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6 <br /> THE CITY OF <br /> -- 111 ° -�- "' CITY COUNCIL AGENDA REPORT <br /> pLEASANTON. <br /> January 19, 2021 <br /> Community Development <br /> Planning Division <br /> TITLE: APPROVE ON-CALL CEQA PROFESSIONAL SERVICES AGREEMENTS <br /> WITH THE FIRMS OF FIRSTCARBON SOLUTIONS, PLACEWORKS, AND <br /> RINCON CONSULTANTS, LLC <br /> SUMMARY <br /> The Community Development Department (CDD) is responsible for review of land <br /> development proposals throughout the city. Development entitlements often require <br /> review for compliance with the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and its <br /> Guidelines. The City currently has lists of approved on-call consultants that provide, on <br /> an as-needed basis, engineering services, traffic engineering services, and landscape <br /> architecture services (among others); however, no such list currently exists for <br /> environmental review services. <br /> In the past, CDD staff have prepared less complex environmental review documents <br /> (e.g . Notices of Exemption, Negative Declarations) as part of the application review. For <br /> larger and more complex CEQA documents, such as Environmental Impact Reports, <br /> staff has solicited competitive requests for proposals for consultant services, and then <br /> executes a professional service agreement for each individual project (generally subject <br /> to either City Manager or City Council approval). For private development projects, the <br /> applicant is responsible for the costs of those consultant services, typically through a <br /> reimbursement agreement. <br /> As CEQA, related law, and associated CEQA documentation has become more <br /> complex and technical, and as staffs workload has increased, staff has found it <br /> increasingly beneficial to use consultant services to prepare the majority of <br /> environmental review documents. The process to solicit multiple proposals and <br /> authorize and execute separate consultant agreements for individual projects, is time- <br /> consuming, taking multiple weeks to complete and often causing delay in project <br /> processing. Staff therefore seeks to create a list of pre-approved CEQA consultants, <br /> available "on-call" to provide these necessary services. <br /> Based on a competitive Request for Qualifications (RFQ) process that resulted in <br /> submittal of proposals from nine firms. Staff recommends selection of three firms <br /> FirstCarbon Solutions (FCS), PlaceWorks, and Rincon Consulting (Rincon) to be the <br /> City's on-call CEQA consultants. These firms will assist with preparation of CEQA <br /> documents on an as-needed basis. The term of the on-call contracts will be three years <br />