tennis club and the swimming pool at the bay club. it is time for club members to share this waterfront treasure. it strikes a good balance between private and public by rebuilding the club and providing lots of public, open space. thank you." president chiu: next speaker. >> my name is christian. i am a green roof professional. i am walking proof of the jobs that motivated professionals like amy has created. more storm water will be managed. the sooner we get this done, the sooner we can get started. the awareness of green roofs will be awake -- will be raised due to the visionary experience of this profit. it will be matched by the beauty of the low impact, high- performance design. using only native plants for this product will ensure that

the plan will restore pre- construction conditions with a more efficient use of space. the continued care, interest provided by the community has only increased. please support this project. thank you. president chiu: next speaker. >> good evening. before i get into what i have to say, i would like to say that the captions i wrote years ago, for the future and the good that

we can do. i mean that to everyone of you supervisors. as i sat and listened very carefully, the project is being discussed is a very, very good in my humble estimation. one thing that i would like to ask all of you, there are poor people out there who are carpenters, painters, the list goes on. try to get them a job. so that they can have a better quality of life. this year you all should try to

help those people stop letting people sleep on the sidewalk. please help those people get decent jobs so that they could have a better quality of life. >> president chiu, supervisors, local 22 carpenters union. the question now is the eir. this appeal, is it a weak one or a strong one? that is the question before you tonight. we have heard everything from a to z. good report from the staff. excellent. you guys did a very good job. here is the question, is this project a bad one or a smart one? i think it is a smart one. with your approval. thank you.

president chiu: next speaker, please. >> i am here today wearing two hats. the first is on behalf of the ferry building area merchants who support the proposal of having more residents in the area in addition to more parking. they have signed a petition and you have it here today. i am also here on behalf of the private developer, san francisco waterfront partners, who has been working on the project for nearly seven years. i would like to submit these binders of letters of support, articles supporting the project, and a list of supporters in district 3 and citywide who support the project. i'm sure this is just what you guys want right now. but i have all of these to hand out to you guys.

>> good evening, supervisors. my name is jim. i am an urban planner and i have been working on waterfront issues in denver cisco for 35 years. -- in san francisco for 35 years. i marvel at this conversation tonight. there is not -- nothing unusual or extreme about this project. it is small, well-scaled. 140 units. there is nothing unusual about the site, about the water table. this is handled all the time incenses go. -- in san francisco. the traffic impact is minuscule. it will be invisible on the embarcadero. the construction impact, nothing unusual about them. every building has construction

impacts. every building in the city has construction impacts. you handle them and they go away. somehow, the project's components have clearly with up a frenzy of fear -- whipped up a frenzy of fear among many honest people. i think the planning staff addressed these issues very well. some of them just have to be addressed. the idea that 8 washington has called the housing shortage in san francisco is beyond understanding. the fear that the health club is going to be lost and gone away simply is not true. the fear about the owner of the adjoining building who apparently has untoward business practices has nothing to do with this product. i ask you to really reject these

appeals. as a planner, i have to say that there is no question that the eir is adequate and accurate. please of firm the certification of firmfeir. as a planner -- please affirm the certification of the feir. please reject the challenge to the c.u. thank you very much. president chiu: thank you. are there any other members of the public who wish to speak? seeing none, why don't we move to the final rebuttal by the appellant? you have up to six minutes to be divided as you see fit. >> thank you.

good evening. i am still here representing the ferry building. let me address the eir. it is an informational document. the eir remains inadequate, inaccurate, and incomplete. i will not repeat the point i made earlier. there were some things that the public said that came to remind me that there are some very important issues that were not well-addressed in the eir. the northeastern waterfront study is cited liberally as a basis for recommendations and decisions. as if it were, in fact, a regulatory document. for example, it is the reason for narrowing drum st. this stands in stark contrast to what the city has been arguing

in another lawsuit, which is filed by the telegraph hill dwellers, among others. it is the northeastern embarcadero study, not regulatory, has no force, is merely suggestive. that is contrary to the manner in which the planning department and planning commission have treated the northeastern and marketer of study. the question is, which is accurate? is it a rule, a regulation, or is it not? it is inadequate to be addressed in the eir and. because what position taken by the city attorney in another case. secondly, on traffic. in particular, the feir assumes that a provision of that study will be implemented.

namely, the removal of a vital left turn lane off the embarcadero on to west on washington. because of that, 8 washington would have eight serious adverse environmental impact. the level of d would drop to f, which is unacceptable. despite the gridlock it would cause, the only mitigation measure suggested would be that the staff recognizes that it is not want to work at all. not only that further mitigation measures were examined and there were no alternatives that would alleviate this severe environmental effect. as a matter of fact, on the recreational point, there is a specific provision of the ceqa guidelines that requires a mandatory finding of significance in mitigation when

there is a determination as evidence before you tonight that there is a profound adverse affect on the recreational resources and access. that finding is absent. no mitigation is provided. for all that the planning department and mr. manley, who i respect greatly as a lawyer, have tried to do to rehabilitate this, it remains deficient. outdated traffic information, fails to assess cumulative development, all its obligations of the city to our client, the ferry building, fails to consider alternatives that would actually mean something in terms of dealing with environmental effects. therefore, it is the worse it gets. i urge that you reject the eir and returning to the planning commission for correction. until that is done, you should

not approve this product. thank you. >> thank you, supervisors. number one, we believe that the eir is inadequate for all the reasons previously stated, including the loss of recreation that was so eloquently stated by those who gave testimony. i have a pamphlet of some of those documents that they referred to. in looking at the conditional uses, there are four questions one has to ask themselves. this is extraordinary height, dramatic bulk, big building.you recall the video. recalling the video, one has to ask themselves, is this really what we want for this

spectacular piece of property, residential housing in particular? do we want this particularly? it will trigger similar, large, high-rise, balky buildings in the adjacent proximity. we already know there is one waiting in the wings. number three, do we want to do this at the expense of community? a community-based recreational asset that is eight citywide impact. you saw the people across the city, number four, is this a good deal for the city? you do not have the answer to that question. i do not think, under the circumstances, you can grant conditional use for it when you appreciate your attention to our arguments. president chiu: any questions to

the appellants or any of the parties? okay. at 11:57, this hearing has been held and is closed. let me ask our court reporters. do you need a break? are you able to hang on for a few minutes? ok. >> president chiu. president chiu: thank you. i want to take a moment to thank

everyone here in this room, who i know has been working extremely hard on both sides of this issue. i think our colleagues for their patients, the city staff for the incredible amount of work you have done on this. obviously, everyone who has been working on this regardless of your position over the last couple of years. i want to start my comments by talking about the issue of jobs and development. folks know me as someone who has supported a significant development in san francisco. i worked closely with district supervisors on projects that all of you, whether with supervisor kim on treasure island, supervisor elsbernd on park merced, supervisor maxwell on the hunters point project. i have great respect for the prisoners of labor and the situation they are in. i do want to point out, as the

sentences go chronicle did, apartment construction has been booming again. there were 22,000 residential units in various stages of approval in construction. this does not include the 30,000 units that were approved in the three projects i just mentioned. over 50,000 units in the pipeline. it is astonishing to me that this particular project of 143 units has become the flashpoint for the future of sentences go. it is what it is. i will point out, as the chronicle said in this article, "many of these new units will be priced beyond the reach of working and middle-class residents." that was not a quote of any resident, but the chronicle reported factually. as the district to supervisor, i have been working on this project for years. calis, if i could ask you for a moment to put yourselves in my

perspective. imagine you come into office and there is this significantly controversial project in your district. you are working to craft an agreement. when i came into office in 2009 until about 1.5 years ago, the project was an 84-foot project and a lot of neighbors thought it should be downzoned to 40 feet. i was working to craft an agreement. also imagine, we have a 9-court -- nine tennis courts. the proposal was for half that size. that is where we were trying to discuss matters. we are now discussing a project that has an pzoning -- an upzoning of 50 feet with no

tennis courts. it is no surprise that i will be asking people to reject this eir. the reason, it is at 84 feet at the moment. i think that eir is inadequate because we do not understand why 140 feet? why not 240 feet? the fact that it does not mention other' s done that reach opposite conclusions, this would be as if all of the work we have done on the eir's on tresure island, hunter's point, those were disregarded because they came to a different result. as the former city attorney said, i think we need to think very carefully about whether we

want to create a wall of buildings at the waterfront. we made the mistake already with the santana towers, the freeway. i do not think we should do that again. moving to the topic of housing and luxury condos, and we have reviewed housing issues in recent months. supervisor olague and supervisor kim talked about the need for a housing-board to make sure that the projects, as we move forward, actually meet the needs of our city, which is for 60% of our housing to be affordable. if you take iran a majority of this board, colleagues, if you pull together our savings, we would not be able to afford a down payment on one condo in this project. when the president of the harvey milk club is driven out of the town in the same month we are forced to consider this type of project, there is a bit of symbolism to what is happening. let's talk about parking. right now, it is owned a

particular way and the developer is asking for 400 times -- for 4 times the amount of parking. the transit advocates have spoken that this does not make sense. we have heard the analysis was inadequate. it does not include changes, accumulations, and certainly does not include the impacts of the america's cup, the exploratorium, or existing products. it does not address transitional needs nor what is required to excavate all of that dirt. 20,000 dump trucks, one every two minutes, digging into basin. let's talk about recreation. the golden gate tennis and swim club was developed by the sec francisco redevelopment agency to meet the needs of middle class residents in an area that

has no recreation space. in 1994, just for history's sake, mayor feinstein urged the redevelopment agency to reject a similar kondo plan. to crowd a condominium tower would be regrettable, is what the mayor said. he pointed out the existing golden gateway was chosen because "the provision of open space was a factor in that selection." this is the open space we will be getting rid of. my district has the least amount of open space in the city. one-third of the residents are seniors. most are middle class. this is contrary to what you have heard during the course of this discussion. we have a choice between 90,000 square feet of outdoor recreation space compared to 20,000 square feet of open space promised by the developer when the city gives the developer $5 million. we are destroying community and

i am not sure for what reason. i'm going to quickly touch upon the technical reasons that we should reject this eir. the plan kept changing. it was not stable. the public needs to understand what we are voting on. you cannot say the tennis courts and common period and then take away the tennis courts. the fact the real alternatives to what we are considering today were not considered, you have to consider real alternatives. you have to ask, why you have to ask why we but not want this project. why do we need 400 cars as opposed to 200 cars? the final shows this. it did not show any tax to include why this was not feasible. any and these reasons would be enough to reject it.

you have more reasons than you can choose to do that. i have heard from many of the new that this is not ready for prime time. i understand the politics are intense. i appreciate that. we are in this job to make difficult decisions. i ask you to appreciate what i know as a supervisor. this will irreparably destroyed iraq community. these are e-mails that you get. they are simply petition. to me, these are actual people, families, seniors who will be impacted. i am asking me to speak for our neighborhoods and to speak for the kind a san francisco i think we want to live them. i asked for reversal. >> a motion to approve item 10

and item 11 and table item #9. >> emotions remain. is there any discussion of that? seaman, a roll call? no, no, no, no, no, aye, aye, aye, no, no. three ayes and 8 no. >> motion fails. >> thank you. i will move item #9 and table

at december 10 and 11. >> they made a motion to approve this. is there a second? seconded by the supervisor cohen. >> aye, aye, aye, aye, aye, no, no, no, aye, aye, aye. 8 8 ayes and 3 no. >> item is approved for the additional use. >> thank you. i would like to ask that we continue to see you for a number of reasons. it is a late hour.

if we do not continue this matter, i do think there are a number of changes that whewe ned to be added. i know it is late. i do think it would make a bit more sense to consider this on another day. let me also get a couple of other reasons for the continuance. we have not yet considered the height spot zoning or other legislation and land use which will happen on june the fourth. we have not considered the terms. we are being asked provide all sorts of oexceptions. i ask that we continue june the 12th so when they appear, we can consider all these at once. we can better understand why these entitlements are appropriate and know but that is

the best possible deal. i will also say that i to understand that many of the do think there are some changes that need to be made. whether it be too tight, it to parking, recreation protections, i think it would make sense given the chance to understand that there the discussions we're having. >> they may continuation. is there a second? >> second it. >> i have voted against confirmation.

with the conditional yes, i will respectfully disagree with the approach. from my perspective, i believe that there are fundamental problems with this project. i think that the problems with a project that had been outlined by the appellants including the former city attorney point to the fact that this project cannot be needed. it cannot be desirable. i do not think this is the kind of housing that needs to be prioritized by the city. i say that with a heavy heart. i'm very mindful of the very compelling points that have been made by our friends in labor. at the end of the day, and it has to be the right project for the city. i do not believe bet this project can get to the point

where it is going to be the right project. i am prepared to vote against it a night ther -- tonight. i do not see where we get to the requirements or will be met by this. i think we should act tonight. >> thank you. >> thank you. i would be supporting the motion to continue the conditional use. i have been very moved by a lot of testimony i have heard today from neighbors, partners, but it rarely from our partners and labor. it's i want to get there. i am close to being able to support this project. other afford to a discussion part of the early iran zoning on june 4. it is my hope