president vietor: any public comment? >> no speaker cards. >> all those in favor? opposed? motion carries. next item, please. >> item 14, this is land use discussion. we did put a note in their sane discussion will be limited to 30 minutes or such other direction set by the commission. when we talk about doing this kind of workshops, you indicated you like to have a time certain. so at the beginning of the discussion are during it, you can take your time and weekend time it for you. item 14, land use policy and from work -- workshop and discussion. a workshop presentation on and discussion of key considerations for developing a land use policy framework to guide the decision making process for current and future uses of sfpuc properties. the land use policy framework

will be brought to the commission for consideration before the close of 2011. president vietor: hello. >> hello, good afternoon. deputy general manager. i have a few slides prepared. i would like to kind of go through those. but this is a workshop, so you can stop at any time to ask questions. i like the analogy that we are trying to do something because we do not want to bring something back half baked. you will see a lot of the ingredients during the presentation, and hopefully that will stimulate some discussion with you. we're going to look at a couple of different things. one is the puc property types. we're focusing today a lot inside san francisco, because there is a lot of property outside san francisco. you have right of ways outside san francisco. there are a lot of policies in place for those properties outside of san francisco.

but it could be much more comprehensive than that they are today. there's a difference between primary use of a property, if that is a utility purpose, and with the secondary uses are. or if the properties are no longer needed for utility purposes, what is this commission's disposition of those properties? finally, we are hoping this discussion leads to a point where we can actually go away and start to frame a the land policy that can be brought back to the commission hopefully before the close of 2011, but also updating a lot of our policy of our procedures, our manual for real-estate inside sfpuc and how it's implemented within the puc. just to remind you, we do have some existing plans and policies in place and/or memorandums of understanding did you have the environmental stewardship policy which you adopted in 2006. we have a watershed agreement, production agreement, with the national parks service, which was first approved by you in

2005. and redone again in 2010. there is the reverse management plan with the u.s. forest service in 1988 and the national parks service is working on their portion did you have the lme the watershed plan, approved in 2000 and 2001. those cover a lot of uses and have plans and policies in place. you have a right of way encroachment policy, and that was put in place mainly to cover a lot of the issues on your right of ways as we started doing the water system improvement program where people had fences and yards that we had to move out of the way and how we were going to do that in a transparent way. finally, there is that vegetation management policy and how we manage vegetation on our right of way. as you may recall, we do not want a lot of different types of vegetation which might interfere with their utility purposes, like planting a lot of trees or we have pipelines not being a good idea in the future.

let's take a look at a few slides to get your ideas. sites with the primary utility purpose and existing or potential secondary use. this is merced manner, a reservoir and central palm station did a that is the building and the printer to the left. it has a large grassy area around the pump station. we revegetated this after building the station. in a possibly have a secondary use. it has been used in the past by the local ymca for soccer for young children. but they have not come back to us at this point. this is college filled reservoir in bernal heights. again, it is an active reservoir. but it has land around it that could be put to a different use. there are some flat areas that are fenced in. it depends on how the commission wants to approach this.

this is the southeast plant. if you recall, the southeast plant has a lot of exterior area around the plant that is just landscape at this point in time. there is potential to have a secondary use. parts of the landscaped area outside of what i call the wall and there is a very friends on some of the property were you could do community gardens or things of that nature. it is property that you own that you could put to a secondary use. president vietor: maybe you can let as know how much land each of these has that might be available for use. >> to do literally side by side. it depends on where you put things. i do not have exact numbers for you today, but that is something we can actually produce for you. president vietor: ok. >> the next category is about beneficial natural surroundings. 26 reservoir, we took over the function -- twin peaks

reservoir, we took over the function about two years ago. this is an overt -- (r. it came with a lot of land around it, which was surprising to us. now we're sort of like these two words of that land around the. lake merced is an emergency water supply for the city of san francisco. as we rebuild the pump station, we will have an takes into the lake so we can pump that into our system in case of emergency. it is a large parcel of land that could be put to some secondary use. sites and no primary purpose would beneficial natural surroundings. we have laguna honda. right now, we do not see it as having a primary utility use, but it does have natural surroundings and we need to decide how to manage that parcel of land are in the future. shaughnessy boulevard -- and

changed the conversation slightly -- sorry. i put in another slide. he owes shaughnessy boulevard, we do own a portion of the land adjacent to the boulevard. it is a steve, -- it is a steep hilly area with no value. i cannot recall a free on it because of the municipal railway or if because there were closing the park. >> there was the a plan b. >> yes, and it's going to bring that up. president vietor: so these sites with no primary utility purpose, with beneficial natural surroundings, they're just kind of wild places where we do not

have anything going on there, right? >> at laguna honda, some things are going on. there are some flat areas that and we have for beekeeping and things of that nature. but we have not identified the primary utility purpose for that. o' shaughnessy boulevard is a remnant from nearly 1900 of a property purchased, and we do not really have utility purpose. we do not have a pipeline going through there or anything else. there is nothing there. there are some water pipes going into some of those spaces, but it depends on what you mean. if it is active, there are some active lines right at the street. all our pipes are in the street. water service comes from the street and you -- adjacent properties. commissioner torres: laguna honda looked like my old district. that is the common does making. [laughter] i wanted to laugh about lake

merced. i have received correspondence about people -- from people about lake merced. are there some controversies regarding lake merced from our perspective? >> we're working on a memorandum of understanding with the recreation and park department to decide the ultimate management at the lake merced track. we own the track. since 1950, the park department has been the primary management of the track. we have been the managers of the water. we're trying to delineate very clearly were the line is, and we take back some of the management responsibility for the landslide of lake merced hit a that is where the controversy is coming in. we have a draft memorandum of understanding that we have shared with recreation and park. we hope to come back in december -- november 8, even sooner. >> i have a meeting about this

tomorrow with some people that want to talk about it. so november 8 is the drop date? president vietor: what about the level of the lake? >> it is of quite a bit, to your standards. going back to the slideshow just briefly, the last one is the side with no utility purpose at this point in time and no secondary use. an example might be the francisco reservoir, a reservoir that was in the system that was sort of put out of service in the 1930's and it has no utility purpose of this point in time. and we do not see a city their use at this point in time, but that is part of the discussion of having a land use policy framework. president vietor: is there any value in making that reservoir working again? i mean, i am looking at it as

another place to store water. >> it is a good question. the elevation is about 135 feet. when we did lumbard reservoir, that question came up from the area. it is too low for a lot of the area we need to get to. it had very low value from a water supply standpoint of getting water to that height and try to back flow into the distribution system. we had much better, sort of, distribution, quality, and hydraulic capacity from the lombard reservoir site and expanding that, which we did. >> in the past when it was used, was that an issue? >> it was used then abandoned in the 1930's. san francisco was built along the waterfront at an elevation of 135 feet and sort of fad that area. people started moving up into the hills and it became an

issue. building at a higher elevation serve people in the hills and the people in the lowlands and back into downtown. going back to the workshop discussion and questions, the meat of today's presentation. we posed three questions to you. they might not be the exact right questions, and but we thought, what should be some key factors in considering secondary land use? what should be our primary or secondary use? do you want to have food? do you want to have a playground? how do we weigh in and make some judgments on that? and what about properties with no primary utility purpose? do we hang on to them? do we look at them as a future needs, or what? we created some categories underneath each one of these questions, so when you look at

keefe factors, its compatibility with utility needs, if there is a primary purpose, is it compatible? you do not want a gas station next to your reservoir. that is not something that would be compatible. the economic impact to the ratepayers. it should not be that the rate payers are subsidizing that use. it should be standing on its other. it should create a liability question for you. it should open it up to some sort of long-term. your priorities, whether or not it is for other things, and finally, is this a permanent use, or does it have an exit strategy? if you need to take this property for utility purpose sometime in the future, i am not talking five years from now, maybe 30 or 40 years from now, do you have an exit strategy that the second their use can be taken off of that?

>> it may make sense to stop at this point. they are really questions. is it ok to simply say that we will lose money on something, or do we think it is important that we make money on something. it is really that kind of a discussion that we wanted to have. which of these are the highest priority, and what are the preferred ways that we do business? >> commissioners? commissioner: make money. >> the urban growing of food. it is one thing to say that we can provide the property and

make sure it does not cost us money, but we probably will not make money off of it. there may be something else that makes more money. an overriding concern. that is really what the question is. how open is the commission to multiple different uses, and depending on what the priorities are for the city generally? >> i have a very strong feeling on this. >> making money aside?

to replenish the copper so we can do some good. it does not have a secondary use at this point. we could have that as one of the values that we look to. president vietor: commissioner

moran? commissioner moran: in general, what you want to do. the rate for san franciscans. we went very heavily for that.

what the practice is or the intent for that piece of land. the francisco reservoir is classic. there are some who would like to see the neighborhood park. those are just very difficult things to sort through. what does it mean to have a policy? if we set out a very broad policy, saying in general we

want to make money for the land that we have, and that the community-oriented projects that we want, to the degree possible, put on economically not viable land. it takes a supermajority note -- vote? we could adopt something that says that. just as we have something for analysis. there could be another one. where does this violate policy? and what policies speak to this?

so there are a variety of things that we could do with it, but it is tempting to throw up your hands and do it on a case by case basis. but it also puts it in a horrible position, where every time something comes in, you just do not know which way it is going to go. if we can come up with some broad principles, i think that would be useful, and if we of the process for what it means -- when i say violent, that sounds negative. there are some times where you want to have a policy, and you should be able to deal with that in some way without just saying about the policy. commissioner: any others? one thing that came up was this

triple bottom line. there might be a way to look at this, the three e', looking at the economic peace and at some others. there are the three goals and objectives. and if that is even possible. >> that may be possible. i think there are two things that we need to consider. this is kind of a policy for going forward. we do have a lot of leases that may not be compatible with the policy. we are really trying to go forward and deal with on a case- by-case basis. that is one of the things that

we are struggling with. a lot of these are coming up for renewal. how do we go forward? also, there are the categories of different types of leases that we have. we talk about community gardens. we have golf courses that are lucrative. and there are people approaching us for the parking lots for the egress and exit from their lands across the right of way, and there is a lot of talk with communities for linear parks. how do you approach all of those, and what do you want to do when people approach us, of which kind of takes priority? what are you willing to consider as far as leasing the property for what period of time for what costs, and so on. all of those things come into play.

president vietor: commissioner courtney? commissioner courtney: at the risk of painting myself into a corner, we talk about public- private partnerships. what is the most we can do and kind of work your way down. we kind of look at a green building, and i think work force housing and revenues, and i look at a parcel.

we want to look at the condition and staff to consider public- private partnerships and revenue generating opportunities in light of some of the new standards that we have for green construction. >> having mutual benefit, i think we would entertain that proposal. >> another land comes to mind. we may not be the best developers in the world. public agencies do not really do this work all that well, so we have had these. when you really think you can get rid of the land, you give it to somebody else to develop, and

you are in the money that you can earn, and then you take your hands off. there is no policy to do it, but in the past, it has been very difficult for the public agency to be a real developer. president vietor: what about some sort of rubric that would maybe score some of these kinds of priorities that it seems we are trying to get at here, and it has community benefits, or it has the equity component or the green component or the work force development piece, and there is some system if you use a rating system, and you could drill it down to more of a case by case basis if you needed to, having your overarching principles, and then maybe things are even included like a city ordinance, a building, so if it adds up for development,

rating system more executive orders. that gets extra points because there is a food growing peace that might help, and i do not know if that would come up to the commission level. this one out of 100 got 90, so we decided this was the most inappropriate for growing food or selling off the parcel. >> i think we can do that in a passive way. the other is do we want to make active, to go out and make all of the facilities available for dog walking, for growing food, so part of it, we have tended to be a passive organization, where we wait and see what comes to us, but we can also change that policy if we think there is an active thing that we want to do or whatever it might be, and i am not trying to push one thing in particular.

this is really to get your thoughts. president vietor: i think you have hit on a very good part. it just sits there, and that is foolish. there should not be anything that is idle. we should be utilizing everything for whatever reason, and i think that is the main thing, as opposed to say the overall policy is x, y, and z. i think we just have to take it, side by side, and decide what to do with it, as opposed to letting it sit there. president vietor: there is not an unlimited universe of uses, right? things that we may not be actively doing, community

gardens which we are doing in some places, but maybe food growing is on a more pro-active list. this is maybe a way we can do this side by side. commissioner: have we looked at this? >> no, we have not. someone with real estate, waste water, barbara hale. we are trying to work to the properties and see what would be compatible secondary purpose given the to the purpose, whether it is water, sewer, power.

there is one that took more than one decade to clean up the side. all along that river -- >> along that river, there were areas that many were trying to develop. there was one that created a 25-mile monorail at the port of long beach. it passed the legislature unanimously, and one donor, wilson, had him veto it, so the proposal never got off of the crown.