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City of Santa Ana — Cabrillo Town Center Project Appeal October 3, 2023 Page 2of5 The Southwest Mountain States Carpenters incorporates by reference all comments raising issues regarding the environmental assessment for the Project prior to approval of the Project. (See Citi.Zens for Clean Energy v City of l�oodland (2014) 225 Cal.App.4th 173, 191 [finding that any party who has objected to the project's environmental documentation may assert any issue timely raised by other parties].) As previously noted by SWMSRCC, the City must prepare a subsequent environmental impact report ("EIR") for the Project so that the foreseeable impacts of pursuing the Project can be understood and weighed. (Communities for a Better Environment v. Richmond (2010) 184 Cal. App. 4th 70, 80.) The EIR requirement "is the heart of CEQA." (CEQA Guidelines, � 15003(a).) The City contends that no subsequent EIR is necessary pursuant to sections 15162 and 15168 of the CEQA Guidelines because the Project is within the scope of the Metro East Mixed -Use Overlay Zone EIR ("Metro EIR") and because there are no new circumstances, information, or mitigation measures which have come to light since the certification of the Metro EIR in 2007. (Staff Report, Exh. 10 at p. 6.) However, such assertion fails because the Metro EIR failed to adequately consider the Project's impacts and feasible measures, necessitating preparation of a subsequent EIR for the Project. (CEQA Guidelines, 15162(a) [requiring a subsequent EIR when there is "new information of substantial importance, which was not known and could not have been known with the exercise of reasonable diligence at the time the previous EIR was certified" such as "[m]itigation measures or alternatives which are considerably different from those analyzed in the previous EIR would substantially reduce one or more significant effects on the environment"].) i. Transportation Impacts There is no dispute that the Metro EIR relied on outdated transportation methodology since the Metro EIR "relies on an LOS analysis, not a VMT analysis, to analyze... transportation impacts." (Staff Report, Exh. 10 at p. 7.) Nevertheless, the City asserts that no further analysis is required because (1) the Project is within the scope of Metro EIR transportation analysis; and (2) because the City prepared a VMT Screening Assessment Memorandum ("Memo") for the Project which concluded that the Project was screened from preparing a complete VMT analysis. (Id. at pp. 6-8.) Both contentions fail.