A fully built-out SCV according to the OVOV Draft documents
If anything, today’s good Signal report on the reaction of the California Attorney General’s office to the joint City/County One Valley One Vision plan understated just how badly the AG’s office views the draft environmental impact review for OVOV.
Indeed, the letter from the AG savages the OVOV DEIR, saying it fails even as an informational document for “decision makers” and the public:
Our review to date indicates that the DEIR fails as an informational document, in that itfails to apprise the decision makers and the public of the full range and intensity of the adverseeffects on the environment that may reasonably be expected if the Plan is adopted and carriedout.
As The Signal mentioned, the letter also alleges that the OVOV DEIR glosses over the impact of increased traffic, pollution and greenhouse gases. Here’s a relevant section from the OVOV Draft Circulation Element on the County’s website (note this isn’t from the actual EIR document):
Pursuant to AB 32, standards and regulations for measuring and mitigating greenhouse gas emissions were still being developed during the time this General Plan was prepared. However, because of the importance of this issue and in response to the State’s mandate that local agencies consider the effects of greenhouse gas emissions in local planning decisions, the City and County have incorporated policies in the General Plan to reduce vehicle trips and thereby reduce carbon emissions through a variety of planning strategies. These strategies include establishing an urban limit line on the land use map, encouraging infill development through increased densities allowed in the urban core, encouraging mixed use in specified land use designations, promoting transit oriented development around Metrolink stations and the bus transfer station, expanding bikeways and walkways, and using transportation demand management measures.
And here’s the damning response from the AG’s office:
The failure to evaluate the impacts of the proposed Plan as measured against existing conditions, not hypothetical future conditions, results in the DEIR finding the proposed Plan would have no significant impact on climate change (despite adding almost four million metric tonnes of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere), on air quality (despite doubling existing pollutant emissions into an air basin that already is the most polluted in the nation), on transportation (despite increasing average daily trips by about 120%), and other areas. We believe that these findings are not supported by substantial evidence, and that they render the DEIR legally inadequate.
The letter also says that attempts to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions in the plan “tend to be voluntary and unenforceable, merely requiring that the mitigation be ‘encouraged’ or ‘promoted’ and not required.”
That’s probably right and it gets to the heart of the matter. You can’t require that homeowners and commuters use other, greener forms of transportation. To a large extent, a planner’s hands are tied, especially if he’s building low density developments that aren’t transit friendly.
The letter also argues that the premise behind OVOV may be flawed simply because it doesn’t recognize the impacts growth in the Antelope Valley will have on Santa Clarita and the North County region:
Further, the cumulative impacts of the proposed OVOV Plan, taken together with the impacts that will result from development and growth in the remainder of the North County subregion, particularly the Antelope Valley, are barely explored at all.
The letter says this “contravenes CEQA’s requirements and is at odds with one of the central rationales for cumulative impact analysis.”
Local critics of the OVOV plan often say that it encourages too much high density development and doesn’t adequately plan for traffic (TimBen Boydston explains in this video). They probably like the AG’s letter (enemy of my enemy is a friend etc) but would disagree with what would limit greenhouse gas emissions: higher density development that discourages private automobile use.
And as well know, high density is a non-starter in Santa Clarita.
One final note: a footnote on the letter says that these comments are submitted “pursuant to his independent power and duty to protect the environment and natural resources of the State from pollution, impairment, or destruction and in furtherance of the public interest.” It adds that the letter should not be “construed as an exhaustive discussion” of OVOV’s compliance with CEQA.
That to me makes it sound more like a political document rather than a document judging the legal merits of the DEIR. For what it’s worth, Jerry Brown is running for governor.
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Damn! I’ve never had a good opinion of Jerry Brown, but he sure hit the nail on the head here.
Oh, I meant Sassafras!
This response from the AG is nothing but a canned response to alleged environmental issues for which there is no available mitigation. As someone who studied Environmental Impact Reports as part of my job, I can tell you that there is a strong political bias running through the state which seeks to stop any and all expansion. See how closely other city rebukes by the AG have been worded recently: http://www.google.com/search?q=The+failure+to+evaluate+the+impacts+of+the+proposed+Plan+as+measured+against+existing+conditions%2C+not+hypothetical+future+conditions%2C+results+in+the+DEIR+finding+the+proposed+Plan+would+have+no+significant+impact&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a
Jerry Brown is on the environmentalist lobby’s payroll and Arnold is a willing accomplice.
This is not to say that there are not valid criticism of OVOV that must be addressed. In fact, I blame fake environmental concerns like this and the ones I see as environmental extortion (Greenmail) as the chief impediment to improving our stewardship of this great country even as we make room for more people.
Hey Jeff: In response to your post earlier today titled NO Love for OVOV from the AG’s Office, it should be noted that this letter was sent to the County of Los Angeles and specifically in response to the County’s DEIR for its Santa Clarita Area Wide Plan. The City has reviewed the letter and has had a telephone conference with the AG’s office about its expectations for the City’s yet-to-be-submitted DEIR. The City and the County are confident that we can address the issues outlined in the AG’s letter and create general plan documents that include climate change discussions representing sound, sustainable, environmentally sensitive planning. A follow-up meeting with the AG’s office is being scheduled to review our progress to this end.
Climate Change as currently defined is a bogus issue. Of course the climate changes, it has since the beginning of time. But it sickens me that environmental mitigation is being required based on junk science that even the scientists involved with that science admit, at the very least, was :sexed up”.
And the earth is flat and the sun orbits the earth and it is only 4000 years old, right?
When the ignorant dismiss global warming as “junk science” they merely parrot the incompetent rants of paid lobbyists and shills for the energy industry.
Prior entries in this blog have already exposed the phony credentials of the cited skeptics.
But you can’t change the closed minds of those who bury their head in the sand and make believe we have nothing to worry about. There is no reasoning with these people, and actually polite responses like mine only encourage the ignorant to continue their delusions.
Steering the topic with absurdity.
He doesn’t like the “canned” response because it wasn’t the Republican “canned” response!
After seeing how the right is owned by the medical lobby, you deem everything you don’t like as also being a pawn of lobbyists.
It takes one to know one.
Oh man, they’ve already got the roads in there for Newhall Ranch :[[[
There is NO mitigation that can be done for high density/in-fill development that will double the population in the transportation challenged SCV.
The topography of the Santa Clarita is NOT conducive to a grid layout of roads and so building roads is much more of a challenge let alone being cost prohibitive.
The City’s OVOV DEIR states that the city will accept the traffic level “E”.
Traffic is rated A-F with A being ideal and F complete failure. Do you want to sit in traffic that is one step above failure? I don’t!
Do not be fooled!
OVOV is not good for the residents of SCV but, a great deal for the developers.
OVOV is a smokescreen designed to allow additional development without public review of the individual projects. It’s an end run around CEQA. All the happy talk about planning is just baloney to cover their real intentions.
Spineflower;
You said it! We MUST get the residents to understand it!
OVOV is NOT good for SCV!
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