EIR Process Flawed
[ The following is an opinion piece Das wrote about the EIR process and the need for independent analysis of developer plans. It was printed in the SANTA BARBARA INDEPENDENT of January 25, 2007 under the title: "The Hole in the Armor: Flaws in the Environmental Impact Review Process" - Please follow the INDEPENDENT link to read comments to what Das wrote. ]
Like many of you, I am unabashedly in love with Santa Barbara, inspired by her coastline, ocean, mountains, and creeks. Santa Barbara was one of the first governments in the nation to devise meaningful policies to preserve that unique beauty. This is a place where the planning process has become akin to a suit of armor, protecting our community and the environment.
That said, a person who has lived here for some time looks around, sees an enormous amount of construction and traffic, reads the news accounts of the increasing losses of open spaces, and rightly asks, “How well are those laws protecting our community and its environment?” Even with our complex suit of armor, many wounds are being inflicted on this community, each luxury development paving away our last open spaces, and each conversion of rentals to condos reducing the number of middle- and working-class people who can afford to live here.
We are doing an inadequate job of analyzing the impacts of the wrong kinds of development and not requiring developers to include enough community benefits to balance those impacts. While our planning staff is extremely competent and professional, they are terribly overworked, and we are left to ask, “Is there an inherent weakness in our planning process, a chink or a flaw in the suit of armor?”
I think there is. Part of the landmark California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) is the strong imperative (PRC section 21081) that “no public agency shall approve or carry out a project for which an environmental impact report has been certified which identifies one or more significant effects to the environment that would occur if the project is approved or carried out unless” there are specific factors which make the mitigation of the project infeasible (subsection A) and the agency finds the benefits of the project outweigh the significant impact on the environment (subsection B).
In plain English, that means when an unavoidable negative impact to the environment is identified in a proposed development, the City Council must make a statement (called a finding) that the better alternatives (environmentally) are not able to be carried out. Since one of the alternatives can always be no project at all, this should be a difficult finding to make.
Unfortunately, in practice the city almost never says no, and often does not choose the environmentally superior option. One of the most recent cases is Veronica Meadows, where one of the last open spaces in the Las Positas Valley is going to be paved over for 23 luxury homes when the city legally did not have to approve a single one.
Whenever the environmentally superior options are declared “unfeasible,” it usually boils down to the fact that the city accepts the developer’s word that it is not economically possible to accomplish. For example, when presented with an option for fewer units in Veronica Meadows, the council was told that the developer would not be able to afford the creek restoration he offered with the larger project. How do we know this? Because he said so. No financials were offered and no independent analysis was made. When Cottage Hospital said they wouldn’t save much money by reusing the St. Francis building to create workforce housing, no independent financial analysis was made. When Blankenship Construction told the council they could not offer an affordable unit to one of their Westside condo projects, no independent financial analysis was made. The council had no way to evaluate the truth of each of these developers’ claims.
So if a developer doesn’t want to increase the communitywide benefits of a project — like reducing the number of units in a luxury development, increasing the number of affordable units, reducing the development envelope, or adding solar panels — all the developer has to say is, “It won’t pencil out.” This lack of verification is a far cry from the strong community protection Santa Barbarans have come to expect from their city.
I don’t believe that everything can just stay the same. A city is a collection of living things and needs to adapt to the needs of its citizenry. The construction we allow and forbid will cause lasting consequences for our community, so we should have the vigilance to create livable, walkable, and affordable neighborhoods in the areas of change. Yes, adapting to those needs will take construction, but we also have talented people in public service, neighborhood activism, the construction industry, and the architectural field to save what’s left of our open spaces, keep our neighborhood feel, and meet the community’s needs.
By not independently analyzing what developers are capable of in terms of affordability or mitigations, we are failing to use that talent in a manner that sets the highest standard of community benefits. Considering the brain trust we have in Santa Barbara, we could be doing a better job of planning our future.
( Image courtesy of www.swordsandarmor.com )
The Santa Barbara Independent :: opinions :: The Hole in the Armor
Like many of you, I am unabashedly in love with Santa Barbara, inspired by her coastline, ocean, mountains, and creeks. Santa Barbara was one of the first governments in the nation to devise meaningful policies to preserve that unique beauty. This is a place where the planning process has become akin to a suit of armor, protecting our community and the environment.
That said, a person who has lived here for some time looks around, sees an enormous amount of construction and traffic, reads the news accounts of the increasing losses of open spaces, and rightly asks, “How well are those laws protecting our community and its environment?” Even with our complex suit of armor, many wounds are being inflicted on this community, each luxury development paving away our last open spaces, and each conversion of rentals to condos reducing the number of middle- and working-class people who can afford to live here.
We are doing an inadequate job of analyzing the impacts of the wrong kinds of development and not requiring developers to include enough community benefits to balance those impacts. While our planning staff is extremely competent and professional, they are terribly overworked, and we are left to ask, “Is there an inherent weakness in our planning process, a chink or a flaw in the suit of armor?”
I think there is. Part of the landmark California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) is the strong imperative (PRC section 21081) that “no public agency shall approve or carry out a project for which an environmental impact report has been certified which identifies one or more significant effects to the environment that would occur if the project is approved or carried out unless” there are specific factors which make the mitigation of the project infeasible (subsection A) and the agency finds the benefits of the project outweigh the significant impact on the environment (subsection B).
In plain English, that means when an unavoidable negative impact to the environment is identified in a proposed development, the City Council must make a statement (called a finding) that the better alternatives (environmentally) are not able to be carried out. Since one of the alternatives can always be no project at all, this should be a difficult finding to make.
Unfortunately, in practice the city almost never says no, and often does not choose the environmentally superior option. One of the most recent cases is Veronica Meadows, where one of the last open spaces in the Las Positas Valley is going to be paved over for 23 luxury homes when the city legally did not have to approve a single one.
Whenever the environmentally superior options are declared “unfeasible,” it usually boils down to the fact that the city accepts the developer’s word that it is not economically possible to accomplish. For example, when presented with an option for fewer units in Veronica Meadows, the council was told that the developer would not be able to afford the creek restoration he offered with the larger project. How do we know this? Because he said so. No financials were offered and no independent analysis was made. When Cottage Hospital said they wouldn’t save much money by reusing the St. Francis building to create workforce housing, no independent financial analysis was made. When Blankenship Construction told the council they could not offer an affordable unit to one of their Westside condo projects, no independent financial analysis was made. The council had no way to evaluate the truth of each of these developers’ claims.
So if a developer doesn’t want to increase the communitywide benefits of a project — like reducing the number of units in a luxury development, increasing the number of affordable units, reducing the development envelope, or adding solar panels — all the developer has to say is, “It won’t pencil out.” This lack of verification is a far cry from the strong community protection Santa Barbarans have come to expect from their city.
I don’t believe that everything can just stay the same. A city is a collection of living things and needs to adapt to the needs of its citizenry. The construction we allow and forbid will cause lasting consequences for our community, so we should have the vigilance to create livable, walkable, and affordable neighborhoods in the areas of change. Yes, adapting to those needs will take construction, but we also have talented people in public service, neighborhood activism, the construction industry, and the architectural field to save what’s left of our open spaces, keep our neighborhood feel, and meet the community’s needs.
By not independently analyzing what developers are capable of in terms of affordability or mitigations, we are failing to use that talent in a manner that sets the highest standard of community benefits. Considering the brain trust we have in Santa Barbara, we could be doing a better job of planning our future.
( Image courtesy of www.swordsandarmor.com )
The Santa Barbara Independent :: opinions :: The Hole in the Armor
Posted by Malcolm on
1/26/2007
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