concrete jungle. san francisco will lose its beauty if the residential area becomes another concrete jungle. let's preserve the beauty of san francisco that we all love. as far as the environmental impact is concerned, my main concern is 19th avenue, between floyd and holloway, one of the most congested highways. supervisor mar: thank you very much. if i could ask daniel mccormack, mickey hemacheck, and michael belazi to also join

. next speaker. >> good afternoon, supervisors. i do not live in parkmerced, but in 2001 i did an analysis of the historical landscape of the st. thomas church of parkmerced. you have received a really excellent letter from the national trust for historic preservation and other preservation organizations in the city, state, and nationally, which lays out the importance of the historic importance of parker said -- of parkmerced. the supervisor elsbernd: -- the eir has not done a good analysis of the preservation alternative.

i live in the outer sunset. i am very concerned about the traffic impact this project will produce, and that i will not be able to easily go to the airport. it will be very congested. also, there is a lot of foot traffic going over the great highway down the peninsula that will bunch up. the third point i would like to make is that i cannot understand how san francisco is considering to demolish the affordable housing in favor of market-rate housing. this is so religious. thank you.

>> i am a new resident. sorry. i am not used to public speaking. i am a new president. i am part of parkmerced action coalition. i want you to stop this eir. it is a scam. protect and serve. this is the both peace officers take, and hopefully keep with them throughout their lives. protect and serve all residents -- plants, animals, humans. and birds. our bird population at parkmerced -- we are part of their specific flyways known as the migrate up and down the

coast. they need to rest near our homes. please stop this. please save our community and keep our town houses. the backyards are wonderlands with beautiful birds. please server community well by protecting our beautiful homes. more maintenance, less lies. stop this eir. thank you. >> my name is sarah manofee. i was not going to speak, but i got emotional listening and i wanted to put in my 2 cents. just as somebody who cares about the city that i love and who has

lived through a lot of displacement of friends and seen what happened in the fillmore -- this seems like the same to me. it is whole communities destroyed and displaced. i really think that ordinary people without a whole bunch of money deserve to have roses and open space and decent housing that is affordable. they should not be run out of the city because the politicians are bending over for the developers. our last mayor was in their pocket. i really hope that is going to change now. please do not let this scammed go through. thank you. supervisor mar: thank you. next speaker.

>> if i cut off, i am going to go over. i wish supervisor mirkarimi was here. i fought alongside him with the green party to keep progressives in this town and to keep our voice heard. i am a 20-year resident of parkmerced. many people have talked about the traffic and all those concerns and the decimation of the community. let us make no bones here. this is about killing went control for 1500 garden apartment dwellers and the rest of the community of parkmerced. i am no stranger to displacement. i was part of the arts exodus of 2000. i got kicked out of my second home of third street. i do not know if you have all been here long enough for that.

1500 musicians were sent packing. many of them moved. many were gone. i want to keep my home here. i want to keep my dreams alive here and to pursue what i want to pursue as a musician and beyond that. san francisco's 49 square miles -- there is unlimited demand to move here. we are not opposed to change. just work with residents in the community to keep some of the existing features, and basically let us continue to live there. add some density, if need be. as a progressive democratic body, you should protect our socio-economic diversity. this is san francisco's middle- class. i have lost my second home. i do not want to lose my first home. san francisco is touted as a european-style city.

european-style cities have working middle and upper class is. this is the last stand. if i get kicked out of san francisco, i will move. thank you very much. supervisor mar: thank you very much, sir. next speaker. and if there are any other members of the public who wish to speak on behalf of the appellant, now is time to get up. >> i am a 28-year-old native san franciscan. i grew up across the street from lake merced. i took classes at san francisco state, right next door. i strongly oppose the demolishing of affordable housing in san francisco. >> good afternoon.

my name is maria elena. i am a resident of parkmerced since 2003. i used to live in manhattan. one of the biggest reasons i moved back to san francisco was because of parkmerced. maybe you don't understand, but i actually pay $2,017 a month of land. that is for me, my partner, and my dog. i live in a home where there is rugs, a bathroom, a living room, a dining room. if you could please just looked at me, because i am actually a resident and i have a home there. if you could come to parkmerced one afternoon, i would love for you to come with me and i will take a tour with you and you will understand why there is so

many people here opposing this eir. i know many people have spoken and actually have said much of everything i wanted to say, but i am just asking you for a chance, since i am a boater. the developers of this plan, which is a hedge fund, just got an office in san francisco once they purchased from the management company that went into default at parkmerced. i am just asking you to please remember that i am human and i have a home, and i would love to stay there and not be surrounded by demolition, asbestos, and maybe lawsuits against you later on. i am just asking you to please

may become to visit. >> good evening. i am here on behalf of the president of the professional property management association. there have been numerous informational hearings from the planning commission and countless meetings for san francisco city agencies. the impact report is before the board for your review. there will be significant impact on this project. i am not going to kid you. all these issues have been fully addressed. supervisor mar: these are folks that support the appellants, not the project sponsor. >> i am sorry. supervisor mar: thank you. you can speak later on in tonight's presentation. >> my name is nellie delgado.

i am going to talk about the 10 members of my family, and we completely oppose the expansion. >> my name is gail meadows. i have lived in parkmerced for 30 years. i am a middle-class person and an african american person. the demolition takes away middle-class people in the city and african american people, 3% to 5%. i urge you to think about your legacy. do you want your legacy to be forthright and honest people, or people who took the deal because there was money involved?

thank you very much. supervisor mar: are there any other members of the public who wish to speak on behalf of the appellants? please step up and you can speak. >> i apologize. i am a resident of parkmerced. supervisor mar: speaking to the microphone? >> i understand the reason you are holding this hearing, to cover your back. and to elicit more information. i understand this. also, i think the american public should stop voting for politicians, because politicians are the ones who are destroying this country. they are only interested in pursuing their own interests,

like our president. so we will retake the country back. thank you. supervisor mar: thank you. next speaker, please. >> my name is bill herbert. i live in parkmerced. but i am are regionally -- am originally from pittsburgh. i just asked supervisors to see what happened in that area on the defaults, and especially the crime. the crime is just out of control, probably second only to richmond. my point is please give this your consideration, and consider

what you are building. give these people at home. thank you. supervisor mar: are there any other members of the public who wish to speak on behalf of the appellant? at this time, why don't we proceed to the next phase, the planning department. you have up to 25 minutes for a presentation. >> -- you have up to five minutes for a presentation. >> and majored in environmental analysis i am with the environmental review officer for the planning department, as well as the number of our presentation -- our preservation staff. the item for you is the appeal of the report of the eir for the

parkmerced, approved by the planning commission. you may reverse by a majority vote of all members of the board. the board may overturn if it finds -- the board may accept it as well. if the board reverses the planning department certification, it will make specific findings and remanded to the commission for further action. the question at hand is the adequacy of the environmental documents according to ceqa, and not the merits of the product itself. the board will have the opportunity on another date to consider other aspects of the project beyond environmental effects. parkmerced is an existing residential neighborhood on approximately 152 acres of land

in the southwest portion the existing on-site residents are located in a 172-story building. the proposed project is a long-term mixed use development program to comprehensively replan and redesign the site. the project will increase residential density, provide a neighborhood corridor with retail services, modified transit facilities and improve utilities within the site. a new precan-5 school and a daycare facility, a fitness center and new open space uses including athletic playing fields, walking and biking paths and approximate two-acre farm and community gardens would also be provided. about 1,683 of the existing apartments located in 11 tower building would be retained. over a period of approximate 20 years, the remaining 15, 1,538

existing departments would be demolished in phases and fully replaced, an an additional 5,679 new units would be added to the project site resulting in a total of about 8,900 units on the site. the project also includes construction of or provides financing for construction of a series of transportation improvements which include rerouting the existing muni, metro, and ocean view line from its current alignment along 19th avenue. as currently proposed, the new alignment would leave 19th avenue and holloway and proceed through the neighborhood parkmerced. the m lines would travel alternately along two alignments, transit re-entered 90th avenue south of felix avenue and terminate at the existing balance bow -- balbo park unit or facilities constructed on the project

site. the e.i.r. also utilizes alternatives which maintain the muni service on 90th avenue. other changes are naturalized in the e.i.r. the project includes a series of infrastructure improvements including installation of a combination of renewable energy sources such as wind turbine and photovoltaic cells to meet the energy demand. in addition, storm water runoff from buildings and streets would be captured and filtered through a series of ponds and other natural filtration systems. the filtered storm water would percolate into the ground water that feeds the upper west side ground water basin or lake merced or be released directly into lake per said. the board has received four appeal letters before the march 2 deadline from julian lagos on behalf of save parkmerced, alani, from part of the coalition and bernard showdon,

and maria atlanta guerrero engberg, an individual. substantial numbers of the comments in the appeal letters express opposition to the proposed project or critique features of the project and do not raise questions about the accuracy or adequacy of the e.i.r. and would be appropriately considered by the board in its consideration of proposed development agreement and other project approvals but not to remain to the question at hand which is the adequacy of the e.i.r. some comments raise concerned about the planning commission's findings related to its action to approve the proposed project including the separate findings required by ceqa guidelines section 15091. these findings are not the subject of appeal before the board because they are legally required project entitlement findings and not findings related to the adequacy of the environmental review. an appeal of the planning

commission certification is related to issues of the accuracy and objectives of the final e.i.r. objectiveness of the final e.i.r., including but not limited to the sufficiency of the e.i.r. as an informational document and the correctness of the conclusions. the issues raised on the adequacy of the e.i.r. relate primarily to the following, the description of the proposed project, the potential loss of rent-controlled housing, traffic and transit impacts and their mitigation, the adequacy of the e.i.r. alternatives relating to historic resources, the adequacy of mitigation for identified historic resource impacts, the accuracy of the cumulative analysis performed for the e.i.r. or potential seismic hazards or high gas line hazards. the appeal raised issues similar to those addressed in the e.i.r., staff responded to all these issues and submitted the responses in a memo to the

board on march 21. i would like to focus my remarks on the main issues that have been raised. it's been suggested the e.i.r. fails to analyze the development agreement as part of the project description. all components of the proposed e.a. relevant to the physical environmental affects of the project were included in the project description and analyzed in the e.i.r. the specific language of the d.a. does not need to be included in the e.i.r. for the e.i.r. to be accurate and complete and for it to adequately analyze the potential environmental effects of the project, identify feasible mitigation measures to reduce significant impacts. the d.a. does not include new mitigation methods that are not discussed in the draft e.i.r. or comments and responses and although the d.a. includes additional conditions of approval, including some improvement measures, these additional requirements are not

required as mitigation to address significant impacts under ceqa and thus are more appropriately included as contractual terms in the d.a. with regard to the alternatives and in particular to the no demolition alternative you've heard quite a bit about this evening, the e.i.r. is required for a reasonable range of alternatives to propose projects that could feesibley obtain the objectives and avoid a substantial less than one or more significant environmental effects of the proposed project. an e.i.r. is not required to consider every conceivable alternative into a project but must include a reasonable range of potentially feasible alternatives. this e.i.r. fully analyzes five alternatives which is a large number compared to mountainwest e.i.r.'s that we do. and these were selected because they would reduce the significant impact of the project.

the no project alternative has been pointed out and would involve no demolition on the project site. other alternatives were analyzed that could potentially reduce or eliminate one of the main significant impacts of the project, primarily the impact to historic resources due to demolition of the potential parkmerced historic district. section 7-g of the e.i.r. discusses two alternatives, the infilled development within the historic district alternative and the west side partial historic district alternative that would require less demolition and retain more buildings and landscape features than the proposed project. but as described in the e.i.r. and the comments and responses, these alternatives were considered but rejected. the infill development within the historic district alternative would greatly reduce the need for demolition but was rejected from further consideration because it would still have significant impact

on the historic resource and thus would not fulfill the ceqa requirement to present an alternative that would avoid a significant impact of the proposed project. regarding mitigation for historic resource impact, concerns have been expressed that the mitigation methods proposed in the e.i.r. are inadequate and that much stronger mitigation needs to be imposed, including providing monetary compensation to pay for such items as historic resource surveys or payment to a preservation fund. however, none of these payments would reduce the impacts of demolition of the resource to a less than significant level and would represent a significant departure from past mitigation measures consistently imposed for other projects that include demolition of historic resources. with regard to the project description, it is suggested that the e.i.r. fails to identify how long the project will take and that items in the e.i.r. -- some items estimate

20 years and at other times the estimate is 30 years. the e.i.r. explains, however, in the first page of the project description, the analysis is based on an assumed buildout period of 20 years though it could take longer. however, for purposes providing an appropriately conservative impact analysis, different buildout periods were selected. for example, in the population and housing section, the e.i.r. identifies the 20-year time frame for replacing the demolished units. in the transportation analysis, the year 2030 is used to access future accumulative transportation alternative and the greenhouse gas analyzes the emission of construction over a 20-year period. it's typical of major redevelopment of a multiacre site such as parkmerced to take approximate 20 or 30 years to build out. the analysis uses a 20-year time frame because population and transportation forecasts for san francisco and the

region that form part of the basis for the analysis are made through the year 2030 and are typically made for a 20-year period and because assuming the site is built out and occupied in 20 years, concentrates the impacts into a shorter period which then provides us with a more conservative analysis of environment affects. representative phasing of demolition and construction activities is described in the e.i.r. with graphics ultimating the representative phases. approximate mitt dates and durations are given for each of the expected four phases and thus the e.i.r. does specifically provide this information. also, i'd like to put in the record the e.i.r. does not state that the condition of the garden apartments is what requires their demolition. rather, the demolition of the apartments is proposed by the project sponsor and this is naturalized as part of our analysis. another issue being raised is

that the e.i.r. contains no time line for the various stages of construction and without those guidelines as to when demolition and rebuilding would occur, the project impacts cannot be sufficiently analyzed. the construction phasing schedule described in the e.i.r. was provided as a representative phasing schedule ultimating -- illustrating how development would occur but not a specific plan. because the project is privately funded on privately owned land, the proposed project is not required to proceed on any particular time line or at all. the city does, however, have an obligation through ceqa to ensure as the project is constructed, applicable mitigation measures are imposed. thus, for example, certain transit and transportation related mitigation measures are triggered by defined levels of project buildout. this and similar triggers are included in the mitigation program and require construction of certain mitigation measures as levels of project buildout are

achieved regardless of the details of the ultimate phasing of the project. another issue being raised is with regard to the cumulative impacts analysis we have conducted. in fact, the cumulative analysis that we used for this e.i.r. was wider than we normally use for active -- accumulative impacts and have considered projects that are entitled projects going through the entitlement projects as well as -- process as well as projects that are perhaps in a longer term may be proposed but aren't proposed at this time. and this does include the san francisco state university campus master plan which includes the art center that has been discussed as well as a waste site. another issue being raised is