being, walking out of the shows. that was incredible. i can't believe it's over already, after two hours. if you are reluctant to enjoy something like this it will probably take a mass of peers to sell you on it. it's fine if you stay away. most of the people that come to the shows are pretty happy to be here. you may not be one of them. which is fine.

>> good afternoon and welcome to the san francisco board of supervisors land use and economic development committee. my name is scott wiener. i am the chairman of the committee. to my right is supervisor jane kim, the committee vice chair, and to my left is supervisor david chiu, member of the committee. i'd like to thank sfgtv staff nona melkonian and jesse larsen for broadcasting and recording today's proceedings. i want to note two things. first, we do have an overflow room which is in room 250, which is the main board chambers. and what i will say is for folks who testify, and if you would like, it would be helpful

if you would consider then watching the remainder of the proceeding in the main board chambers. you don't have to, but it's an option so you can give other people an opportunity to come into the board chamber. in addition, if you do intend to make public comment, we have blue cards in the front of the room. i believe they are also in the overflow chamber. please fill one out so that we can call people and have your name in writing which makes things a lot easier when the clerk is preparing the minutes. ms. miller, do you have any announcements? >> yes. please make sure to silence all cell phones and electronic devices. completed speaker cards and copies of any documents to be included as part of the file should be submitted to the clerk. items acted upon today will be on the april 16 agenda unless otherwise stated. >> with that, madam clerk, will you please call item number 1? >> item number 1 is ordinance amending administrative code, chapter 31, to reflect revisions in the california environmental quality act and

to update and clarify certain procedures provided for in chapter 31, including without limitation: codifying procedures for appeals of exemptions and negative declarations; providing for the board to make the final ceqa decision on projects requiring board legislative action, negating the need to file formal ceqa appeals; revising noticing procedures for environmental impact reports and negative declarations for plan area projects exceeding 20 acres; expanding noticing requirements for certain exempt projects; and clarifying existing noticing requirements for em projects. >> thank you. and i am the author of item number 1. so, colleagues, before us today is a modest piece of long overdue legislation to bring clarity, predictability, transparency, and fairness to our ceqa appeals process. ~ this legislation will allow full and complete public participation in projects whether in support or opposition, and will provide every opportunity for members of our community to object to projects or to appeal projects. for the first time it puts a clear process in place so that people know when and how to file an appeal, and so that at some point we reach finality in our decision-making process. having a clear process with clear rules for appeals and a clear end point is good government. it benefits everyone. this legislation is not about

environmental impact reports. it is not about park merced, treasure island, haight washington or cpmc. those projects all proceeded under full environmental impact report. we already have clear and transparent appeal processes for full e-i-rs. instead, this legislation aims to bring that same clear and transparent appeal process that we already have for e-i-rs to smaller projects, particularly categorical exemptions and negative declarations. many of these projects are small home projects, small business projects, park projects and other public projects. as we saw yet again last week, when somebody appealed the negative declaration for the dolores park renovation, one person, one single person, can appeal and potentially delay a project even if hundreds of community members participated in the design process. indeed, under our current

rules, that appeal can occur when the project is already in construction. that appellant who filed the dolores parka peel, as with other appellants, has every right to file that appeal, but we should at least have clear rules and deadlines in place. the [speaker not understood] background in 2002, ceqa was changed in sacramento to require that all appeals on ceqa documents be considered by an elected body which of course in san francisco is the board of supervisors. in 2006 we adopted clear rules for e-i-rs, but now after more than a decade we have yet to adopt that same clarity of treatment for categorical exemptions and negative declarations. instead, we have the now famous interim memo from the clerk of the board of supervisors. it is a lengthy memo. and if you have not read t i encourage you to do so and we can maybe have a quiz on it. and i can most of us would probably struggle to pass that questions.

~ and i think as we talked about repeatedly, and this is absolutely the case, when an appeal of the categorical exemption or negative declaration comes into the board of supervisors, we don't really know if it's even timely. the rules are that unclear. the planning department doesn't know. the clerk of the board of the supervisors doesn't know. the people who file the appeal often don't know. ~ because that of lack of clarity. instead , each and every time we have to turn it over to the city attorney's office who can often take a week or two weeks to do the analysis to determine whether or not the appeal is timely. ~ i have said publicly before that recently there was a ceqa appeal in my district out of project in glenn canyon. it came in. after about two weeks the city attorney's office determined it was not timely. i asked for an explanation. i received it. i could not repeat to you today -- i could not restate that explanation to you today.

it was that convoluted. that is not good government. good government is when people know the rules, when the average citizen who is not an insider, who is not a land use attorney, is able to know and understand the rules and exercise or not exercise his or her right to appeal. i introduced this legislation back in early november of last year after a number of months working with the city attorney's office and with the planning department to craft reasonable and balanced legislation. to put for the first time in place a clear process, including deadlines. this legislation, of course, has no impact on people's substantive rights under ceqa. despite some of the rhetoric that's been used about gutting ceqa or changing the standards forsee qua, we, of course, have no power to do that. ceqa is a state law and only the legislature and the

governor can make changes to any of the provisions of ceqa. but we have a responsibility to have a local appeal process. and because san francisco is the only city in california where almost all of our permits are discretionary in nature, meaning that somewhere between 5 and 8,000 permits a year receive a ceqa primarily categorical exemption stamp, that is not the case in other localities. we have an extra responsibility to make sure that we have a clear appeal process which we do not have now. now, since the legislation was introduced, i have convened a series of very well attend and had very robust and at times contentious round table meetings with supporters and with many opponents of the legislation. listening to a variety of organizations both individually and in these group meetings to hear their concerns, suggestions, and questions about my proposal.

i've had the planning department and the city attorney present at all of those meetings to make sure that we could have a good and accurate dialogue. resulting from these conversations, i have made nearly 40 amendments to the legislation incorporating feedback. now, that doesn't mean that everyone is 100% in agreement and dialogue does not always mean that everyone is going to agree on everything, but we have worked very, very hard to at least reduce the number of conflicts. so, this legislation has received -- has earned broad support in the community. various neighborhood associations including planning association for the richmond, the sunset heights association, responsible people, sharp golden gates neighborhood association, buena vista neighborhood association, and a number of neighborhood association leaders even if the association did not take a position. spur has endorsed the legislation.

a number of affording housing developers, mercy housing, bridge housing and catholic charities, transportation advocates including the san francisco bicycle coalition and walk s.f. have endorsed it. and labor, the building and construction trades council, the sheet metal workers, and laborers local 261, and environmental organizations including the greenbelt alliance, and the center for creative land recycling. in addition, this morning the san francisco chronicle endorsed the legislation, and yesterday the san francisco examiner did. now, the legislation would accomplish a number of items which the planning department will present to us to have a clearer process. the legislation, as you will hear, was considered by both the planning commission and the historic preservation commission. both commissions recommended approval of the legislation, with two changes.

one significant extending the appeal period from 20 days to 30 days. i have accepted that amendment and incorporated it last week into the legislation. so, this is the one area where we actually do impact e-i-rs because we are making it across the board 30-day appeal period whereas now it's 20 days for e-i-rs, so, we're extending the appeal period for e-i-rs. so, colleagues, this legislation has been fully vetted. we have done significant amount of outreach. we have responded to concerns by making an enormous number of amendments to do our best to meet concerns where we could meet them. and it has achieved broad support in the community. it deserves your support today. i want to end before any other comments before i turn it over to planning department staff by thanking people who putty nor

must amount of effort in this legislation. aye lane warren from the city attorney's office, sarah jones ann marie rogers and bill wii co-before he retired. john ram, of course, and an dress power in my office. ~. this laze been a wonderful collaborative effort. so, with that, colleagues, if there are any introductory remarks. yes, president chiu. >> thank you, mr. chair. and let me first start by thanking the members of the public who have all engaged very intensely on this topic. and let me start by saying that i think this intense debate has caused ceqa to become everyone's new favorite four-letter word. [laughter] >> let me also state a more serious note that i have met with supporters and opponents of the various versions of so-called chapter 31 reform. and let me suggest that i think that everyone in this room shares the overall goal of legislating clear procedures for handling appeals of categorical exemptions and

negative declarations. as supervisor wiener just outlined, our main guide on these appellate procedures is a publicly available 2008 city attorney memo that reads like a conflict version of choose your own adventure. and at this time memorandum this memo has led to these 22 types of appeals not being filed on time. i want to thank supervisor wiener for spending at toast thismoment close to six months on this topic. i know there is still significant debate on how this should be done. we know the devil is in the details. while i have concrete ideas what those details should be i, i very much want to hear from the public on specific suggestions on what we need to do to move this forward. ~ i also want to make the point that as we aim for clarity we should recognize that whatever we do here is not going to fundamentally change the contentious nature of land use politics or decision making in our beautiful city. we can try, but san francisco, we have a highly engaged political culture that is not going to change simply because

we have figured out how to codify appellate procedures forsee qua exemptions and negative declarations. that being said, though, i do believe and i hope that we can come together to figure out how to make the process a bit more predictable and train parent for all san franciscans. with that i look forward to listening to what folks have to say here and continue that conversation. >> thank you, president chiu. at the conclusion of the hearing i do look forward to hearing my colleagues' ideas. one of the frustrations sometimes of being on a committee with other very engaged supervisors is that we sometimes you don't until we come into our public brown act meeting, you don't actually know what your colleagues think. so, i am very interested in knowing what president chiu thinks, very interested to know what my colleague supervisor kim thinks. so, with that i'll turn it over to the planning department, mr. ram. >> thank you. good afternoon, supervisors. john ram with the planning department. i first want to thank

supervisor wiener for putting this legislation forward and for doing something that we in the department have felt frustrated by over many years, and that is the lack of clear rules around what ceqa legislation -- ceqa appeals, particularly, of course, the appeals that are being addressed which are categorical exemptions and negative declarations. the problem is the local process really doesn't work. virtually every other community in california has such a system. and it's pretty rare to not have deadlines and appeals of any type in normal due process of any type of appeal. so, it has been a bit frustrating for both the department, the city attorney's office, and for appellants to not know if their appeal is timely. and that is why the department and the planning commission fundamentally support this ordinance and that it establishes deadlines and rules for appeals. but i think just as importantly establishes new rules for notification. clearly we have to be fair in this process and understand that if we are going to

establish deadlines, we also need to tell people when that clock starts ticking. and that's exactly what this legislation does. it will require for the first time that each approval hearing notice, not only include a notification of the actual approval action, for example, at the planning commission, but also the ceqa appeal process, how one appeal for the ceqa determination and what the timeline is for that. and that notice will also provide instructions on how to specifically to file such an appeal. because that does require a large increase in notification by the department, we actually expect that the number of appeals will increase. we understand that. we think it's an important factor here that we allow those appeals to increase because we are giving people more notification and being clearer about what the process is for appeals. that said, i do want to make

sure that you all are aware our notification process is not working as it should today. we have engaged our it staff to figure out how to do that better. as you know, we issue upwards of 6 to 8,000 ceqa determinations a year, and we need to be clearer about those appeals, about the process for filing those appeals on those projects, and those ceqa determinations. so, i'm making a commitment to you today and i want to make sure you're all aware by the time this legislation becomes effective, we will have a much improved notification process in place for those appeals. i do think, in closing, i'll turn it over to our environmental review officer sarah jones, i think it is beyond time we do this. the uncertainty has been extremely frustrating for the public, for the department, for the planning commission. and i think it's time that we have some clear rules on how these processes work. and with that, unless you have

questions, i'll turn it over to sarah. >> i just have one quick question on your commitment around moving forward and online notification. i think that is something that's been really -- everyone's been asking for for sometime. can you give us a sense and describe what it is, what sort of an online notification system you're talking about? >> so, as you know, we issue 6 to 8,000 ceqa determinations a year about three quarters of those are stamps for over the counter permits. for those, what we will do is what we are working on is an online searchable format that allows there to be a clear determination when you go on our website about what projects have been approved and what the deadline is for that appeal. so, even all the stamps will be -- and we did issue upwards of 3 or 400 a week sometimes. there will be online, on our website, a clear searchable database for those, for those notices. >> when when you say that, that will be completed before this legislation before, do you have

a date -- >> what we are working on assuming a best case scenario assuming the legislation is effective, we can get this done in about three months. that seems to coincide about when this legislation might become effective. >> and i'll just say because this is the first time we are talking about this, too, our colleagues, particularly supervisor wiener, that is something that has been important to me as i've heard feedback from the community that there be a truly robust notification process. and that starts first and foremost with information that is transparrottv from the planning department. i am glad to hear that. i have been thinking about if you weren't able to make that commitment, how that could be put into this legislation. and i will continue to think about that in the course of the deliberation. but i think that's the very important element. >> and i just want to clarify, for projects that have a full certificate, cad ex certificate, there will be hard mail notice for approvals at the planning commission. >> the last thing i want po mention, this is for our colleagues, tomorrow i have a piece of legislation hopefully

the full board will be supporting around the concept of open data, which is having all city departments put out as much information as they can to the public so that the public understands what decisions are being made. i think this is an example of something we've all been hoping for for a while. i'm glad to hear that there is going to be progress in that commitment from you and look forward to actually seeing that come to fruition. >> great, thank you. >> can i follow-up to that? i think despite -- well, more broadly, despite the contentiousness over some aspects of this legislation and also a lot of it is frankly noncontroversial in certain areas where there is a good faith policy dispute, one of the areas i think there has been broad agreement is the need to improve noticing in general. we've talked about it in detail at a number of the round tables. and, you know, i have -- my office has been working with the planning department to see how we can move forward improving the website and other ways, having better notice to the public. and this legislation does improve noticing in a number of ways.

i'm very open if there are other ways to incorporate improvements in notice and the legislation. i'd be very interested in hearing those ideas because i'm very open to them. and frankly, good noticing is beneficial i think to everyone involved. you know, obviously for anyone opposing or having concerns about a project you want to have good notice so you can participate in the process. but frankly even for people who are -- who are -- if you're doing a project, whether you're a public agency or a small home owner, i think it's in your interest if there are people who are going to have problems, to know about them early to make sure they know about it early so you can attempt to work things out. i think it is very frustrating for anyone doing a project where an opponent comes forward late in the process because they didn't know about the project earlier. and, so, it's in everyone's interest to flesh out these disputes i think earlier to see if they can possibly be worked out.

so, i'm happy to hear that the planning department is moving forward aggressively. i will also just note that in term of noticing, although we can include, you know, noticing provisions in this legislation, our challenges around noticing did well, well beyond ceqa. ~ go ceqa is just one piece of it so i don't want us to think that by improving noticing here we're somehow solving our noticing issues. there are broader noticing challenges that we have and i think we need to move forward in a broader kind of way. but i do appreciate that perspective, president chiu. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> actually -- >> excuse me. >> sorry, i wasn't going to speak until later, but no that we're talking about notification to such an extent, could we go over what this legislation currently does for improving notification? one of the concerns that i had is actually that it seemed like we're reducing notification. for example, nor area plans of 20 acres or over. so, i'm just curious as to what

those triggers are. because that is something we hear over and over again. i think the other piece that we're in broad consensus of is there should be a deadline for exemptions and negative declarations. i think everyone is in agreement of that. if we are going to put a firm deadline to appeal on the back end, then we have to have a stronger notification process on the front end. two pieces, one the public knows about a project, and two, they know when the appeal process tools or begins. [multiple voices] >> sarah can certainly address that question. >> good afternoon, supervisors. sarah jones from the planning department. i want to address supervisor kim's specific questions. i think i'm going to back up a little bit, though. the aspect of notification that this ordinance most heavily addresses is notification of the actual approval actions and the reason for that is that

under ceqa, appeals can be filed after an approval action has occurred. so, the important -- the important event for people to be aware of with regard to filing of appeals is approval actions. so, under this ordinance there would be notification as to the issuance of a ceqa document -- or the fact that a ceqa document was issued. and the timeline for the appeal connected to our existing notification of approval actions, which is extensive. we have 311, 312 process. we have the notification of hearings. we have a lot of ways to notify people that approval actions occur. what we don't have now is a ceqa notification that is tied to that, that informs people that now their ability to appeal has begun. so, that's the aspect of the

notification that is extended in this -- under this ordinance. the only notification that the ordinance pulls back on has to do with some duplicative noticing that occurs with area plans when there is an area plan or large project in which rezoning is involved or general plan amendment where there is already required noticing. we wanted to remove the duplicative noticing of the ceqa that occurs also. so, that is actually the only -- the only proposed reduction in noticing. otherwise, the strategy or the idea of the increase in notification is around notification of the ceqa appeal along with notifications about [inaudible] sorry, notifications about the project.

the issue -- the other issues about notification or information about issuance of ceqa documents that have emerged in the discussions about this process really have to do with the desire for better information about the actual issuance of the ceqa document. that can occur, you know, and often does occur, many months -- it's not a permit that's issued over the counter. the ceqa document is issued a long time, before the approval action occurs. so, there's no right to appeal that is key to that, however, we have definitely heard and i think anybody who looks at our website and how the exemptionses are posted right now on the website, can see that the way it's done now is not very user friendly. it's hard to find what is going on. so, we want to -- you know, we really see this as an effort that we want to pursue in the planning department regardless of what happens with this

legislation, provide geographically visible information about exemptions that have been issued in a timely way. so, what we envision is using the active permits in our -- in my neighborhood map that already exist on the planning department's website, and also show ceqa exemptions on that, on that map. so, that would be information that's available, as i said, well before any approval action might occur and well before any appeal can be filed. >> could you -- just to make sure -- we have supervisor kim's question. in term of the area plans -- by the way, we did make an amendment based on feedback to increase the minimum that would result in the consolidation and noticing from five acres to 20 acres and that was based on the dialogue with some of the opponents of the legislation. can you just explain the rationale for the changes to the 20-acre plus area plan

noticing change? >> yes, there is already noticing that occurs. this noticing is quite -- essentially, quite expensive and essentially wasteful to do duplicative noticing. so, the desire was to consolidate that into one notification and not have separate requirements forsee qua notification and other notification in two different parts of the -- of our codes. >> so, to be clear, the ceqa notification occurs as part of the other notice. it's not like it doesn't mention ceqa. >> yes. also, there would be the other ceqa notification that -- there would be the other notification required under chapter 31 for the type of environmental document that is involved. so, advertisements placed in newspaper and mailing to neighborhood groups and all of those ongoing outreach efforts that occur as part of our ceqa process.