NR 416 Lecture 7 questions with accurate answers
Alternative site/location Ans✓✓✓ - need not be evaluated in every
case: "rule of reason"
- Key question: Are environmental impacts avoided/lessened overall?
1. If alternative locations are NOT evaluated, need to disclose reasons
2. If alternative locations ARE evaluated, rely on previous documents
(plan, policy, or program EIRs) to extent possible
Circumstances where inclusion of alternative sites would be appropriate:
- public project (because of eminent domain)
- project proponent owning or controlling or having access/lease of
feasible alternative sites
- two or more developers seeking approval for same type of
development at different locations
Alternatives analysis Ans✓✓✓ Intro to alternatives:
- nature/scope: "Rule of Reason"
- reasonable range of alternatives to the project or project location
- feasibly attain most of the basic project objectives
- avoid or substantially lessen significant environmental impacts
- no project alternative
,Alternatives general methodology Ans✓✓✓ 1. Develop project
objectives
2. Determine significant impacts to be avoided
3. Develop broad list of alternatives
4. Develop screening criteria
a) Infeasible: explain why
b) Feasible: conduct evaluation
- compare to proposed project impacts
- identify environmentally superior alternative
Cal Poly Master Plan example Ans✓✓✓ 1. Introduction
2. Alternatives considered and found to be infeasible
3. Alternatives considered:
- Alt. 1: "No Project" (continuation of Current Master Plan alt. required
by CEQA)
- Alt. 2: Less residential neighborhoods housing
- Alt. 3: Increased on-campus student housing
- Alt. 4: Alternate location for slack and grand residential units
, - Alt. 5: Master plan without residential neighborhoods
4. Alternative #
- description
- environmental effects (as compared to proposed project)
- relation to project objectives
5. Environmentally superior alternative
- would eliminate most of the significant unavoidable impacts
- eliminate a beneficial impact of providing housing
- effect of this alternative could be an overall increase in vehicular trips
and traffic together with the increase VMTs and mobile emissions as
more people might commute to the City to work, which in fact could
result in greater significant unavoidable air quality and traffic impacts
that those associated with the Master Plan; also, without providing
housing opportunities for University faculty and staff on campus, the
ability for Cal Poly to recruit and retain faculty and staff could be
substantially impeded
Cherry Valley Pass Acres & Neighbors v. City of Beaumont (2010)
Ans✓✓✓ the CA appellate court upheld the city's baseline
determination for the project's water use levels, concluding that
substantial evidence showed the baseline was not hypothetical because it
was based not only on the developer's entitlement to extract water, but
also on "recent history of actually extracting substantially the same
amount"
Alternative site/location Ans✓✓✓ - need not be evaluated in every
case: "rule of reason"
- Key question: Are environmental impacts avoided/lessened overall?
1. If alternative locations are NOT evaluated, need to disclose reasons
2. If alternative locations ARE evaluated, rely on previous documents
(plan, policy, or program EIRs) to extent possible
Circumstances where inclusion of alternative sites would be appropriate:
- public project (because of eminent domain)
- project proponent owning or controlling or having access/lease of
feasible alternative sites
- two or more developers seeking approval for same type of
development at different locations
Alternatives analysis Ans✓✓✓ Intro to alternatives:
- nature/scope: "Rule of Reason"
- reasonable range of alternatives to the project or project location
- feasibly attain most of the basic project objectives
- avoid or substantially lessen significant environmental impacts
- no project alternative
,Alternatives general methodology Ans✓✓✓ 1. Develop project
objectives
2. Determine significant impacts to be avoided
3. Develop broad list of alternatives
4. Develop screening criteria
a) Infeasible: explain why
b) Feasible: conduct evaluation
- compare to proposed project impacts
- identify environmentally superior alternative
Cal Poly Master Plan example Ans✓✓✓ 1. Introduction
2. Alternatives considered and found to be infeasible
3. Alternatives considered:
- Alt. 1: "No Project" (continuation of Current Master Plan alt. required
by CEQA)
- Alt. 2: Less residential neighborhoods housing
- Alt. 3: Increased on-campus student housing
- Alt. 4: Alternate location for slack and grand residential units
, - Alt. 5: Master plan without residential neighborhoods
4. Alternative #
- description
- environmental effects (as compared to proposed project)
- relation to project objectives
5. Environmentally superior alternative
- would eliminate most of the significant unavoidable impacts
- eliminate a beneficial impact of providing housing
- effect of this alternative could be an overall increase in vehicular trips
and traffic together with the increase VMTs and mobile emissions as
more people might commute to the City to work, which in fact could
result in greater significant unavoidable air quality and traffic impacts
that those associated with the Master Plan; also, without providing
housing opportunities for University faculty and staff on campus, the
ability for Cal Poly to recruit and retain faculty and staff could be
substantially impeded
Cherry Valley Pass Acres & Neighbors v. City of Beaumont (2010)
Ans✓✓✓ the CA appellate court upheld the city's baseline
determination for the project's water use levels, concluding that
substantial evidence showed the baseline was not hypothetical because it
was based not only on the developer's entitlement to extract water, but
also on "recent history of actually extracting substantially the same
amount"
