CITY COUNCIL: STAFF REPORT ON PLANNING ISSUES RELATED TO RFEIR & SALE OF FLANDERS MANSION PROPERTY

Attachment-E
CITY OF CARMEL-BY-THE-SEA
DEPARTMENT OF COMMUNITY PLANNING AND BUILDING
STAFF REPORT
TO: MAYOR MCCLOUD AND CITY COUNCIL MEMBERS
THROUGH: RICH GUILLEN, CITY ADMINISTRATOR
FROM: SEAN CONROY, PLANNING SERVICES MANAGER AND
BRIAN ROSETH, PLANNING CONSULTANT
DATE: 12 MAY 2009
SUBJECT: CONSIDERATION OF PLANNING ISSUES RELATED TO THE RECIRCULATED FINAL ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT REPORT AND THE SALE OF THE FLANDERS MANDION PROPERTY.

I. BACKGROUND
On 28 April the City Council began considering the Flanders Mansion project at a public
hearing. The meeting was continued to 12 May 2009 to allow for further public comment
and review. This Staff Report is included in the Agenda Packet materials as an aid to the
Council’s decision-making. No new issues are addressed.
II. ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT REPORTS
The 2005 Environmental Impact Report
In 2005 the City prepared an Environmental Impact Report (EIR) for the sale of the
Flanders Mansion property. The stated purpose of the project was to (1) generate funds
for needed capital improvements involving a number of municipal facilities and (2) to
divest the City of a property needing significant funding for rehabilitation. Several
secondary objectives were added to the Final EIR in response to public comments. All
required CEQA processes were carried out and the Final EIR was certified as adequate.
At the conclusion of the 2005 EIR process, the City Council approved the proposed
project (sale of the Mansion) and adopted mitigation measures to reduce impacts. The
Council rejected the environmentally superior alternative (lease), based on an economic
conclusion that the lease alternative was not feasible. Following these actions, the
Flanders Foundation, a 501c3 nonprofit organization, successfully challenged the City’s
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decisions in Flanders Foundation vs. City of Carmel-by-the-Sea and City Council of the
City of Carmel-by-the-Sea (Mont. Co. Super. Ct. Case number M76728).1.
The Court upheld the City’s determination that the project was consistent with the
General Plan but found that the City lacked sufficient evidence to support its findings
rejecting the environmentally superior lease alternative. The Court ordered the City to set
aside its certification of the Final EIR and its approval of selling the Flanders Mansion.
The Court’s action included a determination that the Flanders Mansion property
constituted parkland.1
Pursuant to the Court’s determination, the City’s environmental consultant prepared a
Recirculated Draft EIR. The City distributed it for public review. Responses to public
comments have been incorporated into a Recirculated Final EIR (RFEIR) and this
document is now ready for certification.
The 2009 Environmental Impact Report
The 2009 Flanders Mansion project differs from the 2005 project in several respects. In
2005, the project purpose focused on raising funds for capital projects. Given this
purpose, project alternatives looked at the sale of other properties including a sale of the
Scout House and Rio Park and selling the Flanders Mansion with a reduced parcel size.
In 2005 the City took the position that the Flanders Mansion property did not constitute
parkland. This affected the General Plan consistency analysis. The 2009 EIR now
recognizes the property as parkland, consistent with the Superior Court decision. The
current EIR defines the following project purpose and objectives:
Primary purpose: To divest the City of the Flanders Mansion property which is in need
of significant short-term and long-term repair and rehabilitation.
Secondary objectives:
1) To ensure that the Flanders Mansion is preserved as a historic resource;
2) To ensure that the Flanders Mansion building and property are put to productive use;
3) To ensure that future use of the Flanders Mansion and property will not cause significant
traffic, parking or noise impacts on the surrounding neighborhood;
1 The determination that the Flanders Mansion site is parkland is significant. Selling parkland requires approval of a ballot
measure by the voters.
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4) To ensure that future use will not significantly disrupt the public’s enjoyment of the
Mission Trail Nature Preserve or the Lester Rowntree Native Plant Garden;
5) To ensure that environmental resources of the park are protected; and
6) To ensure that the Flanders Mansion parcel continues to provide the public with as many
park benefits as are practical.
III. ADEQUACY
An EIR must be “adequate” to enable informed decision-making and to enable effective
public participation. An EIR must provide a sufficient analysis of impacts, mitigations
and alternatives. Section 15151 of the CEQA Guidelines gives the following standard for
determining the adequacy of an EIR.
An EIR should be prepared with a sufficient degree of analysis to provide decisionmakers
with information which enables them to make a decision which intelligently
takes account of environmental consequences. An evaluation of the environmental
effect of a proposed project need not be exhaustive, but the sufficiency of an EIR is to
be reviewed in the light of what is reasonably feasible. Disagreement among experts
does not make an EIR inadequate, but the EIR should summarize the main points of
disagreement among the experts. The courts have looked not for perfection but for
adequacy, completeness and a good faith effort at full disclosure
Staff has determined that the RFEIR contains all the required content and substantive
elements required by CEQA and meets the standard in Section 15151 of the CEQA
Guidelines. The Forest and Beach Commission, Historic Resources Board and Planning
Commission all concluded that the RFEIR is adequate. Staff recommends that the City
Council find the RFEIR to be adequate.
IV. GENERAL PLAN CONSISTENCY
All actions of the City must be consistent with the General Plan; this includes the sale of
public property. If the project is inconsistent with any General Plan policies that relate to
the protection of environmental resources, this would constitute a significant
environmental impact. Determining consistency involves a balancing of all relevant
policies and text. A finding of General Plan consistency can be made by answering the
following questions:
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 Is the proposed action or project directly and affirmatively supported by a specific
policy? (An example of such a policy might be one that states “The City shall sell
Flanders Mansion.”)
 Is the proposed action or project directly and clearly in conflict with a specific
policy? (An example of such a policy might be one that states “The City shall not
sell Flanders Mansion.)
 Is the proposed project or action supported, on balance, when all relevant policies
are considered in light of the City’s current state and circumstances?
Obviously, when policies are as decisive as those shown in the first two bullet-points, the
determination of consistency is easy. When lacking such clarity, the Council must resort
to a more subjective weighing of competing objectives and policies. Often, the lack of
clarity in General Plans, especially where policies appear to be in conflict, represents
deferred decision-making about an issue.
Carmel’s General Plan does not contain decisive policies on the issue of whether to sell
Flanders Mansion, lease it, or just keep it for Municipal uses. However, the General Plan
does include policies that anticipate the possible sale of the Flanders Mansion property
(General Plan Policies P5-141, P5-142 and P5-143, shown below). These policies
support a conclusion that selling the property would be consistent with the General Plan.
(In the policies below, the Flanders Mansion is referred to by its historical name:
Outlands)
P5-141 If retained by the City, preserve the Outlands property and grounds at
Mission Trail Nature Preserve consistent with its status as a nationally
registered historical resource.
P5-142 If retained by the City, utilize the Outlands property at Mission Trail
Nature Preserve in a manner beneficial to the residents of Carmel-by-the-
Sea while minimizing its expense to the City.
P5-143 If retained by the City, support uses at the Outlands property that are
compatible with its location in Mission Trail Nature Preserve and adjacent
to the Rowntree Native Plant Garden and Hatton Road neighborhood.
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The General Plan also contains policies that apply to parks and natural resources
throughout the City. These policies support preservation of parks and open space,
enhanced use of parks by the public and acquisition of additional parkland. All of these
have a clear application to the Flanders Mansion property and would be most effectively
implemented by not selling the Mansion.
In writing the RFEIR, the consultant identified four policies that are potentially
inconsistent with a sale of Flanders Mansion. To quote from the RFEIR:
“Sale of the Flanders Mansion Property would result in the permanent loss of
parkland and therefore has the potential to conflict with several goals, objectives
and policies identified in the City of Carmel-by-the-Sea General Plan/Coastal Land
Use Plan intended on minimizing impacts to parkland and promoting public use of
publicly owned parkland. Specifically, the proposed project would conflict with the
following goals and policies: G5-6, O5-21, P5-46, and P5-107. This is considered
a potentially significant impact that cannot be reduced to a less-than-significant
level.”
“G5-6: Preserve and acquire open space and parks.”
“Potentially inconsistent. The proposed project appears to be inconsistent with this goal.
The project would result in the sale of parkland (~2%). Mitigation measures have been
incorporated into this RDEIR to ensure that the proposed project minimizes potential impacts
to the Mission Trail Nature Preserve and the Lester Rowntree Arboretum to the greatest
extent feasible. The project would, nevertheless, conflict with this goal, which is intended to
promote and enhance public use of open space and parks.”
“O5-21: Optimize public use of City parks.”
“Potentially inconsistent. The project appears to be inconsistent with this objective. The
Flanders Mansion Property is currently used for a variety of park-related activities and the
sale would result in the permanent loss of park benefits associated with the property.
Although the extent of these impacts may be contingent upon the type of future use, this
RDEIR assumes that sale would permanently result in the loss of public use of the property
grounds. Because the property provides access to other areas of the park and links between
several park trails, it facilitates their optimal use. A sale of the property could diminish optimal
public use of these other areas. Mitigation measures have been incorporated to minimize
impacts to adjacent trails and other areas of the Mission Trail Nature Preserve. While
mitigation has been identified in this RDEIR to minimize impacts due to the loss of trail
access and use of the property, the sale of the property would result in the permanent loss of
publicly-owned parkland.”
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“P5-46: Preserve and protect areas within the City’s jurisdiction, which due to
their outstanding aesthetic quality, historical value, wildlife habitats or scenic
viewsheds, should be maintained in permanent open space to enhance the
quality of life. Such acquired areas would be left in a natural state or restored for
aesthetic and/or wildlife purposes.”
“Potentially inconsistent. The proposed project appears to be inconsistent with this policy
since the project would result in the sale of the Flanders Mansion to a private entity and the
City would therefore no longer retain ownership. Nevertheless, the City’s General Plan
recognizes that the City may determine to divest itself of the Flanders Property and
mitigation measures have been incorporated into this RDEIR to ensure that the Mansion is
preserved.”
“P5-107: Provide for public access and passive enjoyment of City parks and
open space.”
“Potentially inconsistent. Implementation of the proposed project would result in the loss of
publicly owned parkland and would therefore conflict with this policy. In order to ensure that
project-related impacts due to the loss of public access to existing trails are minimized,
mitigation measures have been incorporated into this RDEIR. The loss of 1.252 acres of
parkland within the Mission Trail Nature Preserve is considered an unavoidable impact that
is locally significant to the Preserve. The proposed project would result is the loss of access
and passive enjoyment of a portion of the Preserve that has been historically used by the
public.”
So, three policy statements anticipate a sale, yet four policy statements conflict with a
sale. Since California statutes require General Plans to be internally consistent, an
analysis of General Plan consistency for a proposed project must always proceed from an
assumption that if policies appear to conflict they can be harmonized. The EIR
consultant identified all of these policies as “potentially inconsistent” because only the
City can resolve the tension between these two policy groups.
To harmonize the policies that anticipate a sale with the policies that conflict with the
loss of public parkland, staff recommends that the City Council consider the broader
context of parkland within the City. Within a City-wide context the various policies in
the City’s General Plan are not necessarily in conflict. The Plan can support parks,
conservation and recreation in general terms while permitting a sale of parkland at a
specific site. Viewed in this larger context, selling the Flanders Mansion property would
not be inconsistent with the General Plan.
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The Flanders Mansion property is an important site. Although it represents just 2% of
Carmel’s total parkland, it provides a disproportionally large number of benefits and is an
integral part of the Mission Trails Nature Preserve. With an unmitigated sale, these park
benefits would be lost or significantly diminished. Thus, within the context of just the
site, selling the Flanders Mansion conflicts with the General Plan. However, mitigations
can reduce this conflict. If mitigation measures that substantially lessen impacts on
views, aesthetics, historic preservation and trail access are applied to a sale, this would
reduce conflicts with the General Plan policies quoted above. The more effective the
mitigations are at reducing impacts of the project, the more consistent with the General
Plan it would be. Of the two sale alternatives, the Proposed Project, with no mitigations,
would be the least consistent with the General Plan. The Sale with Conservation
Easements and Mitigations Alternative would be the sale option most consistent with the
General Plan.
Ultimately, the City Council must balance the competing policy objectives to reach a
determination regarding General Plan consistency. In 2005, both the Planning
Commission and the City Council determined that selling the Flanders Mansion property
was not inconsistent with the General Plan. The Superior Court upheld this
determination and stated “The City is entitled to deference in its determination of
conformity with the General Plan.”
On 23 April 2009, the Planning Commission reviewed the project and made the
following recommendations:
1. The Final EIR is adequate for the following reasons:
a. The Recirculated Final EIR contains all of the required content as
established by law.
b. The Recirculated Final EIR properly identifies the potential impacts that
sale of the Flanders Mansion could have on the environment.
c. The Recirculated Final EIR identifies mitigation measures that could
reduce or avoid impacts to the Flanders Mansion.
d. The Recirculated Final EIR identifies a reasonable range of alternatives to
the sale of Flanders Mansion.

2. The Sale with Conservation Easements and Mitigations Alternative is consistent
with the General Plan if the use is restricted to a single-family residential
occupancy. This determination is based upon the findings and analysis contained
in the Staff Report (which is restated, above).