San Carlos Transit Village: Environmental Impacts

[Editor's note: To read Part One in this series, click here.]

By Katherine Hafner

The city of San Carlos has been trying to identify the major impacts the proposed Transit Village will have on the community for years.

The final reports are out, but not everyone is satisfied with the results.

The major area of impact assessment was an Environmental Impact Report to gauge the environmental impacts such a major development could have on issues including traffic, noise pollution, air pollution and cultural resources.

In about 2008, the city of San Carlos hired a private firm to assist with conducting an EIR, and released the first draft in late 2009, said Al Savay, community development director for the city of San Carlos.

After receiving many comments from the public about the draft EIR, the city set out to complete it, but delayed the EIR in 2010 to address concerns of how Calif.’s proposed High Speed Rail project may impact the site location in the future.

“Later on it was determined that High Speed Rail was way down the road and the city needed to move forward with the project,” Savay said. “You can’t delay a project for something (like High Speed Rail) that you’re not sure will ever come to fruition ... so we completed the EIR in July 2012 and released it to the public.”

The final EIR, which you can find here on the San Carlos city website, assesses 13 areas of possible impact including air quality, utilities, hydrology and transportation.

Out of about 100 total individual impacts studied under these categories, more than 75 percent were deemed “less than significant.” The impacts that are deemed significant or possibly significant contain suggestions for mitigation measures to reduce the impact to less than significant.

According to the final EIR, the project would increase concentrations of carbon monoxide, automobile exhausts and fumes around the intersections, possibly produce operational noise exposures on the project site and could even “encounter human remains.”

“Cumulative Conditions would result in two intersections (El Camino Real/Holly Street and Old County Road/Holly Street) operating at unacceptable levels of service,” the EIR also states.

But with the listed mitigation measures, all of the impacts have been reduced to a less than significant level by the officials conducting the report.

Savay said residents can expect to see the listed mitigation measures  – such as a parking and transportation demand management program – implemented, because the city and Legacy Partners are required to follow the EIR’s suggestions under the California Environmental Quality Act.

The final EIR passed the San Carlos City Council in October 2012, upsetting opponents of the project who argue that the impacts are significant regardless of the report’s findings.

“All these things are ‘not significant,’ nothing is significant ... It’s like we don’t exist,” said Ben Fuller, president of the neighborhood organization Greater East San Carlos and leader of growing momentum against the current proposal.

Fuller said he does not think the suggested mitigation measures will be enough to address issues like traffic, a blocked view and overcrowding of the people into limited neighborhood resources.

Savay, however, said the report was conducted by a vast number of experts who he thinks made it comprehensive and accurate.

“I am confident that the EIR was exhaustive in terms of analysis,” he said. “It’s pretty typical for people to disagree with EIRs ... but you have to have some kind of empirical evidence.”

Check back on Friday for more information about the recent pushback from the community.