>> welcome to the san francisco board of supervisors land use and economic development

committee. scott wiener, the chair of the committee. to my right is supervisor jane kim who is the vice-chair of the committee, and to my left is supervisor david chiu. our clerk today is victor young and on our sfgtv staff are jessie larson and carolyn lauber. mr. clerk, are there any announcements? >> yes. please turnoff electronic devices. completed speaker cards and copies of documents to be included as part of the file should be submitted to the clerk. item acted upon today will appear on february 26, 2013 board of supervisors agenda unless otherwise stated. >> thank you. and before we begin, supervisor kim has an announcement to make. >> thank you, chair wiener for allowing me to make this announcement. going on not just for those in the room but watching on tv. in the north light court we are hosting a bone marrow drive re industrial and it is an

opportunity for anyone that is in the building to come in and get schwabed to potentially become a donor for someone in need of a bone marrow. for a friend who did it recently, it is an incredible opportunity to save someone's life. we are doing it in honor of an individual that has been diagnosed with leukemia, kevin westin, and we are actually conducting a renewal of his ceremony vows to the chief assignment who is the former director lawyer for civil rights at 4 o'clock. that will be officiated by [speaker not understood]. i do want to thank supervisors chiu and wiener for co-sponsoring today's event. >> thank you, supervisor kim. mr. clerk, will you please call item number -- item 1, 2, and 3ed to thetion. >> item number 1, resolution approving designation of six selling spaces on market street, north side, supervisor aioto-pier to steuart streets, for street artists certified by the arts commission; and exempting said spaces from the regulations of police code, section 2405, relating to street artist display size.

item number 2, resolution approving re-designation, for six months, two temporary selling spaces on post street, northwest corner, at stockton street, for street artists certified by the arts commission. item number 3, resolution approving re-designation of one selling space on leavenworth street, west side, at jefferson street, for six months, for street artists certified by the arts commission; exempting said space from the regulations of police code, section 2405(c)(6) and (11), prohibiting selling within ten feet from the outer edge of any entrance to any building and prohibiting selling within five feet from the display of any other street artist. >> thank you. and with with us today is mr. lazard from the arts exhaustion. -- commission. >> good afternoon, supervisor. do you want the short story? because i know you have a long agenda today. >> the short story is fine if that's appropriate to provide us with the information we need. >> thank you. well, with item number 1, these are six spaces, excuse me, on market street just opposite the hyatt regency. and you designated them on a

temporary basis previously. they've turned out to be very lucrative spaces for the street artists and they came to the art commission and asked that we ask you to make them permanent. i just want to let you know, though, that your designation as before would exempt these spaces from the -- certain regulations of police code section 2405 that deal with the size of the street artist display. in other words, your typical street artist display, according to regulations, would be three feet wide by four feet long and by five feet tall. but because that particular sidewalk is enormous, it's actually 46 feet wide. then you previously designated these spaces to be exempted from those regulations to enable those street artists to have display sizes like 10 feet

by 7 feet tall, 10 by 10 by 7, and that's in keeping with the adjacent display that justin herman plaza. so, there hasn't been a problem that i'm aware of in terms of impeding the flow of traffic. * the hotel is happy with it, we're happy with it, and, so, i'm here before you to ask that they be made permanent. >> thank you very much. colleagues, are there any questions or comments? okay. we'll open it up to public comment. is there any member of the public who would like to comment on items 1, 2 and/or 3? seeing none, public comment is closed. colleagues, is there a motion to forward item 1, 2, and 3 to the full board with a positive recommendation? >> excuse me, not to hamper anything, but you do realize 2 and 3 are different items, so -- >> okay, i'm sorry. i know they are. >> yeah. >> we called them all together. so, if you have -- >> i just want to let you know how they're different. >> please proceed. >> okay.

item 2 is dealing with a different part of town. union square area. and you previously -- these are two spaces on post street off of stockton street, right in front of the levi's building. now, the reason for those two spaces -- excuse me -- is because the street artists basically have temporarily lost 7 great spaces on geary street due to the central subway construction project. and the art commission had come before you to try to get commensurate spaces, at least two spaces commensurate in value. and, so, in two previous resolutions by you, you had given those two spaces on post street right off of stockton street to try to make up for those 7 that were lost temporarily. we're here today to ask that they be extended for another six months, at least during construction period. that's what those two are about. >> okay.

>> and then finally, the third one is dealing with an even further part of town, the fisherman's wharf area. leavenworth street, leavenworth at jefferson street, that's the corner of the cannery building. and these two spaces -- i'm sorry, the one space that we're asking for, it's known as leavenworth number 2, that is one of 10 spaces that were originally designated by the board of supervisors in 1977 for the street artists. turned out that the cannery building opened up the doorway there for a store. back in the early -- the late 1980s, we got -- which impacted two of those spaces, the board of supervisors redesignated those two spaces subject to the doorway -- what i call the doorway regulation, which says a space can't be within 10 feet of an entrance of a doorway. okay. so, they redesignated those two

spaces for a year each time. i should have got them redesignated through the next 20 years. but it slipped through the cracks, i failed to do that. but at any rate, the cannery widened that doorway significantly for the store and, so, that really rendered those two spaceses in direct linement with that doorway. the upshot of the thing was that i met with the owners of the store and also with the cannery management and i had several street artists with me, and we struck up a compromise. now, the compromise was to relinquish that first space, leavenworth number 1, because that was foremost directly in line with the doorway and the owners of the store said that would definitely impede the flow of traffic into the door. and the artists were really hard put relinquishing that because that was their number one best space of all the 10. so, having done that, the

compromise was allow that second space to exist, but move that 8 feet away from the entrance of the door, okay. and it would actually be a foot closer to the next space. the ordinance says that you can't have a street artist space within five feet of each other. so, if we move that second space, it would be four feet away from the next street artist space, and also it would be 8 feet from the edge of the doorway and your ordinance says that it can't be within 10 feet of the doorway. so, we're asking that you exempt those two spaces or that one space, i'm sorry, that one space from two subsections. the regulation that you be exempting it from the 10 foot doorway regulation because it would be 8 feet from the door, and you would exempt it from the 5 foot distance between street artist's regulation because it would be 4 feet from the next street artist. sounds like a lot of gibberish.

did you follow me? okay. >> anything else? >> no, just to remind you that you do have the authority to exempt regulations, exempt spaces from the regulations. you'rev done it for at least 40 resolutions since 1983. * >> great, thank you very much. colleagues, any comments or questions? seeing none, given the additional presentation, we'll reopen public comment. is there any member of the public who wishes to comment on items 1, 2, and/or 3? seeing none, we'll close public comment. colleagues, is there a motion to forward items 1, 2, and 3 to the full board with positive recommendation? >> so moved. >> can we do that without objection? that will be the order. mr. clerk, can you please call item 5 out of order since there is an indication that we'll be continuing item number 5? >> item number 5, ordinance amending the planning code, by adding section 249.70, to create the central subway tunnel boring machine extraction site special use district for the property

located at assessor's block no. 0101, lot no. 004, known as 1731 - 1741 powell street, to facilitate the removal of the tunnel boring machines used in the construction of the central subway project and allow the construction of a previously approved mixed use residential/retail building; amending sectional zoning maps ht 01 and su 01 to reflect the central subway tunnel boring machine extraction site special use district; adopting findings, including environmental findings, and findings of consistency with the general plan. >> thank you. president chiu is the author of item number 5. >> thank you, mr. chair. colleagues, as you may have been following the newspapers, there have been discussions about changing the location of where the tunnel boring machine for the central subway will be extracted from the currently proposed site on columbus to pulling it out from the so-called pagoda theater site. these are -- this is a proposal that a number of city departments in my office have been working on for a number of months and i am hopeful that we are at the tail end of negotiations with the owner of the pagoda theater on the site, but at this point we are not completely finished with those negotiations. and, so, just as last thurs at the planning commission we asked that the item be continued, i would ask that we

continue this item to monday, february 25th in order to finish those negotiations and have fully vetted plans for us to discuss here. >> thank you. so, there's a motion by president chiu to continue this item item number 5 to february 25th. supervisor kim, any comment on that? >> i'm fine with the date. i just wanted to note we have quite a number of items on february 25th, including i believe [speaker not understood] and west summit plans. i want to know the potential length of that meeting. >> february 25th will not be a short meeting. >> unfortunately there is an urgency to resolving this because the tunnel boring machine, the construction will start very soon so we need to move it forward. we need to push it today, if we need to counter special meeting whatever we need to do to get that done. i would be prepared to sit for a long time on the 25th and i appreciate -- [multiple voices] >> we'll make them work. okay. is there any public comment on item number 5, either the item

or the underlying motion to continue? seeing none, public comment is closed. colleagues, can we take that motion to continue without objection? that will be the order and this item will be continued to february 25th. mr. clerk, will you please call item number 4? >> item number 4, resolution granting revocable permission to aquilina family 2001 revocable trust to occupy a portion of the public right-of-way to remove and reconstruct a portion of a city-owned and maintained retaining wall to construct a concrete driveway ramp, with accessible transition slopes to conform to the existing sidewalk grade, that will provide vehicular access to a proposed new residence with a garage at 54 peralta avenue (assessor's block no. 5512, lot no. 029), conditioned upon the payment of an annual assessment fee of $215; and making environmental findings and findings of consistency with the general plan and the priority policies of planning code, section 101.1. >> thank you. and this matter was previously reported out to the board and at the request of supervisor campos, the district supervisor, the board referred it back to committee. so, mr. wong, from the department of public works. >> if i may, mr. chair, my name

is on as a sponsor, but i'm simply carrying this at the request of the dpw to resolve this matter. so from that to the dpv w. >> good afternoon, commissioners. john kwong from the public works. i thank the board for the opportunity to provide information to residents living adjacent to this property. we received correspondence from the design team -- engineer that was hired by the neighbors stating concerns relating to the analysis. we have evaluated this and we do not believe the analysis -- we do not believe there should be any modifications in analysis, that it is true and correct in this specific case. there are suggestions here within the letter submitted on february 7th stating that the software being used by the design team did not provide

level of analysis suggested. however, there was more detailed analysis made using typically a spreadsheet to calculate the amount water spread related to this and it is definitely captured in this [speaker not understood]. one thing we need to remember is or acknowledge is this letter from the engineer that was hired by the residents stated, number one, that he was not on-site, that there was no site evaluation. number two, that in terms of the methodology, it seems appropriate that the only concern appears to be that they want additional cross-sections done for an evaluation. and suggesting that, for whatever reason, that it needs to be "additional evaluations need to be made." " in this case. * we're giving you some background. the street, peralta street at this location has a running

slope down the street of approximately 8%. currently there is between a 4 or 5 inch high curb with a sidewalk behind. so, when there are times of great storms, okay, the rainwater will run from the street against the curb and it will continue to run down the street to a catch basin located at the bottom of the hill. in those cases, can this water jump the curb. there were suggestions that the installation of a driveway cut would create a situation where the water could jump the curb. however, in the evaluation of the area upstream -- uphill of this area -- of this location, there wasn't enough rainwater, based on the calculation, that would create this situation. the department believed the analysis was correct from the design team and it was evaluated correctly.

this is a standard process done within the engineering community as it relates to the analysis of stormwater. there was initially some previous comments from the residents stating that there was supposed to be some information provided to them from a director's hearing. the process -- this was an atypical process where the department normally does not have this these type of recommendationses as noted before. what happened was the hearing officer made a recommendation and it was not put in anywhere within either the directive's hearing or the findings or within any packages. this information was not relayed to staff in a certain manner, and, therefore, we have gone back and evaluated it and talked to a hearing officer to ensure that moving forward the process is followed. and if there are variations to this process, it will be clearly documented for the department to follow.

i'm here to answer any questions. >> thank you, mr. fong. colleagues, are there any questions for the department? * okay, seeing none, thank you very much. with that, we will open this item for public comment. is there any member of the public who wishes to make public comment? if so, please approach. i don't think we have any public comment cards. you can just line up -- oh, we do? two minutes. public comment will be two minutes. when you have 30 seconds left, you'll hear a soft bell. when your two minutes is up, you will hear a louder bell. welcome. good afternoon, commissioners. i have a cover letter in the [speaker not understood] engineering report by clear water hydrology. this was a report that we put together -- or actually the report was put together by the engineer at the -- at our request because we are not sure

-- we don't know how to read reports and we wanted somebody else to evaluate the hydrology report done by the developer and dpw. essentially, we live in the neighborhood. i own the property immediately below the proposed development and we know what it's like when it rains there and it really does create a river of sorts. and we do have a video that we will allocate somebody else's time to it. it's under two minutes, to show on a relatively minor rain event what can happen on that street. and the issue is for us, we want health and safety for the neighborhood. the developer has proposed a essentially 20% increase over 17% of the sidewalk going up the hill. right at the precipice where the water starts coming down the hill on the street very rapidly. and we don't want to suffer repercussions if the major

event does happen and the sidewalk is to be flooded on the properties down below to be flooded from the sidewalk cut. there's a reason, it's a difficult property, we understand, to build on. and we have to give the developer and the owner credit. they made major modifications for this development and we appreciate that. we just want to be sure that this is adequate, that their planning is adequate to prevent flooding. thank you very much. >> next speaker. good afternoon, members of the board. [speaker not understood], consulting. i have been working on this project since 2008. the project came underway because of the economy downturn for about a year. but a good two or three years we've been nonstop working on

this project to meet with the neighborhood, to satisfy neighborhood groups' needs, we went to the planning commission twice, a second meeting, we had a unanimous vote. we need to cut sick feet of this small curb that is at the site. so, we had to go and find out the -- get a major sidewalk encroachment. we had a director's hearing that the neighborhood came out and voiced concerns. and we had an outside agency -- outside engineer evaluating our plans which are with us. also dpw took it upon themselves to [speaker not understood] into this issue. and all the engineers that worked on this have agreed with our findings. and to make it really short, this is a very simple case. if i may put this for your review.

can i have this -- this is a standard city detail. you see at the bottom it says bureau of engineering department of public works. this is a standard [speaker not understood] that is used all over the town and on streets much steeper than this. and we are not asking for any different than what was done in over 2000 projects in this town. i'm available for any comments you may have. thank you. >> thank you very much. next speaker. good afternoon, david pilpow, i'm friends with bob who you heard from a moment ago. i wanted to share the video if we can go to the computer. hello, mr. chairman. i asked the dpw representative if he could respond to the public comment that has been raised at the end of public comment. so, if you could please be prepared to do that.

[video presentation] this is showing the corner from hampshire onto pralle at therctiontion walking up the street. this is a complicated corner and property. you're seeing video after a recent rain event where there hasn't been that much rain and there's a fair amount of water already. this is the retaining wall, and we're going to walk further up. welcome to the far northeast bernal neighborhood block area.

we're going to go over the wall and see the rest of it in a second. that's the slope that's existing. there is an elevation change. that's the proposed property line. and the retaining wall. i would just note that you heard -- this committee heard speakers in opposition to the proposed permit in december and at the dpw hearing there were 10 residents in opposition to the granting of the permit. so, i believe there is neighborhood opposition which

goes to the question of whether it's desirable for the city. thanks very much. >> thank you very much. >> can i just ask a clarifying question? >> sure. >> the spactiontion that you showed on the video that where the proposed curb out will be for the driveway? that's my understanding. >> thank you. >> thank you. is there any additional public comment? yeah. if anyone would like to make further comment, please come forward and line up. welcome. hello, i'm michael mccabe and i live at 1569 hampshire at the corner there, so, the video more or less saw the house where i live. and i just wanted to point out that although the diagram was about the specific curb cut, as if it were an ordinary curb cut, that there is -- i don't know exactly, but it's close to two feet