Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

okay hi everyone we're gonna get started um i'm julia ayers i'm the community development director here for city of brisbane uh tonight we have a scoping meeting for the quarry innovation center project so thanks to everyone who's here in person and on the zoom i'm going to hand over the mic to ralph robinson who is a consulting senior planner for the city as well as peter mai with panorama um the environmental consultants the city has hired to prepare the eir for this project they will give you a brief presentation on the project and help guide you through um submitting your comments either verbally or in written form ralph thanks

Julia, can you pull up the presentation?

All right. Good evening, everyone.

My name again is Ralph Robinson, and I'm a consultant for the city on this project. Real quickly, just wanted to confirm, did anybody need any audio assistance device, anything like that, before we get going? Great. I'll double check. Great. So I'm going to quickly take you through what our objectives are here tonight. So, of course, this is our scoping session for what will be the recirculated draft environmental impact report for the Quarry Innovation Center project. I'm going to take you through some overview of the project, which, of course, has... been updated from the previous iteration you may be familiar with. And I'm going to hand off to Peter Mai from Panorama, who's our environmental consultant helping to prepare that environmental impact report. And he'll take you through that SQL process, next steps, additional opportunities for public input, so forth. And then we're going to end with some public comment. Do just want to first note, if you do want to provide public comment this evening, we just ask if you could fill out one of these comment cards. And you can go ahead and you can turn that in to me right up here at the table. And then when the time comes, we'll be calling folks up to make their comments. So not to be confused, we also have this comment form. So if you want to do a written comment instead. and either submit it here or mail it in after the fact, ahead of that deadline next Tuesday, you'll have that option. We'll also overview that again at the end of this presentation. Am I still on? This was working. Let me see if I can. Great. So our objective again this evening is to receive comments on the scope of the environmental document being prepared for the Quarry Innovation Center project. So some potential areas you may want to comment on, environmental issues of concern with the project, potential mitigation measures, alternatives for consideration, but really open-ended if there's anything you want to see reflected in that environmental document you can provide that comment or just other general project concerns of course as well oh that worked out great i'm now going to go through a bit of background and then taking us up to our current project submittal So going back to 2021-2022, we had the initial project submittal for what was then a approximately 1.3 million square foot warehouse building. We then had our NOP scoping meeting previously in 2022, which some of you may have attended, before then releasing the draft EIR in October of 2024, so roughly two years ago. We received comments on that draft EIR and then we had a bit of a pause in the project before proceeding from there because we were notified by the applicant that they wanted to consider a change in the project scope. So I will quickly note now, and we may reiterate later, if you did submit comments on that draft EIR at that time, this new draft EIR will not include responses to those comments. So when we do recirculate the draft EIR, any comments you want to make, be sure to resubmit those for a formal response. Did I work that time or did I? There we go. Okay, so last November we received a revised set of plans for the project, so changing from that 1.3 million square foot warehouse building to a just under 900,000 square foot light fabrication building. Two stories now in this case, still with a three-story parking garage of just over 200,000 square feet. And then the other key change in the project, as you may notice, is that new 49.9 megawatt substation and switching station which would be connected to the existing pg e transmission lines that run above the project site which brings us up to this evening we have our new scoping session for what will be that recirculated draft environmental impact report Great. So if you are from Brisbane or just familiar with the previous project, you're of course familiar with the Guadalupe Quarry site. So the overall site is around 153 acres. The developed area for this project is around 69 acres, and then much of the rest of that area will be dedicated for conservation, easement, and open space. We have a current heavy industrial zoning for that quarry site. As part of this project, we'll be adopting new zoning TC3 to allow for that proposed light fabrication use. Here you get a sense as far as the building locations. Still very similar to the prior project with the change of slight reduction in that footprint of the main building and then addition of that substation and switching station. We also have some proposed amenity utility areas. If you look at the current plans, those are just concrete pads at the moment. And then we still have the parking garage. Another thing consistent from the previous project iteration, the proposed changes to Quarry Road are consistent with that prior project, and we also have that secondary access road to be added. You can see just to the left of Crocker Industrial Park, connecting the South Hill Drive, also consistent with the prior project. And again, that other key change, we have this new transmission line, as well as one new tower on site and one new tower off site. So as far as entitlements, we have the reconfiguration of the parcels on the site and annexation into the city for 104 acres of that site. Most of the site is currently within San Mateo County. We have a general plan amendment and that new zoning district, as mentioned, as well as associated design permits for the structures themselves. And then we also have our reclamation plan and the habitat conservation plan amendments that are required as part of this process as well. Great. So I'm going to pass off to Peter Mai, who will take us through the SQL process a bit before we then get into public comment. Peter.

Thanks, Ralph. Peter Mai with Panorama Environmental Consultants. And we will be carrying this revised project or proposed project as modified through the environmental review process. So as indicated here in the next few slides, You know, as we are showing here, CEQA mandates that we identify and disclose any of the significant environmental impacts of projects or plans and with a specific emphasis on looking at mitigation measures that would avoid or lessen the potential impacts of the project. And as the lead agency, as this project has gone through the process, they've determined that a recirculated draft EIR is the appropriate sort of process to go through this new project iteration. And with that, we'll be looking at the potentially significant impacts of the proposed project on a direct, indirect, and cumulative basis. We'll be looking at alternatives also that will avoid and or lessen any of the significant impacts that get identified through this iterative process of going through a reanalysis of the project process. So with the publication of the revised corrected NOP, we're setting a new baseline. So baseline essentially is August of 2026 when it comes to baseline. What we will be looking at is the changes, the incremental changes that are brought forward with implementation of the project. In addition to baseline, we'll be addressing any potential impacts on a cumulative basis, looking at the cumulative projects list that was developed last time, updating that and providing a new cumulative analysis or an updated cumulative analysis for the various environmental resource topics. What we won't be looking at are any of the economic or social impacts, as those are not physical environmental changes. So, whoops. Now, What we'll be looking at in terms of topics and procedures are topics that you're familiar with. These are all derived from Appendix G. So we'll be looking at these with respect to the revised project with one of the primary changes within the proposed development area of Slight change in land use is a reduction in the size of the proposed land use program. And then a different electrical service transmission interconnection, whereas now we're looking for an overhead transmission interconnection. Previously, there was an offsite component that was an underground connection to, I believe, the Martin substation. So that's one of the primary differences that we'll be looking at as part of the recirculated draft EIR. So in addition to your opportunity today to provide comments on the direction, the scope of this recirculated draft EIR process, there will be other opportunities for you to lodge comments on not only on the content of the recirculated draft EIR. So you'll see those sort of highlighted in yellow here in this flowchart. Currently, we're here in this August-September window. We're in the scoping process. Next week is the close of that period where you'll have the opportunity to submit any additional comments that you might want to share. And then we go through sort of a reanalysis process where the next opportunity will be when we publish the draft EIR, the recirculated draft EIR in first quarter of 2027. At that point in time, as Ralph mentioned earlier, We will be taking a new set of comments on the content of the EIR. If you would like to revisit the comments that were previously submitted, you'll have an opportunity to submit them at that time. But we are considering those comments previously submitted as part of the recirculated draft EIR. Then after that process ends, we go through a responses to comments phase leading up to the final EIR and certification process. And that's where those members of the public that commented on the EIR will have another opportunity to provide or to review the comments before we go through the approval process. So that is the flow chart for the recirculated draft EIR. And with that, we get back to where are we today and what are the next steps. We published the revised corrected NOP. We're near the end of the 30-day public review period. By 5 p.m. next Tuesday, we'll be closing and then we'll resume be likely generating a scoping summary report that summarizes all the feedback that we've received and those comments then will be considered also as part of the drafting of the recirculated EIR. And now we can move into the meat of this presentation or of the scoping meeting. We'll move forward and I'll hand it off to Ralph to go through the steps, but we'll be taking public comments now. I believe we would want folks to limit their comments to three minutes. We'll likely be taking comments from folks that are here in the meeting room. And then subsequently, we'll be going to the Zoom or the remote participants and lodging or logging their comments. Now, please be reminded that we're not providing like discrete responses today. This is really an opportunity for us to collect comments from the public to inform the process as we go through the recirculated draft EIR analysis. Ralph, let me hand it off to you. I think I took some of your message there, but here you go.

Thank you, Peter. So, yes, as Peter was just mentioning, if you do want to provide verbal comment this evening, you can do so by coming up and handing them all these cards, and we'll just kind of call folks as they come up. We will try to get through folks in the room before going to our Zoom attendees. If you are on Zoom and want to make a comment, please use that raise hand feature so we know to call on you when the time comes. And then if you... not wish to provide verbal comment or you want to make additional comment in addition to that again the deadline would be next tuesday at 5 p.m to by mail by email to myself to the city when again we have those written comment forms you can use or you can provide that whatever format is convenient for you as well and again this is just strictly for the comments on the scope of the EIR. As we covered, we'll also have that draft environment impact report and the associated comment period for that as well. And you can always email me with questions or general comments on the project at any time as well. Great. So with that, I invite anybody who wants to come up and make a comment, please turn in that card so we have your info, and then we'll turn you over to the mic stand here.

Yeah, my name is with a group called Mountain Butterfly Collective. And I was a little confused by your comments. The previous comments submitted, are they going to be reacted to? Or I'll just comment, and then you could, as you have time. So what we're in here... All set? Yeah. What we're in here is we're in a catastrophic emergency. A world... climate catastrophic emergency worldwide. And so I'm asking for you to review is how this project feeds into that. Would it make things worse? I would think it would make things worse. Having a 900,000 square foot building, construction for three years, extreme noise, Within one mile, or I think I gauged it within one half mile of Brisbane residences, maybe within a mile, right near two schools. So that's the first thing. And the second thing is I would like you to review the effects of tire pollution. By tire pollution, I mean the wear and tear on tire that a lot of people don't think of. There's all kinds of things that tires put out. And there's going to be thousands of truck trips, car trips there. And there will be many car trips after if this thing is built. And we'll issue stuff like BPAs. That's what I've read. It'll read things like phthalates, hydrocarbons. It's almost as bad as not as bad, if not as bad, as combustion emissions, carbon combustion emissions. It's like as much as 10 to 20, 10 to 30 percent of it. Um, and another reason why to, uh, do this study of, uh, of tire pollutants is like, I understand that there might be a wetland feature in Al Canyon. And if there's a wetland feature, uh, a lot of that wetland, uh, water is going to go right into Al Canyon with all the pollutants. How's that, how's that going to work? Um, So we have to figure out how this project would affect the community, the industrial park community, the nearby residential community within a mile or two, the old Brisbane community, and how it would affect the schools. And that's all I have for now. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Jamboree. And again, we won't necessarily respond to every comment directly, but I did just want to reiterate in response to his initial question. So those comments on the previous draft environment impact report, those are being considered as Panorama and other consultants work through the new draft environment impact report. And so to the extent possible, trying to make those updates within the new draft EIR to reflect changes based on those comments. There just won't necessarily be a direct response to each comment provided. So any new comments on the draft EIR will get that direct response that we will publish as a follow-up there. So did I accurately? Yeah. Great. Okay. Do we have any other commenters in the room before we turn over to Zoom? Great. Okay.

We can just stick it in for you. Starting right now.

Hello, everyone. My name is Ariel Truboski-Korkidi. I'm the Executive Director of San Bruno Mountain Watch. Thank you all for being here. There's a variety of issues that we would like to see studied in the recirculated draft EIR. The first we also mentioned during the first scoping for the original draft EIR, and that relates to vehicle emissions and their effects on the grasslands surrounding the project. There's been many studies showing that emissions from vehicles as they rain back down on local ecosystems can change things like soil chemistry. And in the Bay Area, that's affected, for example, the grasslands that host butterflies that are endangered, like the Bay Checkers spot, as it's been studied in the South Bay. The scientist who studied that, Stuart Weiss, is also a person who studied San Bruno Mountain. In the work that he did along with others a 30-year review of the habitat conservation plan They noted that the emissions from local traffic is one thing to consider as it affects the habitat of San Bruno Mountain and the three-story parking garage speaks to the volume of traffic that will be part of this project and Despite that This topic was not adequately studied in the prior draft EIR, and we would really appreciate it to be studied for this one. Again, how all that traffic will affect the soil chemistry of surrounding habitats, such as the grasslands of Buckeye and Owl Canyon, which are some of the most important habitats on San Bruno Mountain for the endangered mission balloon, the Beeslover's Paw butterfly. Another topic we'd like to see studied is the effects of the closing of Cory Road. That will alter access to two public parks, one being Cory Road Park. When the city of Brisbane accepted that park from the state, it was under the condition that it would be used for public access And the project closes that road to vehicle access, though the past project stated it would improve public access to local parks. It actually takes away parking that's been there for almost three decades that park users use not to only access the western end of Quarry Road, but also Buckeye and Owl Canyons. which are part of the State Fish and Wildlife Reserve for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, the San Bernardino Mountain Ecological Reserve. Lastly, this new project proposes three new towers that are approximately 200 feet each, and those transmission towers for the new substation could have significant impacts on noise and how that could affect birds and other wildlife also bird strikes on the additional transmission lines um and um yeah i think there's one more thing that that was uh coming to mind but i'll leave that for liberating comments so thank you very much thank you

Thank you. And I noticed we had a couple other folks come in the room. So if you do want to provide verbal comment here this evening, please just submit one of these speaker cards. I think at this moment we'll turn over to our folks on Zoom who are waiting. So as we... Call you there. Just a reminder, please try to keep your comments to three minutes. And then if you just state your name at the start of your comments as well. And again, while we're listening to folks on Zoom, if there's anyone else in the room who'd like to submit a comment, just go ahead and turn in one of those cards.

Okay. Michelle Salmon, I'll allow you to talk. and you should be able to address us.

Thank you. I'm sorry I missed the beginning of the meeting. I was in another meeting. I really don't understand what you meant about resetting the baseline to August of 2026. The quarry, the people who have already done a tremendous amount of moving of dirt and setting up of different platforms, et cetera, in the quarry, What does that mean exactly when you say resetting the baseline and what is the advantage or disadvantage of that? I don't really understand that. It seems to me that you need to go back to the conditions in the quarry at the beginning of this as part of the restoration that is demanded by building anything in the quarry as was stated for many years. So can you explain that to me, please? And before you do that, I also want to mention that there was some significant data problems and gaps in information and knowledge in the first round draft EIR. And in particular, I objected to stating the groundwater not being spring water. And yet there was plenty of water. And the year, though, that they took the readings happened to be a drought year. And so that's inconsistent data. And so. I hope that in the recirculated EIR, draft EIR, that all of those things are addressed, such as the incredible fire risk in the habitat that you're about to build three towers in and that type of thing. But if you could explain to me why you were resetting the baseline. And what exactly that means in regard to the report and in regard to the work that's already been done and grading that's already been done and soil moving that's already been done and cleanup that may or may not have been done or just covered over with dirt. I cannot hear you.

Do you want me to respond to that? Did you have a quick response to that? To the bass. Okay, great. Yeah, just ask the next people.

Is this on?

Hello? Hi. In terms of just a quick response on the baseline, say for example, the baseline for transportation would be based on new trip intersection counts that would be taken as part of the EIR analysis as opposed to relying on counts that were developed several years ago. So that's an example of the baseline. When it comes to the reclamation plan, and how the quarry would be reclaimed, we would still be following the required process for the site reclamation as laid out in the...

I'm sorry, your voice dropped.

In terms of quarry operations, those quarry operations...

Your microphone isn't working. It's still not working.

Let me just come up here.

Thank you.

No problem.

So in terms of the quarry, there's an interim management plan, and that would remain sort of like the baseline operating conditions for the existing quarry. But you'll have an opportunity to review how the baseline is set for each of the various environmental resource topics when we recirculate the draft EIR. But I just wanted to provide a concrete example of, say, for example, transportation, where the baseline for the previous project was developed during the COVID era. Now we're providing true baseline counts so that we can identify the change.

Yeah, the quarry was quite lit up the other night. And several people questioned what was going on, and we didn't know if there was any activity that was allowed at this point. And then was it documented, the removal of equipment and cleanup of derelict equipment out of the quarry before they put the big pile of dirt there? I mean, is that something that would be now the big pile of dirt is where there was abandoned equipment? Is that part of the baseline or what?

I don't think I can provide you with a clear answer on that, other than when we do go through the process of generating the analysis, there will be an opportunity to look at that and provide direct comments, and then we can address them in that fashion. I don't believe we're going out there to do a site visit to identify the exact location of any soil piles that may be there right now. It's primarily what are the existing operations as defined by the interim management plan.

Oh, okay. And was there existing operations going on the other night when it was fully lit up?

Michelle, I would suggest you contact staff with those concerns for tonight. Yeah, I think let's keep it to the EIR. Thank you so much.

Okay.

Okay, did we have anyone else waiting on Zoom for questions?

No.

Great. Okay. I've got a couple more spirit cards here in the chamber. So if I could please ask John Giannini to please come up.

Great.

Thank you for letting me speak.

I don't know. I got here late, so I don't know what was said before. But in my research that I've done, In my research that I've done to stop the quarry development, I've come across something that I believe it's FLACO that annex property to the cities. Is that the name of the organization? LASCO. LASCO. LASCO. Thank you. Yeah, so Rob sent me some information. And the map that was supplied by the city of Brisbane was dated 1984. In 2004, they sent that information to LAFCO. They left out Owl, Buckeye Canyon, the wetlands, Brisbane did. So I thought that's not right. Buckeye Canyon should have been addressed in that annexation. And then the other thing that I noticed that I came across was Owl Canyon, the wetland is very rare wetland. And to put a massive building alongside that with all the traffic and dust and everything would be a disaster. So I just would like the city to look into those two items. And I will send you the information that I have for the annexation in 2004 of Quarry Road so that you can see it. And it should be addressed. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Giannini. So quick note, anybody on Zoom, have your hand raised in there. If you want to make a comment to anybody in the room, please provide a speaker card. If you've not yet done so and want to make a comment at this point, I'd like to call up David Schooley.

Hi, everybody. In 1999, our efforts and works for the mountain were rather intense. And at that point, Mr. Bottoms was the owner of the quarry in those days. And there was kind of a fight with him in the city And since at that point, though, he'd been an honest, good man. And he contacted me at that point and said that if you guys were your group, Saving December the Mountain, we'd sell it to you if you can get it. So desperately we ran around trying to get money for tables in Brisbane, South City, D.C. all around, San Francisco all around us. And it would be hard. We had some money ourselves. But we took a group of Trust for Public Land to the mountain. And they got so amazed by Buckeye and Owl Canyon and the land around it that they put forth the amount of money that was enough to purchase Buckeye and Owl Canyon. That's a critical thing for all of us. Our next move was by 2000 or so. The people of Brisbane worked hard and got together to halt the possibility of housing in the quarry. And this is a rather critical effort on our part and the city's part and all involved. no housing on the quarry. So anyway, we move on from there. The quarry itself is a question for all of us. There's been change after change over these many, many years. And now we're hearing about a massive building into the quarry and it's an immense part of the mountain as well and we are against that possibility in any way we have been going door to door and the people are responding on all our part not to go ahead and build on that quarry any further AI throughout the United States, people are questioning that power now strongly. Some are halting it. This door-to-door effort in Brisbane and any effort we can do around it, our vision is for the quarry to be a native botanical garden. And that has been a vision for a long before that was a part of our effort to stop the housing. So that vision and that the ideas involved are something rather special. And the quarry areas are shady and sunny. There are plenty of water year long. There are paths and would be better paths of every sort. It could become like a incredible learning center, a community center, a place for people for all around us, far better than a gigantic monster that they're planning to make. Section thought is that increased rare and endangered habitat on the benches would be a special move for all of us in the future. Rare and endangered plants and animals on the benches above. In Canada, there's a quarry that became a botanical garden. It was a beautiful effort on that part. There are several more in the state of California that are quarries that became botanical garden centers. That's what we could have here on the quarry. We've had enough on troubles around this mountain. This mountain was an incredible effort on people's efforts on all sides to preserve what it has. And we want to put a big monster right inside? No, no. This is the effort of all of us for this gift. Something quietly that began to happen on that quarry was also the elfin butterfly. In a quarry, in a destructive habitat, suddenly is returned with a rare and endangered species in that area. Let's do the same thing from every level on those benches and the base. We are making now letters plus photos to trust for public land. post observation and for other groups that are they can possibly purchase and help this land rather than destroy it. Well for all of us thinking for the heart of San Bernardino Mountain and its future this quarry is an answer that we have to make it work.

Okay. Thank you. All right. Gita Dev on the Zoom. I'm going to allow you to talk. And you should be able to unmute and address us.

Well, thank you. And thank you. Thank you all for providing us this opportunity to comment. I'm Gita Dev. I'm with the Sierra Club. And seems to me that we are faced with a site, which is looking for a reason to be to be something other than the botanical garden. Right now, the question I have is that there is a 900 square foot building and a substation of 50,000 kilowatts, which is an extremely substantial amount of power for such a small building. or it is a huge amount of power for a large building, but for light fabrication, which usually requires about 10 to 15 Watts per square foot, it's providing 56 Watts per square foot. That is totally beyond the imagination for a light fabrication building. So one of the many questions we have is what is this power station for which there's absolutely no description in the NOP. It's simply told as being a 49.9 megawatt substation. It's obviously either for someplace else or this building is for some other use than light fabrication. It doesn't make any sense at all. So I would ask that the EIR look into this issue. There is a Bayland specific plan down in the Baylands that is a place where one can use this kind of power. There's absolutely no reason to put it in the middle of a habitat area. So I would really ask what the heck they are thinking of. And I would ask that the EIR, in this case, study What could, what facility could use 49.9 kilowatts of electrical load? And that is what the EIR should be studying, and I hope it will. We have a lot of questions, but this is an outstanding one. Thank you.

Okay, do we have anyone else on Zoom? Go ahead and raise your hand or in person. You can come on up and turn in a speaker card. But if not, then we'll move forward and close up all the comment period. Great. So a reminder once again, the comment period for the scoping portion of the EIR, that is going to be open until one week from now, next Tuesday at 5 p.m. And again, you can submit those comments by email, by writing, using the written comment cards, again, whatever your preferred format is. And again... We'll reiterate once we do release the draft environment impact report, that will also have its own associated comment period. And again, myself, other staff, we're always available if there are other questions on the project that folks have, or just general comments you want to submit. I get comments throughout the year on the glory project, as you can imagine. So I think that does it for us this evening. And Julie, do you have any parting words?

Well, we did get a last minute raised hand from Michelle Salmon. Okay. If we want to allow her to make one last comment before we wrap up.

Okay.

So Michelle will allow you to talk and you should be able to unmute and address us. Okay.

I just have a quick clarification. I want to make sure that the recirculated draft EIR includes the entire Cori site, not just the part they want to develop, but the benches and everything else. Because I'm concerned that what they want to do is dump off the part that they don't want and call it, oh, open space. And yet that's some of the most dangerous areas. So I want to make sure that the Draft EIR in the scoping includes the entire site that is currently owned by the 48 whatever people that own the quarry and not just the part they want to develop. Can you confirm that, please? Because I don't want to make comments about things that aren't going to be addressed.

Well, this is your time to ask for topics to be addressed in the EIR.

Okay, I was just asking for clarification that the baseline, the new baseline, includes the entire site that is owned by the quarry. Can that be confirmed?

Yeah, Peter, I think you were mentioning. The EIR does include the entire project site, right? The 153 acres, as we overviewed earlier, it is reflected throughout the project plans and other details as well. So yeah, and then just we'll quickly note This evening, primary objective is we're looking for those suggestions, topics, areas of concern that you do want to see reflected in the draft EIR. So again, we aren't necessarily providing, you know, full suite of responses or full set of detailed responses at this time. But if there are other topics you want to get in before we wrap up, please go ahead and get those in.

Thank you, Ralph. Thank you, Julia. And thank you, Thanks.

Okay. I think that may have been our last scoping comment this evening. At this point, I want to thank everyone so much for coming tonight, both in person and remotely on Zoom. As I think Ralph and Peter stated multiple times, the end of the formal comment period is next Tuesday, September 8th at 5 p.m. So for those who want to submit written comments... That information is all available in the notice of preparation, which is on the city's project website. I can put up the PowerPoint slide for those who are interested. Before we sign off, just as a reminder, please send those comments by email or mail to Ralph here. Oops, went too far. Yeah, so rrobinson at brisbaneca.org or you can mail them to City Hall at 50 Park Place, Brisbane, California, 94005. We appreciate your participation and look forward to engaging with you more as the process goes on. Thank you.