benson and the good news, but it is daunting is that we have gotten this far and it is a project i liken to the buildings of the pyramids of great cathedrals of europe that will happen under many generations of governmental leadership and this is a opportunity for us to get our heads around it. this is a very high level document. there is going to be a lot more planning. i think we need to see this not only in terms of the 2018 bond that the voters of san francisco passed by some 80 percent relative to the reinforcement and rebuilding of our sea wall, which is really a down payment on coastal defenses, but we should see this as an opportunity for unparalleled public participation and inclusion, knowing this is going to be

highly disruptive for a very very long period of time. that we actually have choices that we can make. i think we would benefit from a highly informed public as to what those choices are, and i think we also need to look at the future relative to what we want the waterfront to be like and who we want it to be for and this is an opportunity to not just talk the talk, but walk the walk around equity and inclusion in areas that really have been off-limits to many. i think this is a really big conversation and i welcome at this early point and michael and the team will tell us where there are opportunities for public input, but one of those opportunities is right now and we actually got a long letter today that is part of your file that i thought was really helpful and instructive and

asked for more ongoing public participation and with that, it is madam chair my pleasure to hand it over to michael martin. >> thank you president peskin. welcome, mr. martin. >> thank you very much. good afternoon. assistant port director mike martin. -leadership brought through the multiyear efforts with the u.s. army corp of engineers. really appreciate being here before you chair melger--this is i think really challenging to take this all in. i think president peskin's comments were right on point. this work over several years has gone to try to detail how we can protect 7 and a half miles of waterfront from flood risks in the seismically active place like san francisco. we think about our waterfront

as being somewhat immutable but knows it formed over millenia by nature and also by 1850 by acts of man to create a new shoreline when people got here and trying to put together a concerted effort through engineering analysis to say how can we protect this and define the edge of san francisco for the next century and hopefully the next century of prosperity and this being the kind of city we are proud to live and work in. we tried to boil this presentation down to help understand what the draft plan is at this point and what it is not. because this is a mega project and delivered over decades, it has to be something where we sort of have a very gradual narrowing of the funnel of deciding what it is that we are going to build, but at the same time, i think we absolutely need these opportunities for stakeholder engagement to

inform the public this is moving forward and this is a slow motion challenge that is pulling towards trying to find a solution, but at the same time, trying to find ways to also engage with stakeholders to bring things into the project that we know san francisco is going to demand in the waterfront of the future. i think we benefited from a few things in our work with the army corp of engineers. one of the biggest things is that we benefited from the comprehensive benefit approach. they moved away from in other situations where they have taken a strict look at cost benefit in making determinations how to address potential risks. here we have been able to bring in other things we heard from our stakeholder engagement about san francisco and what it wants to see on the waterfront and we are hopeful those can be kept in the draftd plan and brought forward into design and realty as we execute the mega project down the road. i do think it has been notable that in the two months since the draft plan announced in

january, despite the size and how unwieldy it is, we have gotten a number of useful comments we know we want to move forward on and work with the army corp of engineers to address, both between thou and when they take the plan to congress and hopefully get endorse mentd and beyond that when we get into detailed design where we figure what we want to see san francisco have in terms of the connection to the bay, in terms of environmental enhancements and all the things we expect a mega project to have here. so, with that, i'll do a quick overview of the actual presentation. as mentioned we are happy to have brian harper and brad benson, the port waterfront resilience director delivering the presentation on the draft plan itself. also supported by rachel tanner the director of city wide planning, issues relating how the planning department views.

we have other members of the port waterfront resiliency team and grateful for representatives from smta, puc and office of resilience and capital planning, planning department, public works and transportation authority to answer questions from the committee should you have them about our interdepartmental collaboration and critical city infrastructures implemented by the plan. i'll hand it off to mr. harper. >> good afternoon. thank you. appreciate you letting me participate today. i'll give you a little bit of perspective from the corp of engineers before brad takes over and speaks to some of the elements of the plan that our team developed. the agenda, talk about floods, flood stud a, the risks enhancements and couple slides on process and then get into the draft plan. some of the details there as

well as next step for the study process. to speak to the flood study, what is the flood study? this is a flood study looking at coastal flood risk and primarily driven by sea level rise. long-term. one thing about this study we are taking a hundred year perspective period of analysis is the lingo the corp of engineers uses. normally we do 50 0 year and this case we wanted a hundred year look because of the importance of the sea level rise over the hundred year period. the range of sea level rise we are looking at is up to 7 feet of sea level rise end of century as much as 10 feet by 2140 so lot of indications and consequences and a reason why we are looking at the long

period of analysis. the draft plan is here to help inform stages of funding and developing design in a iterative fashion. we developed a solution with estimate of 13 and a half billion dollars and if approvaled by congress the federal government would pay up to 65 percent that. this has been a close partnership between the corp and port working very well and want to keep moving forward. what is at risk, by 2100, as i are said, sea level rise could rise as-increase as much as 7 feet. as soon as 2050, up to 500 structures and assets, transportation assets, but by 2140 we see several thousand assets at risk and up to $23 billion in impacts monetary impacts not to mention all of

the non monetized non quantitative consequences. these are the why of why we are looking at needed actions along the waterfront. while this is a flood study, because of the seismic risk in the area, whatever we do propose would also be design to withstand seismic events going forward. so, when our team received guidance from dc as we were getting underway with the study, we were told to pilot new ideas for the corp. there are elements that are different for the corp. mike touched on some that with the comprehensive benefits, but the notion ofal resiliency it is a key piece. high priority to the administration, but that is a priority that will--it will

cross administrations and the need to make sure we put in place infrastructure systems that can withstand changing global climate conditions at the local level. a key part of this plan is to plan now for what we can foresee, so while we might see 7 feet, 10 feet of sea level rise over the long time horizon, near term we are planning for foot and a half to 3 feet of sea level rise and what actions and monitor conditions both global climate and sea level conditions and conditions on the ground what is happening development wise and with transportation systems but monitor the conditions around the system so that we can continue to take action and stay ahead of risks over the long-term. there would be subsequent actions beyond our first actions. we believe our most important

decision here now in this feasibility report we are doing is to identify what those first actions should be, how big should they be, where should they be generally speaking and begin design process for those, while leaving the future flexibility to adapt to changing conditions and particularly to adapt to increasing risk over time. so, we conducted a cost benefit analysis that does include economic both at the national and regional level. the social effects including life/safety, social vulnerability; serving disadvantage populations and making sure we are equitable in the actions we are recommending. all this together has produced the proposal that appeared in the draft plan that we sent out for review. where are we in the process? the study has been going on several years and still relatively early in the process. we are still in the feasibility

study and wrapping the feasibility study up the end of 2025, so in 2026 our chief of engineers can report to congress, hear the recommendations from the corp of engineers and part hadners with the city and port and seek congressional authorization and funding in 2026. we expect to be in design from 26 to 2030. the soonest construction could initiate would be 2030, but we expect it to continue after that for several decades actually because of both of our need to manage impment lementation and adaptive to changing conditions on the ground. we are early in the process. olot of design work in front of us. we still to complete the feasibility study. throughout the process there are opportunities for engagement so seeking public input through and agency input through the completion of the

feasibility study, but also as part of the design phase we would expect to have supplemental environmental impact statements and updated documentation just to keep everyone abreast of the project as it develops and begins to come into focus. with that, i'll hand it over to brad to through the plan itself. >> thank you. >> thank you brian. so, i will give a high level overview of the draft plan and then conclude with a discussion about some of the key issues that we heard from the public and some issues we are continuing to grapple with in terms of developing the plan going forward. so, what is in the draft plan? at this stage, we are looking at where to build coastal flood defenses. at the current shoreline,

bayward or inland. how high to build the coastal flood defenses, and how much space to use. that space consideration goes to two things. one, the weak soil conditions shown on a prior slide. this will give us a opportunity to build solid foundation for coastal flood defenses and gain gradually towards the shoreline to maintain the city connection to the bay , and lastly how should the initial investment adapt to the future to the higher water levels mr. harper spoke about. there is a lot not being decided today. the draft plan doesn't include detailed design of coastal flood defenses of streets near the water's edge, open space, utility infrastructure or the timing and sequencing of

construction activities and we don't yet have a plan for the city's local match requirement that 35 percent. those things will all be developed in later stages of the effort with robust public input. this slide really summarizes what is in the draft plan. the yellow, orange band you see on the slide from heron's head park up to telegraph hill, shows where we propose to elevate the shoreline to address a foot and a half to 3 and a half feet of sea level rise, and also include ground improvements or other improvements to stabilize the shoreline. in green you see areas where the plan proposes engineering with nature features as part of the adaptation plan. in red, we got a series of

really gorgeous historic structures in the embarcadero historic district that straddle the shoreline that need to be adapted to the higher shoreline condition, and then up in the fisherman's wharf area i'll describe more of the strategy there. it isn't to elevate the shoreline, but instead flood proof buildings and piers. the final point is, when you raise the shoreline to deal with higher bay water levels, you have to think how the city manages storm water, so today our combined sewer system managing storm water in up to slightly higher average rain fall event in more extreme rain fall events, water flows across the streets and find low point on the shoreline, so we would be creating a bit of bathtub effect with the higher shoreline. the plan includes funding and plans for storage, pumping and

other treatment that storm water, so that we don't create a flooding problem. so, in the wharf area, the modeling shows a lot less in terms of coastal flood damages. the shoreline reaches higher elevations more quickly in this area of the waterfront. we have a number of break waters here that knock down waves. so, the strategy is looking at a lighter investment focused on flood proofing buildings and short flood walls around piers. we know there is earthquake risk in the wharf so we are looking to proposition a and some of the investments the port can make to buy down that earthquake risk with projects like the wharf j9 project that will replace a failing wharf in this area. subsequent actions triggered by sea level rise monitoring would address higher water levels. in the embark cadero we are

seeing consider- >> through the chair, there was discussion about adjusting the boundaries between reach 1 and reach 2. is this the right place to touch on that? >> we'll cover that a little bit later in the presentation. >> thanks. >> so, in the embarrow embarcadero we have more considerable flood risk. bart and muni underground as well as downtown, so the actions are much more robust. elevating the shoreline to address three and a half feet of sea level rise, improving the soil conditions for strong foundation, raising the ferry building, rebuilding wharfs shown in red at a higher elevation. the piers themselves would stay at existing elevation with short flood walls around the piers. let me show you another look at what that looks like. this gives you the impression

that we can gain elevation across the embarcadero, improve soils and get up to that higher wharf elevation. in south beach, mission bay, the plan proposes to elevate the shoreline to address a foot and a half of sea level rise. again, with the shoreline stabilization measures, including potential ground improvements. engineering with nature features in the creek along the mission bay shoreline and towards pier 70. in this area of the waterfront, the piers and wharfs remain at current elevation, with short flood walls around the piers. and then we got a unique feature with the bridges over the creeks. essentially as we elevate the banks of the creeks we have to think about water potentially impacting the neighborhood by coming over the bridges, so

the plan includes deployable gate closure structures on either sidef the privileges to protect the neighborhoods. this would result in some transit disruption, potentially once a year in the early implementation of the plan, but that could be quite disruptive when you think about muni light-rail. in the creek area, this includes the maritime facilities, light industrial uses including muni bus facilities in this area. the plan here is similar to the approach in mission bay, elevating the shoreline to address a foot and a half of sea level rise. shoreline stabilization measures, engineering with nature in the creeks, and adjacent to the pier 94 wetlands.

new wharfs at piers 90 and 92 and gate closure structures over the illinois street bridge. this slide gives you a sense where you have a more gradually sloping shoreline, you have a opportunity for more engineering with nature and potentially also new public access to the bay. now i like to talk about some of the issues we heard about from the public as we have been talking over the last couple months and issues that we think are not yelt resolved in the flood study from a local sponsor perspective. these are the categories that i'll speak about. concern about urban design. comments about yosemite. very significant challenge related to inland drainage and combined sewer system. engineering with nature. the bridges over the creeks.

environmental contamination and historic district. one thing to note about how the army corp will justify or evaluate potential changes to the plan is that, in order to be cost shared, these changes need to be justified by reduced costs, increased benefits or reduced environmental impacts, so if they dont meet that test, then the city might be able to pursue these changes through something called betterment, which is the responsibility of the city to pay. so, now i'll hand it off to my colleague rachel tanner, from the planning department. >> thank you. good afternoon. >> think the first time you are presenting in this committee. >> it is. >> welcome. >> thank you very much madam chair, president peskin and supervisor preston and mandelman. thank you for let ting me be with you today and a mega project which is exciting and

also can be a little overwhelming. it is quite large in scale. also i want to thank partners at the port and army corp for all the technical expertise that span many many years as you can see from today's presentation. the goal is defend the shores from rising seas and also thinking about the urban design. who is waterfront for, how do people enjoy it, what does it look like . we had this note here on urban design to recommend flexibility from moving bayward and constraind areas of the embarcadero to accommodate waterfront access and public space and avoid impact to key infrastructure. i want to walk through the design here that is on the right. you can see the area mapping out the existing roadway of the embarcadero in gray and opportunity area highlighted in purple and then you can see the buildings there which is

showing building moving out to the bay and up raised as well. here is a area in this rendering on this section of where we could think about what does it look and feel like to be at the waterfront in the future, versus how it looks and feels today. some of this is work we have to doas a city to imagine the future of the waterfront and a lot is connected to the work the army corp is doing as they go into next part of the design phase to understand a more specific level what it will be in place and where it will be and that gives understanding how it might effect city infrastructure. you see the seismic ground zone, there is transportation infrastructure you can see the train, so if there are areas constrained do we need more space to preserve existing or future public infrastructure and space for folks to enjoy the waterfront. the next yosemit slough.

this is a area vulnerable to sea level rise we are talking but not included in the hunter point shipyard planning or point and candle stick park plans. the planning department has a grant from the california office of planning and research to respond to concerns in the area about what will happen as sea level rise happens and what will occur here. this work is just starting this year so quite a bit behind the work going on right now, but we do hope to continue it to raise more funds and refine the plans and if it is appropriate and if it is approved, at the point where we are ready to know what infrastructure might be appropriate here, it could join or be a campanion to the project but this is a gap now we are hoping to address in the long-term, even if not exactly lined up with the timing of the rest of the plan.

with that, i believe i'll hand it back to brad. >> thank you rachel. so, i mentioned the need think about inland drainage in the context of this plan. really want to commend our colleagues at the san francisco public utilities commission and department of public works. they have been engaged in some pretty advanced modeling of the different alternatives in this study looking at those storm water issues, how this combined sewer system reacts to sea level rise. they will continue doing more analysis of the draft plan. we got some concerns about the amount of funding that is currently budgeted in the plan for that future inland drainage system, so there is more work ahead with the army corp to look at sizing that. we also heard some concerns from the local community about ground water rise,b which could

occur with sea level rise influencing the ground water table in the near shore area and how that might mobilize contamination. i'll take about that more on the next slide. we do think that there is a new provision in the army corp guidance enacted by congress in 2022 and there may be a opportunity to get the assistant secretary of the army to approve a more comprehensive look at combined flood risk that is not a given, but that is a set of conversations we want to have with both the army corp and assistant secretary of the army. we think that that is work that would continue into the design phase after congressional authorization. we heard broadly a desire for more engineering with nature, more nature based features on the human made shoreline. i want to commend the team to date. they worked really hard to

identify features that can work on a very steep shoreline like we have in san francisco. the team has direction to add engineering with nature futures everywhere it won't conflict with current maritime operations. this work is going to continue in the study period and in the design phase of the project. i mentioned earlier, the date closure structures over the bridges. our colleagues at sfmta are quite concerned about how those structures would impact access to muni metro east for approximately 60 percent of the light-rail vehicle that we have in the city, and also access to the bayview community. so, there is a request to look at instead of the gate closure structures, is there a opportunity to elevate those bridges or replace those bridges.

we think that is analysis that should happen in the design phase of the project and look to our army corp colleagues to help us evaluate the cost benefits and impacts that move as well as opportunities for other federal funding. a lot of kench in the bayview about environmental contamination and how sea level rise can mobilize contamination. we have done instenseive work investigating contamination along the uplands of the port. the public utility commission are getting ready to look at contamination in both creeks so there is a lot of work ahead characterizing the problem and figuring out a complicated issue of mobilization of contamination. we need help from the regulatory agencies on this, epa, department of public health, the regional water

quality control board and department of toxic substances control. and then, board president peskin, you mentioned the issue about extending the treatment in reach to north into reach 1. this is a area where we have the most intact segment of the embarcadero historic district, and we are a bit concerned about elevating wharfs for half that segment and think that treatment should continue on up to pier 35, where coastal flood defenses could also defend the north point wet weather plant and infrastructure that connects that plant to the bay. again, we look to army corp colleagues to exam the cost benefit and impact that approach. and i'll conclude with our public engagement, and board president peskin was right.

we are in a current public comment period that extends through march 29. the slide shows where people can write comment on the plan. there is a obigation to respond to all of the comments that we received. i want to also commend the port, city and consultant team on the outreach to date over the past couple of months. you see all the efforts on the left side of this slide. we had extraordinary public engage ment, hundreds of folks showing up at community workshops, including in language opportunities and we are looking forward to as much public feedback on the plan as possible so we develop a plan that supports all of san francisco. so, with that, i'll conclude my remarks and looking forward to a policy conversation with the committee. thank you. >> mr. benson, through the chair, i believe that last deck

of slides is not included in the file and so if you can include that, that would help spread the word. >> absolutely. >> okay. i'll go if no one else has anything on the roster because i have a lot of policy questions and concerns. we got a letter earlier yesterday from the mta from their planning folks who were concerned about our overall underestimate of costs, when you look at the transportation system and the fact most is underground downtown in this area. when we spoke earlier with the staff at the port, i had brought up the issue of coordination, just because it is human thing. when everybody is in charge nobody is in charge and climate

adaptation will effect every aspect of our lives, transportation, infrastructure, building, rec park, schools. pretty much everything. i'm wondering who is coordinating all this? who is making sure that every agency is at the table and is bringing forward--i think this is a stellar plan and it addresses part of what we are doing, and i as a representative from the west side know that the ocean is also rising and we have all sorts of other issues there. we have rec and park land up and down the entire western border and then we have the wastewater facility that is also doing climate adaptation, a big climate adaptation project there, so i'm just

wondering, where does this all go and if we are going to get federal help, which we need like every city in the county will need, how do we make sure that everything is included that every agency is keeping up with the planning and proactively putting it on the table? okay-- >>ile it begins having a idea on the table. any level of government not sure how well we do communicating across agencies. more importantly then communicating but aligning our program efforts. are we budgeting for the right things to happen at the right time. having the plan on the table helps with that. i can't say that we have the solution to facilitating that cross agency engagement, but

that is specifically a item our leadership challenged us to pilot or test for with this project. as we look at other--with the infrastructure and jobs act, one thing that piece of legislation did is every federal agency with a hand in some type of infrastructure development or management or funding added language around climate resiliency but didn't spell out how the agencies do it, so we don't know, i don't know what other agencies will do to support local partners for other infrastructure systems. all we can do is say hey, we think this is a great plan going forward, what do we need to do to work together to make sure that things are happening on the ground are integrated so there are not conflicts in space on the ground, but maybe more importantly, how we align the resources, because we

all--all need to-there is no one source of funding that will cover all this so we need to have many sources as we can. >> let me just state unequivocally i'm grateful for your technical assistance, expertise, help, support, everything, very grateful. it was more a question for us here in terms of-i imagine any effort that you help us with is going to be competitive, because miami is dealing with climate crisis, new orleans. for us to be competitive it seems we need to do it all together and coordinate it. not looking to the port to do it, just because you are super stars doesn't mean weed sh give you the whole job. you are a important part of it, but it seems this is a policy conversation we should be

having in terms of the structure of the efforts going forward. >> let me respond to the two parts of your question. one was about costs and the other was about governance and a city wide approach. so, on the cost question, the estimates we have in hand now are very high level and there are questions about them within the corp. we need to do more work advancing design to ultimately get more certainty about costs. right now the cost estimates have very large contingencies in them to deal with the uncertainties that sfmta is concerned about, and we got a lot of work ahead of us to get more certainty about the overall cost of this effort. on the governance question, the port has been very grateful to have the climate sf structure

established by mayor breed, so this is under the office of the city administrator, the office of resilience and capital planning, planning department, public works, sfpuc are all at the table and so we meet at a staff level, at a climate deputy level, at a climate director level in order to talk through all the issues and we have been trying to take stock of what happened with other large infrastructure projects in the city's recently history, thinking early planning coordination to make sure that we got all the departments interest represented at the table. both the office of resilience and capital planning and the planning department have taken a leadership role in terms of some of the city wide look at things, so the office of resilience and capital planning manage the hazard and climate resilience plan. the planning department conducted the sea level rise

vulnerability assessment and the-i'm getting the name that wrong, but-and sea level rise action plan that took a look at how to examine coastal flood risk around the entire peninsula. the other thing to be mindful of, the state of california required cities and counties to develop for review by bcdc, sort of countywide plans. those are due to bcdc by 2034. bcdc is now in the process of developing guidance for development of those plans. that will be out in 2025 and so the city will have to drive towards a unified plan for the whole peninsula. >> that is great. with that, we also-our conversation touched on that. does that require that we coordinate with others? the question that i had asked port staff is, if we have you

know, if we raise the sea wall and save this valley or bayview, does that effect the brisbane bay land and as part that development does it effect us and is there a coordinating effort to make sure that we are all working together, because you push water, you push water. it always will go to lowest point. >> this is a question about induced flooding. like what we do along the port waterfront does that make flooding worse for others and i will hand it off to mr. harper to talk about the analsis we are required to do. >> we are required to assess that. when we put a barrier and we want to know where and how does that attenuate as it moved in other places. that assessment is our first task. then working to avoid it or mitigate it by preventing-where

we see the water going is there something we can do to prevent it causing harm and are there areas we can accept water and what is there is not a bad thing. can we accommodate or tolerate the water? those are things we will be looking to do. where we find we are going to have harmful effects then we do mitigate for that and determine what is the mitigation action for that. what would we invest in in some cases it would be non-structural where we flood proof things that might see more water or putting up additional barriers, stuff like that. we work our way incrementally through the problem to better understand it as we develop the design, but it is a requirement that we have as well and our attorney is making sure we are not doing anything that rise to a level of a taking especially and not causing harm to others. >> thank you. that is a lot.

okay. are there any other comments or questions colleagues? let's then go to public comment on this item. >> thank you madam chair. if anyone here in the chamber has public comment on item 4 related to the hearing on the sf waterfront draft plan, please come forward at this time. >> good afternoon committee. my name is [indiscernible] san francisco parks forward. san francisco advocate for parks and public spaces. our northern waterfront received a lot of attention as part of this plan. our southern waterfront deserves the same level of investment and ambition. as the waterfront resilience program shows, the creek scr surrounding areas in reach 3 are at risk for sea level rise and flooding in the future. we encourage the land use transportation committee to support the implementation of this plan and maximize the incorporation of nature based

solutions and green infrastructure when possible. land uses in this area have been dominated by pdr use and marine industry for over a century. we are not advocating for the removal of these critical industries as they are foundational to the city working class job centers. however, for far too long, this area has been engineering against nature. it is time we make a charge and start engineering with nature. for the city long-term health and prosperity. considering historic undpr investment in the neighborhood along the southern waterfront we advocate for the restoration of the channel and wholesale reinvestment of the wetlands to connect and protect surrounding communities. thank you. >> thank you for sharing your comments. do we have anyone else with public comment on item 4? madam chair. >> okay. thank you. public comment on this item is

now closed. president peskin did you want to make a motion? >> i will make a motion to file the item and if we need to have further discussions i'll introduce a new item in the future and thank you mr. harper for coming across the country and for $9 billion in the years ahead. [laughter] to be continued. by which i mean, i make a motion to file the item. >> on the motion to file offered by member peskin, pres preston aye. peskin, aye. melgar, aye. madam chair, there are three ayes. >> thank you, the motion passes. item number 5, please. >> item 5, ordinance amending the building code to extend the deadlines for existing buildings with

a place of public accommodation to comply with the requirement to have all primary entries and paths of travel into the building accessible to persons with disabilities or to receive a city determination of equivalent facilitation, technical infeasibility, or unreasonable hardship; to extend the period for granting extensions from those deadlines; and to extend the time for the department of building inspection's report to the board of supervisors regarding the disability access improvement program. >> thank you mr. clerk. we are now joined by supervisor representing district 8, rafael mandelman, the sponsor of the legislation. >> thank you madam chair. colleagues i think this will be simple and fast. the ordinance before you would extend not for the first time and suspect not the last, the deadline for small businesses to comply with the city accessible business entrance program. by way of backgrounds, the board passed the ordinance in 2016. the ordinance requires property owner tuesday have entrance to the building inspected by a licensed architect, engineer or certified access specialist who fills out a check list to

determine if the entrance meets ada requirements. if it is not in compliance required to make modification which typically rifers permits. they are subject to building enforcement penaltiess and provides exemptions if physical changes are found to be technically infeasible or cause unreasonable financial hardship for the businesses. the legislation was well intentioned and lead to some good and i know there are many businesses that have been able to bring their entrances into compliance with ada and in so doing reduce the likelihood of a potentially disastious ada lawsuit, but for many many businesses and property owners, the legislation has been very

challenging. the ordinance places onus of making the accessibility improvements on property owners, and i i suspect you as well heard from many tenants who had costs passed to them. we also know that of course many small business owners are struggling to make ends meet as we recover from the pandemic. the horror stories around trying to comply with the ab program are legion. i heard of examples of owners having to shell thousands of dollars to hire a inspector to tolds they are in compliance or infeasible to make modifications. there are stories businesses having to pay 10 to $30 thousand to tear up and regrade sidewalks to sfaul automatic door openers and there is supposed to be a pathway for business owners to request exemption due to physical hardship to make the request they have to get the case heard before the access appeals commission and as i understand

the access appeals commission has only met three times in the past two years making it very difficult for those who trying to make these appeals to attend a hearing. there are many thousands of businesses that are still not in compliance with the accessible business entrance ordinance and i suspect that this is going to continue to be the case for some time. i introduced this legislation back in september with sort of a immediate goal of just pushing off the deadline a little bit and the legislation before you would do that. it would push it until june of this year, but i also used the intervening time to have a lot of conversations with our director of the office of small business, katy tang and patrick reardon and dbi and public

works and nicole bon mayor office of disability and i think that it would make sense and if anyone here has thoughts on this, i think it might make some sense and i'm going to try to explore with stakeholders the possibility of getting our department building inspection out of the business enforcing these requirements. i think we want of course for our businesses to be in compliance with ada, they need to be to be protected from potentially business killing lawsuits. i think we want to do everything we possibly can to have dbi and the education business and providing information to small businesses and property owners about their obigation under ada. i had conversations with directors things we can do potentially getting rid of some of the fees associated with the most basic work that is sort of

standard and has to be done all most always for-to make entrances accessible, but i am planning and hoping to come back to the board ideally some time before june with legislation that looks at trying to get dbi out of this business. we have lots of things for dbi to do. they got housing to get approved and other projects and i think that having them of course we want them to continue doing the education, but having being enforcement arm for federal law which we do not have to have them in that role i think not particularly helpful. so, that's a foreshadowing. for today what i hope the committee will do is pass the-forward the ordinance in front of you to full board with positive recommendation if so inclined. i'm also hoping and city

attorney can figure which order these things need to get done, but i think we ought to also probably send back to building inspection commission another version of this that extends the deadline at least to the end of this year, so probably involves or i suggest the committee if open to it, that you duplicate the file and make the amendment to the duplicated file to change the date which is june 30, 2024 and duplicated file to december 31, 2024 in the duplicated file and that you all send that off to building inspection commission for them to consider so it can come back here and do the further extension as soon it gets back and i'll be working diligently on another piece of legislation that i just described. >> what are we doing with the original file? >> forward to full board with positive rem recommendation.

>> let's make it so, duplicate the file. let's go to vice chair preston. >> thank you chair melgar. thank you supervisor mandelman. i had a couple questions. one i'm curious since you mentioned it and maybe the answer is wait and see for your legislation, but if you were to get dbi out of the business enforcing these laws, would it be transferring that to another department? is there a vision for how they would be enforced or are we just leaving it to the private and lawsuits? >> in some way they self-enforce through the private bar, which is certainly instilling the fear of god or should be in lots of small businesses. there was no need or obigation in 2016 for san francisco to take on this kind of function and you know, if we had limitless resources and could

provide the support to small businesses that need that support, maybe it would make sense, but i think this is a requirement that we keep having to push off, that will take up-is taking up time, will take up dbi time and puts our local city government in the business of going to the small businesses and telling them or that they cannot continue or cannot-that it makes us the enforcers and i'm not sure i want our department of building inspection to be if in that role. happy to talk more. you will i'm sure we have lot of work to do with the disability community in particular i think on this, but not sure we are getting the bang for our buck in terms of those dbi enforcement resources, so happy to have the conversation or continue it, but if we look at try ing to have dbi doing fewer things and do them better, this would be

with a thing i think they can stop doing and again, we want education. we want everybody trying to pull a permit to know, you have this obigation. you need to do this and i think we again want to be changing all the rules. right now we require a annual payment of a fee for the people who come to do this work, but lots of people are just not even contemplating doing any of the work because they know they can't afford it. the prospect of going through the city appeal process is murky. we are not running a great appeal process to grant hardship wavers t. is sort of a mess and think we are not doing it well and rather continue doing this poorly, i rather have us not do it. but, that's subject to the body can talk about it. >> thank you and yeah, i would be interested to hear and discuss further and hear from advocates for the disabled

community around their perspective on it as well, but that part is not before us today. i am curious, you mentioned-i just curious if mayor office of disability and disability advocates like sda have weighed in? i didn't see anything in the file from anyone so curious if they have been part of the discussion? >> mayor office of disability has been part of the conversations and this is not their proposal, this is my proposal. the extension i think we talked to everyone about. i don't think anyone has a particular problem with the extension. i think the further piece- >> thank you. through the chair, i should have clarified. i was asking what is before us, not the further proposals. thank you. >> okay. with that, let's go to public comment. >> thank you madam chair. does anyone have public comment on item 5? if so come forward at this time.

madam chair. >> okay. public comment on thisitesm item is now closed. so, i would-we duplicated the file. i would like to make a motion that we amend the duplicated file to change the date to december 31, 2024. >> for clarity, this is the date in the table for the compliance check-list? >> correct. >> all the places where there is [indiscernible] >> on the motion offered by chair melgar to make that amendment to the duplicate file, preston, aye. peskin, aye. melgar, aye. madam chair, there are three ayes. >> we send that forward to dbi and then on the original file, i make a motion that we send it to the full board with positive recommendation. >> before we record a vote on that, i want to make sure for

total clarity, that was just the motion to amend the duplicate file, so if want to continue that one to call of chair we do that with a separate motion. >> sorry, let's deal with the duplicated file first. let's continue that to the call of the chair. >> on the motion to continue the duplicated file as a-minded to the call of the chair, preston, aye. peskin, aye. melgar, aye. madam chair, three ayes once again. >> thank you. the original file, we sent to full board with positive recommendation. >> on the motion by the chair to recommend the original file to the board of supervisors, preston, aye. peskin, aye. melgar, aye. madam chair, three ayes once again. >> great. motion passes. congratulations supervisor mandelman. do we have anything else on our calendar mr. clerk? >> there is no further business.

>> we are adjourned. thank you. [meeting adjourned] >> >> >> >> >> my name is bal. born and

raised in san francisco. cable car equipment, technically i'm a transit operator of 135 and work at the cable car (indiscernible) and been here for 22 years now. i grew up around here when i was a little can i. my mom used to hang in china town with her friends and i would get bored and they would shove me out of the door, go play and find something to do. i ended up wandering down here when i was a kid and found these things.

♪ [ music ] ♪ ♪ >> fascinated by them and i wanted to be a cable car equipment from the time i was a little kid. i started with the emergency at the end of 1988 and drove a bus for a year and a half and i got lucky with my timing and got here at cable car and at that time, it really took about an average five to maybe seven years on a bus before you could build up your seniority to come over here. basically, this is the 1890s verse ever a bus. this is your basic public transportation and at the time at its height, 1893, there were 20 different routes ask this powerhouse, there -- and this powerhouse, there were 15 of them through out the entire city. >> i work at the cable car division and bunch with muni for 25 years and working with cable

cars for 23 years. this is called the bar because these things are horses and work hard so they have to have a place to sleep at night. joking. this is called a barn because everything takes place here and the powerhouse is -- that's downstairs so that's the heart and soul of the system and this is where the cable cars sleep or sleep at night so you can put a title there saying the barn. since 1873 and back in the day it was driven by a team and now it's electric but it has a good function as being called the barn. yeah. >> i am the superintendent of cable car vehicle maintenance. and we are on the first and a half floor of the cable car barn where you can see the cables are moving at nine and a half miles

an hour and that's causing the little extra noise we're hearing now. we have 28 power cars and 12 california cars for a total of 40 revenue cars. then with have two in storage. there's four gear boxes. it's gears of the motor. they weigh close to 20 tons and they had to do a special system to get them out of here because when they put them in here, the barn was opened up. we did the whole barn that year so it's difficult for a first of time project, we changed it one at a time and now they are all brand-new. engineer's room have the four monitors that play the speed and she monitors them and in case of an emergency, she can shutdown all four cars if she needs to. that sound you heard there, that's a gentleman building, rebuilding a cable. the cable weighs four hundred pounds each and they lost three days before we have to rebuild them. the

cable car grips, the bottom point is underground with the cable. it's a giant buy strip and closes around the kab and they pull it back. the cable car weighs 2,500 people without people so it's heavy, emergency pulling it offer the hill. if it comes offer the hill, it could be one wire but if it unravels, it turns into a ball and they cannot let go of it because it opens that wide and it's a billion pushing the grip which is pushing the whole cable car and there's no way to let go so they have to have the code 900 to shutdown in emergencies and the wood brakes last two days and wear out. a lot of maintenance.

♪ [ music ] ♪ ♪ >> rail was considered to be the old thing. rubber tires, cars, buses, that's new. there were definitely faster and cheaper, there's no question about that. here at san francisco, we went through the same thing. the mayor decided we don't need cable cars (indiscernible), blah, blah. we can replace them with buses. they are faster and cheaper and more economical and he was right if you look at the dollars and cents part. he was right. >> back in 1947 when they voted that, i'm surprised base of the

technology and the chronicle paper says cable cars out. that was the headline. that was the demise of the cable cars. >> (indiscernible) came along and said, stop. no. no, no, no. she was the first one to say we're going to fight city hall. she got her friends together and they started from a group called the save the cable car community, 1947 and managed to get it on the ballot. are we going to keep the cable cars or not? head turned nationwide and worldwide and city hall was completely unprepared for the amount of backlash they got. this is just a bunch -- the city came out and said basically, 3-1, if i'm not mistaken, we want our cars and phil and her group managed to save what we have. and literately if it wasn't for them, there would be no cable cars. people saw something back then that we see today that you can't get rid of a beautiful and it wasn't a historical monument at the time

and now it is, and it was part of san francisco. yeah, we had freight back then. we don't have that anymore. this is the number one tourist attraction in san francisco. it's historic and the only national moving monument in the world. >> the city of san francisco did keep the cable car so it's a fascinating feel of having something that is so historic going up and down these hills of san francisco. and obviously, everyone knows san francisco is famous for their hills. [laughter] and who would know and who would guess that they were trying to get rid of it, which i guess was a crazy idea at the time because they felt automobiles were taking the place of the cable cars and getting rid of the cable car was the best thing for the city and county of san francisco, but thank god it didn't. >> how soon has the city changed? the diverse of cable cars -- when i first came to

cable car, sandy barn was the first cable car. we have three or four being a grip person. fwriping cable cars is the most toughest and challenging job in the entire city. >> i want to thank our women who operate our cable cars because they are a crucial space of the city to the world. we have wonderful women -- come on forward, yes. [cheers and applause] these ladies, these ladies, this is what it's about. continuing to empower women. >> my name is willa johnson is and i've been at cable car for 13 years. i came to san francisco when i was five years old. and that is the first time i rode a cable car and i went to see a christmas tree and we rode the cable car with the christmas

worker and that was the first time i rode the cable car and didn't ride again until i worked here. i was in the medical field for a while and i wanted a change. some people don't do that but i started with the mta of september of 1999 and came over to cable car in 2008. it was a general sign up and that's when you can go to different divisions and i signed up as a conductor and came over here and been here since. there were a few ladies that were over at woods that wanted to come over here and we had decided we wanted to leave woods and come to a different division and cable car was it. i do know there has been only four women that work the cable car in the 150 years and i am the second

person to represent the cable car and i also know that during the 19, i think 60s and women were not even allowed to ride on the side of a cable car so it's exciting to know you can go from not riding on the side board of a cable car to actually grip and driving the cable car and it opened the door for a lot of people to have the opportunity to do what they inspire to do. >> i have some people say i wouldn't make it as a conductor at woods and i came and made it as i conductor and the best thing i did was to come to this division. it's a good division. and i like ripping cable cars. i do. >> i think she just tapped into

the general feeling that san francisco tend to have of, this is ours, it's special, it's unique. economically and you know, a rationale sense, does it make sense? not really. but from here, if you think from here, no, we don't need this but if you think from here, yeah. and it turns out she was right. so.... and i'm grateful to her. very grateful. [laughter] >> three, two, one. [multiple voices] [cheers and applause] >> did i -- i did that on purpose so i wouldn't. ♪ [ music ] ♪

>> you are watching san francisco rising. a special guest today. >> i am chris and you are watching san francisco rising. focused on rebuilding and reimagining our city. our guest is the director of financial justice in the san francisco office of treasure to talk about how the city has taken a national lead in this effort and how the program is comlishing the goals. welcome to the show. >> thanks so much for having me. >> thank you for being here. can we start by talking about the financial justice project in a broad sense. when did the initiative start and what is the intent?

>> sure. it launched in 2016. since then we take a hard look at fines, fees, tickets, financial penalties hitting people with low incomes and especially people of color really hard. it is our job to assess and reform these fines and fees. >> do you have any comments for people financially stressed? >> yes. the financial justice project was started in response pop community outcry about the heavy toll of fines and fees. when people struggling face an unexpected penalty beyond ability to pay they face a bigger punishment than originally intended. a spiral of consequences set in. a small problem grows bigger. for example the traffic ticket

this is california are hundreds of dollars, most expensive in the nation. a few years back we heard tens of thousands in san francisco had driver's licenses suspended not for dangerous driving but because they couldn't afford to pay traffic tickets or miss traffic court date. if they lose the license they have a hard time keeping their job and lose it. that is confirmed by research. we make it much harder for people to pay or meet financial obligations. it is way too extreme of penalty for the crime of not being able to pay. we were also hearing about thousands of people who were getting cars towed. they couldn't pay $500 to get them back and were losing their cars. at the time we hand people a bill when they got out of jail to pay thousands in fees we charged up to $35 per day to rent electronic ankle monitor,

$1,800 upfront to pay for three years of monthly $50 probation fees. people getting out of jail can't pay these. they need to get back on their feet. we weren't collecting much on them. it wasn't clear what we were accomplishing other than a world of pain on people. we were charging mothers and grandmothers hundreds of dollars in phone call fee to accept calls from the san francisco jail. we heard from black and brown women struggling to make terrible choices do. i pay rent or accept this call from my incarcerated son. the list goes on and on. so much of this looked like lose-lose for government and people. these penalties were high pain, hitting people hard, low gain. not bringing in much revenue. there had to be a better way.

>> it is important not to punish people financially there. are issues to address. >> sure. there are three core principles that drive our work. first, we believe we should be able to hold people accountable without putting them in financial distress. second you should not pay a bigger penalty because your wallet is thinner. $300 hits doctors and daycare workers differently. they can get in a tailspin, they lose the license. we dig them in a hole they can't get out of. these need to be proportioned to people's incomes. third. we should not balance the budget on the backs of the poorest people in the city. >> financial justice project was

launched in 2016. can you talk about the accomplishments? >> sure sometimes it is to base a fine on the ability to pay. consequences proportional to the offense and the person. other times if the fee's job is to recoupe costs primarily on low-income people. we recommend elimination. other times we recommend a different accountability that does not require a money payment. here are a few examples. we have implemented many sliding scale discounts for low-income people who get towed or have parking tickets they cannot afford. you pay a penalty according to income. people with low incomes pay less. we also became the first city in the nation to stop suspending people's licenses when they could not pay traffic tickets. we focused on ways to make it

easier for people to pay through payment plans, sliding discounts and eliminating add on fees to jack up prices of tickets. this reform is the law of the land in california. it has spread to 23 other states. we also stopped handing people a bill when they get out of jail and eliminated fees charged to people in criminal justice system. they have been punished in a lot of ways. gone to jail, under supervision, the collection rate on the fees was so low we weren't bringing in much revenue. the probation fee collection rate was 9%. this reform has become law from california and is spreading to other states. we made all calls from jail free. the more incarcerated people are in touch with families the better they do when they get

out. it was penny wise and pound foolish. now phone calls are free. incarcerated people spend 80% more time in touch where families. that means they will do better when they get out. we eliminated fines for overdue library books. research shows were locking low income and people of color out of libraries. there are better ways to get people to return books, e-mail reminders or automatically renew if there is no one in line for it. this has spread to other cities that eliminated overdue library fines. these hold people accountable but not in financial distress can work better for government. local government can spend more to collect the fees than they bring in. when you proportion the fine with income they pay more

readily. this impact can go down and revenues can go up. >> i know there is an initial group that joined the project. they had a boot camp to introduce the program to large audience. is this gaining traction across the country? >> yes 10 cities were selected to launch the fines for fee justice. they adopted various reforms like we did in san francisco. as you mentioned we just hosted a boot camp in phoenix, arizona. teams of judges and mayors came from 50 cities to learn how to implement reforms like we have in san francisco. there is a growing realization the penalties are blunt instruments with all kinds of unintended consequences. it is the job of every public servant to find a better way.

governance should equalize opportunity not drive inequality. >> quite right. thank you so much. i really appreciate you coming on the show. thank you for your time today. >> thank you, chris. >> that is it for this episode. we will be back shortly. you are watching san francisco rising. thanks for watching. >> in the bay area as a whole, thinking about environmental

sustainability. we have been a leader in the country across industries in terms of what you can do and we have a learn approach. that is what allows us to be successful. >> what's wonderful is you have so many people who come here and they are what i call policy innovators and whether it's banning plastic bags, recycling, composting, all the different things that we can do to improve the environment. we really champion. we are at recycle central, a large recycle fail on san francisco pier 96. every day the neighborhood trucks that pick up recycling from the blue bins bring 50 # o tons of bottles, cans and paper here to this facility and unload

it. and inside recology, san francisco's recycling company, they sort that into aluminum cans, glass cans, and different type of plastic. san francisco is making efforts to send less materials to the landfill and give more materials for recycling. other cities are observing this and are envious of san francisco's robust recycling program. it is good for the environment. but there is a lot of low quality plastics and junk plastics and candy wrappers and is difficult to recycle that. it is low quality material. in most cities that goes to landfill. >> looking at the plastics industry, the oil industry is the main producer of blastics. and as we have been trying to phase out fossil fuels and the

transfer stream, this is the fossil fuels and that plastic isn't recycled and goes into the waste stream and the landfill and unfortunately in the ocean. with the stairry step there will be more plastic in the ocean than fish. >> we can recycle again and again and again. but plastic, maybe you can recycle it once, maybe. and that, even that process it downgrades into a lower quality material. >> it is cheaper for the oil industry to create new plastics and so they have been producing more and more plastics so with our ab793, we have a bill that really has a goal of getting our beverage bottles to be made of more recycled content so by the time 2030 rolls around t recycle content in a coke bottle, pepsi bottle, water bottle, will be up to 50% which is higher thatten the percentage in the european

union and the highest percentage in the world. and that way you can actually feel confident that what you're drinking will actually become recycled. now, our recommendation is don't use to plastic bottle to begin w but if you do, they are committing to 50% recycled content. >> the test thing we can do is vote with our consumer dollars when we're shopping. if you can die something with no packaging and find loose fruits and vegetables, that is the best. find in packaging and glass, metal and pap rer all easily recycled. we don't want plastic. we want less plastic. awe what you we do locally is we have the program to think disposable and work one on one to provide technical assistance to swap out the disposable food service to reusables and we have funding available to support businesses to do that so that is

a way to get them off there. and i believe now is the time we will see a lot of the solutions come on the market and come on the scene. >> and is really logistics company and what we offer to restaurants is reasonable containers that they can order just like they would so we came from about a pain point that a lot of customers feel which wills a lot of waste with takeout and deliver, even transitioning from styrofoam to plastic, it is still wasteful. and to dream about reusing this one to be re-implemented and cost delivery and food takeout. we didn't have throwaway culture always. most people used to get delivered to people's homes and then the empty milk containers

were put back out when fresh milk came. customers are so excited that we have this available in our restaurant and came back and asked and were so excited about it and rolled it out as customers gain awareness understanding what it is and how it works and how they can integrate it into their life. >> and they have always done it and usually that is a way of being sustainable and long-term change to what makes good financial sense especially as there are shipping issues and material issues and we see that will potentially be a way that we can save money as well. and so i think making that case to other restaurateurs will

really help people adopt this. >> one restaurant we converted 2,000 packages and the impact and impact they have in the community with one switch. and we have been really encouraged to see more and more restaurants cooperate this. we are big fans of what re-ecology does in terms of adopting new systems and understanding why the current system is broken. when people come to the facility, they are shocked by how much waste they see and the volume of the operations and how much technology we have dedicated to sort correctly and

we led 25 tours and for students to reach about 1100 students. and they wanted to make change and this is sorting in the waste stream they do every single day and they can take ownership of and make a difference with. >> an i feel very, very fortunate that i get to represent san francisco in the legislature and allows me to push the envelope and it is because of the people the city attracts and is because of the eco system of policy thinking that goes on in san francisco that we are constantly seeing san francisco leading the way. >> kids know there's a lot of environmental issues that they are facing. and that they will be impacted by the impact of climate change.

they will have the opportunity to be in charge and make change and make the decisions in the future. >> we are re-inventing the way the planet does garbage founded in the environmental ethic and hunger to send less to landfills. this is so many wonderful things happening in san francisco. i feel very fortunate and very humble to live here and to be part of this wonderful place. te

>> a lot of housing advocates to speak out again poison pills that president peskin my name is jay the san francisco oregon director for mba action and from the action coalition owe a lot of housing advocates as well as some of our elected leaders joining us to push back against this i want to briefly just mention this is not unfortunately, the first thing