concord nws redevelopment project eir comments

October 26, 2009 Michael W. Wright Director of Community Reuse Planning City of Concord 1950 Parkside Drive, MS/56 Concord, CA 94519 Via electronic mail and U.S. Postal Service Dear Mr. Wright, Carpenters Local 152 is pleased to offer these comments to the revised Draft Environmental Impact Report for the reuse of the Concord Naval Weapons Station. These comments are intended to supplement, build on, and where appropriate, case supersede comments submitted by Carpenters Local 152 and its partners in the Community Coalition for a Sustainable Concord in the initial DEIR. Carpenters Local 152 further incorporates the comments submitted by the Community Coalition for a Sustainable Concord and its constituent organizations. To begin, Carpenters Local 152 is pleased to see the City of Concord move forward with the Community Reuse Project (“CRP”) in its current form. It represents a significant improvement from a number of the alternatives reviewed in the original DEIR and advances the possibility of a compact development project that represents a vision that looks forward to Contra Costa County’s future rather than backwards to its past. The plan offers a glimpse of the future envisioned by SB 375 (2008) and the Sustainable Communities Strategies that will be developed to reduce vehicle miles travelled and greenhouse gas (GHG) impacts from our urban areas. Despite this achievement, substantial empirical evidence provided in this letter reveals that the DEIR the current draft’s critical traffic, air quality, and GHG modeling assumptions are detached from reality. The document therefore is fundamentally flawed. The DEIR does not analyze and mitigate the impacts of a development program that will force a substantial portion of the project’s workforce into extended auto‐dependent commutes far beyond the commute‐shed embedded in the assumptions of the project’s transportation and air‐quality impact modeling. The DEIR also fails to analyze the likelihood that a significant portion of the lowest of the low wage workforce may be forced to crowd into existing local

Carpenters Local 152 Concord Reuse Project DEIR Comments October 26, 2009 of 22

housing units to achieve affordable rents, resulting in overcrowded conditions and attendant housing stock deterioration and other blighting conditions. This letter will demonstrate that these physical environmental impacts can be expected to result from a jobs‐housing income/affordability mismatch. The letter then discusses feasible mitigation programs to address the poor jobs‐housing fit and create the environmentally sustainable, transit‐oriented, smart growth “world class project” envisioned by the City of Concord. Specifically Carpenters Local 152 notes the following major deficiencies:

1. The DEIR fails to analyze and mitigate the physical impacts of its construction workforce’s commute patterns over the course of the project’s buildout. These impacts include but are not limited to congestion on regional road networks, regional air quality, GHG gas emissions, and water quality.

2. The DEIR fails to adequately analyze the physical impacts of the spatial imbalance between the jobs created at the project and housing that will be affordable for a majority of the project’s construction and post‐occupancy workforce. These impacts include but are not limited to congestion on regional road networks, regional air quality, GHG gas emissions, housing overcrowding, and water quality.

3. The DEIR fails to analyze and mitigate the physical impacts of the project’s induced local and regional employment. These impacts include but are not limited to congestion on regional road networks, regional air quality, GHG gas emissions, housing overcrowding, and water quality.

FAILURE TO ANALYZE AND MITIGATE IMPACTS OF CONSTRUCTION WORKFORCE COMMUTES

Analysis of the data provided in the proposed reuse plan and supporting documents produced through the reuse planning process for the City of Concord by CB Richard Ellis indicates that the Community Reuse Project’s construction will directly require more than 34,000 full time equivalent (FTE) jobs over the course of the project’s buildout.1 The DEIR provides no analysis of the impacts from this employment increase or any mitigation strategies to reduce these physical impacts. The development cost assumptions and resultant impacts are shown in Table 1 below.

1 The job estimate is based on the sum of construction expenditures for infrastructure, residential, commercial, and institutional buildings, and public facilities such as parks and space, schools, and fire stations. Jobs are expressed in FTE’s to account for the fact that the phases will take place over multiple years, thus annual job generation is sensitive to the scale of development. The estimate is derived by using the IMPLAN input‐output economic modeling tool to model the impacts of total construction costs estimated in CB Richard Ellis’ Interim Summary of Fiscal and Financial Analyses Technical Memorandum (“CBRE Memo”), dated July 2, 2008. A 25% construction cost contingency is added to all projected expenditures, consistent with .the CBRE Memo. IMPLAN is discussed in greater depth later in this letter. The CBRE Memo comprehensively analyzed the development alternatives under consideration at that point in the planning process and assigned development costs to the individual components of the alternatives under consideration. Although the Clustered Villages Hybrid that has been designated as the Preferred Alternative was not specifically considered in the CBRE Memo, its basic elements were discussed and the assumptions used in the memo are applicable for this analysis.


Table 1 CRP Employment Impacts and Development Cost Assumptions

Project Line Item* Base Impact ($1000’s)

Direct Employment

Infrastructure Transportation $ 748,923 3,037 Utilities $ 407,096 2,131

Total Infrastructure $ 1,156,019 5,168 Site Development Residential + Mixed Use $ 194,031 1,270 Commercial + Hotel $ 161,563 1,057 Cluster Uses/Industrial $ 34,375 225 Institutional $ 84,375 552

Total Site Development $ 474,344 3,104 Public Facilities $ 151,875 991 Parks + Open Space $ 36,430 238 Building Construction Residential + Mixed Use $ 3,018,004 12,714 Commercial + Hotel $ 1,174,734 7,370 Cluster Uses $ 240,206 1,415 Institutional $ 494,543 3,103

Total Building Construction $ 4,927,487 24,602 $ 7,168,880 34,103 The DEIR’s silence is significant because the construction labor market for projects of the scale of Concord Reuse Project are inherently bifurcated into two distinct groups with substantively different characteristics that result in different travel patterns and therefore different environmental impacts.2 At one end of the market, there exists a high‐skill workforce that is concentrated in Contra Costa County, relies on an established system of apprenticeship and career development, and earns wages and benefits that place it squarely in the middle class. At the other end is a workforce that travels from outside Contra Costa to find work in the county, has little formal training, and whose wage earnings fall below the mean for county residents. Table 2 summarizes the principal characteristics of this bifurcation.

Table 2 Characteristics of a Tiered Construction Labor Market

Characteristic Tier 1 Tier 2 Home/work geography Leave county for higher paid work in urban

core when local jobs are unavailable. Travel into county for work opportunities

Wages and benefits Middle class wages, health care, and retirement benefits.

Low compensation typified by piece work, unpaid overtime, no health or retirement benefits,

Skill development State certified apprenticeship programs train new workers. Ongoing training for journey‐level workers

No formal career development programs leave workers at the whim of their employers.

2 Detailed characteristics of construction labor markets are discussed by Erlich and Grabelsky in Standing at the Crossroads: the Building Trades in the Twenty First Century and by Bosch and Philips in Building Chaos. An international comparison of deregulation in the construction industry.


Characteristic Tier 1 Tier 2 Safety Extensive attention to safety characterized

by in‐house safety programs and lower workers compensation rates

Minimal attention to worker safety characterized by higher workers compensation rates.

Projects typically found to be working on

Large scale infrastructure, large commercial developments, public works.

Production single family and multi‐family housing, strip malls, & small scale projects

Analysis of data from the 2000 Census discussed herein demonstrates that:

1. Blue collar construction workers in central and eastern Contra Costa County comprise a disproportionate part of the County’s resident workforce;

2. Insufficient in‐county construction wages push these construction workers to travel farther and longer to find work opportunities than workers in other industries.

3. The county’s construction industry is forced to rely on out‐of‐area workers to fill the workforce gap created by insufficient wages for local construction workers.

4. Absent active policy measures, construction of the CRP will exacerbate commutes out of and into the county by construction workers.

Significant Numbers of Blue Collar Construction Workers Reside in Central & East County

According to the US Census more than 5,800 blue collar construction workers3 (“BCCWs”) lived in and around Concord in 2000, making up 3.4% of the area’s working population. Nearly three quarters of them were full‐time workers, working at least 46 weeks per year. Another 7,000 BCCWs live in eastern Contra Costa County, 5,000 of who are full time year‐round workers. Altogether, a significant portion of the workforce needed to build out the CRP is already present in the county. Table 3 Distribution of Blue Collar Construction Workers in Contra Costa County

BCCWs Year‐round BCCWs

All Workers

%

Central Contra Costa residents 5,822 4,282 168,928 3.4% Eastern Contra Costa residents 6,996 5,053 91,508 7.6% All Contra Costa residents 17,897 12,671 419,824 4.3%

Construction Workers Have Disproportionately Longer Commutes than Other County Workers

“Tier 1” workers generally travel outside of the county to find work that pays the wages and benefits they are accustomed to. They disproportionately leave the county for work and have longer commutes than other area workers. This is not because of a shortage of work in the county: the rate of in‐commuting for BCCWs exceeds that of other workers by one‐third. One reason for this disparity is those who do work in the county earn significantly less than their longer traveling counterparts. Tables 4, 5, and 6 illustrate this income‐travel dynamic.

3 Blue‐collar construction worker is narrowly defined as an individual who worked for wages at least one week in the construction industry (IND_NSS=23) in 1999 in occupation codes 543 and greater based on the iPUMS OCC1990 variable.


Table 4 Annual Wage Income for Blue Collar Construction Workers by Commute Type

Mean** Median Central Contra Costa residents Intra‐county commute $38,826 $34,900 Central Contra Costa residents Inter‐county commute $51,335 $49,000 Out‐of‐County residents commuting into Contra Costa $40,223 $38,500

BCCWs disproportionately commute outside of the Contra Costa County for work. Census figures show that approximately 63% of the Central Contra Costa working population stayed within the county for work in 1999. Central Contra Costa BCCWs, on the other hand, commute at significantly higher rates – with only 54% staying in the county. Table 5 Workforce Containment of Blue Collar Construction and All Other Workers

BCCWs All Other

Workers Central Contra Costa residents 54% 63%

BCCWs also have longer commutes than other area workers. On average, Central Contra Costa workers have a 31 minute commute to work while BCCWs commute for 37 minutes. The disparity between BCCWs and non‐construction industry workers continues for both intra & inter‐county commuters; 20.3 vs. 25.3 minutes for those commuting within Contra Costa and 48.4 vs. 50.5 minutes for those leaving the County. BCCWs commuting into Contra Costa County travel an average of 51 minutes. These differences in means are statistically significant at a 95% confidence level. Table 6 One‐way Mean Commute Time for Contra Costa Workers

BCCWs

All Other Workers

Central Contra Costa residents intra‐county commute** 25.3 20.3 Central Contra Costa residents inter‐county commute** 50.5 48.4 Out‐of‐County residents commuting into Contra Costa** 51.1 39.0 ** Difference in means significant at 95% confidence level

Lack of Adequately Paying Local Jobs Affects Construction Worker Travel Behavior

A likely reason for the higher rate of inter‐county commuting by Contra Costa BCCWs is that those jobs lead to significantly better compensation outcomes; individuals taking the longer drive earn one‐third more per year, on average, than those working within the county.4

As Table 7 shows, Contra Costa County is not a scarce source of blue collar construction work opportunities. More than 4,600 BCCWs commuted into the County for work, comprising

4 Academic theoretical and empirical research supports our inference from Census statistics that wages matter to residents’ decision of where to work. See “Wages, benefits, hours, commuting time, and license renewal for Iowa Registered Nurses.” Imerman, Mark D; Orazem, Peter; Sikdar, Shiva; Russell, Gina. Iowa State University, Department of Economics, Staff General Research Papers. 2006. http://www.econ.iastate.edu/research/webpapers/paper_12470_05029.pdf. Also, “The Effects of Housing Prices, Wages, and Commuting Time on Joint Residential and Job Location Choices.” So, Kim Sui; Orazem, Peter; Otto, Daniel. Amer. J. Agr. Econ. 83(4) (November 2001): 1036–1048

http://www.econ.iastate.edu/research/webpapers/paper_12470_05029.pdf


roughly 34% of the construction industry’s blue collar workforce. The rate of into‐county commuting for all other workers is 26%. Bringing down the into‐county commute rate for BCCWs to the level of other workers would shift nearly 1,150 jobs to Contra Costa BCCWs; how those jobs are divided up, and whether those jobs are taken up by those already‐employed or newly‐entering BCCWs will depend on the policies designed and enacted by the City of Concord.

Table 7 Blue Collar Construction Workers in Contra Costa County

Workers % Central Contra Costa residents 3,131 23.3% Other Contra Costa residents 5,713 42.4% Out‐of County residents 4,615 34.3%

Total 13,459

The evidence above indicates that a laissez‐faire set of labor market policies will perpetuate and deepen commute patterns that have measurable and significant implications for the physical environment. In light of the evidence presented above, the EIR cannot avoid all analysis of construction worker related commutes. At a minimum it must assess, and where appropriate, mitigate environmental impacts of the travel patterns of construction workers on both the infrastructure and vertical construction throughout the project’s buildout. It is well established that the traffic impacts of a project must be accurately analyzed in the EIR. (Endangered Habitats League v. County of Orange (2005), 131 Cal.App.4th 777)

Mitigation Measures

It is vital that the EIR attempt to determine and mitigate the impacts of this construction related travel by adopting policies and establishing programs to encourage the use of a workforce that will have a smaller environmental footprint. Feasible mitigation measures include but are not limited to:

1. Ensuring that a blueprint for creation of a Local Apprentice Employment Program is included in any CRP Development Agreement. Such a plan will involve CRP developers in maximizing the number of local entry‐level opportunities for area residents to embark on middle‐income construction careers.

2. Establishment of a local First Source Policy to promote the hiring of local journey‐level workers on private and public sector construction projects and mandate participation in such programs and specific performance standards in Development Agreements

3. Mandating that CRP related Development Agreements secure the payment of wages and benefits that meet area standards as defined by the CA Department of Industrial Relations

4. Establishment of a scalable Transportation Demand Mitigation Fee linked to the average vehicle miles travelled by the construction workforce.


THE DEIR FAILS TO ADEQUATELY ANALYZE THE PHYSICAL IMPACTS OF THE SPATIAL IMBALANCE BETWEEN THE JOBS CREATED AT THE PROJECT AND HOUSING THAT WILL BE AFFORDABLE FOR THE PROJECT’S CONSTRUCTION AND POST‐OCCUPANCY WORKFORCE.

“The affordability of housing and transportation and access to employment play a critical role in determining where Californians live, how much they travel and, therefore, directly affect the level of achievable greenhouse gas reduction”

‐Recommendations of the Regional Targets Advisory Committee Pursuant to Senate Bill 375

Substantial evidence show that the mismatch between the jobs and housing types produced through the Concord Reuse Project (“CRP”) shows poor a “Jobs‐Housing fit” that will increase the East Bay’s GHG emissions and worsen its jobs‐housing imbalance. “Jobs‐Housing fit” is an emerging concept recently recognized by the Regional Targets Advisory Committee (RTAC) to the California Air Resource Board (CARB) as potentially a key element in reducing land‐use related GHG emissions. In its report to CARB, the RTAC explicitly included a section on housing and social equity that highlights the potential link between GHG reductions and the extent to which the homes in a community are affordable to the people working there or who will fill anticipated jobs. Absent a robust mitigation program, the project may result in long commutes for workers seeking affordable housing, increased congestion on area roads, worsened air quality and GHG gas emissions, increases in non‐point stormwater pollution, and increases in overcrowding related decay. Policies to prioritize local hiring, provide living wages, and maximize affordable housing production will help to reduce this project’s physical impacts while simultaneously achieving the goals outlined in the City of Concord’s vision for the Naval Weapon Station’s redevelopment. Analysis of the project alternatives by a team of UC Berkeley graduate students in the Department of City and Regional Planning led by Professor Malo Hutson (“UCB Study”) shows conclusively that the EIR dramatically under‐estimates commute lengths for a substantial portion of the project’s

Figure 1 CRP Occupation Types and Wages

Managerial & Professional

26%$41.41/hr avg.

wage

Blue Collar & Services33%

$14.27/hr avg. wage

Office & Support41%

$19.01/hr avg. wage


workforce. The report’s findings are discussed below and the complete chapter examining jobs, incomes, housing affordability, and projected commute lengths is included as an appendix to these comments. The UCB study gets to the heart of the environmental issue facing this project and which remains unexplored in this DEIR: the spatial imbalance between the jobs the project will create and the housing that those workers will be able to afford, and the resulting environmental impact. By looking underneath the surface of the CRP’s claims of jobs‐housing balance through the lenses of projected incomes and housing affordability it permits a deeper evaluation of the assumptions used to analyze transportation and air quality impacts and calls into question the basis of the DEIR’s conclusions about impacts and mitigations.

The CRP’s Workforce Will Be Predominately Low‐Paid

Using data from the California Employment Development Department and the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, employment projections by the City’s consultants, and reasonable industrial classification assumptions based on project’s land use plan it is possible to develop a wage distribution for the two alternatives under consideration. That wage distribution can then be used to match the housing needs created by the plan to affordable housing that is available throughout the region and that housing’s proximity to the project area. The jobs produced through the CRP will be primarily service and support sector jobs concentrated in the lower middle of the wage scale. As shown in the accompanying chart, only about a quarter of the jobs will be in highly compensated management and professional occupations. The remaining three quarters of the workforce will be in lower paid service, office support, and blue collar occupations. Table 8 Projected Hourly Wage Distribution of Post‐Occupancy CRP Jobs

Clustered Villages Hybrid

Concentration & Conservation Hybrid

East Bay MSA 2008 Q1

Total Jobs5 26,463 21,257 1,028,750 25 13.76 13.76 $12.78 50 19.52 19.61 20.47 Percentiles 75 31.25 31.76 31.98

Average Wage $24.20 $25.21 $24.45

A comparison of the alternatives and the East Bay MSA in Table 8 shows that a quarter of the jobs will pay $13.76 (2008$) or less; half of the jobs will pay $19.52. Comparing the CRP jobs profile to the broader East Bay Economy shows that wages at the bottom end of the labor market will be approximately 8% higher than throughout the region, the median wage will be approximately 4% lower.

5 The number of jobs analyzed is approximately 2.5% lower than projected in CB Richard Ellis’ Technical Memorandum to due to data suppression in the Occupational Employment Statistics file.


The CRP’s Housing Will Be Unaffordable to a Vast Majority of its Workforce

A low‐paid workforce does not by itself constitute an environmental impact, the air pollution and GHG gas emissions of those workers’ commutes are physical impacts that must be evaluated and mitigated. Based on the UCB Study’s job‐income projections of the CRP’s preferred alternative, 15,600 working families will have incomes under 80% of the AMI.6 Depending on program governance scenario, only 1,200 to 1,800 affordable residential units will be available on‐site.7 The DEIR neither discusses how that excess demand will be met nor its environmental impacts. The UCB study reviewed affordable housConcord and surrounding Contra Costa communities. The report found several key facts. First, as show in Figures 2 and 3, local and regional affordability for both renters and homeowner is decreasing even subsequent to the popping of the housing bubble. Second, as confirmed in Table 13‐7 in the DEIR, every city in Contra Costa County has failed to meet its Regional Housing Needs Determination allocation at all levels other than above market rate.

CRP Workers Will Require Extended Com

The most likely areas to meet housing dein eastern Contra Costa and southern Sobetween automobile and transit based cchoice but to move far away from the CRwill have to drive.

6 Assuming a four‐person household with 1.5 equal ea7 The CRP preferred alternative will produce more tharedevelopment area) of which will be affordable to hodoes not become a redevelopment area then at mostearning at most 80% of Contra Costa County’s AMI.

Figure 2 Households with Mortgage > 35% of Monthly Income

ing production and overall housing affordability in

Figure 3 Households with Rent > 35% of Household Income

mutes to Bridge the Affordable Housing Gap

mand generated by the CRP will include communities lano counties. Moreover, the travel time disparity ommutes suggest that workers who are left with little P in order to find housing affordable to their income

rners based on the CRP wage distribution. n 12,000 housing units, no more than 15% (if the project becomes a useholds earning 80% of the county’s median income (AMI). If the CRP 10% of the project’s residential stock will be affordable to households


The projected commute lengths and times of the most likely communities where CRP workers will be able to find housing they can afford are shown in Table 9.8 As can be seen in the table, the closest community with housing affordable to these working families is Pittsburg, almost ten miles away. The minimum unweighted average distance for the closest eleven communities is more than 25 miles. In light of this information, the DEIR’s average commute length of 10 miles appears to be too low. Table 9 Top Affordable Cities in Contra Costa, Solano, and Alameda Counties

BY CAR BY TRANSIT COMMUNITY

DISTANCE TIME ROUTE TIME COST TRANSFERS MODE Pittsburg 9.7 mi 17 min CA‐4 0:34 $2.75 1 Bus Benicia 15.3 mi 21 min I‐80/680, CA‐4 1:42 $8.25 2 bus and BART Antioch 17.5 mi 28 min CA‐4 1:01 $3.75 2 bus and BART Vallejo 20.1 mi 26 min I‐80, 680, CA‐4 1:41 $6.50 2 bus and BART Brentwood 23.1 mi 29 min CA‐4 1:24 $3.75 2 bus and BART Oakley 24.1 mi 33 min CA‐4 1:00 $2.75 1 bus and BART Byron 30 mi 40 min CA‐4 Undetermined Rio Vista 31.8 mi 38 min CA‐12, Rt 160, CA‐4 2:08 $12.00 2 bus and BART Suisun City 33.1 mi 40 min CA‐12, I‐80/680, CA‐4 2:11 $7.00 3 bus and BART Fairfield 34.6 mi 42 min I‐80/680, CA‐4 1:32 $12.00 2 bus and BART Vacaville 38.4 mi 41 min I‐80/680, CA‐4 1:59 $9.50 3 bus and BART

Overcrowding and the Resultant Urban Decay Are Reasonably Foreseeable Consequences of Unaffordable Housing and Long Commutes

Miserable and disreputable housing conditions may... be an ugly sore, a blight on the community which robs it of charm, which makes it a place from which men turn. The misery of housing may despoil a community as an open sewer may ruin a river.

from Hanging Out The No Vacancy Sign: Eliminating The Blight Of Vacant Buildings From Urban Areas. New York University Law Review. 1999

Overcrowding has long been used as a measure of substandard housing and housing need. It is one of the core indicators in estimates of "worst case needs" and a key consideration in the National Affordable Housing Act of 1990.9 California’s redevelopment agencies consider overcrowding as one of the four possible criteria of economic blight that leads to urban decay. Overcrowding is highly correlated with household income,10 specifically “the relationship between tenants’ income and the rent level.” According to data from the 2000 Census, portions of Concord, principally the three Census tracts that comprise the Monument Boulevard Corridor, already experience severe overcrowding with more than quarter of the units showing crowded conditions. Four other Concord Census tracts show moderate levels of overcrowding of between 7% and 14%. The closest affordable cities that could reasonably absorb a portion of the CRP’s excess housing 8 The table shows the ten closest communities with affordable rents and sales prices based on 2007/2008 data. 9 Journal of the American Planning Association. , v. 62 (Winter '96) p. 66‐84 10 Socioeconomic Status and Health: The Potential Role of Environmental Risk Exposure, Gary Evans and Elyse Kantrowitz in The Nation’s Health, [edited by] Philip Lee, Carroll Estes, Fatima Rodriguez, p. 98


demand (and the unincorporated portion of Contra Costa County along the bay shore west of the Pittsburg city limits) themselves show severe crowding conditions in their housing stock. Figure 4 Crowding Conditions in Central and Eastern Contra Costa County Census Tracts

The geography of overcrowding in Central Contra Costa County can be seen in Figure 4. In the case of the CRP, overcrowding is a likely market based response to an underproduction of professionally managed affordable housing. The development of thousands of low‐wage jobs with few affordable housing options nearby and long commutes will likely exacerbate those conditions thereby worsening urban decay and the in those communities. Urban decay is an environmental impact that must be analyzed under CEQA. (Bakersfield Citizens for Local Control v. City of Bakersfield (2004) 124 Cal.App.4th 1184).

Mitigation Measures

Blight and urban decay constitute significant environmental impacts that must be analyzed in an EIR. The role played by residential overcrowding in fostering urban decay cannot simply be dismissed as a socio‐economic effect exempt from CEQA consideration. To that end, the CRP EIR should attempt to determine where and to what degree crowding conditions will worsen and propose measures to reduce those impacts. The City of Concord is obligated to address these serious issues in order for this DEIR to be valid. Feasible mitigation measures include but are not limited to:

1. Establishment of a local First Source Policy to encourage the hiring of local workers for on‐site post‐occupancy employment and mandating participation in such programs in Development Agreements;

2. Mandating that CRP related Development Agreements secure the payment of wages and benefits that meet area standards as defined by the CA Department of Industrial Relations;


3. Establishment of a scalable Transportation Demand Mitigation Fee determined by the average vehicle miles travelled by the post‐occupancy workforce;

4. Increasing the affordability of future and current housing in and around the CRP for post‐occupancy workers by:

a. Establishing a 20% inclusionary housing level for new residential construction at the CRP.

b. Directing a minimum portion of at least 50% of projected tax increment to affordable housing preservation, land acquisition, conversion of existing market rate housing to permanent affordable housing, and conversion of underutilized commercial office building for housing affordable to the workforce.

c. Encouraging the development of rental housing at the CRP.

THE DEIR FAILS TO ANALYZE AND MITIGATE THE PHYSICAL IMPACTS OF THE PROJECT’S INDUCED LOCAL AND REGIONAL EMPLOYMENT.

Projects on the scale of the CRP will induce regional economic activities outside of those directly on the site. Based on the information provided by the City of Concord’s consultants, we estimate that the CRP’s construction and operation indirectly result in at least 58,000 FTE jobs during construction phase and at least 14,000 permanent jobs subsequent to buildout as shown in Table 10. This estimate is rooted in the concept of “multipliers,” which is based on an understanding that the economic effects of interconnected relationships between industrial sectors and social institutions can be quantified and translated into business activity, jobs, and tax collections. This additional economic activity has environmental impacts and costs. The DEIR however fails to analyze and mitigate the physical impacts of the project’s induced local and regional employment.11 These impacts include but are not limited to congestion on regional road networks, regional air quality, GHG gas emissions, housing overcrowding, and water quality. It is well‐established that an EIR must analyze a project’s growth‐inducing impacts. An EIR must discuss “the ways in which the proposed project could foster economic or population growth, or the construction of additional housing, either directly or indirectly, in the surrounding environment.” (CEQA Guidelines § 15126.2(d))

Calculating Indirect Employment Impacts

Among the most widely used methods used to assess the economic impacts of various projects is the IMPLAN software package. IMPLAN is an input‐output model that uses data published by the Bureau of Economic Analysis to “track the interdependence among various producing and consuming sectors of an economy… and measure the relationship between a given set of demands for final goods and services and the inputs required to satisfy those demands.” An IMPLAN analysis of a particular project’s economic impacts is driven by that project’s baseline economic activity, including both construction and operation.

11 CBRE’s Technical Memo estimates the level of spending by the CRP’s residents and workers, however it does not take the obvious next step to determine its employment generation impacts. This analysis does not use the CBRE’s spending assumptions.


Table 10 Concord Reuse Project Employment Impacts from Construction and Operation

Impact Factor Impact Base ($1,000s)

Direct Employment

Impact

Indirect Employment

Impact Construction expenditures Infrastructure $ 1,156,019 5,149 3,930 Site Development $ 474,344 3,094 1,826 Public Facilities $ 151,875 991 671 Parks & Open Space $ 36,430 238 140 Residential & Commercial Buildings $ 4,927,487 24,509 17,707

Total Construction Expenditure & Impact $ 6,746,155.00 33,981 24,274 Workforce annual household income $ 1,433,332 6,098 2,726 Non CRP workforce resident annual HH income $ 902,071 3,839 1,715

Total Post Occupancy Impact $ 2,335,403.00 9,937 4,441 The estimate of induced employment is driven by three factors and is illustrated in the Figure 5 below. The first factor is the sum of the induced expenditures from the project’s construction, which include infrastructure development and vertical construction. As discussed earlier, construction costs for the Clustered Villages are alternative are estimated at approximately $6.75 billion (2007$) including construction contingencies. In addition to the direct impact of approximately 34,000 construction jobs, another 24,000 regional jobs will be created through regional expenditures associated with the project’s construction phase. Figure 5 Schematic for Calculating Induced Employment

Second, the regional expenditures of the project workforce’s total household income will induce local employment growth. Based on the UCB Study, it is estimated that annual household income for the CRP’s workforce will be $1.95 billion, $1.43 billion of which will remain in Contra Costa County based on commuter data from the 2000 Census. The value of


that total household income is then input into the IMPLAN model, which calculates the employment effects of those regional household expenditures. The third impact factor is the household income of the CRP’s new residents net of the CRP workers who choose to live on‐site.12 The size of this third factor ranges can vary widely but the DEIR does not provide sufficient information to make a project specific estimate. As indicated earlier in these comments, the UCB study estimates that nearly 16,000 working families or approximately 60% of the CRP’s workforce will fall below 80% AMI threshold to qualify for below market rate affordable housing, leaving slightly more than 10,000 working families that could conceivably find market rate housing on site. If the 1,200‐1,800 BMR housing units are reserved for the CRP’s workforce then a CRP worker could conceivably occupy virtually every new unit in the project. Lower rates of on‐site occupancy by CRP workers would result in an increase of induced employment from the project. Although the UCB study clearly demonstrates that the overwhelming majority of the CRP’s workforce will be unable to afford housing in the new development, it is unclear just how many of the workers that can afford housing on‐site will choose to reside there. In light of the insufficient information provided by the EIR, it is necessary to make three assumptions. The first assumption is necessary to calculate the total annual household income of the CRP population. The second assumption is required to correct for the CRP residents who will also work on the base. The third assumption is to incorporate a 15% inclusionary housing level for the project. For the first assumption, residents’ household incomes are estimated to be the minimum income required to purchase or rent a CRP home, based on (1) projected housing prices identified in the CBRE Memo that are discounted by 30% to account for the reversion of housing prices from their bubble highs,13 and (2) the rule of thumb that an affordable housing payment comprises 30% of a household’s gross income. The second assumption ‐ the number of residents who will both live and work at the CRP – is made to determine the amount of household income that must be subtracted from the CRP resident total. Doing so requires relying on the commuting behavior of the broader population. According to the 2000 Census, 63% of central Contra Costa workers commuted within the county. However as mentioned earlier, this travel behavior was associated with income, as illustrated by Figure 6. For the purposes of this analysis, it is assumed that 25% of the resident population that continues to work in the county will do so at the CRP.14

12 If every new CRP worker whose household will be able to afford an on‐site residence chooses to live on site, then those expenditures should be excluded from the impact base since their household expenditures are already accounted for by the CRP workforce impact factor. 13 The CBRE Memo used projected housing values that could simply not be justified by real estate fundamentals. The 30% reduction of values reflects the price drop that has occurred from bubble peaks and is in keeping with long term trends. 14 According to the 2000 Census, 22% of central Contra Costa workers commuted locally (less than 15 minutes) with only minor variation by income. A 25% estimate for project containment likely overestimates the number of persons who will live and work at the CRP and thus underestimates the total employment impact of CRP residents.

http://www.eastbayeda.org/research_facts_figures/Newsletter/Quarterly/Q2009/Q22009/housing.html


Figure 6 Incidence of In‐County Commutes by Household Income

40%

45%

50%

55%

60%

65%

70%

75%

80%

85%

15K-25K 25K-35K 35K-50K 50K-75K 75K-100K 100K-150K 150K +

The third assumption – to account for the maximum expected inclusionary affordable housing amount – is necessary to not overstate the household income of the CRP population. While the plan envisions between 10% and 15% of inclusionary affordable housing, it does not indicate the income levels to which that the housing will be targeted. This analysis assumes that every BMR unit will be occupied by a four person household earning 50% of the AMI, or $44,650.15

Taking both assumptions into account yields a projected $902 million of annual household income for the third impact factor. This $902 million of household income then translates into approximately 5,555 Contra Costa county jobs generated by those local expenditures.

Mitigation Measures

In sum, the construction and operation of the CRP will result in thousands of new jobs whose impacts have not been analyzed or mitigated much less acknowledged in the DEIR. According to the data more that 58,000 direct and indirect FTE jobs in will be created over the course of the project’s construction. Once the CRP is fully built out and operational, its residents and workers will be responsible for inducing the growth of more than 14,000 jobs. The DEIR must take these into account, assess their impacts, and attempt to mitigate them. The impacts of this induced employment will be regional and the mitigations should be as well. Feasible mitigation measures include:

1. Incorporating other Contra Costa county into a CRP‐focused First Source and local employment program;

2. Directing a portion of the project wide Transportation Demand Mitigation Fee to regional transit projects;

15 California Housing and Community Development Department, http://www.hcd.ca.gov/hpd/hrc/rep/state/inc2k9.pdf

http://www.hcd.ca.gov/hpd/hrc/rep/state/inc2k9.pdf


3. High‐performance building (Green building) standards to reduce total regional emissions and non‐point stormwater impacts

a. Minimum LEED Gold for commercial buildings b. LEED‐ND design and LEED‐Multifamily for residential neighborhoods c. Exceed RWQCB standards for on‐site stormwater management

LEGAL STANDARD

General CEQA Standards.

CEQA has two primary purposes. First, CEQA is designed to inform decision makers and the public about the potential, significant environmental effects of a project. (14 Cal. Code Regs. (“CEQA Guidelines”) § 15002(a)(1).) “Its purpose is to inform the public and its responsible officials of the environmental consequences of their decisions before they are made. Thus, the EIR ‘protects not only the environment but also informed self‐government.’” (Citizens of Goleta Valley v. Board of Supervisors (1990) 52 Cal. 3d 553, 564) The EIR has been described as “an environmental ‘alarm bell’ whose purpose it is to alert the public and its responsible officials to environmental changes before they have reached ecological points of no return.” (Berkeley Keep Jets Over the Bay v. Bd. of Port Comm’rs. (2001) 91 Cal. App. 4th 1344, 1354 (“Berkeley Jets”); County of Inyo v. Yorty (1973) 32 Cal.App.3d 795, 810)

Second, CEQA requires public agencies to avoid or reduce environmental damage when “feasible” by requiring “environmentally superior” alternatives and mitigation measures. (CEQA Guidelines § 15002(a)(2) and (3); See also, Berkeley Jets, 91 Cal. App. 4th 1344, 1354; Citizens of Goleta Valley v. Board of Supervisors (1990) 52 Cal.3d 553, 564) The EIR serves to provide agencies and the public with information about the environmental impacts of a proposed project and to “identify ways that environmental damage can be avoided or significantly reduced.” (Guidelines §15002(a)(2)) If the project will have a significant effect on the environment, the agency may approve the project only if it finds that it has “eliminated or substantially lessened all significant effects on the environment where feasible” and that any unavoidable significant effects on the environment are “acceptable due to overriding concerns.” (Pub. Res. Code § 21081; 14 Cal. Code Regs. § 15092(b)(2)(A) & (B))

While the courts review an EIR using an “abuse of discretion” standard, “the reviewing court is not to ‘uncritically rely on every study or analysis presented by a project proponent in support of its position. A ‘clearly inadequate or unsupported study is entitled to no judicial deference.’” (Berkeley Jets, 91 Cal. App. 4th 1344, 1355 (emphasis added), quoting, Laurel Heights Improvement Assn. v. Regents of University of California, 47 Cal. 3d 376, 391 409, fn. 12 (1988)) As the court stated in Berkeley Jets, 91 Cal. App. 4th at 1355:

A prejudicial abuse of discretion occurs “if the failure to include relevant information precludes informed decision‐making and informed public participation, thereby thwarting the statutory goals of the EIR process.” (San Joaquin Raptor/Wildlife Rescue Center v. County of Stanislaus (1994) 27 Cal. App. 4th 713, 722]; Galante Vineyards v.


Monterey Peninsula Water Management Dist. (1997) 60 Cal. App. 4th 1109, 1117; County of Amador v. El Dorado County Water Agency (1999) 76 Cal. App. 4th 931, 946)

An EIR must disclose all potentially significant adverse environmental impacts of a project. (Pub. Res. Code § 21100(b)(1); 14 Cal. Code Regs. § 15126(a); Berkeley Jets, 91 Cal. App. 4th 1344, 1354) CEQA requires that an EIR must not only identify the impacts, but must also provide “information about how adverse the impacts will be.” (Santiago County Water Dist. v. County of Orange (1981) 118 Cal.App.3d 818, 831). The lead agency may deem a particular impact to be insignificant only if it produces rigorous analysis and concrete substantial evidence justifying the finding. (Kings County Farm Bureau v. City of Hanford (1990) 221 Cal.App.3d 692).

Indirect Environmental Impacts

Most of the impacts discussed in this letter are “indirect” environmental impacts, such as the impact of traffic from long commutes necessitated by a jobs‐housing imbalance, the impact of traffic if low‐paying jobs attract out‐of‐area workers while forcing in‐area workers to find better paying jobs elsewhere, and the impact of urban decay generated by overcrowding that may result from low‐paying jobs,

CEQA requires analysis of both direct and indirect environmental impacts of a project. (Public Resources Code § 21065) For some projects, the vast majority of impacts come from indirect sources such as traffic or urban decay. (See, Bakersfield Citizens for Local Control v. City of Bakersfield (2004) 124 Cal. App. 4th 1184) Section 15065 of the CEQA Guidelines mandates an environmental impact report (EIR) to analyze any “…environmental effects of a project [that] will cause substantial adverse effects on human beings, either directly or indirectly.” CEQA guidelines section 15126.2, subdivision (a) requires an EIR to discuss “health and safety problems caused by the physical changes” that the proposed project will precipitate. CEQA Guidelines Section 15131 states: “Economic or social effects of a project shall not be treated as significant effects on the environment. An EIR may trace a chain of cause and effect from a proposed decision on a project through anticipated economic or social changes resulting from the project to physical changes caused in turn by the economic or social changes. The intermediate economic or social changes need not be analyzed in any detail greater than necessary to trace the chain of cause and effect. The focus of the analysis shall be on the physical changes.” Therefore, if economic changes associated with a project result in significant physical environmental effects, they must be analyzed in the EIR.

In Bakersfield Citizens for Local Control v. City of Bakersfield (2004) (124 Cal.App.4th 1184) (Bakersfield Citizens), the court expressly held that an EIR must analyze a project’s potential to cause urban decay if there is substantial evidence showing that the project may lead to such impacts. The court pointed out that CEQA requires the project proponent to discuss the project’s economic and social impacts where “[a]n EIR may trace a chain of cause and effect from a proposed decision on a project through anticipated economic or social changes resulting from the project to physical changes caused in turn by the economic and social changes.” (CEQA Guidelines §§ 15131(a) and 15064(f).)


Bakersfield Citizens concerned a proposal to construct two Wal‐Mart Stores within 3 miles of each other. Evidence was submitted that the stores could cause urban decay by forcing local downtown stores to close. The court held that this impact must be analyzed in the EIR. Most of the cases cited by the Bakersfield Citizens court concerned other retail developments with alleged urban decay impacts. (See, Citizens Assoc. for Sensible Dev. of Bishop Area v. County of Inyo (1985) 172 Cal.App.3d 151, 170 171 (shopping mall threatens downtown businesses and urban decay); Citizens for Quality Growth v. City of Mt. Shasta (1988) 198 Cal.App.3d 433, 445‐446 (shopping mall may cause “business closures” in downtown area); Friends of Davis v. City of Davis (2000) 83 Cal.App.4th 1004, 1019 (insufficient evidence that Borders bookstore may threaten local bookstores); see also, Anderson First Coalition v. City of Anderson (2005) 30 Cal.Rptr.3d 738 (shopping center); American Canyon Community United for Responsible Growth v. City of American Canyon (2006) 145 Cal.App.4th 1062, 1074 (urban decay impacts of supercenter must be analyzed); Gilroy Citizens for Responsible Planning v. City of Gilroy (2006) 140 Cal.App.4th 911, 920 (EIR adequately analyzed urban decay impacts of supercenter).) The Bakersfield Citizens court also cited an industrial and a prison project that were alleged to have blighting impacts. The court noted that in Christward Ministry v. Superior Court (1986) (184 Cal. App. 3d 180, 197) (Christward Ministry) an agency was required to analyze in the EIR the potential that odors, noise, and traffic from a garbage dump could adversely impact a nearby religious retreat center. The Bakersfield Citizens court noted that this was a type of “urban blight” impact. The court also noted that in City of Pasadena v. State of California (1993) (14 Cal.App.4th 810) (City of Pasadena) the “blighting” impact of a parole office on a nearby residential neighborhood was recognized (however the court held that insufficient evidence had been presented to establish that the parole office may have an urban blight impact). Finally, the Bakersfield Citizens court recognized that cumulative blight impacts must be considered. In other words, it is necessary to analyze the blight impacts of the proposed project together with other past, present and future projects in the area. (124 Cal.App.4th at 1193) In addition to urban decay, the courts have held that other indirect project impacts must be analyzed in the EIR, such as traffic impacts, jobs/housing balance, and growth‐inducing impacts. (Kings County Farm Bureau v. City of Hanford (1990) 221 Cal.App.3d 691, 711; CEQA Guidelines § 15126.2(d)) The indirect environmental impacts related to long commute times that may be caused by inadequate wages for in‐area workers are no different, and must be analyzed in the EIR.

Failure to Proceed in a Manner Required by Law.

The courts have held that where, as here, an EIR fails entirely to analyze an environmental impact, the agency has failed to proceed in a manner required by law. The courts have repeatedly held that an agency abused its discretion by failing to proceed in a manner required by law when it failed to address a potentially significant impact. Additionally, the courts have


explicitly stated, “the substantial evidence standard of review is not applied to this type of CEQA challenge.” (Bakersfield Citizens for Local Control v. City of Bakersfield (2004) 124 Cal.App.4th 1184, 1208.) In Bakersfield, the court explained, “although the agency’s factual determinations are subject to deferential review, questions of interpretation or application of the requirements of CEQA are matters of law. While we may not substitute our judgment for that of the decision makers, we must ensure strict compliance with the procedures and mandates of the statute.” (Id.) In Bakersfield, the court found that the City failed to proceed in a manner required by law because the EIR completely fails to contain any statement or analysis why the shopping center will not cause urban decay. (Id.) The court found that because “[t]here is a great deal of evidence in the record supporting the validity of concerns,” the agency abused its discretion by not addressing the concern at all. (Id.) The courts have applied this standard in numerous other cases. For example, In El Dorado Union High Sch. Dist. v. City of Placerville (1983) 144 Cal.App.3d 123, 132, the court invalidated an EIR that evaluated a subdivision map for a proposed residential development because the EIR contained no discussion of impacts on the school district. A one‐sentence discussion of cumulative impacts was found to be inadequate in Whitman v. Board of Supervisors (1979) 88 Cal.App.3d 397, 409.) When the EIR fails entirely to analyze an environmental impact, then the lead agency has abused its discretion and failed to proceed in a manner required by law because the EIR fails as an informational document. (See e.g. Kings County Farm Bureau v. City of Hanford (1990) 221 Cal.App.3d 691, 711; San Joaquin Raptor/Wildlife Rescue Ctr. v. County of Stanislaus (1994) 27 Cal.App.4th 713; Laurel Heights, 47 Cal.3d at 392.) An adequate EIR must be “prepared with a sufficient degree of analysis to provide decision makers with information which enables them to make a decision which intelligently takes account of environmental consequences.” (Guidelines, § 15151; Kings County, 221 Cal.App.3d at 712.) An EIR “must include detail sufficient to enable those who did not participate in its preparation to understand and to consider meaningfully the issues raised by the proposed project.” (Kings County at 712; Laurel Heights Improvement Assn. v. Regents of University of California, 47 Cal.3d at 405.) Since the EIR fails to analyze the impacts discussed in this letter, it fails as an informational document. In Bakersfield, for example, the court found prejudice because without a proper urban decay and cumulative impact analyses, “meaningful assessment of the true scope of numerous potentially serious adverse environmental effects was thwarted.” (Id. at 1220‐1221.) In Sierra Club v. State Bd. of Forestry (1994) 7 Cal.4th 1215 (applied to CEQA by Association of Irritated Residents (2003) 107 Cal.App.4th 1391‐92.), the Supreme Court found that the omission of information about four old‐growth dependent species on the project site from a timber harvest plan (the functional equivalent of an EIR frustrated the purpose of the public comment provisions of the Forest Practice Act and made meaningful identification and assessment of the potentially significant environmental impacts of the harvest plan impossible.


It declared that the board had not “proceed[ed] as required by law” (id. at p. 1236) and that “[i]n these circumstances prejudice is presumed.” (Id. at p. 1237.) A revised analysis should be prepared to analyze the impacts discussed in this letter, and to propose feasible mitigation measures and alternatives to reduce or eliminate these impacts.

SUMMARY

The evidence Carpenters Local 152 has presented in this letter shows that the Concord Reuse Project is deficient in three principal ways. Specifically Carpenters Local 152 notes the following major deficiencies:

1. The DEIR fails to analyze and mitigate the physical impacts of more than 31,000 FTE jobs that will be created directly as a result of the CRP’s construction. These impacts include but are not limited to congestion on regional road networks, regional air quality, GHG gas emissions, and water quality.

2. The DEIR fails to adequately analyze the physical impacts of the spatial imbalance between the jobs created at the project and housing that will be affordable for a majority of the project’s construction and post‐occupancy workforce. These impacts include but are not limited to congestion on regional road networks, regional air quality, GHG gas emissions, housing overcrowding, and water quality.

3. The DEIR the project fails to analyze and mitigate the project’s indirect growth inducing impacts resulting from the 24,000 FTE jobs created indirectly from the project’s construction and the 14,000 jobs resulting from the household expenditures of the project’s permanent residents and workers. These impacts include but are not limited to congestion on regional road networks, regional air quality, GHG gas emissions, housing overcrowding, and water quality.

Although the deficiencies identified in letter are severe, Carpenters Local 152 believes these deficiencies are curable through a robust mitigation program. Proposed mitigations for the environmental impacts of the CRP’s construction workforce commutes include:

1. Ensuring that a blueprint for creation of a Local Apprentice Employment Program is included in any CRP Development Agreement. Such a plan will involve CRP developers in maximizing the number of local entry‐level opportunities for area residents to embark on middle‐income construction careers.

2. Establishment of a local First Source Policy to promote the hiring of local journey‐level workers on private and public sector construction projects and mandate participation in such programs and specific performance standards in Development Agreements

3. Mandating that CRP related Development Agreements secure the payment of wages and benefits that meet area standards as defined by the CA Department of Industrial Relations

4. Establishment of a scalable Transportation Demand Mitigation Fee linked to the average vehicle miles travelled by the construction workforce.


Proposed mitigations for the environmental impacts of the CRP’s poor jobs‐housing fit include:

1. Establishment of a local First Source Policy to encourage the hiring of local workers for on‐site post‐occupancy employment and mandating participation in such programs in Development Agreements;

2. Mandating that CRP related Development Agreements secure the payment of wages and benefits that meet area standards as defined by the CA Department of Industrial Relations;

3. Establishment of a scalable Transportation Demand Mitigation Fee determined by the average vehicle miles travelled by the post‐occupancy workforce;

4. Increasing the affordability of future and current housing in and around the CRP for post‐occupancy workers by: a. Establishing a 20% inclusionary housing level for new residential construction at

the CRP. b. Directing a minimum portion of at least 50% of projected tax increment to

affordable housing preservation, land acquisition, conversion of existing market rate housing to permanent affordable housing, and conversion of underutilized commercial office building for housing affordable to the workforce.

c. Encouraging the development of rental housing at the CRP. Proposed mitigations for the environmental impacts of the CRP’s induced employment impacts include:

1. Incorporating other Contra Costa county into a CRP‐focused First Source and local employment program;

2. Directing a portion of the project wide Transportation Demand Mitigation Fee to regional transit projects;

3. High‐performance building (Green building) standards to reduce total regional emissions and non‐point stormwater impacts

a. Minimum LEED Gold for commercial buildings b. LEED‐ND design and LEED‐Multifamily for residential neighborhoods c. Exceed RWQCB standards for on‐site stormwater management


In conclusion Carpenters Local 152 appreciates the opportunity to comment on this project and your consideration of the strategies that have been identified to help the CRP be the “world‐class” community that Concord envisions. If there are nay questions about Carpenters Local 152’s Comments, please contact Alex Lantsberg by email at [email protected] or by telephone at (510) 430‐9706 x109. Written responses may be emailed to the above address or to my attention at Carpenters Local 152, P.O. Box 4040, Martinez, CA 94553. Sincerely,

Alex Lantsberg Research Analyst Attachments:

1. Lantsberg resume 2. Towards a Sustainable Concord: Analysis and Policy Recommendations for the Naval

Weapons Station Reuse Project. Professor Malo Hutson. UC Berkeley Green Economy Studio, Spring 2009.

3. The Effects of Housing Prices, Wages, and Commuting Time on Joint Residential and Job Location Choices. Kim S. So, Peter F. Orazem, and Daniel M. Otto. American Journal of Agricultural Economics, November 2001

4. Expected Wages and Other Labor Market Factors Affecting the Labor Force Decisions of Nurses in the State of Iowa. Todd Doorenbos, Mark Imerman, Peter Orazem. Iowa State Dept. of Economics, August 2005

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