president chiu: welcome back to the board of supervisors meeting. if we can turn over to the planning department. >> i am joined by the environmental coordinator. she was the project manager on

the 2009 project. we are here today to discuss the appeal of the environmental impact report of the house and elements. in this document, there is the current proposal for this plan element. the draft environmental impact report was published on june 30, 2010, and the eir was certified unanimously by the planning commission on march 24, 2011. the housing element is part of the general plan, and it is required under state law to meet certain standards for its content. a major part of those standards of the city has to demonstrate that it has the capacity me to be assigned regional housing needs, which in the case of san

francisco is approximately 31,000 housing units. the housing unit also has to identify city policies that will help id -- helped it move towards that goal. the planning department in its capacity analysis concluded that under existing zoning, the city could accommodate over 60,000 housing units, which far exceeds it, and therefore, there would be no rezoning needed, and no such rezoning is encouraged in the housing element. what we prepared was a problematic eir with the housing element policies. not in a specific development projects. what we looked at was a change in policies, first from the 1990 elements and second from the 1990 to 2009 housing element in order to provide the

environmental review for adoption of the 2009 housing element. what the eir concluded was that the housing elements could contribute to a significant cumulative impact in the 2025 horizon year and also found there could be noise impact that could be mitigated. all other impacts were found through analysis to be less significant. the appeal letter received by the clerk of the board was followed by a supplement and then another yesterday. their responses to the submittal were delivered to board members this morning. at this point, i will turn this over to jessica. there is also the department response. good evening.

>> i am with the planning department. the appeal response and the second appeal response. there is the potential for new significant impacts. 3, the amount of the available water supply. four, the range of alternatives. the response memorandum addresses all of these in detail. the analysis in the yeah are adequately considers all reasonably foreseeable the elements and the potential for the housing element to contribute to its cumulative impact. if in order to identify the physical environment impacts that could occur either as a result of policy changes from the 1990 to the 2004, the department needs to identify

where it capacity for new housing exists, and we did that through what is called to the we saw site analysis. it is basically an analysis of the additional amounts of housing that could be developed under existing zoning. the department also looked at environmental constraints and overlaid those were the areas of capacity to identify the environment to constraints and development. the analysis in the eir dealt with the changes in the housing policy with civic and environmental impacts. the eir also included an analysis of foreseeable development and the potential for the 2004 to 2009 housing element to result in him into cumulatively considerable impact. the pipeline is not part of the project but does represent a cumulative scenario. all ongoing development projects, re-development

products, and area plants, specifically those mentioned by the appellate. it is important to consider the long range the roman projection, and these are in the projections. when considering the available capacity, and the long-range projections, the eir concludes that the anticipated population growth is not attributable to the element policies from the 2004 and 2009 housing element policies. the appellant is incorrect in that the city did not use something for this. they analyzed the potential for new development, and the department disagrees with the appellant claims that the eir does not analyze growth attributable. regarding the other issues raised by the appellant, the

memoranda transmitted to the board on may 2 explains the changes to the 2009 housing element and explains that the draft provisions do not increase the severity of the environmental impact analyzed in the eir. the changes are minor and would not have -- there is a response document which fully addresses these changes on pages 265 and 267. with respect to the alternative analysis, the eir analyzed at an equal level of detail both of the housing elements. the eir also includes three alternatives. one is a continuation of the 1990 resident policy. the second is a reduced alternative, which is the 2004 housing element without the court computed policies, and a third is the 2009 housing element with additional

policies that are towards achieving a higher percentage. as it says in the comments and responses document, the alternatives are not required under because they it -- under ceqa does not apply. there is a housing element that complies with housing element law, or three. the eir includes a reasonable budget of alternatives, and none of the alternatives or those suggested by the appellant would reduce the trade the impact identified in the eir. they specifically involve issues two and six.

these were fully evaluated by the san francisco public utilities commission, which found that the slow release requirements would not result in some of the impacts to the available water supply. furthermore, the eir looked at would be likely to result in an increase in water use in the long-range projections. the impact does not present any new information that would change the conclusions in the eir. lastly, the appellate claims that the 2009 housing element policies are intended to support the unreasonably lead community's strategy a draft will not be available until 2013. the appellants claim that the 2009 housing element policies are intended to support it.

it is unfounded. the scenario to which the poet refers to was published after the 2009 housing element comments and responses as well as drafted the 2009 housing element and therefore does not represent foreseeable the balance that would need to be considered as part of ceqa. this does include all reasonably foreseeable developments. for some reason, and hand, it is not the merits of the project itself. [bell] president chiu: colleagues, any questions to planning steps?

>> a number of changes, including the previous definition of the quarter to major muni bus lines. there were other issues limiting the requirements and making the neighborhood changed to community input, if you will. why were those done? why were they amended? reasonable input. i do not want to say a reasonable, but input, at least, from the people in the neighborhoods. >> supervisor farrell, from the planning department, i will address the issues surrounding this changes, and then i went to turn over to sarah to discuss the content of the changes.

in terms of the environmental impact report, specifically on the issue of the transit routes, " there from draft 1 to 823 of the housing element, there was policy language that discussed inclusion of major bus routes. the actual substantive content of the draft to our understanding did not change with regard to inclusion of those major bus routes. that is the first aspect of it. >> this did not change from june to january. >> correct.

in terms of the environmental impact report, that did our standard it streamlined analysis which is based on additional ridership on all routes in and we have identified those. some of those war on subway routes and some more on bus corridors. this considered bus routes regardless of the policy. the other changes, in terms of the change from neighborhood supported to community-based, as we discussed in our response, that does not change the potential for physical environmental impact.

in terms of environmental impact, we feel that there is actually maybe slightly more protection in terms of environmental impact with prevailing bulk than with prevailing density. would you like sarah to address the additional issues? >> yes. the question is also before why the changes between june and february. >> i will ask sarah or a director to address. >> good afternoon, supervisors. i was responsible for the development and drafting of the document itself not the eir. the change from neighborhood-

supported to community-based. i believe you use the term transit corridor. >> this is from a light rail to the major bus line. >> you correctly site that there was a draft between three and two. which was discussed in detail, the rationale for the change, i'm not sure how much you want me to get into that, but we have heard from several constituents that they felt that they could to support or excluded them. staff, the planning commission agreed that this included the neighborhood and preferences strongly the importance of neighborhood support.

we did not want through inadvertent use of a term exclude others for -- from commenting. environmental implications are not there. with regard to the bus lines, there has been no change. there was policy 1.5 which was released in june, 2009 which included the exact same policy and we can include the reference and include the exact same muni lines that exact same language was included in draft 1. there was no change in policy. we would be happy to compare the wording. in terms of community input, draft 3, which had about 30

words of change, very very minor changes, was released on february 2nd. i might not have the exact date. the first week in february. we've sent out two directors meetings which were hosted by our planning director. >> thank you. >> thank you. when a number of the members of the public were speaking, it was not clear if they were speaking about the sustainable communities program. it felt like some of the comments were being conflated. i want to make sure that we are more specific and exact about what we are dealing with here. there was some reference to it

but some of the numbers that had been mentioned are timely because members have been looking over these numbers and the numbers of housing are significantly higher than the numbers of the -- methodology those were numbers which were being reference to this conversation here. this is deleted between the time frame and the next 5-10 years. -- delineated between the time frame. this is not until 200035. this is a 25-year goal. no one has mentioned that. >> thank you for bringing that, supervisor. the requirement under state law is that it meets our allocation

regional housing needs. that is an allocation of 31,000 units that are we are required to show that we have zoning capacity for by 2013. the sustainable communities strategies that are required under the state senate bill has a target date of 2035 or 61,000 housing units. this is a very different number but this is a different time frame than was planned. this is required to meet a projection of 2035. >> the senate bill has nothing to do with the incentives that are laid out, does it? >> there is discussion happening about the relationship between those two things but this really is a separate issue.

>> what we understand is that if we adopt this element that gets us up to the methodology, that might go through the aggregate total later on of what the sustainable community is and that gives us the dollars that escorts the mark higher goal and those areas that have been assigned but not for 2014 but for 2035. what i was hearing and this is a confusion and this numbers are sorted out. now. i want to make sure that we are clear about the category of numbers we are talking about. >> i appreciate this huge amount of work on what you ever dawned

to comply with state law and also reach out to different sides of the spectrum. i am still concerned by many of the neighborhood groups. you have said that it is only 30 words that were changed from the first draft to the second draft and this is not substantive in the major changes that were made. >> you are correct. we fully address the changes in the second draft to the third draft in the comments and responses documents. as was mentioned, a policy 1.10 is really not a change in policy and it does not affect the environmental analysis. other concerns raised here that were addressed which are about

planning and purses to may be supportive planning. we address those in the comments and responses as well as the change from density to height and bulk. >> i know some of the comments and the public, some said please to not let the manhattan-like nature of the development in your neighborhood go forward. this will lead to different types of environmental impacts and urging us with a balanced solution. my question is really the impact on the western neighborhoods. this comes from think neighborhood organizations centers that say that this will lead to rampant -- rampant identification. we are not just approving a blanket approval but there are those to keep in check the development that they feel is

out of character. can you speak to that? >> you are absolutely correct. i was going to say in my comments later that the housing element does not change any development in any peace of planning. the point that we have repeatedly stated is that the housing element is a policy document, it is not planning code. this does not change the zoning. this action have stronger language than previous drafts. >> with regard to the alternatives that were analyzed, can you speak a little bit to those alternatives and why you believe that those in and of themselves are adequate.

>> the eir alternative analysis address several alternatives to the housing element. to begin with, this addresses the 2004 and 2009 alamance at an equal level of detail which is an approach to the eir's that undersea "are adequate and -- in the eir's and the sea quapaws that are adequate. -- ceqa's