December 21, 2009
SJ Giants group warns: Bringing A's could blight Oakland
The San Francisco Giants-backed group opposing the Oakland A's potential move to San Jose has issued its list of objections to the project, and while some are typical — traffic impacts, potential losses to city services — one is not: The group is saying San Jose must analyze the negative impact of relocating the A's on the area around Oakland Coliseum. The San Jose Mercury News explains:
As to the matter of urban decay, [attorney Todd] Smith cites as legal precedent a case in Bakersfield in which a state Court of Appeal held that two environmental impact reports for large commercial shopping centers failed to analyze the centers' potential to indirectly cause urban decay in that city's downtown.
In his letter, Smith says the Oakland Coliseum, where the A's now play, is a centerpiece in the city's Coliseum Redevelopment Area Plan. Since the A's use the Coliseum more than any other tenant, their exit would mean the facility could sit empty and unused on at least 81 additional dates.
Under the California Environmental Quality Act authority, Smith said, the potential adverse impact on the redevelopment area must be analyzed in the revised environmental report.
Danielsen said San Jose will give that "careful consideration" — and that, in fact, planners may look to what happened when the Giants left Candlestick Park in 1999 to move to what is now AT&T Park.
I'm not entirely clear whether the report can just indicate, "Yeah, there will be an adverse impact," and then allow the project to go ahead nonetheless — it's certainly typical for EIRs in other places to simply list some negative effects as "no mitigation possible." But it's at least nice that San Jose is required to be neighborly about the effects of its actions.
