Correspondence - Item #15 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

1 11. First, the City improperly determined that the adoption of Ordinance No. NS-3061 2 was not a"project"under the California Environmental Quality Act or"CEQA." The fundamental 3 goal of CEQA is to ensure that decisionmakers and the public have complete information about 4 the environmental impacts of a proposed project before its approval. It does this by requiring public 5 agencies to undertake environmental review of activities,like adoption of land use ordinances, that 6 have the potential to result in"either a direct physical change in the environment, or a reasonably 7 foreseeable indirect physical change in the environment[.]" But the City disregarded this duty and 8 completely failed to conduct any environmental review, despite the fact that the STR Ban would 9 have significant impacts. The City relied on a"common sense" conclusion that the STR Ban was 10 not a"project" subject to CEQA because it would not have any potential direct or indirect physical 11 effect on the environment. As Mark Twain reminds us, the problem with common sense is that 12 it's not common at all. By way of example, removing all existing STR accommodations from the 13 centrally located Santa Ana would almost certainly change traffic patterns, and the shifting of 14 traffic from within the City to other locations could have significant environmental impacts, 15 including air quality impacts resulting from increased vehicle emissions from people traveling 16 farther distances to their vacation destinations or temporary/transitory places of employment and 17 residence. The STR Ban provided scant opportunity for public or expert commentary on this issue, 18 but Petitioner and others did comment on the need for an environmental analysis of the STR Ban 19 as required by CEQA. 20 12. Second, the City made unsupported determinations that banning STRs was 21 necessary to preserve public health and safety. But the Staff Report supporting the sweeping 22 prohibitions imposed by the STR Ban did not provide a single specific example of any STR 23 impacting public health or safety in any way. Instead, it relied on less than one page of 24 "discussion" offering only general statements and unsupported characterizations, such as 25 discussing that there were STRs that had received enforcement notice and citations but not 26 providing any detail why those notices were issued or if they had anything to do with public health 27 of safety. 28 VERTFTED PETTTTON FOR WRTT OF MANDATE 5 AND COMPLATNT