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tv   Mayors Press Availability  SFGTV  January 19, 2024 11:30pm-12:01am PST

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inches, so this causes that same type of event to happen through mechanical means rather than through a seismic event. >> the dynamic vibrant compaction rate vibrates the soil every four square meters and moved along to the next section. to further assure stability, tamping is followed around the site, compassion takes approximately three to four months to complete 12 acres. once the compassion and tapping is done, it's settled ask using laser alignments to assure a level service to build on. >> i think that every city when they have the opportunity to do something that is as large as treasure island because treasure island is five hundred acres and it depends on their needs at that time and in 2011 to now,
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the most important are thing for the city is housing. there's two aspects to that master plan. one, was the new district for san francisco. 8,000 units of housing, which is all levels of stability. the other (indiscernible) is 300 acres of open space and parks. and actually, it's the largest addition to the park system in san francisco since (indiscernible) 300 acres and this is a tremendous gift to the public, both the housing, which we desperately need in san francisco as well as an open space and park system which really is going to be worm class and it will attract people in san francisco but attract people locally as well as
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internationally. >> cmg architecture was brought to the project once they award the agreement between the city of san francisco and the united states navy. cmg has earned national recognition and numerous awards for merits and design, social impact and environmental stewardship. >> we were a part of the project in the beginning when the developer initially was awarded the exclusive negotiation agreement or the ena with the city and they partnered with the planning and architecture group and we joined that team to work with the developer around the city and community to come up with a plan for treasure island. >> so there's quite a lot of open space in the master plan and there's a couple of reasons for that that's pragmatic. one is that the amount of area that could be converted for private use on treasure island was very limited, actually it wasn't allowed at all because treasure island was previously public open waters and protected by the
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tidal and trust act to be redevelop for public use. but there was a land swap that was allowed and approved by the governor of california, governor schwarzenegger to be put on a public trust for a one to one swap to be taken out of the trust to be developed for private use such as residential and that amount of land was 89 acres which leaves a bunch more space that can't have housing on it and the question was, what to do with all of that space? there could be other public uses that allowed such as conference centers or museums or universities or things of that nature but what made the most sense for this location was to have more parks in a really robust parks and open space plan and that's what led us to the plan we have now. >> planting strategies for treasure island and buena island are to maximize habitat value in the park areas wherever
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appropriate and where we can to create comfortable at the pedestrian scale. there are these diagonal lines that go across the plan that you'll see. those are wind row trees like you see in agricultural landscapes where they are tall tree that's buffer the winds to create a more calm areas down at the pedestrian scale. so of course, we do have some areas where we have play fields and surfaces where kids need to run around on and those will be either lawns or like you see in norm at sports field. >> related to where the housing is on the island and its convenience to the walk to the transit hub, i mentioned we're trying to create high-quality pedestrian -- and the innovations of treasure island is called the shared public way and it's a road that runs down the middle of the neighborhoods. it's a curbless street, cars are allowed to drive on it but pedestrian can walk down the middle of the street and the
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cars are to yield the right-of-way for pedestrian and it's intended for streets where there's a low traffic volumes and the traffic speeds are low so while car was allowed, there's not a lot of reasons for cars to go on that street but it's to create a social street that's much more pedestrian-friendly and prioritizes pedestrians and bikes. one of the interesting things is working with all architects that have been designing buildings in the first phase to encourage them, to create architecture that welcomes people to sit on it. it's wlm like sticking its toe out and asking someone to sit on its toe so buildings integrate public seating and places for people to hang out at their base, which is really, the opposite of what you see often times in this city where there's defensive architecture that's trying to keep people off it. this is architecture that's trying to invite people to come and inhabit it at its base. >> incorporated in the landscape
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architect of treasure island are wetlands, which are designed to factor in coastal erosion control from incoming sea level rise and natural animal habitation and stormwater runoff treatment. >> there's different kinds ever wetlands planned for treasure island and they have different purposes. they are stormwater wetlands that's treating the runoff from the island and filtering that water before it's released to the bay to improve the water quality in the bay and the ocean and the first phase of the large wetland infrastructure is built on buena island to treat the storm water from buena island. we might see that when we go out there. there are tidal wetlands plan for the northern side of the island where the sea level rise adaptation and flood protect for future sea level rise is held back away from the edge of the island to allow sea level rise to come onto the island to create future tidal wetland which is helpful for the level wise flood out existing
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wetlands and there are some natural vernal pool in wetland that's captured rainwater and capturing certain habitat so there's three purposes of the wetland primarily around water filtration and habitat creation. >> consumable sustainability was incorporated in the redesigning of treasure island. innovative urban farming is included in the plans to foster economic viability, conservation of water, and to promote ecological sustainability. >> the urban farm is 20 island. and it's a commercial farm to produce food. it's not community where the volunteers and neighbors grow their own, it's commercially run to maximize the food production and that food will be distributed on the island. and interestingly, the urban farm is tied into the on island wastewater treatment plan which creates recycle use for
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water on the island so water used to grow the island will be a sustainable force and we're trying to close the loop of water, food, and create a new model for sustainability. >> part of the design for sustainable landscape was incorporate natural form water garden filtering systems, the first of three natural stormwater gardens is here on buena island. and a total of ten will be on treasure island. water from storms, street runoffs from neighborhoods has the possibility to collect toxic materials as it makes its way back into the surrounding bay. this garden has been a model for future, natural filtering systems through out the bay area. >> whenever a storm comes through, all of the water, you know, it lands on the streets, it lands on the top of the buildings, and at times it often collects a lot of heavy metals
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and greases and it needs to be cleaned and before sent back into the back. it goes into the pipes and stormwater drainage and put into our stormwater basin and then all of the plants and soil you're seeing in there, they are acting as a filter for all those oils and heavy metals and greases and all things that's coming off the roadways, coming off the development and so it's treated here in the storm water basin and then it's sent out into the bay as a clearer product and cleaner water which increases our water quality here and throughout the bay area. so the structure in the center of each basin is what we call the for bay. that's the point at which the stormwater exits out of the storm drainage system and into the stormwater basin itself. so the for bay is shaped as almost a gate to kind of push all water out through the pipes, all of those rocks
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help to disburse it before it's sent into the stormwater basin itself. the storm water basin was designed to fill up to the height of the berm of the side you're seeing here. so this is juncus and these are well-known fresh water grasses found in any place around the bay area that you find standing water or in a drainage channel, you're going to find a lot of these junket species. this is a leave a lifter in the bio treatment. it soaks up a lot of water, to soak up the contaminants and heavy metals, so it's kind of our backbone species. this one is called douglas siana and the common name is mug war. it's a beautiful plant but doing the heavy lift and pulling, those contaminants out of the storm water and pulling oil to help treat the water before its sent back into the system and back into the bay. this plant is
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known as salvia or hummingbird sage. it has a lot of habitat value in that it's a strong pollinator plant. obviously, you can see the pink and purple flowers which come up in the springtime and attracts a lot of hummingbirds, a lot of bees which help to pollinate the other species within the garden and throughout the rest of the island and all of those native designed to be able to take a heavily inundation of water over a several day per like standing water for a long time. all of the plants can withstand that and honestly, thrive in that condition. so all of these were selected based on the ecological and habitat value but also their treatment and functional value for stormwater. >> this is super tiny. >> it's very much a big part of our design and master plan for the development of the island. it was a navy base and a lot of navy housing on this island
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specifically for around 80 years and during that time, a lot of innovative species were introduced on the island, eucalyptus, a lot of different european and algerians plants were on the island. we wanted to bring in the native eye college here on the island before the navy started to redevelop it and introduce some of those invasive species so the species you're seeing in this stormwater garden in the basin and the upland area was a part of those types of ecology s that's trying to be returned to this side of the island but different other spaces through out the islands development. so whenever we started this process, we identified a number of species of native plants that seem applicable to the ecology that
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we're trying to grow. there's 45 species, so a -- there's 15 species so they are hard to find in the nursery trade so we needed to grow it ourselves to achieve the biodiversity that's in the design here. as a part that have process, we brought on a nonprofit group called ledge, l-e-g- which is literacy for environmental justice. they grew those plants and put together the plant palates you see. >> most of landscape was inundated with invasive plant species eradicating species and having the plan on buena island and treasure island. literacy for environmental justice, a community volunteer educational program involved with restoring local habitats and preserving
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san francisco's unique bio tie varsity, teamed up with the redevelopment group to grow the 50,000 native plants to -- to repopulate treasure island. >> the city of san francisco set up meetings between leg and they came in with high expertise and urban design, and architecture, and green infrastructure, but they really hadn't worked with flytive plants -- worked with native plants at scale and they were also kind of scratching their heads, like how are we going to grow 50,000 native plants from remnant native plant populations. it was a unique partnership of figuring out what plants can grow, what plants will function in stormwater gardens. not all native plants are ascetically pleasing to landscape architect, so we kind of worked around what plants are going to be pleasant for people, what plants are going to provide
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habitat, what plants are going to actually be able to sequester carbon, deal with erosion, preserve the island biodiversity as well as be able to manage all of these stormwater treatment on the island. >> there's about 33 naturally occurring native plant species that survived the last one hundred years on yorba buena island. we were able to go in and get the seed and salvage plants in some cases, some of the development work that occurred was actually going to destroy native plant habitat and we went in before the bulldozers and before the roads were build and the new water tanks were installed and dig them up, divide them, hold them, of the 50,000 plants we grew 40,000 of them in-house and the other ten, we had to rely on our partners
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to do it. with the 50,000 plants we did, we did 100 species and 95 of them are from the county of san francisco. about the other five are from the state of california. but the other 95 species really are the native plants that have been here for thousands of years. we used collection sites such as angel island, the presidio had genetics for the projects in san francisco. we used remnant plant habitats at hunters point and we used a lot of genetics from san bruno mountain. just to collect and process all of the genetics was a two-year process. and then it was about a two or three year process to grow all the species. >> this is the infamous -- it's
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a low, growing sprawling native herb and it's in the mint family and i'm rubbing my hands on this and it's extremely aromatic. it feels like a flush of peppermint just came across my face. it's edible. you can make tea out of it. it's a great digestive plant for settling your stomach. it has been cool to introduce yerba buena to yerba buena. this plant is called dutchman's pipe. when in bloom, the flower looks like a dutchman's pipe. and another thing that's unique about this plant is, it's the whole specific plant for the pipeline swallow tail butterfly. so some
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butterflies are able to adapt to other species and can use larva and food from different species. in the county of san francisco, there's only about three or four healthy populations of this plant. these particular plants were going to be destroyed because of the green infrastructure project needed to put pipes in and needed to demolish all water tanks and build new water tanks for the island, so we were able to go in, dig them up, cultivate them, extrapolate dozens of plants into hund hundreds of plants and restore it through the restoration process. one day one of my nursery managers was down here and she found the pipeline butterfly have flown over from yerba buena island and came to our nursery on treasure island
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and was breeding on this plant. and successfully did its life cycle inside of our nursery. so, it? how that butterfly knows it's out there and find it, this is one of those unique things that we can't explain why butterflies can find this species but if we grow it and put it in the right location, they will return. so the plants we're looking at here is faranosa known as just dedlia or live forever. the construction is it work happen nothing that area, it's likely to be destroyed. a unique thing about this plant and the unique succulents we have in california and the live forever plant can live to be 150 years old. recently, the state of california just did special legislation to protect this
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plant. i think in its intact population on the island, there's less than 50 of them, so to be able to grow several hundred of them and have them be a part of the plant palate of the stormwater gardens that was installed recently is an increase of biodiversity and a step forward towards protecting the natural legacy of the island. >> i moved to treasure island in 1999. i believe i was one of the first residents on the island. i have seen how the island has been destroyed and reconstruct since its beginning to restore the island to its native form is extremely important to me because that will help all the animals come back to the island and make this place even a better place to live. >> i want to be here because
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these are people i know, so that was my first thing is just, like, i wanted to come here to help out and be with (indiscernible) and to actually put my hands in dirt. i feel like we as people don't work in army -- we don't see the benefits of plants, like, but i just learned about a plant that if you rub it enough, it turns into soap. that's cool. and we need those things. we need to know about those things. >> one really unique thing about this project is the scale. to use 50,000 native plants over 7 acres is a scale we have never seen. it really is trailblazing when we think about the 350 or 400 acres of open space that is planned for treasure island, it sets the stage for what is possible. there's a way to use nature-based solutions at scale
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to meet the needs of climate change, sea level rise, the crisis of local extinction and create natural environment. the first phase of the project sets a stage for what is possible and i just feel really blessed to have been a part of it. >> one of the main focus on triangle is keeping vehicle traffic to a minimum. for residents and visitors, public transportation is highly encouraged and will be the center point of keeping the island pedestrian-friendly, retaining an open space sent and providing an eco system that reducing carbon emission >> we need the transit to be successful because if we had 8,000 homes here and everybody was trying to use their car to access the bay bridge every
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month, it will overwhelm the system. new on and off-ramp are being constructed but all over the focus of the development is to be very transit oriented. triangle itself is very flat and very bikeable and walkable as a result and so there's a focus on using both bus and ferry service to get from the island to san francisco in the east bay. there will be a number of transit demand management tools that will be employed of the two new ramps to and from the -- to the island and allowing a limited number of cars to access the bridge and there will be a management toll to encourage the use of transit. >> all the market rate housing on the island, the price for residential unit whether that's a rental apartment or a for sale condo, the price of the unit is decoupled from the price of the parking spot. so people can buy a condominium without paying for
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a parking spot. they choose to have a parking spot, they would pay an additional price. market rate residents are required to purchase take transit pass each month through their hoa fees or through their rent so the residents will begin the decision of driving or taking transit with a transit pass in hand each month. that transit pass will function as a muni fast pass allowing people to take muni and transfer within the muni network and function as an ac transit allowing people to take ac transit to the east bay and transfer within the ac transit system and it will also provide unlimited access to the treasure island ferry. >> treasure island is going to take decades to be fully build out. it's going to take some time for it to reach the
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envelope that was passed by the board of supervisors and maybe there will be changes to it as well. we don't know what is going to happen in 50 years but i'm confident by the fact that the plan that was adopted was fully, fully thinking even for its time and the building the island to a way it's sustainable, it addresses sea level rise, but also gives the public the open space and parts that are so necessary to fill treasure island. there's economic, certainly, challenges and whether we're going to be able to build out all of what was desired in the master plan, it will -- time will tell, but i think that the last ten years, we've been coming to this point.
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we are seeing incredible progress and the infrastructure is being finished by the island. market rate housing is being finished. affordable housing is being finished. and so, we feel within the next five years, substantial part of what we had envisioned is going to come to fruition.
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[music] welcome to the ethic's commission introduction to gift rules. we will discuss why the city and county of san francisco and the state of california have rules regarding give and accepting giftss an employee or officer. as city officers and employees we serve the public. everyone who lives, works or plays in san francisco trusts us with important decisions every
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day. this trust is honored boy making decision for the public good. if someone gives you i gift than i miexpect manage in return. if you accept i gift you mifeel pressureed give something. even if you don't feel pressured, members of public could perceive it different low. creates the appearance of i conflict of interest real or perceived. to foster an environment gentleman decisions are fair and in the based on person interests tr are restrictions on giving and receiving gifts employs well wellace reporting requirements. these may include refusing gifts the people you serve or those doing business with your agency. only accepting gifts below a certain value or public low disclosing the gift you received. because gift lus and limits vary
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depending on circumstances, it is always important it seek guidance before accepting i give to avoid violating the lu. rules support the trust tht people of san francisco have put us. had our decisions are fair and transparent and we are accountable we live up to ideals. for more information visit the san francisco ethic's commission's website at sfethics. org or phone, e mail or in person. thank you for watching. in cases where there is a2024.)
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>> one it is now, 1:04 p.m. i'm chair brackett our regular meeting it is tuesday, january 16, 2024, and i'd like to say happy new year to everyone here and welcome you to joining us at today is held in hybrid and thank you to our staff for preparing the report for today and i guess for being here all participating in the meeting and like to welcome our newest commissioners recently approved by mayor breed welcome. >> glad