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MP2019-0004 CEQA ANALYSIS LTR 1.13.20January 13, 2019 Mr. Garrett Simon CM Wave Development LLC 2440 Junction Place, Suite 200 Boulder, CO 80301 SUBJECT: CEQA ANALYSIS AND REQUIREMENTS GENERAL PLAN AMENDMENT 2019-0002 ZONE CHANGE 2019-0004 SPECIFIC PLAN 2019-0003 (AMENDMENT 5 TO SP 03-067) TENTATIVE TRACT MAP 2019-0005 (TTM 37815) MASTER PROJECT 2019-0004 Dear Mr. Simon, Following a telephone conversation with Geri Bone, Chris Butcher, Bill Ihrke and me on January 8, 2020 and subsequent discussions internally with Cheri Flores, Planning Manager, and Danny Castro, Design & Development Director, we have prepared the following analysis to describe the City’s position on the required environmental review for the above-referenced applications. California law requires that each Lead Agency, in this case the City of La Quinta, determine first whether a project is subject to the California Environmental Quality Act CEQA), and if it is, what level of environmental review the project requires. As you are aware, the City has determined that the project is subject to CEQA. The level of review has been discussed on multiple occasions. The following first provides a history of the project, and then considers the requirements of CEQA as they relate to your project. Background and Project Status To provide background, the Andalusia Specific Plan, in which your property occurs, was approved by the County of Riverside in 1988 as part of the Rancho La Quinta Specific Plan. At the time of the original County approval, the County also certified an EIR (EIR 232 for SP 218) which included what are now the Trilogy and Andalusia projects. That project would have resulted in 4,262 residential units, 380 acres of golf course, and 35 acres of commercial development. In 2000, the County approved Amendment #1 to the Specific Plan, which renamed the project Coral Mountain, reduced the maximum dwelling units to 2,762, increased golf course lands to 567 acres, and decreased commercial lands to 23 acres. At that time, the County also processed Addendum #1 to EIR 232, and certified that document. In 2002, the entire Coral Canyon project was annexed into the City of La Quinta. As part of the annexation process, the City accepted, as is the norm, the County’s approvals, and agreed to allow development of the Coral Canyon Specific Plan per County approvals. In 2003, the Andalusia Specific Plan, consisting of the northerly half of the Coral Mountain Specific Plan, and allowing up to 1,400 residential units, 10 acres of commercial development and 421 acres of golf course, was separated from the balance of the original County Specific Plan. At that time, the City adopted Environmental Assessment 2003-483 for the Specific Plan. At your request, your team met informally with City staff to discuss your development concepts, resulting in a summary letter prepared by Cheri Flores, dated January 24, 2019. Although not technically a pre-application review, the meeting and letter outlined likely permit requirements based on the concepts you outlined. As stated in that letter, and as described above, the applicable existing CEQA document for the Andalusia Specific Plan is Environmental Assessment 2003-483, certified by the City in December of 2003. Also as stated in that letter, the City found at the time that either an Addendum to EA 2003-483, or a Subsequent Mitigated Negative Declaration could be appropriate for your project. As stated multiple times in that letter, however, the final CEQA determination would be made when applications were submitted. On April 7, 2019, at MSA Consultants’ request, a “kick off” meeting was held, including your design and legal team, and City staff. At that time, I was introduced to you as the project planner. Although you had yet to file applications, you presented plans which were discussed in the meeting. During that meeting, there was extensive discussion of the level of CEQA review that would be required for the project. A number of reasons were provided to you why an Addendum to the original County EIR was not appropriate. These are detailed in the analysis below. Both an EIR and a new project Initial Study leading to a Mitigated Negative Declaration were discussed. It was also discussed that if the technical analyses for the project demonstrated that impacts associated with the project could be mitigated to less than significant levels, an Initial Study and Mitigated Negative Declaration would be the appropriate level of review. At the conclusion of that meeting, the City team understood that you concurred with this approach, and that you would analyze, in particular, traffic, air quality and greenhouse gas impacts early to determine whether the impacts could be mitigated to less than significant levels based on CEQA thresholds. On October 22, 2019, you submitted applications for a General Plan Amendment, Change of Zone, Specific Plan Amendment, Tentative Tract Map and Environmental Assessment Form. Since that time, on multiple occasions, you have submitted technical studies associated with the project. No Initial Study has been received to date. You have been provided comments on the traffic impact analysis and air quality and greenhouse gas analyses. Other technical studies are being reviewed currently. Your application, determined incomplete on November 12, 2019, remains incomplete pending receipt or revision of project materials. CEQA Analysis First, we wish to address your contention that this project should be reviewed through an Addendum to County EIR 232. CEQA Guidelines Section 15164 states that a “lead agency or responsible agency shall prepare an addendum to a previously certified EIR if some changes or addition are necessary, but none of the conditions described in Section 15162 calling for the preparation of a subsequent EIR have occurred.” CEQA Guidelines Section 15162 provide that a subsequent EIR would be required for a project if any of the following conditions exist: 1. Substantial changes to the project require major revisions to the previously certified EIR due to the involvement of new significant environmental effects or a substantial increase in the severity of previously identified effects; 2. Substantial changes occur with respect to the circumstances under which the project is undertaken that require major revisions to the previously certified EIR due to the involvement of new significant environmental effects or a substantial increase in the severity of previously identified effects; or 3. The availability of new information of substantial importance, which was not known or could not have been known with the exercise of reasonable diligence at the time the previous EIR was certified, shows that the project will have one or more significant effects not discussed in the previous EIR, significant effects previously examined will be substantially more severe than shown in the previous EIR, or mitigation measures or alternatives that were previously found not to be feasible or that are considerably different from those analyzed in the previously certified EIR would substantially reduce one or more significant effects on the environment, but the project proponent declines to adopt the mitigation measure or alternative. Next, we address the changes to the project. The 1988 EIR analyzed a golf course- centered planned community with 4,262 single family attached and detached units, and 35 acres of commercial development. The currently proposed Specific Plan Amendment includes 600 units on the east side of Madison Street, 600 units and 150 hotel rooms on the west side of Madison Street, and a 15-acre surf pool. This represents a substantial change to the project” which would “require major revisions to the previously certified EIR due to the involvement of new significant environmental effects.” The premise of Section 15162 is that the lead agency finds, based on substantial evidence in the record, that the project analyzed in an Addendum would have equivalent or lesser impacts on the environment than that previously analyzed. As described above, at the time of our meeting in April, and since that time through our review of the technical studies submitted to date, the project requires the imposition of new mitigation measures to address project impacts, particularly as regards traffic. By definition, this means that the project will generate “new significant environmental effects.” If the environmental impacts associated with your projects were equivalent or less than those analyzed in EIR 232, no new mitigation measures would be required, because no new significant effects requiring mitigation would have been identified. Finally, the EIR certified by the County in 1988 did not address greenhouse gas emissions, energy impacts, tribal cultural impacts or wildfire impacts at all. It did not address, to today’s standards, air quality, biological resource, hydrology or water resource impacts. It did not address land use, planning or housing impacts as related to the City’s General Plan, since it was prepared for the County. Further, the City’s physical environment, as well as the regulatory environment under which a project is reviewed under CEQA have substantially changed since 1988. Therefore, “the availability of new information of substantial importance, which was not known or could not have been known with the exercise of reasonable diligence at the time the previous EIR was certified, shows that the project will have one or more significant effects not discussed in the previous EIR.” Similarly, the information contained in EA 2003-483 is outdated, and did not address greenhouse gas emissions, energy impacts, tribal cultural resources or wildfire impacts at all. It also analyzed a golf-centered master planned community and not a hotel or 15-acre surf pool. All of these changes and unaddressed environmental issue areas are part of the CEQA documentation process now, and must be addressed if the City is to adequately analyze the project under CEQA. Under Section 15164, an “addendum to an adopted negative declaration may be prepared if only minor technical changes or additions are necessary or none of the conditions described in Section 15152…have occurred.” This analysis was the basis of our discussion with you in April, and the reasons why we continue to find that an Initial Study leading to a Mitigated Negative Declaration is the appropriate level of review required for the project, assuming that all impacts of the project can be reduced to less than significant levels. As we have yet to review the draft of your Initial Study, and revisions will be required to both your traffic impact analysis and your air quality analysis, we can only assume that this is the case. I hope that this letter provides you with the basis to move forward and complete the necessary documentation to allow the City to continue processing your application. If you have any questions please contact me at ncriste@terranovaplanning.com, and/or at (760) 777-7132 or (760) 341-4800. Sincerely, Nicole Sauviat Criste Consulting Planner