Arcadia Wins! Review of DEIR

The Planning Commission will hold the last of its public hearings on Tuesday, November 28 to hear comments from Arcadia residents about the recently released revised Draft Environmental Impact Report concerning the proposed Shops at Santa Anita development.

If you are in favor of the project as we are here at Arcadia Wins!, it’s important to voice your support for the development at that meeting so that Planning Commissioners hear how you feel, as well as letters to the city council (please note to distribute to all council members) and local newspapers. Remember, with the results of the Nov. 7 election, the development will now offer free parking for everyone and will still not have any large or animated signs/billboards that do not meet strict city ordinances.

We encourage you to review the report in advance and attend the important hearing at the Community Center at 365 Campus Dr. at 6:30 p.m. to make your comments (please arrive early).

While the entire report of thousands of pages is available for review by anyone at the city’s website (http://www.ci.arcadia.ca.us/home/index.asp?page=1195), we offer this summary and directions to topics that address what we believe to be of primary concern to residents.

In a nutshell, the city reviewed all areas of concern, from the point of view of no project, the Caruso project as submitted and other alternative scenarios. The report identifies 100 areas of potential impact and the mitigations required. These are detailed on pages 14-71 of Chapter 2 Summary in the report, grouped under the following headings,

Aesthetics                                          page 14
Air Quality                                         page 16
Biological Resources                          page 23
Cultural Resources                             page 24
Geology and Soils                              page 30
Hazards and Hazardous Materials        page 32
Hydrology and Water Quality              page 39
Land Use                                           page 46
Noise                                                 page 47
Population and Housing                      page 54
Public Services                                   page 55
Recreation                                          page 56
Transportation and Traffic                  page 56
Utilities and Service Systems               page 69

It goes without saying that a project of this size will have an impact on the community but the report indicates that 84% of the potential negatives can be successfully mitigated to the level of less than significant. The report also states that after the developer undertakes such mitigations at his own expense, only 16 of the areas would remain significantly impacted, the most notable of which are the altered view of the Santa Anita Park area and the increased noise level and evening lighting for residents in the immediate area. Several of these 16 are significant only because permission is required from neighboring cities for the mitigations to be completed

The Traffic Issue.

The report studies traffic at 42 intersections. The project was found to significantly impact 20 intersections which are tabled below.

The good news is that with the improvements and mitigations planned by the developer, the traffic will be BETTER in 16 of these intersections than if nothing was built at all.

If you are interested in seeing the details, look at tables 4.13-8, 4.13-9, and 4.13-13  (pages 1, 2 and 28) of Chapter 4.13 Transportation/traffic part 2.

The following table contains information extracted from these three tables and put together so a direct comparison can be made. The boxes with no data reflect the fact that the project will not affect that intersection at that time of day and therefore no mitigations are required.