Item 27 - Appeal Application Nos. 2020-03 and 2020-04 - Central Pointe Mixed-Use Development

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jmf 1/05/21 SAFER's assertion, the Health Risk Assessment looked at both potential cancer risks and non -cancer risks and concluded that a less than significant impact to Project residents would occur. III. Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Impacts - SAFER takes issue with the methodology utilized in the MEMU EIR to evaluate GHG impacts, but SAFER failed to raise such issues before the MEMU EIR was certified, and it is too late to do so now. Further, while SAFER suggests that the MEMU EIR's analysis should only be applied to projects that will become operational through 2020, the Subsequent MEMU EIR was not prepared until 2018, and clearly indicated it was analyzing GHG impacts based on a 2040 buildout year. Because GHG impacts from the entire buildout of the entire MEMU Overlay, including the Central Pointe Project site, were already quantified and analyzed in the MEMU EIR, SAFER's assertion that a new CEQA document is required to analyze such impacts is incorrect. IV. As discussed above, when a project is within the scope of a previously certified EIR (including a program EIR), a lead agency may require a subsequent EIR only in one of the three situations set forth in Public Resources Code Section 21166 and CEQA Guidelines Section 15162. As none of the three situations are met, including no new information that could not have been known when the MEMU EIR was certified, this comment is incorrect. Air Quality - SAFER alleges that the City was required to prepare a new CEQA document to evaluate alleged "impacts related to indoor air quality, and in particular, emissions of the cancer -causing chemical formaldehyde," and submits a report from Francis J. Offerman PE, CIH discussing such emissions. SAFER claims that because Mr. Offerman relies, in part, on a 2020 indoor air quality study, such alleged impacts constitute new information which "could not have been known with the exercise of reasonable diligence at the time the 2007 MEMU EIR or the 2018 MEMU SEIR were certified." But Mr. Offerman's own CV (which was attached to the comments) shows numerous papers and presentations on the alleged risk of formaldehyde emissions from wood products that date prior to the MEMU SEIR, as early as 2010. In addition, Mr. Offerman's assertions regarding the alleged impacts of formaldehyde emissions from building materials do not rise to the level of substantial evidence, given that such emissions are already the subject of extensive regulation at both the state and federal level, including stringent emission limits that the U.S. EPA and California Air Resources Board have determined are protective of human health. Furthermore, Mr. Offerman's analysis appears to assume the same level of emissions will be present, year after year, Resolution No. 2021-XXX Page 5 of 12