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Fairness Debated as Humboldt Vehicle MIles Policy Approved · KMUD News

• 0:00
  Speaker A: State law requires counties to include vehicle miles traveled in environmental reviews, and a new Humboldt county policy streamlines the process for projects in areas with less vehicle use. But the fairness of the policy was debated as the county's Board of Supervisors approved it at its Oct. 21 meeting. As of July 2020, state law requires analysis of vehicle use in environmental reviews and part of achieving the goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Vehicle impacts are now gauged using miles traveled as a basis rather than factors like traffic congestion. The county's VMT impact analyses are done on a case by case basis. Now, a policy to make the process less burdensome in areas where there are less vehicle trips per day was before supervisors. The idea is to spare projects from having to do VMT analysis if they're in low VMT areas or meet criteria such as being small scale or affordable housing. But the streamlining benefit is mostly in urbanized areas. Conditions in rural areas like southern Humboldt were discussed in this exchange between Planning Director John Ford and Board Chair Michelle Bushnell.
• 1:20
  Speaker B: A multi family project that was 12 to 13 units, multifamily, 12 to 13 units would screen out under the small.
• 1:30
  Speaker C: Project criteria, bigger than, larger than 13.
• 1:35
  Speaker B: They would need to do a VMT analysis if they're subject to ceqa. Yes.
• 1:42
  Speaker C: And so that could affect larger building units down in that area.
• 1:50
  Speaker B: It could. If they were doing an affordable project, they wouldn't be subject to this.
• 1:56
  Speaker C: Right, I understand that, yeah.
• 1:58
  Speaker A: The basis for determining whether a project will have significant VMT impacts is a threshold level that's set at 15% of the baseline or existing level measured in per resident vehicle miles traveled per day. Two options were presented for setting the baseline using data only from the county's unincorporated areas or going county wide and including incorporated city areas. The distinction is important because the per resident VMT baseline for the unincorporated area is greater than the countywide calculation that includes cities. The lower the baseline, the more likely projects will be required to mitigate VMT impacts. There were different takes on the effects of the policy, as shown in this exchange between Supervisor Mike Wilson, Ford and Bushnell.
• 2:53
  Speaker D: So this isn't a prohibition necessarily. Actually, we're just talking about taking layers off of the analysis. In some cases, we're not talking about adding analysis.
• 3:08
  Speaker B: Correct. This should streamline analysis where we do actually have to do VMT analysis.
• 3:14
  Speaker D: So there's nothing that we're doing that's making anything more difficult.
• 3:20
  Speaker C: That's not a true statement.
• 3:22
  Speaker A: Ford said rural areas that have community plans would be exempted. But Bushnell said most of southern Humboldt isn't designated that way.
• 3:31
  Speaker C: Community plan areas in the southern Humboldt area are very small, and construction goes outside of those community plan areas very often, including the shelter Cove area. And so those folks would have to. They would be required to adhere to this. Is that a correct or not?
• 3:48
  Speaker B: That is correct.
• 3:49
  Speaker C: Okay.
• 3:50
  Speaker B: Yeah. And I mean, I know it seems we've had that discussion a lot between us is the whole fairness of it.
• 4:00
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 4:01
  Speaker B: But what we're being asked to do by the state, both from a traffic perspective and greenhouse gas emissions perspective, and they are related, is to reduce the number of miles people.
• 4:17
  Speaker C: No, I understand. But also it hits into the Carlotta and Hydesville area as well. There are many parcels out there that are out of community plan areas.
• 4:27
  Speaker A: A motion to approve the policy using the countywide Baseline was approved 4 to 1, with Bushnell voting against explaining her no vote. Bushnell said, quote, this is my constituent base, and that's what I'm here for. In Eureka, for KMUD News, this is Daniel Mintz.