Title
Review and Comment on the Draft Environmental Impact Report (EIR) for the Alameda Point Project. (Base Reuse)
Body
To: Honorable Mayor and Members of the City Council
From: John A. Russo, City Manager
Re: Review and Comment on the Draft EIR for the Alameda Point Project
BACKGROUND
The City is preparing a comprehensive zoning ordinance amendment (Zoning Amendment) and associated General Plan Amendments, a Master Infrastructure Plan (MIP), and a Town Center and Waterfront Precise Plan (Town Center Plan) for Alameda Point (collectively, Alameda Point project).
As required by the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), the City has also prepared a draft environmental impact report (draft EIR), which was released for public review and comment on September 4, 2013. On January 28, 2013 and February 25, 2013, the City held two scoping sessions with the Planning Board to provide an opportunity for the public to submit comments on the scope of a draft EIR for the Alameda Point project. Written comments submitted to the City as part of the scoping process were reviewed by City staff and City's consultants (Environmental Science Associates (ESA)) as part of the preparation of the draft EIR.
The draft EIR, draft Zoning Amendment, MIP, and Conceptual Framework Options for the Town Center Plan can be found at the City's website at <http://alamedaca.gov/alameda-point/current-draft-documents>. Printed copies of the draft EIR are available for review at a number of locations around Alameda, including the City Clerk's office and the City's three libraries.
DISCUSSION
The draft EIR provides an evaluation of the potential environmental impacts that may be expected as the result of the redevelopment and reuse of Alameda Point pursuant to the draft zoning amendment, infrastructure plan (MIP), and Town Center Plan. The purpose of the evaluation is to inform the community, the Planning Board, and the City Council about the potential environmental impacts associated with the development of Alameda Point and the potential mitigations that are available to avoid or lessen the impacts before any final decisions are made. The information in the draft EIR may also be used by the Planning Board to inform possible changes and modifications to the draft zoning, MIP, or draft Town Center Plan.
The EIR is an informational document; it does not approve or deny the project, but it does provide important information that must be considered before any final actions are taken on the project.
Over the course of the 45-day review period, staff will be accepting comments on the draft EIR. Specifically, staff is inviting comments on the adequacy of the analysis and any specific environmental questions that may not have been adequately answered. Public comment was taken at the September 9, 2013 Planning Board hearing and may also be submitted verbally or in writing on September 25, 2013 at the joint Planning Board and City Council meeting. Written comments may also be submitted to the City at any time by mail or email until October 21, 2013.
At the close of the 45-day comment period on October 21, 2013, the City will compile all the comments and prepare a response to each of the comments received and revise any analysis, if necessary. Upon completion or revisions and responses, the City will release a Final EIR for public, Planning Board, and City Council consideration. Neither the Planning Board nor the City Council can make any final decisions about the adoption of the zoning, infrastructure plan or Town Center Plan until the Final EIR is reviewed and certified by the City Council.
EIR SECTIONS
The draft EIR includes a series of chapters that address the following environmental topics:
A. Land Use;
B. Population, Employment, and Housing;
C. Transportation (including impacts on bicycle, transit, and pedestrian levels of service);
D. Cultural Resources (including impacts on historic resources and the NAS Historic district);
E. Biological Resources (including impacts on the endangered species and the Least Tern colony);
F. Air Quality and Greenhouse Gas Emissions;
G. Noise;
H. Geology, Soils, and Seismicity;
I. Hydrology and Water Quality;
J. Hazardous Materials;
K. Aesthetics; and
L. Utilities and Service Systems
In addition, the draft EIR includes:
· A summary chapter (Chapter 2) that reviews the impacts and mitigations for each environmental topic.
· A detailed project description (Chapter 3). The Alameda Point "project" evaluated in the draft EIR is described as follows: the project is designed to accommodate a mix of land uses, including approximately 5.5 million square feet of employment uses in existing and newly constructed buildings, 1,425 residential units, including 267 existing single family and multifamily housing units, over 250 acres of parks and open space, and maritime and recreational uses in and adjacent to the Seaplane Lagoon. The new housing units will be distributed within existing vacant and newly constructed multi-family and single-family buildings. While it is anticipated that Alameda Point will be developed in phases over the next 20 to 30 years, the pace of redevelopment will depend on economic conditions, completion of the Navy's remaining environmental remediation activities, property conveyance, and other factors.
· An alternatives chapter (Chapter 5) that evaluates alternatives to the proposed project that might reduce or avoid environmental impacts associated with the project. The alternatives chapter is also designed to inform future decisions about potential changes to the project plans.
MAJOR FINDINGS
The major environmental issues raised by the redevelopment of Alameda Point and discussed in the draft EIR include:
Transportation Impacts (Chapter 4.C) The draft EIR finds that redevelopment of Alameda Point will increase the volume of automobiles travelling to and from Alameda Point. The increased volume will result in impacts to automobile levels of service, bicycle levels of service, pedestrian levels of service, and transit levels of service.
The EIR recommends a number of mitigations to reduce these impacts at the specific locations where the level of service will be impacted. Consistent with General Plan policy, the primary mitigation recommended by the draft EIR is a comprehensive Transportation Demand Management (TDM) program specifically designed to reduce the volume of automobiles travelling to and from Alameda Point. The TDM Plan mitigation is designed to:
· Incentivize future Alameda Point residents and employers to use transportation alternatives to the single-occupancy vehicle;
· Generate funds for alternative modes of transportation (shuttles, buses, ferry and/or water taxi services, car share services, etc.); and
· Facilitate and support a transit oriented development at Alameda Point.
Air Quality (Chapter 4.F) Due to increased construction activity and traffic related to development facilitated by the Alameda Point project, there are potentially significant and unavoidable impacts to air quality. The draft EIR recommends a number of mitigations to reduce these impacts, including the TDM program discussed above, to reduce automobile trips, which are a primary source of emissions.
Noise (Chapter 4.G) Due to increased construction activity and traffic related to development facilitated by the Alameda Point project, there are potentially significant and unavoidable noise impacts. Offsite noise impacts related to the increase automobile traffic can be significantly reduced or altogether avoided by a successful TDM program.
Cultural Resources (Chapter 4.D) The development facilitated by the Alameda Point project would potentially have a significant and unavoidable adverse impact on some of the historic resources within the Historic District. The NAS Historic District has over 100 contributing elements, including buildings, landscape features, open taxiways, open water areas, and view corridors. The Alameda Point project will facilitate development that includes:
· Physical changes within the Historic District in order to address sea level rise, infrastructure improvements, and address health and safety issues;
· Alterations and possible demolition of certain contributing buildings and/or features that may not be economically feasible to rehabilitate and reuse, especially considering the cost of installing new infrastructure to support these buildings (many of the buildings have been vacant for over 15 years); and
· Modifications and improvements to the Seaplane Lagoon and adjacent taxiways (contributors to the District) to accommodate future ferry service, a marina, waterfront recreational activities, and waterfront visitor-serving development (e.g., restaurants, kayak rentals, etc.).
The draft EIR recommends mitigation measures to lessen these potential impacts, but the draft EIR concludes that some of these impacts may be significant and unavoidable.
Biology and Hazardous Materials The Draft EIR includes extensive discussion and analysis of the potential impacts on biological resources (species and habitat) and hazardous materials. The draft EIR finds that all of these potential impacts can be mitigated through appropriate procedures and standards to be implemented with the project.
Project Alternatives CEQA requires that an EIR describe and evaluate a range of reasonable alternatives that would reduce environmental impacts associated with the project. Based upon CEQA and comments received at the Planning Board scoping sessions, the alternatives analysis presented in the draft EIR was designed to identify alternatives that made changes to the project in order to minimize some environmental impacts, as well as identify other alternatives that modify the project to achieve other planning goals expressed by members of the Planning Board and/or community. The alternatives considered include:
· The No Project Alternative: This alternative considers the environmental impacts of continuing the existing uses on the site, which include 267 existing housing units and existing non-residential business leases with approximately 1,000 jobs. No construction of new housing units or new commercial development would occur under this alternative.
· The Preservation/Less Development Alternative: This alternative considers the environmental impacts of allowing some additional development, but not as much as the proposed Alameda Point project and limiting new development to the areas outside of the Historic District. This alternative would include a total of 1,000 housing units (732 additional units) and up to 6,000 jobs (5,000 additional jobs). Approximately 732 of the housing units would be created through new construction. Of the 5,000 new jobs, approximately half (2,500) of the new jobs would occur in new non-residential buildings and the other half would occur in existing vacant or underutilized buildings. This alternative is specifically designed to avoid or reduce impacts in the Historic District. In this alternative, no new construction would be allowed within the Historic District.
· The General Plan Alternative: This alternative compares the environmental impacts of 500 more housing units (up to 1,928), but fewer jobs (6,000 instead of 9,000) than the proposed project. This alternative reflects the development program from the 2003 Alameda Point General Plan Amendment.
· The Multifamily Alternative: The Multifamily Alternative includes the same amount of housing and jobs as the proposed Alameda Point project, but the residential uses are organized differently on the property. Existing single family homes would remain, but all new residential units would be constructed in new multi-family structures or in buildings within the Historic District that would be adaptively reused for multifamily housing, such as the Bachelors Officers Quarters (BOQ) and Bachelors Enlisted Quarters (BEQ). This alternative is specifically designed to examine reduced transportation impacts associated with residential development.
· The Transit Mixed Use Alternative: This alternative examines the relative environmental impacts of creating a higher density mixed use development at Alameda Point. The alternative includes 3,400 housing units. The alternative maintains the 5.5 million square feet of non-residential use, but significantly increases the amount of retail development to 1 million square feet. Office, manufacturing and other non-residential development is reduced to approximately 4.5 million square feet.
· High Density Alternative: This alternative is modeled on the plan contained in the 2009 Ballot Initiative for Alameda Point. It includes 4,841 housing units and 3.8 million square feet of commercial uses. This alternative was included at the request of speakers at the scoping sessions.
At the September 25, 2013 Joint City Council and Planning Board meeting, staff will be available to answer any questions about the draft EIR and the process for public review of and comments on the documents.
FINANCIAL IMPACT
This report is for information and comment. The financial impacts of any proposed project for Alameda Point will be evaluated at the time the project is brought before the City Council.
MUNICIPAL CODE/POLICY DOCUMENT CROSS REFERENCE
The City's General Plan policies and California State Law require that the City evaluate the environmental implications of all land use planning decisions prior to any final action on the proposed land use plans or decisions.
ENVIRONMENTAL REVIEW
Holding a public hearing to take comment on a draft EIR is allowed by the CEQA.
RECOMMENDATION
Hold a public hearing and take public comment on the draft EIR. No action on the draft Plans or the draft EIR is required or recommended.
Respectfully submitted,
Debbie Potter, Interim Community Development Department
By,
Andrew Thomas, City Planner
Financial Impact section reviewed,
Fred Marsh, Finance Director