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Home My WebLink AboutCC 12-02-2025 Item No. 1 Draft Plan Bay Area 2050+_Written CommunicationsCC 12-02-2025 #1 Draft Plan Bay Area 2050+ Written Communications From:Kitty Moore To:Kirsten Squarcia; Lauren Sapudar Subject:Written Communications Item 1 Date:Tuesday, December 2, 2025 3:00:46 PM Attachments:KM Draft EIR Comment Letter.pdf Dear City Clerk, Please include the following and the attached letter for written communications on Agenda Item 1:Metropolitan Transportation CommissionAssociation of Bay Area Governments375 Beale StreetSan Francisco, CA 94105 Re: Comments on Plan Bay Area 2050 Plus Draft EIR – CEQA Inadequacy Concerns To Whom It May Concern: These comments identify substantial deficiencies in the Plan Bay Area 2050 Plus DraftEnvironmental Impact Report (“Draft EIR”) under the California Environmental Quality Act(CEQA). 1. Mismatch Between “Program EIR” Label and Level of Project Specificity The Draft EIR describes itself as a “program EIR” and states that impacts of individualtransportation, sea level rise adaptation, and land use projects are not addressed in detail,even though it includes a fiscally constrained Transportation Project List, a ResilienceProject List, and mapped “land use growth footprints” for specific geographies. This showsa high level of project and growth specificity, but the environmental analysis is kept at avery general level, so the detail of the CEQA review does not match the detail of the Plan. 2. Improper Reliance on Lack of Local Police Power to Avoid Mitigation In multiple topic areas, the Draft EIR states that identified mitigation would reduce impactsto less than significant if adopted by future local agencies, but then still concludes theimpacts are significant and unavoidable because MTC/ABAG lack direct land use authority.CEQA requires the lead agency to use all of its own powers to reduce impacts wherefeasible, including funding decisions, approval conditions, and plan‑consistency tools; theDraft EIR instead treats institutional limits as a blanket excuse not to fully mitigate. 3. Vague, Advisory, and Deferred Mitigation Many mitigation measures are written as long lists of possible actions that implementingagencies “shall implement, where feasible and necessary,” without clear, enforceableobligations or performance standards. This kind of deferred, advisory approach does notensure that mitigation will actually occur, and does not meet CEQA’s requirement for specific, enforceable mitigation measures at the time the Plan is approved. 4. Unreasonably Narrow Alternatives Range The Draft EIR’s alternatives analysis evaluates: the proposed Plan, a “No New HighwayCapacity and Transit Reinvestment” alternative that keeps the same housing, economy, andenvironment strategies, a “Transit‑Oriented Communities Growth Focus” alternative thatkeeps all strategies but shifts growth within transit areas, and the No Project scenario. Allbuild alternatives rely on the same total growth forecast and essentially the same set ofstrategies, and even the EIR acknowledges that Alternatives 1 and 2 result in the samenumber of significant and unavoidable impacts as the Plan. This range does not includeany alternative that would meaningfully reduce impacts through substantially differentgrowth patterns, hazard‑avoidance, or stronger VMT and GHG reductions. 5. Inadequate Analysis of Greenhouse Gas and VMT Impacts Over the Full Planning Horizon The Draft EIR emphasizes meeting the SB 375 2035 per‑capita GHG reduction target andlargely frames significance around that single metric. It provides limited, opaque discussionof emissions and VMT over the full 2020–2050 horizon, including how its long‑termtrajectory relates to more recent statewide climate goals and what happens under differentassumptions about federal vehicle standards. This narrow, target‑only framing does notgive decision makers and the public a clear, transparent understanding of the Plan’sclimate impacts across the entire planning period. 6. Insufficient Treatment of Sea Level Rise, Multi‑Hazard Risk, and Residual Exposure The Draft EIR highlights a $229 billion program to address approximately 4.9 feet of sealevel rise and related inundation, and presents a detailed “Resilience Project List,” but thenlargely treats those adaptation efforts as eliminating hazard risk in affected areas. Thedocument does not adequately analyze whether, even with those projects, the Plan stillfocuses new or intensified development in areas likely to face flooding, groundwater rise,liquefaction, or related hazards over the life of the Plan. It also acknowledges controversiesregarding consistency with shoreline adaptation planning and shoreline communityvulnerability, but discusses the combined effects of sea level rise, groundwater rise, andtoxics exposure on disadvantaged shoreline communities only in very general terms. 7. Deficient Growth‑Inducing Impact Analysis The Draft EIR presents the Plan as simply accommodating forecast regional growth ratherthan inducing growth, while at the same time designating “Growth Geographies,”concentrating housing and jobs in specific priority areas, and assuming developmentpatterns that differ from current local plans. It does not meaningfully analyze how these investments may stimulate additional or accelerated development in particular locations, orshift growth into areas that otherwise would not see it. 8. Inadequate Cumulative Impact Methodology The Draft EIR asserts that because it is a regional plan, its analysis inherently addressescumulative impacts, and therefore provides only limited additional cumulative analysis forconditions beyond the nine‑county Bay Area. This self‑referential approach does not satisfyCEQA’s requirement for an explicit cumulative analysis that explains how the Plan’sincremental effects interact with other past, present, and reasonably foreseeable projectsand growth scenarios, particularly in neighboring regions that are closely linked bycommuting, goods movement, air basins, and habitat connectivity. 9. Insufficient Analysis of Environmental Justice, Distributional Impacts, and Displacement Although the Draft EIR emphasizes equity and resilience, identifies “Equity PriorityCommunities,” and acknowledges displacement and access to opportunity as majorconcerns, its environmental analysis treats these issues largely as high‑level performanceindicators rather than as concrete CEQA impacts. The document does not provide asufficiently detailed, location‑specific assessment of whether the Plan concentratesenvironmental burdens (such as air pollution, noise, or hazardous exposures) in alreadyoverburdened communities, or how the Plan’s growth pattern and transportationinvestments may increase or shift displacement risk in specific neighborhoods. 10. Overbroad Use of CEQA Streamlining Without Clear Consistency Standards The Draft EIR repeatedly promotes CEQA streamlining under SB 375, SB 226, SB 743 andrelated provisions, indicating that many future local projects may rely on this EIR to limit oravoid further analysis of certain impacts. However, it does not provide clear, objectivecriteria or maps for determining what constitutes “consistency” with the Plan for tieringpurposes, nor does it clearly describe what level of additional review will occur for suchprojects. This creates significant uncertainty for the public and decision makers about thetrue environmental consequences of approving the Plan and about how much laterenvironmental review will actually take place. 11. Inadequate Explanation of Significance Determinations and Residual Impacts The Draft EIR identifies numerous significant and unavoidable impacts but frequentlyprovides only brief, conclusory explanations of how those findings were reached and howthe Plan’s incremental effects compare to No Project and other alternatives. In light of theEIR’s heavy reliance on complex regional models, the lack of clear disclosure of or checking the basis for the significance conclusions. 12. Failure to Meaningfully Integrate Public Comment Themes Into the Analysis The Draft EIR describes extensive public engagement, including tens of thousands ofcomments and targeted outreach to specific communities, and it briefly lists “areas ofcontroversy” and “issues to be resolved.” However, the technical sections do not show howthose specific concerns—especially around shoreline vulnerability, displacement, transitreliability, and tolling—shaped the impact analysis, mitigation framework, or alternatives.As a result, the Draft EIR does not demonstrate that key issues raised by the public weresubstantively incorporated into the CEQA analysis. For all of these reasons, the Draft EIR does not provide the full, good‑faith disclosure andanalysis required by CEQA and should not be certified in its current form. Sincerely, Vice Mayor Kitty Moore City of Cupertino Representing myself only Kitty Moore Vice Mayor City Council KMoore@cupertino.gov (408) 777-1389 December 2, 2025 Metropolitan Transportation Commission Association of Bay Area Governments 375 Beale Street San Francisco, CA 94105 Re: Comments on Plan Bay Area 2050 Plus Draft EIR – CEQA Inadequacy Concerns To Whom It May Concern: These comments identify substantial deﬁciencies in the Plan Bay Area 2050 Plus Draft Environmental Impact Report (“Draft EIR”) under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). The issues below are raised now to preserve them for all purposes, including any subsequent judicial review. 1. Mismatch Between “Program EIR” Label and Level of Project Speciﬁcity The Draft EIR describes itself as a “program EIR” and states that impacts of individual transportation, sea level rise adaptation, and land use projects are not addressed in detail, even though it includes a ﬁscally constrained Transportation Project List, a Resilience Project List, and mapped “land use growth footprints” for speciﬁc geographies. This shows a high level of project and growth speciﬁcity, but the environmental analysis is kept at a very general level, so the detail of the CEQA review does not match the detail of the Plan. 2. Improper Reliance on Lack of Local Police Power to Avoid Mitigation In multiple topic areas, the Draft EIR states that identiﬁed mitigation would reduce impacts to less than signiﬁcant if adopted by future local agencies, but then still concludes the impacts are signiﬁcant and unavoidable because MTC/ABAG lack direct land use authority. CEQA requires the lead agency to use all of its own powers to reduce impacts where feasible, including funding decisions, approval conditions, and plan-consistency tools; the Draft EIR instead treats institutional limits as a blanket excuse not to fully mitigate. 3. Vague, Advisory, and Deferred Mitigation Many mitigation measures are written as long lists of possible actions that implementing agencies “shall implement, where feasible and necessary,” without clear, enforceable obligations or performance standards. This kind of deferred, advisory approach does not ensure that mitigation will actually occur, and does not meet CEQA’s requirement for speciﬁc, enforceable mitigation measures at the time the Plan is approved. 4. Unreasonably Narrow Alternatives Range The Draft EIR’s alternatives analysis evaluates: the proposed Plan, a “No New Highway Capacity and Transit Reinvestment” alternative that keeps the same housing, economy, and environment strategies, a “Transit-Oriented Communities Growth Focus” alternative that keeps all strategies but shifts growth within transit areas, and the No Project scenario. All build alternatives rely on the same total growth forecast and essentially the same set of strategies, and even the EIR acknowledges that Alternatives 1 and 2 result in the same number of signiﬁcant and unavoidable impacts as the Plan. This range does not include any alternative that would meaningfully reduce impacts through substantially different growth patterns, hazard-avoidance, or stronger VMT and GHG reductions. 5. Inadequate Analysis of Greenhouse Gas and VMT Impacts Over the Full Planning Horizon The Draft EIR emphasizes meeting the SB 375 2035 per-capita GHG reduction target and largely frames signiﬁcance around that single metric. It provides limited, opaque discussion of emissions and VMT over the full 2020–2050 horizon, including how its long-term trajectory relates to more recent statewide climate goals and what happens under different assumptions about federal vehicle standards. This narrow, target-only framing does not give decision makers and the public a clear, transparent understanding of the Plan’s climate impacts across the entire planning period. 6. Insufﬁcient Treatment of Sea Level Rise, Multi-Hazard Risk, and Residual Exposure The Draft EIR highlights a $229 billion program to address approximately 4.9 feet of sea level rise and related inundation, and presents a detailed “Resilience Project List,” but then largely treats those adaptation efforts as eliminating hazard risk in affected areas. The document does not adequately analyze whether, even with those projects, the Plan still focuses new or intensiﬁed development in areas likely to face ﬂooding, groundwater rise, liquefaction, or related hazards over the life of the Plan. It also acknowledges controversies regarding consistency with shoreline adaptation planning and shoreline community vulnerability, but discusses the combined effects of sea level rise, groundwater rise, and toxics exposure on disadvantaged shoreline communities only in very general terms. 7. Deﬁcient Growth-Inducing Impact Analysis The Draft EIR presents the Plan as simply accommodating forecast regional growth rather than inducing growth, while at the same time designating “Growth Geographies,” concentrating housing and jobs in speciﬁc priority areas, and assuming development patterns that differ from current local plans. It does not meaningfully analyze how these new designations, land use intensiﬁcation, and associated infrastructure and adaptation investments may stimulate additional or accelerated development in particular locations, or shift growth into areas that otherwise would not see it. 8. Inadequate Cumulative Impact Methodology The Draft EIR asserts that because it is a regional plan, its analysis inherently addresses cumulative impacts, and therefore provides only limited additional cumulative analysis for conditions beyond the nine-county Bay Area. This self-referential approach does not satisfy CEQA’s requirement for an explicit cumulative analysis that explains how the Plan’s incremental effects interact with other past, present, and reasonably foreseeable projects and growth scenarios, particularly in neighboring regions that are closely linked by commuting, goods movement, air basins, and habitat connectivity. 9. Insufﬁcient Analysis of Environmental Justice, Distributional Impacts, and Displacement Although the Draft EIR emphasizes equity and resilience, identiﬁes “Equity Priority Communities,” and acknowledges displacement and access to opportunity as major concerns, its environmental analysis treats these issues largely as high-level performance indicators rather than as concrete CEQA impacts. The document does not provide a sufﬁciently detailed, location-speciﬁc assessment of whether the Plan concentrates environmental burdens (such as air pollution, noise, or hazardous exposures) in already overburdened communities, or how the Plan’s growth pattern and transportation investments may increase or shift displacement risk in speciﬁc neighborhoods. 10. Overbroad Use of CEQA Streamlining Without Clear Consistency Standards The Draft EIR repeatedly promotes CEQA streamlining under SB 375, SB 226, SB 743 and related provisions, indicating that many future local projects may rely on this EIR to limit or avoid further analysis of certain impacts. However, it does not provide clear, objective criteria or maps for determining what constitutes “consistency” with the Plan for tiering purposes, nor does it clearly describe what level of additional review will occur for such projects. This creates signiﬁcant uncertainty for the public and decision makers about the true environmental consequences of approving the Plan and about how much later environmental review will actually take place. 11. Inadequate Explanation of Signiﬁcance Determinations and Residual Impacts The Draft EIR identiﬁes numerous signiﬁcant and unavoidable impacts but frequently provides only brief, conclusory explanations of how those ﬁndings were reached and how the Plan’s incremental effects compare to No Project and other alternatives. In light of the EIR’s heavy reliance on complex regional models, the lack of clear disclosure of assumptions, limitations, and sensitivity of results prevents the public from understanding or checking the basis for the signiﬁcance conclusions. 12. Failure to Meaningfully Integrate Public Comment Themes Into the Analysis The Draft EIR describes extensive public engagement, including tens of thousands of comments and targeted outreach to speciﬁc communities, and it brieﬂy lists “areas of controversy” and “issues to be resolved.” However, the technical sections do not show how those speciﬁc concerns—especially around shoreline vulnerability, displacement, transit reliability, and tolling—shaped the impact analysis, mitigation framework, or alternatives. As a result, the Draft EIR does not demonstrate that key issues raised by the public were substantively incorporated into the CEQA analysis. For all of these reasons, the Draft EIR does not provide the full, good-faith disclosure and analysis required by CEQA and should not be certiﬁed in its current form. Sincerely, Vice Mayor Kitty Moore City of Cupertino Representing myself only From:Tracy K To:City Clerk; City Council Subject:Written comments for action calendar Item 1 -- Plan Bay Area Date:Tuesday, December 2, 2025 1:07:46 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe. Dear City Council, Speaking on behalf of myself -- written comments for action calendar item 1, Plan Bay Area -- As per the draft letter, Plan Bay Area forecasts are significantly above state projections. The state Department of Finance dashboard projects about a +0.5M increase in population across the 9 counties between 2025 and 2050. How does this translate to a 9.6M Plan Bay Area 2050 population forecast? Population counts can vary by source, but by most measures this is vastly higher than forecast. More interestingly -- 83% of the growth is NOT expected to be in Santa Clara, San Mateo, or San Francisco counties. In fact, Santa Clara County is expected to decline 4.5% by 2070. The highest growth forecasts are for Solano, Contra Costa, and Alameda counties. Therefore, does it make sense that so much of the priority development areas of the PBA (p73) are in slow population growth areas like San Francisco and Santa Clara? Why not designate more PDAs in, say, Contra Costa, which is expected to see +210M by 2050? Where are the PDAs to support the places that are truly adding people? I am also unclear about whether De Anza and Stevens Creek is the appropriate nexus for a priority development area given that much of this immediate area is already occupied by large corporate buildings, retail, and a church, many of which seem unlikely to redevelop soon (save for perhaps Marina Plaza). When were these priority development areas designated, and does it make sense for council to revisit them and designate new ones? Why not remove PDA designation from Stevens Creek and De Anza, and place it on Vallco/The Rise, where eventually a significant amount of affordable housing will also be built? On page 85 -- what exactly is the <5 min peak service frequency transit emanating from Cupertino? Is there some plan that we are not aware of? Finally, the report shows a $1.2 trillion revenue forecast on P65. It would be great to see a further breakdown of how these funds are expected to be received. Thanks, Tracy From:Jennifer Griffin To:City Council; City Clerk Cc:grenna5000@yahoo.com Subject:Plan Bay Area 2050 Plans and Draft EIR Date:Tuesday, December 2, 2025 10:00:59 AM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe. (Please include this comment as public comment for Agenda Item 1 on the Cupertino City Council meeting on Dec. 2, 2025 on The Draft Plan Bay Area 2050 Plans and Draft EIR.) Dear City Council: I am very glad this item on the Plan Bay Area 2050 Plans and Draft EIR is being discussed as Agenda Item 1 at the Cupertino City Council meeting on Dec. 2, 2025. I have been horrified by this document Ever since it came out. I have attended several zooms on this document and I can tell you I am appalled and shocked that an entity like MTC/ABAG would use such questionable data and arrive at such Silly and dangerous conclusions as have been shown as the results in this document. It makes a mockery of any firm scientific standings in statistical data and analysis and use. This group is supposed to use current state census data by law and they did not. They made up their own numbers and now say the state population growth will be 26% by 2050 and it is projected to only Be 6.5% by official California state census statistics. MTC and ABAG are not concentrating on just transit issues for the Bay Area in these documents, They are trying to do multiple things: fix housing, tell people where they are supposed to live, Build housing etc. Their list goes on and on. Their list makes it seem like they are trying to impose some political agenda on the San Francisco Bay Area. This is not something MTC and ABAG should Be doing. It's not in their wheelhouse. They need to concentrate on transit issues alone. The cost of implementation of the items listed in this Draft Bay Area document is mind boggling. Who do they think is going to pay for all this? The people living in the San Francisco Bay Area or the whole state? Are they saying our taxes will be raised to pay for it? What is so very shocking about this whole document is the staggering amount of unintended consequences Coming out of it, the significant and unavoidable consequences. 52% of the impacts are significant and unavoidable. These are very serious and include air pollution and water supply. What are these people thinking to subject our Bay Area to this? I am completely baffled how this state agency of MTC/ABAG could be allowed to get so lost in their documents and produce something like this and expect the rest of the adult population in the Bay Area to go along with them? I have seen respected individuals who are trained in analysis and state policy just shaking their heads on zoom in disbelief over this Plan Bay Area document. The words "Lunacy" have been used to describe the documents. We need to speak out and say this Plan Bay Area Document and Draft EIR is not workable etc. It Seems to carry no valid statistical documentation and it seems to be a waste of time and money. I am just shocked that this item would have been reviewed at the state level and was not Revised or declared abandoned there. It is late in the game if the public is having to be The ones to identify the document's fallacies and weaknesses now when MTC/ABAG will vote On the document and implementation in December, 2025. My college level freshman math teacher would have looked at this and said "show your work". This Document does not show any scientific work or method at all. Thank you. Best regards, Jennifer Griffin