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Chairman and Members o,the Commission San Joaquin County Planning Commission October 5, 2000 Page 5 A few issues,including use of a mitigation"off=sel"program for Neighborhood"F", deserve special mention and further discussion since they will result in impacts not being mitigated as a result of the Project. The discussion follows. The Fair Share Analysis and Mitigation"Off-set"Program Violates CEQA One of the basic tenets of CEQA is the requirement that the lead agency fully inform the public and all decision makers of the true environmental impacts of a project, so that feasible alternatives and mitigation measures can be identified,explored and adopted to lessen or avoid significant environmental impacts of projects. The Mountain House development involves a"fair share"scheme that results in the Project avoiding responsibility for the direct and indirect burdens placed on regional and local roadways, on the erroneous prc-mise that the Project has only a sinal l percentage responsibility for some roads, and further that the Project should only be responsible for a"fair share" of the improvements to roads that are internal to the Project and are part of the Project infrastructure! Roads that arc internal to the Project include the sections of Byron Road,Mountain House Parkway and Grant Line Road which are within the boundaries of the Project,which are being improved to handle the Project traffic.Despite the fact that these are properly considered as part of the Project infrastructure necessary for development of the Project and the movement of traffic within the development, the"fair share"formula treats these roads as mitigation expenditures, those using the traffic impact fee monies to pay for basic Project improvements. The"fair share" formula devised for regional roads involves the Project's traffic consultants and the CSD creating the illusion that"other jurisdictions",including Contra Costa, San Mateo and Santa Clara Counties,bear a percentage responsibility for local and regional roads serving the Project, and that based on this notion,the Project should have to pay only a fraction of the cost to improve roads that are burdened by the enormous traffic to be generated b the Project. This scheme violates CEQA, since the Project proponents and your Board know full well there is no legal means by which to Postulate liability for road improvements on"other jurisdictions"and that anticipated funding for their"fair share"of the cost of these improvement is a complete fiction.The result: many roads directly and adversely affected by Project traffic will not be improved, changed, or otherwise considered in connection with your approval of the Project. Examples include Altamont Pass Road,portions of Byron Road, and the I-580 interchange at Grant Luce Road. Note that the Project documents propose improvement of Grant Line Road to handle the massive volumes of traffic generated by the Project trips,but decline mitigate impacts for the 1-580 interchange at Grant Line Road. These mitigation measures have been improperly deferred,despite the fact that prior program EIRs identified the 1-5 intersection improvements as required for development of Mountain House. The flaws in the"fair-share"concept are easy to expose when one considers the fact the improvement of Byron Road, Grant Line Road and Mountain House Parkway within the Project