A revised Program Environmental Impact Report (PEIR) is now available for the General Plan Land Use Element (LUE) and Urban Design Element (UDE). The revised PEIR is based on the final set of PlaceType and Height Maps adopted by the City Council on March 6, 2018. Since that time, staff has been working to update the PEIR for the LUE and its companion Urban Design Element (UDE), pursuant to the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). The revised PEIR is based on the final set of maps adopted by City Council on 3/6/18 as well as the updated LUE and UDE plan texts, to which technical changes have been made to align and ensure consistency with the map changes voted on by City Council and the revised CEQA analysis.
CEQA requires recirculation of an EIR when significant new information is added after public notice is given of the availability of the Draft EIR, but before the certification of the EIR. In this instance, recirculation is required due to the substantial changes made to the LUE maps after the first PEIR was circulated for public review in 2016. Updating the PEIR has involved revising the project description to reflect the City Council changes to the LUE text and maps and working with technical experts in transportation modeling, population forecasting, greenhouse gas emissions and more to update the analyses of the proposed LUE, for the purposes of CEQA review and disclosure. This included re-modeling existing and future conditions for 88 intersections throughout the city, updating forecast models related to air quality, and conferring with other agencies, such as the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans), to gain consensus on these methodologies.
The PEIR will be available for public review and comment for 60 days, longer than the mandatory 45-day review required by CEQA. Once the comment period has closed, each comment received from the public or other agencies will be reviewed and responded to in writing, pursuant to CEQA. Subsequent to this process, staff will bring the matter back to decision makers, first to the Planning Commission for recommendation and then to the City Council for certification of the revised Final Environmental Impact Report (which includes all public comments and responses to those comments). Depending on the number of comments received, it is anticipated that this action will come before the City Council in October 2019.
