>> aye. >> aye. aye. >> thank you, commissioners. >> on the matter of the variance we will continue that to the same hearing date of july 14, 2011 and public hearing will remain open on that. >> thank you.

>> commissioners, with that we go to item number 16. >> we go back to item number 6. >> thank you for allowin present the board of appeals summary hearing. they had a very late hearing last night. three items of rell convenientsy to the commission, 1338 filbert street was a jurisdiction request. this was building permit application filed pursuant to the c.e.u. the board continued this from last week's hearing for a final vote. additional information they absolutely denied the jurisdiction request, finding the permits were issued pursuant to the c.u. and not within their purview. the second item was a rehearing request for 3929 caravel street so the planning commission had approved, board of appeals denied it and they had a rehearing request last night. the board denied the rehearing request, finding there was no information that would justify a new hearing or request. the finalizing for des derio

street. this is a building permit for chase bank to open at the subject location. this is the site that the planning commission had heard conditionally formula retail battery plus store. the chase bank, the planning department administrator has determined banks are not subject to the formula retail controls and this is how the formula retail controls have been applied consistently since they were invoked in 2004 and they have the uses for the bank however condition for formula retail aspect of a bank. it's always been related to the financial services itself. so the board did hear this appeal last night. they ultimately continued that we during the course of the retail process, we found a small issue with one of the a.t.m.'s and that had triggered a notification requirement so we're working with the project sponsor to try to get that issue resolved and the board will have a final hearing on that next week to decide whether or not they will take action to resolve

that issue for us. but what i really wanted to mention to this board is i think some bad news, and lawrence cornfield, the deputy director department of building and inspection, i think many of you know, he's been representing the department of building and inspection at the board of appeals for more than 20 years. >> he's amazing. >> completely amazing resource and it's been unfortunately last night he indicated that he would no longer be representing the department of building inspections at the board of appeals and that he would in fact be moving to the city administrator's office to continue work on seismic safety, which is very important work, especially considering the recent disasters that we had. i just would like to say personally it's been a privilege to sit next to him during this time. the last four years i have been working and sitting next to him fword of appeals. he's as dedicated a public servant as anyone i have ever met and personally a role model for me and i will be very sad to see him go.

he served the board exceptionally in the years not only as technical adviser on the building code but i think guiding them with wisdom overall. one of the things i learned from him was to not look simply at your code, planning code or building code, but to look more holistically at the municipal codes and see how the whole city functions together. he's been really prominent in bracing that and trying to bring all of the city family together. his work and sharing his knowledge is exceptional as well from his brown bag lunches that he gives, trainings for staff. he's given trainings for staff on the building code and also as many of you know, his tv show. he's on sfg-tv. he's always been a resource for the department. any time we had a question about building code, the answer is always go ask lawrence. we will miss him. we're happy for him to be able to continue the important work he's doing on the seismic safety and look forward to all of the progress that he makes and we will wish him well in this

position. thank you. president olague: thank you. commissioner miguel? commissioner miguel: yes. since you mentioned seismic, if i may, my son opened a store for his firm three weeks ago in tokyo. and i e-mailed him asking whether he's heard anything from staff, and it was a two-sentence answer that i thought you might be interested in, which came in this afternoon. this is in tokyo. they are all good but shaky. supplies are scarce. few trains, worries about aftershocks and now radiation. meantime, we're in the middle of a sales market, not expecting it to be a stellar season. so that's from the middle of tokyo, at any rate. president olague: commissioner sugaya?

commissioner sugaya: just to support what mr. sanchez said, my four years on the board of appeals, mr. cornfield was a stellar representative of the building department and the city overall. so the board will miss him in more than one way. i won't go there. president olague: commissioner moore? commissioner moore: we couldn't find ourselves at a better time to take the leadership on this newly emerging issue because he's been outstanding on all structural engineering issues for years. president olague: thank you. commissioners, we're proposing to do something a little different tonight. we would like to take item 7 and 16 together. >> commissioners, i thought these were related and the reason for some of the proposed changing of the scheduling is directly related to the state's vote on redevelopment agencies.

so i thought if we can talk about these items together, because we can do that, that would be fine. i don't know, rich, maybe just to start i could say you probably know that the state has been voting this week on the proposed -- governor's proposed budget and including the trailing legislation on the proposed elimination of redevelopment agencies. yesterday the state senate voted to eliminate redevelopment agencies per the discussion we had last week. i'm sorry? that did not happen? you may have more updated information than i. maybe you should come up and talk about that. ok. >> we know the legislature hasn't passed it yet so the assembly was considering it today and yesterday and they didn't pass it. >> the senate voted yesterday, no? >> that was my understanding too but there was some confusion on that. it's our understanding if there was one vote they needed in the plea to pass it and they still haven't got that vote.

they haven't pass td but it's still under consideration by the legislature. >> my understanding is that the senate voted yesterday, is that not true? >> that was mine too but i have heard kind of varying interpretations of that. >> go ahead then. >> so it's still an issue before the legislature. it hasn't been passed but it's close to being passed or they are one vote shy. we don't know if they will get that vote. they've adjourned for today. supposedly adjourned for the weekend but can't confirm if that's the case. so we are looking at the bill and obviously interpreting it for the various projects under redevelopment. i don't know if you want me to talk specifically about t.i. so for t.i., it obviously, the bill is passed redevelopment in the tools of development would go away. we would not be kind of be able

to slip into what's being called the successor agency and allow t.i. to continue under the rules of redevelopment. we would have to change things. in given the fact that we may not know if this is going to pass or we don't know yet, there's just a lot of uncertainty about the future of redevelopment. it's just not a tenable situation for t.i. to continue under a redevelopment tax increment financing law. so the reason that we've asked to kind of continue today's regularly scheduled hearing where we're going to talk about the various plans, is we want to come back to you as soon as possible, and we anticipate the april 17th hearing, to kind of talk to you about a new financing model for t.i. and that being infrastructure financing districts which you heard about in the last couple months. it's a viable alternative for t.i. it works for t.i. it's the same type of t.i. model we have for tax increment in that you use future property tax increments to fund public

improvement. and we don't anticipate any of the land use or kind of a built environment proposals for t.i. to change. we expect them to remain the same so the i.r. that's before you, there would be no change to that. land use plan or design for development, no change to that. what we are talking about is a change to the financing model. and there's two significant differences. there's a lot of differences between i.f.d.'s and tax differences but two significant differences. one, there's less increment available to these projects. under tax increment financing, there's 80 cents that is available that can go back to finance the public improvements as well as affordable housing. under i.f.d.'s there's 65 cents and maybe even less, depending on the funding of some of the general funds obligations like the children's funds, et cetera. so there's less money is the

biggest difference. the second is there's imentations on, one, there's no requirement to fund foordable housing as there is for tax increments for i.f.d.'s and there's limitations on the funding of affordable housing. on most instances you can't fund affordable housing unless you actually have replacement housing. those being the two main differences, we think there will be kind of a reduction in the community benefit, public benefits that are generated from the project. but knowing that this was coming, we have been working over the past weeks to minimize that, kind of creative ways to get, if not all, a significant amount of the public benefits we presented to you in the past and what we anticipated from treasure island in this new financing scheme. that's what we would like to bring to you at the next

meeting, as here with kind of the world under tax increfment financing and here's the new world under i.f.d.'s, here are the changes. and we believe those to be, you know fairly minimal but yet significant. so we haven't briefed our title board on this yet, the changes we are proposing. we're going to do that in the next week. so we would like to come back to you after that hearing and present these changes. there's also structural changes on how this deal will be done. we don't have a redevelopment plan anymore. there's structural things that we have to change in the transaction so we can kind of walk you through. and then we would like to go back to our regularly scheduled briefings on the project itself. president olague: fine. thank you. great. so you're basically asking we continue this discussion to

april 7th? it's already on the calendar. >> yes, joint hearing, we wouldn't need the joint hearing. president olague: changes the whole conversation. it would be important for us to be informed of what those changes are. ok, that's fine. >> if i could add, two weeks ago at your hearing, you approved initiation of -- for a date on or after the 7th of april and we would like to propose that, that hearing be the 21st. it hasn't been advertised yet so there's no need to take action on it but that would be the proposal on the table. president olague: we had cpn. c information scheduled for that day. we have to look at the calendar before making any commitments. >> that would be our proposal. information on 7th and hopefully adoption on the 27th.

president olague: we'll have to look at the calendar. i think it's pretty overwhelming at this point, so many unknowns that we need to look at that. ok. >> that concludes our presentation. president olague: great. thank you. commissioner moore, take commissioner comments and then we will go to public comment. >> commissioner moore: the only thing which i think is missing to make this transition whatever form it will take is completely understandable to the public is we're here in executing end of being responsible to the public for whatever the changes are and there are so many that i'm not even sure they can all be retained in the existing documents which obviously all use the wrong references, all of the wrong words, et cetera, and part are even anchored in legal situations. so you need to kind of do almost like a 24/7 in order to meet of

what the public will ask you to explain. it's very difficult, very unfortunate timing. it is what it is. i assume it is one with momentum but the accountability to the public i think is the most difficult thing to bridge. >> i think the good news is things we have been talking to the public a lot about transportation plan, ferries in the transportation subsidies, transition housing plans. none of that will change in any material way. certainly the documents may need to change where they reference, redevelopment in reference -- we anticipate t.i.d.a. to be the agency that enacts these are we are working on a plan to go honestly put this back out to the public and go talk to the public through here and other necessary meetings.

commissioner moore: i think you were simplifying a little bit the trust factor. redevelopment is an established mechanism we have used for i am not sure, 50, 60 years, and that's one thing. now it's part of the development and it is something else and i'm not trying to put a question mark into the aspect but there is a shift in how will we engage. and that breaks down on many, many, many levels. i don't want to kind of scare you. all i'm doing is posing a positive challenge to you that will take a really wholehearted effort to answer questions that whatever the transfer is, it is a transparent and clear one and some things might have to change. i don't have that few from 30,000 feet down. i don't. some people here in the room do. so whatever. commissioner antonini?

commissioner antonini: i'm not sure if i'm interpreting this correctly but one of the differences as i hear it between the infrastructure financing district and tax increment financing as you pointed out was a lower amount of money that would -- lower percentage but it sounds like there might be some elimination of some of the requirements of redevelopment had that sometimes might be nonincome generating requirements or low income generating requirements, not speaking to the desirability or need. but you might have compensatory relaxation on some of the things that might have generated some of the cost it's i'm hearing what you're saying correctly. >> right. there's a concern -- obviously, one concern is affordable housing and there's a concern city wide funds available to affordable housing through redevelopment and they were significant, you know, will no

longer be available and it's been obviously a point of great interest when we look through the bill that's being passed and our ability to meet all affordable housing goals and the project that's will continue through the successor agency and those that won't and maybe through an i.f.d. model. the unique situation we have here is the funding affordable housing is there's a replacement if you're actually removing housing and here some of the larger projects we have around the city, we kind of have the door open to fund some affordable housing on treasure island that you wouldn't have say in the shipyard if you had to go back, because i don't think they're demoing existing housing. >> the board reference specifically to treasure island but not development in general but specifically to that, we're

under a little different circumstances as you pointed out then might be in other areas. >> commissioner sugaya: have you heard anything with respect to funneling or requiring some affordable housing to be funded through the -- if we eliminate the agencies, you know, money goes back to the state or whatever and -- or back to the cities in some form. but i heard in the paper or saw in the paper that some people may be pushing for a requirement that some of the that be specifically earmarked for affordable housing. have you heard anything more on that? >> yeah, we've heard a lot but nothing definitive. we have the legislation legislation, the legislature which has a great insight on our ability to plan affordable housing city wide. we know there's effort to put this in the documenting bills or

a lot of talk about trailer bills to kind of clean up or give the city hours to do economic development not under the redevelopment model but under kind of a model analogous to i.f.d.'s or perhaps adding in a requirement or allowance to do more affordable housing with those i.f.d.'s. >> i think too following up on commissioner moore's comment, the impacts to the way that these are all going to be implemented, perhaps with the development or roll role of the planning department will be a concern to the commission and mentioning a continuation of the tida and what kind of role they would continue to perform in all of that. >> certainly tida wouldn't continue as the redevelopment agency. so wouldn't have the power, power nor increment, financing

powers of a redevelopment agency. president olague: commissioner fong? >> commissioner fong: clearly it's been a rough week and curveball has been thrown at this stage of the game. i want to acknowledge other work on the public and private side of this thing. my encouragement is don't give up, keep going and let creativity flow and maybe i will be able to find a way out of this one. president olague: commissioner moore? commickser moore: i don't know the answer to the question. i just want to raise it, how does the public trust get interpreted or reinterpreted under this new arrangement because it is very different from what it was before. in addition to that when you make tighter -- don't want to use the word development because that, of course, doesn't apply. to become semi-public arm of the public to work with private development, those are all equal

questions, structural questions about how do they represent public interest? don't answer me, doesn't matter. i'm just going to let you know that will be a question loosely asked and probably more concisely asked by others and then the biggest question for me is in order for this project to really switch into -- into development, given the new financial model you're looking for, i kind of think probably a real worked-out savings strategy yi is in order. i have talked about that probably from the very beginning but those kinds of questions i think will probably come up. so no answer to those questions because we are obviously interested to have a dialogue and give you as many possible questions so they can be answered 24/7. president olague: i would ask we keep the development item, although next week is going to be a horribly long hearing, we

keep it on our calendar so we can discuss any changes to that. it just seems with -- it would require a level of scrutiny that maybe wasn't present brfment i'm not saying we shouldn't rush it through but i'm saying do we really need -- we real flide to be able to understand any kind of changes. if no requirement to finance affordable housing is obviously likely something that would shift and then also the reduction in public benefits so that's something i think some of us would be interested in really scrutinizing and how understanding in terms of how does that even impact the design of the project right. so i imagine we're going to see some changes there as the financing changes perhaps given certain expectations that the public had around certain public benefits and affordable housing requirements that may not exist any longer. so i just -- it will probably be

something that will have just more extensive conversations about those things. open it up for public comment. >> good evening, commissioners. so first of all, just assuming from that presentation that this project was a >> idea in the first place, the idea we're going to lose affordable housing guarantees 15% of the funding and community benefits is huge. the concept we can somehow, if that happens, if we can engage this by april is absurd. we're talking about fall for an initiation if we have to do all those kinds of changes. now let's get to the absurdity of the project itself. you might not have read it yet but i sent you an e-mail. it contains my six pages of comments to the e.i.r.

it also contains important notes about tsunami danger. the tsunami that happened in japan is a perfect way to describe what have i been trying to explain about this plodge for two years that will happen in slow motion with the water going up. well, it didn't happen in slow motion in japan. it happened in a flash. and hours away in alaska we could have a similar earthquake. we could have a similar tsunami hitting the bay and it would raise the bay by at least eight feet in that tsunami and probably more on the san francisco end but in the e-mail, i was conservative about that. with the thousands of residents that this project seeks to put on that island, there is no way that you're going to be able to get that many people off of that island in a few hours.

it just won't happen. we're talking about a japan-style disaster if we proceed with this project as it is. and i get back to what i said a couple years ago about this, you need to reel this back, make this a wet wind restoration project where the sea gradually inundates into it and if it's wetland wildlife, instead of the type of wildlife we would put in there expecting this not to get flooded, that wildlife will be able to better adapt itself to the rising sea level. so please read the e-mail and let's just start to think about reality. and reality says this project should not be built. i know nobody wants to hear that but somebody's got to say it out loud. it's not a safe project. it shouldn't be built. and we should also think about the fact there are already people living on treasure island and what if we do get a similar earthquake. we've got to make plans even for

those new people. and that earthquakes might actually be more frequent. i didn't think global warming had anything to do with earthquakes. it is turning out the elimination of the deep ice on the poles is changing -- that ice is very heavy and it actually affects the crust of the earth. the fact that, that ice is going away could make incidents like this actually happen more frequently and it is part of what may contribute -- may contribute what happened in japan. thanks. president olague: any additional public comment? seeing none, public comment is closed. we need a motion? it's on the calendar. i think we're ok.

>> one quick thing to say. eric brooks again san francisco green party. i just want to -- even though it was for no reason, it was very refreshing that this hearing started on time, even though no one showed up for it, because it was being continued. however, i want to thank you for getting your ducks in a row on that, and especially ms. avery, i was watching your hearing all day today and she very specifically was on you about, hey, make sure you're scheduling. so thank you, ms. avery, for being a good herd writer on these folks. appreciate it. thanks. president olague: thufment any addition aling general public comment? seeing none, public comment is closed and we will close in memory of the folks who lost their lives in japan. >> thank you.