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Newmeyer Dillion City Council Comment Letter Response to CEQA Comments The attached letters were received on November 18, 2019 and November 19, 2019 prior to the City Council hearing for the 2525 N. Main Street Multi -Family Residential Project. The following provides responses to the comments in the letters, as numbered in the attached and referenced below. Comment 1: The comment asserts that the City Council should reject the proposed entitlements and uphold the Planning Commission's decision, as they are inconsistent with the policies of the General Plan and are not supported by a legally adequate FEIR. The comment also asserts that the FEIR is not legally adequate because it incorporates significant new information without meaningful public review and comment. The comment states that the EIR is required to respond to changes to the project, changes in circumstance, or new information. The comment also requests formal notification of future meetings about the project. Response 1: Despite the commenters allegations, the project is consistent with the City's General Plan. The Commenter does not point to any evidence that the project is inconsistent with the City's General Plan. In fact, Section 4.7, Land Use and Planning, of the Draft EIR provides a complete assessment of the project's compliance with the General Plan policies that are relevant to the proposed project. As disclosed in the Draft EIR, the project would not conflict with any policies that were adopted for the purpose of avoiding or mitigating an environmental effect. As described on page 4.7-16 of the Draft EIR, policy conflicts do not, in and of themselves, indicate a significant environmental effect within the meaning of CEQA. A project's inconsistency with a policy is only considered significant if such inconsistency would cause significant physical environmental impacts (as defined by CEQA Guidelines Section 15382). As described on page 1 of the October Clarification to the FEIR, CEQA Guidelines Section 15088.5 requires a Lead Agency recirculate an EIR when "significant new information" is added to the EIR. CEQA Guidelines Section 15088.5(a) specifies that the term "information" includes changes in the proposed project or environmental setting, as well as additional data or other information. But, for "information" to be "significant' such that it would trigger recirculation, the information would have to be of the type that would result in the EIR being changed in a way that deprives the public of a meaningful opportunity to comment upon a substantial adverse environmental effect or a feasible way to mitigate or avoid such an effect. Thus, "significant new information" includes information that shows that: (1) A new significant environmental impact would result from the project or from a new mitigation measure proposed to be implemented, or (2) A substantial increase in the severity of an environmental impact would result unless mitigation measures are adopted that reduce the impact to a level of insignificance, or (3) A feasible project alternative or mitigation measure considerably different from others previously analyzed would clearly lessen the significant environmental impacts of the project, or (4) The draft EIR was so fundamentally and basically inadequate and conclusory in nature that meaningful public review and comment were precluded. The October Clarification to the FOR provides a detailed analysis of the modified project, a comparison to the project evaluated in the Draft EIR, and based on that information concludes that no increase of any environmental effect would occur from the modified project. Thus, recirculation of the EIR was not required. The modification reduced the number of residential units by 48.4 percent, reduced the scale of the structures, and revised the vehicular parking and access to the site. The October Clarification to the FOR was available on the City's website and at City Hall on October 17, 2019. In addition, the Park Santiago Neighborhood will continue to be notified of any meetings regarding the project. Members of the public had ample time to review the October Clarification document 1 11A-109