2019-050 -Adopting Local CEQA Guidelines

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Local Guidelines for Implementing the California Environmental Quality Act (2019) ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT REPORT the same basic purpose, the City should review the previous document and incorporate the previous document by reference. To the extent the circumstances have remained substantially the same with respect to an alternative, the EIR may rely on the previous document to help it assess the feasibility of the potential project alternative. evaluated along with its impacts. The purpose of describing and analyzing the no project alternative is to allow decision-makers to compare the impacts of approving the proposed project with the impacts of not approving the proposed project. The no project alternative may be different from the baseline environmental conditions. The no project alternative will be the same as the baseline only if it is identical to the existing environmental setting and the Lead Agency has chosen the existing environmental setting as the baseline. (a) When the project is the revision of an existing land use or regulatory plan, policy or plan, policy or operation into the future. Typically, this is a situation where other projects initiated under the existing plan will continue while the new plan is developed. Thus, the projected impacts of the proposed plan or alternative plans would be compared to the impacts that would occur under the existing plan; or (b) If the project is other than a land use or regulatory plan, for example a development which the project does not proceed. This discussion would compare the environmental effects of the property remaining in its existing state against environmental effects that would occur if the project is approved. If disapproval of the project would result in consequence should be discussed. After dCity should proceed to analyze the impacts foreseeable future if the project were not approved, based on current plans and consistent with environmentally superior alternative, the EIR must also identify another environmentally superior alternative among the remaining alternatives. Remote or Speculative Alternatives: An EIR need not consider an alternative whose effect cannot be reasonably ascertained and whose implementation is remote and speculative. 7.24 A NALYSIS OF F UTURE E XPANSION. An EIR must include an analysis of the environmental effects of future expansion (or other similar future modifications) if there is credible and substantial evidence that: (a) The future expansion or action is a reasonably foreseeable consequence of the initial project; and (b) The future expansion or action is likely to change the scope or nature of the initial project or its environmental effects. 2019 City of Santa Ana Local Guidelines 7-20 ©Best Best & Krieger LLP