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Prepared Statement, Roybal Campus 2025 Master Plan DEIS Public 

Hearing 

 20 MAR 2014, 7:00 – 9:00 PM, Roybal B19 Auditorium 

George Chandler: Good evening and welcome to the Edward R. Roybal 

Campus, global headquarters of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and 

Prevention an Operating Division of the U.S. Department of Health and 

Human Services. I appreciate you all taking time from your busy 

schedules tonight to join us at the Public Comment Meeting for the 2015- 

2025 Roybal Campus Master Plan Draft Environmental Impact Statement – 

or DEIS for short. 

My name is George Chandler, and I am a Senior Advisor at CDC, currently 

responsible for strategic facility planning and developing the 2015-2025 

Roybal Plan and EIS. 

First, a couple of housekeeping items: restrooms are located at the end of 

the corridor to my right outside the auditorium. Because this is a secure 

Federal campus, please stay in the vicinity of the auditorium. If you need to 

take a cell phone call please step out into the lobby or hallway. 

If you wish to make comments or offer information that you believe CDC 

should consider in the planning and EIS processes you may use the 

comment cards provided in the lobby, or you may make a verbal statement 
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tonight, or you may submit electronic or mail-in comments to the address 

that will be shown on the final slide of this presentation and which 

is also in your brochure. Please note that DEIS comments must be 

postmarked by (APRIL 10, 2014). All comments received will 

become part of the public record for this EIS. The formal portion of the 

Public Comment Meeting tonight will be noted and transcribed by a Court 

Reporter and will be available as part of the Final EIS. 

I hope that you found the poster boards, brief video presentation and 

general information provided at the informal portion of tonight’s meeting 

helpful. In this portion of the Public Meeting, we will 

review the Master Plan alternatives CDC considered, CDC’s “Preferred 

Alternative” Plan, the anticipated impact if the Preferred Alternative is 

implemented during the 2015 -2025 planning period, and the final EIS 

process in a bit more detail. The meeting will conclude 

with an opportunity for anyone in attendance tonight to make a verbal 

statement for the record. 

If you wish to make a verbal statement and have not already signed up 

please hold up your hand and a CDC staff member will assist you with 

registration [brief pause]. 

Commenters will be identified from their registration sheets in no particular 
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order. Please stand when your name is called and a CDC representative 

will bring a microphone to you. When you receive the microphone, please 

clearly state your name and the organization you represent – or if you are 

speaking as a private citizen - for the Court Reporter. In order to give 

everyone a chance to speak, I ask that you please limit your comments to 

no more than three (3) minutes, and that your comments pertain to the 

issue at hand – the Roybal Campus 2015- 2025 Master Plan, the DEIS or 

an area of potential impact that we should consider. If you are approaching 

the three (3) minute mark, I or another CDC staff member will verbally alert 

you. 

Why did CDC ask you here tonight? Some of you may have attended the 

EIS “Scoping Meeting” CDC conducted here on January 17, 2013, or 

offered comments electronically. “Scoping” is an early, open process for 

determining the “scope” of issues to be addressed and for identifying the 

significant issues that might result from implementing one of several 

potential future Roybal Campus Master Plan alternatives. It 

is an opportunity to actively engage in early public involvement in the 

planning process as we develop a range of alternatives and 

potentially significant impact areas. It is also an opportunity to get 

information directly from CDC as the process unfolds and how we 

are taking your comments and concerns into account in selecting a 

preferred alternative. 
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At the Scoping Meeting, CDC indicated that we would be conducting a 

Public Comment Meeting on the Draft EIS – that is tonight – once we had 

gathered comments from Scoping and prepared impact analyses that took 

Scoping comments into consideration while still meeting fundamental CDC 

mission objectives. CDC also indicated that it would present what is often 

referred to as an “Agency Preferred Alternative” that CDC believes will 

allow the Agency to continue to fulfill its critical public health mission and 

respond to new and unknown threats and should minimize adverse impacts 

to the natural and built environments as a result of implementing the 

Preferred Alternative. 

Please note that CDC and HHS approval of the 2015-2025 Master Plan 

and EIS, does not provide CDC with either the authorization or the funding

to undertake major new construction or new program activities at Roybal – 

both authorization and funding must come through the Federal budget 

process in the future. 

The Preferred Alternative has two main drivers: First, the previous 

2000-2009 Master Plan has been implemented at Roybal through the 

replacement and expansion of the 1950’s and 1960’s buildings originally 

occupying the site, so a new long-range plan is needed to guide future 

development of the Campus. The objectives of the 2009 Plan were 

substantially different from those of the new 2025 Plan in that 

the previous Plan sought to address outdated, antiquated and overcrowded 

facilities, particularly biological labs, that were not suitable for long-term 
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use – and, CDC was growing at that time. The 2009 Plan addressed 

these long-term facility needs through the provision of safe, modern, 

flexible lab, lab support and office buildings, upgraded and expanded utility 

systems and greatly improved physical security at the Campus. 

The second driver is, in contrast to the 2000-2009 Plan, the 2015-2025 

 Plan does not envision the wholesale replacement of facilities due to age 

 or obsolescence. The Preferred Alternative envisions the need to add 

space based on new or changing mission requirements and the potential 

growth of CDC organizations already located at Roybal rather than 

by large-scale relocation of non-Roybal Campus groups to Roybal. 

The Preferred Alternative’s major components consist of construction of a 

new 350,000 to 450,000 gross square foot laboratory and a new 1,600 

space parking deck with primary deck access off of Houston Mill Road. 

Construction of the lab and deck assumes an increase in maximum 

Campus Workstations from current 5,300 to approximately 6,800. The new 

lab and deck would both be constructed on existing surface parking lots, so 

the net Campus total parking cap would be increased from current 3,300 

spaces to 4,500 spaces. The parking deck would serve additional CDC 

growth as well as address current periodic parking deficits that result from 

visitors and staff attending meetings and conferences at the Global 

Communications Center and from CDC deployments that occur at the 

Roybal Campus from time-to-time in response to domestic and 
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international health crises. There are no new office buildings or land 

acquisition in the Preferred Alternative. 

I emphasize that new construction would largely be driven by potential 

growth at the Roybal Campus over a 10-year period, and that growth and 

funding are very difficult to predict in the current environment. Eventual 

approval of the 2015-2025 Master Plan and EIS in the Summer of 2014, 

does not provide CDC with either the authorization or the funding to 

undertake major new construction or new program activities at Roybal – 

both authorization and funding must come through the Federal budget 

process in the future. 

Thank you for your attention and now Toby Kizner will take us through a 

more detailed look at the DEIS alternatives process and potential impacts. 

Toby Kizner: Good evening and thank you for attending tonight’s public 

hearing on the Roybal Campus 2025 Master Plan Draft Environmental 

Impact Statement, or Draft EIS. My name is Toby Kizner. I’m with Jacobs 

Engineering and am the consultant project manager for the EIS. 

New or increased agency mission requirements and potential growth may 

require additional campus construction or reconfiguration. CDC has 

prepared this Draft EIS to assess the potential impacts associated with 

these future campus changes. 

The Draft EIS has been prepared pursuant to the National Environmental 

Policy Act of 1969, commonly referred to as NEPA, which establishes 

national policy for the protection of the environment. NEPA provides for 

consideration of environmental issues in federal agency planning and 

decision making, mandates public disclosure of impacts from Federal 
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activities, and actively solicits public participation throughout the process. 

CDC is committed to ensuring that proper consideration of the quality of the 

human environment is made when undertaking this project. This meeting 

is one of several forums for you to comment on the draft EIS and voice any 

issues you believe should be addressed as CDC moves forward with its 

master planning activities. 

The NEPA process officially started with CDC’s publication of the Notice of 

Intent to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement, as well as holding a 

public scoping meeting as was mentioned earlier, which took place last 

winter. Since that time, we have conducted many analyses pertaining to 

the campus as well as a one-mile perimeter study area, to identify if any 

significant adverse impacts would result from future growth at the Roybal 

campus. These analyses are included in the DEIS, and we will provide a 

brief summary of the results this evening. 

The DEIS is currently available to the public for review and comment. A 

Notice of Availability of the DEIS was published in the Federal Register as 

well as local newspapers and websites, which identified where the DEIS 

has been made available for public review for the 45-day comment period. 

The DEIS has also been distributed to federal, state, and local reviewing 

agencies. The public comment period ends on April 10th, 2014. After this 

comment period is over, CDC and the EIS team will review all comments, 

address any substantive issues raised, and identify a final preferred 

alternative in a revised document. This revised document will become our 

Final EIS. The Final EIS will also be made available for public review with 

a 30-day review period currently planned for late winter/spring of this year. 

At the end of the Final EIS review period, CDC will issue a Record of 
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Decision. The Record of Decision concludes the NEPA process and 

finalizes the federal decision in terms of the selected alternative that will be 

implemented and any mitigation proposed. 

A series of conceptual alternatives were considered as part of master plan 

development. Of these, two were advanced for analysis in the DEIS: 

The No Action Alternative, which considers the future conditions on the 

Roybal campus with no new construction or change in uses. A small 

increase in campus population is assumed, but no major program 

expansion. 

The Master Plan Preferred Alternative, which proposes construction of a 

new laboratory, a new parking deck, and several other campus physical 

improvements should projected growth actually occur. If growth did occur, 

we are projecting a potential increase in campus population of roughly 

1,500 employees. 

The study area for analysis of these alternatives comprises a one-mile 

perimeter around the campus, bounded roughly by La Vista Road to the 

north, Clairmont Road to the east, the Dekalb County border to the west, 

and land south of Decatur Road to the south. 

The following impact categories were investigated for potential projectrelated impacts and are detailed in the Draft EIS : socioeconomics, land 

use, zoning, public policy, community facilities, air quality, noise, 

transportation, natural resources, urban design and visual resources, 

utilities, solid waste, and construction. As summarized in these slides, our 

analyses indicated that for most impact categories, such as 

socioeconomics, land use, and natural resources, due to the contained 
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nature of the campus, future growth associated with the Master Plan 

Preferred Alternative would result in minimal or no impacts to the project 

study area. One analysis that indicated the potential for future conditions to 

experience impacts from the proposed alternative is related to study area 

traffic conditions, which I will now go into greater detail about. 

A detailed traffic analysis was conducted as part of the Draft EIS. The 

analysis assessed existing traffic conditions, as well as two future 

conditions under the proposed project alternatives. These include future 

traffic conditions independent of any future campus improvements, known 

as the No-Build condition, as well as a Build condition, which assesses the 

future with the Master Plan Preferred Alternative campus improvements in 

place. For the purposes of this analysis, the No-Build condition serves as 

the baseline for which the Build condition is compared. 

A traffic screening assessment was conducted in order to determine the 

selection of roadways and intersections that would potentially be impacted 

by the project. The screening considered a journey-to-work-survey which 

looked at how CDC employees travel to and from work, the times 

employees typically arrive at and depart the Roybal campus, as well as 

other relevant information related to CDC employee travel habits. Current 

traffic conditions along routes frequently traveled by CDC campus users as 

well as adjacent intersections to the Roybal Campus were also considered. 

Twenty three intersections were chosen for detailed analysis and 

collectively identified as the traffic study area. The traffic study area 

intersections are identified by the black dots on the map. As you can see, 

the traffic study area was comprehensive and included locations beyond 

the one-mile project study area. Georgia DOT, Dekalb County’s Traffic 
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Division, and GRTA were consulted to confirm that the traffic study area 

was appropriate for this analysis. 

Traffic data was collected in 2012 for typical weekday AM and PM peak 

hours. These time-periods reflected the hours with the greatest potential 

for traffic impacts as this was typically when background traffic was high 

and most project related travel would occur. The existing conditions 

analysis identified that 14 of the 23 intersections studied currently have 

failing movements, or vehicle movements that experience excessive 

delays. 

In order to determine traffic conditions under the No-Build condition, or 

traffic conditions in the year 2025 without the project, we consulted various 

transportation agencies and local stakeholders including: GDOT, Dekalb 

County, GRTA, ARC, the VA, and Emory University to estimate future 

traffic growth. Depending on location within the traffic study area, we 

determined the standard growth to be between 0.5 to 1.5 percent annually 

taken from the Atlanta Regional Commission travel demand model, plus 

any growth related to specific developments within the study area. The 

traffic analysis under the No-Build condition estimated that 17 of the 23 

intersections studied within the traffic study area would operate with failing 

movements by the year 2025. This represents close to 75 percent of the 

intersections in the study area that would experience traffic delays and 

congestion related to growth in the corridor even if the Master Plan 

Preferred Alternative is not implemented. In the absence of any future 

infrastructure improvements, worsened traffic conditions will continue to be 

a critical issue for the Clifton Corridor.
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Utilizing the origin-destination survey discussed earlier, we then applied 

new vehicle trips associated with the Master Plan Preferred Alternative to 

the traffic study area. We used the expected number of peak hour vehicle 

trips associated with a parking capacity increase of approximately 1200 

vehicles. This alternative became the Build Condition, or the year 2025 

with the proposed campus improvements in place. After applying projectrelated traffic to the network, traffic conditions worsened. With the overall 

growth in traffic, coupled with the lack of transportation improvements, most 

traffic study intersections in the Clifton Corridor or serving it, were projected 

to function poorly with long delays, not too dissimilar to the future 2025 No 

Build Condition discussed earlier. New vehicle trips generated in the Build 

condition would contribute to degrading intersections and roadways that 

were already operating under congested traffic conditions. The detailed 

traffic study identified 19 of the 23 intersections studied would contain 

failing vehicle movements or movements with excessively long delays. 

Potential traffic mitigation was identified where feasible with the goal of 

reducing Build condition traffic congestion to the No-Build condition. These 

recommended improvements included intersection signalization and 

optimization, lane restriping, and widening as well as enhancements to 

existing CDC transportation demand management policies. 

Recommended improvements are identified in the DEIS for comment, and 

will continue to be studied. CDC will clarify which improvements it can 

make by itself and which improvements will require intergovernmental 

cooperation to achieve in the Final EIS and Record of Decision. Suggested 

locations for intersection improvements included the intersection of Clifton 

Road at Briarcliff Road, Clifton Road at Old Briarcliff Road, the CDC Main 
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Entrance located on Clifton Road, and North Decatur Road at Clifton Road. 

These intersections are frequently traveled by many CDC Campus 

employees and visitors as well as by thru traffic for the various institutions 

within the Clifton Corridor. While these improvements would not solve the 

overall infrastructure capacity issues in and around the Clifton Corridor, 

they would minimize traffic related impacts caused by the proposed 

campus improvements. 

Other mitigation measures focused on policy initiatives, known as 

Transportation Demand Management (“TDM”), which would reduce the use 

of single occupancy vehicles, particularly during the most congested times 

during the day. CDC is currently engaged in, or has previously attempted a 

variety of TDM strategies. The CDC continues to examine ways to 

enhance or improve upon existing TDM programs. Proposed TDM 

measures include: employee-based transportation programs, promoting 

car and van pooling, improving pedestrian and bicycle facilities including 

increasing bicycling parking capacity. Other policy initiatives that the CDC 

would either consider or has implemented in the past include: Parking 

management programs that would charge for on-campus parking, and 

transit reimbursement and commuter rewards programs. 

Thank you for attending our Public Comment Meeting tonight, and for your 

continued participation in the EIS process. Now we will move to the public 

comment section of tonight’s meeting. If you wish to make comments or 

offer information you believe CDC should consider in the EIS processes 

you may use the comment cards provided in the lobby, or you may make a 

verbal statement tonight, or you may submit electronic or mail-in comments 

to the addresses shown on the slide, which is also in your brochure. 
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Please note that DEIS comments must be postmarked by April 10, 2014. 

All comments received will become part of the public record for this EIS. 

The formal portion of the meeting tonight will be noted and transcribed by a 

Court Reporter and will be available as part of the Final EIS. 

If you wish to make a verbal statement and have not already signed up 

please hold up your hand and a CDC staff member will assist you with 

registration. Commenters will be identified from their registration sheets in 

no particular order. Please stand when your name is called and a CDC 

representative will bring a microphone to you. When you receive the 

microphone, please clearly state your name and the organization you 

represent, or if you are speaking as a private citizen, for the Reporter. In 

order to give everyone a chance to speak, I ask that you please limit your 

comments to no more than three (3) minutes, and that your comments 

pertain to the issue at hand – the Roybal Campus 2025 Master Plan, the 

EIS or an area of potential impact that we should consider. If you are 

approaching the three (3) minute mark, I or a CDC staff member will 

verbally alert you. Let’s begin with the public comments: