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Hills nine years ago, Pleasanton was a very quiet community until the last few years <br />when all of the growth in the City has occurred in the eastern area. With increased traffic <br />on Bemal Avenue, Stanley Boulevard, and Vineyard Avenue, the noise level is rising in <br />the neighborhoods. She pointed out that almost all water parks are located in areas that <br />are surrounded by industrial and commercial zones. She could only find one other water <br />park where residents expressed noise concerns and were impacted. She believed that the <br />location of water parks should be located near main freeway exits, and Stanley Boulevard <br />does not meet this criterion. She was not against water slides but was against this project <br />being built at its present location and impacting the community and its neighborhoods. <br />She did not believe the BMX Park should be fled to the expansion of the water slides. <br />She supported the youth of this community but did not believe that this proposed project <br />was being built for Pleasanton's youth. This project is a commercial enterprise and will <br />draw people f~om all over the state. She believed this water park would be a destination <br />park and not a local or even a regional park. She was concerned about the elevated water <br />slides, the children screaming, and the 75 percent of the water park that is proposed to be <br />built in Phase I. She concluded her comments by asking the Mayor and Council to <br />support the Planning Commission's decision. <br /> <br /> Carole Cloud, 2434 Minivet Court, a member of the No Water Park.com <br />organization, argued that the Negative Declaration is inadequate with respect to air <br />quality. In order to be in line with the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and <br />the Pleasanton General Plan, the City should do another environmental review if it is <br />considering reviewing the project. She mentioned that she had contacted the Bay Area <br />Air Quality Management District, the agency that wrote the guidelines for the <br />Environmental Quality Act. In its mitigated Negative Declaration of September 2002, <br />EBRPD determined that the project would not cause a significant amount of motor <br />vehicle air pollution based on a certain threshold for the number of car trips in the Bay <br />Area Quality Management District's guidelines. EBRPD underestimated the number of <br />car trips and a more accurate estimate puts the number of car trips well over the threshold <br />for doing an EIR. She believed EBRPD used a higher vehicle occupancy rate with four <br />people per vehicle. She noted that the consultant used the 3.6 vehicle occupancy rate <br />because they averaged the numbers when Shadow Cliffs was a water park. Using their <br />own numbers, the maximum number of visitors on a peak day after the fifth year was <br />3.769. The consultant estimated that there would be a vehicle occupancy rate of 3.6, <br />which means that there will be 1,046 ears that will be traveling to and from the water <br />park on a peak day after five years. She noted that there would be 2,188 vehicle trips on <br />a busy day after the fifth year. According to Bay Area Quality Management District's <br />guidelines, a detailed air quality analysis of total emissions 5om project operations, <br />including the support mobile source emissions, should be done. In addition the CEQA <br />guidelines state that if any of the thresholds are exceeded, an EIR should be prepared. If <br />the numbers are even within 20 percent of the threshold, an EIR should be done. In <br />addition, CEQA guidelines state that there are many other things that should be <br />examined, which she believed were never considered in this report. CEQA guidelines <br />state that the air quality impact of a project is determined by examining the existing air <br />quality conditions and neighborhood land uses, the direction of prevailing winds, local <br />topography, and the proximity for potential receptors, which means children. The <br /> <br />Pleasanton City Council 28 03/16/04 <br />Minutes <br /> <br /> <br />