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tv   [untitled]    September 30, 2012 8:00am-8:30am PDT

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built. it's sad. it's a bit of a travesty that only 1bmr unit was produced and we missed out on that housing that would have been built and i worked in construction -- i have been around construction my whole life since i was listen year's old. basically the -- >> >> 11 year's old. basically this is a stepping stone for us. you can look at it you don't go straight to kindergarten maybe to university. maybe we would like to but that's not the way it works, so if you only have done a single family home, remodel projects, did you prux and you ask for financing for a nine unit project that is more units they laugh at you as you're walking out the door with your head down, so this is the only way by changing the rules.
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that's the only way we can produce five to nine unit projects in the city again. as i say i congratulate every one getting behind these projects. we know they're not built. now that we're back here we will see them being built again. it's a good thing for the builders and the homeowners and a general good thing for the city. thank you. >> good afternoon supervisors. elizabeth moore with shamrock streels company. we all know that these projects have declined since the passage of this legislation and obviously that results in reduced economic activity for the city, but specifically as a passionate advocate for efficient land use the department has a mandate to increase obviously in fill housing and under utilized
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sites and most are zoned for these projects and it resulted in a lot of unused land sitting there begging to provide housing for much needed for the city, and the other thing i wanted to say that speaks directly to supervisor cohen's point. my company completed a six unit project in ocean view -- it took a long time but we were luck tow be grarkted into the previous legislation but nonetheless we barely broke even on the project and if we were subject to this as the requirement the project wouldn't have happen and the neighborhood would have been six housing down and just a specific example of the positive benefits that this legislation can have and thank you all for your
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support. >> good afternoon supervisors. jeff rock. i'm a small builder in san francisco and run a contracting and repair firm and i can say with my whole heart i am glad to be in front of the legislative committees for the first time i am seeing something done to help the small builder and i congratulate you for that. just a real quick story that i think will help zero this in. i have been in business since the early 90's in san francisco. 100% of my work force is in san francisco and district six, ten, and 11. these are all people through building some of the five to nine projects and i build these in 2005 and for other people and people that own the properties. some are generational legacy properties
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that we put our people to work on, and subcontractors. in supervisor cohen we did a job and worked with community developers and picked up sub contractors way back when wayne jones was there and we are using the same ones. now, they're not the guys building on the big buildings. they don't have the opportunity. if we don't create this economic life line we will lose these guys and i don't want to generalize and there are w< guys that build the high risers and go across the bridge and that's great. i want everyone to have it but let's keep it here too. ill employ more franciscans and we get a project like this and keeps us going for a while and more importantly for my guys and development of the worse force in this city it teaches somebody from the
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beginning of a project until the end of a project this is how you build. i was brought up through the trades as a carpenter. i had no idea how to get to the foundation to the roof and when these guys -sg6nhand i have som ten years and they figure it out and want to go out on there own and more vibrant community with that and leadership roles are developed and mentors are being created. that really is the impact of this legislation and i truly believe that's why you guys are behind it. thank you. >> hi. my name is jim foley. ñ i work for don kitchen and bath and sell supplies and decorative plumbing and these are some of my clients here so when they build they don't just benefit
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but the supply house benefits, the manufacturer benefits, xqt sales people benefit, the truck drivers benefit and they really do spread it around and i have been in business for 15 years. we are a smallish company so our target market we're in this five to nine market range. it was a good day when i sold a project with seven, zñeight, nine units on it and now they have gone away and most of my product goes to remodels or single homes and made it tough and i want to thank you for this contribution and when these men build they're spreading the wealth around to san francisco. thank you. >> good afternoon. i am david sternberg and we have been
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doing work in san francisco really since 1980 and we do a lot of these size projects and i will state for the record in the last -- since this thing passed in 2006 we had two six unit projects and no other projects in this category. both are not built. one of which has permit issued five years ago. just as an example one of which was five single family houses on five separate lots. each a little over 2,000 square feet and if you do the numbers on something like that -- first of all when you do these little projects it's almost as much work to do 50 units in san francisco it is to do three, six, or nine units so there is expense and time and effort so the margins are extremely thin on small projects like this, so just on this one
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for example that had five homes on five single lots. they wanted one home u( sell this three bedroom plus home for $350,000. the reality is they spent over $200,000 per lot to buy them. in all respects they're not built but would cost $300 a square foot to build and at least $600,000 these are conservative numbers so in for $800,000 the reality is and soft costs and all of that and minimum of $900,000 sell for a million dollars and maybe a profit for $100,000 per house, so if they're losing on that house that they're building for eight or $900,000 forced to sell for $350,000 they're losing $600,000 which is more than the profit they would make on the
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whole project soy i think that is important to look at that and how that might work, and really in conclusion what i want to say is it's about time this rolled back around and i want to thank all of you for your support and all the members of the committees who put this together. it's not an easy task i'm sure. i wasn't involved and i want to thank everybody involved and congratulate everybody for seeing it through. thanks. >> good evening commissioners. i am leo cassidy with the residential builders association. in 2006 division of -- basically for the affordable track already kicked the industry. you know. the analysis -- we thank you for this. it's strictly bringing people back to work and the banking will loan on these and
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i want to applaud all of you and thank you very much. >> good afternoon supervisors. i am mr. birmingham and with the san francisco beard of real estates. i wanted to come here today to talk on behalf of the suppliers such as don from don's kitchen and supplies. since the nine to five units are included in the housing program at the same time the banking industry has had a rueinous effect on the suppliers. their credit has been crunchd and you can institutions to the city such as all wood doors in bay view and had jobs for decades, western plywood is gone. a lot of the construction suppliers have
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been very hard hit and the people that use them are the small builders. if we don't keep them building in san francisco they would look elsewhere like many of the suppliers have moved to santa rosa and other areas and will have a bad effect where they're located and i urge you to get rid of this job killing provision in the inclusionary housing and bring us up to ten units and above and work in san francisco and keep working franciscans in the city. thank you very much. >> shawn kingon, residential speakers association. many of the speakers spoke about moving up the blue collar economic
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ladder. this isn't about housing goals and policies. to ulc it's very simple. this is a social or a cultural issue. other professions, doctors, lawyers, statutories, techies, they can see the tangible proof. they can demonstrate that their industry is valued and rewarded in san francisco, but if you don't have a college degree, or if you're an immigrant, or english is not your native language why do you have to do to provide proof that you can too make tup the economic ladder? the testimony that we heard today, the sole fact in six years this policy has only yielded one bmr unit doesn't suggest that we are missing a step in the economic ladder. it tells us that we have a barrier.
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we have a barrier stopping people from moving up that ladder. if you're únin the trades and you have a desire to work hard, and if you're lucky enough to catch a break it's very important that you can walk or drive around town and see a real live example. see tangible proof that you too can build a building like that, and we believe that if you see a real example we can provide the tangible proof that it might inspire and might create a sense of hope and it might create a sense of optimism for the next generation of builders to follow. we support the legislation and its amendment. thank c3nyou. >> supervisors, good afternoon. john conner. i am a speaker from the -- [inaudible] being
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repetitious and can i get a show of hands of people in support of it is legislation. i was a member of the working trust fund for many months and part of the goals of the housing trust fund was a stimulus as well for smaller builders so they can get some of the projects can't get credit for many years get them off the ground. just to revirtback 1992 the first policy was adopted. in 2002 and ten units or more. 2006 dropped to less than five and then 1/20 of the five unit building. that was the analysis done at the time so i don't think there was any justification back in 2006 for reducing the inclusionary to five units. as a result one
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project has moved forward since 2006. there was two really good years of economic housing boom here from 2006 to when leavein brothers collapsed and no projects submitted at that time so the downturn didn't effect. it was the legislation of the five to nine units. personally i build three buildings in this range of five to nine units between 2005 and 2009 and since then i didn't look for anything because i couldn't get finance to build the projects again and as far as that goes all of the contractors live locally in san francisco bar a couple. we go to local restaurants and coffee shops and delis and all of that. for the smaller project you have 15 people on the job site for
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one year. probably over 6200 work hours in one project and that is gone right now. that whole segment has been eliminated with this legislation so i do support the amendments. i would like to thank all of the supervisors and especially supervisor chiu at the last minute scramble to get it together and we support the legislation and thanks to everybody here. >> thank you president chiu for leading this public comment. is there anyone else on the public that would like to speak? seeing none public comment is closed. so let me hand it over to president chiu. >> before we turn it over before the end the hearing i want like you to talk about what your perspective is on this legislation? >> thank you. anne marie rogers from planning staff. we reviewed this ordinance on
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august 16. at that time they recommended approval of the ordinance as drafted. they recommended approval for many of the reasons you heard about today because of the collaborative nature in which the ordinance came forward, because of the great need for funding for afforable housing and additional funding if the companion ordinance, the vote was approved by the voters. because of the small numbers and representing 3% of the housing production in the last ten years and because the amount of money that could be gained is dwarfed by the amount that could be gained in the charter amendment is passed. while the amendments proposed today was not reviewed by the commission the department is sure we could implement those and provide the commission and the public with information on
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the update and i am sure the commission always appreciates more information on housing. >> thank you very much. and just as far as a couple of concluding comments. first of all i want to thank the members of the public that came out for this and again thank all the stakeholders in what we're doing for the afforable housing trust fund. we know that the visible parts of the afforable housing trust fund provisions are going helpful to the developers and particularly for lower income housing in the city and larger rate developers but this particular piece of legislation as we heard today is really important to ensure we are reversing policies in the past that really kept back the small builders in san francisco and i want to thank you that are here representing that community and a community that represents a lot of the newer franciscans and the immigrant communities here.
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i do have a number of amendments and i want to thank supervisor kim for the work that her office and she and my office did on this and supervisor kim i don't know if you want to take a moment to explain what we're talking about, but to be particular there were concerned whether or not the afforable housing trust fund charter amendment that states any cost obligation for inclusionary housing can't be raised as legislation. that was in place before that date. because we don't know -- we're hoping and the impact of this legislation is going to be very positive but we wanted to monitor that and the ovtive date as january 15 and we have protection there and we have a three year evaluation so we can insure in three years we take a look back and we had the right impact we wanted.
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there is a separate piece of trailing legislation that requires a regular five year look back but i know there are folks that thought it was important to have the shorter period and the impact in that time and i want to thank supervisor kim on the work on the amendments and acknowledge supervisor wieber for his long standing support on the changes we're making here on this legislation. supervisor kim, did you want to add any remarks? >> no. i believe everyone has copies of the amendments. i noticed a typo. i don't know if i had an older verse so i'm not sure if it's in your version and i would correct under two "conforming amendments" and it should be two and -- just in my copy? okay. i may have an
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older copy. and update the date to january 15 and that is in three places and there is one in the legislative digest of course and the title of the ordinance and again on page three within the effective or operating date. changing that to january 15. >> thank you. so colleagues can we take the amendments without objection. supervisor -- >> mr. chair i should mention there is a third amendment and conforming changes in the planning code to ensure these apply to housing projects of ten units or more. >> thank you. so we heard the amendments. could we take the amendments without objection? thank you. on this item can we approve this without objection? thank you. thank you everyone. mis miller, are there any other items before us? >> no mr. chair there are no other items. >> thank you everyone. meeting
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adjourned. >> san francisco recreation and parks department offers classes for the whole family. rec and parks has a class for everyone. discover what is available now and get ready to get out and play. henri matisse.
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senior dance class is from sf rec and park. a great way to get out and play. >> for more information, >> good afternoon, i'll call to
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order this meeting of the san francisco board of supervisors government audit oversight committee, i am supervisor scott wiener, i'm sitting in for supervisor mark farrell, to my right is supervisor carmen chu bho is sitting in for supervisor elsbernd, we're joined with supervisor compos, i would like to acknowledge and thank sfgtv staff for broadcasting today's hearing and our clerk is alisa miller, are there any announcements. er >> please shut off any cell phones, items upon the day will be ton october 16th board of
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supervisors agenda, unless otherwise stated. er >> would you call items 1, 2 and 3. >> they're involving hearings involving the civil grand jury report, including health care security ordinance, addressed concerns raise ined the report and to provide the board of supervisor's to the reports finagled and recommendations. >> thank you very much, just to be clear, we are holding a hearing as required on the super grand jury report, in addition, supervisor compos called for a hearing on that report and then we have to prepare our responses so we're calling these together since they are on the same subject, and the way i would like to proceed is first i will have supervisor compos make some opening remarks and my other colleagues would would like to do so will maer from the civil grand jury and from the departments bho have responded,
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then we'll take public comment and then the committee will prepare responses, so supervisor compos? >> thank you, mr. chairman, if i may, i want to note that my hearing requests was a broader discussion about the amendments that have been haed and the status of the ordinance, one report that aos related to that is the recent report from the labor and standards so we'd like to hear from them. >> so, we will maer from lsd, supervisor, compos? >> yes, good afternoon, mr. chairmen, members to have committee, i want to provide some context of how we got to this point, the health and security ordinance was introduced by my predecessor who's currently in the assembly and it was passed by a super majority of the san francisco board of supervisors in 2006. the health and security ordinance created what is known as the healthy san francisco program as well as an employer
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spending requirement for worker health care. supervise or yam yan know at the time assumed he had written the ordinance so that all employers of the same size would have the same spending obligations as laid out in the law, and he and i have had many conversations where he's made it clear where that was always his understanding, and late 2010, several workers and their advocates came to my office to explain that in their view, employers had found and were exploiting a loophole in the health and security ordinance, a small number of businesses of employers were voiding the majority of their spending requirement by allocating money to what is known as a health reimbursement account. often, using these accounts to severely restrict the types of services that the accounts could be used for often providing no notice of the existence of the accounts to their workers and then