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Council upholds planning commission: denies appeal of industrial site plan after CEQA class 32 exemption review
Summary
The council denied an appeal from the Supporters Alliance for Environmental Responsibility (SAFER) and upheld the planning commission’s finding that a proposed 50,300 sq. ft. industrial building qualified for a Class 32 CEQA infill exemption.
The Garden Grove City Council voted 7-0 to deny an appeal from the Supporters Alliance for Environmental Responsibility (SAFER) and uphold the planning commission's approval of site plan SP-1582025 for a proposed 50,300-square-foot industrial building at 7441 Lincoln Avenue.
The planning commission had earlier determined the project qualified for a Class 32 (infill) CEQA exemption. Staff told the council the site currently contains a roughly 44,000-square-foot office-industrial building and that the new design would provide a 50,300-square-foot shell industrial building with 52 parking spaces, warehouse and office space, and a mezzanine.
Nut graf: SAFER urged the council to require further environmental review, arguing construction-period diesel particulate matter (DPM) emissions posed significant health risks to adjacent residences and that the exemption’s "unusual circumstances" exception applied. The applicant and city staff maintained the Class 32 exemption was appropriate and that regulatory construction controls and existing code and regional air-district rules address construction emissions.
During the hearing SAFER counsel Hailey Uno summarized technical objections to the city's air-quality assessment, saying an independent review "calculated a cancer risk of 48.2 per million" from construction equipment and therefore asked the council to require a mitigated negative declaration or environmental impact report. The applicant's representatives, including land-use counsel Elisa Pastor and developer Henry Hong, countered that the project is consistent with the general plan, located on a fully urbanized site under five acres, and that comparable modern industrial uses in Orange County do not produce the type of ongoing operational impact SAFER described.
City staff said they reviewed SAFER's August technical comments, the applicant's responses and the planning commission record, and concluded the project met the Class 32 exemption criteria. The council voted to deny the appeal and adopt the planning commission decision.
Ending: The denial upholds the planning commission's CEQA exemption finding and allows the applicant to proceed to final plan check and permitting; staff said plan check and construction timing will still require standard regulatory reviews and permits.
