-- port property. we were previously given information. one of our hearings about the comment that the number of truck trips per day in the eir was responded to in the cnr document by upping the number of trips from 20 to 90. is that right? yes. also, that the peak hour trips would go to 200 trips per day. i have a couple of questions about that. those were just statements that were made. i do not think the actual numbers were then analyzed to see what the potential impacts might be. one might be the missions.

-- emissions. i would think that trucks that would be at the site in that volume, there is a headway of about two minutes each. i do not know how trucks go back quickly except if there are more than two trucks being loaded at one time. i do not think it will turn off their engines. there must be an increase in emissions, the amount of traffic that is generated, impacts to intersections. i do not think these issues were properly addressed in the comments in response to the document. there is a statement in the comments and responses that says new information must be significant information that identifies a substantial increase in the severity of an

impact. my question is, doesn't the increase of the number of trips from 20 to 90 constitute significant new information? on page 3c23, beginning on 21, this is in reference to the northeast embarcadero study. mr. guy said that this product is consistent with the northeast embarcadero study. also, i believe that the project sponsors architect said that the project implements the study. it seems to me that, if the project implements the study and is consistent with the study, it is, in some way, a land-use plan. the cnr document denies that but i do not believe it is true.

secondly, and i am not a ceqa expert here, but the response to the ceqa section guidelines at 15262 says that a project involving only feasibility or planning studies for possible future actions, which the agency board or commission has not approved, adopted, or funded, does not require the preparation of an 10th eir or negative declaration. but we did fund this study. outcome is not subject to an environmental report? i think those points were made earlier. it is also contained in the letter we received. i think -- i appreciate leaving

the cnr documents in appendix c, the video simulation of the proposed project along the embarcadero. for me, it was rather revealing in many ways. it somehow more clearly showed to me the relationship of the entire project along the embarcadero and how this particular project comes right up to the property line. if you are viewing the video, most of the projects along there were sent back from the embarcadero itself. along the embarcadero, there should have been more breathing room. secondly, one of the views that

the video showed where they stop and show what was there was of the fitness club. and the renderings there seem to be not well-developed. the whole question of the end of the project. i think that affects whether or not we can make the finding that, for pud purposes, this is an outstanding design. in the draft environmental report itself, there was a comment about parking. it says, "since a parking shortfall would not occur, the proposed project would not cause any secondary effects due to cars circling and looking for a parking lot. therefore it would have a less than significant impact." i do not think there are the votes here to do it, but to

staff again, if the planning commission were to take action on the project and reduce the number of parking spaces from what the project sponsor has proposed or even reduced it to the amount that the staff is proposing, still 127 spaces, and reduced it to the maximum under the code, which i think is 54, would that cause a problem in the environmental report because now we all of a sudden have hundreds of less spaces and that would seem to indicate that it would result in a secondary effect do two cars circling and looking for a parking space. simply, if the commission voted to reduce the spaces from 1 to 1, whether it was 134 down to 50

or something else, would there be an issue with the eir? >> on the proposal from staff, that would not have an effect. because it met supply, it would not have any indirect effects. it is very common that people -- that projects cannot meet demand. it would take a fairly extreme situation for that to be considered a significant impact. if your question was, what if we eliminated all of the parking spaces? that would be a closer look. mr. guy recommended a fairly minor reduction. commissioner sugaya: right. ok. going on, following up on commissioner wu, about city housing, it should seem that

there is a quote that says, "to develop sustainable projects within the existing density of the site in order to help meet projected city housing needs." we have had testimony that shows that the real shortfall in housing happens to be in the moderate income, 80-120% ami, which we are not meeting by a large factor. in fact, the amount of housing being constructed at market rate, which one gentleman pointed out is at 153%. in actuality, we do not really need any more of these kind -- of this kind of housing. in the very low income ranges,

we are also at 82.8 and 52.4%. it is the moderate income range that happens to be taking a big hit. i will address this later, but this also has to do with the ceqa findings. there are around 10 findings -- overriding consideration, i am sorry, that the staff has put together. housing is one of them. i do not think we can accept that. in the project description, the washington street widening is not accurately developed. the deir fails to accurately describe the multiple reasons for the operation of washington street between drummond and the embarcadero. there is mentioning up withing the sidewalk.

-- there is a mention of widening the sidewalk. the description fails to say the primary reason for the elimination of the median is to allow for left-hand turns into the proposed garage. it also fails to mention that the widening of the sidewalks their is not achieved by setting the project back from the edge of the sidewalk but by narrowing the public right way and eliminating the five-foot mediant itself. one of the issues is that that median was put in in the mid- 2000's. although landscaping has matured, all of a sudden we are thinking of tearing it out. there is an issue of who is going to pay for that? is it a developer cost?

is it going to fall back on dpw or the city in some way? further on, with respect to sidewalk widening, the current sidewalk is 10 feet wide, approximately typical for the area of. the proposal is to widen the sidewalk out to about 20 feet or so. to enhance pedestrian connection and improve the experience. in actuality, if you look at the site plans, you will find that the widening will only -- that amount of widening only takes place along certain stretches of the street. washington, by my copulations, the amount of widening will be

less than 50% because you have a parking -- not a parking, what do you call those things? a drop off zone in front of the entrance to the development and the sidewalk there is not nearly that wide. you also have curved cuts coming in for the parking garage. it is not the case along the entirety of washington street that we will get this tremendous improvement in sidewalk with. -- width. going on, in terms of views, one of the deficiencies for me is that although the deir states that there would be impaired use from certain places, both the draft and the finals state that the height and massing would

clearly obstruct views. but not totally. the implication is that because the obstruction is not total from every vantage point in the city, there is not a substantial effect. i do not think it has to be total in order for them to be some kind of substantial effect. when we get to ceqa findings, i do not think we can make the findings -- there are several examples. ae2, i do not have the page number. the proposed project would not cause a substantial adverse change in the visual quality of the site and surroundings. i do not think that is true. transportation, this says construction of the proposed project would not cause a significant increase in traffic near the project site. it does not seem to address the fact that the deir has changed

from 20 to 90 and 100 to 200. in terms of the overriding considerations, these are bulleted so i do not have a count. there are seven that we are being asked to consider. one is housing, returning to that. it says that the project will increase but it does not go into the type of housing that is being constructed and how that meets the city's housing goals. in terms of benefits to the port, i did have a question.

it says that the court -- the port receives revenue from the financing district would be established as part of the product. -- as part of the project. you are still going to be pursuing that? >> yes, the board will be pursuing infrastructure financing. it has to be taken up with the board of supervisors. commissioner sugaya: ok. i am not a california government code expert. at one time, i think it was michael from the office of economic development, was giving planning a primer on the finance district. someone mentioned to me the other day that did he not say that you could not use ifd's on

former redevelopment properties. is that correct? i can review this section. -- i can read you the section. it is section n/a. a district may not include any portion of the redevelopment area. >> we are aware of that code section. the district that we are talking with, as a non-attorney, i do not know exactly how that code pertains to the port special legislation. my understanding is that that applies to where we use the funding. since our primary intention is to use it on the piers, over water, when we bring that isp to

the board of supervisors, we will address that issue. commissioner sugaya: staying with the ifd's, since they are mentioned here as overriding consideration, i assume that that is considered to be an integral part of this whole project. that assumption might be wrong. that calls into question the same california code section c, which says that any district that distrust dwelling units shall set aside not less than 20% of those units to increase and improve the community's supply of low and moderate income housing available at an affordable cost. as defined by a another section of the health and safety code. it says "schock construct

dwelling units and set aside not less than 20% of those units." it means units in the building, not a payment. i do not know whether this is applicable to this project. if it is applicable, whether it overrides the city's inclusion their housing law. whether or not they go together. it is just an issue i am raising. under transportation, it says the project would provide pedestrian circulation improvements, including pedestrian access through the former jackson street. we heard a lot about this with respect to jackson commons. if you really look at the access maps, not the little arrows that go through to the western side of the embarcadero, if you are walking along jackson

and you come to the jackson commons, you still have to go either left or right because you cannot cross there. if you are going right, you are right back at washington street. there is no improvement there. you just go down washington and you end up at the embarcadero. it is the same exact length. there is no improvement, in my mind. if you are going the other way to broadway, if you go up the existing pathway that is there. that is no improvement. there is a mid-block crossing so it does improve somewhat if you're trying to get across to the other side but i do not think, as an overriding consideration, this is such a benefit to the city that it overrides the significant adverse impacts created by the project. >> and land use and urban design -- it says that the

profit would reconnect downtown and neighborhoods to the waterfront. it would seem that portions that are really affected by the mid- block, i do not see as finance or downtown areas. those are further to the south. let me get to the conditional use and pud approval. there is a huge issue with height and bulk. not many people mentioned it. we are being asked to approve a bulk exception that takes it from 110 to 220 feet. that is two times as much as what is allowed under the code. that is the horizontal dimensions. the diagonal dimension is 140.

they are proposing 238. that is 1.7 times what the code allows. that is on the east building. on the west building, we are going from 110 to 258. that is more than double. 2.3 times the bulk that is allowed under the code. on the diagonal, it is again 140 and they are asking for 266. that is almost two times, but it is really more like 1.9. there is a huge amount of the fact -- of effect. to ask the planning commission to double the ball in horizontal and decadent dimensions, i do not think we can do that. street parking and car sharing -- the sponsor wants 1 to 1. the city's maximum limit under

the code is 50 or 54 spaces. the planning commission -- the planning department's recommendation is 126 or 124 or something. we have testimony from the project sponsor that this is a transit-oriented product. and that this is a transit- enriched site. if it is so transit-rich, why are we having one-to-one parking. in exhibit a, under the conditions, the conditions indicate that there will be continual dialogue and ongoing negotiations with the project sponsor's designers on final materials, rooftop and mechanical equipment, the lighting plan, the streetscape plan, and street trees.

in order to approve a pud for, we have to find that all of these things, i assume, constitute an exceptional and outstanding design. if everything is so negotiable an ongoing, then i do not think we can approve the pud at this point. shadows -- just to reinforce commissioner wu, i think that because the original piece of property, i cannot remember the name, had a zero tolerance shall limit, -- shadow limit, the park also has zero tolerance. and that means zero. it does not mean we can approve .0004. toomey, 0 means zero unless there is a specific benefit being given to the city.

in any case, i would like to reinforce that also. thank you. >> if i may circle back and answer his question about the code sections. the planning code section 300 for a generally also -- authorizes the planning commission to make exceptions to code requirements as part of the pud and conditional use permit process for that pud for almost all of the code provisions with the exception of height and density. as i understand, the language in the amendment that he offered was a cross reference to the planning code section in order to show what the dimensions of the loading spaces would be. it was not an importing of that provision into the authority,

but rather setting forth what the dimensions are. the pud can set forth dimensions or cross reference another section that shows the dimensions. generally, the planning commission has authority under section 3042 modified. -- 304 to modify. >> my explanation for that in present was just by way of reference of demonstrating that it -- that a similar provision has been used in other districts and is part of the code. the sponsor is requesting to do a substitution that has some precedent in other areas of the city. >> i would also like to address a few of the ceqa issues that were raised. first, with regard to the construction truck traffic, i want to reassure you that that, in fact, was what was analyzed

in the comments and responses. there was also the provision that the construction traffic would not occur during the morning or evening peak hours so that the trips would all be between 9:00 in the morning and 3:00 in the afternoon. the 200 trucks are staggered. they are not all coming at one time. they are staggered throughout that period we look at that as roughly 30 trips per hour. that got translated into a vehicle trips equivalent that was found to be less than a significant and comparable to the vehicle traffic from the project itself once in operation. the main point is that we did specifically analyze that amount of trucks. we found it to be a -- not a significant impact. with regard to the air quality, the analysis was done for that amount of construction, traffic,

and none of the air district specialists for emissions were exceeded. there was no significant impact for that as well. the eir does look at that. in terms of the northeast study, all the eir says is not that the project is trying to implement a plan, but for immigrant -- but for informational purposes, we want to acknowledge that that study has been used. it was for informational purposes for the commission. it was not intended to state that the sponsor is trying to implement that plan but to let you know what that plan found. the project was analyzed, the height and density, not because it was trying to implement a plan, just because it was what was proposed and that is what we

analyzed. lastly, in terms of the viewing impacts and the findings of less than significant, i want to clarify to people that the threshold -- a significant impact is where there is an obstruction or significant average impact on a scenic view from public places. the eir presents those scenic views both from the embarcaderos looking up towards telegraph hill and from telegraph hill looking back towards the embarcadero. the eir points out for both the text and imagery that the scenic vista that we are looking at is not just the view of telegraph hill. if you are walking along the embarcadero, the scenic vista is downtown, the bay, the bay bridge, telegraph tower, the

ferry building, all of that comprises the scenic vista. as you are walking along the embarcadero, we have the cd which shows that entire trip to the ferry building used towards telegraph hill and the tower are instructed. in some cases wholly but more often partially. we present all of that information. that information is in there. there is that partial obstruction for a portion of the trip along the embarcadero of that one aspect of the scenic view. but the rest of the scenic vista is still all there. the day, the bridge, treasure island, the ferry building, the clock tower. we concluded that, because you still have a majority of the scenic vista