the impacts on buildings, the impacts on preservation, the impacts on traffic. nobody's spoken to the impacts on children. i think this is the best alternative and i don't know if you could list an environmental impact on a child, but certainly this is, i believe, the proposed project is the best alternative for the children of our neighborhood. thank you. president miguel: thank you. >> good evening. my name is tina and i represent russian hill neighbors and we recently, monday night, for the second time put it up to a vote about the e.i.r. and unanimously, which is rare for our group, accepted the e.i.r. as adequate, accurate and very efficient. and came to the general

consensus that reading is the key to knowledge, knowledge is the key to success and let's get on with it. our group urges you to accept and adopt the e.i.r. as it is presented. thank you very much. president miguel: thank you. >> good evening, commissioners. my name is scott. i've lived in the north beach neighborhood for almost 25 years. during this time i've become familiar with the north beach library and the jody imagine yo play ground and the inadequacy of those current facilities for the neighborhood. the community and dedicated professionals have worked for seven years on a master plan for a new library and park. the draft e.i.r. is a thorough and objective assessment of the options. based on this comprehensive

analysis, it's clear that the best option for the neighborhood is a new library on the mason street triangle, in an expanded and upgraded jody imagine yo park. thank you -- dimaggio park. thank you. president miguel: thank you. renee. dale. laura. >> good evening, commissioners. i'm a resident of north beach with my two young sons. i'm also a former art commissioner and was on the civic design review commission which unanimously approved the north beach library. i believe that the e.i.r. is both accurate, adequate and complete. and i ask that you approve the e.i.r. i will state that as the

landscape architect on the civic design review, i think that it's my responsibility to look beyond the buildings and to look at the effect that each project project has on its urban edges, its open space, its relationship to the larger urban context and i think that the e.i.r. addresses those issues. thank you. president miguel: thank you. >> good evening, commissioners. my name's dale. i'm a resident of telegraph hill, north beach, for 15 years. i'm also somewhat active in some of the community, including a telegraph hill dwellers. i was involved initially and attended the meetings where the master plan was approved. it made a lot of sense to me then. i've looked at the e.i.r., i think it supports what mr. her era and the parks and rec came up with as a master plan.

mainly for the kids and as the mothers have articulated so well here, this is the right thing to do. the e.i. requirement supports it and i -- e.i.r. supports it and urge you to approve it. thank you very much. president miguel: thank you. >> hi, commissioners. my name is laura. i'm here representing a committee that's called the council of neighborhood libraries, c.n.l. and this is a group of people that they have representatives from all the libraries and we meet once a month to discuss san francisco library issues. we sent a letter to the planning department and i'm going to read two paragraphs from that letter. visited the north beach branch library and reviewed the environmental impact report which included the studies done on the building. as you know, this is a very complete two-year study and included looking at transportation, shadow, as thetics, view, presentation and other impacts of building a new library and expanding the park.

as the draft e.i.r. points out, the existing library is inadequate and insufficient to serve the needs of the community. north beach families deserve a state-of-the-art facilities with separate spaces for children, teens and adults, more computers, access for all, improved by supervision, children's early learning features and space for library and community programs. they also deserve a library and park that is safe, inviting and makes the best use of our limited civic resources. thank you. president miguel: thank you. terry. leo. >> commissioners, my name is terry. and i've been a resident of north beach for about six years

now. before that i lived all over the world. i find that the e.i.r. is very complete. i think the study was very thorough. i think the transportation study was especially well done. and found no problems and no impact. something that we haven't touched much on tonight is a safety issue. i'm a medical health care provider and i deal a lot with seniors. the way the project would sit with the street being closed so that the seniors could get across the street, have a place to gather, and do this safely, and with the graying of america, we're having a lot more seniors and i see a lot of them in north beach. so, i do hope that you will all consider accepting the e.i.r.

and there's always something i leave you with and that's a message of hope. we can hope, we've all been waiting, even before we lived in san francisco my husband and i were involved with it and it has been at least seven years. so, i don't want to bore you with the sad patient story, with the issue of hope, but i do hope that you all will consider the e.i.r. thank you. president miguel: thank you. >> commissioners and mr. president, i live at chestnut, mason. a few years ago, i was mayor of a small town in a different county and served on the county transportation commission, the air quality control board and several other boards and committees. excuse me. as such i had the opportunity to review many environmental

impact reports. this draft e.i.r. for the library and play ground project is one of the most complete and accurate i have seen. it provides complete information to support a new library and an exhaustive transportation study that full request supports the mason street closure. there is more than adequate information that there are no significant impacts, with a single exception of the highly questionable preservation of the existing structure. demolition what have is arguably the worst example of a 1950-style architecture is easily mitigated by a memorial, photographic and narrative display in the new library. over the past several years there have been many public meetings and opportunities for public input. we have waited a long time for a new and better library and a bigger and better play ground. it's time to move this project forward. thank you. president miguel: thank you. julie, joan, june.

>> julie, resident of north beach. i belong to the friends of jody imagine yo play ground. thank you for your service -- joe dimaggio play ground. thank you for your service. our library needs to double in size. we desperately need recreation space, not plazas and pretty places to look at but programble, active recreation space. no expansion, no expansion of the current library is possible without severeas adverse effect towers playground. 11 years ago some of us set out to work with the city to solve these intractable problems. ed the toddlers of 1999 are in high school now. the teenagers of 1999 are working, some of them married, some of them wean children of their own. we absolutely respect the need

for due process and for careful consideration. particularly on a project as complex and important as this one. but the e.i.r. flrks process for over two years, builds on 10 years of park studies and seven years of library studies. it follows scores of concepts, sketches, tests, hearings, reviews and meetings. i personally have over 62 different concepts for this library and park project in my records. the more the city has studied options, the more sense the master plan makes. it's a hard project to understand. but when you do and you go through the process we've been through, you can understand how we landed up where we are today. people love the project, some people hate the project. my plea to this commission is that you let the debating begin. and let the fate of our neighborhood be decided without further delays. the only thing missing from the

e.i.r. in my perspective is a sense of urgency. and we'd ask this commission to add that to these proceedings. thank you. president miguel: thank you. >> good evening, president miguel, and commissioners. my name is joan wood. i live on houston street. it's a block and a half from 701 lombard where the new library is projected and i've lived there since 1962. i've been in san francisco since 1948. i think we're here to address the e.i.r., not get into a debate with some of the misstatements i've heard. but i just have to say that the first community meeting was in 2008 and i don't know how this project is said to have been in process for seven or eight years.

it's an inadequate e.i.r. and i feel bad to say that because they've worked very hard on it. several things have been omitted. there are se restrictions on rious legal restrictions on the 701 lere ar restrictions on the 701 lombard street lot and if this plan goes forward it may provoke lawsuits. it has to do with the lot being seized by eminent domain. i've looked throughout the e.i.r., i don't see any mention of that. it's a very serious omission. it was seized with the purchase -- they used open space funds and those funds are restricted that recreational purposes on the lot. and a library doesn't qualify for that. there's no arborist consulted and trees -- mature trees will have to be eliminated if that lot is used. the transportation analysis is lengthy and it has one

interesting conclusion, page 167. it refers to five different dates of transportation studies but there was a study in december of 2005 commissioned by the m.t.a. and it isn't referred to anyplace and it found serious traffic on mason street which would obviously be diversitied if the street was closed which -- diverted if the street were closed. i want to read one thing at the bottom of page 167. in the professional opinion of city staff and the consultant, the lose, i don't know what that stands for, but they calculated using the traffic volumes collected in july of 2009 is not an accurate characterization of prevailing conditions. in other words, the staff decided they didn't want to use

that. so they didn't. i'm sending you a longer statement of my objections to the e.i.r. in which you will see some more detail about traffic studies that are not in here. the alternatives are treated too superphysically in my opinion. -- superfissionly in my opinion. -- superphysically in my opinion. president miguel: thank you. -- superficially in my opinion. president miguel: thank you. >> chairman miguel and commissioners, 45 years i've lived a block from the historic north beach library. >> could you state your name for the record? >> oh, yes, sorry. june. >> thank you. >> which should be land

canmarked, not destroyed. -- we should be landmarked, not destroyed. the draft e.i.r. is riddled with faults and shortcummings. i want to address -- shortcomings. i want to address the statements in chapter four that the environmental impact of enacting the master plan proposed would be insignificant . actually, under the plan, the library's demolished. the costly new two-story library is of inferior design, it would be built on traditional open space. three magnificent mature trees would be destroyed. the wall a half block west by the highrise crystal tower would be carried across columbus avenue.

the north beach view corridor would be obliterated. the proposed new library would extend 20 feet into mason street. the wide-open character of an important columbus intersection would be gone. and insignificant environmental impact? i don't think so. president miguel: william, sal. >> good evening, commissioners. my name is william. i'm a 15-year resident of north beach. i'm a father of two young children. i cherish my community, i cherish my children. i've skived -- skipped putting them to bed tonight to come here and ask for your support

of the e.i.r. it is time to move forward with this effort. the e.i.r. is adequate, accurate and, most importantly, i believe it is complete. again, it is time to move forward with this project. the e.i.r. addresses all of the required aspects and the potential impacts of this project. it considers all preservation alternatives, provides significant analysis to support the need for a new library, significant analysis that supports the closing of mason street and provides multiple analyses of the conflicting general plan policies and analyses yielding that there's no aesthetic impact to this project. please allow us to make progress, please support our families and our children in san francisco. please support the approval of this draft e.i.r. our neighborhood is desperate will for this -- desperate for this. our children deserve it this.

and our community is almost in unanimous support of this. president miguel: thank you. >> mr. president, commissioners, ladies and gentlemen, my name is sal. i am a life-long resident of the 2100 block of mason street. i as everybody in here probably am the only person that have actually used the playground. and the toddler space up on top. and came out ok. at this point i would like to mention the fact that there is a traffic study which i gave you. there are two traffic studies there that are not in the environmental impact report. not only are there -- are they not in the environmental impact report but i'd like to put a picture down here to show you the picture that i got from the

library itself. now i took the liberty -- this is the actual library that they want to put on columbus avenue. i took the liberty of putting a sign on it. i wanted to put that into perspective. that sign says walgreen's, because that's how large this particular library is. this library is not in keeping with the neighborhood character. not at all. not one -- it doesn't have any bay windows, all the bottoms are walls. there's no windows on the bottom. safety issue, if you're inside and you have the problem, the police will not be able to see inside. that's number one. number two, it's a substandard library because they have 43.3% nonassignble space inside that. that is actually 2% better than the old library that we have. we're going to get 1,200 square

feet more usable out of that library, but if you remodel the other one yuled get much more out of that library. all of those are in the papers that i have just given you. what else? it's going to block -- if you stand in the middle of that particular corner and look around, it's called an expansive view. this library is going against a grain of every general policy that san francisco has put. the view core course, the ex padges -- corridors, the expansion views. it's not in this book. the general plan tells you that you're not supposed to build a library in a nonrecreational piece of property on the park land. it's right in there.

it's in your -- all of us here want a better library. but that's not it. i say that if we bottle the old one, bring it to lombard street, put the bocce balls on the top, we'd have a better library. thank you very much. president miguel: thank you. karen. >> my name is karen. my first time presenting. good evening, commissioners. i'm a retired teacher that has lived and worked in this neighborhood for 41 years. yes, we do need a new library that's accessible to everyone and has computer availability. however, i disagree with what i'm hearing from the e.i.r. that it will make the neighborhood safer.

my experience during the short time that there was a temporary street closing and park was an incredible increase in the homeless, scary homeless people living there. i personally experienced -- let me go back. the park and the landscaping, the landscaping and the library are integraly connected. you cannot consider one without considering the impact of the other. the impact that have open space, which is necessary, however they are building a very secluded area that will be a mecca. during the temporary street closing i was practically attacked in the laundry mat. police had to come every morning. there were homeless men on my morning drunk, there were beer cans in front, there were beer cans in the park. there were a bunch of drunk guys playing the guitar and jeering at me.

i don't know why. i had my head down, i was just trying to ignore them. it's not safer and until this design flaw of building the park so that it is secluded, you cannot see from columbus avenue, people will be able to stay there all night, there is no talk about fences, there's talk about you must have a walking corridor for people on mason street so they can get through there, the park has to be open. i've spoken to police that patrol that area. they also feel it's a problem. what can i say? i hope we can get a new library but i hope you will see that the impact of this landscaping and design for open space is just going to negatively impact the safety of the neighborhood. and that can be considered, it should not go forward until you

accept that. don't say we have to have the library first and then we'll deal with the other. they are together. and the problem really needs to be solved, both problems. everything in modern life is very complex. thank you. president miguel: thank you. joseph butler. >> commissioners. i'm a neighbor and a friend of almost everyone in the room. we've not always been on the same side of things but we've always figured out in the end how to get by. and i think we can do that again here. the community deserves a modern library. there's no doubt about it. my daughters learned to read in this library. we learned to rollerblade in the park. so, it's an integral part of the community. it's time for an upgrade. and the funds are available. so where are we?

there is a view that we talk about from columbus avenue. through this new triangle that we found. and at great cost to the city and at great expense on the part of the neighborhood to secure. and what that -- it's the neck of a bottle. it lets you look through the park to the tower beyond, to the spires. you know where you are. it's two blocks, this park, from washington square. one of the 10 best urban places in the united states. why wouldn't you connect yourself to one of the 10 best urban places in the united states? then you'll -- daniel had a plan in 1995. he said, we should connect all the parks down here with coit party and he had three blocks of the city decimated and none of it got built. even after it burnt, nobody would build it. we do have a chance, though, from joseph conrad square at one end of columbus avenue,

past the triangles that were cut off by columbus avenue which was finagled through, built san francisco. they condemned properties and cut that street through. you come up with -- up past dimaggio playground and then washington square. you keep going, you find a block of books that were put there recently, an arts commission project, when they redid the broadway corridor. beautiful books flying in the air, solar powered from the roof of city lights. you continue on, you get down to redwood park. next to the transamerica pyramid. north beach is a wonderful place. so let's not put a cork in the bottle. not just yet. if you look at the dimaggio playground plan, the library sits here with an unused, understory space. part of it could be rec center. about 660 square feet. batter -- part of it could be a program room, about 700 square feet.

or new steps space here. when you go up from that existing lower library staff level, you come into the main reading room. in this plan we would not do anything other than upgrade the finishes as they were originally intended, replacing in kind and restoring where possible. there is a solution that meets the a.d.a. it can be accessably upgraded. president miguel: thank you. is there additional public comment on this item? just leave it on the -- thank you. >> howard, friends of appleton

library. i'm an architect and a native of north beach who grew up with north beach library when it was first opened. and played at the children's playground and the playground when i was at francisco middle school, particularly when we had our softball lunchtime tournaments there. and i too came out ok. first of all, as an architect and as planners you a all know 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. 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. an addition. much larger than the new 8,500