tv [untitled] July 20, 2012 2:00am-2:30am PDT
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the process. i've looked forward to working with the full board to ensure that our residents receive quality services while we balance the budget and continue in our economic recovery. i again want to recognize supervisor carmen chu and the board of supervisors for their steadfast leadership and commitment to building a collaborative process, backed up with our board president, david chiu. thank you steve cava, chief of staff, thank you budget office, director kate howard, and to best rosenfeld, thank you to you and your wonderful staff and i will advance, thank you harvey rose, for his work he'll be doing. this is very less dramatic presentation, i know that. but all the work that's been done in a very comprehensive way, and i want you to know that the values of the city are intact, we are moving forward, and we are investing in all of
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supervisor kim: that afternoon, and welcome to our special rules committee for monday, july 16. i am the chair of the meeting. i am jane kim. i am joined by supervisor mar ferrell and supervisor campos. also joined by one of the co- sponsors of our first item, supervisor scott wiener. are there any announcements? >> please make sure to silence all cell phones and electronic devices. make documents included as part of the file. these will appear on the july 24 board of supervisors agenda unless otherwise stated. supervisor kim: thank you. item number 1.
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>> charter amendment to amend the charter of thisqcity and county of san francisco by adding a section 16.110 to create a san francisco housing trust fund by setting aside general fund revenues beginning in fiscal year 2013-2014 and ending in fiscal year 2042-2043 to create, acquire, and ribble it affordable housing and promote affordable homeownership programs in the city. and lower and stabilize the backs of affordable housing regulatory imposition of a private residence projects and to authorize the development of up to 30,000 affordable rental units in the city under article 34 of the california constitution. supervisor kim: thank you. we spoke about this. are there any comments about this item? supervisor campos: thank you, madam chair. i want to once again thanks staff for all the work that has gone into thiss#?o matter. i thought that we had a very substantive and very constructive discussion at the
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last rules committee meeting. and i just wanted to follow up on a couple of points. i am wondering if we can get a little more clarity on some things in terms of how some of the items work. one of the questions that i know hasrm' come up for some of my colleagues is in terms of how projects going forward might be exempted from some of the caps that are in place in the proposal. i am wondering how that would work, taking the example of a recent project, 8 washington. how would that work, using that as an example? i am wondering if i can have, through the chair, if i can ask the mayor's office to shed some light on how something like that would work? >> yes, i am with the mayor's office of housing. maybe i will quickly innumerate
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with the exemptions are under the charter amendment. first, any project under a development agreement would have separate requirements negotiated through the agreement. projects that are under current readable material or infrastructure finance district would be outside of this fee cap. projects that receive state financing incentives through the state density bonus a bar would be exempted. then we have what i will call the planning exemptions, and there are two categories. one was the broader plan area, 40 acres or more, where there is a zoning change that affects 40 acres or more, the outside committee that we talked about last week would establish a threshold for existing projects within those areas. your question, supervisor campos, relates to a project- specific exemption. i am not familiar with eight
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washington so i cannot speak to the particulars of the project, but it is described in the charter, exemptions for projects that receive, throughout the zoning change, and that could include an sud or zoning map amendment, any residential development potential through either an increase in developable floor area, 20% increase in developable floor area, or increase in density of 50%. those two thresholds, it would be exempted from this cap on fees. so that is the kind of scenario. supervisor campos: i think it would be helpful for me -- i know you are not able to do that today, but maybe between now and tomorrow, to find out how, you know, using the 8 washington example, the measure would be
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applied. >> ok. supervisor campos: because, depending on how you define an increase, whether it is a 20% height increase or more, i can see how a project may fall within the exception or not. i th would be something that i certainly would find useful. and i think it is something that actually would provide some -- a higher level of certainty any way as we are moving forward so that developers also know how the exceptions would be applied. supervisor kim: we do have jeff buckley here as well from the mayor's office, as well as a member of the mayor's office of housing. >> just in terms of the 8 washington project, one of the things that a project in which the city has a proprietary interest is also exempt from the cap. in that case, the port property
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went towards the 8 washington so they would have been exempt. >> so 8 washington would definitely exempt -- and definitely be exempt? >> yes. supervisor campos: ok, that is a good thing to know. i want to ask about one of the planning exemptions, the 40 acre plan area, is there a possibility going forward that you could have a planning area that is smaller than 40 acres? how does that work? >> it certainly is possible. i do not think the plan department is under any limitation in terms of establishing the size of a plan area. we did have the planning department the back and look at recent and proposed plan7 ñé a, and the vast majority of them fall within the 40 acres or meet that minimum threshold. i can get that list, sort of enumerating recent and current
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things like the central corridor certainly entered that threshold. mm%=9 corridor would reach that threshold of size. we felt that it was a very conservative, a small number to said that threshold, but there would be no function to meet that threshold. you could conceivably have a plan area that is smaller. supervisor campos: in the final decision is made by planning? how does that work? >> unfortunately, i do not believe our planning colleagues are here today. i am not sure what the planning process this. i certainly think the survey would be the first step. whether it is the final approval, i do not know, but the designation of the boundaries of the planning area would be first in the planning department's court in and carry through the legislative process. supervisor campos: ok.
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one of the things that i know a iym8)-"tqi páhp possibility is'y in five, 10 years, -- let's take five years as an example. the board of supervisors would like to look at how this is working. is there a mechanism by which the that? i do notdq++ know that there's something here that allows the board to do that, but is there something that would preclude the board looking into, you know, how this is going? >> i do nothing -- there is nothing in the charter that would preclude an analysis of the impacts of the package of measures or the funding stream, with the ramifications of this effort has been. obviously, the things that are in the charter and prescriptive in the charter, it would take an amendment to the charter to overturn.
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it is structureda|ñ firmly in te charter language itself. but, obviously, analysis is something we would be doing as a matter of course, and the board of supervisors would be able to as well. supervisor campos: thank you very much. i just want to note, in terms of my take on this at this point or where i am, as i indicated at the outset of this discussion, i do want to be supportive of this measure, and i am leaning in that direction. i think that the conversation that we had certainly made me feel more comfortable about a number of things. i still would like to, you know, if it is ok, once we get to the point of moving this forward, i think we should move it forward. i would appreciate maybe not having a vote per se today, moving it forward without a recommendation, but i do have more of a level of comfort with this. i still have a couple of questions that i need to get my arms around. the one thing that i do think
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for me remains an issue, and it is not an issue that is actually specific to the charter amendment, is the question of how this fits with the gross receipts measure. i think that, from the way i see it, we have two very important issues here. we have the issue of housing which is of critical significance. and then web]láñ have the othere of reforming our tax system, which is something that i very much want to do. the fear and concern i have is that once you mix the two issues of that significance, that we're not finding ourselves in a position where we are mocked -- watering down the approach to either. more specifically, on the gross receipts measure, i think that there are differences of opinion as to what the right level of revenue is in terms of what
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should be injected into the system. to the extent that some of that revenue is going to go to provide funding for this fund, i do worry that it might take away from what is needed in terms of having the right amount in terms of revenue injections around those receipts. that is the remaining issue for me. again, it is not one that deals directly with this issue. but before i find myself in a position to be supportive of both, i want to see what the amount of revenue that we are talking about actually is. so it is for that reason that my preference today would be if this is moved out of committee, that is done without a recommendation so that we can have an opportunity -- at least i can have an opportunity to see what developments happened with respect to gross receipts. again, i want to thank staff for
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their good work. i know there are many members of the community who have worked on this as well, and there is no question that this is a very important concept. and it is not the concept that i have had questions about, it is more the execution. so i appreciate the additional information. the other issue that i raised was this question of grandfathering projects, and i have to say that i do not know that i am convinced that projects have not gone forward because of the fees that we have in place. i think there are larger macroeconomic issues at play. but be that as it may, i recognize that this was the result of a negotiation, so, with that understanding, you know, i am not going to propose amendments to that at this point. i am certainly comfortable on that piece going forward with it the understanding that there was a lot of back-and-forth. and i know that there are some
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folks in the development community who believe that that is an important part of this, so i am going to respect that process. that was followed, even though i am not necessarily in agreement with some of the points that have been made. thank you. supervisor kim: thank you, supervisor campos. are there any other comments before we take public comment? no comments from committee members. we will open it up for public comment. if you like to speak, we will give two minutes. line up on your left side of the room, please. approached the microphone in the middle. the meetings are tape, so this also hear your comments. >> i just want to tell you a little bit about myself. i was homeless for, like, 15 years in san francisco.
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i slept on the street. finally, i had the opportunity to move into the s six. chp. i think it is important for us to have this trust fund. there are so many people leaving in the streets. like me, i suffered for years. now that i have affordable housing that i can afford, i have moved places before, apartments, and my rent went up every year and i cannot afford it, and i finally moved into this building. i am very comfortable. i think other people should have the same opportunity. i wish you'd go forward with the housing trust fund. it is important to homeless people and to people with low- income. thank you. supervisor kim: thank you very much. >> did afternoon, supervisors. my name is patricia. i live in the tenderloin.
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i am part of the group that was lobbying from office-to-office last weekend. thank you to the supervisors who came to talk to us and work supportive of us. i want to say in my heart that i want to see more affordable housing and to have it did put on the november ballot. thank you very much. supervisor kim: thank you. i know you came last thursday but were not able to state for public comment. so i appreciate you coming back again. >> thank you. >> my name is james with community housing partnership. first, thank you for your diligence on this issue. a little perspective, the fight for current sources for affordable housing is something i first started. i participated in at about 13 years ago on the national, state, and local levels. affordable housing is really part of the social infrastructure of this city, and it is one of our last-ditch
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efforts to preserve the economic diversity, the racial diversity, and the cultural diversity of this city that we have all worked to preserve, regardless of whatever district you may represent or be part of. this is about san francisco and san franciscans. i hope we can get to a point where we can have supervisor campos' full support and vote on this because this is a long time coming. these changes have got to come. thank you. >> good afternoon, supervisors. sarah here. i want to reiterate my previous point that spurt is very much in support of having the trust fund. -- spur is very much in support of having the trust fund. i want to talk about the 40
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acres. we had the planning department run an analysis of the plans we would think of as being area plants, so eastern neighborhoods. in fact, all of them were larger than 40 acres with the exception of visitacion valley, which is an sud and redevelopment area, so it would have been covered. i wanted you to be aware of that and also, the 40 acres do not need to be contiguous. if there is a piece of legislation that impacts the neighborhood commercial districts or other actions, legislative actions, that would substantially increase presidential capacity, those would also be covered. it is actually fairly flexible provision. i just wanted to make you a room that." i hope you will support this measure and move it forward. thank you very much. supervisor kim: thank you. >> i am from the san francisco information clearing house, a member organization of the
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council of community housing organizations. i come to support the position of the council community housing organizations, and specifically, as i know for some members of the committee, our commitment to the term sheets agreed to in the coalition process. i want to also come into the board of supervisors and support their process of legislative uncertainty, and i want to speak specifically to supervisor campos' concern about the revenue measure. we had demanded that the housing trust fund be revenue-neutral under general fund, that it not be a diversion from the general fund. therefore, once we understood there was a $12 million
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shortfall on the first 10 years, we urged the mayor to do additional revenue. the mayor agreed. the term sheet that we agreed to speaks to a transfer tax agreement. unbeknownst to us and side of the process that resulted in the housing trust fund, the mayor chose, for whatever reason, to include $13 million in his revenue measure. [bell rings] we support that. we support the supervisor's desire to increase that amount as well to ensure that does not go against the general fund. we support that process and hope for a speedy outcome in which we have a housing trust fund and . thank you. supervisor kim: thank you. >> supervisors, san francisco construction trades council. this has been a few months in the making. it is taken a variety of forms.
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i have followed conversations with a number of folks from a variety of perspectives. i am personally supportive of the amendment. the council has not taken a formal position yet, but i will recommend its support. thank8snx @&e%ei supervisor kim: thank you. >> my name is john. i work with the sheet metal workers local 104 and have been working on a variety of policies throughout the bay area in that capacity, addressing a housing and land use issues. we're very much in support of the mayor's initiative on the housing trust fund. we feel it should be moved forward as presented to you. both the complications of the negotiations and the difference stakeholders, it is important that it goes through. we have 51 apprentices in our program who live in san francisco. most of those are young people of color living in tough neighborhoods. when they become in their third
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or fourth year as an apprentice, they leave san francisco, because there is no housing for them. sort of ironic. you cannot really support local hiring first because there is no way that we can have, you know, have construction trade workers stay in this community. they leave. they are envisioning the american dream which is to have someplace to buy. we have to have housing of a variety of stripes, a variety of income levels. we're very supportive of the affordable nature of this, but we also have to have the market rate and initiatives to support that so that we're able to have these young people have good jobs and then stay in their neighborhoods. because you one middle-class family staying in those neighborhoods. we cannot do that without this initiative. thank you very much. supervisor kim: thank you. >> supervisors, i am with the
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council of community housing organizations. i want to thank you all for hearing this item and moving it forward. i want to thank especially the co-sponsors or here, supervisor kim, supervisor wiener, for having moved this legislation forward. as we spoke last week, the council of community housing organizations has been part of this big tent approach, bringing together a wide group of people on agreement for the term sheet. we respect the legislative process. we look forward to hearing the amendments from both sides of the aisle. supervisor farrell's em in at about first response will speed up then the amendment on the board of supervisors oversight. one of the things we have not asked for use as those amendments and as the entire package moves forward, we hope that supervisor farrell and supervisor campos can come on board as co-sponsors to make one large tent.
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thank you very much. supervisor kim: thank you. >> tim, i am here on behalf of the housing coalition. i wanted to express our strong support for this, and he is right, that would be wonderful of come. i wanted to speak also to the integrity of the negotiations that got us to where we are here, and i appreciate your comments on this. i think that it is no sure thing that this is going to pass. there will be organized opposition to it. there always will be. it would be great to win this one. finding a dedicated source to fund the housing affordability has been the holy grail of housing for many years. this is a modest step but brings us closer to that. i think that to the extent of staying close to what the term sheet is, )] campaign, which is what i think is going to be quite interesting, to see how we get this thing passed.
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it is overdue in badly needed. but i hope you will stick to the consensus process that has gone as here so far. thank you. supervisor kim: thank you. >> good morning, supervisors. sean, rba. i want to start off by stating clearly i support all items on the term sheet. i would like to thank my colleagues for their time, effort, and energy over the last seven months. it was not easy. i can remember walking out of the first meeting and a half- jokingly said to john o'connor, i said, if anybody can get all the people in this room to agree upon what month of the year is, they would be doing a pretty good job, never mind all these details, especially housing in san francisco. it is not the first time a working group was put together. there have been many, many working groups. but in times where there's not a coalition or there is not a
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strong bond or it was done too quickly or recklessly and the details were not thought of, you cannot have consensus. what happens? the people who were not happy raised a couple bucks and they kill it. history is filled with examples like that. this group of the effort in. the terms on the term sheet. we listened to carefully. there were done out of respect for each other, and there was an awful lot of give and take what they really help the process. one other point, in closing, our inclusionary housing program now, it is is essentially a fee- out program. and these changes, they're not the agreement. it is not going to affect anything 120 or more, and it is not going to affect anybody who still wants to fee-out. it helps to encourage and motivate people to provide their obligation on site. it essentially is going to
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provide more units in the neighborhood, and that essentially is a goal we have all agreed upon. thank you very much. supervisor kim: thank you. is there any other public comment on this item? seeing none, public, does not close. i want to thank the members of the public for coming back again, because i know many of you were here last thursday and sent through a very long meeting and some of you are not able to make public comments. i appreciate your ability to come back today. are there any comments? supervisor farrell: i just want to thank everyone for coming back for public comments. my colleagues as well for mentioning my amendment last week when i had to leave prior to the discussion. thank you for that. i agree with supervisor campos that the linkage with the gross receipts tax proposal is very strong in sunday when he to continue to explore and discuss at the board ofáw i will be happy to make that
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motion. to make it easier, i will make the motion to for this to the full board tomorrow with no recommendation. supervisor kim: thank you. we do have a motion to forward this item with no recommendation. we have a motion to send it as a committee report so we can hear it at the full board tomorrow. before that, i have supervisor wiener. supervisor wiener: i just wanted to -- thank you, colleagues, for the participation and the thoughtful dialogue over the last two hearings. i am very, very excited about sending this to the voters and making sure that we are as serious as we can be about finding a long-term, sustainable funding stream for affordable housing in san francisco and also showing how serious we are about understanding that our overall housing crisis in this city -- of
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