designed for development that have occurred since the march 5 2010 draft was circulated. this was sent to all interested parties and was made available on the planning commission websites. it is being replaced with a new proposed treasure island buena island area plan to be added to the san francisco general plan, which would no longer simply reference the plan but instead present policies to provide the foundation for land use and development and the special use district to be added to the planning code along with zoning amendments. the references designed for development and uses its standards and guidelines as a

basis. the main financing mechanism also has been revised under redevelopment plans to one or more infrastructure district mechanisms. as a direct result it would change from 2400 units discussed in the e.i.r. to. 2,000 units. it is envisioned to an area plan from a redevelopment plan. some are in response to public comments on march 5 public review draft. the maximum height limits and maximum parking ratios for commercial uses have also been reduced. as described in the memo, none of these present any new information that would alter the conclusions presented in the

draft e.i.r. consequently they do not trigger the need purr suents to ceqa. also you have been presenteded with a copy of the letter. none of these letters raise new environmental issues that have not already been addressed through drafert e.i.r. at this time i would like to address some issues that have been raised recently and in today's hearing. one issue was raised recently by a fire marshal regarding the proposed street layout, specifically with regard to public safety and emergency response. in march 2009, a comprehensive street network and grid design drawing was presented to the transportation advisory staff committee or tasc for the fire department, the police department, city planning and

m.t.a. and traffic engineering. the members were satisfied that the project adequately addressed their concerns. last week the mayor's office of economic and workforce development staff met with the fire chief and her staff including fire marshal barbara. based on that meeting, the fire chief stated that she is satisfied that the angles of the streets meet all the requirements of the fire department for access and the proposed street grid does not violate any requirements. as the plan moves into the next phase of design, all layouts and intersection configurations will be subject to review and approval by the fire department and other applicable city

agencies including m.t.a. and the mayor's office of disability. in order to be approved it will have to be found to be conformant to the fire code and all applicable regulations including site distance. they have confirmed in a memo dated april 19, 2011, that the proposal is not in conflict with the better streets plan. the fire department's deputy chief of operations, patrick gardner is here this evening to answer any questions you may have on this issue. also during public comment portion over the meeting, we heard speakers who raised other issues concerning the project. many of the comments did not address environmental issues but rather were expressions of the opposition to the project. public opinion regarding the merits of the project is not a topic of concern for the

certification of the e.i.r. although you may wish to take such comments into account during your consideration of the project entitlement. some of the comments raised did address some environmental issues. i would like to reference to cal transletter we referred to earlier. dated april 20, yesterday. and this letter generally expresses support for e.i.r. and basically looks forward to further consultation with the city. thank you. >> further consultation with the city in those regards. there were a couple of minor issues. one regarding requesting signage on the island to indicate to motorists that they may need to

wait for a while to get on to the bridge. other than that, this letter is not in my view, does not express any new issues that we have not already dealt with in the e.i.r. regarding the effects of tsunamis, both the commission and the board have received briefings in previous hearings on this issue and the e.i.r. analysis properly concluded that the level of flood protection is adequate to protect against all flood hazards including tsunami. regarding hazardous materials on the island, there was an issue raised regarding potentially new sites where radiation may occur. there is, as described in the e.i.r., there is an extensive regulatory framework in place that would provide for remediation of sites if new materials are discovered. we have also provided mitigation

measures in the e.i.r. that bolster that program so that any materials that are found would be dealt with propetsly. -- appropriately. if you'll refer to the mitigation measure in the document, there is an extensive measure that requires consultation with a wildlife biologist as to when buildings are proposed and also allows for changes in the way that bird strikes with dealt with over time as the technology and understanding of bird strikes evolves and we believe this measure is very robust and would reduce the impact to a level that is less than significant. the evaluation of issues in the

e.i.r., the implementation of the project would result in unavoidable environmental immacts that could not be mitigated to a significant level in transportation, noise, air quality, wind and biological resources. in conclusion, we suggest it is accurate and adequate and the procedure for it, the final e.i.r. complies with the ceqa, the ceqa findings. this concludes my presentation. at this time, i would like to introduce michael, presenting our co-lead agency, the treasure island development authority, following michael's presentation, our team can respond to any questions that the commission or board members may have. thank you.

>> the treasure island development authority board of directors. item three. public hearing closed. 3 a resolution certifying the report, the treasure island, buena island project. good evening presidents olague and cheng, commissioners in and directors. as rick mentioned, the item before you is a resolution to certify the final environmental impact report for the treasure island, buena island development project by adopting this resolution, you will be certifying that the final e.i.r. is accurate and adequate and that the procedures by which it was prepared are consistent with the ceqa guidelines and the city's code. i defer my remarks to rick cooper to and staff is here to answer any questions that you may have or address any of the

issues that were raised earlier during public comment. >> thank you. commissioner antonini? commissioner antonini: i agree that it is quat and consistent. i would like to answer -- is adequate and consistent. i think mr. cooper spoke to a lot of those but comments were made to the effect that you know, a lot of this is landfill as is most of downtown san francisco, which did quite well in the earthquake of 1989. i think it is not the landfill but how the landfill is treated and i'm quite impressed by the measures that are being proposed to compact about 125 or 130 acres of the land that needs compaction to strengthen them to build areas around three miles on the outside and have it be

two feet above the level of downtown san francisco. for those concerned about the future residents, they will be safer with the measures that are being taken than they are now today. i think it has been 10 years in the process and i think it is time to move ahead on this. on a couple of other issues, i think mr. cooper spoke about the traffic impacts and the mitigations and where they are not mitigateable, i think the benefits that are gained outweigh the circumstances that will occur but i think we can direct people in methods other than driving in their commutes to san francisco and elsewhere that might tend to make these impacts less. also, i think there was some concern about changes that occurred to the environmental impact report that came fairly recently. there were only really two significant ones. one was reducing the maximum

height of the taller buildings, which of course is a lesser impact than one would assume than the taller buildings and also lessening the amount of hotel spaces from .8 spaces per room to .4 spaces per room and to lessen the number of spaces needed for retail from one for every 25 spaces for every 1,000 square feet to 15 spaces for every 1,000 feet of retail. i quickly saw what the changes were and in my mind those would not require any further analysis because they are lesser and finally, the issue was brought up about the affordable housing, which is not necessarily a ceqa or e.i.r. issue but it was brought up during this discussion. i will point out that at 25%

affordable, that's 10% more than the rest of san francisco, which is required to have 15% inclusionary -- i just took a visit to denver. i saw stapleton, which used to be an airport. it has been filled up with housing. the amount of affordable housing in stapleston 10%. that is the situation for denver. so certainly, i think we're doing a very good job in doing the best we can with what we have available and i am supportive and feel that the document does a very good job of answering environmental concerns. >> commission 234er sugaya? >> commissioner sugaya:. thank you, staff.

i guess i am leaning toward circulation. we are switching from a redevelopment model toward what is called construction financing districts. my belief is that we have no idea at this point how these districts are going to function, how much money they are going to generate, and although the eir says that adopting the redevelopment plan does not affect environmental impact of the proposed project, but rather affects funding mechanisms to be used to implement the proposed project -- it is kind of a circular argument. the way you find it results in the kinds of physical things that the eir is supposed to address. it is not only the loss of housing. it could lead to other things which have not been studied.

i do not know whether it is the appropriate way to address something like the issue of keeping the number of affordable housing units and paying for that, and taking the money from somewhere else like open space. my belief is that if you take it from open space, you have to recirculate the eir because there comes a fundamental problem with public benefit. that is my belief, anyway. that is on a macro scale. i think that it would affect the way that physical things are enhanced, either built or not build, whether various programs can be implemented or not. i think those kinds of things have not been properly addressed in the change brought about by the funding mechanism since the draft eir and since the production of the cnr

document. a house staff has mentioned, we have not received at least -- as stuff has mentioned, we have received at least to reduce. one i do not believe was minor. it ran to a number of pages. these are all characterized as technical or typographical. but we have been getting these at least two or three times. i think that alone speaks to perhaps stepping back a bit and taking another look at the eir. more specifically, on some more targeted issues, in terms of historic resources, the eri makes-- eir makes a determination that some of the impact would be less than significant. i think the problem that i have

is that there is not enough detail in the proposed plan to really evaluate what the impacts are. i think then they try to pass it off to subsequent reviews. but my question in my mind, the question i have in my mind, is how many times can you use the same argument, where you say we think there is an impact but there is not enough information and later we will figure it out if we get the design, and then have a review process? that is the other issue that i have. i do not believe the review process that is being proposed, with respect to historic resources, works for me. it eliminates any expertise that reside in the city and passes it all off and says that are going

to hire an independent private consultant to do that analysis. that does not work for me. that kind of issue i think should have been looked at a little more closely. then, just one may be even smaller thing. i still have an issue with building 111. it is being passed off as an ancillary kind of building that has no real significance, or has been recognized as significant but can be demolished because it is treated as an addition to a larger building. i think if the eir was -- they try to tell me this was a result of dueling experts, because some architectural historians have said this building is historic and if you demolish it it is

unavoidable and significant impact. you bring in another expert and they say it is historic but you can demolish it because it is an ancillary structure to a bigger building which still remains and the impact does not rise to the level of being significant. if there are already significant unavoidable impact in the eir, it would be more honest to treat the demolition of the building as such and leave it that way. president olague: thank you. commissioner moore: i wanted to think the public for the various expressions of support for the project, but i remind the public that we are tasked to consider whether or not to certify this informational document as adequate for informed public agency decision

makers such as ourselves. has it identified to the full extent possible ways to minimize significant effects and described reasonable alternatives to the project? the first thing i tried to do was understand whether or not what we looked at in 2006 and are looking at in 2011 our plans which have significant similarities. in 2006, we were dealing with 2800 dwelling units. that was under the navy base reuse plan. 2500 of those units were to be on treasure island. the remainder were to be on ybi. this proposes 800 residential units, an increase.

the 2006 plan projects a 8267 spaces, of which 7627 are considered to be off-street spaces, together with 640 cars in on-street parking. the 2011 plan increases parking by 34%, to a total of 11,155 spaces, with an increase in parking to 107. please bear with me. i am trying to determine whether or not you are seeing a change. the 2006 change and provides a detailed account of parking. that is a particular diagram shown in the transportation plan 2006, together with a summary of overall proposed parking. the 2011 plan has failed to give us any comparable detailed

information on that subject, at least not in any map. the 2006 plan provides a detailed application mapping of on street and off street parking. the 2006 transportation plan shows numbers of cars in each location. this was brought up by the public. it is a shortcoming of the e.r. -- of the eir. the 2011 plan does not provide any comparable information. the 2006 plan is based on a remark of smart growth, new neighborhood design, and a very block structure resulting in a plan that creates a more interesting urban form than what is currently suggested. the 2011 plan has changed the basic residential structure into a more generic, less interesting

arrangement of uniformly parallel residential blocks, which makes the plan look regimented. the 2006 plan provided a green connector which is a mid block open space. the screen connector informally weaves through the neighborhood fabric and is planned to support a variety of adjoining residential blocks to knit together the entire community. the 2011 plan has a fantasy idea of the neighborhood green connector set into a 40 ft. wide concept which is noticeably more informal. it makes the block pattern book not only less interesting, but less varied. it looks quite regimented.

the 2006 plan proposes a total of seven street types. i am referring to the 2006 transportation plan. each is intended to respond to the varying circulation needs of different parts of the community, in keeping with smart growth and new urbanism and sustainability growth for st. design. the proposed street plan suggest your and neyra were moving lines and then what has been dictated in the past. standards which have proved not to compromise either safety for pedestrians or vehicular movement, but support operational standards. this has reduced the total number of proposed streets sections 23 generic street types. that is the transportation plan of 2011, page 25, figure 3.3,

which does not consider the outline of residential neighborhoods which would likely not have the same amount of vehicular traffic as those further south. the 2006 plan proposes street sections with more emphasis on creating a pedestrian foyer then on vehicular movement. proposed streets would be more sustainable and in keeping with the overall plan goals of neighborhood development. the 2011 plan proposes a wider streets. these wider streets increase the amount of land dedicated to roadways and pavement. the 2006 plan proposes wide sidewalks and prominence, all supporting the overriding goals for pedestrians and green at new san francisco neighborhoods. the 2011 plan proposes decreasing sidewalk with by

approximately 39% as the average. this reduction in sidewalk with the occurs across the board. it involves each of the three proposed street types. the 2006 plan was nominated for an aia german design honor award in 2009. the 2011 plan has so fundamentally unchanged it cannot be thought any longer the same plan that won the award. i will follow up with additional comments on other matters. for all the reasons i just described in exhaustive length, there is no new analysis of impact. some of this may turn out to be less. some may turn out to be more significant. some may add to the already

exhaustive list of unavoidable impacts identified in this eir. i conclude in support of commissioner sugaya that without any revised project description, this is inaccurate and incomplete. i will pick up after i hear from my fellow commissioners. commissioner delcarlo: good evening. thank you to all the members of the public that spoke to mike. it is very helpful to hear the views from our diverse community. we heard from labor and business tonight, and a number of residents and representatives from treasure island/yerba buena island. thank you for that. i would have to disagree with those planning commissioners that are recommending recirculation of the eir.

i am one of the new guys on the treasure island development authority, but some of my colleagues have been at this for at least over 10 years, maybe 12. i do not know exactly. the short time that i have been on this board, i have been briefed a very, very well. my questions have been answered. i have seen the support from not just the treasure island community, but the community of san francisco in general. i feel very good about the process that we have gone through and how this plan has been feted for years -- been vetted for years. i am very disappointed that we are not going to get 30% affordable housing. i was hoping that that would happen. because of the change in financing that was necessary to

deal with the governor's proposal to eliminate redevelopment, unfortunately, the infrastructure financing districts do not raise as much money as the tax increment financing of a redevelopment area. that is just a fact of life. i think the staff of the office of economic development and workforce development and the development team have done an excellent job in informing us of how the ifd's work and the difference between that and redevelopment financing. i think that our members understand that very well. we were given an opportunity to ask a number of questions, and we are very satisfied with the answers that we received. i feel strongly