From:
Sent: Monday, June 15, 2026 11:10 AM
To: Distrib- City Clerk <[email protected]>; Mayor Kate <[email protected]>; Maika Llorens Gulati <[email protected]>; Eli Hill <[email protected]>; Maribeth Bushey <[email protected]>; Rachel Kertz <[email protected]>; Mark Allen
Subject: Re: Written Public Comment — Special Meeting Item 1.e; Request for CEQA Review of 350 Merrydale in Light of the City's Inconsistent Environmental Findings Mark, I'm on your/our side. I would just point out that the City is likely to claim that there is NO inconsistency re CEQA and Anderson vs Merrydale. That Anderson is , and therefore not subject to CEQA " homeless encampment" and subject to CEQA, both sides agree on. However, I think the City is likely to claim that 350 is NOT a "homeless encampment), as it is a planned constructed project that is consistent with the neighborhood density and zoning and, along with the emergency declaration, grounds for no CEQA. That the subsequent affordable housing project is also claimed to be CEQA exempt, seems to me to be a more vulnerable position, as I question the zoning fit for density, as well as exempting additional market rate housing (up to 137 total units). By this logic, ANY affordable housing projects, at the City's interpretation, negates CEQA.
All, you are welcome to tear this argument apart - I hope you can - just, we need to anticipate counter claims.
Bernie Samet
On Sunday, June 14, 2026 at 10:15:43 PM PDT, Mark Allen wrote:
Dear City Clerk and Honorable Members of the City Council, I submit this written public comment for inclusion in the administrative record of the Special Meeting of June 15, 2026, in connection with Consent Calendar Item 1.e (Camping Regulations Evaluation and Proposed Changes; Resolution Prohibiting Camping Along Andersen Drive).
At the outset, I wish to be clear: I support the prohibition of camping along Andersen Drive and I do not object to the adoption of the proposed resolution. I have long advocated for addressing the conditions along the Andersen Drive corridor, and I welcome the City taking action to do so. I write solely to identify an inconsistency between the environmental findings the City offers in support of this action and the contrary environmental position the City has taken on the 350 Merrydale Road project, and to ask that the City address that inconsistency through environmental review of the Merrydale project — not to oppose the Andersen Drive prohibition.
The staff report and proposed resolution for Item 1.e find the Andersen Drive camping prohibition exempt from CEQA under Guidelines sections 15307 and 15308, on the express basis that the action is intended to "limit the secondary impacts associated with unhoused persons living in locations [that] could cause damage to environmental resources, and to prohibit discharges of untreated wastewater and other pollutants." The City thus finds, as the predicate for these exemptions, that the presence of an encampment causes — or threatens to cause — discharges of untreated wastewater and other pollutants and damage to natural resources and the environment.
That finding is difficult to reconcile with the position the City has taken for the 350 Merrydale Road project. For 350 Merrydale, the City has relied on the common-sense exemption, CEQA Guidelines section 15061(b)(3), which applies only where it can be seen with certainty that there is no possibility the activity may have a significant effect on the environment. The City is therefore asserting, simultaneously: (1) that establishing and operating an encampment of unhoused persons at 350 Merrydale Road — a site adjacent to a tidally influenced creek that drains to South Fork Las Gallinas Creek and San Pablo Bay — has no possibility of any significant environmental effect; and (2) that the presence of an encampment causes discharges of untreated wastewater and other pollutants and damage to environmental resources sufficient to invoke sections 15307 and 15308.
These two positions are in tension. If the presence of an encampment causes the wastewater discharges and resource impacts the City relies upon for the Item 1.e exemptions, then the City cannot simultaneously conclude, with the certainty section 15061(b)(3) requires, that establishing an encampment at the tidally connected 350 Merrydale site has no possibility of a significant environmental effect. The City's own findings in Item 1.e supply substantial evidence supporting a fair argument that the 350 Merrydale project may have a significant effect on the environment, including on the adjacent creek and its downstream receiving waters.
My request is directed at the 350 Merrydale project, not at the Andersen Drive resolution. Specifically, I request that the City decline to rely on a categorical or common-sense exemption for the 350 Merrydale project and instead conduct environmental review under CEQA — beginning with an initial study that establishes the environmental baseline for the site and analyzes the wastewater-discharge, waterquality, tidal-inundation and sea-level-rise, and special-status-species and habitat impacts that the City's own findings, and the site's proximity to the tidally influenced creek and its downstream receiving waters, place reasonably in question. As I noted in my written comment of June 1, 2026 regarding the Sea Level Rise Feasibility Study, federal mapping shows the project site lies within the present-day tidal inundation envelope of the San Pablo Bay system, which further supports the need for that review and for a properly established environmental baseline.
Reservation. I expressly reserve all rights, claims, and arguments under the California Environmental Quality Act, the Ralph M. Brown Act, the California Public Records Act, the Clean Water Act, the Endangered Species Act, and applicable California and federal law. These objections are intended to ensure that the administrative record reflects fair notice to the City of the specific CEQA inconsistency identified, in satisfaction of the exhaustion requirement of Public Resources Code section 21177(a), and to preserve these concerns for future administrative and judicial review of the 350 Merrydale project and related approvals. Nothing in this comment is intended to oppose, delay, or preserve any challenge to the Andersen Drive prohibition itself.
I request that this comment be included in full in the administrative record for the June 15, 2026 meeting and incorporated by reference into the administrative records for the 350 Merrydale Road project, the affordable housing Request for Proposals and related entitlements, and any City Manager invocation of Ordinance No. 2057.
Thank you for your attention to these concerns.
Mark Allen