when these developers come here and i've known many of them for the last 20 year, they have all the good intents to giving community benefits to the community. i don't think there's a better or greater community benefit than putting young brothers and sisters to work, we have young brothers and sisters here in san francisco and communities of color that have no hope, so i hope you could give your influence, commissioners, it can't be always about architecture and traffic flow and height and block, i think you made a commitment to your fellow san franciscans, so put us to work, it's a good thing for the city, some day you may need us again, bh the 1906 earthquake came about, it was members from carp try members local 122 that allowed san franciscans again to have hope that a new day would come and a

greater san francisco would exist, and so we ask again, commissioners, that you focus something on not just the structures that are san francisco but the members of our community that need your assistance. the developers would be more than happy to do that, we ask that the majority of those would be san franciscans. this is where you can make a difference. happy new year, commissioners, i wish you well in your deliberations. >> thank you. (calling speakers). >> linda chapman, i'm going to bring you again a prayer from

the methodist congregation and inherited assisted st. john's whose administrator you heard from and for months, they've been remembering you in their prayers, from the methodist emission, from activists working for compassionate youth, for conference leaders as they seek a positive solution, and i think that their prayers are beginning to be answered, some is being revitalized right now and the woman whom you met is apparently a candidate to be added to that board that actually is supposed to be managing the properties. in addition, on knob hill, three of the cantonese speakers have been going to the owners and they had a long list that i didn't present to you when i brought the list of supporters

or proponents of the kond -- condo project, but the property owners in that area opposed the demolition before and they oppose them still, people who have been property owners there for 50 and 60 years and even longer, as far back at 1890 in some cases of the land. in addition to that, i see that you did not go forward and rush to judgment when a mistake was made, sometimes you don't have to promote the mistake or pursue it. in the case of 1300 sacramento which we fought years ago and stopped the demolition, the planning commission turned it down unanimously, there was a persistent developer, there were no demolition controls, we were hanging on to that building which was empty by the thread of conditional use, and also there were no vacant building ordinances and bob

pass more said to us, all we can do is clear out those people with the open flames and shut your open windows or else we're going to order you to demolish the building which was not exactly put to mind, so in that case, dean was attempting so say something and said, if you're going to demolish the 22 rental units, you're going to have to build 22 rental units somewhere else, but the next thing, the developer came in with a garage he had bought on california street where he was going to build 22 unit, we found it would be another investment property and that was precedent for all of the other demolition buildings that we did in fact save, the 6 we did in fact save, they were throughout the city, and i will come back to you to talk about related subjects. >> for the benefit of the public, i noticed a couple of

speaker cards that i passed up to the commission president that described the item number they want to speak to, if you're speaking to the certification of the environmental impact or the or the report itself, this is your opportunity to speak to that item, number 10, okay, because public comment under item 10 is closed, however, if you're speaking to the project itself, either 801 brandon or 1 henry adam street, you will be v the opportunity to speak to the commission. >> this is sue hester, as it happens, item 10 but three other things, i appreciated commissioner borden's comments, you commented on a project by a former planning commissioner which people don't realize that

roger was on the planning commission and additionally on the maps, that site is still for demolition. i think it should be looked at because when the board -- planning commission was doing the marker, they did [inaudible] study, they were hot to demolish that site. number 2, the aeu later that went to the commissioners directly, i have tried everywhere to find the letter in the planning department files and when a letter comes directly to planning commissioners, please ask if the commission's secretary and the files have it and it's something that attorneys know they have to give to other people, but you are the enforcement mechanism and i would hope that it would not happen again from the academy of art university, that one is

not in any file. the part about item 10, there is a letter in the file from the mayor's office, and extensive document ins the planning department file about demolishing about i280 and that is right next to the site for 801 brannan and 1 ren -- henry adams, it is one that the planning department is work on for reorienting the traffic, and those should be a traffic in eir's like 801 gran -- brannan street, you can't skip over them because another part of the planning department and the mayor's office has a plan to change traffic. it needs to be in the eir's,

the traffic studies for projects, particularly those that are right along the freeway, let alone that are affected by it. last point, from espan loel na jackson's comments, i think you need to have a general hearing at the planning department on how your mailing lys are put together and who gets notices, all those things are staff functions that i think commissioners and the public really need to have a refresher course every once in a while so you don't have people up here giving comments that they didn't have any notice. thank you. >> so, as the commission secretary mentioned, these are cards that i have and i'm not sure if they are to the project or the eir.

(calling speakers). >> good afternoon, commissioner, my name is sabastian, i am a local businessman two blocks away from this proposed project, i'm speaking in support of your certification of the eir and of the project in general. i've been down there going on almost two decades now since 1996, i've seen a lot of transformation in that part of the city. we've been through the .com peaks and lots of buildings down there. we cater to the local community, we are a local business. i'm excited that being down there, there hasn't been a lot of services and i think with more housing, more other local business people will have other

opportunities to open up small businesses in the area. san francisco rents have skyrocketed despite the best intentions of rent control. i believe the only real solution to try to keep rents under control is to provide more rental housing. additionally, i think this project is well located in that there are services like mine in the area, mass transit, the highway, you can walk to the ballpark from this area. i think the project should be supported and i really am in favor of rental housing. thank you. >> i have to remind the public is that this public comment is to the environmental impact report, not to the project itself. >> we put our cards in on this but we want to talk later.

>> i'll hold it for 11a. any additional general public comment? okay, seeing none, general public comment is closed. next item please >> item 9, fiscal year 2013-2015 proposed department budget, this is an informational item and requires no action. >> good afternoon, commissioner, john ram with the planning department, i want to briefly introduce, this will be the first of multiple hearings on the coming year's budget, which is a two year budget, as you recall, we do a two year budget every year, so this is the second year of last year's budget but we have to do a budget from fiscal year 13-15, i wanted to remind you that as you heard last week through the supplemental appropriation, our fee revenues are anticipated to be much higher than we budgeted

for this fiscal year and we will see that 3% volume increase in our applications, we are anticipating volume levels to be the same, i'm trying to be a bit conservative and not assume the same level of growth next year so we're not assuming more revenues, but we are being more conservative in our projection for next year and not assuming the same strong growth that we had last year. so, this does propose to increase staffing levels by about 8fte next year and 9 in the fiscal year 14-15, and we will focus on a number of updates from the historic preservation and general plan, transportation analysis, communications and public outreach which are some of the programs that we like to fund with this additional staff. with that, i'll turn it over to keith demartini who will go over the details.

>> my name is keith demartini, i'm the finance manager for the planning department, i'm here to present the fiscal year 2013-2015 departmental budget, i have copies of the powerpoint presentation and there are copies for member of the public that would like to follow along with my presentation as well. i will just be giving you an overview of recent planning case and building volume trends that we've been experiencing, the expenditure budget as well as the proposed grants capital and other budget requests, and then just an update on the budget calendar going forward. so, let's just start with a recent planning case and building permit volume trends as director ram has already mentioned, i'm on slide three here, we had anticipated a 3%

volume growth in this fiscal year which we are experiencing, approximately 80% of our case and building permit activity comes from the review, we'll see growth in permit building review and various multiple application ins this current year. we are at this time projecting that volume will remain relatively flat in the upcoming budget years in fiscal year 2014 and 2015 and those are the two bars on the right, a historical trending of the volume we've experienced over the past ten years and what we project into the next two fiscal years. so, moving on to the department's revenue budget in the next two years, as i communicated to you, we are expecting approximately 6

million dollar revenue surplus in this fiscal year in the department's budget. upon review of these larger projects and these existing and titled projects are in the pipeline, the department anticipates the trend of larger project case review will continue into the next two fiscal year, at this time, we don't anticipate that it will happen at the same magnitude that we are experiencing right now, we are seeing a pretty substantial bump in this current fiscal year, we expect growth in next fiscal year but not to the same magnitude. the department's fee revenue is anticipated to increase by 19% from what the current year's budget is into next fiscal year's budget and that's mainly due to the three following reasons, first, the fee revenue increases from the continuing trend of the larger project reviews which i mentioned is the most driving factor, there is an automatic consumer price index that automatically

adjusts all the fees in the planning and administrative codes, and that rate is 3.258%, and we are also assuming the recognition of close to a million dollars of building permit revenue that we will collect in this current fiscal year that we will anticipate being able to defer and recognize into the next fiscal year, so that we can recognize that revenue in next fiscal year when we conduct the review on those building permits, those are the three factors that drive the charges for services line item on this table. in fiscal 14-15, the only change to the fee revenue assumption is the automatic cpi indexing of our fees, it's 2.86%, we are expecting grant revenues to increase in the budget years in the next fiscal

year by almost 24%, and similar to last year, the department will probably receive some development impact fee revenue that recovers our staff costs related to the administration of various development impact fee programs around the city. and you'll see the general fund line. this 3.8 million dollars in fiscal 13-14 does meet the mayor's budget instructions of reducing our general fund allocation by 1.5% in each of the fiscal years. moving on to the expenditure side of things, as in prior years, salary and fringe expenditures continue to be the most driving factor, and the most significant proportion

this is a collaborative effort with various city county act sis such as a ta, and tpw and the department is playing a leading role. we did request funding from the capital planning committee during last fiscal year's budget process, we did receive funding and we are asking for some additional funding for our continued work on that project, similar to the payment to parks program, this will allow for the department to retain and formalize the program, conducting a program evaluation and analysis, again, last year, we requested fund, we received some and we are requesting some additional funding to continue our efforts in that project. with the street tree inventory, the city did submit an application for a grant in december which will lead an

interagency effort that would fund an intensive public engagement and education program, and for the first time to have a park and first trees, it will be the capital allocation. and then lastly, as i mentioned, the department anticipates requesting from the preservation fund commission 250 thousand dollars to fund the work on the local interpretation to have secretary to have interior guide book, this guide book, it's not specific to local conditions, regarding the infill development in historic districts this accidenter will appropriate staff to develop [inaudible] resulting in a clear guiding document for the application of these standards

citywide. so, here's an update on the budget calendar, we've come to you with a draft work program, budget application like we did with the historic preservation, today i'm presenting a draft. next wednesday, i will be going before the historic preservation commission asking for their recommendation of approval and in two weeks from today, i will be coming to this body asking for your approval of the department's budget before we submit it to the mayor on february 21. na concludes my presentation, i would be happy to answer any questions we have. >> thank you. any general public comment on this item? seeing none, general public comment is closed. commissioner borden? >> i think this is a great plan, it has a lot of interesting projects you're working on, can you talk about the food clusters work that you

are getting grant funding for? i'm curious about it, does that include the food trucks, is that specific for food production? >> it's looking in general at the whole kind of food policy issues and we have a couple of grants, we have staff that is spending a quarter of her time to look at establishing a food policy for the city, so we're getting off the ground and defining it, but it's meant to be at the starting point a comprehensive point of how food is provided and grown and food deserts and all those issues in the city. >> i would like to have that brought to the commission, the same for the urban forest public education campaign, that sounds interesting. all of these are really interesting. i mean, i know we heard about some of the various programs, but to have an opportunity to hear a little bit about the work and how it's being scoped,

i think that would be worthwhile. another item that's kind of random and i don't mean this to disparage my historic preservation commissioners but i'm just wondering in here, there's a mention of a stipend and i was wondering what the rational was behind that. >> the idea was similar to the planning commission, there would be a stipend given to the commissioners on a per meeting basis. >> the same way you receive a stipend for -- >> maybe i was wrong because most commissions, there's some like the airport and redevelopment to have some degree of funding but i always assumed it's because we had the crazy long hour that is we get stipend, i was surprised because there are professional requirements for the historic preservation, some of them had to be experts in the field, that's why i was wondering --

>> na's a proposal on the table, it's your final call. >> i just, you know, was wondering if that was something the board of supervisors, i know ours was set by the board i think. >> well, i believe it's in the -- planning commissioners? >> actually, the way the commissions work, it's a job class within the annual salary ordinance, so depending on what commission you're on, there's different groups. about 4 or 5 years ago, the planning department proposed through the budget process to change the planning commission to a group 5 which is 200 dollars a meeting, we're proposing group 3 for historic preservation which is 50 dollars a meeting, it has to do with the appointment to a job class within the city's -- >> i wanted to know it's not a

standard policy, you know, and i just assumed, there was so much involved, that that was the reason and the other reason, i thought it was somewhat different because there is professional -- some degree of professional requirements related to that commission that are related to the work that the commission does, one could argue that people who have these expertise and are appointed to this commission may benefit financially already from that appointment as opposed to people on the planning commission. >> as the director on the case, just a proposal to recognize them for the time they commit, there's nothing in the charter or an ordinance, it's a job class appointment. >> i just didn't really know that all the different commissioners had a job classification. >> commissioner moore? >> we understand that the implementation of the street

tree program and the fact that the city can't maintain the trees but put the responsibility back on the home owners or adjoining property owners is still an issue, do we move forward? >> this line item is inventory of the trees and developing a plan for their further retention and growth so the maintenance question, you're right is an important question, it's not completely resolved yet, it's important to have this work done as a background for that. >> thank you for clarifying that. another question perhaps for mr. demartini, is there another place where we could see a little more detail on how the commission itself is budgeted as there are a number of line items which come together when you bring that figure forward, that includes an addition to the stipend, obviously the cost