i support pesticide watch. i will keep this short. pesticide watch is a nonprofit organization seeking to prevent pesticide exposure, build healthy communities, and advocate for sustainable solutions to a broken food system through the advocacy of urban local agriculture. thank you. we are actively promoting non- toxic alternatives to the current food system which will support economically viable job opportunities, connect communities to nutritional and health the options, and allow people the option to consume non-toxic food. this ordinance will provide equitable access, proactively promote our visions for healthy communities, and allow people to enjoy a much greener san francisco. pesticide watch would like to support the proposed amendments, including the changing of the

fencing language to allow for greener fencing, and removing language limiting only to wooden fencing. we would also like to support the value added goods and sale of those in mixed communities. thank you very much. chairperson mar: thank you. >> good afternoon, supervisors. my name is brokok budner. at our farm, we grow salad greens and culinary herbs. with an updating zoning code, we would be able to sell to restaurants, neighbors, caterers, and france. i think these businesses have real potential to demonstrate not only ecological sustainability, but economic stability. since much of the city's vacant land is located in residential neighborhoods, i will briefly describe how are form has fit

into a residential neighborhood so far. my partner and i work on site four days a week within normal business hours, using mostly hand tools. we occasionally use a week wacker for larger tasks, usually no more than once a week. we have volunteered days, hosting want to 10 people on these days. we have received no complaints about noise. we have been told we are good neighbors. i think our farm illustrates that small-scale farming is a relatively quiet activity, usually creating less noise than a typical landscaper and less traffic than an occasional dinner party. to give you a sense of our scale, we came to grow and sell 50 pounds of produce per week. i have experienced firsthand the filling relationships that can form around a farm located in a residential neighborhood. we are visited daily by neighbors.

some pass by to say hello and check on the progress of the crops. other step outside to offer hot tea. others share stories of their former grandparents. -- farmer grandparents. others ask when they will be able to buy or cabbage. our farm has become an integral part of this neighborhood by presenting a connection to something we all share, the need for food. chairperson mar: thank you. >> i live next door to the farm. i think it is terrific, and the neighbors love it. it contributes greatly to the safety and quality and character of the neighborhood. chairperson mar: what is your name? >> [unintelligible] chairperson mar: thank you. >> my name is karen heissler.

i am an owner of a bakery and named mission pi. -- mission pie. part of what we are doing is running our business with as high in the instrumental -- with as high environmental standards as possible, which includes local food. for us, the obvious benefit of this ordinance would be the increase in production of food grown locally. beyond that, what is really exciting to us is the prospect of, especially in this economic time, a new small-business sector as colleagues. we have been particularly inspired to watch the growth of little city gardens and to fill the possibility of a demonstration by them and many other small businesses of a viable new sector that would provide jobs. i would like to say it is delightful to see how much

support there has been for all the amendments. it seems like there is a full steam ahead feeling behind this. i would encourage as much generosity, if that is inappropriate word to use, as possible toward the development of small-scaled businesses like little city. i am sure you hear this all the time. this is not the easiest city to do business in, for a lot of good reasons, because we have high standards. so we should look for places like the value added products to help young forming businesses succeed. thanks very much. chairperson mar: i have called all the cards. is there anyone else that would like to speak? seeing none, public comment is closed. i guess i will just say that i really think this coalition of organizations and urban farmers and environmentalists is tremendous. i applaud the mayor's office and

joanne parton for bringing this open -- bring this before us. i will also say it is not just about health and sustainability. it is also growing local food court tremendous numbers of growing people who are facing food insecurity in our city. i think the chronicle article that was either today or sunday acknowledges that one in five people are food insecurity and hungry. one of the food security task force points is that 85,000 people rely on some form of food from countries. the more we can grow locally, the better. it addresses some equity and food insecurity in many of our neighborhoods in the city. i strongly support this effort and applaud the coalition, including everyone who signed the petition and that has been calling and informing us over the past couple of weeks.

president chiu: i also want to echo your comments. it is great to see all the green in this chamber. we look forward to seeing a lot more grain around san francisco. i particularly want to thank the folks from the san francisco urban agriculture alliance for all the info on this legislation, as well as to ms. parton, the mayor's office, and the planning department. we have the densest neighborhoods west of the mississippi. if we can prove here in san francisco that urban gardens are possible, this will be a beacon to the rest of the state and the rest of the country what is possible. i strongly urge your support and hope you will adopt the amendments from the mayor's office and from myself. supervisor weiner: i also want to thank everyone for coming out today and for moving this legislation forward. we are a very modern city,

constantly looking for ways to become more modern. one of the unfortunate things that happened in the 20th century was that as we modernized we started to lose touch with some of the great things about human interaction, whether we are talking about great public spaces, or things like streetcars or biking, and all the things we use to do, including agriculture, that as modern cities we have lost touch with. we see this legislation, as well as a reinvigoration of our public spaces, and expansion of our public spaces and a refocus on public transit and biking -- i think this is part of a greater transformation of the city, recognizing we can be very modern will still embracing some of the great things that we have had in the past. i enthusiastically support this. chairperson mar: if there are no

other questions, can we move the amendments without objection? without objection. on the item itself -- supervisor weiner: moved it be forwarded to the board without objection. chairperson mar: our city attorney has ruled that all of the amendments are not substantive so we could do what we just did. thank you, everyone. [applause] the next item. supervisor elsbernd is the sponsor. he is not yet here. i suppose we can start the item and then supervisor elsbernd can make his remarks as he comes in. please call item three. >> informational hearing on the parkmerced project. chairperson mar: thank you.

this is an item called by supervisor sean elsbernd. from the office of economic and work force development, we have michael yarney. we have several folks from the planning department as well. whenever you are ready. >> great. commissioners of the land use committee, mayor's office of economic and work-force development. i am going to introduce a member of the planning department who will lead of the presentation today. i will pick it up after joshed as the general introduction. thank you. -- after josh does the general introduction. thank you. >> today's -- ken i speak in

this microphone? >> i think so. yes. >> sorry about that. for today's presentation, i am going to start by giving an overview of the parkmerced project, so you have a general way of the land in terms of what is proposed. then michael will get back up and discuss the development agreement, the economic and fiscal benefits, phasing, and housing and rent control issues. just to remind you of the general hearing schedule, today we have the first informational hearing. tomorrow at the full board is the appeal of the eeo are -- the eir for the parkmerced project. assuming that is upheld, we will be back for a second hearing when we will go into more detail about the physical aspect of the plan, including transportation,

open space, and so forth. in mid may, assuming all goes according to schedule, we will be at the full board for the hearings on the ordinances. just to step back to the origins of parkmerced, it was built in the '40's and early fifties by the met life corporation. it was one of several developments of its kind around the country, such as stuyvesant in new york, returning gi housing. it was advertised at the time as a suburban enclave in san francisco. it is pretty much uniformly residential. "reliant on the automobile and so forth. you will hear more about that. in terms of where part merced sits in the city. it is in the southwest corner of the city, but very transit oriented as far as the west side

goes. it is adjacent to the muni m line and a bart station. it is an appropriate location for more infill housing to meet the region's housing needs. the basic principles for the project include environmental sustainability, increasing house an opportunity both for this location and as a city resource, and to make this a transit- oriented neighborhood. right now, it is sort of transit adjacent. to create a social and commercial heart for the district -- no one has really walked to meet any of their daily needs. it provides for a burst range of household types. the basic project components are these. i will go over these quickly. at the next hearing, we will talk about these in more detail. we thought it was important to

go over them in a basic sense. one is a reconfiguration of the streets. improvements to open spaces and other public amenities. comprehensive transportation program. the pretty comprehensive sustainability program that includes infrastructure for water and energy. the block pattern today is not what we would call pedestrian oriented. it consists of very large blocks, much larger than we typically find in san francisco. you can see the radio pattern. it is fairly diffusing. there are not many connections to the outside grid. the project is going to be in filling the existing grid with new public streets and alleys. many of the existing streets will remain. there will be improved and brought up to better street standards of today. what that means for the buildings is that the existing

1114-story towers would remain in their place. over the course of 20 to 30 years, all the existing garden apartments below those scale buildings would be replaced with new buildings that fit this new block pattern over time. you can see that up on the screen. the land use program -- as i mentioned, all the existing powers would remain. right now, about 50% of the existing units are towers and 50% are in the garden powers. -- are the garden apartments. the garden apartments represent 1600 apartments. those would be replaced with new rent-controlled units in new buildings. an additional 1500 units would

be added to the site. there would be about 230,000 new square feet of neighborhood- serving retail. we are not talking about regional destinations, but retail like you might find on irving street. about 50,000 square feet of that 230,000 is predicted to be new grocery stores for the neighborhood. very small amounts of office space. the replacement elementary school for the one that would be replaced on site. the community and fitness center. there would be about 68 acres of open space. this is a few acres, about 5 acres less than currently exists on site. as you will hear when we talk more in detail about the open space program, we feel the proposed open space provides more public benefit and a more useful configuration than the current open space on site. to show you what this looks like

in terms of land use, you can see the dark brown in the center of the neighborhood, down toward juan batista circle. that would be the new shopping street -- ground floor shops, housing, may be small-skill offices. that is linked in the northeast corner so it serves the san francisco state community and is tied in with the light rail and transportation infrastructure. that is also where the greatest density on the site would be located. around the neighborhood, other orange boxes are what we think of more as corner stores, very small-scale convenience retail, so that every resident is within about two minutes' walk of one of these cafe or dry cleaner locations. everyone is within a 10 minute walk of the potential commercial

district. in terms of urban form and building heights, the west side of the project would be predominantly characterized by three and four story buildings, typical of what you might see in the sunset or richmond district. the east side of the site would be characterized primarily by six story structures. throughout, there would be the addition of eight story buildings and a few 11 story buildings, mostly on the east side, to add variety and texture so it is not just a uniform landscape across the district, as well as to mark important locations like important activity nodes and other things of that nature. there would be a series of new towers added primarily on the east and southeast part of the site, up to about 140 feet, which is the maximum height of the current hours. no new building would rise above the existing powers. open space -- we can talk about

this in more detail at a later session. there are these small neighborhood commons that are anchored by the corner stores. they are about a third of an acre. there is a major open spaces as a spine that leads down toward lake merced. that includes a new stream that has recreational and ecological benefit. it will be a new organic farm. a new athletic fields complex. the redesigned juan batista circle. a new transit plaza. this will serve ocean view. it would be the major stop for this part of the city. we will talk about that in a second. a substantially enlarged community gardens. this would exponentially increase that in size so more residents have an opportunity to

participate in gardening. all these new streets and walkways throughout the district would be designed to meet our new better streets standards. that means not just in terms of sidewalk widths and bicycle infrastructure, but ecological function in terms of storm water and so forth. the major transportation investment on the project is the realignment of the m oceanview light rail line. it currently runs along a busy corridor, with major pedestrian safety issues. we probably consider it an overburdened stop. people overflow into 19th ave. it is a dangerous condition. we understand about 90% of the writer ship comes from the west side of 19th avenue. -- of the ridership comes form

throm the west side of 19th avenue. this relocates to the west side of 19th avenue in a generous public plaza that would be a major stop. there would be plenty of room for people to board and wait for trains, as well as by a cup of coffee and have a public gathering space. this realignment offers other operational opportunities for the mta, which will hear about more in detail. it offers the opportunity to send trains back down the existing alignment, as well as set up future improvements and investments in this part of the city, including an extension to the daley city bart station. there are other transportation

programs that are part of the project, including a free shuttle program that is meshed with the other bus system, as well as a transit pass subsidy to provide each unit a subsidy for transit passes. there are improvements that go beyond the internal part of the site. there are intersection improvements that are planned for all of the major intersections abutting the project, not just to improve traffic circulation, but to improve pedestrian safety and other ways of getting around. the last component of the project is ecological utility assistance. the specter streets we are talking about will have a major storm water function to restore the watershed that formally linked to like -- to lake merced. we are currently sending all the storm water to the sewage

treatment plant. the new system of other infrastructure would provide a major improvement to the water flow in the district and relieve a lot of the pressure on the sewage treatment plant, as well as hopefully address some of the ecological issues. the project would also be investing in new distribution piping for future hooking up to the recycle water system, which the puc is planning so that in the future a lot of water needs would not be met through hetch hetcyhy, but through recycled water. there is a commitment to provide -- to construct at least 10% of the demand in renewable facilities either on site or off site, build new generation facilities, and to exceed title 24 standards by at least 10% to

15%. a couple words about how all of this is implemented. in terms of the land use, the detailed land use controls, this is all being implemented through the planning code, through zoning. this is not a redevelopment area. all the core planning codes would live in a special use district in the planning code. that includes all the land use regulations. these new land-use districts would be mapped on the zoning maps. the height and bulk controls would be mapped on the height maps. the would-be controls for residential open space and parking. there is a very comprehensive set of other design standards and guidelines. this district becomes the kind of neighborhood that everyone in visions. these are all codified in the document design standards and guidelines, a supplement to the special use district. it includes rules for the ground

floor treatments, setbacks, locations of pedestrian walkways, and so forth. it includes a detailed appendix called the regulating plan, which shows the site in extreme the tab, showing the boundaries of all the hype districts and building parcells, as well as the new streets and alleys and so forth. it is all there in great detail. this document also contains design standards and guidelines for all these open spaces, as well as the streets. the last thing the special use district does is establish a design review process for subsequent review and entitlement of the actual buildings on the site. what we are talking about is the framework of the plan, not actual buildings. when subsequent developers propose specific buildings, they would come through a design review process. smaller buildings would be

reviewed more administrative a. larger ones would require a public hearing at the planning commission, where the public could weigh in and comment on the design of the buildings. this would be similar -- this would be similar to the 339 process or the 309 process for downtown. this special use district also would design -- would establish a design review process for community review, especially streets and open spaces. these are public improvements on private property. they would be directed to the planning department and the planning department would coordinate interagency review of all these streets to make sure they met the intents of the plan as well as other agency specifications and needs. there are other plan documents in addition to the design standards and guidelines that are sort of components of the development agreement. there is the transportation

plan, the sustainability plan, and the infrastructure plan. we can get into more detail at a future hearing. they are universally called the plan documents, implementing mechanisms of the development agreement. with that, i will turn it over to michael yarney. chairperson mar: thank you. before he comes back, we have supervisor elsbernd. thank you. mr. yarney? >> excuse me. good afternoon. good afternoon, supervisors. i want to apologize in advance. we will have copies of this presentation for all of you. we had a little printer malfunction prior to the hearing. i am going to read off a laptop for the time being. i am going to cover four topics, some quickly. my main focus is on rent control

placement units, since that is the primary issue we are hearing feedback from the public on. i am going to discuss development agreements in general, and how the structure of the development agreement works. i am going to briefly summarize the economic and social analysis the city has conducted on the project. i am going to speak briefly on the phasing of the project under the development agreement. first, i want to emphasize that development agreements have been around in the state for some time. they are nothing new. there are over 500 in existence. the original statute was passed in 1979. the reason i am emphasizing this is there has been some confusion in the public as to whether the development agreement itself is a novel idea or whether the

hawkins ideas are new. development agreements are state law. they are used commonly. what we are putting to you today is not something that is a radical or susceptible to challenge. there is a ton of case law on this. it is very well established law. i will get into hawkins a little bit later. development agreement is essentially a contract between the city and a private party, in this case the developer and the land owner. the statute says clearly that the development agreement must result in greater public benefit then what would be achievable under conventional land use rules and regulations. we have definitely done that. the development agreement gives the city certain freedom. the city does not have to follow traditional nexus requirements to