i'd like to recommend supervisor kim's legislation for many of the reasons stated earlier, but mostly because of notification. and in line with this notification issue, i would recommend and request that the i-t support for this legislation be fully functional between both dbi and planning department so the public knows when something is approved to start the 30-day clock. currently at d-b-i, the project permit tracking system is still in its testing stage and they're going to have people come in and do hands on and that's not set for completion until august of 2013. so, that also needs to be considered. on the current planning website, you have something called the active permits in my neighborhood link and i was playing around with it for about a couple hours. and sometimes it works, k1 sometimes it doesn't. so, i want to make sure that the details that show up in these permits ~ for the public

to know are all there. it's not just going to this active permits linkses, but also to the san francisco property information map and everything else. as you know, department of building inspection permits descriptions are based on this application at d-b-i as it shows up on the overhead. it shows the free form text that the developer will put in there. and i showed a part of this at the board of supervisors land use meeting. here's something that shows that the description is about vertical and horizontal addition. that's the description of the project. if that's all the public knows, then if i put a deck up there, that is a vertical-horizontal expansion, but so can be a whole first floor -- i mean second floor. so, it's very important that we look at all these things about scope definitions and modifications and what can be appealed, especially if we're considering this legislation as predicated on building code 106

a3.4.2. thank you. >> is there any additional public comment? okay, seeing none, public comment is closed. commissioner antonini. >> yeah, at the beginning i have a couple questions for city attorney elaine warren, if you could answer something because, first of all, prior to january 1st, 2003, where were environmental appeals, that was when the state law changed that made the appellate process to the elected body of a particular county. do you know what was pre-january 1 of '03? >> yes, commissioner antonini. elaine warren, attorney. prior to elected decision making body, where the elected body had not signed off on

e-i-rs. so, on certifications of the e-i-rs, but that was the only provision that was in the state law. so, what happened in -- [affectedeffected]} in 2003 was that provision that was already in the state statute was broadened to also include appeals to the elected decision making body for negative declarations and exemption determinations. >> yeah, that's very significant and that's why there is so much interest in this, because i don't know if you know this answer, but is the level of appeal as great in other counties in california as we see in san francisco or -- >> i can't answer. i'm sorry, i can't answer that question. >> and the other question that might be a technical one, in san francisco, the level of accepting an appeal at the board of supervisors is simple majority, 605. whereas overturning a project in most instances where it's a 309 or cu is a super majority. is that the case in other counties? because we have discretion over

that level within the county of san francisco. ~ >> well, there's actually one case that addresses the action taken by the elected decision making body on an appeal of an e-i-r. ~ 6 to 5 it's not exactly analogous because that case concerned a situation where there was a tie vote and the court said that the decision making body must act. it must make a decision. it can't uphold the c-e-q-a document based on a tie vote. and that is why our current -- actually both of the proposals clarify that the board must act by majority vote on each of the decisions that comes to it. but the problem with the majority vote is that it -- a super majority can result in effect i havely not perhaps being consistent with that case law.

~ effectively our advice has been we should stick with the requirement that a majority of the board does need to approve, but there is no clear case law guidance on that issue of a super majority. whether you could require a super majority. >> okay, that's very interesting because -- >> it does appear potentially problematic, but we haven't opined on that issue. >> i find it interesting. thank you for your information. the reason we see so many appeals is because the lower hanging fruit. you only need six supervisors to appeal if you appeal a project itself, you need a super majority, and, therefore, and if a c-e-q-a document has to be redone, it usually is a very cumbersome process. in some instances it's something that will kill the project. so, i think that we have to look very carefully at what we're crafting here. i'll give you some of my thoughts on what i've seen so

far. we've heard about the executive officer, environmental officer making the call on exemptions and it being appealable to the planning commission. i mean, i think that should remain with the executive office. they have the -- he or she has the experience in this matter. it would not hurt for the planning commission to have an informative session as to the determining factors cat ex to negative declaration, and we pretty much know negative declaration to e-i-r, but that wouldn't hurt either, but we should not be making those determinations, but it wouldn't hurt if we had that situation where a commissioner could then see a negative declaration and just say, well, or see a cat ex and say, yeah, i kind of question this one. what's the story here? but allow the public to appeal these i think would be cumbersome. and the next part of my comments has to do with that same issue.

i think that all the noticing should be about the project itself, not about the exemptionses or negative declarations. in other words, we want the public to be totally notified with a project that's within their neighborhood that has effects on them potentially even environmental effects, even if they are exempt. but it should be about the projects. it shouldn't be about the environmental piece because the environmental piece is about the adequacy of the analysis. it's not about whether you agree with the project or not. it's has the staff done an adequate job or whoever is providing the environmental piece in analyzing the effects of the project. be they cat ex, be they negative declaration or be they e-i-r, it really is all about the adequacy. if you're really opposed to the project, unless there really is a strong case to be made about the thing not being adequate, i think the focus should be on

the projects. but particularly in negative declarations and cat ex's which are smaller things usually. i think skiming for all the projects which has been proposed in part of the drafts, i'm not sure if that's still on the table. i think that might be a little bit too cumbersome. there are levels of which require a scoping for projects. i think general plan amendments , over 500 units, coastal -- there is a whole list of things that require a scoping that i think for having scopings on all projects, i'm not sure if it's every single project that's in there. but it would be cumbersome. the part about buildings over 50 years of age, certainly i agree with supervisor kim that character defining would make it a little more narrow and might be willing to consider that sort of thing because the vast majority of buildings or many of the buildings over 50 years are not necessarily even

potentially historic. so, i think if they're not reasonably changing the character defining parts of the building, they're doing something interiorly or something that's not character defining. questions about printed versions of e-i-rs, i think i would still like to see that. i mean, downloading an e-i-r or even any other environmental document, maybe a cat ex, but some of these longer things could be quite a download for one's computer. even if you're not going to print it out. at least as far as i'm concerned, i think you should have both. then there's the question of the notification period for, i guess, whether it's 14 or 10 days. i think i'm fine with the shorter period as it is now rather than having to go to -- i've seen many appeals where at the 11th hour, something, you know, appeal is made and it's based upon the timeliness.

and many projects have been delayed at great cost to the city and cost to the commissioners' time by, you know, a technicality that it wasn't there exactly in time. so, what, you know, i think that if you're serious about the issue and you've got the material 10 days ahead, you should be able to read it and digest it in time. i don't know about notification of over the counter permits. i think that would be -- if they have no significant environmental impacts, i think that would be a pretty hard thing to do. there might be a way to do it electronically that would be simple and cost-effective, but i think you've got to find the method first and demonstrate its expediency before putting it into law. because it could end up being a very expensive and time consuming thing. and then the other thing about noticing to all residents within 300 feet, i think staff has wisely put forth the

difficulty in locating all the people that live within 300 feet because property owners, of course, are a matter of record. renters it's a little hard to tell who is there, if they're registered voters, you could find a registration list. but oftentimes it's really hard to find out who lives there. maybe you could be resident at someplace, but it sounds like it would be a search. and then the other one that i find is really important is a modification of a project and the environmental officer makes the determination that the modification is consistent with the original project. i still am in favor of that. i don't know that that should be appealable. that's a technical matter that, you know, has to be done by people who really understand environmental law, really understand what would be enough of a change to require a new

analysis, which is very expensive. if a member of the public pops up on every single issue that they don't like to request an appeal, then it could be very expensive process and delay us a lot. so, and i think it's fairly clear. normally if the project is smaller than it was when it was first approved, certainly we don't need a new analysis. if it's larger, it's a matter of judgment. and, let's see, i have a couple of other things. the final thing it was there was some provision for fast tracking 100% affordable projects. and i think when we're talking about environmental issues, everybody should be treated the same. if i'm a resident in an area and somebody's building 100% affordable project, it's probably still going to have the same impact on my life as a market rate project, and maybe even more so. so, i think that for the benefit of the public which we're trying to benefit in these things, i don't see fast

tracking projects because on environmental -- i mean, if you want to do some fast tracking for other parts of the process, the approval process that you feel are more beneficial to the city, then that's a different story. but on the environmental piece, everybody has to be treated the same because the impact is the same no matter who you are if you're in the area. so, generally those are my feelings. if i misrepresented anything that is consistent, if there have been changes made since i i read the material earlier today, if i misrepresented anything, certainly i would be open to any corrections on that. but those are my general feelings on what i've seen so far. >> commissioner wu. >> thanks. so, thanks to the public for coming out again today. i know this has been a long process for everyone. i'm happy to see that i think that there may be modified legislation that everyone can

agree on and really encourage everyone to continue to work together and hope that, for me, i hope that the commission today sends this legislation to land use to really have the compromise be determined there. so, there's a couple issues that i want to talk about. i'm very supportive in this legislation of the fact that i believe the e-i-r process more or less stays the same within this legislation. i think something that we were still figuring out as we were hearing the other c-e-q-a legislation was that although focused on cat ex's and negative declarations, the fact that the board of supervisors was the determining body about environmental review made it so that there was a de facto fast tracking of e-i-rs. something i've asked staff about and still don't fully understand, but i believe it was in there. and, so, you know, what i've been hearing from the public is really folks are concerned about these big projects the most.

cpmc was used as an example, hunters point was youed as an example. those were all e-i-rs. so, i just want to make sure we're focused on maintaining that process as is, to really have the public dialogue about the bigger projects. so, i agree with i believe emory, there was staff recommendation that the board should not be the -- should not essentially automatically hear environmental documents. i'm also supportive of the 30-day appeals window. but i also wanted to ask a question of staff. so, can you give me an example of whether environmental approval is not the same as the first approval? because there is kind of a distinction of where the 30 days starts. >> good afternoon, sarah jones, planning department. for a project that is not reviewed over the counter, often the environmental determination will be made and,

in fact, we review the project for whether or not a it qualifies for an exemption. ~ and that occurs before the 311 notification on a single-family project is even sent out. so, that notification doesn't even go out until the environmental determination has been made. so, then, there can be a lag actually of really several months between the time that the environmental determination is made and when there is a project approval. >> and, so, then, my question is in supervisor tang's legislation, so maybe you can answer this or the supervisor, is it put forward that after the environmental decision and then maybe that's noticed on the website, then an appeal can be -- can be made at that time even though the first approval has not yet been made? ~ supervisor kim >> yes, supervisor kim's legislation would allow for an appeal to be filed at that time, and that is actually --

at the time of the environmental determination. and that is also part of the amendments that supervisor chiu proposed on monday. >> but then where does the 30-day clock start? >> the 30-day clock would start after the approval has been made under c-e-q-a. it is stated in order to appeal an exemption an approval needs to have been made. >> okay. >> change of captioners

>> okay. my next question is about notification. i understand the department is already planning to do a new website. can you explain what the new notification website is slated to be? >> sure. what we have now is we

post every kad that is issue. if you look at the post we have a big document with a couple pages long and we have any certificates that are prepared. what we have been working on is to post those exemption in a manner consistent with our active permits in my neighborhood map. on a daily basis from our department inspection and provide a locatable searchable version of that map showing where exemptions are issued. rogers

pulled that website up on the computer. >> okay. thank you. when you refer to a geographically is based through the basis in my neighborhood. >> it's a separate map because for one thing some of the exemptions are not tied to building permits. there is a little bit of reason where we would feel like it would be easy. >> okay. so this is an area where i think that maybe we can do some more exploration about what's possible and what's not. i read the staff report and the concerns about staff time but i think maybe there is a way to find there are certain categories that are easy to mark or not mark and have the data base be able to be responsive to them, so i'm not a hundred percent familiar with it but maybe categories that

are already part of the checklist that maybe you already have to check, maybe those can be searchable. looking for guidance here. >> i'm understanding that what we are proposed we can do in house and we are committed to doing that by the time any legislation is adopted. the time is the searchable data base in the selection process in the people. the city system doesn't support that. >> it's not an automated process but something that requires the planners to make that call which would be notified for each exemption. that would be more difficult. the exemptions that are not

over the counter through the process, there is a substantial amount of the notification that we already have. there are a lot of them. we also are looking into using a new system that we are putting into place an e-mail notification system and has in that system providing kad ek and we feel the input i got from our technical staff we can group that by city neighborhood. we have our established city neighborhoods. that's a piece

of information that for every project and for every permit is already tracked into the data base and that is something the scripts can we written for that. we are really looking into what we can do in an auto mattable manner. >> i think i would like to see more exploration of this. maybe if the department is not at a place right now where you can pull out the auto mattable process to get to the public how they can get there at least through a memo. you are hearing a lot of request for this and i do recognize this is only for the environmental process but for more than people can go to a website and get the

information or signing up for a mailing list is easier. i will leave it at that. a couple more things i want to talk about. on the question of whether or not the category of buildings that are 50 years or older an need to be notified. that i'm not clear on. what's the difference between a building that is 50 years or older that might have distinguishing characteristic and something that is historic? >> a building that is 50 years older is something that is potentially historic. so we have to always in #r there there is two steps. and that is

is something being done that would affect whatever is identified as the character defining features of that building. so a project, that's a very small project even if it was a building over 50 years old, if it's small enough that it's not something that is going to result in significant impacts, that is something that can be exempted right there over the counter. i brought a couple examples of checklist that were done on those types of projects. i don't know how readable that is, but -- i'm getting some technical help here. great. one of the

attributes that has to be considered in issuing an exemption is you can see this is a building that is category b building that is a potential historical resource because it's over 50 years of age and then the planner checked what the project includes. and these are all items that are things that would not have the potential even if the building is in fact important historically. these kinds of improvement would not have the potential to affect that. it is things like interior alterations, regular maintenance and repair, window replacements fall into this. the largest is additions, but this is a very tightly defined

set of possible additions that could be done basically something that you can't see at all. so, it's matched to -- this list of definitions is matched to the kinds of issues that we look at when we are considering if a project is affecting character defining features. i'm not sure if i answered your question. >> if i just may wait a minute, the issue of a character defining feature is if it is a resource. if it's not, it's not a defining historic factor. the challenge is the way that it's being proposed is that all 50-year-old buildings would have to have this notification whether it's a resource or not and only if it would apply to character defining resource.

not all old buildings are a resource. >> if a building is determined to be a resource or if it a project largest than this project and the building in the further analysis that would be required that is the determined to be a resource, then any environmental determination is sent to the list of interested parties we'll call it the historic list and it's a fairly sizable list of interested individuals and organizations and projects that affect the historic sources. >> what the members can describe today then it is narrowed to the world of historic resources? >> we just heard about this at the same time you did. i can't make a response on that. >> okay. i will leave it at that. i'm not supportive of every building over 50 years

having this level of scrutiny but really focused on historic resources but i think it's really covered by the checklist. also i understand the request for 60 days for making determination what kind of the review is going to need. sit going to be a kad ek and eir, the very low, low income, the affordable projects are lagging behind in meeting our goals. this is seemingly to me a simple fast tracking. it not even a larger tracking but even ju