TO: The San Luis Obispo County Board of Supervisors
FROM: The County Coalition for Local Control, No on Measure J-06
Re: Mitigation Measures Eliminated from the Dalidio Mall Initiative
Date: October 17, 2006

Development under the Initiative, which will not receive an Environmental Impact Report, would be significantly more intensive than under the prior version of the project proposed to the City of San Luis Obispo. Among other things, the Initiative includes a private sewage plant, which has never been subject to an EIR. It does NOT include adequate financing for the road and infrastructure improvements that a 560,000 square foot shopping mall, and other commercial development would require. The measures contained in the Initiative’s Conditions of Approval to reduce environmental impacts are significantly weaker than the mitigation measures provided in the FEIR. In fact, the Initiative’s authors have deleted many of those measures and seriously weakened others. This lack of normal regulatory and environmental review makes the Dalido Ranch Project much more environmentally damaging than any other commercial project ever proposed in San Luis Obispo County. We urge the County Board of Supervisors to take a stand in opposition to Measure J.

Major Mitigation Measures Eliminated from the Initiative:

• The Initiative relieves the developer of primary responsibility for constructing major traffic improvements (including construction of the Prado Road/Highway 101 interchange and improvements at the Madonna Road/Los Osos Valley Road intersection). The Initiative instead permits contribution of a fixed amount of money determined unilaterally by the developer.
• The Initiative does not actually require that any traffic improvements be constructed. If contracts for the traffic improvements discussed in the Initiative are not executed within a set time frame, the developer’s contributions must be either refunded or turned over to the County. If these contract deadlines are not met, it is entirely possible that no measures of any kind will be provided to alleviate the traffic impacts caused by the development.
• The Initiative eliminates several specific improvements necessary to prevent serious traffic congestion at the intersection of Madonna Road and Dalidio Drive and along Dalidio Drive within the development. The Initiative provides nothing to address these problems.
• The Initiative eliminates a requirement that the developer construct specific improvements at the intersection of Prado Road and Higuera Street, including recommended widening of the San Luis Obispo Creek bridge.
• The Initiative eliminates requirements that the developer contribute to improvements along Highway 101, including improvements to interchanges at Madonna Road and Los Osos Valley Road.
• The Initiative eliminates requirements that the developer construct sidewalks, transit stops, turnouts, and bus shelters, and also deletes a requirement for pedestrian access to open space.
• The Initiative eliminates any contribution by the developer to funding and construction of traffic noise mitigation measures outlined in the City general plan. Thus the Initiative provides no mitigation of any kind for the significant traffic noise that will result from the development.
• The Initiative eliminates requirements for preservation of 20 acres of productive farmland off-site and nearly 60 acres of agricultural land on-site (through a permanent agricultural conservation easement). Under the Initiative, only 13 acres—about ten percent—of the productive agricultural land on the property will remain, and even this remnant need not be protected by a permanent conservation easement.
• The Initiative eliminates specific requirements for buffers between agricultural, urban, and open space uses. The Initiative would allow buffers only where they do not interfere with development.
• The Initiative eliminates a requirement that a Native American monitor and a qualified archaeologist be present during initial earth-moving activities, and also eliminates other requirements for pre-construction archaeological surveys.