supervisor wiener and his staff for taking on this issue. i know that it's been a great deal of work and there has been a great deal of discussion and feedback that has been presented on this item and i am happy to be a supporter of this legislation. i think that it's something that the city and county of san francisco should do and i also want to thank all the staff that have been working on this issue and providing feedback on how to strike the right balance between the needs of dog owners and at the same time some of the business concerns that dog walkers have. i know that one of the big questions has been on the number of dogs that should be allowed to be walked and as someone who has a dog myself, i know that you want to make sure that it's the right number so that it's not too many but at the same time you want to recognize that

you're talking about a business that's being run and so you want to strike the right balance and find that right number. i don't know exactly what that number should be, to be honest. but i think that what we have right now seems to be a fair compromise that takes into account all the different interests and i've spoken to a number of dog walkers and there are differences of opinion as to what what that number should be and the thing about that number is that it's something we can also revisit as this matter goes forward. so i'm happy to be a supporter and again i want to thank supervisor wiener for his work. supervisor avalos: thank you, mr. president. i also like to thank supervisor wiener for his work in crafting legislation that did not exist out of thin air and it took a lot of effort and work in your office. you and yourself, to make that

happen. and grappling with numerous interests as well as a number of dogs per walker must have been very challenging. so i want to acknowledge your work in that and also the work of the city departments to help with that effort as well. i do have a concern about the number of dogs per walker here. it's something that initially i thought should have been something that can promote business but also be something that would be manageable for the walkers and to take care of a number of dogs as well as be something that would be helpful for the dogs and their welfare as well. i considered, you know, a larger number to be somewhat more difficult to manage on both the walkers and the welfare of the dogs and also the impact to our parks a mainly consideration as well as the parks development has been involved in these discussions.

i feel a lot more comfortable with a number like six. i know that's something that's been considered and considered too low by the committee and i want to see where we can go with that today but that seems like a good balance. i think it was a recommendation that had come out of the animal care control center as well. that i think provides some indication of what makes a lot of sense for the welfare of the dogs. i think the park department was amendable to that number as well. also i think that if we have a lower number of dogs per walker, it might open up the industry, the dog walking industry for possibly more jobs for people to walk dogs as well. that i think is something that was grappled with by the small business commission, but i think it's something worth considering as well today. so i'd like to propose an amendment, i'd like to think of it as a friendly amendment, six,

and see where that goes. six dogs. that amendment would be online -- on line three of page seven of this ordinance. that's my motion. president chiu: supervisor avalos has made a motion to set the number of dogs at six. seconded by supervisor elsbernd. let's have a discussion. supervisor wiener: thank you. thank you for taking the time. and i do understand the argument for six and there were some folks who supported that. but for several reasons i don't support the amendment. i don't support going to six. i'll explain why. i think it's really important to be clear that the current limit and what it's been for -- i guess forever -- is infinity. so whatever cap we put on it is going to be a lot lower than what it currently is.

we're also -- this is new legislation. although this has been done in 10 or 12 other cities, this is new for san francisco. brand new regulatory scheme. and when you're doing that, i think it's important to tread a little bit lightly, understanding that you can always make changes in the future. and so i wanted to be careful in this legislation not to be overly restrictive. i've heard and so did the small business commission, so did the land use committee, heard from a lot of dog walkers, keeping in mind that there are dog walkers who only walk two or three dogs, dog walkers who walk a lot more. and i think that there was a pretty broad -- not consensus but a strong majority of dog walkers who expressed concern that six dogs would have a significant negative economic impact on the ability of people to earn a living, to run their business.

now, i think the small business commission went too far when it recommended nine. and obviously i started out with seven. i've always thought that seven or eight would be a good approach. but i do think that six would be very damaging economically to a lot of dog walkers and so i'm not supportive of going there. so i will not be supporting this amendment to go to six. i think eight is a good number. i think six is definitely too low and as the author of the legislation who spent an enormous amount of time working with all the stakeholders, i would ask colleagues that this amendment be rejected. supervisor farrell: thanks, president chiu. i don't know what the right number is here. i don't think i can find this so i'm going to defer to committee and what came out. the one thing i will say, though, is to keep what supervisor campos mentioned is,

we do have the opportunity to change it as time goes on and the one thing i am aware of is they're trying to undergo a process where they're going to place a number on dogs and the one thing especially as a supervisor who represents a district that has a lot of land adjacent to the ggnra lands, if we have a number that's much higher than the ggnra's number, then we could have an influx of dog walkers into our parks and out of the ggnra land. but that's a discussion for a later date. they're going to go through their process but for now, want to respect what the committee did and supervisor wiener's legislation so i will not be supporting the motion. supervisor campos: thank you, mr. president. again, i don't know what the right number is and i actually -- there's part of me that certainly appreciates and supports what supervisor avalos is trying to do and i do want to thank animal care and control and rec and park because they have to deal with this issue and the issue of what happens if

federal government has a lower number and we have a larger number a concern. that said, i will defer to supervisor wiener who has been dealing with this for quite some time and if it does turn out that six should be the right number i think we'll have an opportunity to modify the number. i also have spoken to a number of people in the industry where i am confident that if it is the right person doing it and if it's done properly that the current number that's being proposed, eight, could work. but again, i think this is a work in progress and i think that we need to monitor the situation but today i will be deferring to supervisor wiener who has worked on this. supervisor elsbernd: in a genuine attempt to try to address your concerns which really are my concerns, this is why i support supervisor avalos' amendment.

if the feds came down and said six, i'd be very concerned about the impact on growth and other parks near there. if maker of the amendment is amendable, instead of reducing it from eight to six, we say eight but then put language in that says, if the federal government imposes a lower number on federal lands in the city and county of san francisco, we move down to the lower number. so we don't have to go through this whole process all over again and talk about how many dogs people can walk, respectfully i think we have a few more important things to worry about. let's put that language in now so it happens automatically. president chiu: is that an amendment to supervisor avalos'? further discussion. supervisor avalos: i'll accept that. i'll defer that. president chiu: so you're

withdrawing your motion to reduce it down to six and it is a friendly amendment by supervisor avalos to state that eight is the number but if the federal government comes in and gives us a lower number, the lower number shall apply. supervisor wiener: thank you. thank you for trying to come up with a middle ground. i don't support the current version of the amendment for a couple of reasons. first, i don't want to -- the ggmra and the city, they're going to have their own policies which may or may not be identical. i don't want to let them automatically drive what our policy is. we know that we have significant disagreements with the ggnra in particular around dogs issues. so i have -- did i meet with the trust and the ggnra around this and they do intend to have dog walker policies. they very much like this

legislation. not necessarily the number, but everything else about it. but they are both going to take -- it's going to be probably several years before they have it in place and with ggnra in particular, they're tied up in nots now around their whole rule making process for the dogs so it's going to be quite some time and i think that time would be the appropriate time for us policymakers, if appropriate, to revisit the issue and if we decide to align our number, then so be it. but i don't think that putting something auto in there, we don't know what that's going to be, we don't know the impact it's going to have on people's ability to run their businesses, we don't know what the impact will have on the price of dog walking services because the lower the number gets, the higher the price is going to be, and there are a lot of san franciscans who may not be able to afford those services. so i think it's too unpredictable so i don't support the amendment. supervisor mar: thank you, mr. chiu. i'm supportive of supervisor wiener's leadership on this.

i didn't realize how much work he put in on this issue, as we had two full hearings at the land use committee. but also the small business commission and i see the thoughtfulness that went into the recommendations that were considered. i'm glad you have worked on the dog licensing issue because the director of the animal welfare and control was here earlier and you've worked out kind of with the dog pack and the other groups, there she is behind me, a lot of the issues. i'm not supportive of the amendment by supervisor avalos but i understand the logic but i realize that you're juggling a whole bunch of different things. it's a good piece of legislation and now infinity is the number that dog walkers can use, i think it's a good regulation that balances the need of the small businesses but also public safety and environmental health and the welfare of the dogs and the families that the dogs come from as well. i'm supportive of supervisor wiener's legislation as amended by supervisor chiu -- chu.

supervisor avalos: thank you. just to be clear, i'm withdrawing my motion. and i actually -- i i'm a little bit squeemish about following the lead of the golden gate national recreation area. i can see that point that supervisor elsbernd wants to make and the difference between what comes into play for ggnra versus our park and how the pame county -- and how the impacts will be but i'll wait and cross that path when it comes. if six is not going to be accepted, i will defer -- i'll vote on the overall legislation and i may support. thanks. president chiu: if we could allow supervisor avalos to withdraw his motion without objection, that will be the case. further discussion, anyone going to mention the number seven?

supervisor kim: i was going to propose that we move back down to the original number of seven that supervisor wiener originally proposed. i do feel very uncomfortable with eight. i think six is the ideal number but i want to respect the author of the legislation. i'm not sure if we have the number there. if not so, i understand the work that went into this. i know that a lot of compromise, a lot of different parties, small business advocates to dog lovers and park advocates have been involved in this process. i think eight is a very high number. but -- president chiu: so sounds like you are making a motion to amend the number to seven. i believe that's been seconded by supervisor avalos. is there further discussion on this motion to amend? supervisor chu: thank you. i just want to thank supervisor wiener for his leadership on this. it's never easy to tackle any dog issues. and speaking of dog -- and being a dog owner myself and walking birdy, i think one is my limit.

i couldn't really tell you what the right number would be. i do have -- i have heard very much from many of the dog walkers, in particular, the business commission, the professional dog walkers, and having heard their concerns about how six dogs might be very detrimental to them being able to sustain their business, i would rather err on the side of a higher number. i would be acceptable to seven. my limit i think was seven or eight and so i'd be supportive of that motion. wean wean i'll be voting no -- wean wean i'll -- supervisor wiener: i'll be voting no on this although i think seven is a reasonable number. it is what i started out with. but given the process that we have gone through and the sort of yo-yoing on the number and we have heard from people who want the limit to be three or four to the people who insist they can

walk 14 dogs at one time. and i think eight came out of this process through the small business commission, land use committee and so i'd like to respect that and one last thing, you know, supervisor mar and i both said it about the current limit of infinity. had i not gone through the many hours necessary to put together this legislation then there would be still a limit of infinity once ggnra went into effect, once the trust went into effect. so otherwise, you know, what everyone thinks of the number eight, it's something and again we can make a change in the future if need be. and so i'm going to stick with eight. but i do understand the argument for seven and i'm not saying it's irrational or wrong. supervisor kim: my apologies. after listening to supervisor wiener talk about the process and respecting the process, i'd like to withdraw my motion to reduce the number to seven.

president chiu: supervisor kim would like to withdraw her motion. without objection, that should be the case. supervisor chu: thank you. i will then make the motion to revise the number to seven. president chiu: supervisor chu is making the motion to revise the number to seven. any further discussion? ok. why don't we take a roll call on -- vote on the motion that the number be amended from eight to seven. supervisor wiener: no. supervisor avalos: aye. supervisor campos: no. president chiu: aye. supervisor chu: aye. supervisor cohen: no. supervisor elsbernd: aye. supervisor farrell: no. supervisor kim: no. supervisor mar: no. supervisor olague: no. >> there are four ayes and seven

no's. president chiu: the question fails. any further discussion? why don't we take a roll call vote on the underlying measure. >> on item 40 as amended. supervisor wiener: aye. supervisor avalos: aye. supervisor campos: aye. president chiu: aye. supervisor chu: aye. supervisor cohen: aye. supervisor elsbernd: aye. supervisor farrell: aye. supervisor kim: aye. supervisor mar: aye. supervisor olague: aye. >> there are 11 ayes. president chiu: the ordinance is -- by the way in the agenda it says it finally passed. we haven't voted on this so it should be passed in the first read. >> my agenda says>> my agenda se first read.

president chiu: i must have a different copy. this is passed on the first read as amended. it is now 4:00. why don't we go to our 4:00 p.m. special orders? please call the america's cup items first. those are items 36 through 39. >> items 36 through 39 comprise the special order at 4:00 p.m.. a public hearing of persons interested in the planning commission decision, dated december 15, 2011, of a final environmental impact report regarding the america's cup sailing races in the summer and fall of 2012 and 2013. and 37 affirms the certification. item 38 reverses the certification. item 39 directs the preparation of findings. president chiu: it is my understanding that both parties have agreed on a continuance to

the 24th of this month, given that there is a second appeal of the eir for the project. at this time, i would like to entertain a motion to continue. the motion that these items will be continued to january 24, without objection. why don't we now call our special -- ok. i have just been reminded that we did not take public comment on whether we should continue this. could i have a motion to rescind that vote? without objection. this last item will be rescinded. let me ask if there are any members of the public that wish to comment on the america's cup eir that we would have heard today, but are going to hear two weeks from now, if you wish to speak to the appeal or the motion to continue, please step up to the microphone. seeing none, a public comment is closed. again, a motion to continue by

supervisor chu, seconded by supervisor farrell. now, let us call the items regarding sf moma, items 32 through 35. >> persons interested in the planning commission decision of the certification of the final environmental impact report for the proposed expansion of the san francisco museum of modern art, and relocation of fire station number one and housing project. item 33 of firms certification of the eir. item 34 reverses the certification. item 35 directs preparation of findings. president chiu: before we proceed, we need to reduce supervisor ol-- recuse supervisor olague. the we take the motion without objection? that shall be the case. with that, why don't we now

proceed into this appeal. we have an appeal of the final environmental impact report for the proposed sfmoma expansion and the fire station relocation and housing project. we will consider the accuracy, adequacy, and completeness of the final eir, of which you all have copies. when love for terror from the appellants, who will -- we will first hear from the appellants. we will then take public comment. each speaker will have up to two minutes. then the planning department will have up to 10 minutes to describe the grounds for the certification. following that, we will hear from the real party of interest, who will have up to 10 minutes to present. finally, the appellants will have up to three minutes for a rebuttal. supervisor kim, as the supervisor in whose district this is located, opening comments? why don't we hear from the appellant?

>> good afternoon. my name is christine griffith. i am, an attorney here in san francisco. i am representing kss enterprises, the owner of the w hotel in san francisco, the appellant in this case. we challenge the certification of the eir that was adopted by the planning commission to support the expansion of the museum of modern art. although my client support this project in general, they have concerns about the environmental review that was performed, and the process for the product approval. that is the subject of our appeal. we have submitted letters and appeared at all the hearings on the project. you have all the information in front of you in your packets. we are asking today that you send the eir back to planning for revisions to fill in gaps in its original analysis. we have attempted to work with members from the moma to resolve

some of the issues raised by this appeal, but we have not men successful so far in reaching an agreement. to the extent that the supervisors are not ready to send the eir back to planning, we would ask for more time to try to reach an agreement with the representatives of the moma on these issues so we can avoid a further dispute. our concerns relate primarily to three physical impact areas. the first is the visual or aesthetic impact. the eir is deficient, in that it does not fully analyze the visual impact of the project. a clear example of this is that the eir's visual analysis does not consider the final product design. within days of the planning commission action on the eir, the moma released as the magic designs showing a building remarkably different from that considered -- released its

schematic designs, showing a building remarkably different from the considered in the eir. you have seen it now and heard all the discussion. whether that design is high quality or not is not an issue for visual impact under ceqa. the issue here is that the actual design of the building that was proposed is quite different from the building that was analyzed in the eir, and thus the eir analysis is inadequate under the law. the final design is new information that was not made available to the planning commission, nor was it available to the public before that decision. the visual analysis, taking into account the actual line of the building which has now been released, should be revised and recirculated for public comment before going back to the planning commission. moma will no doubt point to the section 309 design review

process as efficient review, but that process has never been intended to, nor is it, an appropriate substitute for ceqa review. the second substantive issue is the traffic analysis. the eir does not adequately consider the traffic impacts associated with vacating and closure of the alleyway that runs through the middle of the block and that serves as the main access to the hotel loading dock and service areas. the impacts are not sufficiently mitigated by the voluntary improvement measure that was added at the final eir stage in response to my client's comments. this is the primary access to the loading dock, including the garbage area and ballet area -- valet area. all of the hotel operations rely

on this access. during construction, access will be completely cut off. and all the traffic associated with deliveries to the hotel -- basic foods and linens, uniforms -- all the traffic will be pushed onto third street and howard street. the valet services will not be able to drive through the porte- cochere that is there now. the that is not considered in the traffic impact analysis. in the long term, the access to hunt lane is also not guaranteed, so it is possible the long term situation will also be pushing valet operations, deliveries, and garbage out on to these already congested streets. the vacation of hunt line further highlights the inadequacy of the traffic analysis. the findings claim that hunt lane is not necessary and not in use, but the eir response to

comments made clear if it is -- that it is, as well as the late improvement measure to have the moma voluntarily of whom -- provide some access to the w in the future. the access to the net,-- to natoma pass is not considered at all, and does not been considered the subject of action, as it is required to be. the third substantive area is the construction impact analysis. they are dismissed in the eir summarily, simply by the statement that these types of impact, because of their temporary nature, are generally considered less significant. while that may be true, that construction impacts are generally considered less than significant, that does not mean they are less than significant

in every case, and certainly not in this case. you're talking about a two-year construction. even by the busy standards of san francisco downtown, that is a lazy and significant construction. the eir does not consider any of the impact of the construction other than the air quality impact. everything else is dismissed. we believe the eir must be recirculated so that the full impact of construction would be considered. again, i would ask that you send the eir back to planning for revision to comply with the law. if not, i would ask that you forgo a decision today to allow the parties more time to reach an agreement. i am available for questions. president chiu: any questions? supervisor weiner: putting aside supervisor weiner: putting aside the merits in the requests for