportation impacts, including dangerous levels of air pollution. Although the project triples vehicle miles traveled to almost 1 million per day, mitigation measures are absent or illusory.

For the first two decades of the project's operation, its transportation and consequent air quality impacts are huge, both as a result of the concept itself-a new city of 145,000 planted in rural Fresno, 10 miles from the city's urban center - and of an apparent determination to impose no mitigation that might inconvenience or cost SEDA developers and builders.

14. The PEIR is inconsistent with the Housing Element of the City's General Plan.

The draft PEIR undermines the Housing Element's corrective approach to decades of poor planning. Fresno's 6th cycle draft Housing Element acknowledges that" growth in the City of Fresno over the past few decades has traditionally been low density suburban development, which has resulted in conditions of sprawl in various areas of the city." Fresno MultiJurisdictional Housing Element July 2023, Appendix lE: City of Fresno, p.lE-4-1.

The Housing Element therefore proposes to fill a perennial critical gap in the City's capacity to provide and upgrade housing in legacy neighborhoods: "As part of the implementation of the Comment letter - SEDA Recirculated PEIR March 24, 2025 27

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34 Housing Element, programs are identified to upgrade the city's infrastructure as needed in lowand moderate-income neighborhoods with the greatest needs. Priority for infrastructure projects will be given to serving established neighborhoods, including generally south of Herndon A venue as shown in Figure lE-3.41: Priority Areas for Development Incentives, along BRT and enhanced transit corridors, and in the Downtown Planning Area, consistent with General Plan policies." Housing Element, p.lE-3-119 [emphasis added].

A City decision to invest billions of dollars in SEDA infrastructure is inconsistent with the Housing Element's commitment to correct the City's history of neglecting older neighborhoods.

In the zero-sum game of municipal finance, and especially in the absence of a SEDA infrastructure financing plan, there is no way to ensure adequate resources to fund "Priority Investments in Established Neighborhoods" as already identified in the General Plan.49 Again, consistently with the General Plan, the 6th Cycle Housing Element inventory does not identify parcels in SEDA as necessary to meet Regional Housing Needs between now and 2031.

See, Figure lE-2.7 at p. lE-2-67. Instead, the Housing Element identifies SEDA as Development Area 3, as does the General Plan-the last in priority for development on the fringe areas. See, Housing Element, Figure lE-3.42, which shows Growth Area 2 to include SEDA, labeled "DA3" for Development Area 3. "Growth Area 2 has significantly less access to completed infrastructure. Any development in these areas would require all infrastructure costs to be borne by the new development." lE-3-121.

15. The SEDA draft PEIR fails to adequately analyze or mitigate project water impacts. a. Water impacts are badly underestimated.

It appears the City has not factored drought conditions or climate change projections into its water supply sustainability calculations. Figure ES-2, Projected Water Supplies50, shows an increase of almost 21,000 AFY in available groundwater between 2025 and 2045, plus another 6,500 AFY increase in surface water over the same period.

However, the draft PEIR recognizes that across California, climate change will effect a "reduction in the quality and supply of water from the Sierra snowpack,"51 a source on which the City of Fresno is heavily reliant for both surface water and groundwater recharge. The Draft PEIR reports that by 2050, such impacts in the Fresno area will reduce the average water supply from snowpack to two-thirds historical levels, and "If emissions reductions do not occur, water from snowpack could fall to less than one-third of historical levels by 2100."52 Not only are these concerns not discussed in the Plan or the draft PEIR, but they are explicitly 49 See summary in December 2024 draft Housing Element, p. lE-3-119. 50 Draft PEIR, Appx. F, p. ES-7.
51 Draft PEIR, p. 3.8-9 (warmer temperatures could reduce the Sierra Nevada spring snowpack "by as much as 70 to 90 percent.")
52 Id., p. 3.8-10.

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35 36
37 minimized in the discussion of hydrology and water quality. There, the PEIR proposes a cheerful water outlook, repeating in multiple places the phrases "during normal water years" and "assuming groundwater characteristics are not altered due to climatic events or regulatory influences from SGMA." 53 These are objectively unreasonable assumptions, but there is no discussion of a fallback position in the (likely) event the PEIR's sunny projections are inaccurate. b. Mitigations for hydrology impacts are inadequate; City taxpayers will bear the cost.

Not only are the projections unreasonably optimistic, but this is yet another place where the City's failure to do the program-level work of infrastructure planning, accurate environmental assessment, and imposition of mandatory, system-wide, coordinated mitigation measures predictably exacerbates environmental impacts.

Mitigation measures HYD-2b and HYD-2c require the City to refuse to approve proposed SEDA developments that would exceed "existing water supply capacity," and to "secure additional water supplies by securing additional water sources" prior to any such development approvals.

This post-facto proposed mitigation -the costs of which are scheduled to be borne by City taxpayers and not by SEDA' s developers or ultimate residents-is far inferior to plan-level mitigations prescribed in a Program EIR.

To achieve plan-level efficiencies and effectiveness, the City must disclose, and the draft PEIR must discuss, the "EIR-related water infrastructure planning tasks." 54 An intention to develop this vital information after SEDA approvals would violate CEQA. c. CLC and RCI incorporate comments submitted on behalf of County of Fresno.

In support of their comment that mitigations of water supply impacts are inadequate, CLC and RCI hereby join, and incorporate by this reference, the portions of the September 4, 2023, comment letter (copy attached) submitted by Jeffrey Reid on behalf of the County of Fresno, Department of Public Works and Planning, pages 11 through 12 (Section I).

16. The PEIR piecemeals assessments of environmental impacts, and mitigations.

The City's 2020 application to HCD for the SEDA planning grant committed to project streamlining as one of the SEDA plan's deliverables by incorporating "environmental analyses that eliminate the need for project-specific review." 55 This would have been a good idea, in light of the City's claim that it needs SEDA in order to expedite thousands of urgently needed new homes.

If the City had conducted the environmental analyses it promised to do, it would also have been able to keep another of the promises it made to HCD: a Program EIR under which "future development will also utilize an expanded exemption under Government Code Section 65457 53 Id., p. 3.10-8.
54 SEDA Specific Plan, pp. 100-109, passim.
55 Fresno City SB 2 Planning Grants Application, Section D, Proposed Activities Checklist, item 3, p. 5.

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38 that will apply to certain residential, commercial, and mixed-use projects that are consistent with a specific plan adopted pursuant to Government Code, Article 8, Chapter 3 and would be exempt from CEQA."56
The Plan pays lip service to streamlining, promising "Fiscal Responsibility" by "holistically coordinat[ing] infrastructure to integrate efficiencies that piecemeal planning cannot," and otherwise coordinating systems and networks for efficiency and economy.57 But the Plan and the draft PEIR fail to provide either plan-scale impact analysis or plan-scale mitigation measures; the draft PEIR itself repeatedly prescribes both environmental assessment and imposition of mitigation measures only during the City's approval process for subsequent discretionary projects within the SEDA footprint-for air quality impacts (see section 13.d, supra), transportation impacts, water supply impacts, etc. That is, if SEDA is approved as proposed, the City will need to subject every new project to environmental review in order to determine if its impacts are potentially significant, and what mitigation measures should be imposed - exactly the process streamlining is intended to avoid.

Statements by City officials have made this intention clear, most explicitly from City spokesman Brandon Johansen, whose email to a reporter admitted "As individual projects are filed within the Southeast Development Area, they will be evaluated under CEQA to determine project impacts and mitigation measures."58 Such an approach makes streamlining impossible (unless the idea is to use the PEIR to evade environmental review and mitigation for follow-on projects, which has been known to happen in Fresno). Absent streamlining, the City cannot accomplish its claimed goal of expediting housing production.

As importantly, this approach renders impossible "holistic coordination of infrastructure to integrate efficiencies that piecemeal planning cannot," much less creating systems and networks for efficiency and economy.

Finally, a project-by-project evaluation of air quality, water supply, and transportation impacts makes effective mitigation of SEDA' s large-scale environmental degradations illusory at best. A 9,000-acre project area, planted at such a remove from the city's center, requires creative and transformative approaches to the environmental consequences of its placement and its population. Piecemealing precludes effective mitigation.

17. The SEDA draft PEIR's alternatives analysis fails to satisfy CEQA requirements.

CEQA Guidelines, § 15126.6, provides guidance for conducting an adequate alternatives analysis. A reasonable alternative to a project may involve implementing it at a different 56 SB 2 Planning Grants Application, Section E, Project Description. 57 Draft PEIR at pp. ES-2, 2-18, and 5-11.
58 Greg Weaver, Another Clovis, but in southeast Fresno? City moves forward on mega-development plans, Fresnoland, August 25, 2023; https: //fresnoland.org/2023 / 08 /25 / city-of-fresno-eyes-seda/; accessed August 27, 2023.

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location, as long as it "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." § 15126.6(a).

Subdivision (c) of the Guideline can make consideration of a different location mandatory:
"The range of potential alternatives to the proposed project shall include those that could feasibly accomplish most of the basic objectives of the project and could avoid or substantially lessen one or more of the significant effects." [Emphasis added.]
Except for developers with inventory in the SEDA area, it should be a matter of indifference where exactly the City lawfully exercises its planning and zoning powers to incentivize adequate production of needed housing. Although "the housing crisis" is the putative justification for this Specific Plan at this time (see, fn. 37, supra), the Plan does not propose solutions to the housing crisis Fresno actually has: too few homes affordable to those at low and very low incomes, and an oversupply of detached single-family homes for above-moderate income buyers.59 Section 9, supra. While the SEDA Plan pays lip service to providing housing at all income levels, without question a plan serious about ensuring production of even some low-income housing must actively require and incentivize it, not just hope it appears if the plan is adopted; this plan makes no such provisions. Moreover, population growth has dropped significantly (see, section 8, supra); logically, housing demand is also dropping6° and will likely continue to drop.

This is the accurate description of the Environmental Setting/Existing Conditions within which SEDA is being proposed. Whether SEDA is wise public policy is not a CEQA question. But CEQA does require that decisionmakers seriously consider the tradeoffs even when acting foolishly, and that the public be fully aware of the costs of the choices their electeds are making for them.

Here, the Objectives of the Plan are set forth at pp. 5-11 - 5-12 of the EIR, a dreamy litany of smart-growth measures that conserve resources and foster community. Sadly, when subjected to comparative scrutiny, not one of these objectives can be better accomplished in a sprawlinducing greenfields project like SEDA than in an already-urban part of the city. It certainly appears to the lay observer that the Plan's resource-oriented objectives (coordinated infrastructure, resource-conserving techniques for public facilities, efficient use of energy, water and other resources, and reduction of energy and water consumption) are more likely in a location where infrastructure has already been built, and which can be improved or converted 59 The office of Fresno Mayor Jerry Dyer issued in April of 2022 a report entitled One Fresno Housing Strategy, which concluded that, as of that date, "Fresno needs 21,001 units for households who can afford no more than $500 on monthly housing costs," and "the City of Fresno has a glut of 28,310 single-family detached units over and above what Fresno households need based on household size." Id. at p. 38. 60 Since the City has not responded to the Public Records Act request for the housing market study it apparently commissioned in connection with SEDA, these commenters are reduced to trawling the internet for pertinent data. According to one internet site, as of the end of February 2025, home sales had dropped 8.4 % year over year, and were on average on the market 8 more days than for the same period last year. See, https:/ /www.redfin.com/ city/ 6904/ CA/Fresno/housing-market, last accessed March 24, 2025.

Comment letter - SEDA Recirculated PEIR March 24, 2025 31

CLC/RCI

38 CONT
39 to new uses depending on the project's needs. The SEDA alternative, to the contrary, will require billions of dollars in new infrastructure - the very opposite of resource conservation, and incompatible with the Plan's "fiscal responsibility'' objective.

Other objectives, such as fostering healthy activity by providing walking and bicycling routes to activity centers, convenient transit service, walkable neighborhoods, mixed use town centers, and innovative employment areas, are geography-neutral: there is no need to create a new town on greenfields to provide these amenities for Fresno residents. In fact, the Housing Element commits the City "to upgrade the city's infrastructure as needed in low- and moderateincome neighborhoods with the greatest needs. Priority for infrastructure projects will be given to serving established neighborhoods." December 2024 draft Housing Element, p. lE-3-119 [emphasis added].

The housing-related objectives are, likewise, geography-neutral-theoretically provision of housing affordable to all income levels and a wide variety of housing choices could be accomplished anywhere. However, unless the still-missing infrastructure financing plan calls for the City itself to fully absorb the expense, the massive cost of providing infrastructure to SEDA will make these objectives much harder to accomplish than they already are: these expenditures will inflate costs-per-square-foot; recouping those costs from SEDA homebuyers, renters, and business owners will create at least some drag on marketability, or will reduce the developers' return on investment. The possibility that lower-income housing could emerge from such a scenario is wildly unrealistic.

Finally, even if the SEDA Plan could create the perfect new town at the southeast comer of Fresno's sphere of influence, it would do so at a huge environmental cost to the region as a whole-including but not limited to the air quality, traffic, and water quality/ access concerns itemized here and in other comment letters. It is unlikely that the SEDA Plan would be the environmentally superior alternative when compared to housing provision in existing urban areas of the city.
a. The City must consider an Infil1/No-Project Alternative.

The City already has in hand a recent inventory of a sufficient number of suitable parcels to meet Fresno's housing needs in its December 2024 Housing Element draft. Facilitating housing development using the Housing Element as a blueprint is likely to yield all of the benefits and significantly reduced environmental impacts from construction and especially from operation.

An Infill Alternative is far likelier to meet many of the Plan's objectives, including creating housing affordable to the Fresnans who really need it. Recent state statutes privileging infill and low-income housing development, combined with a baseline of existing infrastructure, also create a pathway to expedited housing development-which is what you need in a crisis.

The SEDA draft PEIR must include an evaluation of this alternative, which could feasibly accomplish most of the basic objectives of the project and could avoid or substantially lessen one or more of the significant effects (§ 15126.6( a) [ emphasis added]), to allow decision makers to compare the impacts of approving the proposed project with the impacts of not approving the proposed Comment letter - SEDA Recirculated PEIR March 24, 2025 32

CLC/RCI

39 CONT
40 41
42 project. CEQA Guidelines,§ 15126.6(e)(1).
b. The City must consider a West Area Neighborhood/No-Project Alternative.

On March 12, 2025, the City finally released a Recirculated Specific Plan draft EIR for the West Area Neighborhoods. Again, this Plan provides for over 50,000 new homes, in an area already at least partially built out, with at least a baseline of existing infrastructure, and where at least some development would qualify under state procedures for expediting affordable housing.

Again, the West Area Neighborhoods Alternative is far likelier than the SEDA Plan itself to meet all of its objectives, with significantly reduced environmental impacts from both construction and operation. Environmentally, this is a second-best alternative to the Infill Alternative, since the West Area is a new growth area and will be developed less-densely than housing under an Infill concept.

The SEDA draft PEIR must include an evaluation of this alternative, which could feasibly accomplish most of the basic objectives of the project and could avoid or substantially lessen one or more of the significant effects(§ 15126.6(a) [emphasis added]), to allow decision makers to compare the impacts of approving the proposed project with the impacts of not approving the proposed project. CEQA Guidelines,§ 15126.6(e)(1).

18. On this record, a statement of overriding considerations to approve the PEIR would be an abuse of discretion.

On the basis of the current record, it will be impossible for the City Council to make evidencebased findings that II specific overriding economic, legal, social, technological, or other benefits of the project outweigh the significant effects on the environment" (Public Resources Code, § 21081 (b)), or that the "unmitigated effects are outweighed by the project's benefits." (Laurel Heights, supra, 47 Cal.3d at p. 391.)
Conclusion
There is no emergency requiring immediate approval of this development plan. The City's own draft Housing Element establishes that there is more than adequate site inventory within the existing City to accommodate anticipated housing demand for at least eight years. More importantly, adoption of this plan at this time will utterly defeat its claimed principal purpose, to facilitate streamlined housing production by anticipating and mitigating at a program scale the environmental impacts of such development.

The City must correct erroneous population projections and otherwise gather corrected data, use the correct tools to assess impacts, identify effective and enforceable plan-scale mitigations, and fully disclose those facts and analyses. Given the size and scale of the SEDA proposal, and the need to bring the General Plan into conformity with statutory and judicial mandates, it may make most sense to roll its environmental assessment into a General Plan update.

Please include my clients (see cc' s, below) and me on the notification list for next steps in this process. Thanking you for your attention to these matters, I remain, Comment letter - SEDA Recirculated PEIR March 24, 2025 33

CLC/RCI

Very truly yours,

PATIENCE MILROD
Attorney for Fresno Madera Tulare and Kings
Counties Central Labor Council, and Regenerate
California Innovation
cc: Dillon Savory, Fresno Madera Tulare and Kings Counties Central Labor Council, by email to [email protected]
Keith Bergthold, Regenerate California Innovation (RCI), by email to [email protected]
Jennifer Clark, Development Director, by email to [email protected] Sophia Pagoulatos, Manager of Long-Range Planning, by email to [email protected]
Andrew Janz, City Attorney, by email to [email protected] Comment letter - SEDA Recirculated PEIR March 24, 2025 34 City of Fresno—Fresno Southeast Development Area Specific Plan Project Administrative Final Program EIR Responses to Written Comments FirstCarbon Solutions 1-211
https://adecinnovations.sharepoint.com/sites/PublicationsSite/Shared Documents/Publications/Client (PN-JN)/3168/31680037/EIR/2 - Final EIR/wp/31680037 Sec03-00 Responses to Written Comments.docx Fresno Madera Tulare and Kings Counties Central Labor Council and Regenerate California Innovation (CLC/RCI)
Please note that due to the volume of this comment letter (517 total pages), only the comment letter is reproduced in this section of the Final PEIR, and the full letter with the attached appendices are included in Appendix A of the Final PEIR. The attached appendices were reviewed in preparation of the Final PEIR and responded to in Response to CLC/RCI-43.

Response to CLC/RCI-1
The comment is noted. This comment has been passed to the Lead Agency for their review and consideration of the proposed project as a whole. However, no environmental issues pursuant to CEQA are raised. Please refer to Master Response 1, Non-CEQA Issues Not Addressed in Final PEIR, in Section 2, Master Responses, of this document. Master Response 1 provides additional information on the scope of CEQA and any non-CEQA issues not further discussed in the Final PEIR. comments that address the objectives, policies, and contents of the Specific Plan document itself, and supporting documents, such as the Public Facilities Financing Options Report, which are not related to physical impacts to the environment but rather discuss the merit or constraints of implementing the policies included in the Specific Plan are appropriately not addressed in the Final PEIR. The City has conducted its own outreach and solicited public comment on the scope and content of the Specific Plan. No further response is required.

Response to CLC/RCI-2
The comment is noted. This comment has been passed to the Lead Agency for their review and consideration of the proposed project as a whole. However, no environmental issues pursuant to CEQA are raised. Please refer to Master Response 1, Non-CEQA Issues Not Addressed in Final PEIR, in Section 2, Master Responses, of this document. Master Response 1 provides additional information on the scope of CEQA and any non-CEQA issues not further discussed in the Final PEIR. No further response is required.

Response to CLC/RCI-3
The comment is noted. Please refer to Response to CLC/RCI-1. No further response is required.

Response to CLC/RCI-4
The comment is noted. Please refer to Response to CLC/RCI-1. No further response is required.

Response to CLC/RCI-5
The comment is noted. Please refer to Response to CLC/RCI-1. No further response is required.

Response to CLC/RCI-6
The comment is noted. In March 2025, the City of Fresno rescinded the 2021 General Plan PEIR and GHG Reduction Plan. However, the City’s adopted Fresno General Plan was not rescinded and remains the effective General Plan document for the City of Fresno including all of the data, policies and objectives contained therein. The Recirculated Draft PEIR neither tiers off the now decertified General Plan Update PEIR nor does it rely on any of the mitigation measures included in the General Plan Update PEIR. As such, the Recirculated Draft PEIR appropriately relies on its own analysis, project-specific mitigation, and evaluates consistency with the objectives and policies included in the General Plan itself.

City of Fresno—Fresno Southeast Development Area Specific Plan Project Responses to Written Comments Administrative Final Program EIR 1-212 FirstCarbon Solutions
https://adecinnovations.sharepoint.com/sites/PublicationsSite/Shared Documents/Publications/Client (PN-JN)/3168/31680037/EIR/2 - Final EIR/wp/31680037 Sec03-00 Responses to Written Comments.docx Additionally, please refer to Master Response 9, Clarifying Information on Population Projections, in Section 2, Master Responses. Master Response 9 discusses the Recirculated Draft PEIR’s methodology for the population projections contained within the Recirculated Draft PEIR. No further response is required.

Response to CLC/RCI-7
The comment is noted. Please refer to Response to CLC/RCI-6. Please refer to Master Response 6, Infill Development Priorities, in Section 2, Master Responses. Master Response 6 provides additional information on the City’s infill priorities and how they relate to the goals of the Fresno General Plan.

Additionally, please also refer to Master Response 9, Clarifying Information on Population Projections, in Section 2, Master Responses. Master Response 9 discusses the Recirculated Draft PEIR’s methodology for the population projections contained within the Recirculated Draft PEIR. No further response is required.

Response to CLC/RCI-8
The comment is noted. Please refer to Response to CLC/RCI-7. Additionally, please refer to the project objectives specific to the proposed project, which are presented in Chapter 2, Project Description, of the Recirculated Draft PEIR. No further response is required.

Response to CLC/RCI-9
The comment is noted. Please refer to Master Response 6, Infill Development Priorities, in Section 2, Master Responses. Master Response 6 provides additional information on the City’s infill priorities and how they relate to the goals of the Fresno General Plan. No further response is required.

Response to CLC/RCI-10
The comment is noted. Please refer to Master Response 6, Infill Development Priorities, in Section 2, Master Responses. Master Response 6 provides additional information on the City’s infill priorities and how they relate to the goals of the Fresno General Plan. No further response is required.

Response to CLC/RCI-11
The comment is noted. Please refer to Master Response 5, Clarification of the Programmatic Document, in Section 2, Master Responses. Master Response 5 provides additional information on the level of review included in the Recirculated Draft PEIR and the subsequent environmental review that would be performed as the City receives specific development applications in the Plan Area.

Future development within the Plan Area would be reviewed by the City, as the lead agency, to ensure that the policies and objectives in the Specific Plan are implemented and that the project objectives are met. The proposed project is a document that provides a vision for growth and development in the SEDA over the next 20 to 30 years. This long-range planning document addresses a wide range of topics including affordable housing, jobs and economic development, transportation, parks and open space, and a healthy environment. As the proposed project is a policy-level document, it does not include any specific development proposals. The Specific Plan proposes changing land use designations for some of the Plan Area’s parcels, which would require an amendment to the General Plan Land Use map. Specifically, Specific Plan Policies CF-4.3, HC-1.1, HC2.1, HC-2.2, HC-2.3, and UF-1.4 all promote affordable housing and a variety of housing types.

Additionally, the General Plan also contains policies that would also apply to the proposed project, City of Fresno—Fresno Southeast Development Area Specific Plan Project Administrative Final Program EIR Responses to Written Comments FirstCarbon Solutions 1-213
https://adecinnovations.sharepoint.com/sites/PublicationsSite/Shared Documents/Publications/Client (PN-JN)/3168/31680037/EIR/2 - Final EIR/wp/31680037 Sec03-00 Responses to Written Comments.docx including Policies UF-1-e, LU-2-b, LU-5-f, UF-1-d, UF-1-e, LU-2-b, H-1-c, H-5-g, H-2-a, H-2-b, H-5-g, that promote to the affordable housing.

Additionally, as discussed in Section 3.3, Air Quality, of the Recirculated Draft PEIR, the proposed project has the potential to exceed the SJVAPCD’s significance thresholds during construction and operation. Full build out of the proposed project would result in the generation of substantial longterm criteria air pollutant emissions that would exceed the SJVAPCD regional significance thresholds and would therefore not be considered consistent with the existing AQPs. MM AIR-1a, MM AIR-1b, MM AIR-1c, and MM AIR-1d would serve to reduce construction and operation-phase criteria air pollutant emissions; however, the mitigation measures would not reduce emissions to less than significant levels. Applicable SJVAPCD rules and regulations in addition to the proposed project’s policies and design guidelines would contribute to reducing long-term criteria air pollutant emissions to the extent feasible. However, due to the magnitude and intensity of development accommodated by the proposed project, impacts would remain significant and unavoidable.

As noted above, the proposed project is a policy-level document and does not propose any specific site development at this time. Future development associated with the proposed project would be required to undergo CEQA analysis on a project-by-project basis as necessary. As such, the mitigation measures identified above require future development in Plan Area to provide technical analyses as part of the project environmental review for construction, operational, and health impacts and mitigate the identified impacts in those technical studies to the greatest extent possible. The mitigation measures also include potential mitigation strategies for future development to utilize to reduce air quality impacts. Future development in the plan area will still have to go through the appropriate level of environmental review where impacts to air quality will be evaluated against the suggested significance thresholds in Appendix G to the CEQA Guidelines, which is the City’s standard practice. No further response is required.

Response to CLC/RCI-12
The comment is noted. This comment has been passed to the Lead Agency for their review and consideration of the proposed project as a whole. However, no environmental issues pursuant to CEQA are raised, and no response is required. Please refer to Master Response 1, Non-CEQA Issues Not Addressed in Final PEIR, and Master Response 2, General Opposition Comments Not Addressed in Final PEIR, in Section 2, Master Responses, of this document. These master responses provide additional information on the scope of CEQA, including any non-CEQA issues, and respond to comments that express general opposition to or disapproval of the proposed project or the environmental analysis. Master Responses 1 and 2 address why comments on Specific Plan policies or the merit of the plan are not considered physical impacts on the environment and are not further addressed in the Final PEIR. No further response is required.

Response to CLC/RCI-13
The comment is noted. Please refer to Master Response 6, Infill Development Priorities, in Section 2, Master Responses. Master Response 6 provides additional information on the City’s infill priorities and how they relate to the goals of the Fresno General Plan. Additionally, please also refer to Master Response 9, Clarifying Information on Population Projections, in Section 2, Master Responses.

City of Fresno—Fresno Southeast Development Area Specific Plan Project Responses to Written Comments Administrative Final Program EIR 1-214 FirstCarbon Solutions
https://adecinnovations.sharepoint.com/sites/PublicationsSite/Shared Documents/Publications/Client (PN-JN)/3168/31680037/EIR/2 - Final EIR/wp/31680037 Sec03-00 Responses to Written Comments.docx Master Response 9 discusses the Recirculated Draft PEIR’s methodology for the population projections contained within the Recirculated Draft PEIR. No further response is required.

Response to CLC/RCI-14
The comment is noted. Please refer to Master Response 3, Clarification Regarding Previous Comments Received, in Section 2, Master Responses, of this document. Master Response 3 provides clarifying information related to the review of or response to any comments received on the previously circulated Draft PEIR and Partial Recirculated Draft PEIR, including comments incorporated by reference in the public comment period. No further response is required.

Response to CLC/RCI-15
The comment is noted. Please refer to Responses to COUNTY-1 through COUNTY-21. Please also refer to Master Response 3, Clarification Regarding Previous Comments Received, in Section 2, Master Responses, of this document. Master Response 3 provides clarifying information related to the review of or response to any comments received on the previously circulated Draft PEIR and Partial Recirculated Draft PEIR, including comments incorporated by reference in the public comment period. No further response is required.

Response to CLC/RCI-16
The comment is noted. Section 3.18, Utilities and Service Systems, of the Recirculated Draft PEIR describes the existing conditions related to utilities and service systems (water, wastewater, stormwater, and solid waste) in the City and Plan Area as well as the relevant regulatory framework.

This section also evaluates the possible impacts related to such utilities and service systems that could result from implementation of the proposed project. Appendix I to the Recirculated Draft PEIR contains the technical studies that include the analysis contained and discussed in Section 3.18.

Please also refer to Master Response 1, Non-CEQA Issues Not Addressed in Final PEIR, in Section 2, Master Responses, of this document. Master Response 1 provides additional information on the scope of CEQA and any non-CEQA issues not further discussed in the Final PEIR. No further response is required.

Response to CLC/RCI-17
The comment is noted. Please refer to Response to CLC/RCI-16. No further response is required.

Response to CLC/RCI-18
The comment is noted. Please refer to Master Response 5, Clarification of the Programmatic Document, in Section 2, Master Responses. Master Response 5 provides additional information on the level of review included in the Recirculated Draft PEIR and the subsequent environmental review that would be performed as the City receives specific development applications in the Plan Area.

As discussed in Section 3.3, Air Quality, of the Recirculated Draft PEIR, the proposed project has the potential to exceed the SJVAPCD’s significance thresholds during construction and operation. 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. MM AIR-1a, MM AIR-1b, MM AIR-1c, and MM AIR-1d would serve to reduce construction and operation-phase criteria air pollutant emissions; however, the mitigation measures would not reduce emissions to less than significant City of Fresno—Fresno Southeast Development Area Specific Plan Project Administrative Final Program EIR Responses to Written Comments FirstCarbon Solutions 1-215
https://adecinnovations.sharepoint.com/sites/PublicationsSite/Shared Documents/Publications/Client (PN-JN)/3168/31680037/EIR/2 - Final EIR/wp/31680037 Sec03-00 Responses to Written Comments.docx levels. Applicable SJVAPCD rules and regulations in addition to the proposed project’s policies and design guidelines would contribute to reducing long-term criteria air pollutant emissions to the extent feasible. However, due to the magnitude and intensity of development accommodated by the proposed project, impacts would remain significant and unavoidable.

As noted above, the proposed project is a policy-level document and does not propose any specific site development at this time. Future development associated with the proposed project would be required to undergo CEQA analysis on a project-by-project basis as necessary. As such, the mitigation measures identified above require future development in Plan Area to provide technical analyses as part of the project environmental review for construction, operational, and health impacts and mitigate the identified impacts in those technical studies to the greatest extent possible. The mitigation measures also include potential mitigation strategies for future development to utilize to reduce air quality impacts. Future development in the plan area will still have to go through the appropriate level of environmental review where impacts to air quality will be evaluated against the suggested significance thresholds in Appendix G to the CEQA Guidelines, which is the City’s standard practice. No further response is required.

Response to CLC/RCI-19
The comment is noted. Please refer to Responses to CLC/RCI-16 through CLC/RCI-18. No further response is required.

Response to CLC/RCI-20
The comment is noted. Please refer to Master Response 1, Non-CEQA Issues Not Addressed in Final PEIR, in Section 2, Master Responses, of this document. Master Response 1 provides additional information on the scope of CEQA and any non-CEQA issues not further discussed in the Final PEIR.

Response to CLC/RCI-21
The comment is noted. Please refer to Responses to COUNTY-1 through COUNTY-21. Please also refer to Master Response 3, Clarification Regarding Previous Comments Received, in Section 2, Master Responses, of this document. Master Response 3 provides clarifying information related to the review of or response to any comments received on the previously circulated Draft PEIR and Partial Recirculated Draft PEIR, including comments incorporated by reference in the public comment period. No further response is required.

Response to CLC/RCI-22
The comment is noted. Please refer to Response to CLC/RCI-16. No further response is required.

Response to CLC/RCI-23
The comment is noted. Please refer to Master Response 9, Clarifying Information on Population Projections, in Section 2, Master Responses. Master Response 9 discusses the Recirculated Draft PEIR’s methodology for the population projections contained within the Recirculated Draft PEIR. No further response is required.

Response to CLC/RCI-24
The comment is noted. Please refer to Response to CLC/RCI-11. Please refer to Master Response 1, Non-CEQA Issues Not Addressed in Final PEIR, in Section 2, Master Responses, of this document.

City of Fresno—Fresno Southeast Development Area Specific Plan Project Responses to Written Comments Administrative Final Program EIR 1-216 FirstCarbon Solutions
https://adecinnovations.sharepoint.com/sites/PublicationsSite/Shared Documents/Publications/Client (PN-JN)/3168/31680037/EIR/2 - Final EIR/wp/31680037 Sec03-00 Responses to Written Comments.docx Master Response 1 provides additional information on the scope of CEQA and any non-CEQA issues not further discussed in the Final PEIR. No further response is required.

Response to CLC/RCI-25
The comment is noted. Please refer to Responses to COUNTY-1 through COUNTY-21 and Responses to SC-CVP-LWV-1 through SC-CVP-LWV-25. Please also refer to Master Response 3, Clarification Regarding Previous Comments Received, in Section 2, Master Responses, of this document. Master Response 3 provides clarifying information related to the review of or response to any comments received on the previously circulated Draft PEIR and Partial Recirculated Draft PEIR, including comments incorporated by reference in the public comment period. However, the 2025 letter prepared on behalf of the County of Fresno Department of Public Works is largely the same as the 2023 letter and is addressed in Response to COUNTY, and the letter prepared on behalf of the Sierra Club Central Valley Partnership is addressed in Response to SC-CVP-LWV. No further response is required.

Response to CLC/RCI-26
The comment is noted. Please refer to Responses to COUNTY-1 through COUNTY-21 and Responses to CALTRANS-1 through CALTRANS-12. As discussed in the Recirculated Draft PEIR, average VMT per capita under existing conditions for the City is 13.1 miles compared to 16.2 miles for the County of Fresno (approximately 19 percent less than the county average). Through the implementation of the General Plan, in 2035, the City VMT per capita (16.5 miles) is forecast to be 17 percent less than the County VMT per capita (19.9 miles). Corresponding numbers for VMT per employee indicate that the City average is forecast to be 13 percent lower than the 2035 County average. This is a greater reduction in VMT than forecast by the Fresno COG in the RTP, a 12 percent reduction in VMT for the RTP project. The buildout of the proposed project would serve to further reduce VMT per capita in the region by locating high-density housing near service amenities and jobs. Total VMT for the SEDA Specific Plan was calculated by multiplying daily volumes on the projected network by distance traveled. As described above and in the Recirculated Draft PEIR, the VMT per Service Population in the project area with the project built out in 2035 drops from 45.72 to 5.07 although total VMT is projected to increase due to population and employment growth. As such, the Recirculated Draft PEIR found a less than significant impact related to VMT in Impact TRANS-2.

Please also refer to Master Response 3, Clarification Regarding Previous Comments Received, in Section 2, Master Responses, of this document. Master Response 3 provides clarifying information related to the review of or response to any comments received on the previously circulated Draft PEIR and Partial Recirculated Draft PEIR, including comments incorporated by reference in the public comment period.

Additionally, please refer to Master Response 5, Clarification of the Programmatic Document, in Section 2, Master Responses. Master Response 5 provides additional information on the level of review included in the Recirculated Draft PEIR and the subsequent environmental review that would be performed as the City receives specific development applications in the Plan Area. Please also refer to Master Response 11, Clarifying Information on VMT Projections, in Section 2, Master Responses. Master Response 11 provides additional clarifying information on the VMT projections and findings included within the PEIR.

City of Fresno—Fresno Southeast Development Area Specific Plan Project Administrative Final Program EIR Responses to Written Comments FirstCarbon Solutions 1-217
https://adecinnovations.sharepoint.com/sites/PublicationsSite/Shared Documents/Publications/Client (PN-JN)/3168/31680037/EIR/2 - Final EIR/wp/31680037 Sec03-00 Responses to Written Comments.docx Response to CLC/RCI-27
The comment is noted. Please refer to Responses to CALTRANS-1 through CALTRANS-12. The City has worked closely with Caltrans, resulting in clarifying revisions to the mitigation related to transportation as shown in Chapter 4, Errata, of this Final PEIR. Please refer to Master Response 11, Clarifying Information on VMT Projections, in Section 2, Master Responses. Master Response 11 provides additional clarifying information on the VMT projections and findings included within the PEIR. As noted above, the proposed project is a policy-level document and does not propose any specific site development at this time. Future development associated with the proposed project would be required to undergo CEQA analysis on a project-by-project basis as necessary, including transportation and traffic impacts. Please refer to Master Response 5, Clarification of the Programmatic Document, in Section 2, Master Responses. Master Response 5 provides additional information on the level of review included in the Recirculated Draft PEIR and the subsequent environmental review that would be performed as the City receives specific development applications in the Plan Area No further response is required.

Response to CLC/RCI-28
The comment is noted. Please refer to Responses to SC-CVP-LWV-1 through SC-CVP-LWV-25Please also refer to Master Response 3, Clarification Regarding Previous Comments Received, in Section 2, Master Responses, of this document. Master Response 3 provides clarifying information related to the review of or response to any comments received on the previously circulated Draft PEIR and Partial Recirculated Draft PEIR, including comments incorporated by reference in the public comment period. No further response is required.

Response to CLC/RCI-29
The comment is noted. The Valley Air District has prepared plans to attain and maintain State and federal ozone and particulate matter AAQS. These attainment plans include emissions inventories, air monitoring data, control measures, modeling, future pollutant-level estimates, and general health information. Attainment planning models rely on regional inputs to determine ozone and particulate matter formation and concentrations in a regional context.

With respect to ozone, ROG/ VOC and NOX are precursors to ozone, increased concentrations of which can cause health effects generally associated with reduced lung function. The contribution of VOCs and NOX to a region’s ambient ozone concentrations is the result of complex photochemistry.

Because of the reaction time involved, peak ozone concentrations often occur far downwind of the precursor emissions. Therefore, ozone is a regional pollutant that often affects large areas. Because of the complexity of ozone formation, the pounds or tons of emissions from a proposed project in a specific geographical location do not equate to a specific concentration of ozone formation in a given area, because in addition to emission levels, ozone formation is affected by atmospheric chemistry, geography, and weather. Because air district attainment plans and supporting air model tools are regional in nature, they do not allow for analysis of the health impacts of specific projects in any given geographic location.

In contrast to attainment models, CalEEMod (one of the models used by the City in conducting air quality analyses) is designed to calculate and disclose the total emissions expected from the construction and operation of a proposed project (tons/year). The estimated emissions are then City of Fresno—Fresno Southeast Development Area Specific Plan Project Responses to Written Comments Administrative Final Program EIR 1-218 FirstCarbon Solutions
https://adecinnovations.sharepoint.com/sites/PublicationsSite/Shared Documents/Publications/Client (PN-JN)/3168/31680037/EIR/2 - Final EIR/wp/31680037 Sec03-00 Responses to Written Comments.docx compared to Valley Air District significance thresholds, which are in turnkeyed to reducing emissions to levels that will not interfere with the region’s ability to attain the federal and State AAQS. This protects public health in the overall region, but there is currently no methodology to determine the impact of emissions on concentration levels in specific geographic areas. Neither the Valley Air District nor any other air district currently have methodologies that would provide Lead Agencies and CEQA practitioners with a consistent, reliable, and meaningful analysis to correlate specific health impacts that may result from a proposed project’s total emissions. Therefore, the analysis of direct health impacts due to emissions from future projects is not yet feasible.

In contrast to regional attainment models and techniques to calculate total emissions for projects, methodologies are available to prepare AAQA and HRA evaluations of the health effects on a detailed, project-specific basis. However, these assessment techniques require a large amount of detail regarding a proposed project and nearby receptors, and the data necessary to scale up these types of analyses to a Plan Area-level would be infeasible and would involve an undue level of speculation regarding the detailed operations of future land uses and receptors.

Based on the foregoing, the City does not yet have sufficient identified or known details from as yet unidentified potential future projects that would be necessary to develop the assumptions to conduct the requested analysis. There are currently no emissions models or methodologies available that are consistent and reliable enough to prepare a meaningful analysis of the specific health effects from county-wide air emissions.

As noted above, the proposed project is a policy-level document and does not propose any specific site development at this time. Future development associated with the proposed project would be required to undergo CEQA analysis on a project-by-project basis as necessary. As such, the mitigation measures identified above require future development in Plan Area to provide technical analyses as part of the project environmental review for construction, operational, and health impacts and mitigate the identified impacts in those technical studies to the greatest extent possible, including a human health risk assessment. The mitigation measures also include potential mitigation strategies for future development to utilize to reduce air quality impacts. Future development in the plan area will still have to go through the appropriate level of environmental review where impacts to air quality will be evaluated against the suggested significance thresholds in Appendix G to the CEQA Guidelines, which is the City’s standard practice. No further response is required.

Response to CLC/RCI-30
The comment is noted. As detailed in Master Response 5, Clarification of Programmatic Document, 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-level EIR. Planning-level policies and mitigation measures should be consistent with the geographic scope of the project, population size and density, fiscal and administrative capabilities, and economic, environmental, legal, social, and technological factors (Government Code §§ 65300.9; State CEQA Guidelines §§ 15143, 15146, 15151, and 15204).

Accordingly, the Draft PEIR appropriately disclosed program-level health risk impacts that would result from future implementing projects.

City of Fresno—Fresno Southeast Development Area Specific Plan Project Administrative Final Program EIR Responses to Written Comments FirstCarbon Solutions 1-219
https://adecinnovations.sharepoint.com/sites/PublicationsSite/Shared Documents/Publications/Client (PN-JN)/3168/31680037/EIR/2 - Final EIR/wp/31680037 Sec03-00 Responses to Written Comments.docx As discussed in Section 3.3, Air Quality, of the Draft Recirculated PEIR, as it is not possible to determine the amount of TAC concentrations at the time of this analysis, it is not possible to calculate the risks for a particular health effect within the Plan Area. The proposed project is programmatic, and until specific future projects are proposed the associated TAC emissions cannot be determined or modeled at this time. MM AIR-1d requires the submittal of a Health Risk Assessment (HRA) and the inclusion of project-specific T-BACTs as appropriate, prior to future discretionary approval for future industrial or warehousing projects located within established screening distances. In addition, as described in the regulatory section, AB 98 will prescribe various Statewide warehouse design and building standards for new or expanded logistics use developments. These requirements will ensure that individual future development projects in the Plan Area do not have a significant impact on sensitive receptors.

Further, the planned improvements, objectives and policies under the proposed Specific Plan would generally support a sustainable development pattern in accommodating future growth within the Plan Area, which would generally contribute to reducing long-term criteria air pollutant emissions. In addition, application of Valley Air District Rule 9510 and Regulation VIII would contribute to reducing operation- and construction-related NOX and particulate matter emissions. Furthermore, Rule 9410 would also contribute to reducing operation-related mobile source emissions.

If the Draft Recirculated PEIR is certified and the Specific Plan approved, future implementing construction and development plans would be subject to project-level HRA and potentially additional feasible mitigation, if necessary, as required by MM AIR-1d. As individual projects with site-specific grading, development, and architectural plans and facilities are submitted to the City for review, the City will evaluate each project in light of the information in the Draft PEIR. No further response is required.

Response to CLC/RCI-31
The comment is noted. The comment incorrectly compares the Air Districts emissions inventory data, which is in tons per day, with the SEDA estimated annual construction regional emissions, which are in tons per year. Section 3.3, Air Quality, Table 3.3-8, of the Draft Recirculated PEIR correctly indicates that these are annual emissions. Therefore, the analysis correctly compares the projects emissions to the Valley Air District’s thresholds which are annual thresholds in terms of tons per year. This is explained in the text preceding the table. The appendix materials also clearly show that these calculated emissions are in tons per year and not tons per day.

Please refer to Master Response 7, Clarifying Information on Significant and Unavoidable Impacts, in Section 2, Master Responses. Master Response 7 provides additional clarifying information on the significant and unavoidable impacts disclosed within the PEIR. The City, as Lead Agency, has the authority to approve the proposed project even if significant and unavoidable impacts would occur so long as the City’s basis for doing so is supported by the required CEQA findings, including, if necessary, a Statement of Overriding Considerations. As noted in Section 3.3, Air Quality, of the Draft Recirculated PEIR, while the final determination of whether a project would have a significant impact is within the purview of the Lead Agency pursuant to Section 15064(b) of the State CEQA Guidelines, the City, in its discretion, has acted in accordance with Valley Air District recommendation that its quantitative air pollution thresholds be used to determine the significance of project emissions. The City of Fresno—Fresno Southeast Development Area Specific Plan Project Responses to Written Comments Administrative Final Program EIR 1-220 FirstCarbon Solutions
https://adecinnovations.sharepoint.com/sites/PublicationsSite/Shared Documents/Publications/Client (PN-JN)/3168/31680037/EIR/2 - Final EIR/wp/31680037 Sec03-00 Responses to Written Comments.docx applicable Valley Air District thresholds and methodologies are contained under each impact statement in Section 3.3, Air Quality, as the City, in its discretion, has determined to utilize these thresholds and methodologies, which are based on robust scientific and factual data appropriately considered and incorporated therein by the Valley Air District, as the expert public agency charged with addressing air quality emissions within Valley Air District boundaries, which include the project site. No further response is needed.

Response to CLC/RCI-32
The comment is noted. As detailed in Master Response 5, Clarification of Programmatic Document, 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-level EIR. Planning-level policies and mitigation measures should be consistent with the geographic scope of the project, population size and density, fiscal and administrative capabilities, and economic, environmental, legal, social, and technological factors (Government Code §§ 65300.9; State CEQA Guidelines §§ 15143, 15146, 15151, and 15204).

Various policies of the General Plan and the proposed Specific Plan would promote complete streets, mixed-use and transit-oriented neighborhoods, and increased capacity for alternative transportation modes, which would help reduce air pollutant emissions. As included in the Regulatory Framework section above, these policies include General Plan policies UF-1c, UF-12a-f, UF-14a and 14b, LU-2, LU-3, LU-5-f, RC-4, HC-3-d, HC-3-f, MT-1 and MT-2. Proposed Fresno SEDA Specific Plan policies related to air quality include HC-3.2 and 3.3, OS-6, and the policies included in the draft Plan’s Greenhouse Gas Reduction and Conservation chapter, including Policy RC-1.1 through 1.7. These policies promote active transit, clean air measures, and support the reduction in average vehicle trip distances, which contribute to reducing overall per capita VMT in the region. All of the policies identified are plan-level that would also apply to individual development projects proposed in the Plan Area.

MM AIR-1a would serve to further reduce emissions generated by future development projects envisioned in the Plan Area. MM AIR-1b and MM AIR-1c require the submittal of a technical assessment of project-specific construction phase and operation-related air quality impacts, and the identification of project-specific mitigation measures as appropriate, prior to future discretionary project approval. MM AIR-1d requires the submittal of a Health Risk Assessment (HRA) and the inclusion of project-specific T-BACTs as appropriate, prior to future discretionary approval for future industrial or warehousing projects located within established screening distances. In addition, as described in the regulatory section, AB 98 will prescribe various Statewide warehouse design and building standards for new or expanded logistics use developments. These requirements will ensure that individual future development projects in the Plan Area do not have a significant impact on sensitive receptors.

However, even with the implementation of these policies and mitigation measures, as further discussed under Impact AIR-2 and Impact AIR-3 in the Recirculated Draft PEIR, due to the size of the proposed development, the proposed project could create a localized violation of State or federal air quality standards, significantly contribute to cumulative nonattainment pollutant violations, and potentially expose sensitive receptors to substantial pollutant concentrations under cumulative conditions. There is no mitigation available that would reduce the criteria pollutant emissions from City of Fresno—Fresno Southeast Development Area Specific Plan Project Administrative Final Program EIR Responses to Written Comments FirstCarbon Solutions 1-221
https://adecinnovations.sharepoint.com/sites/PublicationsSite/Shared Documents/Publications/Client (PN-JN)/3168/31680037/EIR/2 - Final EIR/wp/31680037 Sec03-00 Responses to Written Comments.docx the proposed project’s construction or operation to less than significant levels, as compared to the recommended Valley Air District significance thresholds. Therefore, the proposed project would have a significant impact under this criterion.

The geographic scope of the cumulative impact analysis for Air Quality is the SJVAB. This analysis evaluates whether impacts of the Specific Plan, together with impacts of cumulative development, would result in a cumulatively significant impact with respect to air quality emissions. This analysis then considers whether incremental contribution of the impacts associated with implementation of the Specific Plan would be significant. Both conditions must apply for cumulative effects to rise to the level of significance. In accordance with the Valley Air District’s methodology, any project that produces a significant project-level regional air quality impact in an area that is in nonattainment contributes to the cumulative impact. Because of the extent of the area potentially impacted from cumulative project emissions (i.e., the SJVAB); the Valley Air District considers a project cumulatively significant when project-related emissions exceed the regional emissions thresholds.

As discussed above, while implementation of MM AIR-1a through MM AIR-1d would serve to reduce criteria air pollutant and TAC emissions generated by the proposed project, there is currently not enough information to quantify emissions of specific project development that may occur under the proposed project. Without quantification to guarantee a less than significant finding, future development projects may still exceed the Valley Air District regional significance thresholds.

Additionally, due to the size of the proposed project, there is not sufficient mitigation available to reduce the potential criteria pollutant emissions associated with the proposed project to levels that would not exceed the Valley Air District thresholds of significance. Therefore, cumulative impacts to air quality would be considered to remain significant and unavoidable. No further response is required.

Response to CLC/RCI-33
The comment is noted and is included in the record passed to the Lead Agency for their review and consideration of the proposed project as a whole. Please refer to Master Response 1, Non-CEQA Issues Not Addressed in Final PEIR, in Section 2, Master Responses, of this document. Master Response 1 provides additional information on the scope of CEQA and any non-CEQA issues not further discussed in the Final PEIR. Furthermore, refer to Master Response 9, Clarifying Information on Population Projections, in Section 2, Master Responses. Master Response 9 discusses the Recirculated Draft PEIR’s methodology for the population projections contained within the Recirculated Draft PEIR. No further response is required.

Response to CLC/RCI-34
This comment is noted and is included in the record provided to the Lead Agency for their review and consideration of the proposed project as a whole. Both a Water Technical Study and a WSA were prepared for the proposed project which utilized data from the City’s UWMP and the City’s Metropolitan Water Resources Management Plan (Metro Plan). The data and analysis contained in the Draft Recirculated PEIR has also been reviewed by the City’s Public Utilities department. As stated in Section 3.18, Utilities and Service Systems, of the Recirculated Draft PEIR and the Water Technical Study prepared for the proposed project in the Recirculated Draft PEIR, the increase in water demand for the Specific Plan Area is 1.7 percent greater from the demand projected in the City of Fresno—Fresno Southeast Development Area Specific Plan Project Responses to Written Comments Administrative Final Program EIR 1-222 FirstCarbon Solutions
https://adecinnovations.sharepoint.com/sites/PublicationsSite/Shared Documents/Publications/Client (PN-JN)/3168/31680037/EIR/2 - Final EIR/wp/31680037 Sec03-00 Responses to Written Comments.docx General Plan. The impacts to water supply could be potentially significant; however, upon compliance with regulatory requirements, proposed policies for full implementation of the proposed Specific Plan, proposed mitigation measures, and construction of proposed water supply and distribution system infrastructure, the impact would be reduced to a less than significant level.

Please see the mitigation measures included in Section 3.10, Hydrology and Water Quality, and Section 3.18, Utilities and Service Systems, of the Draft Recirculated PEIR.

A WSA prepared for the proposed project demonstrates that the increase in water demand due to the proposed project would not exceed the projected available water supplies for the normal, single dry, and multiple dry years. The Recirculated Draft PEIR found that with mitigation incorporated, impacts to water supply would be less than significant. Please refer to Master Response 8, Clarifying Information on Water Supply and Water Quality, in Section 2, Master Responses. Master Response 8 further elaborates on the availability of water supply and potential impacts to water quality in the Plan Area as a result of the implementation of the proposed project. No further response is required.

Response to CLC/RCI-35
The comment is noted and is included in the record provided to the Lead Agency for their review and consideration of the proposed project as a whole. Please refer to Master Response 1, Non-CEQA Issues Not Addressed in Final PEIR, in Section 2, Master Responses, of this document. Master Response 1 provides additional information on the scope of CEQA and any non-CEQA issues not further discussed in the Final PEIR. Additionally, please refer to Master Response 5, Clarification of the Programmatic Document, in Section 2, Master Responses. Master Response 5 provides additional information on the level of review included in the Recirculated Draft PEIR and the subsequent environmental review that would be performed as the City receives specific development applications in the Plan Area. No further response is required.

Response to CLC/RCI-36
The comment is noted. Please refer to Responses to COUNTY-1 through COUNTY-21. Please also refer to Master Response 3, Clarification Regarding Previous Comments Received, in Section 2, Master Responses, of this document. Master Response 3 provides clarifying information related to the review of or response to any comments received on the previously circulated Draft PEIR and Partial Recirculated Draft PEIR, including comments incorporated by reference in the public comment period. No further response is required.

Response to CLC/RCI-37
The comment is noted and is included in the record provided to the Lead Agency for their review and consideration of the proposed project as a whole. Please refer to Master Response 1, Non-CEQA Issues Not Addressed in Final PEIR, in Section 2, Master Responses, of this document. Master Response 1 provides additional information on the scope of CEQA and any non-CEQA issues not further discussed in the Final PEIR. Please also refer to Master Response 5, Clarification of the Programmatic Document, in Section 2, Master Responses. Master Response 5 provides additional information on the level of review included in the Recirculated Draft PEIR and the subsequent environmental review that would be performed as the City receives specific development applications in the Plan Area. No further response is required.

City of Fresno—Fresno Southeast Development Area Specific Plan Project Administrative Final Program EIR Responses to Written Comments FirstCarbon Solutions 1-223
https://adecinnovations.sharepoint.com/sites/PublicationsSite/Shared Documents/Publications/Client (PN-JN)/3168/31680037/EIR/2 - Final EIR/wp/31680037 Sec03-00 Responses to Written Comments.docx Response to CLC/RCI-38
The comment is noted. Please refer to Master Response 9, Clarifying Information on Population Projections, in Section 2, Master Responses. Master Response 9 discusses the Recirculated Draft PEIR’s methodology for the population projections contained within the Recirculated Draft PEIR.

Response to CLC/RCI-39
The comment is noted. Please refer to Master Response 6, Infill Development Priorities, in Section 2, Master Responses. Master Response 6 provides additional information on the City’s infill priorities and how they relate to the goals of the Fresno General Plan. As discussed in Chapter 5, Alternatives to the Proposed Project, of the Recirculated Draft PEIR, in accordance with CEQA Guidelines Section 15126.6, the Recirculated Draft PEIR contains a comparative impact assessment of alternatives to the proposed project. The primary purpose of the section is to provide decision-makers and the general public with a reasonable number of feasible project alternatives that could attain most of the basic project objectives, while avoiding or reducing any of the project’s significant adverse environmental effects. Important considerations for the alternatives analyses are noted below (as stated in CEQA Guidelines § 15126.6).
• An EIR need not consider every conceivable alternative to a project; • An EIR should identify alternatives that were considered by the lead agency, but rejected as infeasible during the scoping process;
• Reasons for rejecting an alternative include failure to meet most of the basic project objectives, infeasibility, or inability to avoid significant environmental effects.

Therefore, the Recirculated Draft PEIR appropriately analyses alternatives that address the significant impacts identified in the analysis. As discussed in the Recirculated Draft PEIR, the project as proposed does already meet the objectives identified for the proposed project. No further response is required.

Response to CLC/RCI-40
The comment is noted. Please refer to Master Response 6, Infill Development Priorities, in Section 2, Master Responses. Master Response 6 provides additional information on the City’s infill priorities and how they relate to the goals of the Fresno General Plan. CEQA Guidelines Section 15126.6(e) requires an EIR to evaluate a ‘No Project Alternative,’ which is defined as what would be reasonably expected to occur in the foreseeable future, if the project were not approved. As discussed in Chapter 5, Alternatives to the Proposed Project, of the Recirculated Draft PEIR contains an analysis of “Alternative 1 – No Project Alternative” consist with CEQA Guidelines. Under Alternative 1, the Specific Plan would not be approved, and thus, the proposed Specific Plan policies would not be implemented, and no zoning or land use designation changes would occur in the Plan Area.

Additionally, the areas within the Plan Area that are outside of the City’s SOI would not be annexed to the City.

In regard to an alternative location alternative, CEQA case law has found that there is “no iron clad rule governing the nature or scope of the alternatives to be discussed in an EIR, other than the rule of reason.” (Citizens of Goleta Valley v. Board of Supervisors). The rule of reason dictates that only City of Fresno—Fresno Southeast Development Area Specific Plan Project Responses to Written Comments Administrative Final Program EIR 1-224 FirstCarbon Solutions
https://adecinnovations.sharepoint.com/sites/PublicationsSite/Shared Documents/Publications/Client (PN-JN)/3168/31680037/EIR/2 - Final EIR/wp/31680037 Sec03-00 Responses to Written Comments.docx project alternatives which may be feasibly accomplished, considering the economic, environmental, social, and technological factors involved. An alternative site for the proposed project would not be feasible as the proposed project does not contemplate any specific development. Rather, it is a program-level analysis of the implementation of the Specific Plan, which is specific to the location within the City for future planning under the General Plan. As such, the proposed project appropriately did not evaluate an alternative location alternative.

Future development in the Plan Area would be developed in accordance with the current land use and zoning maps identified in the General Plan. The buildout of the General Plan includes approximately 17,900 homes and approximately 29,600 jobs in the Plan Area. Comparatively, the proposed Specific Plan would include approximately 45,000 homes and approximately 37,000 jobs.

The existing Plan Area contains the following General Plan designations that would not change under Alternative 1: Residential-Low Density, Residential-Medium Density, Residential-Urban Neighborhood, Employment-Mixed Use, Employment-Office, Public Facilities, Open Space, and Buffer. As such, the Recirculated Draft PEIR does evaluate a No Project alternative as required by CEQA Guidelines. No further response is required.

Response to CLC/RCI-41
The comment is noted. Please refer to Master Response 7, Clarifying Information on Significant and Unavoidable Impacts, in Section 2, Master Responses. Master Response 7 provides additional clarifying information on the significant and unavoidable impacts disclosed within the PEIR. No further response is required.

Response to CLC/RCI-42
The comment is noted. This comment has been passed to the Lead Agency for their review and consideration of the proposed project as a whole. However, no environmental issues pursuant to CEQA are raised, and no response is required.

Response to CLC/RCI-43
The comment is noted. This comment includes the appendices included in CLC/RCI. The findings and information provided in these appendices are discussed within the body of the comment letter, and thus, are responded to in Response to CLC/RCI-1 through CLC/RCI-42. No further response is required.

FOLWER PACKING

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FowlerPacking
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 ofland 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?

FOLWER PACKING

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Proposed Amendments to Land Use Designations
Fowler Packing has concerns with the proposed land use designations on the following parcels and would request City staff to consider the following amendments:

Property (APN) SEDA Proposed Land Use Fowler Packing Requested Land Use 316-040-78 Institutional Light Industrial
316-040-80 Institutional Light Industrial / Community Center ( 5 acres)
316-040-81 Mixed Residential (20)/ Mixed Residential (25) / Community Community Center (10) Center (5)
316-051-20 Office Center Light Industrial / Community Center ( 5 acres)
316-051-84S Office Center/ Community Light Industrial
Center
316-051-09 Neighborhood Center/ Replace the Flexible R&D (20 ac) with Neighborhood Residential/ Neighborhood Residential
Flexible R&D
313-082-53 Mixed Residential Community Center
Thank you for your consideration of these comments and we look forward to receiving clarification from the City regarding light industrial and manufacturing uses within the Flexible Research & Development District.

Respectfully submitted,
Leland Parnagian
President, Fowler Packing
City of Fresno—Fresno Southeast Development Area Specific Plan Project Administrative Final Program EIR Responses to Written Comments FirstCarbon Solutions 1-227
https://adecinnovations.sharepoint.com/sites/PublicationsSite/Shared Documents/Publications/Client (PN-JN)/3168/31680037/EIR/2 - Final EIR/wp/31680037 Sec03-00 Responses to Written Comments.docx Fowler Packing (FOWLER PACKING)
Response to FOWLER PACKING-1
The comment is noted. This comment has been passed to the Lead Agency for their review and consideration of the proposed project as a whole. However, no environmental issues pursuant to CEQA are raised, and no response is required. Please refer to Master Response 1, Non-CEQA Issues Not Addressed in Final PEIR, and Master Response 2, General Opposition Comments Not Addressed in Final PEIR, in Section 2, Master Responses, of this document. These master responses provide additional information on the scope of CEQA, including any non-CEQA issues, and respond to comments that express general opposition to or disapproval of the proposed project or the environmental analysis. Master Responses 1 and 2 further detail why comments on Specific Plan document itself or its policies are not further addressed in the Final PEIR. No further response is required.

Response to FOWLER PACKING-2
The comment is noted. Please refer to Response to FOWLER PACKING-1. No further response is required.

Response to FOWLER PACKING-3
The comment is noted. Please refer to Response to FOWLER PACKING-1. No further response is required.

Response to FOWLER PACKING-4
The comment is noted. This comment has been passed to the Lead Agency for their review and consideration of the proposed project as a whole. However, no environmental issues pursuant to CEQA are raised, and no response is required.

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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 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.

GREENFIELD

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-:?Greenfield Tl ! CO A L I T I O N
committed to preserving our city's agricultural land and green spaces, revitalizing our urban 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 .
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 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

GREENFIELD

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5 as outlined by The Governor's Office of Planning and Research 's
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

GREENFIELD

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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 SE
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 ; 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.

GREENFIELD

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11 DA buildout on the sustainability of City General Funds and the City's fiscal 'why' the SEDA plan should move forward
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 [email protected] i Greenfield Coalition Website: www.greenfieldcoalition.org 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 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 621,540 - SEDA PEIR, at p. 3.14-2). FCOG 2050 Fresno City population of 646,260 (not 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

GREENFIELD

13 ' '
FCOG's
's 's updated data report a
the PEIR's
Greenfield Coalition Comment Letter SEDA Recirculated PEIR March 24, 2025 by 2050, well under half of the 35,553 households the 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
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

GREENFIELD

PEIR's
shatter the General Plan's goals for infill development and City of Fresno—Fresno Southeast Development Area Specific Plan Project Administrative Final Program EIR Responses to Written Comments FirstCarbon Solutions 1-235
https://adecinnovations.sharepoint.com/sites/PublicationsSite/Shared Documents/Publications/Client (PN-JN)/3168/31680037/EIR/2 - Final EIR/wp/31680037 Sec03-00 Responses to Written Comments.docx Greenfield Coalition (GREENFIELD)
Response to GREENFIELD-1
The comment is noted. This comment has been passed to the Lead Agency for their review and consideration of the proposed project as a whole. However, no environmental issues pursuant to CEQA are raised, and no response is required.

Response to GREENFIELD-2
The comment is noted. Please refer to Responses to CLC/RCI-1 through CLC/RCI-43. No further response is required.

Response to GREENFIELD-3
The comment is noted. Please refer to Master Response 2, General Opposition Comments Not Addressed in Final PEIR, in Section 2, Master Responses, of this document. Master Response 2 provides a response to comments that express general opposition to or disapproval of the proposed project or the environmental analysis. No further response is required.

Response to GREENFIELD-4
The comment is noted. Please refer to Master Response 9, Clarifying Information on Population Projections, in Section 2, Master Responses. Master Response 9 discusses the Recirculated Draft PEIR’s methodology for the population projections contained within the Recirculated Draft PEIR.

Response to GREENFIELD-5
The comment is noted. Please refer to Master Response 1, Non-CEQA Issues Not Addressed in Final PEIR, in Section 2, Master Responses, of this document. Master Response 1 provides additional information on the scope of CEQA and any non-CEQA issues not further discussed in the Final PEIR.

Furthermore, as discussed in Section 3.18, Utilities and Service Systems, of the Recirculated Draft PEIR, impacts related to the relocation or construction of new or expanded water, wastewater treatment or stormwater drainage, electric power, natural gas, or telecommunications facility would be less than significant impact with mitigation incorporated. No further response is required.

Response to GREENFIELD-6
The comment is noted. Please refer to Master Response 6, Infill Development Priorities, in Section 2, Master Responses. Master Response 6 provides additional information on the City’s infill priorities and how they relate to the goals of the Fresno General Plan. Additionally, please refer to Master Response 9, Clarifying Information on Population Projections, in Section 2, Master Responses.

Master Response 9 discusses the Recirculated Draft PEIR’s methodology for the population projections contained within the Recirculated Draft PEIR. No further response is required.

Response to GREENFIELD-7
The comment is noted. Please refer to Master Response 1, Non-CEQA Issues Not Addressed in Final PEIR, in Section 2, Master Responses, of this document. Master Response 1 provides additional information on the scope of CEQA and any non-CEQA issues not further discussed in the Final PEIR.

No further response is required.

Response to GREENFIELD-8
The comment is noted. As detailed in Master Response 5, Clarification of Programmatic Document, a Program EIR is not expected to analyze site-specific or project-specific environmental impacts nor City of Fresno—Fresno Southeast Development Area Specific Plan Project Responses to Written Comments Administrative Final Program EIR 1-236 FirstCarbon Solutions
https://adecinnovations.sharepoint.com/sites/PublicationsSite/Shared Documents/Publications/Client (PN-JN)/3168/31680037/EIR/2 - Final EIR/wp/31680037 Sec03-00 Responses to Written Comments.docx provide the level of detail found in a project EIR. Planning-level policies and mitigation measures should be consistent with the geographic scope of the project, population size and density, fiscal and administrative capabilities, and economic, environmental, legal, social, and technological factors (Government Code §§ 65300.9; State CEQA Guidelines §§ 15143, 15146, 15151, and 15204).

Additionally, each section within the Recirculated Draft PEIR includes a cumulative analysis for each environmental topical area. No further response is required.

Response to GREENFIELD-9
The comment is noted. Please refer to Master Response 6, Infill Development Priorities, in Section 2, Master Responses. Master Response 6 provides additional information on the City’s infill priorities and how they relate to the goals of the Fresno General Plan. Additionally, please refer to Master Response 9, Clarifying Information on Population Projections, in Section 2, Master Responses.

Master Response 9 discusses the Recirculated Draft PEIR’s methodology for the population projections contained within the Recirculated Draft PEIR. No further response is required.

As discussed in Chapter 5, Alternatives to the Proposed Project, of the Recirculated Draft PEIR, in accordance with CEQA Guidelines Section 15126.6, the Recirculated Draft PEIR contains a comparative impact assessment of alternatives to the proposed project. The primary purpose of the section is to provide decision-makers and the general public with a reasonable number of feasible project alternatives that could attain most of the basic project objectives, while avoiding or reducing any of the project’s significant adverse environmental effects. Important considerations for the alternatives analyses are noted below (as stated in CEQA Guidelines § 15126.6). • An EIR need not consider every conceivable alternative to a project; • An EIR should identify alternatives that were considered by the lead agency, but rejected as infeasible during the scoping process;
• Reasons for rejecting an alternative include failure to meet most of the basic project objectives, infeasibility, or inability to avoid significant environmental effects.

Therefore, the Recirculated Draft PEIR appropriately analyses alternatives that address the significant impacts identified in the analysis. As discussed in the Recirculated Draft PEIR, the project as proposed does already meet the objectives identified for the proposed project. No further response is required.

Response to GREENFIELD-10
The comment is noted. Please refer to Master Response 1, Non-CEQA Issues Not Addressed in Final PEIR, in Section 2, Master Responses, of this document. Master Response 1 provides additional information on the scope of CEQA and any non-CEQA issues not further discussed in the Final PEIR.

No further response is required.

Response to GREENFIELD-11
Please refer to Master Response 2, General Opposition Comments Not Addressed in Final PEIR, in Section 2, Master Responses, of this document. Master Response 2 provides a response to comments that express general opposition to or disapproval of the proposed project or the environmental analysis. No further response is required.

City of Fresno—Fresno Southeast Development Area Specific Plan Project Administrative Final Program EIR Responses to Written Comments FirstCarbon Solutions 1-237
https://adecinnovations.sharepoint.com/sites/PublicationsSite/Shared Documents/Publications/Client (PN-JN)/3168/31680037/EIR/2 - Final EIR/wp/31680037 Sec03-00 Responses to Written Comments.docx Response to GREENFIELD-12
The comment is noted. this comment has been passed to the Lead Agency for their review and consideration of the proposed project as a whole. Please refer to Master Response 1, Non-CEQA Issues Not Addressed in Final PEIR, and Master Response 2, General Opposition Comments Not Addressed in Final PEIR, in Section 2, Master Responses, of this document. These master responses provide additional information on the scope of CEQA, including any non-CEQA issues, and respond to comments that express general opposition to or disapproval of the proposed project or the environmental analysis. No further response is required.

Response to GREENFIELD-13
The comment is noted. This comment has been passed to the Lead Agency for their review and consideration of the proposed project as a whole. However, no environmental issues pursuant to CEQA are raised, and no response is required. No further response is required.

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BLUM, COLLINS & HO LLP ATTORNEYS AT LAW

AON CENTER
707 WILSHIRE BOULEVARD
SUITE 4880
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 90017
(213) 572-0400
March 21, 2025
Sophia Pagoulatos Via Email to:

Planning Manager [email protected]
City of Fresno
Planning and Development Department
2600 Fresno Street, Third Floor, Room 3043
Fresno, CA 93721
Subject: Comments on Recirculated Fresno Southeast Development Area Specific Plan Project EIR (SCH NO. 2022020486)
Dear Ms. Pagoulatos,
Thank you for the opportunity to comment on the Recirculated Program Environmental Impact Report (EIR) for the proposed Recirculated Fresno Southeast Development Area Specific Plan Project. Please accept and consider these comments on behalf of Golden State Environmental Justice Alliance. Also, Golden State Environmental Justice Alliance formally requests to be added to the public interest list regarding any subsequent environmental documents, public notices, public hearings, and notices of determination for this project. Send all communications to Golden State Environmental Justice Alliance P.O. Box 79222 Corona, CA 92877.

1.0 Summary
The proposed project is a Specific Plan (SP) for the Southeast Development Area (SEDA) formerly known as the Southeast Growth Area (SEGA). The mixed-use SEDA SP would permit residential, commercial, and employment generating uses. It has the potential to accommodate approximately 45,000 homes and 37,000 jobs within the nearly 9,000-acre planning area by the year 2050.

The EIR lists the following items as additional components of the project:

1. Phasing Plan: The Phasing Plan defines the required sequence of development for various areas within SEDA.

2. Infrastructure Financing Plan: The proposed project would include a Public Facilities Financing Plan to present a strategy and funding options for backbone infrastructure and public facilities, including roads, sewer, water, storm drainage, parks, and other public facilities.

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Backbone infrastructure and public facilities required for development would be funded through a combination of public and private funding. The Public Facilities Financing Plan has been developed through a review of the SEDA Specific Plan, infrastructure studies, and coordination with the City.

3. Annexation: The proposed project requires annexation of Fresno County (County) lands into the City. LAFCo is a Responsible Agency under CEQA for the proposed project. LAFCo will consider the analysis contained in this EIR when considering the annexation of the project site into the City. Annexation will be strategic and proactive to facilitate infrastructure development by the City.

4. General Plan Amendment and Development Code Change: The proposed project would also amend the General Plan and Development Code to implement the land use and zoning described in the proposed project.

1.4 Documents Incorporated by Reference
The EIR states that the Southeast Development Area Specific Plan (SEDA SP) document itself (2023) is incorporated by reference. The SEDA SP is the proposed project and excluding it as an attachment for public review does not comply with CEQA’s requirements for meaningful disclosure. Incorporation by reference (CEQA § 15150 (f)) is not appropriate as the SEDA SP document contributes directly to analysis of the problem at hand. The EIR must be revised to include the SEDA SP document for review, analysis, and comment by the public and decision makers.

2.0 Project Description
The EIR is not clear regarding the proposed General Plan land use designations for the project site.

Specifically, the EIR only provides exhibits that depict the Existing General Plan land use designations and the proposed SEDA SP land use designations, leaving the reader to assume that the proposed SEDA land uses are the new General Plan land use designations. It must be noted that the City’s General Plan does not list any of the 10 proposed SEDA land use designations as existing land use designations. For example, SEDA’s employment-focused land use designations are “Office Center” and “Flexible Research and Development.” These land use designations do not exist in the City’s General Plan, and neither do any of the other eight proposed land use designations. The City’s General Plan also does not include a broad “Specific Plan” land use designation that would be applied to all parcels within any approved Specific Plan within the City.

Therefore, all 10 land use designations proposed in the SEDA SP will be new additions to the General Plan and the EIR must be revised to include all text and exhibits that will be part of the revised General Plan and Development Code in order to comply with CEQA’s requirements for meaningful disclosure and adequate informational documents (CEQA § 15121).

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Further, the EIR impact analysis throughout the document relies on the notion that bus rapid transit (BRT) service will be expanded in Fresno to serve the project area (Kings Canyon), rendering several impact areas less than significant. However, the EIR does not provide any meaningful evidence to support the conclusion that the BRT expansion will actually be constructed. Most notably, the Fresno COG Long Range Transportation Plan1 (LRTP) (2019-2050) does not include service to the SEDA SP area as a specific project. Table 2 - LRTP Project List within the LRTP only includes, "Project 6: Extend the Kings Canyon BRT corridor to Fancher Creek,” and the Fancher Creek area is located north/west of the SEDA areas and not contiguous to it. Therefore, BRT service to the project area is not a funded commitment or project and is not planned to exist by 2050. The EIR must be revised to clarify this and update its impact analysis throughout the document.

Additionally, the EIR lists several items as “additional components” of the project that are not included for public review: Phasing Plan, Infrastructure Financing Plan, Annexation, and the above-mentioned General Plan Amendment and Development Code Change. These project components are necessary for the public to review as they directly inform the environmental analysis, such as Utilities and Service Systems, Hydrology and Water Quality, and Public Services.

Excluding these project components as attachments for public review does not comply with CEQA’s requirements for meaningful disclosure. Incorporation by reference (CEQA § 15150 (f)) is not appropriate as all project components contribute directly to analysis of the problem at hand.

The EIR must be revised to include all project components for review, analysis, and comment by the public and decision makers.

3.3 Air Quality, 3.6 Energy, and 3.8 Greenhouse Gas Emissions The EIR does not include for analysis relevant environmental justice issues in reviewing potential impacts, including cumulative impacts from the proposed project. The EIR provides general information about the census tract’s CalEnviroScreen scores but does not provide meaningful analysis regarding the health impacts and effects of severe pollution rates. This is in conflict with CEQA Guidelines Section 15131 (c), which requires that “Economic, social, and particularly housing factors shall be considered by public agencies together with technological and environmental factors in deciding whether changes in a project are feasible to reduce or avoid the significant effects on the environment identified in the EIR. If information on these factors is not contained in the EIR, the information must be added to the record in some other manner to allow the agency to consider the factors in reaching a decision on the project.” 1 https://www.fresnocog.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Fresno-County-Regional-Long-Range-TransitPlan-050519-RL-34.pdf GSEJA

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This is especially significant as the surrounding community is highly burdened by pollution.

According to CalEnviroScreen 4.02, CalEPA’s screening tool that ranks each census tract in the state for pollution and socioeconomic vulnerability, the proposed project spans multiple census tracts ((6019005904 (Temperance south of Church Street extending east to McCall); 6019001413 (Temperance north of Church Street extending north to Belmont); and 6019001500 (Temperance between Jensen and North extending west to Peach)) that rank significantly worse than the rest of the state in overall pollution burden and specific factors that directly contribute to pollution applied to the socioeconomic factors of the population. Census tract 6019005904 ranks in the 77th percentile for overall pollution burden, census tract 6019001413 ranks in the 57th percentile, and census tract 6019001500 ranks in the 100th percentile, meaning that it is among the most highly polluted census tracts in the state.

The project census tracts rank highly for ozone burden (6019005904 and 6019001413: 89th percentile; 6019001500: 85th percentile), particulate matter (PM) 2.5 burden (6019005904: 95th percentile; 6019001413 and 6019001500: 96th percentile), and diesel PM burden (6019001500:
65th percentile). All of these environmental factors are typically attributed to heavy truck activity in the area. Ozone can cause lung irritation, inflammation, and worsening of existing chronic health conditions, even at low levels of exposure3. The very small particles of diesel PM can reach deep into the lung, where they can contribute to a range of health problems. These include irritation to the eyes, throat and nose, heart and lung disease, and lung cancer4.

The census tracts also bear more impacts from cleanup sites compared to the rest of the state (6019005904: 89th percentile; 6019001500: 98th percentile). Chemicals in the buildings, soil, or water at cleanup sites can move into nearby communities through the air or movement of water5.

The census tracts also rank highly for impacts from toxic releases (6019005904: 70th percentile; 6019001413: 74th percentile; 6019001500: 95th percentile). People living near facilities that emit toxic releases may breathe contaminated air regularly or if contaminants are released during an accident6.

The census tracts rank among the most severely impacted in several areas that impact water quality.

Census tract 6019001500 rank in the 94th percentile for groundwater threats. People who live near contaminated groundwater may be exposed to chemicals moving from the soil into the air 2 CalEnviroScreen 4.0 https://oehha.ca.gov/calenviroscreen/report/calenviroscreen-40 3 OEHHA Ozone https://oehha.ca.gov/calenviroscreen/indicator/air-quality-ozone 4 OEHHA Diesel Particulate Matter https://oehha.ca.gov/calenviroscreen/indicator/diesel-particulatematter 5 OEHHA Cleanup Sites https://oehha.ca.gov/calenviroscreen/indicator/cleanup-sites 6 OEHHA Toxic Releases https://oehha.ca.gov/calenviroscreen/indicator/toxic-releases-facilities GSEJA

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inside their homes7. Additionally, the project census tracts rank highly for drinking water impacts (6019005904: 99th percentile; 6019001413: 94th percentile; 6019001500: 100th percentile), which indicates that the project site ranks with the worst quality drinking water in the state. Poor communities and people in rural areas are exposed to contaminants in their drinking water more often than people in other parts of the state8.

The census tracts also rank highly for solid waste facility impacts (6019005904: 70th percentile; 6019001500: 100th percentile), which can expose people to hazardous chemicals, release toxic gases into the air (even after these facilites are closed), and chemicals can leach into soil around the facility and pose a health risk to nearby populations9. Census tract 6019001500 ranks in the 100th percentile for hazardous waste impacts. Hazardous waste generators and facilities contribute to the contamination of air, water and soil near waste generators and facilities can harm the environment as well as people10.

Further, the census tract is a diverse community including many Hispanic residents (6019005904:
32%; 6019001413: 46%; 6019001500: 75%), Asian-American residents (6019005904: 24%; 6019001413: 25%; 6019001500: 3%), and African-American residents (6019005904: 2%; 6019001413: 2%; 6019001500: 1%), whom are especially vulnerable to the impacts of pollution. The communities have a high rate of low educational attainment, meaning significant portions of the census tracts over age 25 has not attained a high school diploma (6019005904:
56%; 6019001413: 54%; 6019001500: 95%). The community also has a high rate of poverty, meaning significant portions of the households in the census tract have a total income before taxes that is less than the poverty level (6019001500: 94%). Income can affect health when people cannot afford healthy living and working conditions, nutritious food and necessary medical care11.

Poor communities are often located in areas with high levels of pollution12. Poverty can cause stress that weakens the immune system and causes people to become ill from pollution13. Living in poverty and low education levels are also an indication that residents may lack health insurance or access to medical care. Medical care is vital for the project census tracts as they rank significantly for the incidence of cardiovascular disease (6019001413: 55th percentile; 7 OEHHA Groundwater Threats https://oehha.ca.gov/calenviroscreen/indicator/groundwater-threats 8 OEHHA Drinking Water https://oehha.ca.gov/calenviroscreen/drinking-water 9 OEHHA Solid Waste Facilities https://oehha.ca.gov/calenviroscreen/indicator/solid-waste-sites-andfacilities 10 OEHHA Hazardous Waste Generators and Facilities
https://oehha.ca.gov/calenviroscreen/indicator/hazardous-waste-generators-and-facilities 11 OEHHA Poverty https://oehha.ca.gov/calenviroscreen/indicator/poverty 12 Ibid.
13 Ibid.

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6019001500: 71st percentile) and the incidence of asthma (6019001413: 55th percentile; 6019001500: 93rd percentile). The communities also have a high rate of linguistic isolation, meaning significant portions of residents in the census tracts speak little to no English and faces further inequities as a result (6019005904: 49%; 6019001413: 50%; 6019001500: 70%).

Additionally, the proposed project’s census tracts (6019001413 and 6019001500) are identified as SB 535 Disadvantaged Communities14. This indicates that cumulative impacts of development and environmental impacts in the area are disproportionately impacting these communities. The EIR does not discuss that the project site and surrounding area are disadvantaged communities and does not utilize this information in its analysis. The EIR has not considered the project’s significant and unavoidable cumulatively considerable environmental impacts in relation to the SB 535 status of the project census tracts and surrounding area. The negative environmental, health, and quality of life impacts in the City have become distinctly inequitable. The severity of environmental impacts particularly on these Disadvantaged Communities must be included for analysis as part of a revised EIR.

The State of California lists three approved compliance modeling softwares15 for non-residential buildings: CBECC-Com, EnergyPro, and IES VE. CalEEMod and EMFAC are not listed as approved softwares. The CalEEMod/EMFAC and spreadsheet-based modeling does not comply with the 2022 Building Energy Efficiency Standards and under-reports the project’s significant Energy impacts and fuel consumption to the public and decision makers. Since the EIR did not accurately or adequately model the energy impacts in compliance with Title 24, a finding of significance must be made. A revised EIR with modeling using one of the approved software types must be prepared and circulated for public review in order to adequately analyze the project’s significant environmental impacts. This is vital as the EIR utilizes CalEEMod/EMFAC as sources in its methodology and analysis, which are clearly not approved softwares.

3.9 Hazards and Hazardous Materials
The EIR states that, “According to the Fresno Yosemite International Airport Safety Compatibility Zones Map, a small portion of the Plan Area is located within the 60 dB CNEL contour. A Larger portion of the Plan Area is located within the Traffic Pattern Zone.” The EIR concludes that, “The ALUC found the proposed project to be consistent with the ALUCP on August 7, 2023. Therefore, at the programmatic level, impacts to the Plan Area would be less than significant. Consistent with the General Plan and SEDA Specific Plan policies, individual development projects would be 14 OEHHA SB 535 Census Tracts https://oehha.ca.gov/calenviroscreen/sb535 15 California Energy Commission 2022 Energy Code Compliance Software https://www.energy.ca.gov/programs-and-topics/programs/building-energy-efficiency-standards/2022- building-energy-efficiency-1
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required to undergo project-specific environmental review, which may require additional sitespecific or project-specific airport land use compatibility measures to reduce any potential impacts and ensure that impacts remain less than significant.”
However, the EIR has not provided any meaningful evidence or analysis to support the claim that the impacts are less than significant. Notably, the Fresno County Airport Land Use Commission (FC ALUC) review document is not included as an attachment for public review in compliance with CEQA’s requirements for meaningful disclosure. Incorporation by reference (CEQA § 15150 (f)) is not appropriate as the FC ALUC review document contributes directly to analysis of the problem at hand. The EIR must be revised to include the FC ALUC review document for review, analysis, and comment by the public and decision makers.

Additionally, based on the August 7, 2023 FC ALUC meeting agenda16, attachments17/ 18, and
minutes19 of the meeting, the FC ALUC only reviewed the SEDA Specific Plan. The FC ALUC did not explicitly review or take action on all aspects of the project, including the required General Plan Amendment and Development Code Change required to implement the proposed project.

The California Airport Land Use Planning Handbook20 states that Airport Land Use Commission review is required “Prior to the amendment of a general plan or specific plan, or the adoption of a zoning ordinance or building regulation within the ALUCP planning boundary, the ALUC shall review the plan, ordinance, or regulation for consistency with the ALUCP (PUC Section 21676(b)).” Given that the proposed project includes General Plan Amendment and Development Code Change to proceed, FC ALUC review of all associated actions is required. As stated above in the Project Description analysis, the EIR has not provided the new text or exhibits to be included in the revised General Plan associated with the 10 new land use designations created by the proposed project, or the new text of the development code. Therefore, the FC ALUC has not reviewed the required General Plan Amendment and a revised EIR must be prepared to include a finding of significance.
16 August 7, 2023 FC ALUC meeting agenda https://agendas2011-24.fresnocog.org/agenda/read/785 17 August 7, 2023 FC ALUC attachment for SEDA project https://agendas2011-

24.fresnocog.org/itemAttachments/785/SEDA_-_ALUC_Submittal_-_7.24_.23_.pdf 18 August 7, 2023 FC ALUC attachment for SEDA project https://agendas2011-

24.fresnocog.org/itemAttachments/785/SEDA_-_FAT_Influence_Areas.pdf 19 August 7, 2023 FC ALUC meeting minutes https://agendas2011-

24.fresnocog.org/itemAttachments/794/080723_ALUC_Action_Summary.pdf 20 California Airport Land Use Planning Handbook https://dot.ca.gov/-/media/dotmedia/programs/aeronautics/documents/californiaairportlanduseplanninghandbook-a11y.pdf GSEJA

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3.11 Land Use and Planning
It must be noted that the EIR does not accurately characterize or analyze the permitted use types within each land use designation of the SEDA SP21. For example, SEDA SP Policy EO-2.1 states, “Promote industry clusters that build on Fresno’s local strengths. The SEDA Plan presents opportunities for each of the following clusters: Advanced Manufacturing, Clean Energy, Construction, Food Processing, Healthcare, Information Processing, Logistics & Distribution, Software Development, Tourism, and Water Technology. This list may evolve as Fresno grows and changes.” The EIR does not discuss or analyze the possibility of logistics and distribution uses in any of the proposed land use designations. The EIR is inadequate as an informational document and must be revised to accurately list all permitted/conditionally permitted uses within each land use designation and update all associated impact analysis.

The EIR is not clear regarding the proposed General Plan land use designations for the project site.

Specifically, the EIR only provides exhibits that depict the Existing General Plan land use designations and the proposed SEDA SP land use designations, leaving the reader to assume that the proposed SEDA land uses are the new General Plan land use designations. It must be noted that the City’s General Plan does not list any of the 10 proposed SEDA land use designations as existing land use designations. For example, SEDA’s employment-focused land use designations are “Office Center” and “Flexible Research and Development.” These land use designations do not exist in the City’s General Plan, and neither do any of the other eight proposed land use designations. The City’s General Plan also does not include a broad “Specific Plan” land use designation that would be applied to all parcels within any approved Specific Plan within the City.

Therefore, all 10 land use designations proposed in the SEDA SP will be new additions to the General Plan and the EIR must be revised to include all text and exhibits that will be part of the revised General Plan and Development Code in order to comply with CEQA’s requirements for meaningful disclosure and adequate informational documents (CEQA § 15121).

Additionally, the EIR does not provide adequate information to determine the project’s compliance or noncompliance with statutory requirements of the Housing Crisis Act (HCA) of 2019/Senate Bill (SB) 33022/SB 823. The HCA/SB 330/SB 8 require replacement housing sites when land designated for housing development experience land use changes to ensure no net loss of housing capacity.
21 SEDA SP https://www.fresno.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Draft-SEDA-Specific-Plan.pdf 22 Housing Crisis Act of 2019/SB 330
https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=201920200SB330 23 SB 8 https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220SB8 GSEJA

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Government Code Section 66300(b)(1)(A) requires that agencies shall not “change the general plan land use designation, specific plan land use designation, or zoning to a less intensive use below what was allowed under the land use designation and zoning ordinances in effect at the time of the proposed change.” Under Government Code Section 66300(b)(1)(A), a “less intensive use” includes, but is not limited to, reductions to height, density, or floor area ratio, new or increased open space or lot size requirements, or new or increased setback requirements, minimum frontage requirements, or maximum lot coverage limitations, or any other action that would individually or cumulatively reduce residential development capacity. Pursuant to SB 330, replacement capacity for any displaced residential units must be provided concurrently at the time of project approval.

Government Code Section 66300 (h)(i)(1) states that, “this section does not prohibit an affected county or an affected city, including the local electorate acting through the initiative process, from changing a land use designation or zoning ordinance to a less intensive use, or reducing the intensity of land use, if the city or county concurrently changes the development standards, policies, and conditions applicable to other parcels within the jurisdiction to ensure that there is no net loss in residential capacity.” The EIR is inadequate in that it does not provide the acreage of each existing General Plan land use designation within the project area. The total acreage for each existing General Plan land use designation is necessary to calculate the existing total residential development capacity to ensure there is no net loss of capacity. The EIR must be revised to include this information for analysis.

3.14 Population and Housing
The EIR states that, “According to General Plan Tables 1-3 (Residential Development Capacity at General Plan Horizon) and 1-4 (Residential Development Capacity at General Plan Buildout, the proposed project would generate up to 14,900 dwelling units at General Plan Horizon and an additional 25,000 at buildout occurring sometime after 2050, for a total of 45,000 new dwelling units, comprising approximately 31 percent of the total planned capacity for the City. Buildout of the proposed project is considered planned growth and would provide housing to meet the demand for new residential units.” However, this statement does not accurately reflect General Plan Tables 1-3 and 1-4. According to the General Plan, the project site is located within Development Areas (DA) DA-3 Southeast and DA-4 East. General Plan Tables 1-3 and 1-4 provide the following buildout information for DA-3 and DA-4:

Table 1-3: Residential Development Capacity Under General Plan Horizon (2035) DA-3 Southeast
Type of Dwelling Unit (DU)
Multi-Family/Townhouse: 2,500 DU
SFD: 3,500 DU
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Total: 6,000 DU
Location
City Limits: 0
Development on Sites in Growth Areas Requiring Annexation: 6,000 DU DA-4 East
Type of DU
MF/Townhouse: 5,100 DU
SFD: 3,800 DU
Location
City Limits: 0
Development on Sites in Growth Areas Requiring Annexation: 8,900 DU Total General Plan Horizon (2035) = 14,900 DU
Table 1-4: Residential Development Capacity Under Buildout (2056) DA-3 Southeast
Location
City Limits: 0
Development on Sites in Growth Areas Requiring Annexation: 9,092 DU DA-4 East
Location
City Limits: 0
Development on Sites in Growth Areas Requiring Annexation: 35,008 DU Total General Plan Buildout (2056) = 44,100 DU
The EIR states that the General Plan provides for, “up to 14,900 dwelling units at General Plan Horizon and an additional 25,000 at buildout occurring sometime after 2050, for a total of 45,000 new dwelling units.” However, the sum of 14,900 DU and 25,000 DU is 39,900 DU, which is 5,100 DU fewer than the proposed project. It must be noted that the General Plan excludes the specific date of total buildout, but the 2019 EIR for the General Plan Update24 clearly identifies the total buildout year as 2056.

As shown above, the General Plan accommodates a cumulative total of 44,100 DU on the project site from General Plan adoption through 2056. This is 900 DU fewer than the 45,000 DU proposed by the project. The proposed project exceeds the cumulative General Plan buildout scenario through 2056 and the EIR must be revised to disclose this with a finding of significance. 24 https://www.fresno.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Fresno-GP-Public-Review-Draft-ProgramEIR.pdf GSEJA

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A revised EIR must also provide a cumulative analysis of projects approved and “in the pipeline” to provide an adequate and accurate analysis to determine if the project will exceed Fresno COG’s employment and population growth forecasts, and all projects approved since 2014 and projects “in the pipeline” to provide an adequate and accurate analysis to determine if the project will exceed the City’s General Plan employment and population growth forecasts. For example, the General Plan includes Table 1-5: Population Estimate Under Horizon and Buildout that depicts the City will add 226,000 residents by horizon year 2035 and a cumulative total of 425,000 residents by General Plan buildout in 2056. The EIR’s estimated 134,550 residents accounts for

59.5% of horizon population buildout (2035), 31.6% of total General Plan population buildout (2056), and 67.5% of the population increase from 2035 to 2056. This is a significant amount of growth attributable to a single project. The EIR has not prepared an adequate cumulative analysis to determine the City’s progress towards these buildout scenarios and a revised EIR must be prepared with this information in order to provide an adequate and accurate environmental analysis.

The EIR states that, “new development would be required to address potential environmental impacts as part of individual project review. As such, cumulative development would not induce substantial unplanned population growth, either directly or indirectly. Because cumulative projects would comply with all applicable land use plans to provide adequate development within a jurisdiction, cumulative impacts would be less than significant.” This statement is misleading and erroneous as CEQA provides several options to exempt future projects from environmental review.

New development would not be required to address potential environmental impacts as part of individual project review. New residential development proposed pursuant to the SEDA SP is statutorily exempt from CEQA due to the adoption of a Program EIR. Specifically, CEQA Guidelines Section 15168 (c)(2) states regarding later activities that, “If the agency finds that pursuant to Section 15162, no subsequent EIR would be required, the agency can approve the activity as being within the scope of the project covered by the program EIR, and no new environmental document would be required.” CEQA Guidelines Section 15182 exempts “residential, commercial and mixed-use projects that are consistent with a specific plan.” CEQA Guidelines Section 15182 (c) exempts residential projects so long as no new information has been presented pursuant to Section 15162. Additionally, CEQA Guidelines Section 15168 (b)(2) provides a list of advantages for developing a Program EIR as, “Ensure consideration of cumulative impacts that might be slighted in a case-by-case analysis.” Therefore, the EIR’s reliance upon delayed/future CEQA review as part of individual project review is not adequate or accurate and does not support a less than significant finding. The EIR must be revised to remove these statements and provide a finding of significance.

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3.17 Transportation and Traffic
The EIR has not provided any consistency analysis with the Fresno Council of Governments (COG) 2022 Regional Transportation Plan/Sustainable Communities Strategy (RTP/SCS)25. Due to errors in modeling, modeling without supporting evidence, and the EIR’s conclusion the project will result in significant and unavoidable cumulatively considerable impacts to Air Quality, the proposed project has signifiant potential for inconsistency with Goal 2: Vibrant communities that are accessible by sustainable transportation options, Policy 4: Encourage alternatives to singleoccupancy vehicles that reduce vehicle miles traveled (VMT) and greenhouse gas emissions, and Policy 6: Encourage sustainable development that focuses growth near activity centers and mobility options that achieve greater location efficiency. Portions of the project site is also identified as an Environmental Justice area26 in Fresno COG’s 2022 RTP/SCS. Since the project requires a General Plan Amendment to the land use designations on the project site to proceed, it was clearly not accounted for or analyzed by the 2022 RTP/SCS. A revised EIR must be prepared to accurately analyze and disclose the inconsistency with the 2022 RTP/SCS document with a finding of significance.

Further, the EIR impact analysis relies on the notion that bus rapid transit (BRT) service will be expanded in Fresno to serve the project area (Kings Canyon), rendering several impact areas less than significant. However, the EIR does not provide any meaningful evidence to support the conclusion that the BRT expansion will actually be constructed. Most notably, the Fresno COG Long Range Transportation Plan27 (LRTP) (2019-2050) does not include service to the SEDA SP area as a specific project. Table 2 - LRTP Project List within the LRTP only includes, "Project 6:

Extend the Kings Canyon BRT corridor to Fancher Creek,” and the Fancher Creek area is located north/west of the SEDA areas and not contiguous to it. Therefore, BRT service to the project area is not a funded commitment or project and is not planned to exist by 2050. The EIR must be revised to clarify this and update its impact analysis throughout the document.

4.2 Growth-Inducing Impacts
The EIR has excluded for discussion for the precedence setting action that approval of the required General Plan Amendment and Development Code Change set for future changes in the City. The EIR must be revised to include a finding of significance as the required GPA/Development Code Change to implement the project will result in significant and unavoidable cumulatively 25 Fresno COG 2022 RTP/SCS https://www.planfresno.com/sustainable-communities-strategies-falloutreach/ 26 Environmental Justice Chapter of 2022 Fresno COG RTP/SCS https://www.planfresno.com/planfresno/uploads/2022/06/Chapter-7-Environmental-Justice-Final-Draft.pdf 27 https://www.fresnocog.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Fresno-County-Regional-Long-Range-TransitPlan-050519-RL-34.pdf GSEJA

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considerable impacts to Aesthetics, Agricultural Resources, Air Quality, and Noise, and approval of the proposed project will set precedent for approval of other projects with significant and unavoidable impacts that require changes in land use designations and will encourage and facilitate other activities that will have significant negative impacts to the environment. The EIR must be revised to disclose this information and provide a finding of significance.

The EIR has excluded discussion of the precedence setting action that approval of the required General Plan Amendment and Development Code Change set for future changes in the City. The EIR does not analyze that the project will create 10 new General Plan land use designations that can be applied to any property in the City. The EIR must be revised to disclose this information and provide a finding of significance.

The EIR states that, “According to General Plan Tables 1-3 (Residential Development Capacity at General Plan Horizon) and 1-4 (Residential Development Capacity at General Plan Buildout, the proposed project would generate up to 14,900 dwelling units at General Plan Horizon and an additional 25,000 at buildout occurring sometime after 2050, for a total of 45,000 new dwelling units, comprising approximately 31 percent of the total planned capacity for the City. Buildout of the proposed project is considered planned growth and would provide housing to meet the demand for new residential units.” However, this statement does not accurately reflect General Plan Tables 1-3 and 1-4. According to the General Plan, the project site is located within Development Areas (DA) DA-3 Southeast and DA-4 East. General Plan Tables 1-3 and 1-4 provide the following buildout information for DA-3 and DA-4:

Table 1-3: Residential Development Capacity Under General Plan Horizon (2035) DA-3 Southeast
Type of Dwelling Unit (DU)
Multi-Family/Townhouse: 2,500 DU
SFD: 3,500 DU
Total: 6,000 DU
Location
City Limits: 0
Development on Sites in Growth Areas Requiring Annexation: 6,000 DU DA-4 East
Type of DU
MF/Townhouse: 5,100 DU
SFD: 3,800 DU
Location
City Limits: 0
Development on Sites in Growth Areas Requiring Annexation: 8,900 DU GSEJA

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Total General Plan Horizon (2035) = 14,900 DU
Table 1-4: Residential Development Capacity Under Buildout (2056) DA-3 Southeast
Location
City Limits: 0
Development on Sites in Growth Areas Requiring Annexation: 9,092 DU DA-4 East
Location
City Limits: 0
Development on Sites in Growth Areas Requiring Annexation: 35,008 DU Total General Plan Buildout (2056) = 44,100 DU
The EIR states that the General Plan provides for, “up to 14,900 dwelling units at General Plan Horizon and an additional 25,000 at buildout occurring sometime after 2050, for a total of 45,000 new dwelling units.” However, the sum of 14,900 DU and 25,000 DU is 39,900 DU, which is 5,100 DU fewer than the proposed project. It must be noted that the General Plan excludes the specific date of total buildout, but the 2019 EIR for the General Plan Update28 clearly identifies the total buildout year as 2056.

As shown above, the General Plan accommodates a cumulative total of 44,100 DU on the project site from General Plan adoption through 2056. This is 900 DU fewer than the 45,000 DU proposed by the project. The proposed project exceeds the cumulative General Plan buildout scenario through 2056 and the EIR must be revised to disclose this with a finding of significance.

The EIR must also be
A revised EIR must also provide a cumulative analysis of projects approved and “in the pipeline” to provide an adequate and accurate analysis to determine if the project will exceed Fresno COG’s employment and population growth forecasts, and all projects approved since 2014 and projects “in the pipeline” to provide an adequate and accurate analysis to determine if the project will exceed the City’s General Plan employment and population growth forecasts. For example, the General Plan includes Table 1-5: Population Estimate Under Horizon and Buildout that depicts the City will add 226,000 residents by horizon year 2035 and a cumulative total of 425,000 residents by General Plan buildout in 2056. The EIR’s estimated 134,550 residents accounts for

59.5% of horizon population buildout (2035), 31.6% of total General Plan population buildout 28 https://www.fresno.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Fresno-GP-Public-Review-Draft-ProgramEIR.pdf GSEJA

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(2056), and 67.5% of the population increase from 2035 to 2056. This is a significant amount of growth attributable to a single project. The EIR has not prepared an adequate cumulative analysis to determine the City’s progress towards these buildout scenarios and a revised EIR must be prepared with this information in order to provide an adequate and accurate environmental analysis.

4.3 Mandatory Findings of Significance
The EIR concludes that the proposed project will have a less than significant impact regarding Mandatory Finding of Significance Threshold 3: “The environmental effects of a project will cause substantial adverse effects on human beings, either directly or indirectly.” The EIR states that, “Compliance with and implementation of mitigation measures, existing regulations, and the City’s standard permit conditions would ensure that the proposed project, and future development consistent with the proposed project, would not result in substantial adverse effects on human beings, including effects related to air pollution, seismic and geologic hazards, hazardous materials, flooding and natural disasters, or noise and vibration. Therefore, impacts associated with the proposed project would be less than significant.”
However, this analysis fails to account for the project’s significant and unavoidable cumulatively considerable impact for Threshold AIR-3: Project-level Sensitive Receptors Exposure to Pollutant Concentrations. Regarding this signifiant impact, the EIR states that proposed mitigation would reduce impacts to the extent feasible, but, “the proposed project would result in the future development of numerous projects, each contributing incrementally to air emissions affecting sensitive receptors. Thus, it is possible that the proposed project would result in cumulatively significant impacts to sensitive receptors, even if individual projects were each less than significant. This is particularly likely since none of the measures herein would prevent multiple development projects from being constructed concurrently within close proximity to sensitive receptors in such a manner as to cause substantial concentrations within the area. Further, neither the amount of construction occurring nor the exact location within the Plan Area is foreseeable and, as such, it cannot be determined whether the resultant construction emissions could be adequately controlled or reduced to below regulatory thresholds. Without such information, it is not possible to conclude that air pollutant emissions resulting from construction activities would be adequately reduced to the point that sensitive receptors are not exposed to substantial concentrations of air pollutants, and thus a significant and unavoidable impact may result.” The EIR is internally inconsistent as it does not acknowledge this impact in the Mandatory Findings.

The EIR must be revised to include this information for analysis and provide a finding of significance.

GSEJA

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5.0 Alternatives
The EIR is required to evaluate a reasonable range of alternatives to the proposed project which will avoid or substantially lessen any of the significant effects of the project (CEQA § 15126.6.) The alternatives chosen for analysis include the CEQA required “No Project/No Build” alternative and only two others - Consolidated Business Park Alternative and Farmland Conservation Alternative. The EIR does not evaluate a reasonable range of alternatives as only two alternatives beyond the required No Project alternative are analyzed. The EIR does not include an alternative eliminates any of the project’s significant and unavoidable impacts. The EIR must be revised to include analysis of a reasonable range of alternatives and foster informed decision making (CEQA § 15126.6). This could include alternatives such as development of the site with a project that eliminates all of the proposed project’s significant and unavoidable impacts to less than significant levels while meeting all project objectives. The EIR must be revised to include analysis of a reasonable range of alternatives and foster informed decision making (CEQA § 15126.6).

Conclusion
For the foregoing reasons, GSEJA believes the EIR is flawed and a revised EIR must be prepared for the proposed project and circulated for public review. Golden State Environmental Justice Alliance requests to be added to the public interest list regarding any subsequent environmental documents, public notices, public hearings, and notices of determination for this project. Send all communications to Golden State Environmental Justice Alliance P.O. Box 79222 Corona, CA 92877.

Sincerely,
Vashon Simien
Blum, Collins & Ho, LLP
Attachments:

1. SWAPE Technical Analysis
GSEJA

18 City of Fresno—Fresno Southeast Development Area Specific Plan Project Administrative Final Program EIR Responses to Written Comments FirstCarbon Solutions 1-255
https://adecinnovations.sharepoint.com/sites/PublicationsSite/Shared Documents/Publications/Client (PN-JN)/3168/31680037/EIR/2 - Final EIR/wp/31680037 Sec03-00 Responses to Written Comments.docx Golden State Environmental Justice Alliance (GSEJA)
Please note that due to the volume of this comment letter, only the comment letter is reproduced in this section of the Final PEIR, and the full letter with the attached appendices are included in Appendix A of the Final PEIR. The attached appendices were reviewed in preparation of the Final PEIR and responded to in Response to GSEJA-19.

Response to GSEJA-1
The comment is noted. This comment has been passed to the Lead Agency for their review and consideration of the proposed project as a whole. However, no environmental issues pursuant to CEQA are raised, and no response is required.

Response to GSEJA-2
The comment is noted. The information required in draft EIRs is set forth in State CEQA Guidelines Sections 15122–15131. There is no requirement in the Public Resources Code or the State CEQA Guidelines that requires a specific plan to be included in the Draft EIR’s attachments as requested by comment. Nor does Section 15050(f) establish a limit on the type of document that can be incorporated by reference. As clearly stated in Section 1.4, Documents Incorporated by Reference, the City ensured access to, and visibility of, the Specific Plan at the City of Fresno Planning and Development Department throughout the public review process. Accordingly, the Specific Plan was available for review, analysis and comment by the public and decision-makers.

Response to GSEJA-3
The comment is noted. This comment has been passed to the Lead Agency for their review and consideration of the proposed project as a whole. However, no environmental issues pursuant to CEQA are raised, and no response is required. Please refer to Master Response 1, Non-CEQA Issues Not Addressed in Final PEIR, and Master Response 2, General Opposition Comments Not Addressed in Final PEIR, in Section 2, Master Responses, of this document. These master responses provide additional information on the scope of CEQA, including any non-CEQA issues, and respond to comments that express general opposition to or disapproval of the proposed project or the environmental analysis. Master Responses 1 and 2 further detail why comments on Specific Plan design or policies are not further addressed in the Final PEIR.

Section 2.2.4 in Chapter 2, Project Description, of the Recirculated Draft PEIR includes the existing General Plan designations in the Plan Area. Furthermore, exhibit 3-11.1 summarizes the existing General Plan land use designations and zoning in the Plan Area. Chapter 2, Project Description, Exhibit 2-2, depicts the proposed land use designations for the Plan Area. Both the General Plan and the Specific Plan are publicly available for review. No further response is required.

Section 3.17, Transportation and Traffic, of the Recirculated Draft PEIR, includes Specific Plan policies that guides and discloses planned development related to Bus Rapid Transit (BRT). Policy UF-5.2 discusses that Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) extension study including planning, design, and environmental analysis should be completed to evaluate the potential costs and benefits of extending the BRT to the Plan Area. Policy UF-5.6 provides performance standards and evaluation for BRT in the Plan Area.

In addition, with the incorporation of multimodal strategies, the proposed project incorporates a City of Fresno—Fresno Southeast Development Area Specific Plan Project Responses to Written Comments Administrative Final Program EIR 1-256 FirstCarbon Solutions
https://adecinnovations.sharepoint.com/sites/PublicationsSite/Shared Documents/Publications/Client (PN-JN)/3168/31680037/EIR/2 - Final EIR/wp/31680037 Sec03-00 Responses to Written Comments.docx comprehensive transportation network designed to reduce vehicle dependence, including integration with regional transit systems, including planned BRT routes.

Response to GSEJA-4
The comment is noted. Please refer to Master Response 1, Non-CEQA Issues Not Addressed in Final PEIR, in Section 2, Master Responses, of this document. Master Response 1 provides additional information on the scope of CEQA and any non-CEQA issues not further discussed in the Final PEIR.

Furthermore, as discussed in Section 3.18, Utilities and Service Systems, of the Recirculated Draft PEIR, impacts related to the relocation or construction of new or expanded water, wastewater treatment or stormwater drainage, electric power, natural gas, or telecommunications facility would be less than significant impact with mitigation incorporated. No further response is required.

Response to GSEJA-5
The comment is noted. Please refer to Master Response 1, Non-CEQA Issues Not Addressed in Final PEIR, in Section 2, Master Responses, of this document. Master Response 1 provides additional information on the scope of CEQA and any non-CEQA issues not further discussed in the Final PEIR.

As discussed in this Master Response, the lead agency will consider these factors in making a decision on project approval; however, the scope of the Recirculated Draft PEIR focuses on potential adverse physical impacts to the environment associated with the proposed project. The comment largely discusses environmental justice and climate change issues, which are not identified thresholds of significance.

CEQA Guidelines Section 15131 provides guidance on economic and social effects, specifically that information on economic and social effects may be included in an EIR or may be presented in whatever form the Lead Agency desires. Section 15131(c) states the Lead Agencies should consider economic, social, and housing factors to identify if there are any design features or changes to the project to reduce a significant impact, and that this information can be added anywhere in the administrative record for the proposed project. The Recirculated Draft PEIR found significant and unavoidable impacts related to aesthetics, air quality, agriculture, and noise. The commenter misconstrues the objective of the guideline and does not provide any meaningful suggested change to the proposed project that would reduce a significant and unavoidable impact that requires the consideration of social and economic effects. Instead, the commenter incorrectly suggests that it mandates the further discussion of health impacts in the Recirculated Draft PEIR in the context of an impact outside of the significance threshold utilized in the Recirculated Draft PEIR. As stated above, the Recirculated Draft PEIR is a program-level document, which does not contemplate any specific development, so it appropriately analyzes environmental impacts at a program level. Moreover, Section 3.3, Air Quality, of the Recirculated Draft PEIR, provides a full description of the health effects of toxic air contaminants in the section, Toxic Air Contaminants Health Effects, starting on page 3.3-17 of the Recirculated Draft PEIR.

Please also refer to Master Response 7, Clarifying Information on Significant and Unavoidable Impacts, in Section 2, Master Responses. Master Response 7 provides additional clarifying information on the significant and unavoidable impacts disclosed within the PEIR. No further response is required.

City of Fresno—Fresno Southeast Development Area Specific Plan Project Administrative Final Program EIR Responses to Written Comments FirstCarbon Solutions 1-257
https://adecinnovations.sharepoint.com/sites/PublicationsSite/Shared Documents/Publications/Client (PN-JN)/3168/31680037/EIR/2 - Final EIR/wp/31680037 Sec03-00 Responses to Written Comments.docx Response to GSEJA-6
The comment is noted. Please refer to Master Response 5, Clarification of the Programmatic Document, in Section 2, Master Responses. Master Response 5 provides additional information on the level of review included in the Recirculated Draft PEIR and the subsequent environmental review that would be performed as the City receives specific development applications in the Plan Area.

As discussed in Section 3.3, Air Quality, of the Recirculated Draft PEIR, the proposed project has the potential to exceed the SJVAPCD’s significance thresholds during construction and operation. 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. MM AIR-1a, MM AIR-1b, MM AIR-1c, and MM AIR-1d would serve to reduce construction and operation-phase criteria air pollutant emissions; however, the mitigation measures would not reduce emissions to less than significant levels. Applicable SJVAPCD rules and regulations in addition to the proposed project’s policies and design guidelines would contribute to reducing long-term criteria air pollutant emissions to the extent feasible. However, due to the magnitude and intensity of development accommodated by the proposed project, impacts would remain significant and unavoidable.

As noted above, the proposed project is a policy-level document and does not propose any specific site development at this time. Future development associated with the proposed project would be required to undergo CEQA analysis on a project-by-project basis as necessary. As such, the mitigation measures identified above require future development in Plan Area to provide technical analyses as part of the project environmental review for construction, operational, and health impacts and mitigate the identified impacts in those technical studies to the greatest extent possible. The mitigation measures also include potential mitigation strategies for future development to utilize to reduce air quality impacts. Future development in the plan area will still have to go through the appropriate level of environmental review where impacts to air quality will be evaluated against the suggested significance thresholds in Appendix G to the CEQA Guidelines, which is the City’s standard practice.

Furthermore, the commenter does not provide substantial evidence regarding any significant environmental impact that was not evaluated and disclosed in the Recirculated Draft PEIR. The basis for the commenter’s assertion that CalEEMod is “not approved” is unclear and unsubstantiated.

Additionally, the commenter does not identify any project-specific impact that the Recirculated Draft PEIR failed to consider and disclose.

Use of CalEEMod for purposes of modeling potential air quality and related health risk assessments is appropriate. As detailed more fully in Section 3.3, Air Quality, of the Recirculated Draft PEIR, the City, in its discretion as Lead Agency, has determined to utilize the applicable SJVAPCD thresholds and methodologies, which are contained under each impact statement in Section 3.3 and are based on scientific and factual data appropriately considered and incorporated therein by SJVAPCD, as the expert regulatory public agency charged with addressing air quality and GHG emissions within SJVAPCD boundaries.

City of Fresno—Fresno Southeast Development Area Specific Plan Project Responses to Written Comments Administrative Final Program EIR 1-258 FirstCarbon Solutions
https://adecinnovations.sharepoint.com/sites/PublicationsSite/Shared Documents/Publications/Client (PN-JN)/3168/31680037/EIR/2 - Final EIR/wp/31680037 Sec03-00 Responses to Written Comments.docx Specifically, the City utilized approved models from the SJVAPCD, which is the authority for this air basin, the expert agency with respect to air emissions and which directed that CalEEMod be used.

CalEEMod is a Statewide land use emissions computer model designed to provide a uniform platform to calculate construction and operational emissions from land use development projects, such as the proposed project. CalEEMod was developed for CAPCOA in collaboration with the California Air Districts. The model is a comprehensive tool for quantifying air quality impacts from land use projects located throughout California, is used throughout California, and can properly be used for a variety of situations where an air quality analysis is necessary, such as preparing CEQA or National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) documents, conducting pre-project planning, and verifying compliance with local air quality rules and regulations. CalEEMod includes the gas and electric utility emissions factors pursuant to the location of the proposed project, as well as building energy zones.

CalEEMod also generates default electricity and natural gas consumption that consider Title 24 standards.

The commenter referenced CBECC, EnergyPro, IES VE software, which are approved specifically for Title 24 compliance; however, they are used to confirm that a final building design (with detailed information included in its construction drawings) is Title 24 compliant. They are not required or appropriate for the purposes of conducting air quality analysis under CEQA prior to the submission of final designs.

The proposed project is a programmatic policy-level document that does not approve or entitle any specific development. Therefore, it is not possible to evaluate Title 24 compliance for any final designs, and future development would be required to evaluate potential environmental impacts and Title 24 compliance, as applicable. These software are not used for disclosing air emissions, and there is no substantial evidence provided that supports the commenter’s position that these software should be used for discussing air emissions in connection with the proposed project (e.g., Maintain Our Desert Env’t v. Town of Apple Valley (2004) 124 Cal.App.4th430).

The City has the authority under CEQA to rely upon its experts and the methodologies recommended by relevant expert public agencies, based on substantial evidence in the record, in terms of selecting the appropriate methodologies to utilize in conducting the CEQA analysis.

The Recirculated Draft PEIR and underlying technical studies correctly used CalEEMod to estimate energy demand for CEQA purposes based on average intensity factors for similar land use types.

Since the proposed project is a programmatic policy-level document, detailed information about the future projects’ energy use is also not available at this time, it is appropriate to rely upon the CalEEMod default assumptions, which have been derived by CAPCOA and accepted by the SJVAPCD.

To do otherwise would involve improper speculation.

There is no requirement in CEQA to show specific compliance with 2022 Building Energy Efficiency Standards based on conceptual building designs that are proposed at the entitlement stage of a project’s approval process. As is consistent with typical practice, a required showing of compliance with the above-referenced Energy-Efficient Standards as well as other applicable building code and CALGreen Code requirements would be addressed pursuant to State law prior to issuance of each building permit and verified by the City’s Building Safety Division.

City of Fresno—Fresno Southeast Development Area Specific Plan Project Administrative Final Program EIR Responses to Written Comments FirstCarbon Solutions 1-259
https://adecinnovations.sharepoint.com/sites/PublicationsSite/Shared Documents/Publications/Client (PN-JN)/3168/31680037/EIR/2 - Final EIR/wp/31680037 Sec03-00 Responses to Written Comments.docx For the reasons set forth above and as otherwise detailed therein, the Draft EIR contains sufficient analysis and disclosure with respect to all relevant environmental topic areas, and no changes are warranted. The commenter does not raise a legitimate issue related to the adequacy of the Recirculated Draft PEIR. No changes are warranted, and no further response is necessary.

Response to GSEJA-7
The comment is noted. Please refer to Master Response 5, Clarification of the Programmatic Document, in Section 2, Master Responses. Master Response 5 provides additional information on the level of review included in the Recirculated Draft PEIR and the subsequent environmental review that would be performed as the City receives specific development applications in the Plan Area.

Future development will appropriately be reviewed for impacts to the airport compatibility zone for the Fresno Yosemite International Airport.

Please note that the Fresno County Airport Land Use Commission was consulted with in August 2023 and recommended a finding of consistency. However, note that the Recirculated Draft PEIR and the Final PEIR are focused on evaluating and responding to comments on physical impacts to the environment as a result of buildout of the Specific Plan. As such, comments related to review of the Specific Plan document itself are not further responded to in the Final EIR. Please refer to Master Response 1, Non-CEQA Issues Not Addressed in Final PEIR, in Section 2, Master Responses, of this document. Master Response 1 provides additional information on the scope of CEQA and any nonCEQA issues not further discussed in the Final PEIR.

Response to GSEJA-8
The comment is noted. Please note that the Recirculated Draft PEIR identified that a General Plan Amendment would be required in Chapter 2, Project Description. Please refer to Master Response 1, Non-CEQA Issues Not Addressed in Final PEIR, and Master Response 2, General Opposition Comments Not Addressed in Final PEIR, in Section 2, Master Responses, of this document. These master responses provide additional information on the scope of CEQA, including any non-CEQA issues, and respond to comments that express general opposition to or disapproval of the proposed project or the environmental analysis. Specifically, they address why comments specific to the Specific Plan document, including the proposed policies, objectives, and land uses, are not further addressed in the Final PEIR. However, this comment will be passed to City decision-makers for further consideration. No further response is required.

Response to GSEJA-9
As noted by comment, pursuant to SB 330, replacement capacity for displaced residential units must be provided concurrently at the time of project approval. The City will be required to demonstrate compliance with applicable provisions of the Government Code prior to project approval; however, an EIR does not contemplate specific development projects The analysis in the Recirculated Draft EIR appropriately focuses on potential adverse environmental impacts on the physical environment associated with the proposed project. No revisions to the Recirculated Draft EIR are necessary in response to this request for additional information related to Government Code requirements.

Response to GSEJA-10
The comment fails to identify any potential adverse impact to the physical environment associated with the requested discussion of “no net loss”. There is no evidence provided as part of the City of Fresno—Fresno Southeast Development Area Specific Plan Project Responses to Written Comments Administrative Final Program EIR 1-260 FirstCarbon Solutions
https://adecinnovations.sharepoint.com/sites/PublicationsSite/Shared Documents/Publications/Client (PN-JN)/3168/31680037/EIR/2 - Final EIR/wp/31680037 Sec03-00 Responses to Written Comments.docx comment that the total residential development capacity would provide information related to a potential physical impact. Moreover, Chapter 2, Project Description, includes the acreage and clear boundary of the Specific Plan Area. The General Plan, its land uses, and the acreages of each land use are publicly available both online and at the addresses provided for in-person review of the Specific Plan and Recirculated Draft PEIR. Section 3.11, Land Use, provides a consistency analysis with applicable plans, which includes the General Plan, and Section 3.14, Population and Housing, provides an analysis of whether the proposed project would result in unplanned growth. The Recirculated Draft PEIR found less than significant impacts for both land use and population and housing impacts.

Please refer to Master Response 1, Non-CEQA Issues Not Addressed in Final PEIR, in Section 2, Master Responses, of this document. Master Response 1 provides additional information on the scope of CEQA and any non-CEQA issues not further discussed in the Final PEIR. As discussed in this Master Response, the lead agency will consider these factors in making a decision on project approval; however, the scope of the Recirculated Draft PEIR focuses on potential adverse physical impacts to the environment associated with the proposed project.

Response to GSEJA-11
The comment is noted. The comment appears to allege that Impact POP-1 should be significant.

However, the comment misinterprets the analysis regarding Impact POP-1 and fails to consider the totality of evidence supporting the Recirculated Draft EIR’s conclusion that impacts are less than significant. Housing units identified in the General Plan is only one consideration in determining whether a proposed project would induce substantial unplanned population growth. As discussed in the Recirculated Draft EIR, the proposed project would not introduce substantial unplanned population growth for all of the following reasons: the proposed project could accommodate up to 134,550 residents, which would be well within the General Plan’s anticipated growth of up to 226,000 additional residents; the proposed project would provide up to 45,000 new dwelling units to meet the housing demand associated with up to 134,500 residents (assuming 2.99 persons per household); the proposed project is generally consistent with the principal goals and objectives established in the General Plan and 2023-2031 Housing Element (see Table 3.11-1); the proposed project is consistent with Economic Opportunity Objectives ED-1, -2, -3 and -4 that seek to promote employment growth; implementation of the proposed project would support citywide planning efforts; as shown in Table 3.14-1, the proposed project would promote a balance of jobs and housing in the Plan Area, consistent with the General Plan. Therefore, the record contains substantial evidence to demonstrate that the proposed project would be consistent with the citywide planning objectives and would not be considered unplanned growth. As a result, impacts to population growth associated with potential future development under the proposed project would be less than significant.

The population projections described above are consistent with the population projections and methodology found within the City’s General Plan and utilize the best data available at the time this analysis was prepared. This approach is consistent with requirements to maintain consistency with the General Plan and the City may appropriately consider this information when determining whether the proposed project would induce unplanned growth.

City of Fresno—Fresno Southeast Development Area Specific Plan Project Administrative Final Program EIR Responses to Written Comments FirstCarbon Solutions 1-261
https://adecinnovations.sharepoint.com/sites/PublicationsSite/Shared Documents/Publications/Client (PN-JN)/3168/31680037/EIR/2 - Final EIR/wp/31680037 Sec03-00 Responses to Written Comments.docx Finally, the comment fails to identify any substantial evidence of related to a potential significant impact or identify a significant environmental issue that was not addressed in the Recirculated Draft EIR.

Response to GSEJA-12
Please refer to Master Response 5, Clarification of the Programmatic Document, in Section 2, Master Responses. Master Response 5 provides additional information on the level of review included in the Recirculated Draft PEIR and the subsequent environmental review that would be performed as the City receives specific development applications in the Plan Area. Furthermore, while various streamlining options are available to exempt projects from CEQA, discretionary projects must prove that they qualify for an exemption pursuant to CEQA and that no exceptions to these categorical exemptions are triggered as outlined in CEQA Guidelines Section 15300.2. Therefore, each future discretionary project would be required to evaluate cumulative impacts, potential significant effects, and impacts related to scenic highways, hazardous waste sites, and historic resources, consistent with the findings of the Recirculated Draft PEIR.

Each topical section included in the Recirculated Draft PEIR analyzed the cumulative impacts in its own section titled “Cumulative Impacts.” This analysis evaluates whether impacts of the Specific Plan, together with impacts of cumulative development, would result in a cumulatively significant impact with respect to each environmental topic area. This analysis then considers whether incremental contribution of the impacts associated with implementation of the Specific Plan would be significant. Both conditions must apply for cumulative effects to rise to the level of significance.

Each topical section identifies the scope for cumulative analysis and identifies how cumulative impacts were determine based on that specific topical area. The comment does not identify a specific topical area where the cumulative impacts analysis is deficient. No further response is required.

Response to GSEJA-13
The comment is noted. The proposed project’s consistency with the Regional Transportation Plan (RTP) prepared by the Fresno Council of Governments (Fresno COG) is discussed in Section 3.6, Energy, Section 3.8, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, and Section 3.17, Transportation and Traffic. As discussed in the Recirculated Draft PEIR, average VMT per capita under existing conditions for the City is 13.1 miles compared to 16.2 miles for the County of Fresno (approximately 19 percent less than the county average). Through the implementation of the General Plan, in 2035, the City VMT per capita (16.5 miles) is forecast to be 17 percent less than the County VMT per capita (19.9 miles).

Corresponding numbers for VMT per employee indicate that the City average is forecast to be 13 percent lower than the 2035 County average. This is a greater reduction in VMT than forecast by the Fresno COG in the RTP, a 12 percent reduction in VMT for the RTP project. The buildout of the proposed project would serve to further reduce VMT per capita in the region by locating highdensity housing near service amenities and jobs. As such, the proposed project is appropriately analyzed for consistency with the RTP. No further response is required.

Response to GSEJA-14
The comment is noted. Please refer to Response to GSEJA-3. No further response is required.

City of Fresno—Fresno Southeast Development Area Specific Plan Project Responses to Written Comments Administrative Final Program EIR 1-262 FirstCarbon Solutions
https://adecinnovations.sharepoint.com/sites/PublicationsSite/Shared Documents/Publications/Client (PN-JN)/3168/31680037/EIR/2 - Final EIR/wp/31680037 Sec03-00 Responses to Written Comments.docx Response to GSEJA-15
The comment is noted. The analysis included in the Recirculated Draft PEIR evaluates the proposed project, which includes the entitlements and discretionary approvals required to implement the proposed project. In Chapter 2, Project Description, of the Recirculated Draft PEIR, the discretionary approvals required for the proposed project are listed. Of the discretionary approvals listed, an Amendment of the Fresno General Plan, including amendments to the Land Use Map and text, and a Text Amendment of the Development Code to incorporate new zone districts and other provisions called for in the SEDA Plan. As such, these actions were evaluated within the Recirculated Draft PEIR throughout the various topical areas and all significant and unavoidable program-level and cumulative impacts are disclosed. Please refer to Master Response 7, Clarifying Information on Significant and Unavoidable Impacts, in Section 2, Master Responses. Master Response 7 provides additional clarifying information on the significant and unavoidable impacts disclosed within the PEIR. Please also refer to Response to GSEJA-11. No further response is required.

Response to GSEJA-16
The comment is noted. Please refer to Response to GSEJA-12. Please also refer to Master Response 9, Clarifying Information on Population Projections, in Section 2, Master Responses. Master Response 9 discusses the Recirculated Draft PEIR’s methodology for the population projections contained within the Recirculated Draft PEIR.

Response to GSEJA-17
Please refer to Master Response 5, Clarification of the Programmatic Document, in Section 2, Master Responses. Master Response 5 provides additional information on the level of review included in the Recirculated Draft PEIR and the subsequent environmental review that would be performed as the City receives specific development applications in the Plan Area. Please also refer to Master Response 7, Clarifying Information on Significant and Unavoidable Impacts, in Section 2, Master Responses. Master Response 7 provides additional clarifying information on the significant and unavoidable impacts disclosed within the Recirculated Draft PEIR.

The “Mandatory Findings of Significance” establish when an EIR must be prepared. Pub Res Code §21083(b); State CEQA Guidelines §15065(a). Here, an EIR was prepared for the proposed project consistent with the intent of Section 21083(b) and 15065. Potential effects on human beings were discussed throughout the Recirculated Draft EIR. There is no requirement in CEQA that a specific “finding” be made once an EIR has been prepared.

Response to GSEJA-18
The comment is noted. As discussed in Chapter 5, Alternatives to the Proposed Project, of the Recirculated Draft PEIR, in accordance with CEQA Guidelines Section 15126.6, the Recirculated Draft PEIR contains a comparative impact assessment of alternatives to the proposed project. The primary purpose of the section is to provide decision-makers and the general public with a reasonable number of feasible project alternatives that could attain most of the basic project objectives, while avoiding or reducing any of the project’s significant adverse environmental effects. Important considerations for the alternatives analyses are noted below (as stated in CEQA Guidelines § 15126.6).
• An EIR need not consider every conceivable alternative to a project; City of Fresno—Fresno Southeast Development Area Specific Plan Project Administrative Final Program EIR Responses to Written Comments FirstCarbon Solutions 1-263
https://adecinnovations.sharepoint.com/sites/PublicationsSite/Shared Documents/Publications/Client (PN-JN)/3168/31680037/EIR/2 - Final EIR/wp/31680037 Sec03-00 Responses to Written Comments.docx • An EIR should identify alternatives that were considered by the lead agency, but rejected as infeasible during the scoping process;
• Reasons for rejecting an alternative include failure to meet most of the basic project objectives, infeasibility, or inability to avoid significant environmental effects.

Therefore, the Recirculated Draft PEIR appropriately analyses alternatives that address the significant impacts identified in the analysis. Alternative 1, the No Project Alterative, is included consistent with CEQA Guidelines. Alternative 2, Consolidated Business Park Alternative, evaluates a slightly less dense residential development. However, the significant and unavoidable impacts related to aesthetics, light, and glare; agricultural resources and forestry resources; air quality; and noise would remain significant and unavoidable. Alternative 3, Farmland Conservation Alternative, evaluates whether the alternative would help address significant and unavoidable impacts related to agriculture resources. As discussed in the Recirculated Draft PEIR, the project as proposed does already meet the objectives identified for the proposed project. No further response is required.

Response to GSEJA-19
The comment is noted. This comment includes the appendices included in GSEJA. The findings and information provided in these appendices are discussed within the body of the comment letter, and thus, are responded to in Responses to GSEJA-1 through GSEJA-18. No further response is required.

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INVESTFresnoCA.com
March 24, 2025
Sophia Pagoulatos, Planning Manager Submitted Electronically Planning & Development Department
City of Fresno
2600 Fresno Street, Room 3065
Fresno, CA 93721
[email protected]
RE: Recirculated Draft Environmental Impact Report for Specific Plan for the Southeast Development Area
Dear Ms. Pagoulatos:

I write today on behalf of INVEST Fresno, a coalition of residents, businesses, and community organizations committed to building a diverse and sustainable economy in Fresno, to submit comments on the Recirculated Draft Environmental Impact is currently being proposed by the City of Fresno.

INVEST Fresno is aligned in our position with the letter and recommendations submitted by John Kinsey, with Wanger Jones Helsley PC. particular concern regarding the definition of Flexible Research and Development, which does not appear to include job-creating land uses such as light or heavy industrial.
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 and Business Park zoning districts, require that new or expanded manufacturing uses no matter how small go through the 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 non-viable.

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 INVEST 1

1 INVEST
FRESNO
in Community.
in Jobs.
in Our Future.

Report ("RDEIR") for the Southeast Development Area Specific Plan ("SEDA") that Generally, INVEST Fresno supports and applauds the City's stated intent to bring "45,000 homes and 37,000 jobs" to the plan area by 2050. However, we share Most manufacturing uses fall within the definition of "General Industrial." However, SEDA
expansion would consequently steer existing and potential economic investment elsewhere.

A well-balanced land use plan that includes job creation and other tax-generating uses economic standing. Job-creating
industries not only provide stable employment opportunities for Fresno residents but also generate critical revenue through sales taxes, business license fees, and property taxes. This revenue directly funds essential public services, including public safety, infrastructure improvements, and community programs. By ensuring that the SEDA includes a mix of land uses that promote job creation and economic development, the City can secure long-term financial stability.

If you would like to discuss this matter further, please do not hesitate to contact Ben Granholm at [email protected]. We look forward to working with you and staff to help keep Fresno economy moving.

Sincerely,
Ben Granholm
INVEST Fresno
cc: Jerry Dyer, Mayor
Georgeanne White, City Manager
Councilmembers, City of Fresno
INVEST 1

1 CONT
-combined with the City's limited opportunities for industrial growth or is essential to strengthening the City's
's
City of Fresno—Fresno Southeast Development Area Specific Plan Project Administrative Final Program EIR Responses to Written Comments FirstCarbon Solutions 1-267
https://adecinnovations.sharepoint.com/sites/PublicationsSite/Shared Documents/Publications/Client (PN-JN)/3168/31680037/EIR/2 - Final EIR/wp/31680037 Sec03-00 Responses to Written Comments.docx INVEST Fresno (First Letter) (INVEST 1)
Response to INVEST 1-1
The comment is noted. This comment has been passed to the Lead Agency for their review and consideration of the proposed project as a whole. However, no environmental issues pursuant to CEQA are raised, and no response is required. Please refer to Master Response 1, Non-CEQA Issues Not Addressed in Final PEIR, and Master Response 2, General Opposition Comments Not Addressed in Final PEIR, in Section 2, Master Responses, of this document. These master responses provide additional information on the scope of CEQA, including any non-CEQA issues, and respond to comments that express general opposition to or disapproval of the proposed project or the environmental analysis. Master Responses 1 and 2 further detail why comments on Specific Plan policies, objectives, or land use descriptions are not further addressed in the Final PEIR. No further response is required.

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T I M O T H Y J O N E S *
M I C H A E L S . H E L S L E Y
R I L E Y C . W A L T E R
P A T R I C K D . T O O L E
S C O T T D . L A I R D
J O H N P . K I N S E Y
K U R T F . V O T E
R O B E R T E . D O N L A N
T R O Y T . E W E L L
J A Y A . C H R I S T O F F E R S O N
A M A N D A G . H E B E S H A * *
P E T E R M . J O N E S†
J E F F R E Y B . P A P E†
M A R I S A L . B A L C H †
D E B O R A H K . B O Y E T T
S T E V E N K . V O T E
N I C O L A S R . C A R D E L L A
G I U L I O A . S A N C H E Z
K A T H L E E N D . D E V A N E Y
C R A I G A . C A R N E S , J R . †
* A l s o a d m i t t e d i n W a s h i n g t o n
**
***
A l s o a d m i t t e d i n I d a h o
E m e r i t u s
† O f C o u n s e l
†† A l s o a d m i t t e d i n T e x a s

WANGER JONES HELSLEY PC

A T T O R N E Y S
265 EAST RIVER PARK CIRCLE, SUITE 310
FRESNO, CALIFORNIA 93720
AND
400 CAPITOL MALL, SUITE 2550
SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA 95814

M A I L I N G A D D R E S S
P O S T O F F I C E B O X 2 8 3 4 0
F R E S N O , C A L I F O R N I A 9 3 7 2 9

T E L E P H O N E
( 5 5 9 ) 2 3 3 - 4800
F A X
( 5 5 9 ) 2 3 3 - 9330
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W r i t e r ’ s E-M a i l A d d r e s s :
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I A N J . Q U I N N††
K E V I N W . B U R S E Y
R A C H E L L . P O M B O
N A T H A N J . M A R T I N
C O L T E N D . B A L L I N G E R
C O L L E E N E . L I T T L E
D A N I K A E . J O N E S
D A N I E L J . F R E A
J E S S I C A L . V I V E D
J O S H U A P . J E N D I A N
R A C H E L L . A L S T R O M
H A N N A H L . R A V I Z Z A
O L I V E R W . W A N G E R * * *

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 INVEST 2

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

4912-7242-2437, v. 3
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 INVEST 2

1 CONT

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

4912-7242-2437, v. 3
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.

INVEST 2

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

4912-7242-2437, v. 3
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/ INVEST 2

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

4912-7242-2437, v. 3
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.” INVEST 2

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

4912-7242-2437, v. 3
(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.) INVEST 2

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

4912-7242-2437, v. 3
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 INVEST 2

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INVEST 2

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WANGER JONES HELSLEY PC
Sophia Pagoulatos, Planning Manager
Planning & Development Department March 24, 2025 Page 8 Technology." However, if the land uses are restricted to those identified in the definition of the Flexible Research and Development District, the above land uses would be much more difficult to develop because many would be subject to a CUP.
• Policy EO-5.3 contemplates that the City would "[ d]evelop Flexible Research & Development Districts with targeted sales, property value, and employment intensity"; "Promote the growth of manufacturing, distribution and research and development employment in the areas of the SEDA where these uses are allowed"; "Encourage the formation of industry clusters"; and "Attract large employers." However, if the land uses are restricted to those identified in the definition of the Flexible Research and Development District, it would be far more difficult to develop and promote these endeavors, as most manufacturing development would be subject to a CUP. • Policy UF-1.6 seeks to promote agricultural land uses in the plan area, "to allow the continued operation of agricultural activities which occur adjacent to new residential developments." This objective is directly contrary to the elimination of light industrial and heavy industrial land uses, which allow continuing agricultural uses, while the other land uses mentioned within the Flexible Research and Development District, which do not.

D. Conclusion
Thank you for the consideration of these comments. My clients look forward to clarification regarding the land uses permitted in the City's proposed Flexible Research and Development District and collaboration with the City to ensure the long-term viability of jobcreating land uses. 4912-7242-2437, V. 1
City of Fresno—Fresno Southeast Development Area Specific Plan Project Administrative Final Program EIR Responses to Written Comments FirstCarbon Solutions 1-277
https://adecinnovations.sharepoint.com/sites/PublicationsSite/Shared Documents/Publications/Client (PN-JN)/3168/31680037/EIR/2 - Final EIR/wp/31680037 Sec03-00 Responses to Written Comments.docx INVEST Fresno (Second Letter) (INVEST 2)
Response to INVEST 2-1
The comment is noted. This comment has been passed to the Lead Agency for their review and consideration of the proposed project as a whole. However, no environmental issues pursuant to CEQA are raised, and no response is required. Please refer to Master Response 1, Non-CEQA Issues Not Addressed in Final PEIR, and Master Response 2, General Opposition Comments Not Addressed in Final PEIR, in Section 2, Master Responses, of this document. These master responses provide additional information on the scope of CEQA, including any non-CEQA issues, and respond to comments that express general opposition to or disapproval of the proposed project or the environmental analysis. Master Responses 1 and 2 further detail why comments on Specific Plan policies, objectives, or land use descriptions are not further addressed in the Final PEIR. No further response is required.

Response to INVEST 2-2
The comment is noted. Please refer to Response to INVEST 2-1. No further response is required.

Response to INVEST 2-3
The comment is noted. Please refer to Response to INVEST 2-1. The analysis included in the Recirculated Draft PEIR evaluates the proposed project, which includes the entitlements and discretionary approvals required to implement the proposed project. In Chapter 2, Project Description, of the Recirculated Draft PEIR, the discretionary approvals required for the proposed project are listed. Of the discretionary approvals listed, an Amendment of the Fresno General Plan, including amendments to the Land Use Map and text, and a Text Amendment of the Development Code to incorporate new zone districts and other provisions called for in the SEDA Plan. As such, these actions were evaluated within the Recirculated Draft PEIR throughout the various topical areas and all significant and unavoidable program-level and cumulative impacts are disclosed. Please refer to Master Response 7, Clarifying Information on Significant and Unavoidable Impacts, in Section 2, Master Responses. Master Response 7 provides additional clarifying information on the significant and unavoidable impacts disclosed within the PEIR. No further response is required.

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February 11, 2025
Sophia Pagoulatos
Planning Manager
City of Fresno
2600 Fresno Street, Room 3065
Fresno, CA 93721
Ref: Gas and Electric Transmission and Distribution
Dear Sophia,
Thank you for submitting Recirculated Draft PEIR plans for our review. PG&E will review the submitted plans in relationship to any existing Gas and Electric facilities within the project area.

If the proposed project is adjacent/or within PG&E owned property and/or easements, we will be working with you to ensure compatible uses and activities near our facilities.

Attached you will find information and requirements as it relates to Gas facilities (Attachment 1) and Electric facilities (Attachment 2). Please review these in detail, as it is critical to ensure your safety and to protect PG&E’s facilities and its existing rights.

Below is additional information for your review:

1. This plan review process does not replace the application process for PG&E gas or electric service your project may require. For these requests, please continue to work with PG&E Service Planning: https://www.pge.com/en/account/servicerequests/building-and-renovation.html. 2. If the project being submitted is part of a larger project, please include the entire scope of your project, and not just a portion of it. PG&E’s facilities are to be incorporated within any CEQA document. PG&E needs to verify that the CEQA document will identify any required future PG&E services.

3. An engineering deposit may be required to review plans for a project depending on the size, scope, and location of the project and as it relates to any rearrangement or new installation of PG&E facilities.

Any proposed uses within the PG&E fee strip and/or easement, may include a California Public Utility Commission (CPUC) Section 851 filing. This requires the CPUC to render approval for a conveyance of rights for specific uses on PG&E’s fee strip or easement. PG&E will advise if the necessity to incorporate a CPUC Section 851filing is required.

This letter does not constitute PG&E’s consent to use any portion of its easement for any purpose not previously conveyed. PG&E will provide a project specific response as required.

Sincerely,
Plan Review Team
Land Management
PG&E 1

1 Attachment 1 – Gas Facilities
There could be gas transmission pipelines in this area which would be considered critical facilities for PG&E and a high priority subsurface installation under California law. Care must be taken to ensure safety and accessibility. So, please ensure that if PG&E approves work near gas transmission pipelines it is done in adherence with the below stipulations. Additionally, the following link provides additional information regarding legal requirements under California excavation laws: https://www.usanorth811.org/images/pdfs/CA-LAW-2018.pdf

1. Standby Inspection: A PG&E Gas Transmission Standby Inspector must be present during any demolition or construction activity that comes within 10 feet of the gas pipeline. This includes all grading, trenching, substructure depth verifications (potholes), asphalt or concrete demolition/removal, removal of trees, signs, light poles, etc. This inspection can be coordinated through the Underground Service Alert (USA) service at 811. A minimum notice of 48 hours is required. Ensure the USA markings and notifications are maintained throughout the duration of your work.

2. Access: At any time, PG&E may need to access, excavate, and perform work on the gas pipeline. Any construction equipment, materials, or spoils may need to be removed upon notice.

Any temporary construction fencing installed within PG&E’s easement would also need to be capable of being removed at any time upon notice. Any plans to cut temporary slopes exceeding a 1:4 grade within 10 feet of a gas transmission pipeline need to be approved by PG&E Pipeline Services in writing PRIOR to performing the work.

3. Wheel Loads: To prevent damage to the buried gas pipeline, there are weight limits that must be enforced whenever any equipment gets within 10 feet of traversing the pipe.

Ensure a list of the axle weights of all equipment being used is available for PG&E’s Standby Inspector. To confirm the depth of cover, the pipeline may need to be potholed by hand in a few areas.

Due to the complex variability of tracked equipment, vibratory compaction equipment, and cranes, PG&E must evaluate those items on a case-by-case basis prior to use over the gas pipeline (provide a list of any proposed equipment of this type noting model numbers and specific attachments).

No equipment may be set up over the gas pipeline while operating. Ensure crane outriggers are at least 10 feet from the centerline of the gas pipeline. Transport trucks must not be parked over the gas pipeline while being loaded or unloaded.

4. Grading: PG&E requires a minimum of 36 inches of cover over gas pipelines (or existing grade if less) and a maximum of 7 feet of cover at all locations. The graded surface cannot exceed a cross slope of 1:4.

5. Excavating: Any digging within 2 feet of a gas pipeline must be dug by hand. Note that while the minimum clearance is only 24 inches, any excavation work within 24 inches of the edge of a pipeline must be done with hand tools. So to avoid having to dig a trench entirely with hand tools, the edge of the trench must be over 24 inches away. (Doing the math for a 24 inch PG&E 1

2 wide trench being dug along a 36 inch pipeline, the centerline of the trench would need to be at least 54 inches [24/2 + 24 + 36/2 = 54] away, or be entirely dug by hand.) Water jetting to assist vacuum excavating must be limited to 1000 psig and directed at a 40° angle to the pipe. All pile driving must be kept a minimum of 3 feet away.

Any plans to expose and support a PG&E gas transmission pipeline across an open excavation need to be approved by PG&E Pipeline Services in writing PRIOR to performing the work.

6. Boring/Trenchless Installations: PG&E Pipeline Services must review and approve all plans to bore across or parallel to (within 10 feet) a gas transmission pipeline. There are stringent criteria to pothole the gas transmission facility at regular intervals for all parallel bore installations.

For bore paths that cross gas transmission pipelines perpendicularly, the pipeline must be potholed a minimum of 2 feet in the horizontal direction of the bore path and a minimum of 24 inches in the vertical direction from the bottom of the pipe with minimum clearances measured from the edge of the pipe in both directions. Standby personnel must watch the locator trace (and every ream pass) the path of the bore as it approaches the pipeline and visually monitor the pothole (with the exposed transmission pipe) as the bore traverses the pipeline to ensure adequate clearance with the pipeline. The pothole width must account for the inaccuracy of the locating equipment.

7. Substructures: All utility crossings of a gas pipeline should be made as close to perpendicular as feasible (90° +/- 15°). All utility lines crossing the gas pipeline must have a minimum of 24 inches of separation from the gas pipeline. Parallel utilities, pole bases, water line ‘kicker blocks’, storm drain inlets, water meters, valves, back pressure devices or other utility substructures are not allowed in the PG&E gas pipeline easement.

If previously retired PG&E facilities are in conflict with proposed substructures, PG&E must verify they are safe prior to removal. This includes verification testing of the contents of the facilities, as well as environmental testing of the coating and internal surfaces. Timelines for PG&E completion of this verification will vary depending on the type and location of facilities in conflict.

8. Structures: No structures are to be built within the PG&E gas pipeline easement. This includes buildings, retaining walls, fences, decks, patios, carports, septic tanks, storage sheds, tanks, loading ramps, or any structure that could limit PG&E’s ability to access its facilities.

9. Fencing: Permanent fencing is not allowed within PG&E easements except for perpendicular crossings which must include a 16 foot wide gate for vehicular access. Gates will be secured with PG&E corporation locks.

10. Landscaping: Landscaping must be designed to allow PG&E to access the pipeline for maintenance and not interfere with pipeline coatings or other cathodic protection systems. No trees, shrubs, brush, vines, and other vegetation may be planted within the easement area.

Only those plants, ground covers, grasses, flowers, and low-growing plants that grow unsupported to a maximum of four feet (4’) in height at maturity may be planted within the easement area.

PG&E 1

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11. Cathodic Protection: PG&E pipelines are protected from corrosion with an “Impressed Current” cathodic protection system. Any proposed facilities, such as metal conduit, pipes, service lines, ground rods, anodes, wires, etc. that might affect the pipeline cathodic protection system must be reviewed and approved by PG&E Corrosion Engineering.

12. Pipeline Marker Signs: PG&E needs to maintain pipeline marker signs for gas transmission pipelines in order to ensure public awareness of the presence of the pipelines.

With prior written approval from PG&E Pipeline Services, an existing PG&E pipeline marker sign that is in direct conflict with proposed developments may be temporarily relocated to accommodate construction work. The pipeline marker must be moved back once construction is complete.

13. PG&E is also the provider of distribution facilities throughout many of the areas within the state of California. Therefore, any plans that impact PG&E’s facilities must be reviewed and approved by PG&E to ensure that no impact occurs which may endanger the safe operation of its facilities.

PG&E 1

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Attachment 2 – Electric Facilities
It is PG&E’s policy to permit certain uses on a case by case basis within its electric transmission fee strip(s) and/or easement(s) provided such uses and manner in which they are exercised, will not interfere with PG&E’s rights or endanger its facilities. Some examples/restrictions are as follows:

1. Buildings and Other Structures: No buildings or other structures including the foot print and eave of any buildings, swimming pools, wells or similar structures will be permitted within fee strip(s) and/or easement(s) areas. PG&E’s transmission easement shall be designated on subdivision/parcel maps as “RESTRICTED USE AREA – NO BUILDING.”

2. Grading: Cuts, trenches or excavations may not be made within 25 feet of our towers.

Developers must submit grading plans and site development plans (including geotechnical reports if applicable), signed and dated, for PG&E’s review. PG&E engineers must review grade changes in the vicinity of our towers. No fills will be allowed which would impair ground-toconductor clearances. Towers shall not be left on mounds without adequate road access to base of tower or structure.

3. Fences: Walls, fences, and other structures must be installed at locations that do not affect the safe operation of PG&’s facilities. Heavy equipment access to our facilities must be maintained at all times. Metal fences are to be grounded to PG&E specifications. No wall, fence or other like structure is to be installed within 10 feet of tower footings and unrestricted access must be maintained from a tower structure to the nearest street. Walls, fences and other structures proposed along or within the fee strip(s) and/or easement(s) will require PG&E review; submit plans to PG&E Centralized Review Team for review and comment.

4. Landscaping: Vegetation may be allowed; subject to review of plans. On overhead electric transmission fee strip(s) and/or easement(s), plant only low-growing shrubs under the wire zone and only grasses within the area directly below the tower. Along the border of the transmission line right-of-way, plant only small trees no taller than 10 feet in height at maturity. PG&E must have access to its facilities at all times, including access by heavy equipment. No planting is to occur within the footprint of the tower legs. Greenbelts are encouraged.

5. Reservoirs, Sumps, Drainage Basins, and Ponds: Prohibited within PG&E’s fee strip(s) and/or easement(s) for electric transmission lines.

6. Automobile Parking: Short term parking of movable passenger vehicles and light trucks (pickups, vans, etc.) is allowed. The lighting within these parking areas will need to be reviewed by PG&E; approval will be on a case by case basis. Heavy equipment access to PG&E facilities is to be maintained at all times. Parking is to clear PG&E structures by at least 10 feet.

Protection of PG&E facilities from vehicular traffic is to be provided at developer’s expense AND to PG&E specifications. Blocked-up vehicles are not allowed. Carports, canopies, or awnings are not allowed.

7. Storage of Flammable, Explosive or Corrosive Materials: There shall be no storage of fuel or combustibles and no fueling of vehicles within PG&E’s easement. No trash bins or incinerators are allowed.

PG&E 1

3 8. Streets and Roads: Access to facilities must be maintained at all times. Street lights may be allowed in the fee strip(s) and/or easement(s) but in all cases must be reviewed by PG&E for proper clearance. Roads and utilities should cross the transmission easement as nearly at right angles as possible. Road intersections will not be allowed within the transmission easement.

9. Pipelines: Pipelines may be allowed provided crossings are held to a minimum and to be as nearly perpendicular as possible. Pipelines within 25 feet of PG&E structures require review by PG&E. Sprinklers systems may be allowed; subject to review. Leach fields and septic tanks are not allowed. Construction plans must be submitted to PG&E for review and approval prior to the commencement of any construction.

10. Signs: Signs are not allowed except in rare cases subject to individual review by PG&E.

11. Recreation Areas: Playgrounds, parks, tennis courts, basketball courts, barbecue and light trucks (pickups, vans, etc.) may be allowed; subject to review of plans. Heavy equipment access to PG&E facilities is to be maintained at all times. Parking is to clear PG&E structures by at least 10 feet. Protection of PG&E facilities from vehicular traffic is to be provided at developer’s expense AND to PG&E specifications.

12. Construction Activity: Since construction activity will take place near PG&E’s overhead electric lines, please be advised it is the contractor’s responsibility to be aware of, and observe the minimum clearances for both workers and equipment operating near high voltage electric lines set out in the High-Voltage Electrical Safety Orders of the California Division of Industrial Safety (https://www.dir.ca.gov/Title8/sb5g2.html), as well as any other safety regulations.

Contractors shall comply with California Public Utilities Commission General Order 95 (http://www.cpuc.ca.gov/gos/GO95/go_95_startup_page.html) and all other safety rules. No construction may occur within 25 feet of PG&E’s towers. All excavation activities may only commence after 811 protocols has been followed.

Contractor shall ensure the protection of PG&E’s towers and poles from vehicular damage by (installing protective barriers) Plans for protection barriers must be approved by PG&E prior to construction.

13. PG&E is also the owner of distribution facilities throughout many of the areas within the state of California. Therefore, any plans that impact PG&E’s facilities must be reviewed and approved by PG&E to ensure that no impact occurs that may endanger the safe and reliable operation of its facilities.

PG&E 1

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City of Fresno—Fresno Southeast Development Area Specific Plan Project Administrative Final Program EIR Responses to Written Comments FirstCarbon Solutions 1-285
https://adecinnovations.sharepoint.com/sites/PublicationsSite/Shared Documents/Publications/Client (PN-JN)/3168/31680037/EIR/2 - Final EIR/wp/31680037 Sec03-00 Responses to Written Comments.docx Pacific Gas and Electric Company (First Letter) (PG&E 1) Response to PG&E 1-1
The comment is noted. As the document is a policy-level document, future individual development associated with the implementation of the proposed project would be required to comply with all applicable PG&E requirements, and future development would be required to undergo CEQA analysis on a project-by-project basis as necessary. This comment has been passed to the Lead Agency for their review and consideration of the proposed project as a whole. However, no environmental issues pursuant to CEQA are raised, and no response is required.

Response to PG&E 1-2
The comment is noted. As the document is a policy-level document, future individual development associated with the implementation of the proposed project would be required to comply with all applicable PG&E requirements, and future development would be required to undergo CEQA analysis on a project-by-project basis as necessary. This comment has been passed to the Lead Agency for their review and consideration of the proposed project as a whole. However, no environmental issues pursuant to CEQA are raised, and no response is required.

Response to PG&E 1-3
The comment is noted. As the document is a policy-level document, future individual development associated with the implementation of the proposed project would be required to comply with all applicable PG&E requirements, and future development would be required to undergo CEQA analysis on a project-by-project basis as necessary. This comment has been passed to the Lead Agency for their review and consideration of the proposed project as a whole. However, no environmental issues pursuant to CEQA are raised, and no response is required.

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Plan Review Team
Land Management
[email protected]
PG&E Gas and Electric Facilities Page 1
Public
March 19, 2025
Sophia Pagoulatos
Planning Manager
2600 Fresno Street
Fresno, CA 93721
Re: SEDA Specific Plan
Southeast Fresno Area. Fresno, County
Dear Sophia Pagoulatos,
Thank you for giving us the opportunity to review the subject plans. The proposed SEDA Specific Plan is within the same vicinity of PG&E existing facilities that impact this property.

The proposed project is within PG&E s service area. The applicant is to ensure the development of the SEDA Specific plan within any PG&E easements complies with the existing easement language and the provided guidelines for projects near PG&E electric and gas facilities per the issued initial response letter sent on February 11, 2025. The applicant is to provide development plans and applicable tentative tract maps to PG&E s Plan Review Team for comment once they are available. The applicant may contact PG&E s Plan Review Team via email at [email protected]. Guidelines as it pertains to proposed vegetation and landscaping for the various PG&E facilities can be found here. Please contact the Building and Renovation Center (BRSC) for facility map requests by calling 1-877-743-7782 and department at www.pge.com/cco for any modification or relocation requests, or for any additional services you may require.

As a reminder, before any digging or excavation occurs, please contact Underground Service Alert (USA) by dialing 811 a minimum of 2 working days prior to commencing any work. This free and independent service will ensure that all existing underground utilities are identified and marked on-site.

If you have any questions regarding our response, please contact me at [email protected].

Sincerely,
Alexa Boyd
Land Management
PG&E 2

1 Pacific Gas and
Electric Company
PG&E's Service Planning
's

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City of Fresno—Fresno Southeast Development Area Specific Plan Project Administrative Final Program EIR Responses to Written Comments FirstCarbon Solutions 1-289
https://adecinnovations.sharepoint.com/sites/PublicationsSite/Shared Documents/Publications/Client (PN-JN)/3168/31680037/EIR/2 - Final EIR/wp/31680037 Sec03-00 Responses to Written Comments.docx Pacific Gas and Electric Company (Second Letter) (PG&E 2) Response to PG&E 2-1
The comment is noted. As the document is a policy-level document, future individual development associated with the implementation of the proposed project would be required to comply with all applicable PG&E requirements, and future development would be required to undergo CEQA analysis on a project-by-project basis as necessary. This comment has been passed to the Lead Agency for their review and consideration of the proposed project as a whole. However, no environmental issues pursuant to CEQA are raised, and no response is required.

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Main Office Phone:
310-798-2400
Direct Dial:
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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]
March 24, 2025
City of Fresno Planning and Development Department
Sophia Pagoulatos, Planning Manager
2600 Fresno Street, Room 3065, Fresno California 93721
Email: [email protected]
Re: Comments on Revised Draft Program Environmental Impact Report for Fresno Southeast Development Area (SEDA) Specific Plan Project City of Fresno, Fresno County, California State Clearinghouse Number 2022020486 dated February 7, 2025
Dear Ms. Pagoulatos,
On behalf of the Sierra Club, Central Valley Partnership, and League of Women Voters we submit the following comments on the Fresno Southeast Development Area (SEDA) Specific Plan project Recirculated Draft EIR (RDEIR)1 . We previously
submitted comments on the Draft EIR (DEIR)2 on August 28, 2023, which we incorporate by reference.

We understand that the City is not planning to respond to earlier comments on the DEIR or any other letters submitted at that time. If the City’s view is that it does not have to respond to earlier comments, it is mistaken. However, we must proceed on the possibility the City might only respond to this letter. Therefore, we are repeating our previous points in this letter and making new ones because all of the substance of these points are still relevant and apply. We also incorporate by reference all comment letters that were previously submitted on the DEIR and specifically ask that you respond to all 1 The February 7, 2025 RDEIR is available at this link: https://www.fresno.gov/wpcontent/uploads/2025/02/31680037-Fresno-SEDA-Specific-Plan-Project-RecirculatedDraft-EIR.pdf 2 The July 2023 DEIR is available at this link: https://www.fresno.gov/wpcontent/uploads/2023/07/Draft-SEDA-Environmental-Impact-Report.pdf

SC-CVP-LWV