The Seal Beach Environmental Quality Control Board voted 4-1 to advise the City Council that the Final EIR for the Bay City Partners property is inadequate at the conclusion of a Wednesday, April 25 public hearing.
The dissenting vote was cast by Board member Roger Bennett. He did not comment on the document.
Details of the meeting will be reported in the Thursday, May 3, print edition of the Sun.
Board members Barba Barton, Marla Smalewitz and Mario Voce all expressed concern for preserving open space on the property formerly owned by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. Board members also raised issues of traffic impacts of the proposal to develop 48 residential houses on the property. The current site plan allows 70 percent open space and sets aside the rest of the land for a hotel.
After making an angry address criticizing the consultants who drew up the EIR, Voce made a motion to recommend to the City Council that the EIR was inadequate. Voce, who is chairman of the environmental board, spoke against the project last week at the Tuesday, April 24 meeting of the DWP Advisory Committee.
Several current and former city officials who spoke out against the project Wednesday night: Nancy Kredall, a member of the DWP Advisory Committee; Bruce Monroe, of the Ad Hoc General Plan/Local Coastal Plan Committee; former Councilman Charles Antos and Jim Caviola of the Tree Advisory Committee. Kredall accused the city of being pre-committeed to approving the project.
Councilwoman Ellery Deaton has said more than once that the city only agreed to process the property owners’ application.
Caviola called the EIR a “cartoon book” and claimed that 1.5 acres of the open space provided for in the proposed project was under water. Caviola quoted from documents he said dated back to 2000 that said the property was contaminated.
Ed Selich, project manager for Bay City Partners, said that environmental remediation was a process that happens in stages. He said the fact the documents Caviola cited were from 2000 was key.
Other city officials who did not speak but were present at the public hearing were Planning Commission Chair Sandra Massa-Lavitt; Planning Commissioner Robert Goldberg, who raised the question of part of the open space being under water during last week’s DWP Advisory Committee hearing; Councilwoman Deaton, who campaigned on perserving the 70 percent open space called for in the original site plan for the property; Councilman Gordon Shanks, City Manager Jill Ingram and Assistant City Manager Sean Crumby.
Interim Director of Development Services Greg Hastings said the board was meeting to form a recommendation on whether the Final Environmental Impact Report was prepared within the guidelines of the California Environmental Quality Act.
