Excerpt:

At its Oct. 20 meeting the Alameda City Council voted unanimously to begin implementing an environmental study of SunCal's plans for Alameda Point.

Although California law does not require an environmental impact report (EIR) for the pending initiative, SunCal says that it has agreed to pay some $2 million for the report "in order to assure that the environmental impacts of the whole of the project will be addressed prior to construction." The city, not SunCal, will manage the process.