Responses to Draft EIR

Last updated: 12/2/2010

Many people have submitted their responses to the City of Piedmont regarding the Moraga Canyon Sports Fields Draft Environmental Impact Report (DEIR). This page collects some of these responses, from people both inside and outside Piedmont. If you would like us to consider including your response on this page, please contact us.

Reactions to City’s Response to Comments

Dan Marks, land use planner, wrote two letters, one about the EIR, the other focused on problems with the overall process. Here’s an excerpt from the latter:

As I have previously said to you, preparing an EIR is not a substitute for a planning process.   Unfortunately, the EIR before you bears out my concerns.  The EIR is about identifying the significant environmental impacts of the project.  And while it does do that to some degree – albeit highly inadequately – it helps very little to resolve the fundamental issues that are associated with this project.  Many of the most important questions have yet to be answered.  Before you send this on to your commissions, I urge you to obtain some essential information and provide direction in regard to the choices that must be made.  There are three basic questions which I urge you to answer before sending this on to the City’s commissions:

  • What is the “preferred project” that you would have the commissions evaluate?
  • How much does the project cost and who pays?
  • What is the range of alternatives that they can consider?

Read the full letter on EIR deficiencies (PDF, 39K)
Read the full letter on process deficiencies (PDF, 19K)

Piedmont resident Marjorie Blackwell:

I have read the Response to Comments document and believe it to be unresponsive and a thinly veiled defense of the project. (Since nearly half of the DEIR was paid for by the proponents, perhaps this is no surprise.) The Response is far from a thoughtful analysis of the issues and “significant impacts” raised in the DEIR or considered response to the 850 public comments submitted on the DEIR. While it skims the letter of the law, it does not adhere to the spirit of environmental laws or to Piedmont’s policies.

[...]

Blair Park is certainly not what it could be, but this project is not what it has to be. It does not have to be an industrial-sized complex that totally ignores the site and the topography, wipes out native trees and habitat, and would make Moraga Avenue a walled-off tunnel, with a 17-foot tall berm, topped by a 6-foot sound wall.

Read the full letter (PDF, 81K)

Piedmont resident Joannie Semitekol:

The Draft EIR and Draft Response to Comments is still inadequate, flawed, and contains errors.  It should not be certified until these deficiencies are corrected.  It is further confusing that the project description is undefined in the minds of many.  I understand that the EIR is looking at one project, but that does not seem to be the reality of the process.  I strongly believe that the project description should be solidified before the EIR is certified.

Read the full letter (PDF, 72K)

Piedmont residents Ralph Catalano and Randolph Wedding submitted the following opinion piece to the Piedmont Civic Association:

The sports clubs along with individuals have contributed funds for the preparation of an EIR for the project, but the City’s costs for the EIR and related reports will exceed the private gift. The project itself would probably cost between $8 million and $10 million to build, although its sports club designers have not provided cost estimates. The sports clubs say they will make a contribution for some, but not all, construction costs and have made no commitment to capital replacement, liability, legal, and maintenance costs. Based on estimates in the Raushenbush report for similar facilities, however, it appears clear that as currently envisioned, the proposed Moraga Canyon facilities alone would cost at least $2.5 million to maintain and operate over the next decade.

As we approach the vote to extend the City parcel tax, Piedmont homeowners have no accounting of the City’s subsidy to the sports clubs, with or without the proposed Moraga Canyon facility. It remains to be seen if anyone on the City Council will request such a report.

Read the full letter on the Piedmont Civic Association website

Piedmont resident Rick Schiller discusses both EIR deficiencies and aspects of the process that have been hidden from public view:

The EIR as presented before [the City Council] cannot be certified. Specifically in my scoping and response letter, and public comments, I asked for:  (1) an examination of unscheduled use at existing fields and how that would relate to the proposal, and (2) the potential drain on police services, and (3) specific traffic issues first raised in the DEIR. I also raise the issue of pollution in this letter.  My comments were either ignored or the EIR put in what is demonstrably bad information.

Read the full letter on the Piedmont Civic Association website

Piedmont resident Neil Teixeira expresses concern over gifting public park lands to private interests:

In the midst of the worst economic crisis in our lifetime, it is the fiduciary responsibility of the City Council and City Staff to maximize all potential revenues/fees/agreements from the Blair Park land asset.

This money should be used to repair Beach and Wildwood schools, educate our children, fund public safety services, repair the pool and replenish the empty CIP/General fund accounts.

Any decision to change, sell, transfer, franchise, or gift grants of “exclusive use rights” to operate a private business on 5 acres of a Piedmont park real estate should only occur after there has been a thorough legal analysis by competent outside legal counsel and a independent appraisal of both, the property’s land use value and the proposed sports field business plan.

Read the full letter on the Piedmont Civic Association website

Responses to Original EIR Draft

Dan Marks, a land use planner with 30 years of experience in preparing and reviewing EIRs, has submitted a detailed list of deficiencies in the current draft. Here’s an excerpt of his cover letter:

As my attached letter indicates — and as many other comment letters also indicate — [this] DEIR is technically and legally incomplete and inadequate. [...] After your City Attorney and consultant review the comment letters, I expect and hope that they will concur with my recommendation that a revised DEIR be prepared and recirculated to address the many deficiencies in the existing DEIR. [...]

[...] CEQA is not a planning process. What you do have is an EIR on a project that was designed without any budget constraints. With an unlimited budget almost any project is possible. And so you have a project that includes several very long, tall retaining walls engineered to hold up a steep hill during a 7.2 earthquake on the Hayward fault, huge underground vaults to hold rainwater, a pedestrian bridge, a complete re-grading of and placing of engineered fill over the site, and other very expensive project elements. You have yet to receive an independent cost estimate for this project — but even the biased project proponents have said “$10 million”. Most knowledgeable people I know who have looked at this project have said that it would be at least double that, and probably much more. All of that is before you figure in the long-term maintenance costs.

Read the entire letter (PDF, 677K)

From Ralph Catalano, Professor of Public Health and Director of the UC Berkeley Robert Wood Johnson Health and Society Scholars Program. In addition to describing many conflicts between the project and the City of Piedmont General Plan, he notes a number of deficiencies with the EIR, such as the following:

Despite requests at the EIR scoping session that the Alameda County Vector Control District be asked to describe the vectors, and associated pathogens, that construction of the proposed project would drive into surrounding neighborhoods, no such information was provided in the draft EIR. The draft makes the wholly unsubstantiated claim that starting construction at the site 2 perimeter will mitigate vector exposures. The final EIR should include a description, prepared by the Vector Control District, of possible exposures and attendant health risks as well as an assessment of how such risks could be eliminated. [...]

Page 353 of the EIR states: “One field, as opposed to two, could potentially reduce pedestrian safety impacts if less foot traffic is generated.” The final EIR must make clear that reducing the number of pedestrians crossing Moraga Canyon does not reduce the risk of injury to a pedestrian. It simply reduces the expected number of injured pedestrians crossing Moraga Canyon.

The 1986 environmental review, also prepared by LSA, for the grass field master plan stated (page 43) that any facility on the south side of the Canyon, even an overflow parking lot, would create a “significant unavoidable” risk of injury. The final EIR should address the contradiction between the two documents.

Read the entire letter (PDF, 241K)

The City of Oakland has also submitted an official response to the DEIR. Despite the fact that the proposed project would lie on the Piedmont/Oakland border, environmental impacts on Oakland were not considered in the DEIR:

[...] The DEIR is so fundamentally flawed that it does not provide opportunity for meaningful public review and must be recirculated pursuant to CEQA Guidelines 15088.5.

[...] Piedmont must consider the Project’s environmental impacts on Oakland to ensure proper CEQA review and study suitable alternatives or mitigation measures to alleviate environmental impacts rather than rely on “significant and unavoidable impacts” that will more detrimentally impact Oakland.

Read the entire letter (PDF, 747K)

Oakland City Councilmember Jean Quan also submitted a response:

The DEIR’s conclusion that many of the environmental impacts are “significant and unavoidable” without a more thorough analysis does not do justice to the Project itself, and to the people of Piedmont and Oakland who must live with the consequences should the project proceed without full analysis and mitigation. The DEIR must include a reasonable range of potentially feasible alternatives for all the impacts.

Read the entire letter (PDF, 43K)

Ken Koretz submitted a detailed analysis of traffic, safety and parking issues that were not properly addressed by the DEIR:

Project proponents bet that youth on foot, skateboard and bicycle will either climb stairs or take an elevator to a bridge, or if an illuminated crosswalk is installed in lieu of a bridge, resist the temptation to cross Moraga Avenue outside the approved crossing. Outside of the approved crossing, a dropped ball, lost shoe, run-away skate-board or approaching car speed misjudgment must be resolved within 7-1/2 seconds, on average, to prevent fatality.

Any one fatality of a child crossing Moraga Avenue where sight lines are impaired is ‘significant’. Could the DEIR drafters have set a higher fatality threshold to conclude that safety impacts are “less than significant”?

Read the entire letter (PDF, 38K)

Cathleen Yordi and Mary Krentz describe major impacts on aesthetics for drivers along Moraga Avenue, none of which were addressed in the DEIR:

With many statements throughout the EIR referring to and describing the natural scenic views of the canyon, the analysis only includes a three paragraph description of the potential negative impact on motorists, bicyclist and walkers – and dismisses it as unimportant.

The report says these views are “very brief” and implies they are not important; therefore, there is no need to further assess the impact of the loss of views to travelers on the roadway. [...]

The CEQA guidelines state:

“The project would have a significant impact on aesthetic and visual resources if it would:

  • “Have a substantial adverse effect on a scenic vista;”

The Moraga Canyon Draft EIR uses a different criteria: (page 135)

  • “Have a substantial adverse effect on a scenic vista, particularly views from residences.”

The phase “particularly views from residences” is not in the CEQA guidelines.

Does the preparer of a Draft EIR have the authority to narrow the focus of a CEQA Guideline?  If yes, can the preparer choose not to thoroughly analyze aspects of the project which will impact on a “scenic vista” for thousands of people each day?

Read the entire letter (PDF, 98K)

Here are links to some of the many other letters that were submitted:

  • Richard Grassetti – environmental expert, describes numerous deficiencies in the DEIR
  • Susan Kahn – focuses on traffic issues
  • Joannie Semitekol – discusses serious vehicle and pedestrian safety issues (PDF, 14K)
  • Peggy Esposito – discusses pedestrian safety
  • Jon Adams – covers many topics, including increased risks during emergencies and lighting and wildlife impacts (PDF, 22K)
  • Cathleen Yordi – asks why alternatives outside Piedmont were not considered (PDF, 25K)
  • Sandra Pohutsky – detailed discussion of traffic and safety impacts (PDF, 50K)
  • Oakland resident – discusses impacts to City of Oakland
  • Karen Silverberg – discusses traffic and safety