remaining 1,774 acres accountable and tied to biological resources and mitigation contained in this document that has also not been reviewed and approved by CDFW or USFWS?
5. BR-12: Loss of Wildlife Movement and Nursery Sites. The permanent loss of giant garter snake dispersal habitat within the Natomas Basin, proposed with this development, will not adequately be mitigated by providing mitigation outside of the Natomas Basin. The permanent loss within the Natomas Basin will be a further detriment to available dispersal habitat, is contrary to the NBHCP and MAPHCP, and will remain a significant impact.
6. BR-13: Conflict with Any Local Policies or Ordinances Protecting Biological Resources.
Although Sacramento County has adopted a Swainson's Hawk Ordinance and Impact Mitigation Program, this would still not sufficiently mitigate for the loss of 40 acres of Swainson's Hawk foraging habitat that this development would eliminate in the Natomas Basin, which is also contrary to the policies of the NBHCP and MAPHCP. Therefore, this would also still remain a significant impact.
7. BR-14: Conflict with Natomas Basin HCP and Metro Air Park HCP. The NBHCP and MAPHCP are adopted conservation plans with respective plan areas that cover all of the Natomas Basin, not portions of the Natomas Basin. Although the applicant is proposing to implement some similar mitigation measures included in both plans to help to minimize impacts to covered species in the NBHCP and MAPHCP, the approval and development of the UWSP area could permanently disturb/harm over 975 acres of habitat/foraging area for these protected species, which is directly contrary to both the NBHCP and the MAPHCP documents and policies. Approval and construction of this development as proposed would potentially pose significant impacts to the long-term implementation and success of both HCPs, with or without the proposed mitigation measures.
8. It is premature to propose such significant land use changes, potential changes in habitat for protected species, and mitigation without fully evaluating the proposal's impacts to the existing NBHCP and MAPHCP (which have both already been reviewed and approved by USFWS and CDFW) without first obtaining each agencies' requirements and approvals through each of their existing permitting processes.
9. As we believe this proposal may have significant and potentially avoidable conflicts with the approved NBHCP and MAPHCP, and this EIR is intended to be used for the permitting processes for USFWS, CDFW, and other applicable agencies, Sutter County should be involved in any discussion and/or permitting review process within the Natomas Basin that may affect our implementation and validity of the existing NBHCP, ITP, and IA.
In summary, the topics discussed above are of great concern to Sutter County. This project lies outside of the boundaries designated in the NBHCP for development. Sacramento County land use designation, boundaries, and policies should not be modified to accommodate growth which is neither contemplated nor permitted by the NBHCP. Sutter County cannot support a proposal that may undermine the adopted NBHCP, or potentially threaten Sutter County's ability to develop within its already permitted development area. Accordingly, Sutter County strongly encourages Sacramento County to fully evaluate the impacts of this development proposal on all affected parties before reviewing and/or approving such a significant change.
DEIR for the Upper Westside Specific Plan (SC No. 2020100069 / PLNP2018-00284) October 28, 2024
Please provide Sutter County and my office with all future notices regarding this project.
Sincerely,
Arwen Wacht
Principal Planner
Ec: Steven Smith, County Administrator
Neal Hay, Development Services Director
William Vanasek, County Counsel
Sutter County Board of Supervisors
Cheryle Hodge, Principal Planner/New Growth Manager, City of Sacramento
John Roberts, Executive Director, The Natomas Basin Conservancy
Commissioners
Sue Frost, Rich Desmond, County Members Patrick Hume, Alternate Iva Walton, Lisa Kaplan, City Members Jay Vandenburg, Katie Valenzuela, Alternates Chris Little, Public Member Timothy Murphy, Alternate
Lindsey Carter, Gay Jones, Special District Members Charlea Moore, Alternate Staff
José C. Henríquez, Executive Officer Desirae Fox, Kristi Grabow, Policy Analysts Nancy Miller, DeeAnne Gillick, Commission Counsel
October 28, 2024
SENT VIA EMAIL
Sacramento County
Department of Community Development, Planning and Environmental Review Division Attention: Environmental Coordinator
827 7
th Street, Room 225
Sacramento, CA 95814
SUBJECT: Upper Westside Specific Plan ( State Clearinghouse No 2020100069, County Control Number PLNP2018-00284)
Mrs. Newton,
Thank you for contacting Sacramento L ocal Agency Formation Commission (LAFCo) regarding the Upper Westside specific Plan Draft Environmental Impact Report (DEIR) .
The proposed project is a Specific Plan for a multi -use development located in the northwest portion of unincorporated Sacramento County outside of the County’s Urban Policy Area (UPA) and Urban Services Boundary (USB). Also, we thank you for allowing us to submit additional comments a little after the deadline.
Upper Westside is bounded on three sides by the City of Sacramento, adjacent to the existing City of Sacramento communities of North and South Natomas. According to the City’s comment on the June 2021 Notice of Preparation, the proposed project site is located outside of the City’s Sphere of Influence boundaries.
The Draft EIR prepared by Sacramento County to evaluate the proposed project has been prepared as a Project EIR to meet the requirements of the State CEQA Guidelines. The EIR notes that Sacramento LAFCo may be a responsible agency that would review and approve revised boundaries for urban service providers. Sacramento LAFCo’s responsibilities and processes as a responsible agency are set forth in Section 15096 of the State CEQA Guidelines.
LAFCo has reviewed the Notice of Preparation, our June 2021 Response to the NOP, the Draft EIR, and the Appendices to the Draft EIR in order to understand how the County has responded in the DEIR to LAFCo’s previous requests to evaluate environmental 35 Upper Westside Specific Plan (PLNP2018-00284)
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Sacramento Local Agency Formation Commission
issues required of LAFCo by the Cortese- Knox-Hertzberg Act. Our comments on the DEIR follow the order of our 2021 NOP comments.
1. Revise the DEIR to properly describe the type and timing of the LAFCo entitlements necessary to provide services to the USWP project area.
LAFCo’s NOP response notes that much of the project site is unserved by urban utilities, and that Sphere of Influence Amendments (SOIAs), annexations, or formations of new service providers would be necessary to serve the proposed UWSP.
2. Request for an exclusive Executive Summary to set forth LAFCo procedures and necessary actions.
Because the project site has previously been used primarily for agriculture, the project is outside of the service boundaries of many of the providers; for several of the providers, the project area is outside of the providers sphere of influence. For these providers, consistent with LAFCo policies, it would be necessary for the Commission to amend their Spheres of Influence prior to considering an annexation of the project area into the utility service area.
The DEIR inconsistently describes the types of LAFCo entitlements that would be necessary to extend existing urban services to the project site or to create a new service provider to serve the project area. For example, the project description indicates that a proposed annexation to Sacramento County Water Agency to provide water services to the subject area. SCWA is not a service district under the jurisdiction of LAFCo, and therefore should be removed from the project description. Should SCWA need to extend infrastructure to the subject area, but it will not be accomplished through LAFCo’s annexation process. Additionally, the subject area is not included in the SOI for SacSewer. As such the project description would need to be updated to include a SOI amendment to SacSewer with a subsequent Annexation to the service district.
3. Request To Meet with Lead Agency
LAFCo adopted policy is to retain CEQA lead agency status for those projects that require a Sphere of Influence Amendment, as may be necessary for extending urban services to the USWP project area. As noted in our June 2021 NOP comments, in cases where the Sphere amendment(s) is/are part(s) of a larger project, such as the USWP project, LAFCo may consider entering into a Memorandum of Understanding to establish LAFCo as a co-lead agency in concert with the land use agency. Although this request was made previously in our NOP comments, Sacramento County has not responded to our query. We request to have a meeting with County staff pursuant to Section 15104 of the California Environmental Quality Act, which states that the Lead Upper Westside Specific Plan (PLNP2018-00284)
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Agency shall convene a meeting with responsible agency representatives to discuss the scope and content of the environmental information as soon as possible but no later than 30 days after receiving a request for the meeting.
4. Request for an exclusive Executive Summary to set forth LAFCo procedures and necessary actions.
Given the authority of LAFCo in the project consideration and our NOP comment requesting a discussion in the EIR of LAFCo’s role in the entitlement process, including the Commission’s procedures, and necessary actions. Our review of the DEIR indicates that no such discussion is offered in the DEIR. Please amend the EIR to include this information.
5. Evaluation of public services should describe and assess LAFCo standards and requirements
The evaluation of public services should explicitly meet LAFCo requirements. The DEIR appears to properly evaluate the environmental effects of physical facilities that would need to be constructed to serve the project, including those outside of the project site, whose construction potentially could have environmental effects.
Additionally, the evaluation should assess whether service providers have (1) the service capability and capacity to serve the project area, and (2) whether they can provide services to the project area without adversely affecting existing service levels elsewhere in their service areas.
The analysis may benefit from consideration of the required service provider Plans for Services regarding the financing and timely provision of services with no adverse impact to existing ratepayers, including sustainable water supplies/treatment/distribution and wastewater collection and treatment, as well as other public services and utilities.
The evaluation should assess whether new service providers would perform any services that are now being provided by another service provider in the project area, and whether substitution of the new provider for the existing provider would have any adverse effects on the existing provider’s ability to maintain services elsewhere in its service area.
Although LAFCo responsibilities regarding public services and utilities are set forth in DEIR Chapter 20, Utilities they are not mentioned, completed or utilized in the environmental assessment within the Chapter. We request that the DEIR’s evaluation of utilities be revised to include our requested information.
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6. Evaluation of potential impacts to Prime Farmlands to meet LAFCo statutory requirements
LAFCo’s required definition of prime farmland is set forth in the Cortese- Knox- Hertzberg Act. The regulatory setting contained in Chapter 5 of the DEIR properly sets forth the standards of Government Code Section 56064 in defining prime farmlands, but these criteria are not used in the evaluation of the project’s effects on important farmlands elsewhere in the chapter. We request that the DEIR be amended to either include a revision of Impact AG -1 to include a parallel calculation of prime farmland lost using LAFCo’s definition of such farmland, or that a standalone impact statement be drafted to evaluate the loss of such farmland.
The EIR should also assess the interface between planned urban uses and existing and ongoing agricultural uses. Specifically, the analysis should determine the types of crops typically grown in interface areas and the types of pesticides/biocides and other chemicals used on identified crops. For each identified chemical, the EIR should determine any setback required by the State and the Sacramento County Agricultural Commissioner between the application site and sensitive uses such as residences and schools . Any low sensitivity land use buffers necessary to permit continued farming operations should be identified.
7. Evaluation of potential impacts to Prime Farmlands assessed using LAFCo Policies, Standards, and Procedures
The DEIR contains an evaluation of the consistency of the proposed UWSP with Standard E of the LAFCo Policies, Standards, and Procedures. The consideration of the consistency of the proposed project assessed in the EIR is the sole responsibility of the Commission, and not the preparers of the DEIR. Please delete the discussion Sacramento County LAFCo Criteria Factors 1 through Factor 5.
8. Evaluation of potential impacts to Open Space to meet LAFCo statutory requirements
LAFCo is required by its enabling legislation to evaluate a project’s impact on open space. Based on our review, we note that the loss of open space with implementation of the project is not explicitly evaluated in the DEIR (e.g., there is no impact that assesses the loss of open space with implementation of the project). Additionally, there is no discussion of the County-wide loss of open space as requested in LAFCo’s June 2021 NOP comment letter. Non- agricultural open space is discussed in DEIR Chapter 4, Aesthetics. Impacts AE -1 and AE -2 evaluate the project induced loss of open space as a change in visual quality. No mitigation measures are offered for either impact, and both are determined to be significant and unavoidable. Agriculture as open space is evaluated in Chapter 5, Agricultural Resources.
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LAFCo requests that the EIR be modified to include an evaluation of the project’s effect on open space, both at a project level and at a countywide level.
9. Evaluation of an alternative project that includes expansion of the City’s Sphere of Influence and annexation of the project area
LAFCo’s NOP comment requested that the range of alternatives assessed in the EIR should include an alternative that would amend the Sphere of Influence of the City of Sacramento and annex the project site to the City.
LAFCo requested that this alternative be evaluated to provide information to the Commission to permit them to evaluate the project’s consistency with LAFCo policy to favor the most efficient and comprehensive service provider to the proposed project.
As set forth in the DEIR, the project anticipates that the City may furnish a water supply to the project as well as potentially treating and distributing potable water. Additionally, according to the NOP, the City currently provides fire protection services to the site.
This alternative was not included in the DEIR, and no rationale for its absence was provided either in response to our NOP comment or in the DEIR. We request that the DEIR be amended to include an evaluation of this alternative.
Advisories:
10. Sphere of Influence Amendment for County Service Ara No.10 (CSA-10):
CSA-10 provides transportation and related services for new development to comply with air quality control measures. The project description includes an annexation to CSA-10 or the creation of a new CSA. Please be advised that forming a new service district has a different process than Annexation. Regardless of the route, LAFCo will need to assess the Sphere of Influence for the service area.
If you have any questions regarding the comments above, please do not hesitate to reach out to our office. Thank you again for including LAFCo in this process.
Regards,
Desirae N. Fox
Policy Analyst
350 SACRAMENTO, Suite 116 - BREATHE BUILDING, 909 12th St., Sacramento PO Box 16167, Sacramento, CA 95816 − https://350sacramento.org − [email protected] October 28, 2024
Julie Newton, Environmental Coordinator
Planning and Environmental Review
Sacramento County
827 7th Street
Sacramento, CA 95814
Via Email Only: [email protected].
Dear Ms. Newton:
UPPER WEST SIDE PROJECT, DRAFT SEIR
We appreciate the opportunity to comment on the County’s August 2024 draft Specific Plan and Supplemental Environmental Impact Report (SEIR) for the subject project.
Because of the length and complexity of the SEIR, our review is at this time necessarily incomplete, but we have tried to provide feedback on key aspects of the documents.
We include the following outline to facilitate review.
CONTENTS
I. GENERAL COMMENTS
A. THE CLIMATE CRISIS
B. THE IMPORTANCE OF LOCAL ACTION
C. SACRAMENTO COUNTY’S IMPLEMENTATION HISTORY
II. EFFECTS NOT PREVIOUSLY EXAMINED
A. THE COUNTY’S GPU FEIR DID NOT EXAMINE OR SUBSTANTIATE THE GPU’S ”NEW GROWTH” POLICIES
1. The County’s GPU FEIR Included an Alternative 3: “Mixed Use”.
2. The County Adopted a “Modified Mixed Use Alternative”
3. Effect of the County’s “Modification”
4. The County’s Justification
5. The County Failed to Examine Potential Impacts of the “New Growth Management Policies”
B. THE GPU FEIR DID NOT EXAMINE OR MITIGATE EFFECTS OF THE COUNTY’S
EXCESS ENTITLEMENTS
1. The County’s Approvals Far Exceed Housing Market Demand
2. Excess Entitlements Preclude Mixed-Use Development as Claimed Mitigation
3. Effects of Excess Entitlements on “New Growth Management” Policies
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2 III. THE COUNTY’S EXCESS ENTITLEMENTS
A. PROJECTED HOUSING DEMAND
1. SACOG Projected Growth Rates
2. County Historic Growth Rate
B. THE COUNTY’S THREE GROWTH STRATEGIES
1. “Infill” Strategy, Including Commercial Corrido
2. “Buildout of Planned Communities” Strategy
3. “New Growth Areas” Strategy
C. COUNTY HAS APPROVED FAR MORE HOMES THAN THE MARKET REQUIRES
1. Sacramento County – Existing Housing Capacity
2. Growth Capacity Greatly Exceeds Foreseeable Market Demand D. LAND USE EFFECTS OF EXCESS ENTITLEMENTS
1. Scattered Sprawl Development.
2. Incomplete Development.
IV. UWSP ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS
A. CUMULATIVE EFFECTS CONTRARY TO STATE PLANS AND GUIDANCE B. CHAPTER 8, CLIMATE CHANGE
1. MM CC-1b is Inconsistent with SMAQMD Requirements
2. Avoiding Residential Gas Infrastructure is Not Additional
3. Procuring Renewable Energy to Mitigate Commercial GHG Emissions Would be Non-Additional
4. Table CC-6 Inaccurately Claims Consistency with CARB Scoping Plan
5. The Mitigation Scheme Conflicts with the Normal Development Cycle C. CHAPTER 14, LAND USE
1. The SEIR Relies on GPU Policy LU-120
2. The Efficacy of Policy LU-120 is Unsubstantiated
D. CHAPTER 18, TRANSPORTATION
1. Urban Sprawl Induces Increased VMT
2. UWSP Mitigation for Induced VMT is Based on Full Build-out.
3. Excess Entitlements will Delay or Preclude the Proposed Mitigation V. FEIR/GP CONFLICTS
A. FAILURE TO MITIGATE GHG EMISSIONS BY ADOPTING A CAP
1. Sacramento County Promised to Adopt a CAP
2. The Advantages of CAPs
3. The County has Failed to Adopt a CAP
4. The County Must Adopt a CAP Before Approving the UWSP B. FAILURE TO IMPLEMENT GP POLICIES PRIORITIZING INFILL
1. GP Direction on Growth Location is Broad
2. The GP Prioritizes Infill over “New Growth”
3. Prioritizing is a Practical Necessity
4. The County has Improperly Prioritized New Growth
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3 C. FAILURE TO ENSURE LOGICAL PROJECT BOUNDARIES
1. The GP Requires Logical Boundaries
2. The UWSP Boundary is Not Substantiated as “Logical
D. FAILURE TO JUSTIFY USB BOUNDARY CHANGE
1. The Role of County Growth Boundaries2. The SEIR Identifies No Justifying “Extraordinary Circumstances”
E. FAILURE TO IMPLEMENT THE COUNTY’S 2011 PHASE I CAP
1. Policy Role of the Phase 1 CAP
2. Phase 1 CAP and VMT Reduction
3. County Failure to Implement Phase I CAP’s VMT-Reduction Focus F. FAILURE TO COMPLY WITH GPU REQUIREMENTS FOR EFFICIENT, LOGICAL
PLANNING
G. THE PROBLEM OF THE GENERAL PLAN’S INCOHERENT GUIDANCE Attachment 1. Current Effects of the Climate Crises
Attachment 2. The Importance of Local Climate Action
Attachment 3 Sacramento County’s Sprawl Mitigation is Unsupported Attachment 4 Sacramento County Failures in Meeting Climate Commitments Attachment 5. FEIR GHG Mitigation Commitments
SECTION I. GENERAL COMMENTS
A. THE CLIMATE CRISIS
350 Sacramento’s primary focus is local action to accelerate the transition to climate stability, and we are concerned that the UWSP would make reaching that goal more difficult Temperatures on our planet are now higher than at aimesime since before the last ice age, at least 125,000 years ago and potentially going back at least 1 million years.
To provide further context for these comments, please see Attachment 1, Current Effects of the Climate Crises.
B. THE IMPORTANCE OF LOCAL ACTION
Local Action is critical to effectively address climate change. The two largest sources of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are on-road passenger vehicles and building energy, both of which are best and most directly managed through the well-established land-use authorities of local governments. For a Summary of federal, State, Regional, and County guidance. See Attachment 2 for further substantiation.
C. SACRAMENTO COUNTY’S IMPLEMENTATION HISTORY
Sacramento County has failed consistently to implement adopted climate mitigation measures, including promises made when adopting its:
• 2011 General Plan Update (GPU), re adopting measures into the General Plan; • 2011 GPU, re adopting a CAP and implementing other climate measures; • 2011 Phase 1 CAP, “Strategy and Framework Document”;
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4 • 2012 County Operations Plan; and
• 2020 Climate Emergency Declaration.
See Attachment 4, County Climate Commitment Failures for further substantiation.
II. EFFECTS NOT PREVIOUSLY EXAMINED
PRC § 21094 stipulates that a lead agency may tier from a prior EIR if, “the lead agency determines” that the prior EIR mitigated or avoided impacts, or examined the impacts in enough detail to allow imposition of effective site-specific conditions on the later project. Such lead agency determination must consider any significant new information or changes in circumstance relevant to the effectiveness of the prior mitigation and/or examination (PRC § 21088; see also CEQA Guidelines §§ 15063(b)(1)(C), (c)(3)(D), 15152). The UWSP presents circumstances and environmental effects not earlier known, examined, or mitigated, as discussed below.
The SEIR must therefore examine and propose mitigation for such previously unconsidered and unmitigated effects, and recirculate that new material for public review.
Specifically, Sacramento County’s GPU FEIR did not:
• Substantiate the effectiveness of the County’s “new growth management policies” • Examine environmental impacts associated with the County’s excess development approvals.
A. THE COUNTY’S GPU FEIR DID NOT EXAMINE OR SUBSTANTIATE THE GPU’S ”NEW GROWTH” POLICIES
1. The County’s GPU FEIR Included an Alternative 3: “Mixed Use”.
The County’s April 2010 FEIR considered three project alternatives. Per the certified FEIR, “Alternative 3, Mixed Use”:
“…is highly consistent with smart growth principles. [It] directs all development toward the urban core, which will increase densities and support alternative transportation (principle 1); …directs most growth into areas that are already built up, resulting in more compact growth (principle 3); …directs all growth toward existing urban areas (principle 5); and avoids any development within the large open space, farmland, and critical environmental areas of the county (principle 7)…does not identify large new growth areas, and relies on revitalizing existing urbanized areas and infill development”.1,2
2. The County Adopted a “Modified Mixed Use Alternative” During the 18 months between the FEIR’s April 2010 publication, and the County’s November 2011 adoption/certification of the GPU/FEIR, the County developed and did adopt what it called, “a modified version of the Mixed Use Alternative described in the FEIR”. The “modified version” varied from the one analyzed in the FEIR by,3
1 Sacramento County, GPU FEIR, Summary of CEQA Alternatives, p. 18-3. 2 Ibid, p. 18-7
3 Sacramento County. General Plan Update, Findings of Fact and Statement of Overriding Considerations, pp. 1-2. November 2011.
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5 a. Deleting policies requiring new housing densification. b. Reducing the amount of growth assumed within the County’s Urban Policy Area growth boundary.4
c. Adding “new growth management policies” specifying criteria to be met by new development. The new policies (LU-119 and LU-120) authorize the County to expand the County’s adopted UPA growth boundary to accommodate “new growth areas” on a project-specific basis (Section VI.D.1 of these comments reviews the role and importance of the County’s growth boundaries).
3. Effect of the County’s “Modification”
As detailed in Section III of these comments, the effect of the County’s “modifications” to FEIR Alternative 3 has been to invite, approve, and continue to plan multiple large-scale development projects outside the UPA, of which the UWSP is one. Such projects are directly contrary to the intention of the FEIR’s Alternative 3 as quoted in section A.1 above, because they:
a. Are outside, “the urban core”
b. Are not in areas, “already built up” or “existing urban” c. Do not “avoid any development within the large open space, farmland, and critical environmental areas of the county”.
d. Do, “identify large new growth areas”.
e. Do not, “rel[y] on revitalizing existing urbanized areas and infill development”.
The County’s 2011 CEQA Findings assert that the decision to modify Alternative 3, and adopt the “new growth management policies”,
“…is supported by the environmental analysis provided in the FEIR, because the approved Project falls within the range of physical impacts which were addressed by the EIR”.5
However, the County provided no substantiation for that assertion.
The County supported its “modification” of Alternative 3 by citing an apparently inapposite legal precedent, Laguna Beach,6 quoting from the decision: “It is not unreasonable to conclude that an alternative not discussed in an EIR could be intelligently considered by studying the adequate descriptions of the plans that are discussed”.
However, we question whether adoption of measures not at all considered in the FEIR’s analysis; the efficacy of which cannot be deduced from the FEIR’s findings; and which in fact conflicts with the FEIR’s conclusions, properly falls within the decision-space of Laguna Beach.
4 The Urban Policy Area (UPA) defines the area expected to receive urban infrastructure and services within the planning period.
5 GPU FEIR Findings, p. 2.
6 Village Laguna of Laguna Beach, Inc. v. Orange County Board of Supervisors (1982) 134 Cal.App.3d 1022, 1028-1029 (Laguna Beach)
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6 5. The County Failed to Examine Potential Impacts of the “New Growth Management Policies”
The GPU FEIR did not examine the “new growth management policies”, LU-119 and LU- 120, which were not proposed until after the FEIR was published. On the contrary, the FEIR found that development outside the UPA would cause significant impacts, mitigable only by phasing development outward from the urban core.
Attachment 3, Sacramento County’s Sprawl Mitigation Is Unsupported reviews the FEIR’s analysis.
In adopting the “modified Mixed use alternative”, and “New Growth Management Policies” LU-119 and LU-120, the County included some of the FEIR’s Alternative 3 “smart growth” principles, but discarded its central focus: directing growth to densification of the existing urban area. The County assumed, but did not substantiate, that those principles would suffice to mitigate the environmental impacts of the “new growth management policies”.
In fact, the County’s “new growth management policies” present a development strategy not contemplated in the FEIR’s examination of Alternative 3, and substantially diverging from it. The GPU FEIR neither examined the potential project-specific and cumulative impacts of Policies LU-119 and LU-120 nor substantiated their claimed mitigation efficacy. To the contrary, as detailed in Attachment 3 the FEIR determined that project - specific expansion of the UPA would result in significant impacts.
The UWSP SEIR references and relies on these policies. Their impacts and mitigation, because never before examined, must be evaluated in the current SEIR.
B. THE GPU FEIR DID NOT EXAMINE OR MITIGATE EFFECTS OF THE COUNTY’S
EXCESS ENTITLEMENTS
Section II.A above documents the County’s 2011 claim of “modified…mixed use” as the panacea curing the ills of far-flung, disjunct (aka “sprawl” or “leapfrog”) development; and with Attachment 3 demonstrates that the claim is not substantiated by the GPU FEIR.
Here, we additionally assert that the claimed merits of such, “modified…mixed use” could not in any case be realized in Sacramento County, because:
• The County has approved, and has in planning, multiple developments with capacity far surpassing housing market demand, and
• Such excess entitlements preclude realizing the mixed-use development the County claims as mitigation.
We substantiate this assertion below.
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7 1. The County’s Approvals Far Exceed Housing Market Demand The County’s long history of permissively approving developments far in excess of foreseeable market demand was formalized and accelerated with the 2011 adoption of “new growth management policies”. In the County’s telling:
“When adopted in 2011, the General Plan added policies to the Land Use Element to allow applicants to request an expansion of the UPA anywhere within the USB regardless of demand or existing capacity. The County’s intent was to let the market determine the need and location for new growth so long as it could meet the “Smart Growth Criteria” of policies LU-119 and LU-120”.7 As a result, the County has approved construction of far more housing than the market requires, and is actively preparing to approve more. As the County reports:
“These three master plans [planned outside the UPA and including the UWSP] propose 49,732 additional units. If all of these new master plans are approved, and combined with the potential for infill and the already approved growth areas, the County will have approved growth far exceeding the growth that is projected over the next 20 years. This is apparent given the fact that the County only permitted a total of 5,194 units during the nine years of the last RHNA cycle (2013-2021)”.8 “In fact, at the most recent rate of permit activity in the unincorporated County from 2020 (which is higher than any of the preceding years in the APR) … this existing [infill and approved planned projects] and potential capacity of over 109,000 units would represent over 140 years of potential capacity”.9
2. Excess Entitlements Preclude Mixed-Use Development as Claimed Mitigation The County’s historic approval of multiple competing projects, which in their aggregate capacity far exceed market demand, means it is impossible that the competing projects will build-out as quickly or completely as envisioned. In “mixed use” projects, investment in commercial development occurs only after residential growth has built-out enough to support commercial activity.10 As a direct and foreseeable result of delayed and incomplete build-out, commercial development and the claimed environmental benefits of “mixed use” development (e.g., reduced vehicle miles traveled (VMT) and GHG emissions) will be delayed indefinitely and perhaps permanently, resulting in unmitigated impacts.
3. Effects of Excess Entitlements on “New Growth Management” Policies As noted above, the County’s “modified Alternative 3” growth management strategy, allowing consideration of UWSP and other development outside the UPA, is effectuated by new GPU Policies LU-119 and LU-120. LU-120 presents five “criteria based” (CB)
7 Sacramento County. 2030 General Plan 2022 Annual Report, p. 2). March 28, 2023. 8 Ibid.
9 Sacramento County. 2030 General Plan 2020 Annual Report, p. 15). March 24, 2021. 10 “Typically, commercial development lags behind residential development because retail and service commercial uses are dependent on a critical mass of resident population for support, …retail and service commercial uses envisioned within the heart of the Town Center will develop once enough rooftops are in place to support these uses…” (UWSP Specific Plan, p. 8-6). 350 Sacramento, October 28, 2024 Page
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8 standards intended to demonstrate compliance with “smart growth” principles. However, the efficacy of all six is sensitive to the effects of delayed, incomplete build-out:
a. CB-1. Minimum net density. Partial build-out means that planned densities will not be achieved
b. CB-2. Proximity of residential units to amenities. Incomplete build-out means that commercial, “mixed use” amenities, which would rely on an assumed customer base, will not be built.
c. CB-3. Mixed use. As with the previous criterion, investment in commercial “mixed use” is based on expectation of a customer base at full build-out, absent which commercial enterprise will not occur.
d. CB-4. Transit. Transit service is dependent on ridership density, absent which planned transit will not materialize.11
e. CB-5. Proximity to employment. Mixed use development of a planned size and density is expected to generate a certain amount of on-site employment, with resulting VMT-reduction. Incomplete and delayed build-out means this expectation will not be met.
4. Effects of Excess Entitlements on UWSP Have Not Been Previously Reviewed a. The SEIR’s mitigation for VMT assumes, and relies on, complete build-out supporting “mixed use” development and its claimed mitigation benefits.12, The reality that excess entitlements will constrain such build-out is not examined in either the GPU FEIR or this draft UWSP SEIR.
b. The UWSP assumes a 20-year build-out.13 Build-out period is important, because the mitigation claimed through mixed-use development will only occur, and is only modeled for SEIR analysis, at full build-out. During the build-out period, community population will not support either the planned commercial development or the transit service claimed as VMT mitigation. The longer buildout is delayed, the longer GHG emissions from partial development will be inadequately mitigated. Based on the data presented in Section III of these comments, such build-out is likely to take several generations.
c. The assumed 20-year build-out rate is not substantiated, and is inconsistent with the County’s historical housing growth rate; SACOG’s growth projections for the County; and the fact of long-delayed build-out for numerous already-approved projects, as documented in Section III of these comments.
The SEIR must therefore substantiate the assumed buildout period; and model and mitigate GHG and AQ emissions, and any related impacts during the protracted build-out period.
11 “It is the County’s intent for the Plan area to be served by public transit at such time that it is warranted by demand. However, the county cannot compel Regional Transit to provide such service” (SEIR, p. 8-28)
12 E.g., SEIR Table LU-3: Criteria-Based Standards Determination for Proposed UWSP (p.14-29 ff.); SEIR Table TR-1: Project Trip Generation, showing full build-out (p. 18-29). 13 UWS LLC. UWS Specific Plan, p. 8-6. August 2024.
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9 Section IV of these comments considers UWSP-specific and cumulative environmental impacts, including from incomplete build-out.
III. THE COUNTY’S EXCESS ENTITLEMENTS
As noted in section II.B above, Sacramento County has approved and is planning multiple residential developments totaling far more homes than the market requires into the foreseeable future. Some of these projects go back decades and are within the UPA. But, since adopting the 2011 GPU and it’s “new managed growth strategy”, the County has focused on very large projects outside the UPA, basing its mitigation scheme on “mixed-use” build-out, as set forth in GP Policies LU-119 and LU-120. However, the County has failed to explain how these projects, totaling 67-210 years-worth of growth (documented below) could build-out as quickly or completely as envisioned, given documented market constraints.
In fact, few if any projects can build-out as planned; and certainly not all can be completed as assumed, but not substantiated. As explained below, the result of such incomplete build- out, will be widely scattered, partly-completed projects, without sufficient urban mass and density to support transit service or the “mixed use” commercial investment that the UWSP SEIR claims will result in reduced VMT and GHG emissions. The County did not address this impact in its 2011 GPU FEIR. We substantiate these concerns below.
1. SACOG Projected Growth Projections
The Sacramento Area Council of Governments (SACOG) projects regional population, jobs, and housing growth to support mandated regional transportation and land use plans.14
Table 1. SACOG PROJECTED GROWTH PROJECTIONS
Planning Period Needed New Housing No. of Years Annual Avg 2016-2040 37,230 24 1,551(1)
2020-2035 16,470 15 1,098(2)
2020-2050 35,610 30 1,187(2)
Median of SACOG’s current (June 2024) projections 1,143 (1) SACOG. 2020 MTP/SCS.15
(2) SACOG. 2025 Blueprint (MTP/SCS) Adopted Land Use Assumptions. June 2024. Online:
https://www.sacog.org/home/showpublisheddocument/2432/638554228380389235
14 Sacramento Region Draft Growth Projections – Technical Memo. Online:
https://www.sacog.org/home/showpublisheddocument/1414/638334168171000000 15 Cited in: Sacramento County. 2030 General Plan of 2005-2030 2023 Annual Report, Attachment 1, p.7. April 10, 2024. Online:
https://agendanet.saccounty.gov/BoardofSupervisors/Documents/ViewDocument/ATT_1_- _Sacramento_County_2030_General_Plan__2023_Annual_Report.pdf?meetingId=9015&document Type=Minutes&itemId=427588&publishId=1352635&isSection=false 350 Sacramento, October 28, 2024 Page
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10 2. Historic County Growth Rate
The actual growth rate over a recent eleven-year period is substantially lower than SACOG’s optimistic projections, as show in Table 2 below.
Table 2. HISTORIC COUNTY GROWTH RATE
Period Permitted New Housing No. of Years Annual Avg
2013-2020 16 4,658 8 582
2021-2023 17 2,189 3 728
Total for Period 6,757 11 655
B. THE COUNTY’S THREE GROWTH STRATEGIES
The County’s General Plan plans for new growth primarily through the following strategies:18 1) infill development in existing communities (including commercial corridors); 2) buildout of [approved] planned communities; and,
3) master-planning of new growth areas.”
We review below the available housing capacity in each of these categories:
1. “Infill” Strategy, Including Commercial Corridors
The County reports,
“Infill is highlighted as a priority in the goals, policies, and implementation measures of multiple General Plan elements… The General Plan estimated that between 10,000 to 18,000 housing units could be accommodated on vacant or underutilized properties in infill areas, and that up to 19,000 housing units could be accommodated by revitalizing commercial corridors.”.19
16 Sacramento County. 2030 General Plan 2020 Annual Report, Attachment 2, Annual Element Progress Report, Table B, Regional Housing Needs Allocation Progress, p. 3. March 24, 2021 Online:
https://agendanet.saccounty.gov/BoardofSupervisors/Documents/ViewDocument/ATT%202%20-%20 Annual%20Housing%20Element%20Progress%20Report%20(Appendix%20A%20to%20the%20Annu al%20R.pdf?meetingId=6898&documentType=Agenda&itemId=378086&publishId=921887&isSection =
17 Sacramento County. 2030 General Plan Annual Report for Calendar Year 2023. Attachment 2, p. 1, Table B, Regional Housing Needs Allocation Progress. April 10, 2024. Online:
https://agendanet.saccounty.gov/BoardofSupervisors/Documents/ViewDocument/ATT_2_- _Annual_Housing_Element_Progress_Report_(Appendix_A_to_the_Annual_Report).pdf?meetingId= 9015&documentType=Minutes&itemId=427588&publishId=1352636&isSection=false 18 Sacramento County. 2030 General Plan Annual Report for Calendar Year 2023. Attachment 1, p. 6-
7. April 10, 2024. Online:
https://agendanet.saccounty.gov/BoardofSupervisors/Documents/ViewDocument/ATT%201%20-%2 0Sacramento%20County%202030%20General%20Plan%2C%202023%20Annual%20Report.pdf.pd f?meetingId=9015&documentType=Agenda&itemId=424991&publishId=1350011&isSection=false 19 Ibid., p. 7.
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11 Accordingly, infill and revitalizing commercial corridors together provide an estimated 29,000-37,000 dwelling units (DU) of available housing capacity.
2. “Buildout of Planned Communities” Strategy
Since 1969 Sacrament County has approved 12 “planned communities” providing 59,175 DU of new housing capacity. None of these have completed build-out – five are in some phase of construction and seven have yet to break ground.20 The County notes:
“Many of these growth areas have yet to begin construction and offer a stock of land for growth that is anticipated in the unincorporated County”.21 Table 3 below, displays the twelve approved projects. Of the approved 59,175 DU, 43,348 DU (73 percent) remain unbuilt, and could provide 66 years of approved, appropriately zoned, growth capacity at the historic growth rate (Table 2 above).
TABLE 3. APPROVED RESIDENTIAL DEVELOPMENT PLANS
Approved Plan Number of
Dwelling Units
When
Approved
Buildout
Status
Rancho Murieta 5,189 1969 50% BO (est)22
North Vineyard Station 6,063 1998 63% BO
Vineyard Springs 5,942 2000 68% BO
Elverta 5,601 2007 Not begun
Easton 1,644 2009 Not begun
Glenborough 3,239 2009 Not begun
Florin Vineyard (Gap) 9,919 2010 28% BO
Cordova Hills (Braden) 8,000 2013 Ground broken
Mather Field 1,291 2016 Not begun
Mather South 3,522 2020 Not begun
NewBridge 3,075 2020 Not begun
Jackson Township 5,690 2022 Not begun
Total 59,175 Avail Un-built
Capacity: 43,348
20 Ibid., p. 8.
21 Ibid., p. 8
22 Rancho Murietta County Service District. Current Active projects. January 2021. Online:
https://www.ranchomurietacsd.com/files/524809a78/%402021- 01+Development+project+updates+AWpsAW.pdf
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12 3. “New Growth Areas” Strategy
The County reports,
“When adopted in 2011, the General Plan added policies to the Land Use Element to allow applicants to request an expansion of the Urban Policy Area (UPA) within the Urban Services Boundary…subject to…proposing logical planning boundaries and “Smart Growth” criteria. Since these new growth policies were added to the General Plan, the County has accepted seven applications... for new growth areas. Three master plans amending the UPA have been approved… [shown in Table 3] the four remaining …are still in-progress….[comprising] a total of 48,495 additional units” Table 4 shows the four pending plans, the three largest of which lie outside the UPA .
Table 4. PENDING “NEW GROWTH” AREAS
Pending New Growth Plans Number of Dwelling Units
Upper Westside ** 9,356
Grandpark ** 21,705
West Jackson * 16,484
Antelope Acres 950
Total Pending 48,495
* Outside the Urban Planning Area (UPA), which is designated in the General Plan as accommodating all growth for the current planning period (2005-2030). ** Outside both the UPA, and the Urban Services Boundary (USB), which is designated in the General Plan as the boundary of ultimate growth beyond which it is intended urban services will never be provided, and which should be modified only under “extraordinary circumstances.23
Table 5 below shows the five large projects outside the UPA, two of which are approved and three pending:
23 Sacramento County. General Plan 2030, Land Use Element, p.20. November 2011.. 350 Sacramento, October 28, 2024 Page
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13 TABLE 5. “NEW GROWTH” OUTSIDE UPA
Project Status Number of Dwelling Units
NewBridge Approved 3,075
Jackson Township 5,690
Sub Total - Approved 8,765
West Jackson
Pending
16,484
Upper Westside 9,356
Grandpark 21,705
Sub-Total - Pending 47,545
Total - Approved & Pending 56,310
C. THE COUNTY HAS APPROVED FAR MORE HOMES THAN THE MARKET REQUIRES Sacramento County has ignored housing growth projections and historical growth rates in its development decisions; has allowed planning of every “new growth” project proposed to it; has approved two such projects; and has three more in planning. Added to existing infill capacity and the twelve previously approve protects, the result is a many-fold over-supply of approved homes over market demand, as documented below.
1. Sacramento County – Existing Housing Capacity
The below table displays the County’s current housing capacity in each of its three growth accommodation strategies, and the total available capacity.
TABLE 6. AVAILABLE COUNTY HOUSING CAPACITY
Growth Strategies Available Growth
Capacities (DU)
Infill, incl. Commercial Corridors 29,000-37,000
Median = 33,000
Approved Planned Communities 43,348
Subtotal – Currently Avail Capacity 76,348
Pending “New Growth” Projects 48,495
Total Avail and Planned Capacity 120,843-128,843
Median = ~125,000
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14 2. Growth Capacity Greatly Exceeds Foreseeable Market Demand As displayed below in Table 7, applying SACOG’s current growth projections, the County has to-date approved 67 years-worth of growth.
Applying the probably more realistic historical County growth rate, and recognizing that Supervisors have historically approved every proposal put before them, and will likely favor approving the currently pending projects, the County is on course to approve almost 200 years-worth of growth.
TABLE 7. YEARS TO BUILD OUT EXISTING AND PLANNED CAPACITIES
As previously noted, Sacramento County’s 2011 GPU,
“…allow[ed] applicants to request an expansion of the UPA anywhere within the USB regardless of demand or existing capacity…[t]he County’s intent was to let the market determine the need and location for new growth….”
However, a 67-190 year timeframe to recoup development investment defies normal market supply/demand dynamics, and suggests the County’s “come one, come all” approvals have encouraged speculation on future land values, to the detriment of investment in well-planned, lower VMT infill housing.25 D. LAND USE EFFECTS OF EXCESS ENTITLEMENTS
The direct effects of excess entitlements would be scattered, disjunct, incomplete development, incapable of supporting claimed “mixed use” development and transit service.
1. Scattered Sprawl Development
As displayed on the below map, the County’s 12 approved and four currently planned sprawl projects are scattered across much of the County. Of the approved projects only the three Vineyard projects and Rancho Murieta are in some phase of construction.
Their remaining capacity, and that of the others awaiting ground-breaking, represent
24 Sacramento County. Sacramento County 2030 General Plan 2020 Annual Report, Attachment 1, p.
13. 25 “Locating…growth…within an area dominated by open space and agriculture conflicts with smart growth. …this superabundance of greenfield growth area is likely to draw development away from the more challenging infill and redevelopment projects…” (GPU FEIR, pp. 3-31 - 3-32).
Foreseeable Annual Growth
Rates (DU)
Years to Build Out
Currently Available
Capacity (76,348 DU)
Incl. Pending New
Growth (125,000 DU)
SACOG Median
Projection (Table 1) 1,143 67 years 109 years
County Historical
(Table 2) 655 116 years 190 years
County Calculation – – 140+ years 24
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15 undeveloped, approved, available, housing capacity. Clearly, the County housing crises is not caused by insufficient approvals, nor will it be cured by additional approvals.
Fig 1. COUNTY RESIDENTIAL DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS, APPROVED AND PENDING
2. Incomplete Development
As demonstrated in Table 3, premature land entitlements have resulted in “zombie” subdivisions, lying undeveloped, or at best partially developed, for decades, with adverse social, economic, and environmental effects.26
26 “Local jurisdictions shape the future of their communities through the entitlement of land… When land is entitled and subdivided prematurely, before the market demands new housing, the following problems can result:
“Threats to health and safety. Lots that sit undeveloped for many years can foster …[environmental] and other health and safety hazards…
Fiscal threats. …local…costs… from houses that were planned but remain unconstructed. “Fragmented development patterns. Remote…poorly located developments … worsen the environmental impacts of roads and other public services. [and] disrupt wildlife habitat and migration corridors.
“Market flooding and distortions. The oversupply of vacant lots depresses the value of even…well- located lots that could and should be serving… demand…”. (Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. Arrested The County has approved over 60 years of growth
capacity. Most of the projects have not broken
ground.
If Supervisors approve the three more large sprawl
projects planned outside the County’s growth
boundary, the County will have 200 years of growth
capacity.
Such approvals do nothing to solve the housing crises.
They just guarantee that the future development will
be scattered, incomplete, and high GHG emitting.
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16 IV. UWSP ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS
A. CUMULATIVE EFFECTS CONTRARY TO STATE AND REGIONAL PLANS AND
GUIDANCE
The cumulative effects of the County‘s approved and proposed development outside the UPA to open space, agricultural, and habitat lands would be considerable. Such greenfield development is far more impacting than would be accommodating growth in infill development. 27 ,28
In addition, the State has long and clearly maintained that, notwithstanding future phase-out of gasoline-fueled vehicles, reducing VMT by directing growth into existing communities is critical to meeting the State’s GHG ; and avoids a wide variety of other environmental harms. For example (emphases added):
1. SB 375 states:
“Section 1(c). Greenhouse gas emissions from automobiles and light trucks can be substantially reduced by new vehicle technology and by the increased use of low carbon fuel. However, even taking these measures into account, it will be necessary to achieve significant additional greenhouse gas reductions from changed land use patterns and improved transportation. Without improved land use and transportation policy, California will not be able to achieve the goals of AB 32”, (emphasis added).
A chief way to achieve “improved transportation” is expanded public transit, which depends heavily on increasing rider density through infill development.
2. CARB’s Scoping Document States: 29
“…strategies that support more compact development infill areas…have the greatest potential to reduce emissions (p. 5) … the State has long been clear that urban infill projects, particularly in high-resource and low-VMT areas, would be generally supportive of the State’s climate and regional air quality goals” (p. 20).
Developments, Combating Zombie Subdivisions and Other Excess Entitlements”, pp. 6-8. January 2014. Online: https://www.lincolninst.edu/publications/policy-focus-reports/arrested-developments ). 27 Decker, N. et al. Right Type, Right Place - Assessing the Environmental and Economic Impacts of Infill Residential Development through 2030. Next 10. March 28, 2017. Online:
https://www.next10.org/publications/right-housing.
28 Popovich, N et al. The Climate Impact of Your Neighborhood, Mapped. NY Times. December 13, 2022. Online: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/12/13/climate/climate-footprint-map- neighborhood.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/12/13/climate/climate-footprint- map- neighborhood.html
29 California Air Resources Board. 2022 Scoping Plan, appendix D, Local Actions. November 2022. Online: https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/sites/default/files/2022-05/2022-draft-sp-appendix-d- local- actions_0.pdf)Appendx D
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17 3. CARB’s Priority GHG Reduction Strategies” include: 30 “… enable mixed-use, walkable, transit-oriented, and compact infill development”, and, “Preserve natural and working lands … guide development toward infill areas and do not convert “greenfield” land to urban uses (p.12).
4. CARB’s SCS Progress Report
SB 375 requires regional agencies like the Sacramento Council of Governments (SACOG) to adopt a regional Sustainable Community Strategies (SCS) to reduce VMT through coordinated transportation, housing, and land use planning. CARB sets VMT- reduction targets SCS’s and evaluates compliance. Developments consistent with the SCS are relieved of certain CEQA requirements.31 However, CARB reports, “Many local agencies have not successfully advanced infill and climate-friendly development as needed, even with many regions identifying priority areas in the SCSs to do that. Too often growth is still being planned for land outside existing communities or built there first”. 32
5. CARB Mitigation Recommendations
In the context of SCS consistency in Sacramento County, CARB has recommended mitigation criteria:33
“SB 375 GHG emissions mitigation should address diversion of investment from more environmentally sustainable infill … inclusion of transit and active transportation… does not resolve the negative impacts from continuing those types of longstanding investment patterns. Mitigation should address this by…increasing investment in infill…”
“Over three quarters of Californians see climate change as a threat to our economy and quality of life. The significant and negative impacts of climate change already occurring today on our shared transportation infrastructure and mobility are warnings of the dire future impacts that will occur without consistent and sustained local and regional investment consistent with climate commitments”.
6. The Office of Planning and Research states,
“ Infill development is critical to… be environmentally- and socially-sustainable. ….
OPR is committed to promoting compact development in order to: Reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve regional air quality by reducing the distance people need to travel; reduce conversion of agricultural land, sensitive habitat, and
30 ”…designated as ‘priority’ because they are the GHG reduction opportunities over which local governments have the most authority and that have the highest GHG reduction potential” (CARB, Scoping Plan, Table 1, 2022).
31 CARB. Sustainable Communities & Climate Protection Program. Online: https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/our- work/programs/sustainable-communities-climate-protection-program 32 California Air Resources Board. 2022 Progress Report, California’s Sustainable Communities and Climate Protection Act (SB 375) (p. 36). 2022.
33 CARB. Comments on the Sacramento County Transportation Maintenance, Safety, and Congestion Relief Act of 2022—Retail Transactions and Use Tax (Measure A). October 10, 2022. Online:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-vFaHEOCBJDzs26rNj_3Po9Fk3evyi17/view?usp=sharing. 350 Sacramento, October 28, 2024 Page
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18 open space for new development; reduce costs to build and maintain expensive infrastructure; facilitate healthy and environmentally-friendly active transportation; reduce storm-water runoff resulting in flooding and pollution of waterways; bring vibrancy, community and social connection to neighborhoods”. 34 B. CHAPTER 8, CLIMATE CHANGE
Mitigation Measure (MM) CC-1b claims to mitigate operational GHG emissions, but despite a great deal of verbiage avoids imposing substantive GHG-reduction requirements on either the residential or commercial components of the UWSP. We have the following comments.
1. MM CC-1b is Inconsistent with SMAQMD Requirements
SEIR MM CC-1b incorrectly asserts that the UWSP is consistent with the Sacramento Metropolitan Air Quality Management District (SMAQMD)’s best management practices (BMPs) to mitigate GHG emissions35 (the SMAQMD BMPs have also been adopted by Sacramento County 36).
SMAQMD’s GHG BMP 1 requires that, “Projects shall be designed and constructed without natural gas infrastructure” (SEIR, p. 8-26); whereas SEIR MM CC-1b states, “Consistent with SMAQMD’s GHG BMP 1, natural gas shall be prohibited in all residential land uses”.
The assertion of consistency is unfounded, since the UWSP proposes that only residential uses be without natural gas infrastructure; and per the SEIR, natural gas use in UWSP commercial spaces would emit 5,996 MTCO2e per year. The key failing is that SMAQMD’s BMPs avoid impacts; whereas the UWSP will cause impacts, for which the SEIR proposes various mitigations, the feasibility of which is questioned below in these comments.
The SEIR should explain why it is infeasible to avoid installing natural gas service to commercial spaces as well as residential, in order to prevent the above-cited emissions of 5,996 MTCO2e per year.
2. Avoiding Residential Gas Infrastructure is Not Additional MM CC-1b states, “Consistent with SMAQMD’s GHG BMP 1, natural gas shall be prohibited in all residential land uses” (SEIR, p. 8-34). This requirement repeats State Building Code requirements, which strongly dis-incentivize new mixed-fuel residential construction.37
CEQA requires that mitigation be additional to what is already required (Guidelines § 15126.4(c)(3)). To the extent that new construction will avoid natural gas infrastructure
34 Office of Planning and Research. Infill Development. Online: https://opr.ca.gov/planning/land- use/infill-development.
35 SEIR, p. 8-31.
36 “Sacramento County adopted SMAQMD’s thresholds of significance…on December 16, 2020, by Resolution #2020-0855” (SEIR, p. 8-24)
37 Natural Resources Defense Council. California Code Takes Another Step Toward Clean Buildings.
September 11, 2024. Online: https://www.nrdc.org/bio/merrian-borgeson/california-code-takes- another-step-toward-clean-buildings
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19 due to State regulatory action, the propose mitigation is not eligible for mitigation credit under CEQA.
3. Procuring Renewable Energy to Mitigate Commercial GHG Emissions Would be Non-Additional.
MM CC-1b identifies numerous options to demonstrate GHG reductions from future commercial uses, the simplest and most direct being , “Procure renewable energy…via purchases from…SMUD…” (SEIR, p. 8-36).
The State of California requires all-renewable electricity. SB 100 directs that all electrical utilities generate 100 percent carbon-free (i.e. renewable) electricity on a mandated schedule: 50 percent by 2026; 60 percent by 2020; and 100 percent by 2045.
In addition, SMUD has adopted a policy-goal of generating 100 percent of its electrical production renewably by 2030. SMUD is progressing towards that goal, and will almost certainly reach it well before 2045. All these dates are within the UPWSP’s 20-year build-out timeframe.
CEQA requires that mitigation be additional to what is already required (Guidelines § 15126.4(c)(3)) or already existing. To the extent that renewable, carbon-free energy is available as a result of State legal requirements and/or SMUD’s initiative, it is not eligible for mitigation credit under CEQA. The SEIR should reflect this caution in the SEIR’s discussion, and substantiate the feasibility of any such mitigation by describing how mitigation credits (MTCO2e per year) would be calculated over time to reflect the source’s increasing renewable energy mix, phasing out non-renewable energy in 2045 or earlier.
4. SEIR Table CC-6 Inaccurately Claims Consistency with CARB’s Scoping Plan Table CC-6 (SEIR, pp. 8-40 - 8-42) purportedly demonstrates that, “the proposed UWSP generally aligns with most of the recommended project attributes outlined in the 2022 Scoping Plan and would be consistent with the state’s GHG goals” (SEIR, p. 8-43).
This is incorrect. Notwithstanding the SEIR’s rationalizations and claims of equivalency, the UWSP is inconsistent with at least the following of CARB’s “key suggested project attributes”. As with assertion of consistency with the SMAQMD BMPs, the key failing is that CARB’s “project attributes” all avoid impacts; whereas the UWSP will cause impacts, for which the SEIR proposes various mitigations, the feasibility of which is questioned elsewhere in these comments.
CARB Key Attributes:
a. CARB Attribute: “Is located on infill sites that are surrounded by existing urban uses and reuses or redevelops previously undeveloped or underutilized land that is presently served by existing utilities and essential public services (e.g., transit, streets, water, sewer).”
, the UWSP is not infill surrounded by existing urban uses , or on a site with existing utilities and services.
b. CARB Attribute: “Does not result in the loss or conversion of natural and working lands”.
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20 c. CARB Attribute: “Consists of transit-supportive densities (minimum of 20 residential dwelling units per acre), is in proximity to existing transit stops (within a half mile) or satisfies more detailed and stringent criteria specified in the region’s SCS.” , the UWSP does not consist of transit-supportive densities (only a portion of the project meets this criterion), and the project site is not in proximity to existing transit. d. CARB Attribute: “Uses all-electric appliances without any natural gas connections and does not use propane or other fossil fuels for space heating, water heating, or indoor cooking”.
, the UWSP would use fossil fuels for commercial property space heating, water heating, or indoor cooking, resulting in emissions of 5,996 MTCO2e per year.
5. The Mitigation Scheme Conflicts with the Normal Development Cycle a. Commercial Space in Early Phases is Unlikely to Build-out.38 MM CC-1b directs that a GHG Reduction Plan by each individual development will demonstrate that its share of commercial space will contribute to the project’s total required GHG reductions. This scheme would require that each individual project includes, in addition to a portion of the UWSP’s residential build-out, a commensurate share of the UWSP’s total planned commercial development. However, early stages of residential construction will not provide an adequate customer base to support the commercial build-out envisioned at UWSP completion; and the dedicated space will remain un-developed until such time as adequate urban mass has accumulated to support commercial activity.
b. Lack of Commercial Build-out will Trigger Mitigation Change Requests. The County’s excess entitlements would delay build-out of the UWSP and its commercial space long beyond normal investment horizons, and perhaps indefinitely. In response developers will ask the County to modify the Specific Plan, converting the planned commercial space to residential development, thereby further reducing the benefits of mixed-use. This is not a mere speculative possibility – Sacramento County and other jurisdictions have responded, and are responding, favorably to economically-based requests to modify development mitigation conditions.39, C. CHAPTER 14, LAND USE – THE SEIR’s RELIANCE ON LU-120 IS UNSUPPORTED
1. The SEIR Relies on GPU Policy LU-120
The SEIR states:
38 UWSP Specific Plan, p. 8-6; see earlier quote and full citation, Section II. 39 “On February 28, 2023, the Board adopted a major amendment to the North Vineyard Station Specific Plan to implement the updated North Vineyard Station Transportation Mitigation Strategy.
This strategy was well-received by the development community with many acknowledging that it significantly reduces the infrastructure and financial burdens…”. Sacramento County is also currently re-considering previously approved mitigation conditions for the Florin Vineyard, Vineyard Springs, and Elverta Specific Plans, regarding roadway improvement, transportation infrastructure, and water supply requirements (Sacramento County, General Plan of 2005-2030 2023 Annual Report, Attachment 1, p. 9).
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21 “General Plan Policy LU-120 is intended to reduce impacts of many different types – such as growth inducement, unacceptable operating conditions on roadways, poor air quality, and lack of appropriate infrastructure – by establishing design criteria for all amendments to the UPA. A project must be consistent with the policy before it may be considered for approval …the proposed UWSP would meet the requirements of LU- 120. The tables below (Table LU-2 and Table LU-3) summarize how the proposed UWSP complies with …Policy LU-120. Given that the proposed UWSP has been deemed consistent, impacts related to conflict with growth management policy would be less than significant (SEIR p. 14-23).
2. The Efficacy of Policy LU-120 is Unsubstantiated
As discussed in Section II.A of these comments and Attachment 3, the County’s GPU FEIR did not review Policy LU-120. On the contrary, the GPU FEIR determined that project-specific expansion of the UPA would cause significant impacts.
D. CHAPTER 18, TRANSPORTATION
1. Urban Sprawl Induces Increased VMT
That sprawl induces increased VMT is well established.40,41,42 As noted elsewhere in these comments, State and regional guidance and the County’s own planning documents emphasize the need to change the post-WWII paradigm of auto-centric, dispersed development to an infill approach that helps address numerous environmental problems, including by reducing VMT/GHG emissions.
However, as substantiated in Section III of these comments, Sacramento County continues to approve disjunct greenfield projects remote from existing jobs, services, and infrastructure – i.e. “urban sprawl”.
2. UWSP Mitigation for Induced VMT is Based on Full Build-out.
The SEIR asserts that the UWSP will mitigate induced VMT through the benefits of mixed-use development – residents will reduce or eliminate car travel to and from required goods and services because such amenities will be locally available; commercial development will generate local employment opportunities; and there will be regular transit service to more distant locations with frequent headways and conveniently located bus stops.
However, such benefits are illusory because they are premised on unattainable full and timely project build-out.43,44
40 Karlamangla, S. What’s Your Neighborhood’s Climate Impact? New York Times. February. 6, 2023.
Online: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/06/us/california-neighborhood-climate-impact.html 41 Sacramento County. See quote at Section V.E.2 of these comments. 42 State of California. Senate Bill 375, Section 1. 2008. 43 SEIR, Table TR-1: Project Trip Generation, p. 18-29. Assumed number of homes is 9,356, the UWSP’s full build-out (SEIR, p. 18-29).
44 “…a GHG Reduction Plan …[will] document GHG emissions reduction for each future development project through project specific GHG reduction measures…to meet the total reduction … upon complete buildout of the proposed UWSP (SEIR p. 8-35, emphasis added). 350 Sacramento, October 28, 2024 Page
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22 3. Excess Entitlements will Delay or Preclude the Proposed Mitigation As discussed in Section III of these comments, Sacramento County’s past and planned approvals of far more development than the housing market can absorb will result in widely scattered, partially built-out projects.
The ‘Regional Retail” and local commercial development to which MM CC-1b assigns a major mitigation role will not occur in the timeframe envisioned, if ever. Since GHG- impacts are caused by emissions accumulating in the atmosphere over time, delayed mitigation isa no mitigation.
The normal lack of commercial development during the early phases of project development will be extended indefinitely, precluding the internal “trip capture” benefits of mixed-use development, and resulting in VMT and GHG emissions greater than modeled.
And the presumed transit service will not be in place until full build-out provides the requisite ridership.
4. Excess Entitlements as a Regional Problem
The Sacramento Area Council of Governments (SACOG) substantiates this concern, in connection with the region’s SB 375-mandated “2025 Sustainable Community Strategy/Metropolitan Traffic Plan” (SCS/MTP). SACOG is required to consider economic constraints (e.g., market demand) in formulating the SCS/MTP. Applying the growth projections and the traffic analysis model used to develop the SCS/MTP.
SACOG calculated VMT profiles for regional projects planned and under-construction, and concluded:
“… many… developing communities…show poor VMT and GHG performance because they are only being partially built out over the timeframe of the plan…[partly because] locally planned housing growth in developing communities greatly outnumbers SACOG’s regional housing demand projection for 2050; there is more than 400,000 units of developing community housing capacity compared to a total of 278,000 additional units anticipated between 2020 and 2050… This small amount of initial growth is usually insufficient to achieve the mix, density, and intensity of land uses … required to generate the lower VMT performance that many project-specific traffic analyses indicate will be possible at buildout” (emphasis added).45
Sacramento County projects analyzed by SACOG are shown below, with their projected percents of current regional per capita VMT through at least 2050 (the current SACOG planning period).
45 SACOG. Board of Directors Meeting, Agenda Item No. 15: Staff Report, 2025 Blueprint Discussion Scenario. April 18, 2024.
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23 Table 8: Sacramento County Project-Induced VMT
with Economically Constrained Build-Out
Sacramento County
Project
Projected Percent of
Regional VMT
Jackson West * 120-130
Jackson Township * 120-130
Glenborough * 120-130
Grand Park * 120-130
Vineyard Springs 110-120
North Vineyard Station 110-120
South Mather 110-120
Upper West Side * 100-120
Florin Vinyard 85-100
* Projects outside UPA
Due to incomplete build-out caused by the over-supply of entitled, competing developments, nearly all the projects would exceed current per capita VMT, which means they would increase total County GHGs in a greater proportion than the rate of population growth. This directly conflicts with the State’s goal to reduce total GHGs to net zero by 2045, notwithstanding population growth.
The UWSP compares favorably to most of the other projects, but is still substantially higher than the 85 percent below regional per capita VMT target established in the County’s General Plan,46 consistent with requirements pursuant to SB 743.
46 Sacramento County. General Plan, Circulation Element, Table CI-1, Significance Thresholds for CEQA Transportation Analysis for Development Projects.
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24 SECTON V. FEIR/GP CONFLICTS
A. FAILURE TO MITIGATE GHG EMISSIONS BY ADOPTING A CAP
1. Sacramento County Promised to Adopt a CAP
The County’s 2011 GPU FEIR committed to adopt a climate action plan (CAP) to mitigate climate change impacts of the GPU:
“Comprehensive plans to address climate change are being adopted by many jurisdictions, and they have come to be called Climate Action Plans.47 …As stated, mitigation…requires County adoption of the AB 32 goal as a General Plan policy, a Climate Action Plan, and development thresholds. In concert with state and federal activities, this mitigation is intended to offset the Project climate change impact, which has been determined to be significant”.48
The FEIR’s explicit GHG mitigation language is presented in Attachment 5.
As noted in Section I of these comments, almost none of the County’s climate change commitments, including adopting a CAP (“within one year)” have been fulfilled.
2. The Advantages of CAPs
The State encourages the use of CAPs for GHG mitigation.49,50 As noted in the FEIR, CAPs can be “comprehensive”. As programmatic plans subject to programmatic CEQA review, CAPs can offer better GHG-reduction than project-specific mitigation because they can,
a. Provide an occasion for a more exhaustive consideration of effects and alternatives than would be practical in an EIR on an individual action; b. Ensure consideration of cumulative impacts that might be slighted in a case-by-case analysis;
c. Avoid duplicative reconsideration of basic policy considerations; d Allow the lead agency to consider broad policy alternatives and program-wide mitigation measures at an early time when the agency has greater flexibility to deal with basic problems or cumulative impacts; and
e. Allow reduction in paperwork”.51
Properly done, CAPs can also provide co-benefits such as improved air quality, better health outcomes, energy efficiencies, better mobility options, and more equitable, livable communities.
47 Sacramento County. General Plan Update FEIR, p. 12-32. April 2010 48 Ibid, p. 12-38.
49 Californai Office of Planning and Research. General Plan Guidance, Chapter 8. Climate Change”.
Online: https://www.lci.ca.gov/docs/OPR_C8_final.pdf
50 California Air Resources Board. 2022 Scoping Plan, Appendix D, Local Actions, pp. 4, 7 ff. November 2022.
51 14 CCR § 15168(b)
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25 These environmental advantages of CAPs over project-specific environmental analysis and mitigation are what made the County’s deferred mitigation promise credible as preferable to the CEQA default of project-specific environmental review.
3. The County has Failed to Adopt a CAP
Section I of these comments reviews the County’s 13-year failure to honor it’s GPU climate commitments, including by failing to adopt a CAP. As a result, the County has since 2011 approved three large-scale development projects, two outside the UPA, totaling 12,287 new dwelling units (DU),] 52 subject to individual, project-specific environmental review – exactly as if the County had failed in 2011 to offer any climate mitigation at all. The approved projects outside the UPA growth boundary relied on the “new growth management policies which in Section II of these comments we assert are of unsubstantiated efficacy.
Consistent with its 2011 mitigation commitments, the County must adopt a CAP to provide comprehensive, programmatic CEQA review and mitigation of GHG emissions, including consideration of the potential cumulative impacts of the enormous amount of growth planned in the County outside the UPA.
B. FAILURE TO IMPLEMENT GP POLICIES PRIORITIZING INFILL
1. GPU Direction on Growth Location is Ambiguously Broad Sacramento County’s General Plan provides broad guidance regarding where County growth will occur, stating that new growth should be directed to, “…previously urbanized areas, planned growth areas and strategically located new growth areas…” (GP LU Element, Strategy I., Goal, p. 20). GP Policy LU-3, similarly directs, “It is the intent of the County to focus investment of public resources on revitalization efforts within existing communities, especially within commercial corridors, while also allowing planning and development to occur within strategic new growth areas”. (GP LU Element, p. 25, )
Problems associated with such overly-broad, conflicting direction are discussed below in section V.G of these comments)
2. The GP Prioritizes Infill over “New Growth”
While the GP directs growth broadly, including to “new growth areas”, it makes clear that infill, corridor revitalization, and buildout of already planned projects has priority:
“Near-term urban development will be accommodated through redevelopment and infill of vacant and underutilized parcels within existing urban communities and build- out of planned communities, because it is in these areas that urban infrastructure and services presently exist. New urban growth areas may also accommodate a portion of anticipated future growth” (GP LU Element, “Growth Accommodation”, p. 24, emphasis added).
“…a balance must be achieved so that reinvestment in existing communities is not overshadowed by planning and development activity in new growth areas. The County must ensure that resources are not prematurely shifted away from corridor
52 Mather South, 3,522 DU; Newbridge, 3,075 DU; Jackson Township, 5,690 DU. 350 Sacramento, October 28, 2024 Page
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26 revitalization efforts and buildout of planned communities” (GP LU Element, “Assumption-Based vs. Proactive Strategies”, p. 25, emphasis added).
Similarly, Policy LU-3 directs:
“It is the intent of the County to focus investment of public resources on revitalization efforts within existing communities, especially within commercial corridors, while also allowing planning and development to occur within strategic new growth areas” (GP LU Element, p. 25, emphasis added)
The GP’s “Urban Growth Accommodation Strategy” further states:
“It is the strategy of the County to accommodate as much residential, commercial and employment capacity as feasible within the existing urban area during the timeframe of the Plan” (GP LU Element, p. 26, emphasis added).
Other GP policies similarly direct the County to prioritize its resources to support infill development and commercial corridor redevelopment:
“Give the highest priority for public funding to projects that facilitate infill, reuse, redevelopment and rehabilitation, mixed-use development, and that will result in per person vehicle miles traveled lower than the County average” (GPU Land Use Element, LU-68 p. 71, emphasis added).
“Focus investment of County resources in commercial corridors to facilitate… infrastructure and public amenities to encourage and stimulate private investment” (GPU LU Element, LU-90, p.106, emphasis added).
3. Prioritizing is a Practical Necessity
The GP warns about “prematurely” directing staff to “new growth” because processing major sprawl applications is enormously time-consuming and could dominate County workload, to the detriment of infill, rehabilitating unban corridors, and completing already planned and approved projects:
“…buildout of infill parcels and planned communities [will occur] at existing zoned or planned densities… [and] will be done on a case by case basis… [so] will not often require significant additional County resources….
On the other hand, …new growth areas…will require significant investment of County resources, including both financial capital and numerous full-time staff… The County must ensure that resources are not prematurely shifted away from corridor revitalization efforts and buildout of planned communities to plan for development in the new growth areas” (GP LU Element, Assumption-Based vs.
Proactive Strategies, p. 25, emphasis added).
For example, staff involvement in the UWSP includes:
“County Accounting and Fiscal Services, County Counsel, Planning and Environmental Review, Transportation, Water Resources, Special Districts Section, Economic Development, Regional Parks, Libraries”, and other departments, “which 350 Sacramento, October 28, 2024 Page
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27 shall be useful to County in the review and processing of the [UWSP] Specific Plan”.53
Staff is required to extensively negotiate with applicants; develop, oversee, and/or review major planning documents, including 1,000-page environmental analyses and technical appendices; conduct numerous briefings, workshops, and hearings; catalog a voluminous administrative record over a multi-year planning period, and prepare multiple decision documents and entitlements; e.g., for the UWSP staff would be required to:
1. Amend the GP to expand the UPA and USB boundaries.
2. Amend the GP Land Use Diagram
3. Amend the GP Transportation Plan
4. Amend the Bicycle Master Plan
5. Amend GP text and policies to align policies with development in Natomas Joint Vision Area,
6. Amend the Zoning Ordinance
7. Ensure adequacy of and process adoption documents for an Urban Services Plan, Affordable Housing Strategy, Water Supply Master Plan, and Public Facilities Financing Plan Adopt a Water Supply Master Plan.
Further indication of work involved in processing “new growth” projects is outlined on County project websites.54 55.
4. The County has Improperly Prioritized New Growth
No GP policies direct that planning “new growth area” projects should have priority over infill, revitalizing urban corridors, and buildout of planned projects. To the contrary, the GP repeatedly warns against prematurely shifting resources to “new growth”, as cited above. GPU Land Use Element Strategy IV, “Built Environment Preservation and Enhancement” discusses infill and corridor revitalization extensively.
But focusing the County’s resources on new growth areas is exactly what the County has done.
The GP’s admonishments have been ignored. As noted in Section III of these comments, the County has in recent years approved three very large, staff-intensive, “new growth area” projects (two outside the UPA), and is currently planning three more outside the UPA, including the UWSP, for a total of 56,310 DU. These recently adopted and planned projects would together provide 86 years of growth capacity at the historical growth rate shown in Table 2 of these comments.
Meanwhile, as shown in Section III of these comments, numerous already-approved “planned communities” await buildout; and since at least 2011 the County’s 2008 infill program - which would have supported, “revitalization efforts within existing
53 Sacramento County. Funding Agreement for Upper Westside Master Plan Process, Paragraph K.
February 26, 2019.
54 Sacramento County. Website: Jackson Township Specific Plan. Online (but out of date):
https://planning.saccounty.gov/PlansandProjectsIn-
Progress/Pages/JacksonTownshipSpecificPlan.aspx
55 Sacramento County. Website: New Growth Areas and Master Plans. Online (but out of date):
https://planning.saccounty.gov/PlansandProjectsIn-Progress/Pages/New-Growth-Areas-and-Master- Plans.aspx
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28 communities” - has been moribund, and only recently re-activated with non-competitive State grant funds.56
The failure to follow the GP’s clear direction to prioritize infill has resulted in shifting growth away from more efficient infill development, with low or no GHG, air quality, and open space impacts, to high-impact sprawl, contrary to State plans as, as noted in Section IV.A and elsewhere in these comments.
C. FAILURE TO ENSURE LOGICAL PROJECT BOUNDARIES
1. The GP Requires Logical Boundaries
As reviewed in Section II.A of these comments, in 2011 the County adopted “new growth management policies” allowing project-specific expansion of the UPA, subject to specified conditions. The effectuating “new policies” are Policies LU-119 and LU-120.
Policy LU-119 states in part:
“The County shall only accept applications to expand the UPA…if the Board finds that the proposal meets the following:
… Logical, comprehensive, and cohesive planning boundaries: Proposed UPA expansions/Master Plan processes must consist of a contiguous set of parcels that have a regular outside boundary consistent with the logical planning boundary illustrations below…”.
LU-119 provides the following diagrams to illustrate “logical boundaries”:
2. The UWSP Boundary is Not Substantiated as “Logical”
56 Sacramento County. General plan of 2005-2030, 2023 Annual Report, p. 8.
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29 UWSP boundaries are show on the following diagrams:
The diagram on the left (UWSP SEIR, Plate PD-3, “UWSP Area”) displays an arbitrary, conceptual project boundary, evidently designed to comply with LU-119’s “logical, comprehensive, cohesive, contiguous” criteria.
The diagram on the right (UWS Specific Plan, Chapter 18, Figure.
Since over 80 percent of the claimed project boundary is in the ownership of non- participating owners, absent further substantiation it appears speculative, at best, to assume the proposed boundaries will be realized so as to satisfy the LU-119 criteria.
Absence of “Logical, comprehensive, and cohesive planning boundaries”, and an accurate notion of the actual project area, makes it impossible effectively plan for project features, including environmental impact mitigation.
D. FAILURE TO JUSTIFY USB BOUNDARY CHANGE
1. The Role of County Growth Boundaries
Sacramento County has adopted two growth boundaries, as described below:
“The UPA and USB are the backbone of Sacramento County’s urban planning philosophy. These growth boundaries are intended to protect the County’s natural resources from urban encroachment, as well as to limit costly sprawling development patterns…the USB is intended to be a permanent boundary” (GP LU Element, Strategy I: Logical Progression of Urban Development, p.19, emphasis added). “Intent: The Urban Service Boundary (USB)… indicates the ultimate boundary of the urban area in the unincorporated County… based upon jurisdictional, natural and environmental constraints to urban growth. It is intended to be a permanent growth boundary not subject to modification except under extraordinary circumstances… …The USB allows for the permanent preservation of agriculture and rangelands, critical habitat and natural resources…” (GP Land Use Element, Logical Progression of Urban Development, p. 20, emphasis added).
2. The SEIR Identifies No Justifying “Extraordinary Circumstances”
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30 The SEIR offers no justification for its required project-specific expansion of the USB (p. 14-18). It only:
a. Provides bland assertions, absent substantiation, that the UWSP would be consistent with GP policies (e.g., pp. 5-19, 5-20, 5-23, 14-21, 14-23, 16-13, 22-60, passim)
b. Incorrectly asserts that, “The Sacramento County 2030 General Plan includes a framework for considering requests to expand the USB and UPA and requires any expansion to meet a series of ‘smart growth’ performance criteria”. (p. 14-21). Such a framework exists only for the UPA, as reviewed in Section II.A of these comments. c. Notes that GP Policy LU-120 requires a statement of, “how the development will connect to other adjacent…development within the USB”. The question clearly is premised on the assumption that the development itself will be “within the USB”. In response, the SEIR simply ignores its need for an expansion of the existing USB (SEIR Table LU-2, “PC-1”,p. 14-24).
3. The Proposed Change Has Not been Subject to Environmental Review The GPU states,
“ Natomas Joint Vision Area. Subject to the preparation and certification of the appropriate environmental documentation, this development shall be accomplished...by an expansion of the USB…” (GPU LU Element, p. 15).
Neither the GPU FEIR nor the UWSP SEIR provides the requisite “appropriate environmental documentation”.
E. FAILURE TO IMPLEMENT THE COUNTY’S 2011 PHASE I CAP
1. Policy Role of the Phase 1 CAP
When the County updated its General Plan in 2011, it did not identify substantive mitigation measures to reduce GHG. Instead, it obligated itself to, among other things, adopt a “Community Climate Action Plan” within one year, which would present GHG- reduction measures.
To help justify its deferral of mitigation and, “rather than delaying County action”,57 the County adopted, concurrent with the General Plan, a “Phase I CAP, Strategy and Framework Document”,58 meant to be the “roadmap” for the promised phase 2 Community CAP, which would “flesh out” the Phase 1 strategy.59 In adopting the Phase 1 CAP, the Board affirmed its policy role as presenting,
57 Sacramento County, General Plan FEIR, Chapter 2, “Climate Change”, p. 12-33. April 2010., 2011. 58 Sacramento County, Phase1 Climate Action Plan Framework and Policy Document. October, 2011. Online:
https://planning.saccounty.gov/PlansandProjectsIn-
Progress/Documents/Climate%20Action%20Plan/CAP%20Strategy%20and%20Framework%20Docu ment.PDF)
59 Sacramento County. GPU FEIR, p. 12-32. November 2011. 350 Sacramento, October 28, 2024 Page
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31 “…overall strategies and goals… [to] augment and inform the Goals, Objectives, Policies and Implementation Measures of the 2030 General Plan”… [and provide] the foundation for the [Community] CAP components which follow”.60
2. Phase 1 CAP and VMT Reduction
The Strategy document recognizes infill and VMT reduction as critical to reducing GHG emissions within the unincorporated County, e.g.:
“Since transportation accounts for more greenhouse gas emissions than any other sector in the County, reducing transportation-related GHG emissions is critical … As the land use planning authority for the unincorporated county, Sacramento County determines land use patterns, which in turn affect transportation patterns and therefore associated GHG emissions.
As VMT is directly tied to how communities are planned and developed, reducing VMT will require changes to and coordination of land use and transportation policy and practice. Channeling new development to urban areas…can increase walking, bicycling, and transit use and reduce per capita transportation-related emissions …compact development and …smart transportation policies, can significantly reduce carbon emissions. For example, compact development clustered around transit lines can reduce VMT per capita from 20% to 40%. (Ewing, 2008 (Ph1-FSD, p. 33)” (Sacramento County, Strategy and Framework Document, p. 6).
3. County Failure to Implement Phase I CAP’s VMT-Reduction Focus As noted above, rather than, “Channeling new development to urban areas”, Sacramento County has since 2011 approved constriction of 12,287 new dwelling units (DU) in greenfield natural and working lands, and plans to approve 47,545 more such outside the UPA, including the present UWSP. Such sprawl development has far higher environmental impact than the “compact development clustered around transit lines” cited by the Phase 1 CAP, but subsequently ignored by the County in its development approvals.
F. FAILURE TO COMPLY WITH GPU REQUIREMENTS FOR ORDERLY, LOGICAL,
EFFICIENT LAND USE
1. The GPU Directs Orderly, Logical, and Efficient Land Use The GPU Land Use Element’s overarching policy goal is that land use should be orderly, logical, and efficient.
a Land Use Element Section II, “Land Use Strategies and Policies”, articulates the Land Use Element’s fundamental goal (emphases added to quotes in this sub- section):
“Goal: An orderly pattern of land use that concentrates urban development… is functionally linked with transit…and protects the County’s natural, environmental and agricultural resources”.
60 Sacramento County. Resolution of the Board of Supervisors of the County of Sacramento, State of California Adopting a Strategy and Framework Document. November 9, 2011. 350 Sacramento, October 28, 2024 Page
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32 The Section elaborates:
“Strategies for urban and rural development presented in this Element …have a common theme: efficient land and resource use. …achieved by …land use that concentrates development … to protect valuable agricultural and rangelands, conserve natural areas…, reduce travel distances, reduce air pollutant emissions, conserve energy, and enhance the efficiency of providing infrastructure . Efficient use of land requires reinvestment in existing communities… Efficiency is the central theme …” (GPU LU Element, p. 18, emphases added).
b. Strategy I: “Logical Progression of Urban Development”, identifies the County’s UPA and USB growth boundaries as the means to support “orderly”, “systematic” development through logical geographic progression.
“Objective: Reserve the land supply to amounts that can be systematically provided with urban services and confines the ultimate urban area within limits established by natural resources”. (;GPU LU Element, p. 20). “The UPA and USB are the backbone of Sacramento County’s urban planning philosophy. … intended to protect the County’s natural resources from urban encroachment, as well as to limit costly sprawling development …”. (GPU LU Element, p. 19)
Thae UPA and the USB are designed to promote maximum efficiency of land uses and protection of the County’s natural resources (GPU LU Element, p.20).
2. The UWSP Would Not Provide Orderly, Logical, Efficient Land Use a. The UWSP would not be “Orderly” because,
i. It does not “concentrate urban development” - on the contrary, it disperses development onto open space distant from the urban core, claiming to justify its location by pointing to nearby small-scale sprawl, in effect arguing that past land use mistakes would somehow justify or mitigate its vastly increased leapfrog impacts.
ii. It is not “functionally linked with transit” and likely never will be, as discussed in Sections III.B and IV.C of these comments.
iii. It does not “protect the County’s natural, environmental and agricultural resources.”; on the contrary it would diminish them.
iv. It would add to the cumulative dis-order resulting from the County’s numerous, scattered, approved projects, and the enormous superfluity of entitled DUs.
Future County land use - the timing, location, size, and intensity of future development - will be impossible to predict or plan for, because contingent on future un-knowable and un-coordinated market decisions by many individual home builders and investors, with a surfeit of entitled locations to choose from.
The UWSP, individually and in tandem with other planned sprawl projects, would exacerbate this antithesis of “orderly“ development.
b. The UWSP would not be “Logical”, because it would ignore the UPA and USB boundaries, which are clearly identified in Strategy I as the way the County will achieve the GPU’s primary land use goal: “an orderly pattern of land use”. 350 Sacramento, October 28, 2024 Page
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33 A fundamental failure of logic is that Sacramento County’s 2011 adoption of Policies LU-119 and LU-120 untethered County land use decisions from both real-world market constraints;61 and the logic of environmental resource protection as cited in the Land Use Element’s fundamental Goal, and in numerous other sections and policies of the Land Use Element and other GP elements. c. The UWSP would not be “Efficient”, because the County’s helter-skelter approvals, in disregard of the UPA and USB, confound rational long-term planning of infrastructure and protection of natural resources:
“Defining the Urban Policy Area is of key importance in the provision of urban services and infrastructure to the unincorporated County, as it provides the geographic basis for infrastructure master plans, particularly for public water and sewerage, which require large capital investment and relatively long lead time for the installation of capital improvements. …The UPA and the USB are designed to promote maximum efficiency of land uses and protection of the County’s natural resources…. These two growth boundaries work in tandem to manage and direct future development, as well as provide infrastructure and service providers with intermediate and ultimate growth boundaries to use to plan for future expansion” (GPU LU Element, p. 20, emphasis added). ”
G. THE PROBLEM OF THE GENERAL PLAN’S INCOHERENT GUIDANCE General Plans represent a jurisdiction’s efforts to balance many competing priorities, As such, total consistency across a plan’s many policies may not always be achieved.
Interpretation and reconciliation of inconsistencies is generally about policy issue best left to elected decision-makers most closely in touch with the temper of the community and intent of the plan.
At the same time, it is the purpose of a general plan to provide meaningful guidance to decision makers and the public on what the community values are, and to prevent arbitrary decisions. This the Sacramento County’s GPU fails to do. The reason is that, as cited elsewhere in these comments, after completion of the 2010 FEIR, Policies LU-119 and LU-120 were added to the GPU, imposing a land use approach at odds with the original draft text that was reviewed by the EIR. In support of those new laissez faire policies, references to “new growth areas” were liberally grafted onto the Land Use Element’s prior verbiage. But there was no attempt to reconcile the intrinsic conflicts with the pre-existing text, which was oriented to “manage and direct”, “orderly, logical, efficient” land use; with growth directed to infill of existing neighborhoods and build-out of approved projects within the UPA, and to protection of natural resources.
As a result, the Land Use element is replete with contradictory non-sequiturs defying sensible interpretation. The overall sense is that everything is possible, that there is
61 “[I]n 2011, the General Plan added policies…to allow applicants to request an expansion of the UPA anywhere within the USB, regardless of demand or existing capacity. The County’s intent was to let the market determine the need and location for new growth…”. (Sacramento County, General Plan 2022 Annual Report, See these comments, Attachment 3, Section E.4 for further reference)
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34 no conflict between throwing open the doors to sprawl (with accompanying land speculation) on one hand, and supporting the County’s other growth strategies on the other (infill and buildout of approved projects, as reviewed in Section III.B of these comments).
For example:
“This Element’s policies…direct future development …toward previously urbanized communities and strategically-located new growth areas to:
• …improve…existing communities. Plan …commercial corridor…and protection of natural resource…implementing more compact land use patterns …. • Infill vacant parcels and intensify development on underutilized lands improve… existing neighborhoods …relieve growth pressure on the urban fringe. • …reduce automobile dependence,…
• Stimulate reinvestment in targeted commercial corridors… • Direct growth toward previously urbanized areas and strategic new growth areas to reduce sprawling development, strengthen existing communities, relieve traffic congestion, improve air quality, preserve open space and natural resources, protect valuable agriculture and rangelands, and realize economies of scale for infrastructure and services. GPY Land Use Element, p. 2).
How directing growth to, “strategically-located new growth areas” (all of which are in greenfields outside the UPA) will accomplish any of the diametrically opposed stated objectives is unexplained. The term “strategic” is undefined. With a few crude inserts, the “smart growth” intent of the earlier wording was contradicted and scrambled.
The Land Use Element has numerous such passages, e.g., on pp. 2, 19, 20, 24, 25.
With some sense of reality, the Element cautions that the other growth strategies should be given priority; but as shown in Section V.B of these comments, that caution has been ignored.
Presented with this morass of ill-considered, conflicting guidance, all emanating from policies LU-119 and LU-120 - which as discussed in section II.A of these comments were neither reviewed or substantiated in the GPU FEIR - we believe the most reasonable course is to refer to the Element’s fundamental Goal, of orderly, logical, efficient land use, and its “backbone” Strategy I, respecting the UPA and USB.
The UWSP does not comply with either the Goal or the Strategy.
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35 Thank you for considering our comments. As always, our goal is to support the County in adopting feasible, effective, and enforceable local climate change mitigation, as an important contribution to help achieve climate stability.
Sincerely,
Oscar Balaguer, Chair
350 Sacramento CAP Team
cc: Liaisons, CCL, ECOS, Sierra Club, SCC
October 28, 2024
TO: [email protected]
FROM: Patrick Tully, President Garden Highway Community Association (GHCA) SUBJECT: Comments on the UWSP EIR
Issues Throughout the EIR
Falsehoods, Inaccuracies, Misrepresentations
EIR’s are intended, by law, to present the public and decision-makers with factual, evidence-based, unbiased information about current circumstances and a project’s potential impacts. The UWSP EIR throughout contains false, inaccurate, and misleading statements, raising questions about the truthfulness, completeness and accuracy of the entire EIR document. False statements must be deleted. Misleading statements must be clarified. The EIR does not meet legal requirements or serve the public or decisionmakers if it is not reliably thorough and accurate.
The project applicant does not have the necessary entitlements to proceed with the project. The UWSP EIR identifies changes the project applicant is seeking to the County’s 2030 General Plan policies, County zoning, to the Urban Services Boundary, and to the Urban Policy Area, among others. But throughout the EIR, the EIR makes false claims that the project does not conflict with County plans and policies. That is not true. If the UWSP project was already consistent with, and had no conflicts with County plans and policies, then the project would not be seeking amendments and other entitlements in order to be compliant.
Under Agricultural Resources, the EIR says, “the proposed UWSP would not conflict with existing agricultural use and zoning.” That is untrue. The project site is mostly zoned and used for agriculture and would be rezoned for urban uses, a violation of County policy. Under Land Use, the EIR says, “the proposed UWSP would not conflict with Sacramento County’s Land Use Plans.” That is inaccurate. There is a long list of County land use plans, policies and codes that the UWSP project seeks to change in order for the project to comply with and not to be in conflict with County policies.
Under Growth Inducement impacts, the EIR completely fails to address growth inducement impacts directly due to the project applicant’s requested changes to County plans, policies and codes.
The EIR is required by law to identify existing conditions and accurately state impacts from a proposed project. The current zoning for the project area is largely agricultural and has not yet changed. The EIR cannot legally assume a proposed project has entitlements it does not have, such as in the Agricultural Resources section where the EIR says, “Because the entitlements requested as components of the proposed UWSP would change the zoning to make it consistent with the proposal, the proposed UWSP would not conflict with zoning for agricultural use within the UWSP area.” That statement is grossly inaccurate, violates the legal requirements for an EIR, and it and any similar assumptions in the EIR that the project applicant has entitlements that the project applicant does not have and is seeking, should be removed.
Statements in the EIR must be deleted that say or suggest the UWSP project complies with or is consistent with County land use plans, policies and codes when in fact the UWSP does not currently comply with those County policies and when in fact the UWSP is seeking to change those County policy in order to comply.
Any statement that the project agrees in principle with or agrees with objectives in County plans and policies must be restated to make clear that the project does not in fact comply with County plans and policies, and changes would be needed to County plans, policies and codes for the project to comply and not conflict with County policies. 37 Mitigation is not Preservation
Throughout the EIR, the County’s preservation policies are inaccurately equated with mitigation. The County has policies to preserve habitat and farmland. To preserve means to keep as is, intact. If habitat and farmland that County policy seeks to preserve are lost to urbanization, then there is a significant impact that is not identified in the EIR.
Mitigations attempt to replace the loss somewhere else, but that is very different than keeping what exists intact. If the UWSP project is approved, an impact is that the farmland and habitat County policies sought to protect is lost forever.
Mitigation may lessen the impact of the environmental harm but does not change the fact that farmland and habitat is not preserved where it currently exists. If I accidentally destroyed a family heirloom you were preserving, I could mitigate the loss by paying you, but the loss would remain.
Impacts Not Identified
The County’s stated General Plan, Urban Services Boundary, and Urban Policy Area policies are intended to reduce urban sprawl and its impacts, preserve habitat and open space, and protect local farming. The UWSP project would have significant environmental impacts that conflict with those policies. These impacts should be and are not fully stated in the EIR.
Mitigations Outside Sacramento
The EIR fails to state that when mitigations occur outside Sacramento, Sacramento residents lose the benefits of those resources in their community.
Tables-Charts
The EIR is intended to be a public information document with clearly presented information. As recommended in CEQA guidelines, graphics help decisionmakers and the public rapidly understand the documents. The UWSP EIR would greatly benefit from more charts and tables where existing conditions and proposed changes are easier to see and compare, such as for commercial and retail square footage discussed under Urban Decay, in sections on agricultural acreage, housing units and elsewhere in the EIR where there are presentations of a lot of numbers that should be presented in tables for easy comparison.
Comments Specific to EIR Sections
Aesthetics
- The EIR notes that nighttime lighting from the UWSP project would have a permanent impact in the area. But the EIR fails to adequately address the harmful impacts of nighttime lighting on human health and on wildlife, including migratory birds using the Pacific Flyway.
- The EIR fails to identify possible nighttime lighting mitigations, such as establishing a minimum one-half mile setback between the UWSP project and any rural areas (i.e. Garden Highway), with the setback to include a minimum 100-foot-wide densely planted tree buffer of tall native evergreen trees at the western project boundary, with the setback established and the tree buffer installed before the first stage of project construction.
Agricultural Resources
- The proposed UWSP project site is currently primarily farmland classified as prime farmland, farmland of statewide importance, unique farmland, and farmland of local importance. The EIR fails to state clearly that the UWSP project violates County policies that say the County shall protect these types of farmlands located outside of the Urban Services Boundary from the urban encroachment represented by the UWSP project.
- The UWSP is requesting a General Plan amendment to rezone prime farmland for urban use. The EIR fails to state clearly that the UWSP request conflicts with existing County policy which says the County shall not accept applications for General Plan amendments outside the Urban Services Boundary redesignating valuable farmland for urban use.
- The EIR fails to adequately assess impacts from changes the UWSP is proposing to County policies regarding farmland preservation.
- The EIR says, “the proposed UWSP would not conflict with existing agricultural use and zoning.” That is not true and must be deleted. The UWSP would conflict with existing agricultural use and zoning, turning farmland to urban use.
- The EIR says, “Because the entitlements requested as components of the proposed UWSP would change the zoning to make it consistent with the proposal, the proposed UWSP would not conflict with zoning for agricultural use within the UWSP area.” That statement is inaccurate, violates the legal requirements for an EIR, and should be removed. The project does not have requested entitlements. Project impacts must be assessed based on existing conditions.
- The EIR fails to make clear that County policy is focused on farmland rather than on land zoned for agriculture. Land zoned for agriculture may or may not be used for farming. The EIR should more clearly present the current number of acres available for farming, the number acres of farmland the UWSP project would rezone to urban uses, the number of acres of land available for farming if the project is approved, and the number of acres of farmland (land available for farming) that would be lost if the project is approved.
- The UWSP EIR gives the inaccurate impression that 534 acres of the UWSP would remain as farmland. That is not correct. The EIR must make a clear distinction between the acreage of land that can be farmed if the project is approved, and the acreage of agriculturally zoned open space land (buffer) that will not be used for farming.
- The EIR fails to identify that land in the UWSP area that would remain available for farming will be long and narrow, just 700 feet wide in some areas, bisected in 4 places by heavily trafficked project roads, and within 30-50 feet of UWSP urban activity conflicts, which together could make the remaining farmland impractical for any commercial farming. If that happened, it would mean the project would wipe out 100% of the farmland in that area – farmland County policy seeks to preserve.
- If County zoning has setback requirements between farming and urban activity, those setbacks should be clearly identified in the EIR. If the County does not have such setback requirements, the EIR team should contact an appropriate government agency or reputable nonprofit organization that has studied what setbacks should occur between farming and urban activity in order to avoid urban conflicts, and the findings of that research should be included in the EIR next to the proposed setback. The proposed setback of 30-50 feet, basically the width of a rural roadway, seems wholly inadequate.
- In considering impacts, the EIR fails to make clear that farmland provides multiple community benefits such as health benefits associated with open space, wildlife habitat, fresh food produced locally, as a food resource when there are disruptions to the food distribution system such as happened during the pandemic, and as a flood protection area between the Sacramento River and the Sacramento community.
Air Quality
- The EIR asserts, with no evidence, that the majority of employment related vehicle trips, and the pollution they create, will be to downtown Sacramento. It is wrong for the EIR to present VMT data as fact when it is not based on evidence. Focusing so much on VMT to downtown Sacramento serves to minimize air pollution generation data.
The EIR should have considered VMT more realistically to multiple job centers. While downtown Sacramento is a job center, Sacramento County has more jobs than downtown, as noted in the EIR. Yolo County and Placer County are also job centers.
- The EIR fails to adequately address that project related air pollution and its resulting serious health impacts, as well as project construction dust, could be more severe on Garden Highway because of the prevailing wind that blows toward Garden Highway. Again, this impact could be partially mitigated by establishing a minimum one-half mile setback between the UWSP project and any rural areas (i.e. Garden Highway), with the setback to include a minimum 100-foot-wide densely planted tree buffer of tall native evergreen trees at the western project boundary, with the setback established and the tree buffer installed before the first stage of project construction.
- The EIR fails to adequately address that project related air pollution and its resulting serious health impacts would directly impact children in UWSP area schools.
Biological Resources
- Sacramento County’s 2030 General Plan and Urban Services Boundary explicitly state the purposes of the plans, in part, are to preserve habitat and open space. The UWSP project would violate those County goals. The EIR fails to state those violations clearly and fails to clearly and honestly identify impacts from the UWSP violation of those goals.
- Sacramento County policy says planning and development of new growth areas should be consistent with Sacramento County-adopted Habitat Conservation Plans and other efforts to preserve and protect natural resources.
The UWSP project would put urban activity in a habitat conservation corridor in violation of County policy. The UWSP is not currently consistent with the Natomas Basin Habitat Conservation Plan and the Metro Airpark Habitat Conservation Plan. The UWSP conflicts with habitat conservation plans and conflicts with County policy are not clearly identified in the EIR and should be explicitly stated.
- The EIR fails to discuss the UWSP project impacts to the Sacramento River riparian area by putting urban development so close to the Sacramento River and its unique biological resources, habitat, and provision of a habitat corridor.
- Sacramento County policy is to actively plan to protect, as open space, areas of natural resource value, which may include but are not limited to wetlands preserves, riparian corridors, woodlands, and floodplains associated with riparian drainages. The EIR fails to point out that the UWSP project area is in the Sacramento River corridor, less than 1,000 feet from the Sacramento River. The EIR says, “No wetlands preserves, riparian corridors or floodplains associated with riparian drainages are present in the UWSP area so none will be affected by the project’s development.” That is incorrect. The farmland soils, wildlife and other biological resources present within the UWSP area are associated with proximity to the river and are part of the Sacramento River corridor.
- The UWSP EIR falsely equates the County’s stated goals of habitat preservation with habitat mitigation. The EIR says the project’s approach for habitat and biological resources present within the UWSP area is to provide compensatory mitigation. Mitigation is very different from the County’s goal of preservation. Preservation means to keep as is, in place. Mitigation means to make a significant impact, such as loss of habitat, less severe. Making an environmental impact less severe still means there is an impact. The EIR should make clear the distinction between preservation and mitigation. The EIR should also make clear that even with compensatory mitigation, the UWSP project would still have a significant negative impact on existing area habitat and wildlife, and that loss would be permanent.
Hydrology and Water Quality
- Sacramento County policy is to actively plan to protect, as open space, areas of natural resource value, which may include but are not limited to riparian corridors and floodplains associated with riparian drainages. The EIR fails to point out that the UWSP project area is in the Sacramento River corridor, less than 1,000 feet from the Sacramento River. The EIR says, “No wetlands preserves, riparian corridors or floodplains associated with riparian drainages are present in the UWSP area so none will be affected by the project’s development.” That is incorrect. Farmland soils, wildlife and other biological resources, and tribal cultural resources present within the UWSP area are associated with proximity to the river and are part of the Sacramento River corridor. The EIR fails to provide this information.
- The EIR fails to identify that the proposed UWSP would put new urban development in the Sacramento River floodplain. In addition to exposing new populations to flooding, the impervious surfaces associated with urbanization increase flood risk beyond the project area. While the new Natomas levee is expected to provide 200-year flood protection from the Sacramento River, climate change increases the chance of extreme flooding. Recent flooding in Ashville, North Carolina is proof of that. Around the United States, communities are starting to reserve land near waterways to use as open space for flood protection. Current open space and farmland in the UWSP project area provides an additional level of community flood protection. The EIR fails to indicate that the proposed UWSP project would eliminate this community flood protection.
Land Use
Violations of County Plans and Policies
- Sacramento County’s 2030 General Plan was intended to promote the efficient use of land, encourage economic vitality and reduce urban sprawl and its impacts, preserve habitat and open space, and protect local farming. The Urban Services Boundary was intended to implement that vision and promote orderly growth within the County. The EIR fails to state that the UWSP project violates the County’s 2030 General Plan, County zoning, the Urban Services Boundary, the Urban Policy Area, and SACOG’s Blueprint for regional development. The EIR fails to clearly and honestly identify impacts from the UWSP violation of those goals and fails to identify impacts from proposed changes to County policies.
- The EIR falsely says, “the proposed UWSP would not conflict with Sacramento County’s Land Use Plans.” That is not true. The UWSP violates the County’s General Plan land use policies, as well as the Urban Services Boundary, the Urban Policy Area, and zoning policies. False statements do not belong in the EIR and should be removed.
- County policy says planning and development of new growth areas should be consistent with Sacramento County- adopted Habitat Conservation Plans and other plans and policies to preserve and protect natural resources within an existing community. The EIR then falsely says the UWSP proposes development that would be consistent with the County’s growth management policies. The UWSP project violates current County General Plan, Urban Services Boundary and Urban Policy Area growth management policies. False statements must be removed from the EIR.
USB Violation
- The UWSP EIR does not present or discuss that Sacramento County has an Urban Services Boundary policy that says the County shall not expand the Urban Service Boundary unless there is inadequate vacant land within the USB to accommodate the projected 25-year demand for urban uses…” The EIR does not state clearly under Land Use that there is adequate vacancy inside the Urban Services Bounday for the number of housing units and commercial space the project proposes.
- The EIR offers no rationale for the County approving urban development outside the Urban Services Boundary.
- One of the goals of the Urban Services Boundary was to encourage infill development. Infill development advantages residents inside the new development and infill development adds vitality and benefits to the nearby community, maximizes the cost-efficiency of urban services such as transit, and reduces environmental impacts associated with urban sprawl. The EIR fails to discuss ways in which allowing development outside the Urban Services Boundary discourages infill development and disadvantages communities inside the Urban Services Boundary.
River Corridor Conflicts
New Urban-Rural Land Use Conflicts
- Other than changing the aesthetics and rural character of the area, the EIR fails to address impacts from putting urban development within 700 feet of rural residential zoning, changing the expectations for area rural residents choosing to live in a rural residential zone (this is true for Garden Highway rural residential homeowners and homeowners on UWSP area farmland).
-The EIR should and does not identify feasible mitigations that might reduce urban-rural conflicts for a project like UWSP near rural residential areas like Garden Highway, such as requiring that the 20–30-year UWSP project construction begin closest to existing urban uses (i.e. near El Centro road), reaching rural areas last (i.e. Garden Highway), and this impact could be partially mitigated by establishing a minimum one-half mile setback between the UWSP project and any rural residential areas (i.e. Garden Highway), with the setback to include a minimum 100-foot- wide densely planted tree buffer of tall native evergreen trees at the western project boundary, with the setback established and the tree buffer installed before the first stage of project construction.
- If County zoning has setback requirements between rural residential zoning and urban activity, those setbacks should be clearly identified in the EIR. If the County does not have such setback requirements, the EIR team should contact an appropriate government agency or reputable nonprofit organization that has studied what setbacks should occur between rural residential zoning and urban activity in order to avoid conflicts, and the findings of that research should be included in the EIR next to the proposed setbacks.
Noise
- The EIR fails to adequately address the impacts from a proposed stadium, which would be close to residences in and all around the UWSP project area, including Garden Highway. Stadium traffic, noise, and light do not belong in or near residential areas. Stadium noise can travel miles. County and City Code Enforcement offices and Sacramento stadium operators can confirm stadium conflicts with residential areas. Any stadium should be miles from any homes.
- The EIR fails to adequately address the impacts from amplified sound from the UWSP area, such as at the outdoor pavilion. Amplified sound should be prohibited in all residential areas. In the past, developers and the County have said that amplified sound can be regulated to minimize impacts. That has proven to be untrue. Over time, sound equipment and the location of speakers can change and noise makers like bull horns and portable sound systems can be introduced, resulting in uncontrolled noise that can travel more than 2 miles.
- The EIR fails to identify the health impacts of traffic noise, school and park noise, and amplified noise from the outdoor pavilion and stadium.
- The EIR fails to adequately address that project related noise, as well as project construction noise, could be serious impacts on Garden Highway residents because of the prevailing wind that carries sound toward Garden Highway.
Population and Housing
- The EIR should, and does not make clear that the UWSP has no commitment to a specific number or percentage of the type of housing Sacramento needs, including very affordable, affordable, missing middle duplexes and triplexes, senior housing and handicapped housing all located near transit.
- The EIR should and does not make clear that the UWSP has no commitment to including affordable housing as part of each housing development, so affordable housing is integrated in each phase of development, and not targeted for one area of the project, or built in the last phase of development in 20-30 years.
- The EIR should and does not make clear that the UWSP is unlikely to result in the development of any housing for at least 7 years (the projected time for construction of Phase 1). This project will not help with Sacramento’s urgent housing needs.
Public Services and Recreation
- The EIR fails to mention that County policy says the County shall not provide urban services beyond the Urban Policy Area (UPA), because it is the intent of the County to focus investment of public resources on revitalization efforts within existing communities. The EIR fails to mention that the UWSP project violates this policy, and the EIR fails to identify impacts from the UWSP’s violation of this policy.
- The EIR fails to indicate that the extension of public services to the project area is unanticipated and unplanned.
- The EIR fails to say the UWSP has no control over when some of the services and recreation areas would be available in the project area, which would, at least, increase vehicle trips to access services in other areas.
- The EIR fails to identify harms caused by the unplanned extension of public infrastructure and services to accommodate the UWSP outside the Urban Services Boundary and the Urban Policy Area, particularly the harms to the County’s efforts to focus investment of public resources on revitalization efforts within existing communities.
Transportation
- The project EIR says traffic safety is a key consideration. However, the EIR fails to adequately address the severe and dangerous impacts UWSP traffic would have on the Garden Highway roadway and existing Garden Highway roadway users. The EIR suggests the project could add 4,000 trips a day on Garden Highway. Garden Highway is a rural 2-lane, undivided, elevated roadway. Garden Highway is half the width it should be for traffic safety. It has blind curves, no shoulders and no guard rails. The greatest safety issue on Garden Highway, which the EIR fails to identify, is the mixed use of the road by personal vehicles, semitrucks, agricultural equipment, cars pulling boats, golf carts, individual and groups of cyclists, pedestrians, and wildlife, any of which can enter the roadway unexpectedly from farm roads, driveways, and the riverbank. Adding traffic to Garden Highway has life safety consequences which cannot be mitigated.
- The EIR fails to identify that a mitigation to serious Garden Highway traffic and other rural road safety impacts identified in the EIR is to reroute UWSP traffic to avoid and actively discourage UWSP traffic from using rural roads including Garden Highway.
- The EIR fails to identify that adding traffic to Garden Highway would change the physical safety characteristics and make recreational use of Garden Highway too dangerous for cyclists and for vehicle clubs such as antique car clubs and motorcycle groups, eliminating a valuable Sacramento recreational opportunity.
- The EIR fails to highlight that the UWSP would introduce freeway and rural roadway traffic hazards for Sacramentans for which the project applicant has no ability to compel or control mitigations. That could subject Sacramento roadway and freeway users to increased traffic safety hazards, potentially for many years.
- The EIR asserts, with no evidence, that most employment related vehicle trips will be to downtown Sacramento. It is wrong for the EIR to present VMT data as fact when it is not based on evidence. Focusing so much on VMT to downtown Sacramento serves to minimize VMT. The EIR should have considered VMT more realistically to multiple job centers. While downtown Sacramento is a job center, Sacramento County has more jobs than downtown, as noted in the EIR. Yolo County and Placer County are also job centers.
- The EIR fails to consider traffic impacts on the surrounding area from the UWSP stadium, outdoor pavilion, or schools.
- The EIR fails to suggest traffic mitigations such as locating UWSP traffic generating uses (e.g. stadium, outdoor pavilion or schools) near major roadways and commercial uses to reduce traffic dangers, congestion, noise and air pollution in residential areas.
- The EIR fails to mention that County policy says the County shall not provide urban services, such as road improvements and transit, beyond the Urban Policy Area (UPA), because it is the intent of the County to focus investment of public resources on revitalization efforts within existing communities. The EIR fails to present the impacts from the UWSP violation of this policy and the impacts from the changes to this policy proposed by the project applicant.
- The EIR fails to identify impacts caused by the unplanned extension of public infrastructure and services, such as transit and roadway improvements, to accommodate the UWSP outside the Urban Services Boundary and the Urban Policy Area, particularly the harms to the County’s efforts to focus investment of public resources on revitalization efforts within existing communities.
Tribal Cultural Resources
- While the UWSP would have a holistic impact on the tribal cultural landscape, the EIR fails to identify priority sites for tribal resource protection within the UWSP area.
Utilities
- The EIR fails to state that the UWSP violates the County’s Urban Services Boundary policy which says that the County shall maintain an Urban Services Boundary (USB) that defines the long-range plans (beyond twenty-five years) for urbanization and extension of public infrastructure and services. The EIR fails to identify impacts associated with this violation and UWSP impacts associated with proposed changes to the County’s Urban Services Boundary policy.
- The EIR fails to mention that County policy says the County shall not provide urban services beyond the Urban Policy Area (UPA), because it is the intent of the County to focus investment of public resources on revitalization efforts within existing communities. The EIR fails to identify UWSP impacts associated with this violation and impacts associated with proposed changes to the County’s Urban Policy Area policy.
- The EIR fails to identify harms caused by the unplanned extension of public infrastructure and services, such as utility services, to accommodate the UWSP outside the Urban Services Boundary and the Urban Policy Area, particularly the harms to the County’s efforts to focus investment of public resources on revitalization within existing communities.
Other Resource Topics- Wildfire
- The EIR says the UWSP is outside an area where CalFire establishes fire hazard zones. Then the EIR makes the misleading statement that the project area is not in a fire hazard zone. It is wrong to say, and dishonest to leave the impression that the area has been assessed for fire hazard when it has not been assessed by CalFire or any other fire agency. The EIR should delete incorrect and misleading information and just say the area has not been assessed for wildfire risk and the wildfire risk is unknown.
- The EIR is also incorrect about area conditions that could contribute to a wildfire hazard. There is heavy wooded growth adjacent to the river, less than 1,000 feet from the project area, from Sacramento up into rural wildfire hazard areas in Butte County. There are also at different times of the year dried crops and hay bales on farmland on both the Yolo and Sacramento sides of the Sacramento river that could and have caught fire (hay bales can be seen in EIR photos). A wind driven fire could easily jump the river as it has jumped freeways. The 2017 Tubbs fire burned into the City of Santa Rosa where more than a dozen people lost their lives and more than 2500 homes and one Hilton Hotel were destroyed. Wildfire could happen in the project area.
Cumulative Impacts
- The UWSP projects a 20–30-year buildout. The EIR fails to address ongoing impacts from construction noise, dust, traffic, etc. on area residents over an extensive period of time during which time mitigations the project applicant does not control may not be available to diminish impacts on existing area residents and new project area residents.
Growth Inducement and Urban Decay
- The EIR fails to accurately identify the UWSP project as unplanned urban development. The UWSP is unplanned – not included or anticipated in the County’s General Plan, or the Urban Services Boundary, or the SACOG Blueprint for regional development or plans for transit, regional roadway improvements, utility services extensions, or air quality improvement.
- In violation of CEQA, the EIR entirely fails to include in this section the long list of changes the UWSP project would require to County plans, policies, codes, etc., and the growth inducement impacts of changing those County plans and policies and codes.
- Sacramento County’s 2030 General Plan and the County’s Urban Services Boundary (USB) explicitly state that one of their purposes is to reduce unplanned urban development and its impacts outside the Urban Services Boundary. The EIR fails to clearly state that the UWSP violates the County’s policies to prevent urban sprawl.
- The EIR fails to clearly identify all growth inducement impacts from the UWSP’s development outside the County’s Urban Services Boundary.
- The EIR falsely says, “the proposed UWSP is consistent with Sacramento County General Plan Policy LU- 120, which is intended to reduce impacts of many different types – such as growth inducement, unacceptable operating conditions on roadways, poor air quality, and lack of appropriate infrastructure.” As stated in the EIR, the UWSP creates unacceptable operating conditions on roadways, poor air quality, currently lacks appropriate infrastructure, and in most cases the project applicant cannot compel, and does not control possible mitigations. False statements should be removed from the EIR.
- The EIR falsely claims the pressure for future development in the area would be reduced because of the need to show consistency with the County General Plan and to receive approval from the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors. Those impediments are not enough to stop the UWSP project applicant. Why would they stop other project applicants? The EIR does not say, and should say, that if the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors approves the project, other similar urban development projects may also be approved using the same criteria.
300 Richards Blvd., 3rd Floor
Sacramento, CA 95811
Help Line: 916-264-5011
CityofSacramento.org/cdd
Oc
tober 28, 2024
Lette
r submitted via e-mail at: [email protected].
Sacramento County,
Department of Community Development, Planning and Environmental Review Division Attention: Environmental Coordinator
827 7th Street, Room 225
Sacramento, CA 95814
Sub
ject: COMMENTS ON THE DRAFT ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT REPORT FOR THE UPPER WESTSIDE SPECIFIC PLAN (PLNP2018-00284).
De
ar Environmental Coordinator,
On A
ugust 30, 2024, Sacramento County released the Draft Environmental Impact Report (DEIR) for the Upper Westside Specific Plan (UWSP). The proposed UWSP would include development of approximately 1,532± acres within a 2,066 acres project area located north and west of Interstate 80 and north and east of Garden Highway. The proposal includes the addition of 9,356 dwelling units (25,460 population) and 3,106,700± square feet of commercial uses into the unincorporated Natomas area bounded by the City of Sacramento. The project plan includes development consisting of residential, neighborhood mixed-use, neighborhood commercial, community mixed- use, office mixed-use and health & hospitality mixed-use. The plan includes three K-8 school sites, one high school site, several parks, and a 10.0± acre urban farm site on property owned by the Los Rios Community College District that is envisioned to be part of a 16.0± acre vocational training campus.
The
proposed UWSP borders the City of Sacramento on three sides. This area is located within the City’s American River Place of Use (POU) for water rights and the Natomas Basin Habitat Conservation Plan (NBHCP). The Sacramento unincorporated area of Natomas Basin is designated as an Area of Concern and a Study Area per the City’s 2040 General Plan. The UWSP is located in an area that is also known as the “Boot” per the Natomas Joint Vision Plan that was a joint planning effort undertaken years ago with a group of landowners, Sacramento County and the City of Sacramento. 38 2
The magnitude of the project is significant in that the proposal consists of the development of 1,532 acres of the 2,066 acres of rural agricultural lands. This area along with other open space lands located in Natomas Basin has been mostly undeveloped primarily because the City of Sacramento has been committed to the implementation of the Natomas Basin Habitat Conservation Plan (NBHCP) for over 25 years while prioritizing infill development.
The DEIR comments presented in this letter address multiple topical areas. The following provides a brief listing of significant comment topic points that are later detailed further in this letter along with additional comments:
• Prior NOP Comments Not Addressed – City staff submitted comments in response to the Notice of Preparation (NOP) for the UWSP . These comments provided input on the scope of the EIR as requested by the County. However, the UWSP DEIR analysis does not properly address the issues raised in our NOP comment letter dated November 20, 2020. This letter documents the areas that are deficient in the DEIR.
• NBHCP Conflict & Viability – The UWSP is in direct conflict with the conservation strategy of the adopted NBHCP and Incidental Take Permits (ITPs) issued by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) to the City of Sacramento. Specifically, the ITPs limit urban development in the “Basin” to 17,500 acres which is the total combined authorized development of the City of Sacramento, Sutter County and Metro Air Park. The limitation of 17,500 acres pertains to the “Basin” for the approved conservation strategy to be successfully completed. If Sacramento County approves any urbanization beyond the 17,500 acres authorized by the wildlife resources agencies doing so would be in direct violation of the existing ITPs that the wildlife resource agencies enforce. Sacramento County may recall being asked on to join the City of Sacramento and Sutter County to participate in the NBHCP (see Attachment A letter dated 11/28/2000). If Sacramento County is considering allowing further urbanization of the Basin that was not contemplated by the NBHCP how will the County provide assurances to the NBHCP signatory parties that the conservation strategy can still be successfully completed especially without the County’s HCP participation?
The following provides a partial listing of the issues that City staff has determined conflict with the NBHCP:
o Proposed UWSP directly impacts the protected one-mile Swainson’s Hawk buffer zone approved by the wildlife resource agencies.
o Proposed UWSP would allow development of 1,532 acres of land that currently is rural agricultural lands beneficial to the NHBCP and that could potentially be acquired in the future for habitat lands.
3 o Proposed UWSP would decrease the remaining open space lands in Natomas Basin which directly impacts the viability of the NBHCP by jeopardizing the successful completion of the NBHCP and placing urbanization near protected areas such as Fisherman’s Lake and existing Conservancy owned HCP mitigation lands.
o Future development of 1,532 acres of UWSP would place a greater burden on the existing planned growth authorized by the NBHCP which in turn will most likely cause HCP fee payers increased HCP fee rates and the inability to secure mitigation lands that meet all of the rigorous HCP mitigation land criteria.
o An Amendment to the NBHCP and obligations of the issued ITPs would be needed for any development to occur within the one-mile SWHZ and an in-depth effects analysis in relation to the existing adopted NBHCP conservation strategy including future viability to meet all requirements of the NBHCP considering the loss of 1,532 acres due to UWSP and cumulative impacts associated with the proposed Grandpark Specific Plan (approximately 5,400 acres) in process with the County. The County is essentially considering allowing roughly 7,000 acres of land located in the unincorporated Sacramento County portion of the Natomas Basin to be removed from benefiting and contribution to the completion of the NBHCP conservation strategy.
o Biological – the Draft EIR concludes that with mitigation the UWSP biological impacts can be mitigated to a less than significant level. City staff disagrees with this conclusion.
• NBHCP Participation – If the County intends to allow urbanization beyond its Urban Services Boundary (USB) and Urban Policy Boundary (UPB) why would the County not join the NBHCP as the City of Sacramento and Sutter County have done? Sacramento County may recall being asked to participate in the NBHCP (see Attachment A letter dated 11/28/2000). If Sacramento County is considering allowing further urbanization of the Basin that was not contemplated by the NBHCP how will the County provide assurances to the NBHCP signatory parties that the conservation strategy can still be successfully completed especially without the County’s HCP participation? This has been an issue and concern expressed for over 25 years and to date has not been resolved.
• Water – During the County’s preparation of the Draft EIR, the City in compliance with State law provided a water supply assessment as requested by the County.
The water supply assessment is not an agreement nor commitment by the City to provide water for the future development of UWSP . The City has not entered into any agreement to provide water for the UWSP development. The Draft EIR incorrectly assumes and seems to have pre-determined that the City would provide water to UWSP per an agreement to do so with Sacramento County
4 Water Agency (SCWA). Page 2-24 of Section 2 Project Description of the UWSP Draft EIR states the following:
“WATER
The City of Sacramento through an agreement with the SCWA would provide water service to land uses allowed under the proposed UWSP. The City of Sacramento obtains most of its water supply from surface water in the American and Sacramento rivers, while groundwater obtained from the North American and South American subbasins of the Sacramento Valley Groundwater Basin provides the remainder.
As discussed above, the proposed UWSP would require SCWA annexation.
Water supply would be delivered to the UWSP area through the City’s water treatment and distribution system, which consists of two water treatment plants, eight pump stations, many storage reservoirs, 28 municipal wells, thousands of hydrants, and nearly 1,800 miles of pipeline.”
The DEIR conflicts with the City’s 2040 General Plan policy that pertains to provisions of City services to new development in unincorporated areas. The specific policy is presented below:
“LUP-1.4 City Services Prior to Annexation. Prior to the provisions of City services to new development in unincorporated areas, the City shall require that the unincorporated properties be annexed into the City.
Alternatively, the City may provide utility service to properties in advance of annexation only if the annexation process has been initiated and the landowner and City have executed a conditional agreement for services that stipulates minimum standards for the development of roads and urban infrastructure and criteria and conditions for annexation into the City.”
The Draft EIR page 14-29 lists future Service District Annexation requests to the Sacramento Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCo). City staff opposes any filing of Service District Annexation requests including for example the listed annexation to Sacramento County Water Agency (SCWA) until to the satisfaction of the City of Sacramento pending concerns and issues are resolved such as water supply/service, Natomas Basin Habitat Conservation Plan conflicts, and provision of public services such as police and fire protection.
• Transportation – The UWSP has significant implications to the transportation network and facilities located with the City of Sacramento in addition to the nearby freeways and Garden Highway. These concerns are documented in further detail in this letter.
5 • Public Services – The Draft EIR does not adequately address the impacts of the UWSP on existing public services (police, fire, parks) nor details how these services would be provided considering the lack of current County services in the area due to the existing rural nature and that the UWSP is geographically removed from proximity to nearby County services.
ADDITIONAL DETAILED COMMENTS:
The City's comments below respond specifically to the information presented and analysis provided in the DEIR. The Planning Division of the Community Development Department presents the comments below as a single letter representing multiple City departments.
Memorandum of Understanding between City & County
On December 10, 2002, the City & County entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) (City Resolution 2002-830 and County Resolution 2002-1566) regarding Principles of Land Use and Revenue Sharing for the Natomas Area. The MOU (Attachment B) specifically calls for any future urbanization efforts in the Natomas Joint Vision Area (NJVA) to be processed through the City, with the County remaining a steward of agricultural lands and open spaces.
The DEIR inadequately addresses the implications of this MOU, particularly the agreement that future urbanization efforts in the NJVA would be processed through the City, with the County remaining a steward of agricultural lands and open spaces.
Furthermore, the EIR does not acknowledge or analyze the City's intent to designate the Natomas Basin Study Area, which includes the project area, as an Area of Concern. The City's General Plan policy LUP-A.1 explicitly states the City's near-term goal (2024-2029) to work with LAFCo on this designation, which would give the City "greater influence on land use decisions and other governmental actions" in the area.
City staff does not support the proposed County General Plan Amendment for text amendments to align County policies in various General Plan Elements regarding development in the Natomas Joint Vision Area. There has been no coordination with City staff regarding proposed text amendments to the County’s General Plan that are relative to potential future development in the Natomas Joint Vision Area. Since this specifically pertains to potential development in Natomas Basin which the City has designated as an Area of Concern per the City’s 2040 General Plan and located within our designated Natomas Basin Study Area it would seem that the County would provide some coordination with the City prior to moving forward with changes that pertain to a subject that has been of interest to the City for more than 25 years.
6 Economic Impacts
Our concerns about the concentration of commercial development along the westerly extension of El Camino Avenue remain unaddressed. The DEIR does not sufficiently analyze the potential regional nature of this retail development and its implications for traffic patterns and associated environmental impacts. It fails to address the potential secondary physical and economic impacts within the City that may result from locating retail, hospitality, and other commercial uses adjacent to the City boundary.
The 2002 City/County MOU recognized mutual economic interests in the future of NJVA and outlined a revenue sharing framework. The DEIR does not address how the UWSP aligns with or impacts this framework. There is insufficient discussion of how the County plans to address these economic issues, especially considering the entitlements being sought by project proponents.
Growth Inducement
While the DEIR addresses some concerns raised in our NOP comment, particularly regarding the extension of urban infrastructure and potential growth-inducing effects, certain aspects of our request for analysis have not been adequately addressed, especially as they pertain to impacts on the City of Sacramento.
The DEIR acknowledges that the project would eliminate obstacles to growth by extending the Urban Services Boundary and Urban Policy Area. However, it does not sufficiently analyze the project's consistency with long-range plans, particularly its inclusion or absence from the Region's Sustainable Communities Strategy. This omission is significant, as it relates directly to the broader regional planning context and potential cumulative impacts on the City of Sacramento.
Furthermore, the DEIR lacks a comprehensive analysis of the project's growth-inducing effects on the City of Sacramento. While it mentions consistency with Sacramento County General Plan Policy LU-120, it fails to provide a detailed, quantitative examination of how the project's infrastructure extensions might stimulate additional development within our City limits. This analysis should include estimates of the scale, type, and timing of potential new development, as well as a thorough assessment of the resulting environmental impacts. The DEIR's current list of general impact categories is insufficient without a location-specific analysis of how these effects would manifest within Sacramento.
We request that these areas of analysis be expanded to fully address the growth- inducing impacts of the proposed project on the City of Sacramento, as originally outlined and requested in our NOP comment.
7 Habitat Conservation Plan
Hydrological connectivity
Our NOP comment requested an analysis of hydrological connectivity to existing preserves in Natomas Basin. The DEIR states that the UWSP "is not expected to significantly affect the connectivity of aquatic habitat for giant garter snake" and "would not affect the delivery of water to existing reserves." However, this brief statement lacks the detailed analysis we sought. We request a more thorough examination of potential impacts on existing preserves, particularly the adjacent Cummings Reserve.
Effects on land inventory and mitigation prices
We specifically asked for an analysis of the effects of reducing land available for mitigation while increasing demand, potentially driving up mitigation prices for existing permit holders. The DEIR does not directly address this issue. While it states that mitigation lands "would not unnecessarily directly compete with TNBC for habitat mitigation opportunities," this assertion lacks supporting evidence. We request a detailed analysis of how the UWSP might affect land availability and mitigation costs for existing NBHCP and Metro Air Park (MAP) HCP parties.
Land availability for HCP parties
We asked how and where HCP parties with authorized development would find land for mitigation given the cumulative impacts of proposed developments in the Natomas Basin Area. The DEIR's treatment of this issue is insufficient, stating only that mitigation measures BR-3 & BR-7b are "not expected to interfere with the ability of TNBC to satisfy its mitigation responsibilities." We request a more comprehensive analysis of cumulative impacts on mitigation land availability. Based on our direct experience implementing the NBHCP for over 25 years, we question if there is enough suitable land that would remain available to The Natomas Basin Conservancy to mitigate the already approved authorized development of 17,500 acres granted to the City, Sutter County and Metro Air Park if Sacramento County allows the UWSP and Grandpark Specific Plan projects to be approved. We request that Sacramento County evaluate the HCP mitigation land criteria requirements, total mitigation including size of habitat reserves that are required for completion of the HCP conservation strategy. The UWSP DEIR focuses on the impacts and mitigation of the UWSP project itself but does not address the existing HCP acreage requirements that must be completed in the Basin.
Prior to conducting any public hearings for potential action on the UWSP by the County Planning Commission and Board of Supervisors, we request Sacramento County provide the NBHCP signatory parties (City of Sacramento, Sutter County, FWS and CDFW) a
8 detailed accounting and graphics demonstrating of how HCP total acreage requirements could be accomplished with the potential approval and implementation of the UWSP and Grandpark Specific Plan projects. This information and data should also be included as part of the proposed Final EIR when it becomes available.
Consistency with NBHCP Conservation Strategies
We request further clarification on the adequacy of the proposed 250-foot open space buffer between planned development and the Cummings Reserve, compared to the NBHCP's 800-foot setback requirement. The DEIR notes that exceptions to the 800-foot setback have been made in the past. While this explanation is helpful, we request further analysis on whether this 250-foot buffer is sufficient to protect the Cummings Reserve from potential edge effects of urban development.
We urge the County to provide a more robust analysis of these issues in the Final EIR to ensure the UWSP does not compromise the NBHCP's conservation goals or the ability of existing HCP parties to meet their mitigation obligations.
One-Mile Buffer Swainson’s Hawk Zone
The City of Sacramento must express its opposition to the proposed Upper Westside Specific Plan (UWSP) due to its direct conflict with the Natomas Basin Habitat Conservation Plan (NBHCP).
The City of Sacramento, as a signatory to the NBHCP, has a legal obligation to ensure the continued integrity of this regional conservation strategy. Our analysis of the UWSP reveals that significant portions of the proposed development would encroach into the Swainson's Hawk Zone - a critical one-mile-wide buffer adjacent to the Sacramento River that was explicitly established in the NBHCP to protect essential Swainson's Hawk habitat and foraging areas. The NBHCP categorically prohibits development within this zone, with only a strictly limited exception of 252 acres granted to the City of Sacramento.
While Sacramento County is not a direct signatory to the NBHCP, both the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) and California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) are bound to the NBHCP as "Permitters" with mandatory obligations to enforce its provisions. These wildlife agencies would be required to issue permits for the UWSP, yet doing so would fundamentally conflict with their legal obligations under the NBHCP, which states that any additional urban development within the Swainson's Hawk Zone "would constitute a significant departure from the Plan's Operating Conservation Program."
The project's inadequate agricultural buffer of 534 acres, ranging from merely 700 to 2,700 feet in width, is insufficient compared to the one mile (5,280 feet) protective
9 buffer mandated by the NBHCP. This reduction in buffer width would severely compromise a core conservation measure that both wildlife agencies have previously determined to be essential for the protection of Swainson's Hawk habitat.
The NBHCP is explicit: development beyond the permitted activities necessitates a comprehensive reevaluation of the Plan, a new effects analysis, potential amendments to the Plan and/or permits, and a separate conservation strategy. For the wildlife agencies to issue permits for this project as currently designed would require the completion of all these actions - none of which have been undertaken.
We are particularly alarmed that approval of development within the Swainson's Hawk Zone would directly threaten the biological effectiveness of the NBHCP's conservation strategy, which both the City of Sacramento and Sutter County depend upon for our incidental take permits. The one-mile buffer zone was established through rigorous biological analysis and stands as an indispensable component of the plan's mitigation strategy for impacts to Swainson's Hawk.
The County must either:
• Substantially redesign the project to eliminate all development within the one- mile Swainson's Hawk Zone buffer; or
• Undertake the mandatory comprehensive reevaluation of the NBHCP required when proposing development within this zone, including preparation of a new effects analysis and development of a separate conservation strategy that definitively ensures no net loss of the effectiveness of this critical conservation measure. This reevaluation must be conducted under the strict oversight of USFWS and CDFW to ensure absolute compliance with their obligations as Permitters under the NBHCP .
• For any County approval of development that directly disturbs the one-mile Swainson’s Hawk Zone (SWZ), we request that the County first initiate an amendment to the NBHCP with the wildlife resource agencies to modify the requirements and obligations placed on the City of Sacramento and Sutter County that pertain to the one-mile SWZ. Any action by Sacramento County to approve and allow development within the SWZ is in direct conflict with the adopted NBHCP and enforceable requirements by the wildlife resource agencies including for example, the Incidental Take Permits issued by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services (FWS) and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) to the City of Sacramento and Sutter County.
10 Agriculture
The Draft EIR falls short in addressing crucial concerns regarding the project's impact on agricultural resources and the Natomas Basin Habitat Conservation Plan (NBHCP). While the EIR quantifies the conversion of approximately 1,372 acres of farmland within the project area, it fails to provide a comprehensive analysis of how this loss might affect the NBHCP's requirement to maintain 4,375 acres in rice cultivation for Giant Garter Snake habitat. The EIR should evaluate not only the direct loss of farmland but also the potential indirect effect of increased development pressure on remaining agricultural lands in the Natomas Basin, which could make it more challenging to maintain the required acreage of rice cultivation.
Transportation
Roadway Widening and City Responsibility
The DEIR continues to rely on fair share contributions toward roadway widening projects within City limits without adequately addressing our concerns about implementation responsibility. For instance, Mitigation Measure TR-3b still assumes City involvement in implementing improvements at I-5 on-ramps, despite our previous statement that the City should not be assumed to have matching funds. The DEIR does not propose alternative mitigation approaches that avoid placing implementation responsibility on the City, nor does it explain how these projects would be fully funded and executed given the City's financial constraints.
TR-3a and TR-3b Impacts & Mitigations on Page ES-119 & ES-120: The City of Sacramento looks forward to working collaboratively with the County on the required I- 80 West El Camino Avenue interchange improvements being triggered by the project’s development. As specified in the Upper Westside Specific Plan Public Facilities Financing Plan on page 23, the traffic analysis estimated that approximately 90 percent of trips caused by new development in the County using this interchange would be caused by development in the UWSP. The City looks forward to seeing the UWSP project fulfills the required improvements and phasing to ensure the ultimate improvements are constructed when triggered by the UWSP project.
Conflict with City Transportation Policies
Our NOP comments highlighted the City's current focus on reducing lanes on City roadways to align with our Climate Change goals. However, the DEIR does not acknowledge or analyze how the proposed roadway widenings, such as those in Mitigation Measure TR-3a, align with or conflict with this policy direction. We request that the Final EIR include an analysis of how the proposed transportation improvements align with the City's current transportation policies and goals.
11 Regional Growth and VMT Impacts
The DEIR's VMT analysis remains narrowly focused on project-level impacts and does not address our request to examine how the UWSP may redistribute growth away from the City or impact the City's VMT relative to the regional average. We continue to be concerned about potential impacts on the City's growth patterns and overall regional VMT efficiency. We request that the Final EIR include modeling scenarios that evaluate these broader impacts as originally suggested in our NOP comments.
Ongoing Technical Coordination
While the DEIR mentions some collaboration with the City, it does not outline a specific process for ongoing coordination throughout project development and implementation as we had requested. Given the project's potential impacts on City infrastructure and services, we believe a more detailed plan for continued technical coordination is necessary.
Water
In our NOP comments, we identified three potential alternatives for providing domestic water to serve the proposed UWSP area. While the DEIR focuses on Alternative 3 - utilizing City of Sacramento water rights and infrastructure - it does not provide a comprehensive analysis or clear dismissal of Alternatives 1 and 2 involving Natomas Central Mutual Water Company (NCMWC) water rights. We request that the Final EIR include a thorough evaluation of all three alternatives to ensure a complete understanding of the project's water supply and water retailer options.
Furthermore, our NOP comments requested specific details regarding the water delivery system engineering, including the size of mains, distribution, volume, future capacity, system pressurization, storage capacity, and measures to protect the water supply and prevent contamination of the City's existing system. While the DEIR provides some information about the proposed water delivery system, including a water storage tank and transmission mains, it lacks the level of detail we requested. We urge the County to include more comprehensive information on these aspects in the Final EIR to fully assess the potential environmental impacts and ensure the adequacy of the proposed water infrastructure.
Sewer System
The City of Sacramento notes the EIR's discussion of new wastewater infrastructure needed to serve the Upper Westside Specific Plan area, including the proposed sewer pump station and force main. However, we note that our previous comment requesting
12 analysis of impacts to the Sacramento Regional County Sewer Interceptor has not been adequately addressed. Specifically, the EIR lacks a comprehensive evaluation of the interceptor system's capacity downstream of the New Natomas Pump Station to accommodate additional flows from this project in combination with buildout of the existing Natomas area and other proposed development in the Natomas Joint Vision area. We remain concerned about the potential cumulative impacts on this critical piece of regional infrastructure and whether it has sufficient capacity to serve all these areas without requiring significant upgrades. The City requests that the EIR be revised to include a thorough analysis of existing and projected flows in the interceptor system, an assessment of its available capacity at key points along its alignment, and an evaluation of whether system upgrades may be necessary to handle the increased wastewater volumes. If upgrades to the interceptor are required, the potential environmental impacts of such improvements should also be discussed.
Fire Protection
The City of Sacramento notes the acknowledgment in the DEIR that the City's Fire Department currently provides and will continue to provide fire protection and emergency medical services to the Upper Westside Specific Plan (UWSP) area under contract with the Natomas Fire Protection District. We also note the inclusion of a site for a new fire station within the proposed plan. However, we find that the DEIR does not adequately address several key concerns raised in our NOP comments.
The DEIR lacks a comprehensive analysis of fire protection services and facilities as requested. While it provides a basic assessment of increased demand and the need for a new station, it falls short of the in-depth analysis needed for a project of this scale. We request a more detailed evaluation of current service levels, response times, equipment needs, and long-term planning for fire protection services. Furthermore, the DEIR does not sufficiently address how the project proponent will mitigate service demand impacts and maintain current levels of service throughout the project's implementation. We request more specific information on phasing, funding mechanisms, and interim measures to ensure consistent service levels during development.
Given the City's extensive experience in providing municipal services, including over 100 years of fire protection services, we reiterate our position that the City is best equipped to provide a full range of municipal services to the UWSP area. We request that the EIR include a more robust discussion of the City's role in long-term service provision and planning for the area.
Law Enforcement
The DEIR fails to adequately address the concerns raised in our NOP comment regarding potential impacts to City of Sacramento police protection services. The DEIR focuses
13 exclusively on Sacramento County Sheriff's Office services without acknowledging or evaluating potential impacts to the City of Sacramento Police Department (SPD). This oversight is particularly concerning given the project's unique geographical context - adjacent to the City but isolated from developed County areas - which could potentially strain City services.
Furthermore, the DEIR does not provide the requested evaluation of how and when law enforcement services and facilities will be provided to ensure no impacts to the City of Sacramento. While plans for a new County sheriff's substation are discussed, this does not address the potential cross-jurisdictional impacts or need for coordinated services with the City.
The California Highway Patrol's role is only briefly mentioned, without fully addressing its responsibilities for state highways, state-owned buildings, and state property within the City, as noted in our NOP comment.
Given the project's location and potential to affect multiple jurisdictions, we reiterate our request for a more comprehensive analysis that considers impacts to both County and City services, as well as inter-agency coordination strategies. This analysis should evaluate how the proposed development's law enforcement needs will be met without adversely impacting existing City services or response times.
Schools
We appreciate that the DEIR identifies the existing schools that would serve different portions of the UWSP area, including Witter Ranch Elementary School, Two Rivers Elementary School, Natomas Middle School, Inderkum High School, and Natomas High School. This information adequately addresses which schools would serve residents both inside and outside the specific development plan areas within the UWSP.
However, the DEIR does not fully address our question regarding which schools would serve the area while the proposed schools are being built. While Table PS-2 provides helpful enrollment and capacity data for existing schools, the DEIR lacks a clear explanation of how school services will be provided during the interim period before new schools are operational. We request that the Final EIR include a phasing plan showing when the proposed schools would be constructed relative to residential development, an explicit discussion of which existing schools would absorb students during the construction phases, and an analysis of whether those existing schools have sufficient capacity to handle temporary increases in enrollment. This information is crucial for understanding the full impacts of the project on school services throughout its implementation.
14 Parks & Recreation Facilities
The Draft EIR for the UWSP analyzed the project’s impact on the existing setting for Parks and Recreation Facilities by considering whether an increase in use of public parks and recreation facilities resulting from the UWSP would cause the substantial physical deterioration of those facilities (e.g., damage to vegetation, accelerated wear on sports facilities and fields, or erosion along trails) or in the need for new or expanded facilities, the construction or operation of which would result in substantial adverse physical effects. This analysis further considers whether implementation of the proposed UWSP would diminish or otherwise adversely affect recreational opportunities and existing facilities within the UWSP area based on facility capacity.
Within a 1-mile radius of the UWSP area, there are approximately 20 parks, most of which are within the City of Sacramento and comprising a total of 160 acres of parklands. The closest parks to the UWSP area include River Otter Park, located directly adjacent to the southeastern edge of the UWSP area across Interstate 80, Peregrine Park, located directly adjacent to the eastern edge of the area, and San Juan Reservoir Park, located directly adjacent to the northwestern edge of the area. The North Natomas Regional Park, at 212 acres, located 1.6 miles northwest of the UWSP serves the entire region.
As stated in the DEIR, the proposed UWSP would facilitate development of up to 9,356 housing units and yield 25,460 residents. The Sacramento County 2030 General Plan, Policy PF-123 requires 5.0 acres of parkland per 1,000 residents. As a result, approximately 127.9 acres of parkland is required to serve the needs of the proposed UWSP. As there are no parks currently located directly within the UWSP area, the 160 acres of nearby parks previously described could be adversely affected by the increase of residents generated by the proposed UWSP. The areas surrounding the UWSP area, in which the existing parks are located, are developed, and contain existing residents that utilize these facilities. Therefore, there is a need for new parks to serve the UWSP area and to alleviate pressure which would occur to nearby parks from increased residential uses in this area.
To accommodate the increase in residents resulting from the proposed UWSP, the plan includes a “parks program,” which outlines the proposed parks and recreational facilities to be implemented in the UWSP area. The proposed UWSP parks program proposes a diverse mix of recreational amenities and public gathering spaces which are sized and distributed to serve the anticipated needs of the residents within the UWSP. A total of 146.6 acres of parks and amenities would be provided in the UWSP area, which accounts for 11 percent of the Development Area. Parks and amenities would include
76.5 of active parks and the 2.6-acre Town Center median park as well as the 15-acre Westside Canal, 34.1 acres of greenbelt space, a 10-acre urban farm, a 12.1-acre West Edge Buffer, and a 14.7-acre Basin Edge Parkways trail.
15 The UWSP concludes that these facilities would be sufficient to accommodate the 25,460 proposed residents and would meet the requirements for parkland under the Sacramento County 2030 General Plan. Therefore, no additional means would need to be utilized to meet any demands in the UWSP area for parks and recreation services.
Objectives for parks and recreation in the UWSP area would be met under the proposed plan, and the impact would be less than significant.
The proposed project’s “parks program” includes 76.5 – 79 acres of parkland which meets the minimum guidelines of 3 acres per 1,000 residents. The 76.5 acres of parkland are considered neighborhood/community serving parks, which will be programmed with active recreation uses. However, the DEIR analyzes the project at the minimum dedication requirement under the Quimby Act of 3 acres per 1,000 residents, less than the County’s (and City’s) policy requirement of 5 acres per 1,000. If the project were to dedicate neighborhood/community parkland at the County standard of 5 acres per 1,000 resident, the proposed project’s parkland dedication requirement would total approximately 128 acres of neighborhood/community serving parks.
The proposed project’s “parks program” supplements the 79 acres of parkland with an additional 86 acres of parkland. The 86 acres of parks and recreation facilities are identified has having permanent drainage facilities, a greenbelt without recreation amenities, urban farms that will likely be leased and operated by community based or non-profit organizations, agricultural buffers, and a median with a trail. These types of facilities do not take the pressure off adjacent neighborhood and community parks that do contain active recreation, which is in high demand in the City of Sacramento.
The proposed UWSP is located adjacent to communities of the City of Sacramento; South Natomas and North Natomas. Each community was established and planned to be well-served by neighborhood and community parks that are located within a 10- minute walk of almost all the residential areas. The proposed project’s gap of 51.5 acres that are not identified as neighborhood/community parkland will likely result in an adverse physical effect on the nearby parks within the two adjacent communities.
Additionally, the proposed 79 acres of parkland will likely be diminished or adversely affected at a quicker rate than industry standards. This would be a significant impact.
The City of Sacramento Youth, Parks, & Community Enrichment Department (YPCE) recommends the project reduce the impacts to existing City parks by adding, or converting, 51.5 acres of neighborhood/community serving parkland in order to meet the 5 acres per 1,000 resident standard. The proposed project should incorporate the City’s standards and guidelines for neighborhood and community parks, as adopted by the Parks Plan 2040, a subsequent project of the 2040 General Plan Master EIR. The existing parks within the adjacent communities are well-used, and it can be expected that the UWSP parks will be as well. Additional recommendations for the UWSP’s park program are to consider community input from residents within the adjacent communities. They want to see regular enhancements and to the parks, such as lighting,
16 restrooms, outdoor exercise equipment, an all-weather field, and an integrated bicycle network. Residents are also advocating for accessible parks for all ages, drought- tolerant landscaping, and the preservation of wildlife habitat.
The UWSP’s investment of over $143 million into the acquisition and development of parks, trails, and open space converts to approximately $1 million per acre with an annual estimated cost of $3.5 million to maintain each park facility. These costs exceed the City of Sacramento’s Park development impact fee credit limits set for turnkey parks, and the estimated annual maintenance costs currently funded by Community Facilities Districts and Landscape and Lighting Districts within North Natomas. The full development of the UWSP park program will likely result in amenities that are attractive to use, and likely a financial impact on Parks annual workplans to repair and replace in 20 years from development. The proposed project’s Public Facilities Finance Plan includes a fee for the provision of repair and replacement of facilities (e.g. parks, pump stations) as well as infrastructure after their useful life. The County may consider funding the long-term repair and replacement costs through a combination of the proposed infrastructure CFDs and through the new services CFD that will fund the share of urban services not paid for by property taxes. The City encourages the County to include an infrastructure CFD to fund long term repair and replacement costs of park facilities. Additionally, the utilities costs to maintain the 146.6 acres of parkland should also be included in the infrastructure CFD.
The conversion of 51.5 acres to neighborhood/community parkland, incorporation of the parks Plan 2040 standards and guidelines for park and facility development, incorporation of the 2040 General Plan park access policies for South and North Natomas, and funding for long term repair and replacement of facilities will reduce impacts to the existing parks within the adjacent communities and proposed parks within the UWSP.
Land Use Planning (City’s 2040 General Plan)
On February 27, 2024, the City of Sacramento adopted the new 2040 General Plan. The new General Plan identifies five Special Study Areas that are adjacent to existing City limits and are of interest to the City of Sacramento. Planning for the future of these unincorporated areas requires collaboration between the City and the County.
The proposed Upper Westside Specific Plan (UW SP) is located within the Natomas Basin Special Study Area which bears relation to the planning of the City of Sacramento. The City of Sacramento is projected to see significant growth by 2040 (69,000 new homes, and 76,000 new jobs), and with careful land use planning, new development can help make Sacramento a model of sustainable, equitable growth and community development.
17 Updating the 2040 General Plan was a major undertaking and a multi-year process in effort to develop a land use framework and policies which provide for strategic growth and change that seek to concentrate new growth within the existing City limits.
The City is concerned about how the UW SP could induce sprawl and redistribute growth away from the City especially if the proposed development does not comport with the City’s new land use standards and innovative policies.
The intent of the City’s General Plan land use vision is to promote greater integration of uses along the corridors and in centers to broaden the range of housing types in the City, support the vitality of local businesses, lay the foundation for high-frequency transit, and make it easier to provide electric vehicle charging infrastructure and also to get around without a car.
The building intensity standards are intended to provide more flexibility and innovation in building design. Minimum density standards apply in all areas where residential development is permitted and a primarily FAR-based system could incentivize the design and construction of smaller units, potentially resulting in units that are more affordable by design.
For your reference below is a link to the City of Sacramento’s new 2040 General Plan.
Building intensity standards are shown on Maps LUP-6, LUP-7, LUP-8, and Figure LUP-
5. https://www.Cityofsacramento.gov/content/dam/portal/cdd/Planning/General- Plan/2040-General-Plan/Adopted%202040%20General%20Plan_20240227.pdf
Additionally, below two key innovative policies that support our emission reduction and sustainability goals in the 2040 General Plan. Policy LUP-4.13 requires new or expanded gas stations provide EV charging infrastructure. Policy LUP-4.14 eliminates vehicle parking minimums Citywide.
• LUP-4.13 Future-Ready Gas Stations.
The City shall prohibit the establishment of new gas stations or the expansion of new fossil fuel infrastructure at existing gas stations unless the project proponent provides 50kW or greater Direct Current Fast Charger (DCFC) electric vehicle charging stations on site at a ratio of at least 1 new charging station per 1 new gas fuel nozzle.
• LUP-4.14 Elimination of Vehicle Parking Minimums.
The City shall not require new or existing development to provide off-street vehicle parking spaces.
18 Conclusion
As this project progresses through planning, environmental review, and engineering, we request the County’s continued coordination and that we receive all project public notifications including those for any future public meetings and hearings. If you have follow-up questions or seek clarifications on any of the above issues, please contact Cheryle Hodge at [email protected] o
r 808- 5971.
Sincerely,
Cheryle Hodge
New Growth Manager, Community Development Department
cc: Michael Jasso, Assistant City Manager, City of Sacramento Tom Pace, Director, Community Development Dept., City of Sacramento Greg Sandlund, Planning Director, Community Development Dept.
Matt Eierman, Director, Department of Public Works
Lucinda Willcox, Assistant Director, Dept. of Public Works, Jennifer Donlon Wyant, Transportation Planning Manager, Dept. of Public Works Pravani Vandeyar, Director, Department of Utilities
Brett Ewart, Supervising Engineer, Department of Utilities Pelle Clarke, Senior Engineer, Department of Public Works Jackie Beecham, Director, Youth, Parks & Community Enrichment Dept.
Shannon Brown, Assistant Director, Youth, Parks & Community Enrichment Dept.
Chris Costamagna, Fire Chief, Sacramento Fire Department King Tunson, Program Specialist, Sacramento Fire Department Kathy Lester, Police Chief, Sacramento Police Department Eddie Macaulay, Lieutenant, Sacramento Police Department Tom Bufford, Principal Planner, Environmental Planning Services Scott Johnson, Senior Planner, Environmental Planning Services Remi Mendoza, Senior Planner, Long Range Planning
RESOLUTION NO. 2002-830
ADOPTED BY THE SACRAMENTO CITY COUNCIL
ON THE DATE OF DEC ll O 2002
A RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING THE CITY MANAGER TO
EXECUTE A MEMORANDUM OF UNDERSTANDING
BETWEEN THE CITY AND COUNTY OF SACRAMENTO
REGARDING PRINCIPLES OF LAND USE AND REVENUE
SHARING FOR THE NATOMAS AREA (JOINT VISION). (M02-
014)
BE IT RESOLVED BY THE COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF SACRAMENTO THAT:
WHEREAS, the County and the City have mutual policy and economic interests in the long term development and permanent preservation of open space within that area of the County known as Natomas, which area is generally depicted on Exhibit A of the Memorandum of Unders tanding (MOU); and
WHEREAS, cooperation between the County and the City is an opportunity to develop a vision for Natomas which reflects areas of collective interest. This Shared Policy Vision is contained in Exhibit 8 to this memo; and
WHEREAS, the County and City desire to establish principles to form the parameters of a future agreement or agreements encompassing the manner in which the County and City share revenue and land use decisions within the Natomas area.
NOW THEREFORE, be it resolved by the City Council of the City of Sacramento, as follows:
The City Manager is authorized to execute on behalf of the City the Memorandum of Understanding between the City and County of Sacramento regarding principles of land use and revenue sharing for the Natomas area (Joint Vision) on file with the City Clerk.
ATTEST:
VALERIE BURROWES
CITY CLERK
HEATHER FARGO
MAYOR
FOR CITY CLERK USE ONLY
RESOLUTIONNO.: 2002-830
DATE ADOPTED:flEC F fv 2002
Attachment B
October 28, 2024
SENT VIA EMAIL ([email protected])
Sacramento County, Department of Community Development
Planning and Environmental Review Division
Attention: Environmental Coordinator
827 7th Street, Room 225
Sacramento, CA 95814
RE: Draft Environmental Impact Report for the
Upper Westside Specific Plan
(State Clearinghouse No 2020100069,
County Control No. PLNP2018-00284)
Dear Environmental Coordinator for the Upper Westside Specific Plan Project:
On behalf of Environmental Council of Sacramento (“ECOS”) and Friends of Swainson’s Hawk (“FOSH”), and Natomas resident Brandon Castillo, this letter provides comments regarding the Environmental Impact Report (“DEIR”) for the Upper Westside Specific Plan (“Project”).
After extensive review,1 we conclude that the DEIR is woefully inadequate as an informational document. This letter also transmits expert comments on biological resource issues prepared by Shawn Smallwood, PhD (Exhibit 1), expert comments on transportation impacts by Dan Smith (Exhibit 2), and expert comments on air quality by SWAPE (Exhibit 3), which are all incorporated by reference. The County of Sacramento (“County”) must prepare and recirculate a new DEIR that addresses the many shortcomings identified in this comment letter and other comment letters. The County must also seriously consider how to prepare a new EIR that complies with its legal duty to objectively analyze the Project and project alternatives including the no project alternative.
1 While we have expended extraordinary efforts reviewing the DEIR within the allotted 60 days, the DEIR’s pervasive informational deficiencies in a variety of resource areas prevent us from confidently representing that all such defects have been identified.
We therefore reserve the right to supplement these comments. (Galante Vineyards v.
Monterey Peninsula Water Management Dist. (2007) 60 Cal.App.4th 1109, 1121.) 39 Sacramento County, Department of Community Development, Planning and Environmental Review Division
October 28, 2024
As a threshold matter, the unprecedented scope of the Project’s acknowledged significant impacts should give one pause when considering “why” it is proposed. The Project’s acknowledged significant and purported unavoidable impacts include:
• Degradation of Existing Views and Visual Quality
• Substantially Degrade Existing Visual Character or Quality • New Sources of Light
• Conversion of Farmland to Nonagricultural Uses
• Conflict with or Obstruct Implementation of an Applicable Air Quality Plan During Project Operation
• Long-term Operational Emissions of Criteria Air Pollutants and Precursors • Exposure of Existing Off-site Sensitive Receptors to Toxic Air Contaminants During Operation
• Exposure of Future On-site Sensitive Receptors to Toxic Air Contaminants During Operation
• Historical Resources
• Archaeological Resources
• Human Remains
• Increase in Traffic Noise at Existing Sensitive Receptors • Increase in Stationary Noise from Plan Components at Existing Receptors • Increase in Stationary Noise from Plan Components at Proposed Sensitive Receptors
• Induce Substantial Unplanned Population Growth
• Conflict with a Program, Plan, Ordinance or Policy Addressing the Circulation System
• Hazards Due to Design or Incompatible Uses
• Degradation of Existing Views and Visual Quality [cumulative] • Substantially Degrade Existing Visual Character or Quality [cumulative] • New Sources of Light [cumulative]
• Conversion of Farmland to Nonagricultural Uses [cumulative] • Long-term Operational Emissions of Criteria Air Pollutants and Precursors [cumulative]
• Exposure of Existing Sensitive Receptors to Toxic Air Contaminants [cumulative] • Exposure of Future Sensitive Receptors to Toxic Air Contaminants [cumulative] • Historical and Archaeological Resources, including Human Remains [cumulative] • Exceedance of Established Noise Standards – Traffic [cumulative] • Population Growth [cumulative]
• Program, Plan, Ordinance or Policy Addressing the Circulation System [cumulative]
• Hazards Due to Design or Incompatible Uses [cumulative] Sacramento County, Department of Community Development, Planning and Environmental Review Division
October 28, 2024
The sheer breath of these significant and unavoidable impacts alone demonstrates that the Project is fundamentally misguided. This is precisely why the CEQA Guidelines advise, “Where there are impacts that cannot be alleviated without imposing an alternative design, their implications and the reasons why the project is being proposed, notwithstanding their effect, should be described.” (CEQA Guidelines, § 15126.2, subd. (c), emphasis added.) It is telling that the DEIR makes no attempt to “explain why the project is being proposed” notwithstanding the unprecedented significant and unavoidable impacts. As will be explained more fully below, the Project’s “why” is not to serve any legitimate land use goals – the record amply establishes that the Project is inconsistent with all land use planning in the area – but rather to maximize the financial return on the applicant’s speculation on 31 acres of agricultural land.
Moreover, conspicuously absent from the DEIR is any mention, much less analysis, of County General Plan Land Use Policy LU-127, which provides:
The County shall not expand the Urban Service Boundary unless:
• There is inadequate vacant land within the USB to accommodate the projected 25 year demand for urban uses; and
• The proposal calling for such expansion can satisfy the requirements of a master water plan as contained in the Conservation Element; and • The proposal calling for such expansion can satisfy the requirements of the Sacramento County Air Quality Attainment Plan; and
• The area of expansion does not incorporate open space areas for which previously secured open space easements would need to be relinquished; and
• The area of expansion does not include the development of important natural resource areas, aquifer recharge lands or prime agricultural lands;
• The area of expansion does not preclude implementation of a Sacramento County-adopted Habitat Conservation Plan;
OR
• The Board approves such expansion by a 4/5ths vote based upon on finding that the expansion would provide extraordinary environmental, social or economic benefits and opportunities to the County.
(Emphasis added.)
One of the Project’s defining characteristics is that it consists almost entirely of prime farmland located outside of the County’s urban service boundary (“USB”), and Sacramento County, Department of Community Development, Planning and Environmental Review Division
October 28, 2024
therefore require expansion of the USB. LU-127 articulates, in clear prohibitory language, the County’s policy to prohibit expansion of the USB involving: (i) “development of important natural resource areas,” (ii) “aquifer recharge lands,” or (iii) “prime agricultural lands.” The Project would involve all three of these triggers for prohibiting USB expansion. Even the most cursory reference to LU-127 reveals why the Project is wholly fundamentally misguided—which begs the question why LU-127 was inexcusably omitted from any reference in the DEIR.
Applicants are free to seek land use entitlements for their proposed land development projects—no matter how fundamentally flawed and misguided. However, it is the legal and duty of the local land and CEQA lead agency, here the County, to perform an objective analysis of the Project’s impacts, mitigation measures, and project alternatives. As will be explained more fully below, the DEIR wholly fails to discharge the County’s legal duty to perform that objective analysis. Here, the DEIR is not a document of objective analysis and accountability, but rather a document of advocacy on behalf of the Project applicant.
The Project would destroy approximately 2,000 acres of productive important farmland2 that also serves as important habitat for sensitive species, will result in roadway safety hazards to existing and future residents (including families with their driveways on the Garden Highway), and even increased cancer risks to existing and future Natomas residents. Maximizing profit from the applicant’s purchase of 31 acres does not override these impacts, and any marginal benefit resulting from increased development in the unincorporated County areas can easily be achieved from alternative locations widely available within the USB.
I. PROJECT BACKGROUND
The DEIR purports to describe the “Project Background.” (DEIR, p. 2-11.) The DEIR unfortunately presents an incomplete and misleading background to the Project.
Further, the DEIR dismisses otherwise feasible alternative locations expressly because they are not “controlled” by the applicant. Thus, it is necessary to present a more complete and accurate background of the Project that also sets forth facts relevant to “control.”
The project applicant here is an entity named Upper Westside, LLC (“Upper Westside”). Upper Westside was formed on March 15, 2018 (Exhibit 4, Upper Westside
2 Expert comments from the Sacramento County Farm Bureau establish that the so- called “ag buffer” will not result in continued productive agricultural uses of that land.
Sacramento County, Department of Community Development, Planning and Environmental Review Division
October 28, 2024
LLC articles.) Upper Westside owns a 31.64-acre parcel within the 2,066-acre Project site that it purchased on May 14, 2019, for a price of $909,500. (Exhibit 5, Property Details.) Upper Westside owns no other land within the 2,066-acre Project area.
Upper Westside is managed solely by Yolo County developer Steve Gidaro. (Exhibit 6, Upper Westside Statement of Information.) No other ownership or management of Upper Westside is disclosed. That said, Upper Westside has been delinquent in filing its updated statement of information since 2022, and so it is possible that Mr. Gidaro has transferred his interest in Upper Westside since that time without any public disclosure. (Exhibit 7, CA Secretary of State database entry.) )
In short, the applicant for the Project is an entity wholly controlled by a single person, who purchased merely 31.64 acres for $909,500 back in 2019, and now seeks to leverage that slim ownership (1.53 percent) in order to dictate urban development of 2,066 acres of important and productive farmland.
This DEIR conspicuously fails to disclose this information, instead suggesting that the Project’s “applicants” include a larger “ownership group” that owns “292 acres or 14 percent of the UWSP area.” This is false and misleading. The NOP plainly asserts that the “Applicant” is “Upper Westside, LLC.” This is repeated in the DEIR: “The project applicant is Upper Westside LLC.” (DEIR, p. 2-1.) These other parties are not “applicants,” but instead merely “participating properties.” (DEIR, Plate PD-4.) The DEIR asserts, “[T]he project applicant owns and/or controls 10 parcels totaling approximately 292 acres, or 14 percent of the plan area.” (DEIR, p. 2-2.) The DEIR provides no information demonstrating such “control” of these properties by Mr. Gidaro.
That said, whether Mr. Gidaro controls 1.53 percent or 14 percent of the Project site is of no matter; the vast majority of the Project site, either 86 or 98.47, is not controlled by Mr.
Gidaro. This is important because the DEIR relies on the absence of Mr. Gidaro’s “control” of alternative locations to dismiss them without any consideration.
Finally, the DEIR’s “Project Background” includes a discussion of the Natomas Joint Vision, which it describes as a “Master Plan process for a proposal to move the Urban Services Boundary (USB) and the Urban Policy Area (UPA).” The DEIR suggests that the Project is an outgrowth of the Natomas Joint Visions. Not so. As explained by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (“CDFW”) in response to the NOP:
The Projects marks an apparent departure by the County from the principles detailed in its shared vision with the City. The County’s web page reads currently, for example, that the Joint Vision project has been withdrawn Sacramento County, Department of Community Development, Planning and Environmental Review Division
October 28, 2024
and individual landowners are moving forward with their own projects, including this Project.
Indeed, CDFW is correct that the County’s webpage now asserts, “The Natomas Joint Vision project has been withdrawn and individual landowners have moved forward with their own projects.” (Exhibit 8, County website for the Natomas Vision.) As CDFW further explains, “The MOU, importantly, recognizes the City as the agent of development in the Sacramento portion of the basin and the County as the agent of permanent open space, habitat, and farmland/ranchland preservation.” (Emphasis added.) Thus, it is misleading for the DEIR to suggest that the Project is somehow an extension of the Natomas Joint Vision. As explained more fully below, the Project is inconsistent with the Joint Vision as well as decades of land use planning for the Natomas basin.
II. THE DEIR’S PROJECT DESCRIPTION AND ASSOCIATED CEQA
REVIEW STRATEGY ARE FUNDAMENTALLY FLAWED
The CEQA Guidelines explain, “The statement of objectives should include the underlying purpose of the project.” (CEQA Guidelines, § 15124, subd. (b).) The leading CEQA treatise advises, “To avoid claims the project objectives are too narrow, the statement of objectives should not simply repeat the EIR’s description of the proposed project, but instead should be based on the project’s underlying purpose.” (Kostka & Zischke, Practice Under the Cal. Environmental Quality Act (Cont.Ed.Bar 2024) § 12.13, p. 12-23 [“Kostka”].) Here, the EIR fails to comply with both recommendations: (i) the DEIR asserts a list of manipulated “objectives” that merely describes the nature of the Proposed Project, and (ii) the DEIR fails to identify the Project’s underlying purpose.
The Project’s background will reveal precisely why the DEIR conspicuously fails to identify an underlying purpose of the Project. This is unsurprising because the Project serves no underlying purpose other than to generate revenue for the project applicant.
This is demonstrated with clarity by reviewing the Project’s background.
A. Expansion of the USB and UPA Is Not Necessary to Accommodate the County’s Share of Future Regional Population Growth
While the Project does not have an underlying purpose (other than maximizing return for the applicant’s land speculation), the DEIR’s first objective asserts that “expanding the USB and UPA” is required to “accommodat[e] the County’s share of future regional population growth.” This Project Objective is not supported by substantial evidence. To put it bluntly, no planning documents by the County or the Sacramento County, Department of Community Development, Planning and Environmental Review Division
October 28, 2024
Sacramento Area Council of Governments (“SACOG”) support the DEIR’s false assertion that expansion of the USB is necessary to accommodate the County’s share of future regional population growth. In fact, SACOG plainly stated in response to the Project’s NOP, “Throughout much of the Sacramento region, the capacity for growth in existing entitled lands far exceeds expected demand for new growth over the next twenty years.” SACOG’s conclusion is amply supported by the County’s Housing Element, which identifies a Regional Housing Needs Allocation (“RHNA”) allocation of 21,272 units and supply of 23,653 units. The identified supply number does not account for literally tens of thousands of additional residential units that are part of master plan and specific plan communities virtually identical to the Project. The Housing Element explains:
The Vineyard Springs Comprehensive Plan, North Vineyard Station Specific Plan, Florin Vineyard Comprehensive Plan, Glenborough at Easton and Easton Place are approved Master Plan with sites that may have been included in prior Housing Elements. The County has also recently approved two additional Master Plans with sites included in this inventory:
the Mather South Community Master Plan (Mather South) on January 28, 2020 and the NewBridge Specific Plan (NewBridge) on October 6, 2020.
(Housing Element, p. 134.)
More specifically, Mather South would provide 3,522 units, Newbridge would provide 3,075 units, Cordova Hills would provide 8,000 units, and Easton Place and Glenborough at Easton would provide 4,883. (Housing Element, pp. 134–148.)3
While it is true that the Housing Element identifies a deficit of 2,884 units of lower-income units, the Project is not providing lower-income housing. One of the Project’s requested entitlements is an “Affordable Housing Strategy that discusses the plan for the provision of moderate, low, and very‐low-income housing.” The applicant chose not to prepare that Affordable Housing Strategy along with the DEIR, which could have demonstrated a commitment to constructing. This is of no consequence, however, because the lack of any commitment by the applicant is revealed in the draft Specific
3 Several of these projects also provide “a balanced mix of uses, employment opportunities” through commercial and residential areas. (Ibid; compare Project Objective 3.) Contrary to the DEIR’s improper advocacy, there is nothing novel about including commercial and residential uses in a large specific plan. In particular, see the Cordova Hills and Easton Place land use maps. (Housing Element, pp. 144–146.) Sacramento County, Department of Community Development, Planning and Environmental Review Division
October 28, 2024
Plan.4 Unlike other master and specific plan developers in the unincorporated County, the applicant here makes no commitment to constructing affordable housing—which is the one type of housing that is arguably needed in the County. (Compare Housing Element, p. 132 [“Nine sites are in locations where there is an adopted Master Plan, or Specific Plan that guarantees certain sites will be set aside for the construction of deed restricted affordable housing projects”].)
In short, substantial evidence does not support the DEIR’s first project objective that expansion of the USB and UPA are required to “accommodat[e] the County’s share of future regional population growth.” There is a surplus of entitled sites within the existing USB and UBA to accommodate the County’s share of regional population growth. To put the matter bluntly, the project serves no actual purpose other than increasing the project applicant’s profit from his $900,000 land speculation on a 30-acre parcel within 2,000 acres of important farmland.
B. The EIR’s Project Objectives are Not Supported by Substantial Evidence and Manipulated to Avoid Otherwise Feasible Project Alternatives
The Project’s background, described above, reveals why the DEIR conspicuously fails to identify an underlying purpose of the Project. This is unsurprising because no serious planning document that includes the Natomas basin—the County’s Land Use Element, the County’s Housing Element and SACOG’s Blueprint—find urban uses necessary or even appropriate for the Project site. Thus, the Project serves no underlying purpose other than to generate a return on investment for the applicant’s 31-acre land speculation.
Rather than identify a legitimate underlying purpose for the Project, the DEIR instead identifies several project “objectives” that are not supported by substantial evidence and are otherwise manipulated in order to exclude from consideration otherwise feasible project alternatives. The first project objective is addressed in detail immediately above. All of the DEIR’s project objectives are addressed in detail below.
1. Formulate a specific plan and related land use planning documents and regulatory approvals for the UWSP area as a means of expanding the USB and UPA in an orderly manner and accommodating the County’s share of future regional population growth.
4 The draft Specific Plan states that the Project would “allocate[] 4,007 residential units to high density residential uses (on both residential [791 VHDR] and mixed-use [3,216 CMU] designated lands) with planned densities of 30 du/ac or higher.” Sacramento County, Department of Community Development, Planning and Environmental Review Division
October 28, 2024
• This object is both manipulated and unsupported by substantial evidence. First, formulating a specific plan and related land use planning documents “for the UWSP area” is a transparent attempt to exclude otherwise-feasible off-site project alternatives. Second, as explained above, “expanding the USB and UPA” is unsupported by substantial evidence. Further, expansion of the USB and UPA are themselves not legitimate objectives since General Plan policy is to prohibit expansion involving destruction of farmland, habitat for species, and areas of groundwater recharge.
2. Create a land use plan that satisfies County policies, regulations, and expectations, as defined in the General Plan, including Policies LU-114, LU-119, and LU-120. • This objective is transparently manipulated and not supported by substantial evidence. First, any development project will be required to meet County policies, regulations and expectations. Indeed, the DEIR here reveals that the Project fails to achieve consistency with County policies for growth. Finally, the objective is manipulated because it wholly ignores the most important County Land Use Policy, LU-127.
3. Provide a comprehensively planned, high quality, large-scale, residential-based community in northwestern Sacramento County, directly northwest of the City of Sacramento, with a balanced mix of uses, employment opportunities, a wide variety of housing types, park and open space, and supporting public and quasi-public uses. • Again, this objective is manipulated by requiring a community “in northwestern Sacramento County, directly northwest of the city of Sacramento.” Further, the balance of the project objective can be satisfied by developments at other locations. As explained by SACOG, “[T]he capacity for growth in existing entitled lands far exceeds expected demand over the next twenty years:
collectively, the region’s jurisdictions have entitled, or are in the process of entitling 2.5 times the region’s projected need for the next 20 years. More than half of that capacity—387,000 units—is in greenfield areas that are on the edge of existing development.”
4. Develop a master-planned community that can be efficiently served by existing infrastructure or proposed infrastructure that would encourage logical, orderly development and would discourage leapfrog or piecemeal development and sprawl. • This is arguably a legitimate objective, but one that is not met by this Project (including with particularity inadequate transportation infrastructure) and yet can be met by other locations throughout the County. Moreover, substantial evidence does not support this objective since it fails to explain “piecemeal development and sprawl.” The Project arguable represents “sprawl” by requiring expansion of Sacramento County, Department of Community Development, Planning and Environmental Review Division
October 28, 2024
the USB and UPA to accommodate development that is not required in the County’s Land Use Element or Housing Element, or SACOG’s Blueprint. Indeed, the DEIR identifies as a significant and unavoidable impact the Project’s contribution to growth-inducement. As explained by SACOG, “[T]he capacity for growth in existing entitled lands far exceeds expected demand over the next twenty years: collectively, the region’s jurisdictions have entitled, or are in the process of entitling 2.5 times the region’s projected need for the next 20 years.
More than half of that capacity—387,000 units—is in greenfield areas that are on the edge of existing development.”
5. Provide residential housing within five miles of the existing job centers of downtown Sacramento and West Sacramento, as well as in close proximity to newly developing or proposed job centers.
• This objective is manipulated and not supported by substantial evidence. While providing residential housing within existing job centers if arguably valid, the same is not true for the undefined terms “newly development or proposed job centers.” If a “proposed job center[]” is not approved then what is the value of providing nearby housing? Also, the DEIR fails to explain what is meant by “newly developing” job centers. As explained by SACOG, “[T]he capacity for growth in existing entitled lands far exceeds expected demand over the next twenty years: collectively, the region’s jurisdictions have entitled, or are in the process of entitling 2.5 times the region’s projected need for the next 20 years.
More than half of that capacity—387,000 units—is in greenfield areas that are on the edge of existing development.”
6. Create a development that has an overall positive economic impact on Sacramento County and achieves a neutral to positive fiscal impact on the County’s finances and existing ratepayers.
• This finding is not based on any specific location for a “positive economic impact on Sacramento.” Further, if it is feasible for the Project to achieve this goal (based on “control” of only 1.53 or 14 percent), then it is feasible for alternative locations to achieve the goal.
7. Create a community that can be logically and efficiently phased to allow the orderly build-out of the community.
• This objective is arguably valid, but substantial evidence does not support a finding that the Project meets this objective. First, the record establishes that the Project only includes “preliminary” phasing that may be altered at any time without any review or approval by the County or any other public agency. Thus, the Project does not include phasing of any kind, local or otherwise. Second, the Sacramento County, Department of Community Development, Planning and Environmental Review Division
October 28, 2024
Project’s “preliminary” project phasing is in no way local or orderly because it would first place high-density urban development in the middle of 2,000 acres of prime farmland. This is not logical or orderly; it is based instead on the project applicant’s incredibly small ownership of the specific plan area. The Project’s phasing is therefore the opposite of logical, efficient and orderly.
8. Provide a safe and efficient circulation system that interconnects land uses and promotes pedestrian and bicycle circulation and transit options that will encourage non- vehicular trips, thereby reducing vehicle miles traveled (“VMT”). • This is arguably a legitimate project objective, but one that is required by the County’s General Plan policies and so would be met by any development in the area. That said, as explained below and in the comments by Dan Smith, the Project does not provide a safe and efficient circulation system. As just one example, the Project would result in unsafe conditions for existing families living on the Garden Highway.
9. Incorporate parks and open space, including an urban farm-greenbelt and canal, into the project design in a manner that provides community connectivity and encourages walking and bicycle use.
• This is a manipulated project objective that does nothing more than “repeat the EIR’s description of the proposed project.” (Kostka, supra, § 12.13.)
10. Make efficient use of development opportunities as the project site is bordered on three sides by existing or planned urban development.
• First, this is a manipulated project objective that does nothing more than “repeat the EIR’s description of the proposed project.” (Kostka, supra, § 12.13.) Further, a development at any location would be able to “make efficient use of development opportunities” from nearby development. As explained by SACOG, “[T]he capacity for growth in existing entitled lands far exceeds expected demand over the next twenty years: collectively, the region’s jurisdictions have entitled, or are in the process of entitling 2.5 times the region’s projected need for the next 20 years. More than half of that capacity—387,000 units—is in greenfield areas that are on the edge of existing development.”
11. Plan for enough units to provide housing choices in varying densities to respond to a range of market segments, including opportunities for rental units and affordable housing, and significant commercial uses, consistent with the General Plan and Housing Element.
• While a potentially legitimate objective, this objective can be achieved by a development at any location. What is more, alternate locations—unlike the Sacramento County, Department of Community Development, Planning and Environmental Review Division
October 28, 2024
Project—may actually be consistent with the County’s General Plan and Housing Element. Neither the County’s General Plan Land Use Element nor Housing Element call for any residential development at the Project site.
12. Design a land use plan where the development footprint avoids impacts to wetland resources to the extent feasible.
• This is not a legitimate project objective since it simply restates applicable law and can be achieved at any location.
13. Develop a specific plan that respects existing agricultural land uses and operations to the west of the proposed 1,532-acre Development Area. • This is a manipulated project objective that does nothing more than “repeat the EIR’s description of the proposed project.” (Kostka, supra, § 12.13.) Further, substantial evidence does not support that the Project satisfies this objective by directly destroying approximately 1,500 acres of prime farm land and indirectly destroying the rest by ill-conceived “ag buffer” that does not result in productive agricultural operations.
14. Provide for development that meets the seven identified SACOG Blueprint principles, including provision of transportation choice, compact development, mixed use development, housing choice and diversity, use of existing assets, natural resource conservation, and quality design.
• This is a manipulated project objective that does nothing more than “repeat the EIR’s description of the proposed project.” (Kostka, supra, § 12.13.) A legitimate project objective would be for a development that is consistent with SACOG’s Blueprint. As SACOG explains, “The Upper West Side project and the project area itself are not anticipated for development in either the MTP/SCS or the Blueprint.” Further, substantial evidence does not support a finding that the Project is consistent with Blueprint principles. The Project is far from “compact,” and is in no conserves natural resources by destroying prime farmland that provides important habitat for numerous special-status species.
15. Develop the project and any associated on- and/or off-site mitigation to complement the Natomas Basin Habitat Conservation Plan (“NBHCP”) and the Metro Airpark Habitat Conservation Plan.
• This is a manipulated project objective that does nothing more than “repeat the EIR’s description of the proposed project.”
16. Designate open space preserves along the south side of Fisherman’s Lake Slough or along the West Drainage Canal (Witter Canal) that provide natural buffer to these Sacramento County, Department of Community Development, Planning and Environmental Review Division
October 28, 2024
features, and along the westerly edge of the proposed 1,532-acre Development Area to provide a transition between residential and agricultural designations to the west, which will provide a regional benefit for habitat, resources, and open space amenities. • This is a manipulated project objective that does nothing more than “repeat the EIR’s description of the proposed project.”
17. Balance development with resource protection in an inter-connected, permanent open space.
• This is a legitimate project objective that can be accomplished at any location.
Indeed, other locations that do not include 2,000 acres of prime farmland and habitat for special-status species are far better at striking an appropriate balance.
18. Create multi-functional habitat within open space corridors that provide on-site habitat and contribute to water quality.
• This is a manipulated project objective that does nothing more than “repeat the EIR’s description of the proposed project.” Further, it is nonsensical. Urban development should be located as far away as possible from habitat and open space corridors. The need to “create multi-functional habitat within open space corridors” arises precisely because urban development is proposed for areas that will have a negative impact on existing habitat. The legitimate objective would be therefore to locate urban uses in areas that avoid existing habitat and so there is no need to create habitat.
In sum, the DEIR’s project objectives are clearly manipulated in order to justify finding that any alternative other than the Project is infeasible.
C. The DEIR Purports to Analyze the Project Based on a “Phasing Plan” that is Both Arbitrary and Not Enforceable.
An “accurate and stable project description” is a bedrock requirement of CEQA— the sine qua non (that without which there is nothing) of an adequate CEQA document:
Only through an accurate view of the project may affected outsiders and public decision-makers balance the proposal’s benefit against its environmental cost, consider mitigation measures, assess the advantage of terminating the proposal (i.e., the “no project” alternative) and weigh other alternatives in the balance. An accurate, stable and finite project description is the sine qua non of an informative and legally sufficient EIR.
(Inyo v. Los Angeles (1977) 71 Cal.App.3d 185, 192–93 [Inyo].) Sacramento County, Department of Community Development, Planning and Environmental Review Division
October 28, 2024
The courts have consistently held that the ability of informed citizens to participate in environmental review is a key component of CEQA. (Washoe Meadows v. Dept. of Parks and Rec. (2017) 17 Cal.App.5th 277, 285 [“Informed public participation is essential to environmental review under CEQA.”]; Inyo, supra, 71 Cal.App.3d at 192 [“The EIR process facilitates CEQA’s policy of supplying citizen input.”].) An interrelated bedrock CEQA principle of informed public participation is that all aspects of a proposed project, i.e., the “whole of the action,” must be analyzed in an EIR. (See CEQA Guidelines, § 15378, subd. (a) [a project is the “whole of an action” which may result in direct or indirect physical changes to the environment].) This requires an EIR to include analysis of “all phases of a project” and all “reasonably foreseeable consequences” of a project. (CEQA Guidelines, § 15126 [EIR’s impact analysis must consider all phases of a project]; Laurel Height Improvement Assn. v. Regents of the Univ. of Cal. (1988) 47 Cal.3d 376 [Laurel Heights I] [EIR must analyze “reasonably foreseeable consequence” of a project].)
The DEIR violates these principles with respect to its so-called “phasing plan.” The DEIR repeatedly asserts that the Project would be developed in “phases,” beginning with “Phase I,” and followed by Phases 2 through 4. A careful review of the DEIR, however, reveals this project description to be inaccurate:
A preliminary phasing plan is illustrated in Plate PD-22 but would be subject to change as development occurs in response to market demand over time. Changes to the sequencing of individual development phases are permitted without an amendment to the proposed UWSP, provided that the improvements in each phase adequately support the associated development. This includes the ability for the Town Center to commence construction in an earlier phase than is identified on the preliminary phasing plan exhibit. Ultimate development phasing would be coordinated with and approved by County staff with processing of subsequent improvement plans for construction of public facilities.
The above-quoted language rebuts the DEIR’s express assumption that “phase 1” will be constructed first, and the EIR’s resulting methodology to analyze “Phase I” at a greater level of detail than future phases.5 Since phases 2 through 4 may ultimately be
5 As just one example, the EIR’s analysis of biological resources includes biological surveys for only 586.7 acres of the Project’s 2,066 total acres. What is more, the majority of this limited survey area includes the so-called “ag buffer” area that would not be Sacramento County, Department of Community Development, Planning and Environmental Review Division
October 28, 2024
constructed before Phase 1 “without amendment to the proposed UWSP” and corresponding CEQA review, then the EIR must analyze all phases of the Project at the same level of detail.
The informational defects associated with the Project’s sham “phasing” are wide ranging. The DEIR repeatedly justifies its perfunctory and inadequate environmental analysis by claiming more detailed review will occur in future “phases.” As just one example, the DEIR asserts with respect with Impact BR-1:
Because the proposed UWSP is anticipated to be built out in phases by different applicants over an estimated 20 years, different suites of mitigation measures may be required specific to the potential biological resources associated with phases of the build-out. In addition, land cover, land use, and consequently, plant and wildlife habitat may change during the intervening years relative to what is documented in this EIR. To identify whether, when, and where each measure applies, Mitigation Measure BR-1 is provided below, which requires that a pre-construction baseline biological resources report be prepared for each phase of development.
(DEIR, p. 7-40, emphasis added.)
The EIR makes similar representations regarding weed control and greenhouse gas (“GHG”) emissions. (DEIR, p. 7-41 [“Prior to the issuance of a grading permit, the applicant for each phase of the UWSP area development shall prepare a weed control plan for review and approval by the Environmental Coordinator.”], p. 8-29 [“As required by Mitigation Measure CC-1b, the applicant would be required to reduce GHG emissions associated with each phase of the proposed UWSP”].) Contrary to the promises of future CEQA review for these “phases,” the Project does not identify any County approvals associated with Project “phases.” (Draft Specific Plan, pp. 8–6 [Preliminary Development Phasing], 8–15 [Subsequent Entitlements].) Nor is there any identifiable CEQA review associated with these non-existent future Project “phases.” (Ibid.) In other words, the EIR’s claim of future review associated with future Project “phases” is unsupported by the record. There is no County review and approval of “phases,” and certainly no identifiable CEQA review associated with such “phases.” Accordingly, the EIR may not defer this analysis.
subject to development. (DEIR, p.7-45 [Plate BR-3].) The vast majority of the Project area, primarily “phases” 2 through 4, has not been surveyed for biological resources.
Sacramento County, Department of Community Development, Planning and Environmental Review Division
October 28, 2024
In short, a careful review of the DEIR and draft Specific Plan reveals that any claimed Project “phasing” and associated future CEQA review is misleading to say the least. The “preliminary phasing plan” is expressly subject to revision at any time without any amendment to the Specific Plan, which also does not provide for actual project “phases” triggering preparation of the deferred environmental analysis that is offered by the EIR to justify the present inadequate review. The EIR’s project description and strategy of deferred CEQA review based on that claimed phasing are therefore contrary to CEQA’s mandates.
III. THE DEIR FAILS TO ADEQUATELY ANALYSIS THE PROJECT’S
IMPACTS TO AGRICULTURAL RESOURCES
A. The DEIR Fails to Analyze Countywide Impacts Resulting from General Plan Text Amendments
The DEIR fails to analyze the Project’s impacts that extend well beyond the Project’s boundaries. Specifically, the Project includes a General Plan text amendment to eliminate County requirement that replacement agricultural land must be within the County. (General Plan Policies AG-1, AG-5). Nothing limits the scope of these text amendments to the Project. Accordingly, the County has a duty under CEQA to analyze all impacts associated with text amendments that would apply to all remaining agricultural lands throughout the County. The DEIR does not even recognize the broad scope of these text amendments, much less provide a good faith analysis of their countywide impacts. The DEIR simply ignores that these General Plan text amendments would apply countywide and makes no attempt to analyze the impact of the countywide effects on the remaining agricultural lands in the County.
B. The DEIR Fails to Disclose and Analyze General Plan Land Use Policy LU-127 that Prohibits the Project in Order to Protect Prime Farmland
The DEIR further fails as an informational document by conspicuously ignoring the County General Plan land use policy directly related to conserving agricultural resources, LU-127, which provides, “The County shall not expand the Urban Service Boundary unless . . . The area of expansion does not include the development of important natural resource areas, aquifer recharge lands or prime agricultural lands.” (Emphasis added.) The impact of LU-127 is unmistakable, and not subject to dispute.
County policy is to prohibit expansion of the USB unless proposed development “does not include the development of . . . prime agricultural lands.” Here, the DEIR acknowledges that the Project includes 1,207 acres of prime farmland, which represents approximately 1.4 percent of all prime farmland within the County. General Plan policy Sacramento County, Department of Community Development, Planning and Environmental Review Division
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is clear that this is disqualifying. The County’s wholesale failure to disclose LU-127, much less address it, renders the DEIR deficient as an informational document. 6
Finally, the informational deficiency resulting from the DEIR’s wholesale failure to mention LU-127 is not limited to agricultural impacts. On its face, LU-127 is intended to protect agricultural production as well as biological resources that rely on agricultural lands for habit and water quality since agricultural lands also facilitate groundwater recharge. Thus, the DEIR’s failure to address LU-127 results in informational deficiencies running throughout the DEIR including at minimum, the project description, agricultural impacts, biological impacts, hydrology and water quality, land use and project alternatives.
C. The “Ag Buffer” Is Inadequate to Minimize and Mitigate Significant Impacts Associated with the Loss of Agricultural Production
The DEIR asserts that the so-called “ag buffer” will “allow or the continuation of existing agricultural, ag-residential, and mitigation uses.” (DEIR, p. 2-27.) Accordingly, the DEIR relies on the “ag buffer” to dismiss, minimize and mitigate significant impacts.
A few non-exclusive examples include agricultural impacts (DEIR, p. 5-19), biological impacts (DEIR, pp. 7-80-82) and growth inducement (DEIR, p. 23-2.) However, the Sacramento County Farm Bureau letter provides expert testimony that the so-called “ag buffer” is inadequate due to its size and location to allow for ongoing agricultural operations. Accordingly, the “ag buffer” is not effective mitigation for impacts, and may not be relied upon to dismiss, minimize and mitigate significant impacts.
IV. THE DEIR FAILS AS AN INFORMATIONAL DOCUMENT WITH
RESPECT TO BIOLOGICAL RESOURCE IMPACTS
Other commenters, including expert comments by Shawn Smallwood (Exhibit 1) have explained in detail the DEIR’s failure to analyze in good faith the Project’s impacts
6 The DEIR’s omission of any reference to LU-127 strongly suggests an intent to mislead since LU-127 was expressly referenced by County staff when the County approved the commencement of master planning for the area: “While Policy LU-119 addresses Master Plan initiation, there are other policies such as LU-120, LU-127 and LU-15 which will be utilized by County staff, later in the Master Plan process, to determine whether or not the Master Plan could be recommended for approval. Initiation of the Master Plan process is only the first step and is not a guarantee of approval. The County strongly cautions that the applicants proceed at their own risk.” (Emphasis added.)
Sacramento County, Department of Community Development, Planning and Environmental Review Division
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on biological resources, including species and habitat addressed by the NBHCP. Those comments do not need to be repeated here. Rather, this comment focuses on the informational deficiency resulting from the DEIR’s failure to disclose—and even affirmative misrepresentations regarding—the NBHCP’s relevance to this Project.
As part of its analysis of impacts, an EIR must disclose related environmental review and consultation requirements of other jurisdictions and integrate these related requirements into CEQA review. (CEQA Guidelines, § 15124, subd. (d)(1)(C); see Banning Ranch Conservancy v. City of Newport Beach (2017) 2 Cal.5th 918, 936 [Banning Ranch].) Thus, agencies are encouraged to consult with responsible agencies before and during preparation of an EIR so that the document will meet the needs of all the agencies which will rely on it. (CEQA Guidelines, § 15006, subd. (g); Banning Ranch, supra, 2 Cal.5th at 936.) Such information is not only necessary for analysis of environmental impacts, but also project alternatives and mitigation measures. (Banning Ranch, supra, 2 Cal.5th at 937.) Failing to discuss other regulatory and permitting regimes with authority over the project violates the information disclosure requirements of CEQA and is a prejudicial error depriving the public of a full understanding of a project. (Banning Ranch, supra, 2 Cal.5th at 942.) The coordination between lead agencies and other permitting authorities “serves the laudable purpose of minimizing the chance the [lead agency] will approve the Project, only to have later permits for the project denied . . . .” (Cal. Native Plant Society v. City of Rancho Cordova (2009) 172 Cal.App.4th 603, 642.)
Banning Ranch is instructive. There, the lead agency failed to identify potential environmentally sensitive habitat areas (“ESHA”) and analyze the impacts of the project on those areas, which are governed by the Coastal Commission under the Coastal Act. (Banning Ranch, supra, 2 Cal.5th at 935–936.) Doing so undermined the EIR as an informational document. (Id. at 941–942.) The County’s informational deficiency here is significantly worse than in Banning Ranch. When the County initially agreed to conduct planning for development in this area, staff explained:
Development in the Natomas Basin has been met with challenges from environmental groups due to the presence of numerous threatened, endangered or special status species. Two of the species of greatest concern are the giant garter snake and the Swainson’s hawk. There have been several lawsuits filed over past environmental approvals associated with the NBHCP and the MAPHCP. A final ruling by United States District Judge David F. Levi on September 7, 2005 (Attachment 8) declared the HCPs valid and cleared the way for development. . . . [W]ith respect to Sacramento County, Department of Community Development, Planning and Environmental Review Division
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the issues of potential future growth in Sacramento County, Judge Levi ruled the following:
The NBHCP and BiOp [Biological Opinion (BiOp) utilized
by the Secretary of the Interior and United States Fish and Wildlife Service] do assume that development in the basin will be limited to the 17,500 acres [15,517 acres under the NBHCP and 1,983 acres from the previously approved
MAPHCP to total 17,500 acres cumulatively] in the permit areas and relies on that assumption in concluding that
sufficient habitat will remain for the covered species. This assumption is based on the current land use plans of
Sacramento County. The NBHCP, BiOp, and EIR/EIS also
conclude that because any future development in the Basin not covered by the HCP and ITPs [Incidental Take Permit allowing for “take” of an endangered species] would likely result in injury to listed species, any future development in the Basin would require new federal approvals. Any such approvals would in turn require a new HCP and ITP for the particular project, and could also lead to revision of the existing NBHCP, were the additional development to exceed assumed limits.
Judge Levi went on to say,
The NBHCP anticipates that development by the City and
Sutter will be limited to 15,517 acres – 8,050 acres within the City [of Sacramento] and 7,467 acres in Sutter County – and provides that approval of any development beyond this limit – whether by the City and Sutter or by other entities – will trigger reevaluation and possible amendment of the plan, and could result in suspension or revocation of the City and Sutter permits.
With regard to the City/County Natomas Joint Vision, which plaintiffs claimed would fatally undermine the NBHCP, Judge Levi ruled the following:
The Service, and the court, are entitled to assume at this point that future development will not be permitted if sufficient Sacramento County, Department of Community Development, Planning and Environmental Review Division
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mitigation land is unavailable and the development will result in jeopardy.
The Judge footnoted the above sentence with the following:
The court notes, however, that the Service and those seeking an ITP in the future will face an uphill battle if they attempt to argue that additional development in the Basin beyond 17,500 acres will not result in jeopardy. The NBHCP, BiOp, EIR/EIS, and Findings and Recommendations are all
predicated on the assumption that development in the Basin will be limited to 17,500 acres and that the remaining lands will remain in agricultural use.
Staff recognizes that any new development in the Natomas Basin above the 17,500 acres already approved and permitted by the Natomas Basin and Metro Air Park HCPs will require careful coordination and consideration of existing approved developments, their mitigation strategies, and the regional conservation context.
(Exhibit 9, 2019 County Staff Report, emphasis added.)
Following County staff’s express acknowledgement of the “uphill battle” that will require “careful coordination and consideration,” the DEIR is now conspicuously silent regarding this history and, critically, the detrimental impact that the Project may have on the existing habitat conservations plans. The DEIR fails as an informational document by not addressing these critical interrelationships—as County staff previously promised to do at the beginning of this process.
V. THE DEIR’S TWO TRANSPORTATION ANALYSES VIOLATE CEQA
AND REVEAL VIOLATIONS OF GENERAL PLAN POLICIES
REQUIRING PROJECT DENIAL
A. The DEIR Violates CEQA by Not Adequately Analyzing the Project’s VMT and Transportation Safety Impacts
Transportation Engineer Dan Smith reviewed the DEIR’s technical transportation studies and prepared comments identifying numerous deficiencies. (Exhibit 2.) These comments are incorporated by refence and do not require repetition here.
Sacramento County, Department of Community Development, Planning and Environmental Review Division
October 28, 2024
B. The Local Transportation Analysis Reveals Violations of the County’s General Plan LOS Standards
The local transportation analysis reveals that the Project would be inconsistent with the County’s General Plan. Specifically, Table 12 discloses that the Project would individually result in unacceptable level of service (“LOS” F) conditions at no fewer than 13 different intersections.
The DEIR dismisses this violation of General Plan standards by asserting:
Consistent with Policy CI-9, the proposed roadway system included in the proposed UWSP would be designed in a manner that meets level of service operating standards with just a few exceptions. In instances where operating standards are not met, physical improvements to increase capacity (e.g., widening El Centro Road to an eight-lane cross section) have been deemed by Sacramento County to be either infeasible or would be inconsistent with the proposed UWSP’s goal of creating an environment conducive to walking and bicycling.
(DEIR, p. 18-19, emphasis added.)
The problem is that the Project’s “just a few exceptions” to the County’s LOS E standard for urban roadways means that the Project is not “consistent” with General Plan Policy CI-9. While it is true that Policy CI-9 allows for deviation from these standards when “it is infeasible to implement project alternatives or improvements that would achieve” the LOS standards, the DEIR does not support its assertion that specific physical improvements necessary to provide an adequate LOS for the Project already “have been deemed by Sacramento County to be either infeasible or would be inconsistent with the UWSP’s goal of creating an environment conducive to walking and bicycling.” The DEIR does not disclose when the County previously made this determination regarding the Project’s circulation plan, much less any information documenting the feasibility determination. Further, it is unclear whether any such determination of feasibility is properly made before project approval and even release of the DEIR.
What is more, the language of CI-9 does not support violating the County’s LOS standards on the basis that physical improvements “would be inconsistent with the proposed USWSP’s goal of creating an environment conducive to walking and bicycling.” Even if this is a proper basis for violating the County’s LOS standards (the plain language of CI-9 contradicts this), the DEIR fails to provide any analysis identifying the proposed physical improvements or how they are inconsistent with the stated goal.
Sacramento County, Department of Community Development, Planning and Environmental Review Division
October 28, 2024
Finally, even if the County can credibly explain how physical improvements to existing intersections are not feasible (perhaps due to right-of-way constraints), it strains logic to suggest that the same is true regarding intersections not presently in existence. (See Table 12, intersections 61, 63, 68, 69.) The DEIR fails to explain how it is infeasible to design new intersections at a minimum LOS E.
In summary, the Project’s roadway system patently violates the County’s General Plan LOS standards, and the County fails to explain how it is infeasible to construct a system that meets the minimum LOS E standards. The Project’s General Plan inconsistencies will increase cut-through traffic on other roadways such as along Garden Highway thereby further increasing undisclosed congestion and roadway hazards to existing residents.
C. The EIR Fails as an Informational Document Regarding the Project’s Proposed Transit System, Impacts and Mitigation
The DEIR claims that the Project employs “smart growth” principles that include “Transportation Choices – Development should encourage people to walk, bike, use public transit, or carpool to their destination.” Nothing could be further from the truth.
In fact, the EIR fails as an informational document with respect to the Project’s impact and mitigation regarding transit impacts.
As a threshold matter, buried in the DEIR’s appendix is the revelation that “[U]se of transit for travel to external destinations is estimated at two percent for the purposed project.” The DEIR fails to explain how this abysmal transit mode share is consistent to its claim that the Project is somehow “encouraging” transit use.7 In fact, the Project fails to provide adequate transit facilities, and the DEIR fails to adequately disclose this to the public and decision-makers.
The DEIR notes that the Project would result in a significant transportation impact if it “[s]ubstantially increase[s] transit demand and fail[s] to provide adequate transit service.” (DEIR, p. 18–16.) Although the transit mode split of 2.0 – 2.3 percent is well below the split for an infill or “smart growth” project, the mode split would still result in 3,576 daily transit trips. The DEIR fails to set forth enforceable mitigation to address this transit demand. The DEIR acknowledges this failure:
7 The DEIR’s transportation appendix indicates that its assumed transit trip generation is more than the “base” rate assumed for a “suburban” development but fails to identity the assumed “base” transit trip generation number.
Sacramento County, Department of Community Development, Planning and Environmental Review Division
October 28, 2024
[T]he proposed UWSP would substantially increase transit ridership demand that may not be fully accommodated by the proposed transit service as described in the transit plan that has been prepared for the Specific Plan. Specifically, severe congestion along El Centro Road between West El Camino Avenue and Farm Road would cause substantial delays to bus service that would operate along this route as part of the UWSP. Additionally, the lack of planned fixed-route bus service may lead to an unmet demand for transit service.
The DEIR fails to describe the Project’s transportation network. The DEIR asserts, “Plate TR-5 shows the proposed transit system included in the proposed UWSP, which would include an on-site shuttle that would operate along key roadways during peak periods.” Plate TR-5, however, fails to reveal the on-site shuttle, much less provide any information regarding its operation.
Setting aside its failure to describe the proposed transit network, the DEIR proposes to mitigate the Project’s failure to provide for the Project’s transit demand with mitigation measure TR-1b, which requires the Project applicant to “coordinate with the County and SacRT” to provide the transit “assumed” in the DEIR’s transportation analysis “or a cost-effective equivalent.” However, the EIR fails to identify with any specificity the specific transit infrastructure that would be required to handle 3,576 daily external transit trips. Compounding this informational failure, funding for this uncertain transit plan would be by “annexation to County Service Area 10, formation of a transportation services district, or other secured funding mechanism.”
An EIR may not simply label an impact significant without describing the severity of the significant impact and identifying all feasible mitigation measures to reduce it to less than significant. The DEIR’s failure to adequately describe the transit plan, coupled with the uncertainty regarding its funding, renders the DEIR defective as an informational document with respect to transit impacts. Moreover, the DEIR’s analysis and mitigation for transit impacts, including its vague transit plan, fails to support a finding that the Project “promotes . . . transit options that will encourage non-vehicular trips.”
VI. THE DEIR FAILS TO INCLUDE A LAWFUL WATER SUPPLY
ASSESSMENT FOR THE PROJECT
The project requires a water supply assessment (“WSA”) pursuant to SB 610. No such WSA appears to have been prepared for the Project, much less attached to the EIR Sacramento County, Department of Community Development, Planning and Environmental Review Division
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as required by law. (Wat. Code, 10911, subd. (b).) Rather than the legally mandated WSA for the Project, the EIR includes a “water supply analysis” form prepared by the applicant’s legal counsel. This form fails to provide the information required for a legally-adequate WSA set forth in Water Code section 10910, subdivisions (d), (e), (f), and (g). Indeed, the only information in the “water supply analysis” prepared by the applicant’s counsel is information about the Project’s proposed water demand. This falls well short of the information required for a WSA. As a result, the EIR fails as an informational document regarding whether an adequate water supply is available to support the Project.
While a WSA may incorporate information from a water supplier’s urban water management plan (“UWMP”) into a project’s WSA, that was not done here. The “water supply analysis” makes no attempt to set forth information required by subdivisions (d), (e), (f) and (g), much less reference where that information is provided in the City’s UWMP.
Moreover, a WSA may incorporate a water supplier’s UWMP “[i]f the projected water demand associated with the proposed project was accounted for in the most recently adopted urban water management plan.” (Wat. Code, §10910, subd. (c)(2).) The applicant’s legal counsel checked a box asserting that the City’s UWMP accounted for the Project’s water demand. This representation is demonstrably false. Nothing in the City’s UWMP indicates that the Project’s demand was accounted for in the City’s UWMP. (See Exhibit 10, chapters 3 and 4 of the City’s UWMP.) Indeed, all evidence points to the opposite conclusion. The City’s UWMP determines its demand projections based upon a combination of its retail and wholesale demands. (Exhibit 10, pp. 3-11–3- 18; 4-3–4-10.) The Project site is located outside the City’s retail service area, and so it is not a retail customer of the City. (Exhibit 10, Figure 3-1.) Moreover, the Project site is presently served by Natomas Central Mutual Water Company, which is not a wholesale customer of the City. (Exhibit 10, p. 3-18.) Since the Project site is neither a retail nor wholesale customer of the City, nothing from the City’s UWMP demonstrates that it accounted for any water demand from the Project site, much less the 4,242 AFY set forth in the applicant’s “water supply analysis.”
Implicitly acknowledging that the Project’s water demand is not “accounted for,” the City’s approval of the applicant’s “water supply analysis” engages in obfuscation, asserting, “The area addressed in this WSA lies within an area contemplated by the City’s 2020 Urban Water Management Plan demand forecast and within the legal boundaries of the City’s water rights entitlement.” (Exhibit 11, City staff report dated December 6, 2022, Consent Item 14, emphasis added.) That a project site (notably not the specific Project demand) is only somehow merely “contemplated”—whatever that Sacramento County, Department of Community Development, Planning and Environmental Review Division
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term may mean—is not the same as affirmatively “accounting for” a specific water demand. The same is true regarding the City’s irrelevant finding that the Project area is “within the legal boundaries” of the City’s water right. That the City may lawfully provide water to a parcel is in no way the same as demonstrating that the City affirmatively accounted for the parcel’s water demand, much less and increased water demand from a proposed (and unapproved) development project.
In short, the Project’s proposed demand of 4,242 AFY was not “accounted for” in the City’s UWMP, and so information from the UWMP may not be incorporated into a WSA for the Project—even if one had been prepared (it has not). A reviewing court will have no difficulty disapproving the County’s reliance on the false and misleading “water supply analysis” prepared by the applicant.8 A lawful WSA will need to be prepared for the Project along with a recirculated DEIR.
VII. THE DEIR FAILS AS AN INFORMATIONAL DOCUMENT REGARDING
AIR QUALITY EMISSIONS AND RESULTING HUMAN HEALTH
IMPACTS
The Project would result in significant air quality emissions and human health impacts resulting from air emissions. The DEIR fails as an informational document by not adequately disclosing such impacts. Expert comments by SWAPE are attached as Exhibit 3, incorporated by reference, and do not require repetition here.
A. The DEIR Fails to Disclose All Human Health Impacts Resulting from Acknowledged Significant Toxic Air Contaminant Emissions
The DEIR discloses that operation of the Project would result in significant cancer risk to both existing residents and future occupants of the Project. (DEIR, p. 6-49.) Indeed, the cancer risk to maximally exposed residents is greater than 44 increased cancer risks, which is more than four times the relevant significance standard of ten increased cancer risks. While this human health impact to residents is itself shocking, it unfortunately comes nowhere near to telling the whole story regarding the human health implications from the Project’s toxic air emissions (“TAC”).
8 While the City purported to approve the “water supply analysis” back in 2022, a legal challenge to its adequacy is not be ripe unless and until it is relied upon by the County to approve the Project. (California Water Impact Network v. Newhall County Water Dist. (2008) 161 Cal.App.4th 1464.)
Sacramento County, Department of Community Development, Planning and Environmental Review Division
October 28, 2024
In addition to TAC emissions, the DEIR fails as an informational document by failing to adequately address the human health impacts associated with the Project’s contribution to ultrafine particulate (“UFP”) emissions.
The DEIR’s local transportation analysis reveals that the Project will increase auto and heavy-truck trips along I-80 and I-5, including increased vehicle queuing and resulting vehicle braking. This will exacerbate UFP emissions. (Exhibit 12 [“Very fine and ultrafine iron, nickel, copper, and zinc were identified as vehicular, with the most probable sources being brake drums and pads and the lubrication oil additive zinc thiophosphate . . . The braking systems of cars and trucks must now be considered along with direct exhaust emissions in estimating the health impacts from traffic.”].) The DEIR fails as an informational document by not adequately analyzing the human health impacts of increased UFP emissions on nearby residents, including existing residents and future occupants of the Project.
The human health impacts resulting from UFP emissions are very real, and include:
• Early heart attacks from ultra-fine metals from the upwind braking, • Increases in cancer from diesels exhaust . . .
• High rates of childhood asthma
• Rapid and permanent loss of lung function in children from ultra-fine metals, with 18 year olds having the lung function of 70 year olds.
(Exhibits 12,13,14,15.)
These health impacts, and others, are documented in several peer-reviewed technical studies. (Exhibits 12,13,14,15.) A peer-reviewed study entitled, “Prenatal Air Pollution and Newborns’ Predisposition to Accelerated Biological Aging” found that mothers “with higher residential exposure to PM2.5 . . . gave birth to newborns with significantly lower telomere length [a maker for biological aging] that could not be explained by other factors.” (Exhibit 14.) Another peer-reviewed study found that health impacts, including mortality, can be correlated to UFP exposure. (Exhibit 12.)
Notwithstanding the serious health impacts resulting from UFP emissions— particularly at particulate emissions giving rise to such high cancer risks—the DEIR makes no mention whatsoever of UFP emissions, much less the resulting health risk exposure. The DEIR’s failure to disclose health risk from UFP emissions violates CEQA. The California Supreme Court has held that an EIR must correlate air emissions to human health effects if it is feasible to do so. (Sierra Club v. County of Fresno (2018) Sacramento County, Department of Community Development, Planning and Environmental Review Division
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6 Cal.5th 502 [Sierra Club].) Sierra Club addressed a challenge to an EIR’s air quality discussion that, as here, simply listed various health conditions with no attempt to correlate those impacts to air emissions. The court explained:
The EIR’s discussion of health impacts of the named pollutants provides only a general description of symptoms that are associated with exposure to the ozone, particulate matter (PM), carbon monoxide (CO), and nitrogen dioxide (NOx), and the discussion of health impacts regarding each type of pollutant is at most a few sentences of general information. The disclosures of the health effects related to PM, CO, and sulfur dioxide fail to indicate the concentrations at which such pollutants would trigger the identified symptoms.
(Id. at 519, emphasis added.)
The defect identified in Sierra Club applies with equal force here. The DEIR in Sierra Club at least disclosed potential health risks. Here, by contrast, human health impacts are ignored. A new DEIR will need to be prepared, and that new DEIR will need to disclose the Project’s increased UFP emissions and correlate those UFP emissions to human health impacts if it is feasible to do so. If it is not feasible to correlate UFP emissions to health impacts, the DEIR must plainly state so and support that conclusion with substantial evidence.
B. The DEIR Fails to Set Forth All Feasible Mitigation for Acknowledged Human Health Impacts
As set forth above, the Project will significantly increase the risk of cancer to existing and future residents. Although exposing residents to more than four times the significance threshold for cancer risk, the DEIR purports to rely on mitigation that is ineffective rather than effective mitigation strategies.
DEIR acknowledges a significant operational health risk to existing residents located south of I-80. The only proposed mitigation is to install MERV 13 or greater air filters. The DEIR fails to explain, however, that this mitigation strategy is ineffective unless the HVAC system is actually running with all doors and windows closed. A study cited in the DEIR explains:
In the province of Ontario, building construction and equipment is regulated by NBC and the Ontario Building Code (OBC) [4], [5]. These codes establish the limiting design factors such as minimum ventilation Sacramento County, Department of Community Development, Planning and Environmental Review Division
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rates per person, minimum building envelope insulation values and guidance on use of filters for safety and fire protection purposes.
Residential buildings adopting the building codes typically install Heat Recovery Ventilators (HRVs). Future revisions of NBC include possible reduction of PM2.5 using air cleaning devices in the HVAC system if the outdoor air pollution levels are above ambient threshold levels.
In addition to the above mentioned building codes, the R-2000 standard is a voluntary standard meant to exceed building code requirements, regulating and promoting high energy efficiency and improved air quality initiatives by offering incentives on retrofit and new construction. Typical R-2000 houses have high-efficiency heating and ventilation systems (e.g. installation of HRV and exhaust fans certified by the Home Ventilating Institute), additional insulation, and an airtight building envelope.
(Emphasis added.)9
According to the DEIR’s own reference material, an “airtight building envelope” is required for the air filter to actually be effective at reducing TAC exposure inside the home. This means that all doors and windows must be closed, and the HVAC must be running. Further, and importantly, the study indicates specialized high-efficiency heating and ventilation systems are required in order to obtain any benefit, and so simply installing a MERV 13 air filter into a random gas furnace as suggested by the DEIR is not effective to reduce the cancer risk. Effective mitigation would include a program to pay the costs for high-efficiency heating and ventilation systems and airtight building envelopes.
The DEIR also proposes as mitigation to “include consideration of recommendations in land use siting found in CARB’s Air Quality and Land Use Handbook: A Community Health Perspective.” (Mitigation Measure AQ-4a.) This is patently ineffective and unenforceable since requiring “consideration of recommendations” provides no performance standard.
With respect to the cancer impact to on-site residents, the DEIR continues to offer ineffective mitigation. While the Project application can control design and construction, the DEIR does not require residential construction to include non-opening windows, which is required for increased air filtration to be effective. Similarly, the DEIR asserts as mitigation “Prohibit siting new sensitive land uses within 500 feet of urban roads
9 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0360132315001171 Sacramento County, Department of Community Development, Planning and Environmental Review Division
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carrying 100,000 vehicles per pay,” and yet the Project’s site plan plainly violates this proposed mitigation measure. (See DEIR Plate PD-13, which proposes residential land uses adjacent to I-80.)
VIII. THE EIR FAILS TO ANALYZE A REASONABLE RANGE OF
ALTERNATIVES
CEQA requires that lead agencies consider alternatives at two stages in the EIR process. First, a DEIR must analyze a range of reasonable alternatives to the project. (CEQA Guidelines, § 15126.6.) Later, when the agency considers whether to approve or carry out the project as proposed, it cannot do so if a feasible alternative would substantially reduce significant effects. (CEQA Guidelines, § 15092, sub. (b)(2)(A).)
To explore ways for a project to meet as many goals as possible while protecting the environment, EIRs thus must evaluate alternatives that accomplish “most” basic objectives. (CEQA Guidelines, § 15126.6 (a).) Alternatives warrant study in the EIR process if they can reduce or avoid impacts and are “potentially feasible.” (CEQA Guidelines, §§ 15126.6. subds. (a), (c), (f); Watsonville Pilots Association v City of Watsonville (2010) 183 Cal.App.4th 1059, 1087 [Watsonville Pilots].) As to whether an EIR has analyzed an adequate range of reasonable alternatives, “[e]ach case must be evaluated on its facts . . . in light of the statutory purpose.” (Watsonville Pilots, supra, 183 Cal.App.4th at 1086.) The nature and scope of the alternatives to be studied are governed by the rule of reason. (CEQA Guidelines, § 15126., subd. (a).)
Feasible alternatives are allowed to “impede to some degree the attainment of the project objectives, or . . . be more costly.” (CEQA Guidelines, § 15126.6, subd. (b).) An “alternative that is potentially feasible should not be excluded from an EIR simply because it may not further all of the agency’s policy objectives.” (Watsonville Pilots, supra, 183 Cal.App.4th at 1087.) Watsonville Pilots found legal error when a draft EIR failed to evaluate a reduced development because it failed to meet two of twelve objectives: “The City’s argument on this issue is premised on its claim that no discussion of an alternative is required if that alternative would not meet a project objective. This premise is mistaken.” (Ibid.)
Finally, CEQA requires consideration of “alternative locations” for a project based on the answer to a “key question”:
The key question and first step in analysis is whether any of the significant effects of the project would be avoided or substantially lessened by putting the project in another location. Only locations that would avoid or Sacramento County, Department of Community Development, Planning and Environmental Review Division
October 28, 2024
substantially lessen any of the significant effects of the project need be considered for inclusion in the EIR.
(CEQA Guidelines, § 15126.6, subd. (f)(2)(A).)
Many of the Project’s unprecedented laundry list of significant and unavoidable impacts would be avoided or substantially lessened by an alternative location, i.e., one that is within the County’s USB and UPA and does not consist of productive farmland that also provide habitat for special-status species. CEQA therefore requires analysis of alternative locations. Rather than comply with its legal duty to analyze offsite locations, the DEIR instead refuses to do so based on three specious arguments: (i) any alternative location would “entail either the same or new significant environmental effects as those that would occur within the UWSP area,” (ii) alternative sites that “could feasibly achieve many of the project objectives [are] not available as planning applications for those lands have already been filed with the City of Sacramento and with the County of Sacramento,” and (iii) an offsite alternative would not be feasible as the project applicants do not control any other properties within Sacramento County.” All of these are without merit.
A. The DEIR Fails to Support Its Assertion That All Alternative Sites Would Have the Same or New Significant Impacts
The DEIR broadly asserts that any alternative location would result in the same or new significant impacts, and then purports to support that claim with a few “examples.” This applies an incorrect standard because consideration of an alternative location is required if any significant impact is reduced or lessened. Here, the DEIR acknowledges that the Project would result in an incredible 29 different significant and unavoidable impacts. CEQA requires considering an alternative if any of these 29 significant impacts would be reduced. Alternative locations not consisting of prime farmland outside of the USB have reduced impacts associated with agricultural land conversion and inducing unplanned growth. These are just the impacts that are acknowledged in the DEIR. An objective analysis of the Project would disclose significant impacts associated with biological resources and land use consistency that would also be reduced by an alternative location.
Indeed, the DEIR acknowledges there are “other large vacant properties located adjacent to the City of Sacramento that could feasibly achieve many of the project objectives.” (DEIR, p. 3-4.) At minimum, the DEIR must disclose and analyze these alternative locations since the DEIR acknowledges that they are potentially feasible.
Sacramento County, Department of Community Development, Planning and Environmental Review Division
October 28, 2024
B. The Existence of Otherwise Feasible Alternative Locations Demonstrates That the No Project Alternative Is Feasible
It is very rare that a “no project alternative” is also a feasible alternative. This is one of those cases. As indicated above, the DEIR acknowledges the existence of “other large vacant properties located adjacent to the City of Sacramento that could feasibly achieve many of the project objectives.” Thus, these projects satisfy the test for “potential feasibility” and must be analyzed in the DEIR. (Watsonville Pilots, supra, 183 Cal.App.4th at 1087.) Also, and importantly, the existence of other projects that satisfy most of the DEIR’s project objectives squarely supports the “no project” alternative as a feasible alternative. To put it simply, the DEIR’s concession that other projects will satisfy most of the DEIR’s project objectives means that the County can deny the Project and still achieve the majority of its project objectives through other developments.
Implicitly recognizing this conclusion, the DEIR asserts that these other projects do not achieve one of the Project’s objectives, but this is not the relevant standard for determining feasibility. (Watsonville Pilots, supra, 183 Cal.App.4th at 1087 [“alternative that is potentially feasible should not be excluded from an EIR simply because it may not further all of the agency’s policy objectives”].)10 Finally, that planning applications for these alternative locations have already been filed by developers other than Mr. Gidaro is of no consequence since CEQA does not provide guarantees to any specific developer. (Citizens of Goleta Valley v. Board of Supervisors (1988) 197 Cal.App.3d 1167, 1179 [“Ownership of the land used and the identity of the developer are factors of lesser significance”] [Goleta I].) County staff made this point with clarity in 2019 by explaining, “Initiation of the Master Plan process is only the first step and is not a guarantee of approval. The County strongly cautions that the applicants proceed at their own risk.” The DEIR now unfortunately represents a dramatic departure by transparently advocating for the Project, and even relying on unlawful reasons to avoid any consideration of feasible alternatives including the no project alternative.
C. Alternative Sites May Not Lawfully Be Dismissed from Consideration Because They are Not “Controlled” by the Applicant
The DEIR’s final argument for rejecting consideration of any alternative location is that they are not “controlled” by the “project applicants.” As a threshold matter, the DEIR’s reference to “project applicants” is false and misleading since there is only one project applicant, Upper Westside, which ones merely 1.53 percent of the Project area.
10 This analysis sets aside that the referenced project objective is manipulated and impermissibly narrow as explained above.
Sacramento County, Department of Community Development, Planning and Environmental Review Division
October 28, 2024
The “participating properties” are not project applicants, and the DEIR provides nothing supporting its assertion that Mr. Gidaro controls these other properties for purposes of land development. That said, even if Mr. Gidaro actually controlled these “participating” properties, this would translate to merely 14 percent control over the 2,066-acre Project area.
In other words, Mr. Gidaro does not control the vast majority (either 98.47 percent or 86 percent) of the Project area. This is critical because the DEIR fails to explain how zero percent control makes a project infeasible whereas 1.53 percent (or 14 percent) control somehow makes a project feasible. In both instances the vast amount of contemplated development is wholly outside the control of the project applicant.
In any event, the DEIR’s reliance on “control” to dismiss alternative locations is contrary to CEQA since it is merely one consideration out of many. Although misquoted in the DEIR, the relevant CEQA Guideline explains:
Among the factors that may be taken into account when addressing the feasibility of alternatives are site suitability, economic viability, availability of infrastructure, general plan consistency, other plans or regulatory limitations, jurisdictional boundaries (projects with a regionally significant impact should consider the regional context), and whether the proponent can reasonably acquire, control or otherwise have access to the alternative site (or the site is already owned by the proponent). Not one of these factors establishes a fixed limit on the scope of reasonable alternatives.
(CEQA Guidelines, § 15126.6, subd. (f)(1).) Further, caselaw rejects assertions of inability to acquire alternate locations to avoid consideration of alternative locations. (Goleta I, supra, 197 Cal.App.3d at 1179 [“Ownership of the land used and the identity of the developer are factors of lesser significance”].)11
Finally, and importantly, allowing EIRs to dismiss consideration of alternative locations under these facts would eviscerate CEQA’s requirement to consider alternative
11 While Goleta I was distinguished in Save Our Residential Environment v. City of West Hollywood (1992) 9 Cal.App.4th 1745, 1753, the court’s analysis was based on its finding that “in order to meet the objectives of the General Plan, the project was required to be located within a very limited geographical area.” This analysis does not apply here since the Project is admittedly inconsistent with the County’s General Plan. There is no argument that the General Plan requires Mr. Gidaro’s proposed urban development “within a very limited geographic area.”
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locations. While Mr. Gidaro is free to acquire property at a discount price (precisely because the land is unsuitable for urban develop), Mr. Gidaro is not allowed to rely on his discounted land acquisition as a shield to prevent the County’s DEIR from considering whether alternate locations (i.e., locations that are more appropriately zoned for urban development and therefore commanding a higher price) would result in reduced environmental impacts. This is precisely what the DEIR’s alternatives analysis purports do to, and it flagrantly violates CEQA’s mandate to consider alternative locations where significant impacts are associated with the proposed project’s location.
The County will need to prepare a new alternatives analysis that objectively analyzes the feasibility of the no project alternative as well as alternative locations.
IX. THE DEIR FAILS TO SATISFY THE COUNTY’S DUTY TO
OBJECTIVELY ASSESS THE PROJECT, ITS IMPACTS, MITIGATION
MEASURES AND PROJECT ALTERNATIVES
As the CEQA lead agency for the Project, the County has a legal duty to prepare an EIR that objectively analyzes the Project. (Citizens for Ceres v. Superior Court (2013) 217 Cal.App.4th 889, 918–919 [Ceres].) Ceres provides:
It is this neutral role which could cause [the agency] to reject the project or certify an EIR supporting one of the project alternatives or calling for mitigation measures to which the applicant is opposed. The agency's unbiased evaluation of the environmental impacts of the applicant’s proposal is the bedrock on which the rest of the CEQA process is based. . . .
This means that the product of the agency’s efforts in conducting environmental review must reveal the true impacts of the proposed project, no matter how unattractive. The agency must unblinkingly include all significant impacts in the EIR and consider them with an open mind when deciding on project approval.
. . .
The relationship between a lead agency and project applicant is unique.
Before project approval, the agency must objectively judge whether the project as proposed is environmentally acceptable and therefore must make a decision about whether it will align itself with the applicant in part, in whole, or not at all.
(Ceres, supra, 217 Cal.App.4th at 918–919.)
Sacramento County, Department of Community Development, Planning and Environmental Review Division
October 28, 2024
As Ceres explains, an objective analysis of a Project is one that may support rejection of the Project or selection of a Project alternative. An objective analysis is not one that transparently advocates for applicant’s proposed project by, as here, attempting to sweep troublesome issues under the rug or avoid consideration of feasible project alternatives.
While the law presumes the agency acts in accordance with its legal duty to be objective, the law is settled that the presumption can be overcome by evidence. Some of the DEIR’s most egregious violations of CEQA described above— ignoring General Plan Policy LU-127, ignoring the Project’s impact on existing habitat conservation plans, reliance on lack of applicant “control” to justify dismissing alternative locations, falsely asserting that expansion of the USB is necessary to accommodate the County’s share of future population growth —strongly suggest the DEIR was not prepared to advance the County’s duty to objectively analyze the Project but rather to promote the Project and avoid consideration of alternatives.
* * *
The DEIR is fundamentally flawed as an informational document. An entirely new DEIR will need to be prepared for the Project that objectively analyzes the Project’s significant impacts, mitigation measures and a reasonable range of alternatives.
Thank you for the opportunity to comment.
Very truly yours,
SOLURI MESERVE
A Law Corporation
By:
Patrick M. Soluri
Attachments:
Exhibit 1 Comments from Shawn Smallwood, PhD
Exhibit 2 Comments from Dan Smith, Smith Engineering & Management Exhibit 3 Comments from SWAPE
Exhibit 4 Upper Westside, LLC Articles of Incorporation Exhibit 5 Property Details for Applicant’s Property
Sacramento County, Department of Community Development, Planning and Environmental Review Division
October 28, 2024
Exhibit 6 Upper Westside, LLC’s Statement of Information Exhibit 7 Secretary of State Entry Database Entry for Upper Westside, LLC Exhibit 8 County Website regarding Natomas Joint Vision Exhibit 9 Recommended Action of the Office of Planning and Environmental Review to the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors for the meeting agenda for February 26, 2019
Exhibit 10 City of Sacramento’s Urban Water Management Plan, Chapters 3, 4 Exhibit 11 City staff report dated December 6, 2022, Consent Item 14 Exhibit 12 Cahill, T. A., Barnes, D. E., Spada, N. J., Lawton, J. A., and Cahill, T.
M. (2010). Very Fine and Ultra-Fine Metals and Ischemic Heart Disease in the California Central Valley 1: 2003-2007. Aerosol Sci.
Technol., 45:1123-1134.
Exhibit 13 Cahill, T. A., Barnes, D. E., Withycombe, E., and Watnik, M. (2010).
Very Fine and Ultra-Fine Metals and Ischemic Heart Disease in the California Central Valley 2: 1-74-1991. Aerosol Sci. Technol., 45:1135- 1142.
Exhibit 14 Martens D.S., Cox B, Janssen, B.G., Clemente, D., Gasparrini, A., Vanpoucke, C, Lefebvre, W., Roles, H.A., Plusquin, M., Nawrot, T. S. (2017). Prenatal Air Pollution and Newborns’ Predisposition to Accelerated Biological Aging. JAMA Pediatr., 171(12):1160-1167.
Exhibit 15 Cahill, T. A., Barnes, D. E., Lawton, J.A., Miller, R., Nicholas, S., Willis, R.D., Kimbrough, S. (2016. Transition metals in coarse, fine, very fine and ultra-fine particles from an interstate highway transect near Detroit. Atmos. Environ., 145:158-175.
State of California – Natural Resources Agency GAVIN NEWSOM, Governor DEPARTMENT OF FISH AND WILDLIFE CHARLTON H. BONHAM, Director North Central Region
1701 Nimbus Road, Suite A
Rancho Cordova, CA 95670-4599
916-358-2900
www.wildlife.ca.gov
1 CEQA is codified in the California Public Resources Code in section 21000 et seq. The “CEQA Guidelines” are found in Title 14 of the California Code of Regulations, commencing with section 15000.
October 30, 2024
Ju
lie Newton
Environmental Coordinator
Sacramento County Planning and Environmental Review
827 7th Street, Room 225
Sacramento, CA 95814
[email protected]
Subject:
Upper Westside Specific Plan
DR
AFT ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT REPORT (DEIR)
SCH No. 2020100069
Dea
r Julie Newton:
Th
e California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) received and reviewed the Notice of Availability of a DEIR from Sacramento County for the Upper Westside Specific Plan (Project) pursuant the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) statute and guidelines.1
Thank you for the opportunity to provide comments and recommendations regarding those activities involved in the Project that may affect California fish, wildlife, native plants, and their habitat. Likewise, we appreciate the opportunity to provide comments regarding those aspects of the Project that CDFW, by law, may
need to exercise its own regulatory
authority under the Fish and Game Code.
CDFW ROLE
CDFW is California’s
Trustee Agency for fish and wildlife resources and holds those resources in trust by statute for all the people of the State (Fish & G. Code, §§ 711.7, subd. (a) & 1802; Pub. Resources Code, § 21070; CEQA Guidelines § 15386, subd. (a).) CDFW, in its trustee capacity, has jurisdiction over the conservation, protection, and
management of fish, wildlife, native plants, and habitat necessary for biologically sustainable populations of those species. (Fish & G. Code, § 1802.) Similarly for purposes of CEQA, CDFW provides, as available, biological expertise during public agency environmental review efforts, focusing specifically on projects and related activities that have the potential to adversely affect fish and wildlife resources. 40 Upper Westside Specific Plan
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CDFW may also act as a Responsible Agency under CEQA. (Pub. Resources Code, § 21069; CEQA Guidelines, § 15381.) CDFW expects that it may need to exercise regulatory authority as provided by the Fish and Game Code. As proposed, for example, the Project may be subject to CDFW’s lake and streambed alteration regulatory authority. (Fish & G.
Code, § 1600 et seq.) Likewise, to the extent implementation of the Project as proposed may result in “take” as defined by State law of any species protected under the California Endangered Species Act (CESA) (Fish & G. Code, § 2050 et seq.), the Project proponent may seek related take authorization as provided by the Fish and Game Code.
PROJECT DESCRIPTION SUMMARY
The Project site is located in unincorporated Sacramento County adjacent to the existing City of Sacramento communities of North and South Natomas. The Upper Westside Specific Plan (UWSP) area is bounded by Fisherman’s Lake Slough to the north, the West Drainage Canal (Witter Canal) to the east, I-80 to the south, and Garden Highway to the west.
The Project consists of construction of a new development on 2,066 acres of unincorporated land in northwestern Sacramento County. The UWSP would provide a mix of residential and non-residential land uses to accommodate 9,356 housing units with a mixture of densities that support all population segments, and over 3 million square feet of commercial, retail, and office uses that serve the community’s needs. Key features of the UWSP would include a mixed-use Town Center, 10 active parks, and an extensive system of greenbelts and multi-use trails with linkages to downtown Sacramento. Development would be limited to a 1,532-acre Development Area while the remaining 534 acres would serve as an agricultural buffer (Ag Buffer) along the western edge of the UWSP area.
COMMENTS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
CDFW offers the comments and recommendations below to assist Sacramento County (the County) in adequately identifying and, where appropriate, mitigating the Project’s significant, or potentially significant, direct and indirect impacts on fish and wildlife (biological) resources. Based on the potential for the Project to have a significant impact on biological resources, CDFW concludes that an Environmental Impact Report is appropriate for the Project.
CDFW is primarily concerned with the Project impacts to the West Drainage Canal, agricultural land, nesting birds, burrowing owl (BUOW), Swainson’s hawk (SWHA), and their habitats.
COMMENT 1: Cumulative Agricultural Land Loss and Covered Species Habitat Loss, Conversion of Farmland to Nonagricultural Uses and Conflict with Natomas Basin HCP and Metro Air Park HCP, page numbers 5-20 to 5-23, 7-76 to 7-84
Issue: The Project is near the boundaries of the Natomas Basin Habitat Conservation Plan (NBHCP) Area and Metro Air Park Habitat Conservation Plan (MAP HCP) Area. CEQA Upper Westside Specific Plan
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Guidelines section 15125(d) states that EIRs must discuss any inconsistencies between projects and applicable plans (including habitat conservation plans/natural community conservation plans). The HCPs anticipate a certain amount of acreage to sustain the agricultural land that Covered Species can utilize for habitat (foraging, nesting, dispersal, cover, etc.). Since the HCPs’ implementation, projects in the Natomas Basin have resulted in a decrease in the amount of agricultural land available to Covered Species. CDFW is concerned that this Project will further contribute to the habitat loss and a reduction in the effectiveness of the NBHCP’s Conservation Strategy. When the NBHCP was first implemented in 2003 it was anticipated that 15,095 acres of agricultural land would remain, specifically as buffers for habitat reserves and supporting ecological functions of the Covered Species that rely on agricultural resources (Natomas Basin Habitat Conservation Plan, Page IV-11 through Page IV-13). However, agricultural land remaining for Covered Species has decreased since the NBHCP was adopted, through projects such as Greenbriar (1041 acres) and the Sacramento Area Flood Control Agency Natomas Levee Improvement Project (1600 acres). Further development projects under consideration, including this Project, Airport South Industrial Project (353.5 acres), and Grandpark (5676 acres) will further decrease the remaining agricultural lands. CDFW is concerned that further agricultural land loss will contribute to significant cumulative impacts to biological resources and will make maintaining 15,095 acres of agricultural land, as described in the NBHCP, unreachable.
Recommendation or Recommended Mitigation Measure: To identify any potential inconsistencies with the NBHCP and MAP HCP, CDFW recommends that the DEIR analyze Project related impacts from developing up to 1532 acres within areas anticipated to remain in agricultural uses and providing available habitat for NBHCP and MAP HCP Covered Species. CDFW also recommends the DEIR discuss the persistence of the NBHCP and MAP HCP Covered Species, critical for the success of both plans, including what actions are needed to sustain the appropriate levels of habitat to support all Covered Species within the NBHCP and MAP HCP boundaries. Additionally, CDFW recommends the DEIR include a discussion on how the County will ensure that implementation of the Project will not impede the NBHCP and MAP HCP’s biological goals and measurable objectives as it relates to agricultural lands.
COMMENT 2: Conservation Strategy for Upland Habitat, Page 7-84
Issue: The NBHCP conservation strategy for upland habitat is to avoid development in the Swainson’s Hawk Zone (SHZ) (and to preserve upland habitat within and outside of the Swainson’s Hawk Zone). The SHZ encompasses undeveloped land in the Natomas Basin that is within 1 mile of the inside toe of the levee along the Sacramento River from the Natomas Cross Canal south to Interstate 80. The SHZ was derived from the high density of Swainson’s hawk nests within this area and scientific evidence for the value of the habitat (NBHCP 2003). The NBHCP recognizes the importance of the SHZ to this species and the viability of their plan which resulted in substantial effort from the City of Sacramento and Sutter County to replan development outside of this area. Replanning efforts in the SHZ have been vital to preserve the area’s ecological value and the overall goals of the NBHCP, despite the associated economic and political opportunity costs. The Upper Westside Specific Plan
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NBHCP states that the “greatest impact of urban development on the Swainson’s hawk in the Natomas Basin would occur if significant portions of the Swainson’s Hawk Zone were developed.” CEQA Guidelines section 15125(d) states that EIRs must discuss any inconsistencies between projects and applicable plans (including habitat conservation plans/natural community conservation plans). The UWSP describes 975 acres of permanent habitat impacts within the SHZ, which is inconsistent with the NBHCP and therefore potentially significant as analyzed in the DEIR.
Mitigation Measure BR-7b of the DEIR proposes to minimize any potential conflict with this NBHCP strategy through applying a higher mitigation ratio (1:1) for conservation of Swainson’s hawk foraging habitat than proposed in the NBHCP (0.5:1); however, the NBHCP does not propose any additional development (and subsequent mitigation) within this area because of its ecological value, so only providing a comparison of the ratios without further analysis does not justify mitigation to a level of less than significant. At a 1:1 ratio, the current Mitigation Measure BR-7b will incur a net loss of available habitat for Swainson’s hawk in addition to the loss of a highly productive area within the SHZ.
Recommendation or Recommended Mitigation Measure: CDFW recommends to further analyze the impact to the SHZ by providing further discussion on the Project’s 1) biological impact in an ecologically valuable area; 2) the effect that Project development in the SHZ will have on the continued implementation and viability of the NBHCP, as well as the MAP HCP and 3) a comprehensive justification for how the mitigation proposed mitigates the impacts to a significant habitat.
COMMENT 3: Non-Special Status Migratory Bird and Raptor Survey Radius, BR-5 Avoid and Minimize Impacts on Nesting Birds, page number 7-53
Issue: The DEIR states that surveys shall be performed for the Project area, vehicle and equipment staging areas, and suitable habitat within 250 feet to locate any active passerine (perching bird) nests and within 500 feet to locate any active raptor (bird of prey) nests. CDFW believes a larger survey buffer with a minimum of 500 feet for migratory birds and 0.5-mile for raptors, as well as conducting them no more than seven (7) calendar days before construction commences would be more appropriate and protective for species that rebuild a nest quickly.
Recommendation or Recommended Mitigation Measure: CDFW recommends the DEIR describe how the considerations identified below will be implemented and incorporated into the appropriate DEIR section(s):
1. CDFW recommends the Project proponent add specific avoidance and minimization measures to the Mitigation Measures section. Project-specific avoidance and minimization measures may include, but not be limited to: Project phasing and timing, monitoring of Project-related noise (where applicable), sound walls, visual barriers, and buffers, where appropriate. The DEIR should include appropriate preconstruction surveys for non-listed migratory birds at a minimum radius of 500 feet (for migratory birds) and 0.5-mile (for raptors) around the Project area that can Upper Westside Specific Plan
October 30, 2024
be accessed by the Project proponent. The DEIR should include specific avoidance and minimization measures that will be implemented should a nest be located within the Project site. One example is a nest buffer radius which can be determined by monitoring the active nests and determining the distance at which the activities will disturb the nesting birds.
2. CDFW recommends including performance-based protection measures for avoiding all nests protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and Fish and Game Code.
While some birds may tolerate disturbance within 500 feet of construction activities, other birds may have a different disturbance threshold and “take” could occur if the temporary disturbance buffers are not designed to reduce stress to that individual pair. It is the Project proponent's responsibility to confirm that the buffer is sufficient to avoid take/nest failure.
3. CDFW recommends a final preconstruction bird survey be required no more than seven (7) calendar days prior to the start of vegetation clearing or ground disturbance activities, as instances of nesting could be missed in earlier surveys.
Monitoring of potential nesting activities in the Project area should continue, at a minimum, until the end of the avian nesting season (September 1). If a lapse in Project-related work of seven (7) calendar days or longer occurs, another focused bird survey should be completed before Project work can be reinitiated. It is the Project proponent’s responsibility to comply with Fish and Game Code Sections 3503, 3503.5, and 3513, regardless of the time of year.
4. CDFW recommends that any removal of known raptor nest trees, even outside of the nesting season, be replaced with an appropriate native tree species planting at a ratio of 3:1 at or near the Project area or in another area that will be protected in perpetuity to reduce impacts resulting from the loss of nesting habitat.
COMMENT 4: SWHA’s Nesting Habitat Mitigation, Swainson’s Hawk Mitigation Measures, page numbers 7-58 to 7-61
Issue: The DEIR lists mitigation measures for impacts to SWHA, including compensation for permanent impacts on SWHA foraging habitat (Measure BR-7b). However, there is no mitigation measure for potential impacts on SWHA nesting habitat. Recent surveys indicated that 14 Swainson’s hawk nests are present within the Project area or within a
0.5-mile radius that Project activities may impact (TNBC 2019-2024, CDFW 2020-2024).
The UWSP area also contains a number of mature trees that are planned to be removed by the Project which can be utilized for nesting by the SWHA. There is high likelihood that the Project may result in the take of SWHA through the removal of a nest (nesting tree) that is considered active within the last 5 years. The DEIR fails to provide a mitigation proposal for potential permanent impacts to an active SWHA nest and the measures in the DEIR (environmental training, preconstruction survey, avoidance and minimization plan, and biological monitor) are insufficient to reduce Project impacts to a less and significant level.
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October 30, 2024
Recommendation or Recommended Mitigation Measure: Projects with potential impacts to active SWHA nests are required to comply with CESA. CDFW recommends that the Project proponent obtain an incident take permit (ITP) for the Project if potential take of any active SWHA nests cannot be avoided during the life of the Project. CDFW recommends the DEIR include more detailed measures for how the UWSP will mitigate for potential permanent impacts to SWHA nesting habitat before construction commences.
These measures can include purchasing SWHA nesting mitigation credits from a CDFW- approved conservation bank, purchasing and placing a conservation easement on nearby biologically suitable, occupied SWHA nesting habitat, or any other method approved by CDFW. The additional measure should be incorporated into the appropriate DEIR section(s).
COMMENT 5: BUOW’s CESA Protection, Burrowing Owl Mitigation Measures, page number 7-22
Issue: The BUOW is listed as a State Species of Special Concern in the DEIR. On October 10, 2024, the California Fish and Game Commission granted the western burrowing owls candidate species protections under CESA. The candidacy designation temporarily affords the BUOW broad CESA protections (including prohibitions against “take” without permit authorization) throughout the entirety of California over the next 12-18 months while CDFW conducts a species status review to confirm whether (and where) listing is warranted and to recommend management and recovery actions. Projects with potential Project impacts to the burrowing owl will now be required to comply with CESA.
In the event that CDFW does confirm that listing is warranted for the BUOW in the future when the Project’s construction phase is to occur and take of BUOW and its nest is unavoidable, the Project proponent will be required to comply with CESA and provide suitable mitigation for loss of nesting habitat.
Recommendation or Recommended Mitigation Measure: CDFW recommends the relevant DEIR section should be modified to note the recent CESA candidate status of the BUOW. If take of BUOW cannot be avoided, then CDFW recommends the Project proponent obtain an ITP and provide suitable mitigation that fully mitigates the Project impacts.
COMMENT 6: Streambed Alteration Agreement, Table PD-3: Subsequent Permits, Approvals, Review, and Consultation Requirements, page number 2-61
Issue: The DEIR contains a table which lists the various permits and approvals required from government agencies in order for the Project to be constructed. However, the table is missing the Streambed Alteration Agreement issued by CDFW. On page 2-55 of the DEIR, various off-site improvements are listed that may impact the West Drainage Canal. This includes the upgrades to the West Drainage Canal (Witter Canal) culvert south of the El Centro Road and Natomas Central Drive/Arena Boulevard intersection, construction of the new bike trail crossing bridge, and the levee bank reinforcement (bank armoring) for the stormwater pump discharge location. These activities will require notification for a Streambed Alteration Agreement.
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October 30, 2024