West Sacramento council upholds Liberty development EIR despite residents' flood and evacuation concerns

The West Sacramento City Council on March 5 voted to deny an appeal by resident Kimber Goddard and to uphold the Planning Commission's certification of the Liberty project's environmental impact report (EIR) and approval of a vesting tentative subdivision map covering roughly 342 acres and proposing 1,503 housing units.

The decision preserves the Planning Commission's January 30 actions and keeps the project's entitlements on track; the council adopted a modified staff recommendation in a roll-call vote after a five-hour public hearing in which dozens of residents and multiple city staff and consultants testified.

The appeal centered on two legal claims under the California Environmental Quality Act: that new information about flood risk and emergency-evacuation constraints required recirculation of the final EIR under CEQA section 15088.5, and that substantially changed circumstances called for a supplemental or new EIR under CEQA section 15162. Kimber Goddard, who filed the appeal, told council that "the flood risk is significant and unavoidable" and argued the public needed a new 45-day circulation of the final document so residents could evaluate differences between the 2017 draft EIR and the 2024 final EIR.

City staff rejected those arguments in the staff report and again in oral testimony. Justin Hardy, the city planner who has managed Liberty through the process, summarized the project and the administrative history: the Liberty specific plan covers about 342 acres, proposes 1,503 dwelling units, roughly 10,000 square feet of commercial space, and about 25 acres…