late to support with dpw and we'll be doing a very extensive planting program, not only street industries but also some green ways from what you see on the golden gate avenue. we hope we'll come up with a solution for this portion of 8th street in front of 1190. our only thoughts are that we have to be able to do it above the surface in planters probably trees or shrubs, we don't know at this point in time. unfortunately with the opening of the 1190 mission street on july first 1st and in order to get all of our requirements up, we were not able to respond to what we want to do in that area and make sure that whatever we came up with coincided with what we are going to do there. we are

in agreement with the city's goals and hopeful that the city will give us the time as part of our planning process for phase 3 and 4 which will be on market street and i think you will be very proud of what you see developed there. >> quick question, you are saying that for certain plants 7 trees and the other 3 trees you are going to find another solution maybe an above ground box solution. >> absolutely. we have an interest to wanting to do that. >> can you remind me when you were here last? >> june, when were you here last? >> i didn't participate? >> when was it before this board last? >> i think it was over a year ago for a removal of some large

trees. >> when you removed this tree, what are we talking about? the whole project including design for trees and the entire thing? >> the entire thing is a 5-acre development for 2,000 apartments. >> in terms of the planning, figuring out where? >> the project proceeded in phases. the design has just been done with each phase. >> say that again, the first part? >> it's project has been done in phases. it's being done in four phases because of financing purposes. >> okay. >> we have completed the second phase. we have not developed detailed drawings for the entire project. we have detailed drawings for phase one

and two. >> if this project came to the board with a tree issue and you wanted us to do something and we worked with you, we ordered a certain position as to what trees were going to come out and what were going to go back in. at that point in time why was there not an investigation as to what was feasible. did you not do any feasibility investigation in advance of making a proposal to this board? >> we knew that more than likely the bureau of urban forestry requirements would eliminate some of those trees because of distances from corners and street lights. those were not presented when it came up the first time. we were not aware of the pg & e requirement that we could not put a tree in front of a vault. should we have, perhaps, but it did not occur to us. >> you would know other pg & e

requirements. you are building a massive structure. why wouldn't you understand that when you come to this board about trees. it seems to me it's been treated with great incision -- insignificance. >> we are investing a billion dollars in 2,000 apartment, substantial retail area, huge park area. we want to present the best image for our project also. we have no difficulty with the provision of street trees as required by the city and the bureau of urban forestry. but if we technically cannot put them in either because of the bureau of urban forestry rules or pg & e rules, there is nothing we can do about that. if i can physically put those trees in, i would go back and put those in today. >> right, my point is that you

didn't make the determination of the advance many of proposal that you can't do it. >> i think that's an in correction assumption. >> okay. as far as you had a july 1st deadline and for that reason you don't have a proposal in design as to what you would do in alternative inform plant the trees? >> we don't have the remainder of 8th street designed, whatever we do on this corner, we would like that to finish with the whole design scheme. >> what steps have you taken to move that forward? >> we have submitted our site plan. we hope to get the permit out shortly. we are moving fully ahead on all of our cd

construction documents. we have employed our landscape architect and they are designing all the landscape projects for our department. >> can you speak for that part because that's what we are all here for, the landscape piece. >> we are looking at doing a planted 4-foot strip along this and putting trees in there as well. there is other issues. we have the work of the utilities there too. we are in development of that. once we have some buy off on that design, the idea would be that carry that down to make it continuous. >> that's in concept phase? >> we are developing our plans. we are in our schematic design level for our plans for the street. >> your intending to have three

wells on the balance of 8th street? >> the intent of what we are hoping to do is we have a continuous planter strip. so 4-foot wide continuous planter strip for the length that we can in front of that new building. i believe there is a passengerer drop off zone and where they widen the sidewalk we'll have an additional 4 feet which i think is around seven trees. >> is it kind of unusual to show your original layout of 10 trees, but not incorporating any as built nature of that sidewalk? >> when we did that, the plan we presented back in 2011, we went through a construction drawing at that point. we

didn't know requirements for the pg & e involved actually the electrical engineer on that was surprised that they had that strict of a requirement too. so we developed it with what our intent was at that point and as we got further into developing or drawings, that's where we became aware that we couldn't put these other ones in. >> i'm not sure i understand that timeline since when you folks came before us last time, the reason why you wanted to remove the existing trees was because it affected your construction. the construction, it was already topped out. you were worried about bringing in the precast panels. >> yeah, there is a time, we've been on a different timeline from the construction of the building. so we've kind of been following, we are a little bit behind on the schedule. they

were able to develop some of their construction on it ahead of us. >> okay. >> okay. thank you. we'll hear from the department now. miss short? good evening commissioners, carla short department of public works. essentially we are here because the requirement that was imposed by this board on july 11, 2012, there was an agreement reached that the five trees will be granted for removal with the conditions that 10 trees would be planted. because this was a board requirement, dpw doesn't have the done wave that condition. in some cases if a developer is not required to plant a required tree, we look at

alternatives like additional ndscaping to mitigating the loss of that tree. that is something that is available to us. what we are here is to get guidance from the board to pursue this. frankly i do think there is a dispute about what can be planted. definitely one tree will fill fit on 8th street and i feel we can work with pg & e to allow us to building -- plant an additional tree on 8th street. there was a tree proposed here. pg & e doesn't want the trees over their vault. if the tree shifted at one side over the other, the concern is access. tapp at that time it can be

pruned to access the vault. dpw's perspective is we don't want to eliminate some of the trees but also respecting pg & e. i think there is still plenty of room for access to the driveway. i think it's important to note that this is a really expansive vast sidewalk now. if you walk by it. i should have brought you a photo taken today. the sidewalk is already built out with no greenery. i think that is not in keeping with the city's plan policy. even though you might end up with an -- alone tree.

i hope that you grant the authority for an allowing to assess rather than the planting of a quantity of the required trees that we would try to work closely with pg & e and the developer that would get the trees would be assessed, but if you would be willing to grant a little bit of flexibility that you were not able to compromise with pg & e, then perhaps to remove these would be assessed. i really believe there is room for one tree. the other thing is these were larger tree replacement requirement as you may recall the department we reversed our opposition for the removal of the trees because they were already damaged. the department would request that we would assess the value for the cost to plant and establish

a 36-inch box tree. it's substantially more expensive. so we would be proposing in lieu of $3800. we are talking about three trees. we were able to find an additional site working with a developer on mission. but, again i hope we would only be talking about one and we could find a location for two trees. >> is that maximum penalty at a can be imposed? >> no. >> shall i be asking robert brian? >> probably. >> okay. mr. bryant? >> i'm sorry, i actually don't know the answer to that question. as to what a maximum penalty is.

>> so, given that we heard this case a while ago, do you recall whether the proposal to plant 10 trees in lieu of 5 being taken out, is that a proposal that the board came up with at that hearing or was it a proposal that the permit holder proposed to us? >> yeah, it was a proposal that the permit holder proposed. >> okay. thank you. >> how do you feel about one tree? >> personally i feel fine about one tree. i do feel that even one tree would soften the look of that sidewalk and there is an additional phase to this project. we are required to address the conditions on this particular project. so i think there is an intention to plant additional trees. they will be required by the planning code as well. it will only be one tree, a lonely tree for a short time as that next phase gets built i believe they will have some friends out there.

>> when did they come to you and tell you that they were unable to satisfy what they had? >> i would have to -- i can look in my file. what is very frequently the case is when the developer is ready to plant the trees, they will touch base with us and we'll walk the site with them to make sure that they are in compliance with our guidelines and it was on that occasion. it was a couple months ago, i think that we were notified that they didn't think they can plant all the trees and we weren't certain how to proceed. i contacted the director for service advice. >> i'm trying to establish a time line. >> let me double check. >> thank you. >> i would ask you the question of from an urban design point of view a single tree doesn't

quite make much sense. >> i think, well, again i would argue that a single tree can still have a softening i am -- impact. this would only be a sipping will -- single tree for a short time. >> they are showing the non-committal for the balance of 8th street. the other thing is you recall a phone call i made to you after the last case? >> vaguely, perhaps you can remind me. >> okay, i drove past there and they indicated that they were having construction difficulties because they were putting up the precast. all right. as i drove by, immediately after that hearing, all the precaps on the ground

floor on mission street were already up. >> that's right. yeah. thank you. >> is there any public comment on this item? >> none? okay. we will hear rebuttal from the appellant. >> we don't have any difficulty with what the bureau of urban forestry just suggested. i would caution going in with one tree because i know what the future construction is going to be and i know what's going to happen to that tree. it's going to get severely damaged and it's going to be very difficult. we are excavating six floors below grade almost immediately to where that tree is. i have a new tenant that is coming in on the ground floor which is great news, a wonderful addition to the neighborhood. we are coming directly across the street in

the neighborhood of where that tree is for new gas line that is coming straight across the street and go 32 -- through that area. if you require us to put the tree in, we'll absolutely do it. i will caution you that i know it's going to be very difficult. we have no problem playing in lieu of that fee if it's appropriate. i'm not quite sure why we get a boost on the in lieu fee and what i'm familiar with in the past with approximately $17 00. if that's what you require us to do, we will do it. we are trying to come up with a design for 8th street. we want to come up with something very unique and something that the city will be proud of and that we will be proud of and show this project for what it is. we are investing 1000 000-0000 into this site. it is in our

interest to have 8th street to look very attractive. we don't want it to be a baern street at all. what i'm willing to commit to and we will agree to whatever bureau of urban forestry wants us to do. i urge you to be practical in construction considerations and others involved. >> miss short, miss the rebuttal? >> just two 2 points i would like to make. carla short department of public works. i understand it's difficult to work around trees when you are building a building but article code does require that developers must protect trees during construction. while that might add challenges, it is

their responsibility to make sure it will not get damaged. the other reason why i'm proposed a boost to the in lieu fee to plant a 24-inch box tree and establish it 2005 a 3-year period because the requirement was for a 36-inch box trees, that's substantially different cost because it's a much bigger tree and installation and also requires more water to get established. i was advocating in lieu of fee recognize that there was a larger tree replacement requirement on this case. thank you. >> commissioners, the matter is submitted. >> any comments? >> well, i wasn't here during the initial meeting. i did not watch the tape. the concern here is that from what i have heard in this meeting is that the developer came to this

board with specific plans to basically exchange for the trees that they were removing. and now, as their project is finishing, at least that particular phase, they are coming up to us and saying, oops, we noolger can do this. they definitely have broken a promise to this board in what the agreement was. >> obviously from my comments and questions to the requester, the appellant, i find there are some credibility issues which feels something like a bait and switch situation and with a

project as enormous it's difficult for me to believe that it could have not been researched. my view that this whole tree business was of great insignificance to this project and that the appellant would like to do just what it wants as to the trees, the landscape when ever it wants and get around it and also just hearing the comment commissioner fung also leads me to think that there are some serious representation concerns. very troubling. this is all very troubling to me. >> we did get an answer from the city attorney on the questions of imposition of penalties and that is in the jurisdiction of the dpw. that wouldn't be in our jurisdiction

to impose. dpw would be able to do that with it's own articles under section 16. any other comment? >> i'm probably not going to delve too much further into what might have been the rational and the in terms of what was being proposed. the question that still is in my mind is that from an urban design point of view, across the street is very large pg & e substation building. there are no trees there. there are a number of parking lots on that street. there are also no trees there. here is a huge development and i didn't see a significant integration between the sidewalk and the planting

with the design. that's not -- i'm likely to support the department's ability to try to work with the developer hopefully to get as many trees as possible there, at least to soften the nature of the buildings. these are fairly large high rise buildings, they kind of blocky, they go right up to the sidewalk. regardless of my feelings of the motivation as to what occurred previously because, you know getting pg & e to put in substations takes years and the requirements are very stringent, very difficult to deal with. that's why they have pg & e expediteers these days. if you look at that sidewalk where these things are, there

are a bunch of them. i think that probably the nature of that design has been known for a long time. i'm prepared to support the department in terms of them negotiating with the developer on where they can place trees and to extract the amount of money that they have requested. >> is there a motion? >> yeah. move to grant the appeal and condition it to allow the bureau of urban forestry to continue to negotiate with the developer on the number of trees that can be placed on 8th street and in the event that they fall short of the 10 mandated then to collect the $3,000 per tree that has been removed.

>> might i suggest since it's not within our jurisdiction and i think there is some questions about the amount of in lieu fee that we simply subject everything that you said to the issuance of in lieu fee to the department. >> let me rephrase it counselor. i believe in our previous -- we also specified 36-inch rather than 24 -inch that is commonly done. i will stay with whatever fees they would then assess based upon the 36-inch box.

>> we have a motion from commissioner fung. let me troo i to restate it. i believe it's to grant this appeal and to allow to work with the appellant on the planting of these three trees -- on 8th street and if that's not possible the board would allow the dpw to impose the fee pursuant to their own powers of the code. >> that's section 807 f of the public works code. okay. >> okay. on that motion to

grant this appeal an allowing dpb to work with the planting of these three trees -- on 8th street to allow the fees as they see fit under their code. on that motion, president huang, hurtado, lapis zarus, fung, honored -- honda. >> the vote is 5-0. >> we are going to take a break.