that only a few people are in favor of that new landscaping. secondly, there is elsewhere you will find the statement that the trees removed for this project will be replaced by a few saplings. >> we have heard a lot mentioned by the previous speakers that the 58 trees removed there are going to be a lot of trees replacing those. i think that i am out of time. thank you. >> thank you, next speaker, please? >> good evening, commissioners, my name is dennis leuy, i am a native to san francisco. my husband and i have lived on the edge of glen canyon for decades. and we have deep roots in our community. i ask that you deny the appeal. and rely on the experts with

recr, and parks, thank you. >> thank you. >> next speaker, please? >> my name is tony astrela and this is my daughter kristin, we moved directly across the street from the canyon we are where diamond heights boulevard and elk come together and when i walk out of my front door i look to the left and i see all of those trees. kristin our house was built around a huge tree that existed for 20-some odd years until a branch fell off and it was removed. if those trees are removed it will destroy the quality of life, i think. not just for the people in glen park down by the playground, but all of the people

surrounding all of glen canyon, if you have ever driven down oshanasy, you know that the canyon is huge and it needs its mature healthy trees. i am curious to know of those 58 in this initial plan that are to be removed, how many of those are hazardous? >> how many are mature healthy trees that have no need to be removed on the hillside? i don't think that anybody objects to the fact that the rec center needs all kinds of work. you know, kristin grew up there, all three of my kids were campers, she was a jr. counselor for silver tree and they grew up in that canyon and she learned what a possum was and there is so much wild life now and i am not a grandmother,

i am a great grandmother and i want to be able to take my kids and grandkids all the way back through the canyon under the trees. i also very quickly i feel that not enough out reach was done on the heights part of this project because i live in glen ridge and it is a cooperative and it is comprised of 275 units throughout diamond heights including berkeley way that overlooks the boulevard which overlooks the canyon and where i live on arbor street and i spoke with the president of the board of directors of glen ridge last week saying what is the board's stance on this. and he said he never heard anything about it. so i have to feel that the out reach and the public comment was inadequate and that more is

needed. especially the removal of the trees. >> thanks. >> i am sorry for taking up so much time. >> next speaker, please? >> i would like to submit some meeting minutes from the playground meetings of parents that were done by the trust for public lands, january 19, and january 21, of 2011. you could leave that as well. i will also put it up. >> my mame is steven lobowsky

and i am a resident of glen park and a user of the park with my dog for many years now. i am submitting to you today the playground minutes for parents that were done january 19th and january 21st, 2011. you know we have heard a lot about all of the public out reach, and all of the meetings that were done, this is, i believe, the only record that you have of ad least two of those meetings. and these are... i would like you to turn to page 2 and i am not going to be able to have time to go through all of the items. but this for parents who were telling hec and park what they wanted and didn't want. they were addressing the playground. i am going to go through not in

any particular order. there is an item that said that they liked the location away from the street and they liked the experience of coming along a path and discovering the playground which is what we have now. two, they said that people generally like that you have to walk a little ways into the park to get to plate ground. three, they say that the playground works well and they like it and is seems that it is safe enough and they like the slides and the rings and they love the slides and the stairs. four, it is not their stop priority, it was of course, the actual rec center and finally. they do not want another playground, they prefer the children play in nature. now, i think that the nature that they are referring to is

>> we call this tree a monkey tree because that is where the children go and they play. thank you. >> thank you, your time is up. >> >> my name is bob segal i do not live in glen park but i frequent that area, often, like most of the people in this room. i believe that everyone in this room is a lover of trees and nature. this is a i have attended a number of the meetings, i was very interested in the project and it was a wonderful project and there was a lot of out reach as has been explained. and i don't think that this appeal should be accepted. the project should go forth. i think as far as the trees go, it seems like the trees spoke a few weeks ago saying that i am too old and i am leaving and

fortunately, this plan will take care of some of the trees that need some attention, these parks as far as the management but the main thing right now is to get the project done at the rec center >> thank you. >> ruth. grovanis. i have been a resident from glen park two blocks for 40 years. i support the plan and i urge you to deny the appeal before you and to grant the permit. to understand, community support for this project is important that you look at the minutes of much more recent meetings than the one that was just referred to recently. when i walk through the recreation center part of this park, he can see the very real need for better picnic and safer play and accessible rest rooms and a safe and welcoming park entrance, i also support

the landscaping plan ta that is associated with this project. there is so much focus on the tree removal and we have ignored the rich pallet that has been proposed. although it is not an ecological project, it still does offer an opportunity to increase the biological diversity of our park and neighborhood and to offer environmental education opportunities. not everyone agrees that no tree should ever be removed for any reason unless it poses an immediate hazard to life or property. trees stand very often need to be thinned for their own health and longevitity. we absolutely need trees, including the many non-native trees that will remain, there is no deforest station proposed, contrary to what many are saying. for a healthy and attractive we need a diversity of ages and species. this project is not going to

harm owls or any other species and it is sad that so many people have been given that impress. please deny the appeal. thank you. >> thank you. >> next, speaker, please. >> betsy any and i am speaking as the president of the diamond heights association. prior to the meeting we submitted a letter to your board requesting that you deny the appeal. our board feels that the community out reach and the community plan that met with the community and provided so much opportunity for input we feel that that long and thorough process came up with a really good thought out plan. now diamond heights our western border is right at glen park.

and our residents would greatly benefit from the renovations and the improvements. and so we do urge you as association to deny the appeal. thank you. >> thank you. >> thank you, next, speaker, please? >> good evening, my name is hugh (inaudible) i would like to say something that the project will except some of the park of the project. i mean the moving their tennis court and cut the trees. my point is to this project is substitution of the bad maintenance over this park. i can give you some samples. if you saw all of the chunks of

wood, not by... but during the last five or ten years. actually it should be cleaned. and let me show some pictures. this is maintenance of the main building. this is the windows. i think that my point is like the last window were installed in 1945. the same windows, and this and there is another picture, another picture, this is the wall. this is the top of this wall.

>> this is the roof. >> this is at least 25 years old. >> you can see this wood for this.. if we concentrate on the trees, that my point we need to save these trees, and save the money because my... the retaining wall for the new tennis court will be costing around $500,000 and up. this is a wall. >> thank you. your time is up. >> one second. >> and we have good space. to plant a lot of trees there. >> last picture. >> and off of there. >> the next five years we can

cut these trees. >> thank you. >> you are welcome. >> good evening, i think that it is clear by now, that the opponents of this project are not opposing renovating anything. i mean, the problem is with the trees. with the fact that they decided to move the tennis courts and cut down a lot of trees that do not need to be done to do any of this renovation. and the problem, part of the problem is that that was never disclosed to the community. yes, there was plenty of input about what would you like? how would you like? what are your values etc., etc.. but at these meetings the community was not told we are going to go into the natural areas, we are going to cut down

dozens of trees in the natural areas. that was not discussed. it was not even apparently disclosed to the environmental review officer. because the environmental review officer specifically said that the proposed project would not involve any work in the glen canyon park natural area. it wasn't... it was with that in mind, presumably and based on that information, that the planning commission, awarded the contract in august. and it is only after this appeal was filed, that the planning department realizes oops, in fact we are doing this in the natural areas. this is something that was completely under the radar, it was not disclosed to the public and it was not disclosed to anybody. and so to accuse these people of delaying when it was not

really until october that somehow everybody came to the realization that this was in the natural areas is really unfair to the opponents to this project and to suggest that the opponents of this project have to file another appeal, oh, no, you are not the ones who get to decide this, although i thing that the charter requires you to resolve these issues because it is not in the best interest of the public that this goes forward as planned. but to suggest that they have to go forward to the board of supervisors that would bring more delay and i think that what you need to do right now, is require the planning department to go back talk to the community, and find out if the community is okay with these trees being removed. >> thank you. >> do you care to state your name for the record? >> carlin johnson >> is there any other public comment >> okay, seeing none, we will move into the rebuttal and we will start with the appellant and you have three minutes.

>> i just want to clarify, as far as the area that is covered by the certificate of determination, it says specifically that it is only the flat programmed area and not the natural areas. so if you look at this diagram, which is b1 in your park packet that we provided. this area down here does not include where they are planning to move the tennis courts which will require construction and removing the hillside, put ng concrete and it is a construction project to remove those big grand trees and to move them up into the hillside. so that to me i am not an attorney that seems to be under the purview of this building permit, it should not be issued for something that does not have a certificate of determination or an environmental review. so the other question that you were asking is where things are located. so this red line on this

diagram, that would be dot two and what i provided to was the outline of where the natural areas are. so to me there are two issues, one is the grand issue, and the grand trees along the promenade and that is not the natural areas actually. to me actually it specifically says that it has to be programmed or the flat programmed area. that is removing the hillside. so that should be excluded from the contract specifically and then, so you can see here that they made the point that these teeny tiny dots that were on here in the middle of the tennis courts, this is the redesign and these are the grand trees that are these huge, massive trees and they are planning to put in and it is changed and they said that they were going to plant 163, if you look at the actual contract and it was actually 113 and most of them are bushes and who knows if they will survivor not. so the other thing that i wanted to say is that everyone keeps pointing to the downed trees that have been down for

years. these are healthy trees as i showed you their own arborist have evaluated these trees and said that they are low risk. this is what i imagine the project looking at at the end of the day it is going to dramatically change what glen canyon looks like if you remove those huge eucalypase. there is nothing stopping them from taking down the trees that need to be taken down that are hazardous. >> the other thing is if you look at the priorities from the project which is not what you guys are evaluating. if you look at the priorities from this project, the lowest priority was the hillside. and people did not get an option to go in and say i don't want this, they were not given the option to say what the highest priority and those were definitely the lowest priority for the community.

>> thank you. >> ma'am. i have a question. i don't know whether the appellant received the brief from the department? >> yes. >> so you are aware that there is a letter in there from the planning department following the initial determination? >> yes, basically, that e-mail came after i was contacting the department. >> i just want to make sure that you saw that. >> i did see that and my point is that that is not a certificate of determination. and did not go through all of the environmental review process that it should have gone through. >> thank you >> karin from the rec departments. and i wanted to mention a couple of things, thanks for allowing me to use the overhead. you know, contrary to some things that have been mentioned today. we did discuss the fact that the tennis court relocation could you put those on.

it would result in the removal of these significant trees that we discussed them both in the community meeting, this diagram was posted on the website and was also discussed in the community, the commission meetings. and i wanted to mention the appellant did as i discussed in the brief did have the opportunity at both meetings and also at the rec park and commission hearing when the project was awarded to the contractor and they did bring up the precise question. there were two hearings in addition to all of the community meetings. the tennis court relocation was discussed because it was desired to have both of those tennis courts and a playground and a ball field and ada access and all of these elements included in the project. contrary to the statements nine of those trees are hazardous and the others are in poor condition. as determined by our arborist. and i want to mention, i know that a lot of people do know

about the challenges that the recreation and parks department have with the operation budget these days. we estimate with the number of trees we are able to do the maintenance one every 50 years. that is not an ideal situation. but it does lead to some of these issues where we have trees that are the same age, all in declining health, some may not be immediately hazardous, but many of them will become so. so this is one of the reasons that we try and when we have an opportunity and we are working on a project and we are putting new users and i am going to show you quickly.

we are putting these in new areas, if you look at these, new users are going to be put in these areas, these were going to be putting in a new path in these areas for the public to access the park. so, well any way. there is more users are going to be in that area where those are located. thank you. >> >> are you finished with your presentation? >> yes, i have three minutes that is my understanding. >> quick question on, the tennis courts are not being relocated very far. i guess that you mentioned a fairly extensive program is it because and i am just guessing that the children's play area wanted to be a certain size and you wanted mostly the southern orientation. >> yes it is precisely that, we were trying to balance, a

series of factors to ex-expand the rec center and if you could show this overhead image here. as you can see, there is two gray bars that extend out from the rec center there. those are proposed future expansions right now the rec center has a gym and it has an auditor um it does not actually have multipurpose spaces which a lot of rec centers have. so we relocated the small play ground, made it the appropriate size, and today when you were play equipment and you have to make appropriate fall zones, there is additional safety zones required for play equipment. so we made the playground larger and we shifted the tennis court back, you know, slightly, it is not a radical relocation but we shifted them back for that reason, to ex-expand the playground and meet the current safety zones and provide adequate play.

>> thank you. >> mr. sanchez? >> thank you, scott sanchez planning department. just to reiterate, the exemption did include the full scope of work, there was an error in terms of stating that it was not within that portion. but, the appropriate scope was reviewed under that environmental review. it was clarified in an october e-mail that none of the findings had changed and not the certificate of exemption remained valid. so that would be appealable to the board of supervisors. those the board of asupervisors does regularly deal with the sequa appeals and i am available for any questions.

>> commissioners? the matter is submitted. >> i wanted to confirm one thing, and i am not sure who it should be addressed. >> but a permit is not required to take down a tree on rec and park property? >> that is correct, commissioner. >> i have a question, of rec and park. you know, it is clear that the principle issue here relates to the trees and the removal that rec and park feels was in jurisdiction to do as it wishes. to the extend that you have a plan for the planting of new bushes or whatever it is that you are proposing to do, has that been sort of laid out and also put before the public as

part of that process? >> yes. i included in both in the appendixes but we have posted that on-line. it is also has been submitted to various appellants have actually sunshined those documents. we have 163 trees and we have inceased the number of trees for a variety of reasons, we now have redwoods in the plan which were very large trees. >> are they mature trees? >> no. we find that when you plant trees, it is best to plant the smallest tree that will survive because it will grow strongest in that spot. they will vary in size. but over time they will be as magnificent as these today. again, you know, the park is 66 acres large. there is approximately we estimate 6,000 trees. we are talking about 58 tree removals and 163 planted but no they will not be... they will be small trees that are sh

planted. >> >> is there some sort of phasing on this landscape that right now it is 58 degrees. after that is done, you know, 6 months from now, you think that maybe we want to get rid of 500 trees? i mean, how does that work within your department? >> so, we have done an analysis of trees in glen canyon park generally and we do them for a variety of parks. we have identified that there are a lot of trees, particularly trees along the perimeter of glen canyon park that are in bad shape. the bond of a separate program called a forestry program has identified that some of those trees do pose safety risks. there will be a public process around those tree removals and you know in time that those projects are clearly identified. probably in the next few months. folks have sunshine draft of those plans and they have seen those plans and i think that is

what is entering some of the concern. i know that you probably have heard a few years ago we had a fatality in stern grove and a couple of weeks ago we had an incident where a limb fell on an handicapped individual in the panhandle. we take the tree care seriously with the limited resources that we have and that is part of the work that we do to achieve the goals. >> but the landscape plan is not addressing solely trees that are on the verge of failing, right? >> the plan addresses trees that are in poor condition and hazardous. >> but there are many trees that are part of the plan that are not in poor condition or hazardous, isn't that correct? >> the trees designated for removal have been designated for poor suitbility and that includes structural and poor condition ratings. and nine that are hazardous. >>