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Department of Transportation recommending the Board Adopt the Addendum to the Final Supplemental Environmental Impact Report, certified by the Board on June 28, 2011, related to the Silva Valley Parkway Interchange Project (Project), Capital Improvement Project number 66104/36104002/36104003.
FUNDING: The Silva Valley Interchange Project is included in the Adopted 2022 Capital Improvement Program (CIP) and is funded by 2004 General Plan Silva Valley Interchange Set Aside Traffic Impact Fee (TIF) Program fees.
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DISCUSSION / BACKGROUND
The first phase of the US Highway 50 / Silva Valley Interchange began construction in 2013 and was completed in 2016. The project was constructed under an Environmental Impact Report (EIR) which was initially approved in 1990, with a Supplemental EIR (SEIR) completed in 2011.
Within the EIR, Mitigation Measure BIO-12 was included requiring the mitigation of the impacts on Oak Tree canopy generated by the project. The mitigation measure offered two solutions: Option A for on-site mitigation, Option B to pay into the Conservation Fund In-Lieu Fee program, or a combination of both. At the time the 2011 Supplemental EIR was approved, the County had the Oak Woodland Management Plan (OWMP) as a qualifying in-lieu fee program; however, the OWMP was challenged and subsequently eliminated in 2012, leaving on-site mitigation as the only available option.
Subsequent to the elimination of the OWMP, in 2017 the County established an alternative in-lieu fee program in the form of the Oak Resource Management Plan (ORMP). As a result, Transportation staff engaged with Helix Environmental Planning (Helix) to evaluate the option of utilizing the ORMP as a method for Oak Tree mitigation. Helix prepared an analysis and came to the following conclusion, as included in the proposed Addendum: “The 2017 ORMP offers additional compensatory mitigation and better mitigation viability than onsite replanting. Furthermore, the in-lieu fee ...
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