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Santa Ana City Council <br />November 18, 2024 <br />Page 4 <br />CEQA provides that a changed project may only undergo a streamlined subsequent environmental <br />review under certain circumstances that trigger either a subsequent EIR, a supplemental EIR, or <br />an addendum to a previously certified EIR. (See CEQA Guidelines §§ 15162-64.) An addendum <br />to a previously certified EIR is appropriate only when the necessary changes or additions do not <br />trigger a subsequent or supplemental EIR, meaning the changes or additions are minor and do not <br />involve new significant environmental effects or a substantial increase in the severity of previously <br />identified significant effects. (CEQA Guidelines § § 15162 and 15164.) <br />In all cases, though, CEQA's "subsequent review provisions apply only to a previously approved <br />project that has been subject to environmental review; the provisions do not apply if the agency <br />has proposed a new project not previously analyzed in the original environmental document." <br />(Mantis Camp Community Association v. County of Placer (2020) 53 Ca1.App.5th 569, 606 n.26 <br />[emphasis added]; see also Friends of College of San Mateo Gardens v. San Mateo County <br />Community College Dist. (2016) 1 Ca1.5th 937, 950 [CEQA's "subsequent review provisions ... <br />have no application if the agency has proposed a new project that has not previously been subject <br />to review."].) <br />The Staff Report asks the City to certify an addendum based on the GP PEIR that did not review <br />the environmental impacts of the Amended Ordinance or even acknowledge the existence of STRs <br />in the City. The Amended Ordinance therefore "has not previously been subject to review" under <br />CEQA and the use of an addendum or any other subsequent environmental review pathway is <br />insufficient to comply with CEQA. Further, Friends of College of San Mateo Gardens held that in <br />order for a lead agency to rely on a previously certified CEQA document, that document must <br />"retain informational value" as to the new project. (Friends of College of San Mateo Gardens v. <br />San Mateo County Community College Dist. (2017) 11 Cal.App.5th 596, 605.) Here, because the <br />GP PEIR does not analyze the impacts of banning short term rentals or even mention short term <br />rentals at all, it retains no informational value as to the Amended Ordinance. Indeed, the GP PEIR <br />offers no informational value on the reasonably foreseeable direct, indirect and cumulative impacts <br />from the STR ban because the GP PEIR analysis completely ignores STRs. The Proposed <br />Ordinance is a new project constituting a substantial change from the conditions contemplated in <br />the GP PEIR. In a case with similar facts as this one, a court rejected the argument that a city's <br />zoning code had always prohibited STRs and instead held that an ordinance expressly banning <br />STRs was an amendment to the city's local coastal plan requiring Coastal Commission approval. <br />(Keen v. City of Manhattan Beach (2022) 77 Cal.App.5th 142, 148-49.) Here, like in Keen, the <br />Amended Ordinance does not maintain the "legal status quo" and therefore is a new project and <br />the City cannot rely on previously approved documents that did not contemplate the impacts of <br />the Amended Ordinance. <br />Moreover, the environmental document prepared for the General Plan was a program EIR. "When <br />a program EIR is employed, if a later proposal is not either the same as or within the scope of the <br />project described in the program EIR ... it is treated as a new project and must be fully analyzed." <br />(Save Our Access v. City of San Diego (2023) 92 Ca1.App.5th 819, 845.) [internal quotations and <br />citations omitted].) A program EIR that does not include any discussion or analysis of a later <br />proposed activity is not adequate to inform the public of the environmental effects of that later <br />activity such that the later activity is outside the scope of the program EIR (Id. at 852-53.) The <br />C! <br />