it is terrific to have you as well as all of the members of the commission, so, welcome to the board. today, we have mostly happy news. the first is, as you know, n.a. is our busiest cruise month of the year, and this year is no exception. in may, we have had 16 calls between may 3 and may 30. i cannot think you will see present any of the maritime staff as we have been really busy. in among those 16 calls, we have had two ship calls. for the month of may, we expect 40,000 passengers just in a single month. that is stunning for us. it gives us a total of the anticipated cruises for 2011 on a calendar basis of 63. which is more akin to sort of our high numbers. put it in perspective, last year, we have only 41 calls.

recall that that had a lot to do with some changing economics in the alaska and mexico itineraries. so far in may, we have seen eight different cruise lines, which might be a record. we have not checked yet. one call each from norwegian, arcadian, seven seas, radiance of the seas, two each from crystal and regatta, and six from princess. it has been a terrific month, and we have been pleased to welcome all these passengers. if we could have a little more sun and heat, things would be magnificent. i want to take a moment to thank, even though they are not here, the members of the maritime division. they have been just tremendous in meeting these calls morning, noon, night, weekday, we again, and doing so in the midst of a lot of other city events, which

include the terrific giants as well as now my next item, which is international how well. -- international powwow. it is a conference that meets once a year in the united states. a targeted 2000 domestic and international organizations and bookstores around the world, and the organization represents approximately 70 different countries. it is being hosted by the san francisco travel association with sponsorship from a number of entities, including the port of san francisco airport office partners, who run the building at pier 39, or lower, number of poor tenants have participated as well as major corporations and entities throughout the city. as you may know, they counted approximately 5500 attendees, which has been a terrific thing for the city.

there has been a lot of collaboration in the city to be ready to host all of these delegates. on sunday, the conference kicked off here at the ferry building. before participated in a media brunch for more than 450 international and domestic journalists, and we had a table, which included a lot of information about our peer 27 cruise terminal project but also had a very coveted america's cup trophy. as you can imagine, ours was the most popular table. so attendees lined up to take their pictures in front of the cup all morning long and take a little bit out san francisco maritime home with them, i want to thank the golden gate yacht club and members of the america's cup event authority

for their assistance. following the brunch on sunday, there was a tour on the waterfront with some of the journalism attendees, and that was led by zahn king of "the san francisco chronicle." that went very well. i will say that the attendees on the tour were more domestic and international, but we did get some international. later sunday night, i think you went, commissioner lazarus, to the event at alcatraz followed by the party at pier 39. there were a number of events that continue tonight out in golden gate park at the

california academy of sciences and, of course, the closing festivities tomorrow night at city hall, and as i'm sure mike martin can attest, city hall is looking very -- i don't know. what would you call that? again, hopefully, the weather will improve. it is looking very tropical over there at city hall. an oxymoron, but nonetheless, it looks very cool. the pow wow is expected to generate more than $250 million in tourism. it is considered the biggest tourist event possible. i know it has brought in a lot of work for a lot of people, and we were honored and privileged to participate, so we are really happy about that. lastly, i just had a request. if we could adjourn today in memory of aurora, a port

employees who recently passed at the very young age of 61. she retired after 26 years, the last 10 of which she was here at the port, and unfortunately, we lost her rather soon, so if we could, i'd love to adjourn in her honor. >> thank you. that is really exciting. i am planning on attending the closing tomorrow night, so i look forward to seeing all the international and domestic travel agents. i also want to welcome commissioner ho to the port commission. it is wonderful to have five commissioners sitting here. has been so long. welcome. is there any public comment on the executive director's report? >> items on the consent calendar, 8a, request authorization to advertise for competitive bids for construction contract to 752.

8b, request authorization to advertise for competitive bids for contract 2723. 8c, request authorization to accept and expend $45,000 in 2008 infrastructure protection program for security grant program funds from the department of homeless security for maritime cctv system security improvements at the port of san francisco. 8d, request authorization to accept and expend $551,552 in 2010 infrastructure protection program port security grant program funds from the department of homeland security for mass notification system security improvements at the port of san francisco near the ferry building. >> so move. commissioner crowley: second. >> is there any public comment on the consent calendar? all in favor?

resolution 11-31, 11-32, 11-33, and 11-34 have been approved. >> 9a, information presentation on the port and san francisco bay conservation development commission's out reach to waterfront stakeholders regarding the waterfront special area plant and proposed amendments to the special area plan for the proposed pier 27 cruise terminal and the 34th america's cup. >> i want to welcome you to the commission. special projects manager with the port. i want to introduce this item by introducing the senior planner with the bay conservation and

development commission. we have been working with bcdc staff on this project for about nine months. i would say that we are at the midpoint in this project. i want to start my presentation by giving you some history. we're here to talk about the special area plan for the san francisco waterfront. most people are not aware, but the special area plan is really the companion document to the waterfront land use plan. without the special area plan, much of the great adoptive reuse we're seeing on the waterfront could not go forward. i do not know how well you can see this slide, but as you all know, the waterfront land use plan was adopted in 1997

unanimously by the port commission, and conforming amendments to the waterfront land use for the nets were adopted unanimously by the board of supervisors. but the special area plan lagged adoption of the waterfront land use plan and specifically the problems that the port problemsbc portan -- and bcdc grappled with. that basically meant in shorthand that if you wanted to do a peer rehabilitation project, that you either had to remove half of the pier or convert half of it into a park, and that frustrated most proposals to do new projects with these old piers on the waterfront. additionally, bcdc had water-

oriented use restrictions, which basically meant just maritime uses or recreation passive enjoyment of the day. bcdc did not that acknowledge the broader sweep of public trust uses we have in our projects now. over a three-year process, led jointly by bcdc and eight port at the time -- and the port at the time, the resolution was adopted in 2000, essentially lifting the water-oriented use restrictions and allowing a broader range of public trust uses and replacing the 50% phil will with a plan level approach to deliver public benefits along the waterfront. those public benefits being filled removal, major clauses

for the benefit of the public to appreciate the day, adjacent open water basins where there would be limited primarily recreation-oriented maritime activities but not industrial maritime activities, and then public access. the special area plan lays all of that out in a great deal of detail, and we follow those rules whenever we do mixed use development project along the waterfront. we did not amend the special area plan for our project until very recently with the explora torium project. there was in the special area plan a requirement to remove most of the valley. the exploratorium have proposed

moving less than the entire valley area and providing for some will between public access between the piers. we address that issue relatively late in the approval process, and i think that there wasn't feeling from some of the original special area plan stakeholders who had negotiated an agreement over such a long time that the port had -- and our product sponsor had traded that as a bit of an afterthought. we agreed that it projects coming down the pike need amendments to the special area plan, that we should engage the public early in the process and not at the end of the approval process. the project that is coming is really the pier 27 cruise terminal, and there are fairly significant is is at the site.

we would love to see a series of stakeholder interviews with people who had been involved in the 2000 special area process. there were about 40 years overall, and the interview process went from about august of last year until about january of this year. we had the benefit of two very professional interviewers in the process. first, blake stephenson, who was the former general counsel for the commission. very knowledgeable about the waterfront. had issued some of the public trust consistency findings. later in the process, a commissioner on the san francisco commission on the environment was hired, and very

familiar with waterfront issues, to complete the interview process. we are really grateful. it is an honor to work with people who have a real appreciation of these plans and who could engage stakeholders in a very thoughtful discussion. we also appreciated working with lindy and joe. no one really wanted to engage this process. i was sort of a cheerleader for it. i think that the 2000 process was fairly difficult for people. it was hard to reach agreement, said the discussion about amendments or changes tends to be difficult for people. just want to give an overview of the issues prompting outrage. i mentioned the pier 27 cruise terminal. we had been talking about a possible adaptive reuse project at pier 23, which i think is

beyond staff to handle when we have so much going on right now. not something we are actively pursuing. network of parks and open space, primarily prompted by the 2008 neighborhood parks bond. we identified a range of options up and down port property. we have run and piles at pier 64. looking at how to remove those blighted areas from the waterfront was another issue that prompted this. i am going to go over the major findings at a pretty high level. we are going to drill into these issues in further detail as we go into next steps, but we

talked with the participants about how they would like to see the agency's approach planning on the waterfront. what has been done in the past is really to look at the entire stretch of waterfront. it took seven years for the land use plan and three years to approve a special area plan, so i think we walked in thinking we have that base of information, and planning could be more site- specific. that view was not necessarily shared by our stakeholders. there are still people who want to see the waterfront and dressed as a whole -- addressed as a whole. some people are open to the idea of looking at distinct sub areas like fisherman's wharf or the area between pier 35 and pier 38. as units, they have different

and definable needs. but we found that almost across the board, people do not like trying to plan amendments in the context of projects. they prefer some plan level you before you pursue amendments. another theme that emerged is, not surprisingly, that the port as an enterprise agency looks to our development projects as the primary vehicle to deliver public benefit. i think that we at the staff level often view this as a given, that the way that we improve the waterfront is we attract private investment. that is what yields open space and public access and all the things that the public wants to see -- historic rehabilitation. for stakeholders, and to view us as being development-driven. i think that we had some public education work to do about how much we have been doing over the past couple of years to attract public dollars.

with respect to the role of bcdc, i think that stakeholders previously viewed it as a strong defender of the special area plan and may be viewed the relationship as to close now. respectfully, we view bcdc as being fair but firm when they issue permits. we do not exactly see eye to eye with such stakeholders on that issue. with respect to the pier 27 cruise terminal, that site was really plan for a major plaza, an adjacent open water area, and major public access connection. there are some who view the cruise terminal as providing a major consulates -- major

conflict to the planned park and open water basin, and that came out in the interviews. some other things came out in the interviews. we have been worried about the inherent policy conflict between the maritime access. you need to, for homeland security purposes, close the apron to protect these ships. i think people broadly understood that there was that trade off, so if the cursor medal goes there, the feeling is that the port thatbcdc should work to find replacement public access -- the port and bcdc should work to find replacement public access. one of the issues has to do with the embarcadero. there is a broad feeling that we have done a good job, but that the west side is an important potential way for the public to

appreciate the they, and that it does not match the standard of hurricane way and this side of the street. i think it is something that we all know and have seen in our own planning processes. with regard to historic rehabilitation and public benefits, i touched on this a little bit before. i think people appreciated the fact that the special area plan prompted the port to nominate the embarcadero historic district to the register of historic places. that was one of the requirements of the special area plan. they do not always view the port as being as committed to historic preservation as some of our stakeholders would like us to be. one of the issues we talked about along this line is that pier 23, in the special area plan half of it, is supposed to be removed. when you do a major project at the pier 27 through 31 location.

pier 23, as part of that historic district nomination, is part of that resource, and staff have forwarded the notion that it may not be wise to remove the back half of that pier, that that could be a significant impact to an important historic resource, and the pier itself was in good condition. we found that some people were really went to the trade-offs that were made in the original special area plan. a great deal of other participants in the process of the value of keeping the back half of pier 23. that is an issue i think we need to explore more in the process. what happens towards the end of the interview process is the america's cup. it was something being negotiated concurrent with many of the interviews. it was not a direct topic area

that was discussed in most of the interviews because it did not become a reality until the end of the interview process. but as a result of the cruise terminal project and the america's cup, we now have three proposed amendments to the special area plan that i would like to go over at a high level and see if the commission or public has comments. so, you are not going to be able to see this very well, but at pier 27, the area between pier 19 and copier 27 is an old bird -- pier 19 and copier 27 is an open water plaza. the plaza is supposed to overlook the open water basin. the burgeoning activity in the

open water basin would significantly impact the character of the water basin. our planned amendment proposal would be to shift the base into the area between pier 29 and 31. also the area off of pier 23 in the half. it is a shallow area between pier 43 and pier 45 that has a great views of the bay and is adjacent to the park. the america's cup also proposes to remove the entirety of the pier 27 shed and a portion of the 29 shed that intersects with 27. that removal is a greater level of removal than the proposed pier 23 removal by and the special area planned. we would propose that that

removal would be a trade-off for pier 23, allowing us to keep that historic resources. it will allow us to keep the potential to acre plaza at the end appeared 27 and 29 that needs to be used for cruise ship provisioning when there are cruise ships in place, but it could serve as important public access when it is not in use for crews purposes. without getting too lost in the details, we see a need to plan additional public access improvements. possibly on the west side of the embarcadero. we are also looking at additional removal options. possibly phased removal of the non-historic connector shed. it is called pier 19 and 1/2 and

it would provide great views of the bay. that is the port staff initial proposal on the public benefits in vision that the site. we have a ways to go with stakeholders to get to the right formula. i would like to move on to the america's cup special area planned proposal. the area on the screen is the area between pier 14 and 22 and a half. it is the open water basin in the area planned. but the new agreement requires that the port provide this space for the purposes of large spectator vessels during the races. in to permit dredging in this area. it would need to be to a debt of about 12 feet.

promising that long-term in that location from the event authority. the proposal for this special area plan would be related only to the special use of this location for the race. it would permit these large spectator wrote vessels in the park with docs installed on a temporary basis, moved after the race. i have to say to the commission that the feedback we have gotten on this proposal has not been great. the lincoln park area provides extraordinary views of the day. members of the public are going to want to see the day, even if they are not interested in the america's cup.

we have a ways to go in terms of convincing the staff and the commission about the merits of this proposal. this is the open water basin. just south of the bay bridge. as you remember, the industrial bases are planned for this area. catamarans would be merged in the base itself near pier 32. the event the authority would do substructure improvements to the deck. the teams would have tent structures to perform team operations in. there would be cranes on the south face of 32. the boats would be lifted of groundwater and there would be a device between our round pier 32 end pier 36. dredging would happen to a depth

of 15 feet. this would be just off of the wharf. so, again, this amendment proposal would be for the temporary use of anything like was contemplating the rate in the area so that we potentially have the same issues here that we have to work through with ac/dc as we do in the 24.5 area. all three of these amendment requests have been submitted. i would like to go over the next steps that we are facing in this process. the first step is that bcdc staff brings a subscription notice of the application. the commission says whether or not to go forward