RES 96087 - Laserfiche WebLink

Mayor Ben Tarver and Members of the city council May 28, 1996 Page 2 We acknowledge that the subject of several of the letters was the adequacy of the draft General Plan and that the Draft EIR was not specifically mentioned. However, other letters received and responded to, address comments to the project itself 3 as well as the EIR. In fact, it appears as though the author of the Response to comments document has arbitrarily decided to "pick and choose" between the comments, responding to some and ignoring others. This practice flies in the face of the good faith requirement expressed in the CEQA Guidelines. Further, the HCD letter addresses issues regarding the project's Housing Element which were not raised in the DEIR and for which no information exists in the record which would provide the council an ability to make a "reasoned choice" among project alternatives or to evaluate and potentiallY mitigate project impacts related to the Housing Element. In addition, the Response to comments document does not provide adequate responses to housinq element related comments in other letters. SpecificallY, response L17 to the Miller, starr and Regalia letter is conclusory. CEQA requires that responses to comments provide a factual basis. "A conclusory statement 4 unsupported by empirical or experimental data, scientific authorities, or explanatory information of any kind not only fails to crystalize issues but affords no basis for comparison of the problESS involved in the alternatives." (Clearv v. county of stanislaus (1981) 118 Cal.APp.3d 348 at 358) The response implies that 3,232 housing units (the surplus of 8,100 housing units over those 4,868 needed to accommodate Pleasanton workers) would be sufficient to accommodate those households who desire to live in Pleasanton but work elsewhere. There is no factual basis given to justify this conclusion and its seems especiallY perfunctory given the fact that currently over two thirds of the housing units ;n pleasanton are occupied by persons who do not work in Pleasanton1. . 1 21t of 31,863 jobs equals approximatelY 6,6l9 job holders who both live and work in pleasanton. 21,180 existing housing units mi.Das 6,.619 persons who both live and work in Pleasanton (assuming conservatively that no household has more than one Pleasan~ worker); leaves 14,489 housing units occupied by households with no member who works in pleasanton. More than two thirdS of the total households. VIN1!\34I17 101311.1