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tv   [untitled]    October 7, 2010 8:00pm-8:30pm PST

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that there are -- you all know that there are many possible design solutions to any problem. what we want to do as a community anded a a -- and as a city is to satisfy all the requirements and needs of the community and the city. and that is possible. the environmental impact report needs to study several things. one, that we do have an acknowledged resource and it can be renovated and expanded. there are alternative designs that haven't been explored. some of them you have seen a glimpse of tonight. but also the entire lower level expansion of the existing library is very, very possible because mr. appleton, the architect who designed it, once told a 80-year-old architect who grew up in our neighborhood, who works in our neighborhood, that this library has a secret and that secret is the library's expandble.
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also the library can be extended. not southward, necessarily, but northward, with a smaller addition. i will be submitting a plan also to the process, showing that there's a possibility of a 12,000-square-foot library which would be a renovation and an addition. much larger than the new 8,500 square-foot, two-story triangle library which is very inefficient. has over 43% inefficiency ratio , as an international library consultant told us when we evaluated the project. the triangle park, as you also herd earlier, was -- heard earlier, was seized in 2004 by eminent domain for a park and it was purchased in 2007 with open space funds. only in 2008, after the 2007
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library preservation fund measure was passed, which gave the library revenue bond authority, was the new library even considered and that was in 2008. the playground where i played is going to be decreased by 12,000 square feet. i will be submitting -- drawing -- showing you how that's being done. the closure of mason street does add more park land and playground to the area, but that should not be counted in any true addition to the playground because it can be closed in any design scheme. the softball fields will be eliminated in the master plan. and that's because the fence will be moved 41 feet eastward. that's also shown in the plan. the public process since 2008
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really hasn't shown property lines and where original lines are so when you look at a green site plan it does look very appealing. when i first saw that site plan in 2008, my initial reaction was positive. but the more you look at it, the more you will see that it contradicts many parts of the san francisco general plan. president miguel: thank you. >> thank you. >> will you use that one? >> actually i want to look at the time. thanks. i'm sue. i am disappointed in the e.i.r. and i will tell you why. but first i want to tell you what the present library commission said about a 50-year mistake in locating the library where it is. i read the minutes of the library commission and at the
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time the city librarian said that the triangle was too small for a library unless mason street was closed and the assistant city engineer at the time said if mason street were closed it would be a traffic knight nightmare. i just wanted to -- nightmare. i just wanted to make ma point. another thing i wanted to correct before i get to the specifics of the effort i. -- e.i.r., the evaluations by the planning department said that the north beach library is the most historic of all the eight appleton and willford libraries. i also wanted to state that the community is really split down the middle on this, the telegraph hill dwellers oppose the plan, north beach neighbors oppose the plan. many community members oppose it, as you can see, many community members are for it as well. what i'm upset about the e.i.r. is it ignores so many of the impacts.
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it talks about an insignificant impact from street closure. that's not true at all. a traffic study done in december of 2005 showed an enormous traffic impact. for some reason this didn't make it into the e.i.r. and it should make it into a revised e.i.r. also, the e.i.r. doesn't state that the urban design development says that buildings should be visually -- that buildings should be visually interesting and harmoanous with the neighborhood. the proposed building is not either one of those. the e.i.r. fails to see the baseball fields. they're going to be elimb natted. it fails to discuss the restrictions on open space that come about as a result of the plan. and one of the most important things is that it doesn't even consider preservation alternatives properly. and finally the triangle was
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taken by eminent domain to be open space. it was bought with nearly $3 million of open space money which cannot be used for a nonreng reactional purpose -- a nonrecreational purpose. to put a library as a nonrecreational purpose in the general plan, it's going to cause all kinds of problems. i do hope that the e.i.r. is revised to address some of the issues that have been raised tonight. thank you. president miguel: thank you. >> good evening, planning commission. my name is abbie. i'm a 23-year resident of north beach. and a teacher at a pre-k through eighth grade school in north beach. the opportunity for a new library has really been a reallyying cause at our school -- rallying cause as our schoolso, please picture next to me at least 200 parents and
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200 children in their pajamas, standing next to me. i've been involved in this project since my son was 6 years old. he's now 13. i have felt very involved and very informed about this project. i've been to meetings, presentations, brainstorms at the library, at the clubhouse, on the playground and even at my school. i've watched the street closing, i've studied the plans and i also can honestly say i read the e.i.r. online. so i feel that this e.i.r. well documents our neighborhood's urgent needer to more park sfathe space and a new library. the e.i.r. also documents that this elegant and efficient solution was developed with enthusiastic seven-year-long community involvement. please support the e.i.r. and make our involvement worth while and meaningful -- wort
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while and meaningful. thank you. president miguel: thank you is there additional public comment on this item? >> good evening, commissioners. i'm a planner with the planning division of the recreation and parks department. and i just want to add my comments to the comments you heard earlier from the department. one of the things and i'm pleased about the e.i.r. is it studies the potential historic impacts, open space and recreational resources, traffic impacts, views and aesthetics. the site is a very complicated project but i'm very pleased that the e.i.r. which took a long time to put together, the planning department did a very good and thorough job, in my opinion. again, you know, the north beach chinatown neighborhood lacks open space. that's one of the really important things about this plan. and i just wanted to mention one of the things that people are referring to. there was a two-month, six
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weeks or two months, i don't know which, closure of mason street. but it was a really interesting project. a lot of community came and worked to build that together. and that was, i think, one of the best ways to really study the impacts and i think it allows us to really do that in a thorough way and the environmental impact report. i also did just want to quickly just show you a couple of images because they mean a lot to me. here, as you can see, is the current layout of the park. and one of the things that we have challenges with as a department, which this e.i.r. addresses and discusses, is that the park is currently on two different levels. right now the tennis courts are at this level with the pool and clubhouse, the playground is on a separate level and then the hard area is separate and everything is divided by sensors and you can't pass through the site. the new plan -- the master plan that is evaluated in the e.i.r. before you -- oh, sorry.
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sorry. ok. it allows, you know, some of the things that actually people have talked about here today. safety and visibility. by putting all facilities on one level, someone is able to actually have children play in the playground, the tennis court, the ball field, softball field, the basketball courts, we add a couple of additional basketball courts and the library and everything is visible and it's much more open. i think it's something that a lot of the people here have also contributed a lot to during this master planning. the importance of the safety and visibility questions. so i encourage you to support the e.i.r., to find it complete and accurate. i believe it is extensively studied. many, many of the aspects of this project. and i appreciate your time this evening and i appreciate commission president, that you allowed the parent to speak in the beginning. it's a challenge for families
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to be here this late. i appreciate that. thank you. president miguel: thank you. is there additional public comment on this item? if not, public comment is closed. >> thank you. if you'll forgive the brief die gregs, i'm pleased to report that the giants beat atlanta 1-0. and directly following that. commissioner antonini: keeping it on a baseball theme, you know, i think a lot of what the e.i.r. did looks good. the one thing that does concern me is having enough room for baseball and everyone has mentioned that joe and vince and dom grew up there and a lot of other great baseball players playing on that very playground. we want to make sure, however, this is recon figured. if it is recon figured, the ability to play baseball, which a lot of guys do, is still able to be done.
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another little digression is i grew up in the 1950's and it's just a personal opinion, but great music, lousy architecture. that's the way i feel about it. the one thing you want to do no matter how do you this is you want to make sure that you do have a replacement structure that you don't replace the structure with bad arcture in the 21st century. i'm not saying that that's it, that's something we can work with a through. right now we're looking at the e.i.r., not necessarily the design of the new building we can be worked on if that is what is design -- decided. a couple of other things that were brought up. there was a question about, you know, i remember being here when we approved the condominiums on the triangle and then it was overturned and then it was seized by eminent domain and i'm glad it was seized and there was some funding approved. i guess what we're going to have to figure out is is it
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appropriate that the park land that is being provided is not necessarily on the triangle but if the library is on the triangle and you end up netting out that park land in between the street and where the library was, i would say that probably works for me, if it makes for a better playground and everything flows. but that's something we'd have to get an opinion on, probably from maybe the city attorney or whatever, get some kind of a decision as to whether that's appropriate. but i think from what i've seen so far and there's a long ways to go on this and there will be comments and responses, but i'm really excited that this is moving forward and we're going to end up with either some sort of new or rebuilt library that's going to be a lot better than what we had and i'm kind of leaning toward the idea, as was expressed in the 1950's, in the letter i looked at, we might be better off with the library in the corner than in the middle of the park and leave more space for park
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activities. but that's something that will be -- we'll be looking at in the next months to come. president miguel: i was also interested in hearing about the 1956 letter. i found that very interesting and somewhat telling. the concept from the recreation and open space element of the city's general plan, i'm actually quite familiar with. because i served on and for several years chaired the recreation and open space advisory committee. and indeed north beach was then , 10, 12 years ago, when i served there, as it is now, designated officially in the city as a high-needs area. so the concept of additional recreation and parks space is very telling and very apt in
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this area, without question. the larger library i don't think anyone questions, let alone a new configuration. i was involved in two library renovation projects, the richmond branch and another branch and the hill branch, which is finished and gorgeous. i am not a historic preservationist expert by any means. i have taken a look at it purposely because of this, of the various branches. in my nonprofessional opinion, this is perhaps the least of their efforts that is still remaining.
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not everything the best of international architects does is necessarily worth saving for posterity. i think the alternatives have been well studied. in spite of what we do by estimation on traffic studies, of running the figures and everything else, i think the several-month closure of mason street and i viewed it a couple of times in particular, because i wanted to see what would happen at various times of the day, seemed to have no impact, in my opinion, on that area. and i think that was pretty much the conclusion that was reached. it's far better the type of traffic study that i would like to look at than running a bunch of assumed figures. i do feel that the e.i.r. is adequate.
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i feel it is complete. and that's the end of my comments. commissioner moore. commissioner moore: talking about the e.i.r., i found the e.i.r. interesting and quite so there's one area where i feel it lacks a level of disclosure. i would ask that we be provided a more two-dimensional depiction of the spatial variations on all the schemes. there's obviously, which is harder to depict, the level differences on the playground, which currently operates in a very architectural way. if that is being changed i'd like to see that as a new plan of operation and how it deals with the surrounding grades of the streets. are you operating on a partially tilted plain? what does it really mean, even in the alternative, to look at the massing of the building as
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it moves over the different -- through the different schemes? i find the e.i.r. -- it speaks about three-dimensionality but it doesn't show what it really means ree-dimensionality but it doesn't show what it really means and i believe it's necessary for disclosure when people look at this, to understand we need it more visually. i will probably have some other comments but i will submit them by the time specified here in the draft e.i.r. president miguel: commissioner borden. commissioner borden: i also too wanted to say that i thought the e.i.r. was adequate and accurate and i actually wanted to add that the findings about the closure on mason street seem to be consistent with what we found in closing other streets. it just shows that -- i mean, that is the direction we're moving into. the data from here is very consistent to data that we found in other instances where we've closed streets. so it further value dates the accuracy of this information for me -- validates the
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accuracy of this information for me. president miguel: i think this hear something closed. i believe the comments are due to the department until the close of business on the 12th of this month. if you have anything further in writing, you would like to submit right now, you may do so to the secretary. if not, you may submit them until the close of business on the 12th to the department. with that, this hear something closed. >> thank you. commissioners, you still have general public comment. president miguel: correct. >> the hearing on the e.i.r. is closed. is there any general public on items that are not on the agenda? none appearing. president miguel: none appearing, this hear something closed -- hearing is closed.
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