We believe the Draft EIR is inadequate in several regards. It does not adequately discuss inconsistencies of the Proposed Project with the Alameda General Plan and the loss of housing stock that the Project would cause. It does not adequately address the impacts of locating a school and homeless housing on a benzene plume; it presents inconsistent data regarding the number of new workers that will reside in Alameda, the number of parking spaces provided, and the number of trips generated by the Project; constraints on funding and rights-or-way make several mitigation measures for the traffic impacts infeasible.

The Draft EIR claims that several of the adverse environmental impacts can not be mitigated to a level of nonsignificance. We propose an environmentally superior alternative that can ameliorate the significant adverse impacts. That alternative entails rehabilitating East Housing (which reduces the generation of solid waste significantly), moving the multi-family units off the benzene plume, relocating the school and public park to better serve the West End neighborhood (which moves the new school away from the benzene plume), and using the City's position as landowner to establish incentives for hiring local residents to fill the 4,600 new jobs (which reduces traffic congestion, air emissions, and noise).

We'd be happy to meet with representatives of the City to discuss our comments. Please feel free to contact us through Renewed HOPE at 522-2073.

Sincerely yours,

Tom Matthews
Renewed HOPE Housing Advocates

Patrick Lynch
Clearwater Revival Co.

Eve Bach
Arc Ecology

Sean Herron
East Bay Housing Organizations