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 nvironmental Impact Reports, known
as "EIRs," are the only way that anyone can get a handle on the
impacts of projects or major policy initiatives such as the Zoning Code
Update, the city's water repurification plans, or any other substantive
projects which will significantly impact the environment or form of a community.
 While many outright exemptions from
review are often dictated by the legislature as a political decision without
any environmental review most locally-driven projects require review under
the California Environmental Quality Act.
Projects that could have environmental
impacts, but where the city believes the impacts will be negligible, may
request a "Negative Declaration," stating that they have determined
that the impacts are insufficient to require a full EIR. Projects that really
have no impacts can be declared exempt.
But now that boom times are back
and the taxpayer-funded savings and loan industry bailout has been forgotten,
this isn't enough for those who believe that the job of city government
is to "streamroll" projects through the permitting process.
On May 5th, the San Diego City Council
voted 5-4 to reduce the period for public review of both Final EIRs and
Negative Declarations to a mere five calendar days. They passed the developer's
agenda over the objections of the Planning Commission, the Community Planners
Committee and other environmental groups, including the Sierra Club. |
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To get a sense of how biased this
is, consider that EIRs are almost always 300 pages or more, and community
planning groups only meet every 30 days.
The purpose of an EIR is to identify
and disclose impacts to decision makers and evaluate alternatives to a project
that may reduce the environmental and social impacts. EIRs consist of a
technical alternatives analysis of a number of areas of impact including
air quality, transportation, land use and biology.
When EIRs are initially released
for review as a "Draft EIR," everyone has 30 days to review and
submit comments in support or against the proposed project design and alternatives.
Sometimes 45 days are required and sometimes extensions are granted.
Once the comment period is over,
the lead agency takes all the comments and responds to them. They then re-release
a "Final EIR" which responds to input, answering questions or
further explaining the project or mitigation details. This can be the only
time to get questions answered. Substantive project changes are supposed
to trigger another draft, but often they go straight into the final EIR
directly.
In case you haven't gotten the picture
yet, this is all extremely important work if you care about the urban form
around you, or how natural spaces are turned into developments. The final
environmental document is nearly always the single most important source
of information. |
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On May 18th, when the ordinance change
came back for its required "second reading," I was downtown by
1:50pm, putting in speaker's slips in the hopes of begging them into a motion
to reconsider. The day began with pleading on the phone with the Mayor's
office. Michael Beck, Endangered Habitats League and Gerri Stryker, Chair
of the CPC and I cooled our heels though three hours of items, before it
became patently obvious that the Mayor was manipulating the agenda just
to push us to the end of the session.
In every other public meeting I attend,
agenda items are pulled in order but not in this town by this mayor. She
pulls items based on her own personal whim. At 5pm I'd had enough, said
as much, and left. A sympathetic mayoral aide came running after me stating,
"She really does care Carolyn, she really does." But I persisted
as well. If the Mayor cared even in the slightest, she would have pulled
our item in the noticed order, oh, an hour ago, or even ten minutes ago.
Not only does she not care, but she is sending a message of utter disregard
for any community or public process except that of paid lobbyists who are
able to get private meetings and privileged agenda placements. It's streamlining
for them and steamrolling for us.
So I hit the road, hoping I had made
my point. A half-hour later over "Dial-a-Council" [ that lets
you listen to council proceedings over the phone] I tuned in just in time
to hear Juan Vargas making the motion to reconsider. At least someone was
paying attention. But even as the mayor said she would support the motion,
she was speaking against it. She asked Juan to amend it so that the time
was reduced for Negative Declarations but not EIRs. Thank God, he held firm.
Her next idea was to ask staff to come up with a way that projects did not
have to be "held up." Maybe projects would not be "held up"
if they did the right things to begin with.
The more she talked, the more it
became obvious that she has probably never seen, much less worked with,
a Final EIR. She was also oblivious to the fact that in the past the city
has issued illegally both Negative Declarations and exemptions; usually,
the only time they are caught is when some community volunteer takes the
trouble to care - really care. But if you're only interested in greasing
the wheels for more projects, regardless of their design or impact, you
wouldn't really care about those things now, would you?
In the end, Byron Wear joined Vargas
and the mayor in reversing their ill-informed votes of the prior week. The
mayor's aide made a point to call me and make sure I'd heard that she had,
in the end, done the right thing. Yes, I had indeed heard more than she
thought, as I let her know I heard the Mayor continuing to try and water
it down. "But she's just trying for some balance." I was told.
Right. How many times has she had to tell her herself that? Things are so
out-of-balance now, it's a joke.
Yes, I would say the mayor does care,
but only about delivering the goods to project proponents, certainly not
about community members, due process, fairness or the environment. If this
vote reversal signifies anything, perhaps it shows that some of them are
figuring out that the voters will care.  |
