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HomeMy WebLinkAboutO.B. 02 IRV BUS COMP 06-01-92OLD BUSINESS NO. 2 6-1-92 AGENDA.. - Inter-Com;7e BATE: JUNE 1, 1992 TO: WILLIAM A. HUSTON, CITY MANAGER FROM: COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT DEPARTMENT LI BJ ECT: IRVINE BUSINESS COMPLEX (IBC) RECOMMENDATION That the City Council authorize city staff to negotiate and prepare a Memorandum of Understanding between the cities of Irvine and Tustin related to traffic mitigation on the Irvine Business Complex (IBC) project. BACKGROUND On May 7, 1992, the City of Tustin submitted written comments to the City of Irvine Planning Commission (attached). The letter reinforced our concerns regarding infeasible traffic improvements with the City of Tustin and the failure of Irvine to construct certain Irvine Business Complex (IBC) improvements required since 1985 and proposed that the City of Irvine enter into an agreement with Tustin to ensure the financing and completion of certain improvements in Tustin. As a method to achieve this agreement, a mitigation measure in the environmental document would need to be included making it a. mandatory commitment by the City of Irvine to participate with the City of Tustin in the drafting of a Memorandum of* Understanding (MOU) between the two cities. The MOU would identify a method by which the two cities would agree upon feasible traffic mitigation improvements within Tustin, the implementation. timetable for those improvements, the cost for said improvements and the method by which the City of Irvine would finance the improvements. The staff of the City of Irvine and Tustin met on May 19, 1992 to discuss the potential Tustin/Irvine agreement. At that meeting the City of Irvine proposed mitigation measure language that was unacceptable and did not satisfactorily achieve the intent of the agreement the City of Tustin proposed. Since that time the Community Development Department and Public Works/Engineering divisions of the City of Tustin have been working on drafting mitigation measure language that would lay out the parameters for a Tustin/Irvine agreement to identify the specific improvements that are needed, costs, timing and Irvine's financial responsibilities. If the City of Irvine agrees to the preparation City Council Report Irvine Business Complex (IBC) June 1, 1992 Page 2 of such a Memorandum of Understanding, the two staffs will work together to develop the content of the agreement. Staff is requesting that the City Council authorize staff to prepare the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) document and permit the city staff to negotiate the terms and content of the MOU. Each respective City Council would be the final authorization and approvals body for the MOU. The MOU would be similar to the agreement developed in 1990 between the City of Tustin and Santa Ana to mitigate the impacts of the Birtcher Xerox development. 4R*ta��T. Westfield Assistant Director Community Development Department RTW:CAS:kbc\ibccounc.mem Christine A. Sh leton Assistant City Manager t� Y O 1 V VU Office of the City Manager May 7, 1992 Chairman Peotter and Members of the City of Irvine Planning Commission One Civic Center Plaza Irvine, California 92713-9575 City Of Tustin 15222 De! Amo Avenue Tustin, CA 92680 (714) 544-8890 FAX (714) 832-0825 SUBJECT: IRVINE BUSINESS COMPLEX (IBC), GENERAL PLAN AMENDMENT (7234 -GA) AND ZONE CHANGE (88-ZC-0135) The City of Tustin presents this letter as a written testimony for the May 7, 1992 Planning Commission public hearing. Since July 1991, the City of Tustin has participated in on-going meetings for the IBC Rezoning and General Plan Amendment. The City of Tustin along with the cities of Santa Ana, Newport Beach and Costa Mesa participated in these meetings with the expectation that outstanding issues related to the impacts of the IBC rezoning project might be resolved prior to completion of the Draft EIR and any action on the project. Unfortunately, we do not believe that many of these issues have been resolved at this time. We have attached for the Planning Commission's review and consideration copies of correspondence from the City of Tustin identifying issues we have raised in the recent months and indicating our efforts to work with the City of Irvine. While the City of Tustin previously requested a minimum ten day notice prior to any public hearing on the Rezoning and General Plan Amendment, we were not aware of tonight's Planning Commission hearing until May 4, 1992 when we received a copy of the Agenda of the City of Irvine Planning Commission. A copy of the Planning Commission staff report from the City of Irvine Community Development Department was not available to us until May 6, 1992; a copy of the Response to Comment document on the Draft EIR was not available until mid-day on May 6, 1992. Given the short notice of tonight's hearing, as well as the late availability of the staff report and Response to Comments on the Draft EIR, the City of Tustin has not been able to complete a comprehensive review of the response document and wishes to reserve the right to make additional comments on the documents in the future. In any event, however, based on our cursory review of the documents, we contend that our previous comments (attached) have not been adequately responded to and significant inaccuracies remain in the representations included in the staff report before your honorable Commission including -- Chairman Peotter City of Irvine Planning Commission May 7, 1992 Page 2 mitigation measures proposed in the Draft EIR. A few examples of our concerns are noted as follows: 1. Review of the Planning Commission staff report shows that some of the information contained therein is misrepresented. Page two of the report indicates that the traf f is study for the IBC incorporates traffic analysis to identify IBC traffic impacts in surrounding communities. This in fact is not correct, the City of Tustin has requested that the City of Irvine prepare a comprehensive traffic study which identifies circulation improvements, phasing and funding necessary to mitigate IBC impacts as part of the EIR before any IBC rezoning or General Plan amendment approvals and EIR certification. The report to the Transportation Commission refers to impacts on surrounding cities, the draft Environmental Impact Report (DEIR) contains a mitigation measure which attempts to compel surrounding cities to participate in a traffic shares study and share in the expense of the study and mitigation measures to offset traffic/circulation impacts created by the IBC in adjacent jurisdictions. At no time did the adjacent cities agree to this approach, and in fact we have continually informed Irvine staff both verbally and in written correspondence that this approach is unacceptable. 2. The subject project will have a significant impact on the City of Tustin's transportation/circulation system. While it may be the intended goal of the traffic mitigation program to fully mitigate all traffic impacts associated with the proposed rezoning project, not all of the mitigation measures identified in the Draft EIR are feasible to accomplish this. To mitigate all traffic impacts requires substantial improvements beyond the IBC and the City of Irvine's boundaries. Traffic must flow smoothly into and out of the IBC to maintain the performance standards within the IBC and to maintain acceptable levels of service in adjacent jurisdictions. This requires enhancement of capacity on roadways beyond the boundaries of the IBC. The City has communicated on numerous occasions. to Irvine that certain roadway improvements identified in Tustin in the IBC Draft EIR are not feasible and there are more feasible improvements that could be made to achieve the same results. For these reasons as well as lack of complete information, we are of the opinion that the IBC Draft EIR document is still Chairman Peotter City of Irvine Planning Commission May 7, 1992 Page 3 inadequate relative to mitigating impacts in the City of Tustin. In the interest of cooperating with the City of Irvine, however, we have developed a listing of alternative feasible mitigation measures that we believe would be acceptable to the City of Tustin. The alternative feasible mitigation measures include the construction in Stage I of the following identified locations where the IBC Draft EIR has projected traffic impacts to locations within the City of Tustin. The justification for the following list of alternative feasible mitigation measures are as follows: a. It places greater emphasis on capacity enhancements of locations with deteriorating levels of service directly attributable to adverse traffic impacts caused by incremental traffic contributions by the IBC. b. The measures are consistent with the orderly development of the City of Tustin's Master Plan of Arterial Highways prior to any widening beyond the Master Plan status at various locations. C. Identifies measures that will enhance segments of roadways to accommodate the additional contributions of projected traffic. d. Requires the completion in Stage I of projects identified in the approved 1985 mitigation program for IBC roadway improvements that were not completed. ALTERNATIVE FEASIBLE MITIGATION MEASURES 1. The construction in Stage I of Red Hill Avenue between Dyer Road/Barranca Parkway and the I-5 Freeway including intersections to a full 6 -lane standard major arterial status, including turn lane enhancements, bicycle lanes, and right-of- way acquisitions where necessary. 2. The 1985 IBC mitigation program identified the following projects, located within portions of the City of Tustin, that would be funded and constructed in conjunction with the IBC project: Chairman Peotter City of Irvine Planning Commission May 7, 1992 Page 4 a. The construction of grade separations at Jamboree Road/Edinger Avenue and at Jamboree Road/Barranca Parkway. b. The widening of Barranca Parkway to eight lanes between Jamboree Road and Red Hill Avenue including off-road bicycle trails. C. The widening of Jamboree Road to eight lanes between Edinger Avenue and Barranca Parkway. d. The intersection improvements at Red Hill Avenue/Dyer Road/Barranca Parkway. e. The intersection improvements at Jamboree Road/Barranca Parkway. The above list of projects have not been constructed to date. Since many of these projects were previously identified in the 1985 IBC mitigation program document to be the responsibility of the IBC project, it is our opinion that the City of -Tustin should not share in any financial responsibility for the completion of these projects. Currently, the Cities of Tustin and Irvine are in the process of coordinating with the Transportation Corridor Agencies (TCA) in an effort to have the TCA fully fund and construct, in conjunction with the Eastern Transportation Corridor, the grade separations at Jamboree Road/Edinger Avenue and at Jamboree Road/Barranca Parkway as well as the widening to eight lanes of Jamboree Road between Edinger Avenue and Barranca Parkway. If the TCA does not fully fund these improvements, we believe that the City of Irvine should assume all responsibility for any City of Tustin financial obligations, since these were part of the original 1985 IBC mitigation program. It is our position that the above mitigation measures would enhance the roadway capacities within the City of Tustin in order to mitigate the anticipated traffic demands placed upon it by the projected IBC traffic. We believe a mandatory commitment by Irvine to complete these improvements must be identified as a mitigation measure in the EIR. The City also believes that a mitigation measure must be included Chairman Peotter City of Irvine Planning Commission May 7, 1992 Page 5 in the EIR which requires that Irvine enter into a Memorandum of Understanding with the City of Tustin to execute an agreement regarding the transfer of development fee program monies collected from IBC development directly to the City of Tustin for the construction of the above improvements. As I have previously indicated, given the short notice of the hearing and the short time frame given Tustin by Irvine for the review of the staff report and accompanying documents, the City of Tustin's response at this time is cursory. We wish to reserve the right to make additional comments and would request that we be given a minimum ten day written notice of all future Planning Commission and City Council meetings on this issue as well as adequate time to review all staff reports, documents and resolutions, including findings of fact prior to any formal action on the project or EIR. Thank you for the opportunity to present this information. If you have any questions, please contact Christine A. Shingleton or Bob Ledendecker of my staff. Sincerely, � 1"e, /� L- e � �-- � William A. Huston City Manager NAH:kbc\peotter.ltr cc: Christine Shingleton Paul Brady, Jr. Robert Johnson