Business Park Cap on Employee Population

Position paper #07-05 of the El Dorado Hills Citizens Alliance
Approved by Citizens Alliance board of directors 2/10/2007

Summary

General Plan Policy TC-1y imprecisely sets a cap of 10,045 full time employees for the El Dorado Hills business park in order to limit traffic impacts. The employee cap is to be implemented by limitation of development in the Business Park (Traffic Analysis Zones 148 and 344), and the policy sunsets in 2025. The 2025 sunset should be repealed.


Discussion

Policy TC-1y was defined in order to limit traffic impacts induced by development of the El Dorado Hills Business Park. This policy sunsets in year 2025. A currently proposed General Plan amendment to increase permitted Floor Area Ratios for commercial, industrial, and R&D land uses is forecast to double the number of jobs in El Dorado Hills at buildout. Most of the increase in jobs would result from Business Park development after year 2025. The DEIR projects EDH's total number of jobs at buildout to be 81,501.

An additional minor change in wording of the General Plan policy is appropriate to clarify to readers that this is intended to apply to the Business Park. The regulated area currently is identified only as "Traffic Analysis Zones 148 and 344". Growth in traffic levels or in the road network could lead to subdivision or redefinition of existing Traffic Analysis Zones. The intent to regulate the Business Park should be clear in the language of Policy TC-1y.

The final provision of Policy TC-1y lacks clarity in a number of details. It provides exemption from the employee population cap if "it can be demonstrated that a higher number of employees would not violate established level of service standards". Such a provision is generally reasonable but the legal framework for it is somewhat ambiguous.

At this time we do not propose any specific amendment to clarify details but mention it only as a basis for discussion. We think the most likely interpretation would be that a higher employee cap can be adopted by resolution of the Board of Supervisors, subject to a traffic study performed by County DOT or by contract with a qualified consulting firm. Such an action probably is subject to CEQA requirements for either an EIR or a Negative Declaration. There could be an issue of planning tradeoffs between different projects if a different new project competes for capacity on the same road system links as would be affected by a higher Business Park population cap.


Recommended Amendment

Policy TC-1y should be amended as follows, with deletions shown in red strikethrough text and insertions shown in blue:

Development through 2025, within the El Dorado Hills Business Park (Traffic Analysis Zones 148 and 344), shall be conditioned so that a cap of 10,045 full-time employees is not exceeded, unless it can be demonstrated that a higher number of employees would not violate established level of service standards.