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APPENDIX B RELEVANT EXPERIENCE: URBAN DECAY AND FISCAL IMPACT RETAIL ECONOMIC IMPACT STUDIES Description of Services The Principal of ALH Economics, Amy L. Herman, has performed economic impact and urban decay studies for a number of retail development projects in California. These studies have generally been the direct outcome of the 2004 court ruling Bakersfield Citizens for Local Control ( "BCLC ") v. City of Bakersfield (December 2004) 124 Cal.App.4th 1184, requiring environmental impacts analyses to take into consideration the potentiol for a retail project as well as other cumulative retail projects to contribute to urban decay in the market area served by the project. Prior to the advent of the Bakersfield court decision, Ms. Hermon managed these studies for project developers or retailers, typicolly at the request of the host city, or sometimes for the city itself. Following the Bakersfield decision, the studies hove most commonly been directly commissioned by the host cities or environmental planning firms conducting Environmental Impact Reports (EIRs) for the projects. Studies are often conducted as part of the EIR process, but also in response to organized challenges to a city's project approval or to Court decisions ruling that additional analysis is required. The types of high volume retail projects for which these studies have been conducted include single store developments, typically comprising a Walmart Store, The Home Depot, Target store, and other club retail stores. The studies have also been conducted for large retail shopping centers, typically anchored by one or more of the preceding stores, but also including as much as 300,000 to 400,000 squore feet of additional retail space with smaller anchor stores and in -line tenants. The scope of services for these studies includes numerous tasks. The basic tasks common to most studies include the following: • defining the project and estimating soles for the first full year of operations; • identifying the market area; • identifying and touring existing competitive market area retailers; • evaluating existing retail market conditions at competitive shopping centers and along major commercial corridors in the market area; • conducting retail demand, soles attraction, and spending leakage analyses for the market area and other relevant areas; • forecasting future retail demand in the market area; • researching the retail market's history in backfilling vacated retail spaces; • assessing the extent to which project sales will occur to the detriment of existing retailers (i.e., diverted sales); • determining the likelihood existing competitive and nearby stores will close due to sales diversions attributable to the project; • researching planned retail projects and assessing cumulative impacts; and • identifying the likelihood the project's economic impacts and cumulative project impacts will trigger or cause urban decay. Many studies include yet additionol tasks, such as assessing the project's impact on downtown retailers; determining the extent to which development of the project corresponds with city public