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evaluates the so- called project, but a reasonable range of alternatives also need to be analyzed. Those alternatives have to meet the project objectives, and some of the environmental impacts that may be identified through that evaluation process have to be mitigated in some ways. The reason for the alternatives is not just for CEQA purposes; it is also because the City, as a community, is still trying to decide exactly what the land use pattern is and what the level of intensity of development out here is; hence, it needs to continue to drill down on the various choices that are being presented. • Once this alternative has been selected, the Environmental Review Process can be started, and at the same time, the smaller components of the plan, site development standards, and design guidelines will be further evolved. • Once these are done, the more normal, typical, public review process starts, back here at the Planning Commission and then on to the City Council with whatever number of public hearings that process requires. Mr. Dolan then presented the timeline: • In the short term, the Planning Commission will provide its input tonight on the Preferred Plan • The same question is then brought before the City Council on October 15 th • Once a Preferred Plan has been identified, the Draft EIR can be started; the other Alternatives still need to be evaluated. The way CEQA works is that an environmental clearance for a certain amount of development is basically being provided. A policy decision can always come down to a lesser intensity from what has been evaluated. The choices are not being eliminated to some of the maybe less intense alternatives as it moves forward because a more intense alternative is included in the EIR analysis. The Planning Commission should not be concerned about this. There was a certain amount of concern by some of the Task Force members, and a similar explanation was provided to them. Most of the members went along, some of them reluctantly because they were afraid of the larger alternatives. The City Council understands that issue and, in fact, at the last check in, during the conversation on how big of an alternative the Commission would be comfortable with, the Council basically provided direction then to include one at the higher end because the Council knew that the Commission could always knock it down and would have evaluated a worst -case alternative. • Once the EIR evaluation starts with the selected consultants, the Task Force will move on to set the land use and circulation component aside and start talking about development standards. The Task Force will prepare some of those documents that are very similar to the Housing Sites Development Standards and Design Guidelines that some of the Commissions have seen before in more PLANNING COMMISSION MINUTES, September 25, 2013 Page 19 of 45