Liang - Objective Standards on Air Quality, Noise and Stormwater, etc.

From: Liang C
Date: Tue, Nov 28, 2017 at 12:08 PM
Subject: Objective Standards on Air Quality, Noise and Stormwater, etc.
To: City Council <citycouncil@cupertino.org>, "City of Cupertino Planning Dept." <planning@cupertino.org>, David Brandt <davidb@cupertino.org>

Dear City Council Members and Planning Staff,

What we learned from the Nov. 27 study session on housing bills is that "objective standards" are the only things that the court might use to judge whether a project comply with the General Plan.

Without "objective standards", any policy in the General Plan is useless as if the policy doesn't even exist.

Even though significant impacts on health and safety might be grounds to deny a project, it is very hard to provide evidence to qualtify such impacts.

So, we should start to identify policies that require "objective standards".

I took a cursory look at pollution related policies. I found these "general" policies without "objective standards",.

Air Quality:

GOAL ES-4: Maintain healthy air quality levels

Policy ES-4.1: New Development. Minimize the air quality impacts of new development projects and air quality impacts that affect new development.

Strategy ES-4.1.1: Toxic Air Contaminants. Continue to review projects for potential generation of toxic air contaminants at the time of approval and confer with Bay Area Air Quality Management District on controls needed if impacts are uncertain.

Strategy ES-4.1.2: Dust Control. Continue to require water application to non-polluting dust control measures during demolition and the duration of the construction period.

Strategy ES-4.1.3: Planning. Ensure that land use and transportation plans support air quality goals.

Policy ES-4.2: Existing Development. Minimize the air quality impacts of existing development.

Water and Stormwater:

Policy ES-7.3: Pollution and Flow Impacts. Ensure that surface and groundwater quality impacts are reduced through development review and volunteer efforts.

Strategy ES-7.3.1: Development Review. Require LID designs such as vegetated stormwater treatment systems and green infrastructure to mitigate pollutant loads and flows.

Strategy ES-7.4.3: Development. Review development plans to ensure that projects are examined in the context of impacts on the entire watershed.

GOAL INF-4: Implement best practices in stormwater management to reduce demand on the stormwater network, reduce soil erosion, and reduce pollution into reservoirs and the bay
Stormwater planning and funding
Policy INF-4.1: Planning and Management. Create plans and operational policies to develop and maintain an effective and efficient stormwater system.
Strategy INF-4.1.1: Management. Reduce the demand on storm drain capacity through implementation of programs that meet and even exceed on-site drainage requirements.
Strategy INF-4.1.2: Infrastructure. Develop a Capital Improvement Program (CIP) for the City’s storm drain infrastructure that meets the current and future needs of the community.
Strategy INF-4.1.3: Maintenance. Ensure that City’s storm drain infrastructure is appropriately maintained to reduce flood hazards through implementation of best practices.
Policy INF-4.2: Funding. Develop permanent sources of funding storm water infrastructure construction and maintenance.
Strategy INF-4.2.2: Ongoing Operations. Review other funding strategies to pay for the ongoing operations and maintenance of the storm drain system per State and regional requirements.

Noise:

GOAL HS-8: Minimize noise impacts on the community and maintain a compatible noise environment for existing and future land uses

Policy HS-8.1: Land Use Decision Evaluation. Use the Land Use Compatibility for Community Noise Environments chart, the Future Noise Contour Map (see Figure D-1 in Appendix D) and the City Municipal Code to evaluate land use decisions.

Policy HS-8.2: Building and Site Design. Minimize noise impacts through appropriate building and site design.

Strategy HS-8.2.1: Commercial Delivery Areas. Locate delivery areas for new commercial and industrial developments away from existing or planned homes.

Strategy HS-8.2.2: Noise Control Techniques. Require analysis and implementation of techniques to control the effects of noise from industrial equipment and processes for projects near low-intensity residential uses.

Strategy HS-8.2.3: Sound Wall Requirements. Exercise discretion in requiring sound walls to be sure that all other measures of noise control have been explored and that the sound wall blends with the neighborhood. Sound walls should be designed and landscaped to fit into the environment.

Policy HS-8.3: Construction and Maintenance Activities. Regulate construction and maintenance activities. Establish and enforce reasonable allowable periods of the day, during weekdays, weekends and holidays for construction activities. Require construction contractors to use the best available technology to minimize excessive noise and vibration from construction equipment such as pile drivers, jack hammers, and vibratory rollers.

Policy HS-8.5: Neighborhoods. Review residents’ needs for convenience and safety and prioritize them over the convenient movement of commute or through traffic where practical.

Strategy HS-8.6.1: Local Improvement. Modify street design to minimize noise impact to neighbors.

Policy LU-27.7: Protection. Protect residential neighborhoods from noise, traffic, light and visually intrusive effects from more intense development with landscape buffers, site design, setbacks and other appropriate measures.

Protection of Neighborhoods:

Strategy LU-27.1.1: Regulations. Maintain and update design regulations and guidelines for single-family development that address neighborhood compatibility and visual and privacy impacts.

Policy LU-13.7: Neighborhood buffers. Consider buffers such as setbacks, landscaping and/or building transitions to buffer abutting single-family residential areas from visual and noise impacts.

Strategy LU-27.1.4: Late Night Uses. Discourage late- evening entertainment activities such as night-clubs in commercial areas where parcels are especially narrow, abut single-family residential development, and cannot adequately provide visual and noise buffers.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Liang-Fang Chao <lfchao@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, Nov 28, 2017 at 12:18 PM
Subject: Fwd: Objective Standards on Air Quality, Noise and Stormwater, etc.
To: City Council <citycouncil@cupertino.org>, "City of Cupertino Planning Dept." <planning@cupertino.org>, David Brandt <davidb@cupertino.org>

Dear City Council Members and Planning Staff,

I found something worth looking into. The 2014 General Plan removed some policies with the reasons that they will be "considered through environmental review per CEQA."

But CEQA is not a part of the General Plan. And CEQA usually only identifies impacts without setting an "objective standards" for these impacts as a criterion for project approval.

In some cases, previous "objective standards" are removed from the General Plan to defer to CEQA review.

EIR usually identify mitigation measures for certain impacts, but there is no obligation for the project applicant to implement any of those measures. Perhaps, the General Plan should state that the mitigation measures identified have to be implemented.

If the General Plan sets a tighter standard, the project applicant can always request an exception, at the discretion of the City Council. However, if the General Plan sets no standard or vague or loose standards, the Council would have no say on whether or not mitigations identified by the EIR would be implemented or not.

In the comparison table between 2014 GP and the 2005 GP, the staff added such notes:

"Air quality and noise impacts already considered through environmental review per CEQA. Refer to outreach for education."
(Archaeologically Sensitive Areas) "Removed because redundant and has specific requirements per California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA)"

"Air quality and noise impacts already considered through environmental review per CEQA. Refer to outreach for education."

(Geotechnical and Structural Analysis) "Portions implemented through the CEQA process."

Below is an example where objective standards, which used to be in 2005 General Plan, were removed from the 2014 General Plan.

In 2005 General Plan, I see specific measurements for noise.

Noise Monitoring
In order to characterize the noise environment in Cupertino, existing noise conditions
in Cupertino were measured at six locations for a period of twenty-four hours. The
following Table, 6-E, summarizes each measurement’s location and corresponding CNEL value.

Very detailed standards is listed in Page 35-36, Chapter 6 of 2005 GP:

https://app.box.com/s/mdod3ou8qah58w6svj8sv6ogceditbtx

Policy 6-50: Land Use Decision
Evaluation
Use the Land Use Compatibility for
Community Noise Environments chartand the City Municipal Code to evaluate
land use decisions.

The "objective standards" on noise level was in 2005 General Plan, but it was completely removed in the 2014 GP.