private property under the state regulation? >> yes. commissioner miguel: then why is the city having it own regulations? do you have any idea at all? >> i wasn't here when the ordinances were established. commissioner miguel: thank you. thank you very much. i would appreciate diego if you would check into that because i would prefer the stricter regulations in that regard. >> it was staff's understanding that the state trumps the city's more truncated list so we could not apply that -- we cannot force privately held property to abide by the truncated city list of pesticides and fertilizers, is that correct? commissioner miguel: at any rate, i would appreciate a comment from the department of the environment.

and i am making a presumption, although it's not in there, if you know, whether or not if there is sales that would occur and these groups or a group that is doing the sales would have to register for any taxes and would have to register as far as any business permits from the city and that sort of thing. and i am presuming that that is cover and all included automatically? >> i think the assumption is if you set up a business going forward that you should secure your business license and pay the taxes. miguel were thank you. president olague: commissioner apt apt. apt commissioner antonini thank you. i have a lot of support for the proposal and a few questions. i grew up out in the livermore valley and i can remember when at a time when most of the

population lived in the area and the food sources were much closer to the population and not too distant past we had areas in berkley and citrus fruits and orchards and now they come from probably the lower central valley and the produce and that' been displaced by the housing and businesses and we have to get that from the central valley and further and you are all on the right track and i hope you communicate with your friends in the north bay and the south bay and east bay to have them have the same attitude and try to cut down on suburban sprawl and some of the worst land uses are in some of the areas that were previously very rich agricultural areas.

a couple of years ago we had a report where two high-rises had about the same amount of square foot j and use 50 times as much lapped for -- land for bishop branch with the sprawl and no parking and public transit close and we have to redirect our entire thinking, then this is a beginning for sure. i do have a couple of concerns and the first was as far as the puc comment and always a big comment of puc and you kind of snuck this in, but the restriction on minor uses of foiage around one's house and i understand you have to get a permit if you want a postage stamp lawn in front of the house and the same is true if you want to grow vegetables in your backyard. i am not sure we really should look to the big users more than the small users in san francisco. we're the best in anywhere of

water use. we use very little water in san francisco and while we can always improve a little, i think we don't want to discourage people from eliminating pavement and eliminating gravel and all these other things and putting green things in front or back of their houses. and i will have a few concerns. i guess the first is and maybe you can answer my question. i don't think this would ever block a situation where if swup has a parcel and they are using it as a garden temporarily but they are able to get a permitted use or a conditional use to put housing or another use, that would, of course, be permitted. the gardening would not stop another use in the future. >> yes. if you were to put housing there slopgs you go through the -- as long as you go through the permit process, this is not going to indefinitely tie up land for one use. commissioner antonini: the only other concern i had was certainly any gardening uses

have to be consistent with neighborhood policies, particularly cc&r's of the areas that have them and i would not envision this being appropriate in front yards. i think the neighbors would have a lot of say about that and wouldn't be too happy. and certainly backyard use or vacant use is appropriate. >> i think this ordinance is silent versus front versus back or side yards. and a lot of places in san francisco don't have front setbacks, but those that do, this is not restricting where you can put that. commissioner antonini: i would think we have to take a look at that part of it and maybe address neighborhood concerns carefully. there may be places that you say may be set back with a fenced off open space and that might be a way to have a front yard use, but if it was a visible one, i think it probably would have to get some approval from the

neighbors or at least it would not be something that could not be restricted. there has to be a give and take on that. and then i can't think of any oh neighborhood impacts. i don't assume anybody would grow anything tall enough to block light to a neighbor's house. this isn't iowa. i don't think we're going to get corn that high that will do it. i think that's fine. as far as the discussion of herbicides and pesticides, we have to make the distinction between privately owned land and publicly owned. we have very strict policies for publicly owned land with hard time keeping these up because it's difficult to get rid of weeds. and it's the wrong step to start being restrictive on private use as long as it's consistent with state laws and that has a lot of overreaching problems and this may be something we have to look

at carefully. and you have to pay for the appropriate fees and should be minimal and generally supportive as long as we address the concerns i brought up. >> commissioner fond. >> thank you. i continue to be imprezzed by this commission's farming background. my great grandparents were farmers in the delta and we come from hardy stock, i suppose. a couple of questions and some comments regarding fencing. i understand in the proposed ordinance we're not requiring fencing. it seems we are producing food for human consumption and there should be some type of barrier as the comment was made about a garden becoming a dog park if there is a delineation from a safety perspective of what can be introduced in the middle of the night, but i am not going to bring that up as a modification and make that a practical sense

unless the fellow commissioners want to bring that up. regarding fees, it is appropriate to track what is happening in different parts of the city and different lots and a question about the public property and let's say there is a vacant lot right now. do we have a listing of those that are potentially candidates for this type of year and is there a rolling website? >> i believe that is part of the directive and i am sure other agencies of publicly owned land and take stock of the all the land with the potential use for urban agriculture. and that list exists and i don't know where on the list that is but we can hunt that down for you. >> at some point in the inventory of those that are potentially available. >> if that does exist. >> another thought i had and tried to look for and couldn't

find anything but related to the soil and maybe in the ground now in the vacant lot. is there any requirement for testing of that soil? or is there a requirement that planter boxes be used instead of probably list all the fears of lead paint or whatever that might be there? >> this is silent on that. i think we are heaving it to the best judgment of the urban agriculture community to produce safe, lead-freeshgs other arsenic free, other heavy metal free produce, and no where in there is there a mandate for lead testing or other metals or the requirement of planter boxes. >> i would hope that the growers use the best precautions possible and keep that in consideration. and maybe my fellow commissioners have another thought on that. and in related to the sales of oh goods whether they are in whole or processed, and is there

language that puts a maximum square footage in the lot for retail use? >> within our district if you were to use that as an accessory dwelling -- actually, we did exempt that. you cannot sell from the dwelling unit. there are no retail controls as i understand. >> again, i know that is not the intention, but i wouldn't want it to become farmers' market and one acheer is the farm and the oh re-- and one acheer is the farm and the other is a flea market or farmers' market atmosphere. >> that was the fear and that is why we entered that pooled produce language where we didn't want that farmer's market opening up next to your home in the middle of an r district because of the disruption compatibility. that is why we kept it to what

you can grow on site. >> and if this goes forward, i hope you take the opportunity to educate people and use these little sites to tell people how to bring food in and let some of the younger folks who live in san francisco see what's going on here and pick up some of the trend. >> definitely. president olague: commissioner moore. commissioner moore: i want to express my general support for this particular proposal in front of us. i commend the planning department for bringing in everybody to go to all the critical aspects that we need to hear about it and appreciate the commissioner's comments taking the discussion further and probing how deep you have examined what is in front of us. i would like to make two comments. one is on fencing and that fence, no fence, i support whatever you are suggesting in

your ed verbiage. and if we are using chain link which is a neighborhood deterrent, i think many communities and not quite sure the san francisco code reads that plain chain link is considered to have a blighting effect and i would ep can you remembering if chain link is used -- and i would encourage that it is used like a trellis to train plants up and require either wires or chain link are part of the type of food production which you have be that pea or whatever you are using. i am not 100% expert but know enough about what climbing plants are. and commissioner antonini, there are cities like los angeles where growing edible plants in front yards is very much encouraged and they are fantastic and high end, super high-end design and understood

ways of arranging edible plants by season, color, and texture and are perhaps amazing and i would like to show commissioner antonini pictures of that and until i saw it, i wouldn't have believed it either but they add to the quality of active urban landscape. that is not as much what you are planning to do but add one comment on the added value of fruit selling and while i think the commission is not prepared to support it as you are suggesting it, i would encourage an ongoing discussion with the mayor's off for economic and workforce development because if there is an idea xh n there and if you can organize under the aheadlines of your san francisco urban agricultural alliance there might be a way of finding a way to collectively find a

method in term of where it's done, how it's done, and how it seasonally responds and similar harvesting ideas and get the store or store front and stand within existing stores where you can do that. and i think there's a will, there's a way. i talked with the director for a moment and i think that lending support for those who took it further if i understood you correctly is well within that. >> absolutely. we can work with the mayor's office of economic development to figure out different alternatives of value added products at different locations or something. our concern to reiterate is essentially what might become a commercial operation in the

middle of a neighborhood. that is the concern. >> that is why the commission can't afford and commissioner miguel summarized that we are in report from of the idea but might need to find another avenue and pointing you to the mayor's office and the correct route to go and take more work but is still worthwhile and it will take you a while before you get going anyway. and you have a harvest or two and the microclimate and the growing environment and what you can do. and i am in support with the other commissioners. president olague: commissioner sugaya. commissioner sugaya: for all your younger people out there,

it is a great idea and then you ran into the bureaucracy. there is something that confuses me and we have been talking about how small these operations can be and they can be on vacant lots which make them quite viz to believe the neighborhood and it sounded like there would be a lot of possibility for backyard agriculture. but

>> so this kind of thing we're having some difficulty, i think, try i trying of what can or can't take place. that aside, i think a couple more things, almost everybody up here said they had families or grew up on a farm except for commissioner moore, but my father when he was an immigrant came to the united states and picked strawberries and worked

in fields and that is about as close as i got. but we did have two acres there. not my father, but the people that we worked for. and he was a chef, by the way. and so we had produce in the back. and we had apricots, figs, and artichokes and asparagus. i don't know how much water they took, but berries, and it was great. and that is quite a bit more land than i think most people have here in the city. but it was a great experience for me. and then last friday i think some of you were here when i was on a tour of the tenderloin and i would like to encourage you at some point and are early in the game for everybody and obviously this hasn't passed yet but if you could think about other populations that really, really could benefit from what you are

doing and set up central alliances and the city collaborative is the organization that set up the tour for me and there are other organizations and tndc and others that staff know about it and jane kim, supervisor jane kim's office is in touch with all those people. and they could really, really benefit in from that and they are looking for storeser the ability to buy fresh produce. that was one of the issues that came before the commissioner that set off this -- well, anyway, i won't go there, but set up the reason for the tour. and it revolves around the establishment in the tenderloin had previously asked for liquor permit and we turned them down and they were encouraged to work with the mayor's office of economic and workforce development to set up the grocery store to be liquor free and sell produce and fruits and

vegetables and that kind of thing. and they were trying to do that and i would encourage you to do that outreach in that area. as far as the soils, i don't know if the department of agriculture already look at that kind of thing and how much of a problem it is. i wouldn't think it would be as much of an issue on private property and backyards, but vacant lots might be a different issue, but i don't know if it's that big a deal. and right now we can trust the folks who are doing this kind of thing to be careful about the soils that are on the lots they will be growing food on. that is all i have. president olague: i wanted to comment that i fully support this and i just think it's sort of ironic that something like growing vegetables in your

living space and selling them can be so complicated really. but i understand as far as land use is concerned and the intensification of uses and residential neighborhoods an all the concerns people have around that and what is encouraging is it is an indication that people's values are shifting and embracing a more us is tapeable way of living and frequently we here a lot of green washing to justifying dense development and so it's kind of nice when you are hearing something about green sustainable lifestyles and the zoning and planning code that actually might result in that kind of -- those types of values and that kind of lifestyle. and i think it's really positive thing. and as for the value added i agree with commissioners moore and commissioner borden we do

need to explore waying to make that happen. and i remember youing up even had gardens and maybe we didn't sell the jams but you did the most that you could with whatever you grew, so if you had a plum tree and to stretch and indefinitely and make plum jam and preserves and just kind of soaps or whatever it is people do. and i think that it's a critical component to this conviction that needs to evolve. and commissioner sugaya's comments on hopefully when there's some success among this and we have try and tested it and stumbled along and figured out the pluses and minuses that that model can be transferred to the urban environment t tenderloin, those area where it's just a more grittier

environment. and that exchange of information would be really a great thing to see happen. as for the pesticides, and we heard from somebody who has done research on what is a question that san francisco and at least the group that we heard from today that they're actually looking at pesticides that are less toxic and that sort of thick. it seems that it is a question that may be whose answerer may come out of that movement. obviously they will continue to work with the development. and there are so many underutilized front lawns and back lawns in san francisco so at some point it would be great to see more of the uses in areas where rh 1's should encourage

this type of use in a way or even if it isn't sold but just more of that. commissioner antonini. commissioner antonini: i don't want to dwell on the one part because 90-plus percent is going good, but going back to the cc&r's and making sure that neighbors and certainly neighborhoods that have those in place would have control over front yard uses and neighborhoods that don't should also have an appeal process. and this is not just for urban farming but total urban blight ordinance needs to be put in place because we have so many front yards that have been paved and have gravel and weeds and totally unsightly and compared to 50 years ago when they were all pristine and neat and clean and cars are park there had. and the same could happen if somebody with the best of purposes tried to grow something

but wasn't kept up or the house was sold or rented and would be just as bad and i think we need to have an appeal process where neighbors can appeal the condition of the front of somebody's house and thoughs who are lucky enough to have a front yard to keep it up. and show a pride of ownership and this could drive property values down and prooif people away from san francisco when they drive through a neighborhood and it's blighted because of the condition at the front of the house and poem say i don't want to live here. i'll go somewhere else. we have to be careful we don't make it such as a right use that other things are tossed out. that would be the thing i would be concerned about. olag o olague r commissioner miguel? commissioner miguel: for most of you here i would have to refer you to your grandparents and probably not your parent because

in the late 30's, early 40's, a quarter of the hows in san francisco have what we call victory gardens just. and during world war ii. this is nothing new to the city at all. and as far as what the gardens look like, i have seen kitchen gardens in europe and in the united states, chef gardens, that are some of the most beautifully planted plots i have ever seen in my life. much more so than normal which i say flowers and bushes. they can work. and if they're done correctly, they look fantastic. and all of this can be done without any problem if i's done correctly. commissioner sugaya xhengsed the possibility of the talk and one of the problems that may come out is a lot of corner lots in

san francisco that were cormer service stations and some have been cleaned up and some are not. you get out into the eastern neighborhoods into areas of the bayview that were industrial sites and some of those have been cleaned up, many of them to have not. their size, their accessibility and everything could make them ideal if the soil is right. and so i hope that you will work with the department of the environme environment. and i think you can see we're all for you. what we find in commissions and in matters that come before the commission is that when something new and original is proposed and it is a wonderful idea and everything is for it and three years later something comes to us because -- and please pardon the pup -- pardon

the pun -- a bad apple comes up and someone tries to take advantage of something that was basically good to begin with and that is why we are cautious. >> commissioner sugaya. commissioner sugaya: just picking up on something commissioner moore was talking about in terms of how value added might be able to be -- might be able to work. when you go to farmers' markets you believe that the vendors have gone through a certification process but it is a private thing and it might be incumbent on the group and however you want to set yourself up to see if there isn't some mechanism by which they can come to the place where we could have assurance as expressed by