test, test, test, test, test >> good afternoon and welcome to the board of supervisors land use and economical development committee. i'm scott weaning i'm the chair. the supervisor david chiu a member of the committee is joining us and thank you to sf g tv for broadcasting this committee. madam clerk any announcements. >> yes, please make sure that your electronic excises are silenced. >> yeah. there will be no

board of supervisors on april 30th so may 7. we're joined by david chiu. for members of public there are blue public comment cards at the front of the chamber and please fill one out and please note on the item number so we can organization them. there is an overflow room if you need to go there >> item numbers one and two or amendment the chapter code for the environmental appeal processes and public notices

requirement. >> item number it you called both? so items one and two have been called so i want to make a few opening remarks as author of item one. colleagues welcome back to our second meeting on the land use committee on this legislation. more than a decade ago sequa was enacted. now more than a decade ago we've not had legislative negative declarations under sequa. it's been a choofg and unpredictable process without a

clear deadline for filing on appeal. while sometimes large developers can deal with the chaotic situation they have lawyers and small projects and home projects can't. this legislation should have been passes a decade ago. 3 of our predecessors attempted to pass those pursues in statutory form and they were unable to do so. so my legislation is before us and finally to codify pursues. i introduced this legislation almost 6 months ago. after a number of months to do so in a methodal way.

we have had 3 round table meetings various smaller meetings are affordable housing and historic preservation. we've had 3 hearings and two hearings at the planning commission and now two at the land use committee. both the historic commission and the planning commission have recommended approval of my legislation. the hearings we've held i've been reprehensible - but to the many, many suggests that people have made a strengthen to

clarify and to improve the legislation all have had good ideas based on what president chiu said i suspect he'll be offering additional engagements. when it comes to something as important to the sequa process the more cooks in the kitchen the better so president chiu i look forward to hearing your process. 26 organizations and environmental organizations and neighborhood and park groups have supported and endorsed this

legislation from catholic charities to walk san francisco to the spur to the labors and the building and construction traditions council so the san francisco bicycle coalition and planning association for the richest mondays. it's time for this legislation to be enacted. we're holding an informational hearing on president choose legislation we're not able to act on that legislation but supervisor kim has asked for this. i have comments on supervisor

kim will have the opportunity to speak about her legislation and a thank you chair wiener. >> good to be here on a planning code which is our sequa appeal process that has a lot of people involved. despite the sequa process. it's been important to our communities and neighborhoods because it's been a way to minimize the projects in the state of california and also a way to engage in a dialog that keeps us you all accountable.

i want to thank supervisor for taking this on its a piece of legislation that so many of our predecessors were not able to come to a consensus on this act. there's - our office decided to put another prospective forward. it's pretty clear we need to pit in a process how we need to appeal negative declarations. we don't have that process yet when the first time sequa was determined to be hardly we need to now put a process in place. the legislation i've introduced

with my colleague puts a different prospective forward. i think we all have the goal of putting together a process the developers need a process of the appeals deadline and it will be introduced to the process and we need to have a better notification process. so if we're going to put firm deadlines we have to let the community know the process is in place. so there's a two followed focus one that establishes that window and two our legislation focuses on the posting and notification process. currently the website is not efficient. exemptions that are not historic

will not be noticed that's 85 approvals have no notification progress. we need to have park improvements available for everyone to see. we have an overhaul of the process and ideally our system will be improved. our historic projects and projects it tend to escalate. we want to have an appeals window one that doesn't require the members of the general public to have to over monitor the proselyte will i i mean to

check the postings everyday etc. so we allow our appeals window to begin with the exemption determination to thirty days after after the final approval. while this is long-range we wanted we predict this will not cause delays. the last piece is we don't in must way edit 31.16 which is largely a part of the eir process that our community supports currently. this is how we appeal our largerer. after talking to a lot of groups our neighborhood associations there's widespread agreement we

want to leave this intact. this is a way for the community to dpaej in big development. i will just is at this point, i want to thank chair wiener to make this an informational item so our legislation will be going to planning this thursday to be scheduled on may 13th. >> thank you, mr. chair and members of the committee for letting me sit in here today and all the members of the public on this important piece of legislation. as you note mr. chair there's been an effort to amend sequa

and i think the reason those have not succeeded in the past their complicated. i think what happens when you're trying to all the time or change something at the complicated as this that many of the proposals as we have seen in the past end up having intended consequences. there's a way we can improve the system we have in pa place to provide for clarity and certain to the projects. but i also want to be clear in the context of how projects are handled in the san francisco there's an argument to be made

here the way in which this issue has been described doesn't reflect the fact that the vast majority of the projects get approve, in fact, thousands of projects are approved by the commission are being approved. so if we're going to move down the path of passing legislation let's pass it right. as i noted there's thousands of projects passed every year. sequa is a tool that we use in the city and county san francisco because we believe in deciding whether or not to

approve a project it's important we look at the importance of the project. i don't think that anyone is arguing we should have sequa go away. but i think that all of us recognize there's a role for sequa. how do we strike the right balance that we have the clarity of progress and at the same time, we don't get rid of the aspects of sequa that we all value. we just finished a project i can tell you having worked on that project that some of the changes to the sequa process we wouldn't

have gotten to a good place. the reason we got to the point is because sequa gave a voice to the community. this is one of the things that sequa has done. that voice has made projects better so as we move forward we need to make sure in the process to provide clarity and certain we, in fact, don't take the power to speak up and to express the views of this community. there are so many communities in sfoo that point to have a say first. i believe this committee can strike the right balance and, of course, the devil is in the details for i'm not surprised we're talking about, you know,

being a few months into this process i'm surprised their are not more meetings taken place. i'm happy that supervisor kim has put forth a different prospective. what that looks like is something i think everyone in this community should have a say. this is too important. >> thank you supervisor campos. i want to make a few comments before i turn it over to president chiu. just to be real clear supervisor campos made a comment to changing sequa.

as i stated really if even if we wanted to change sequa locally we certain lack that power sequa is a state law. and sometimes as much as san francisco wishes we could change sequa we couldn't nor is anyone advocating we were trying to change sequa. this is putting in place rules for the first time on those appeals. roadway we're operating from a 16 page memo from the county clerk's office. that is what we're doing here today. so c pmc would have gotten to

this (writing on board.) or with supervisor kim's process it would have been the same process. it's important not to bring in items that are not impacted by this legislation like sequa itself or c pmc. the main goal of my legislation is to my the process more clear and more transparent. i think the more cooks in the kitchen the better and i always welcome feedback and alternatives whether i agree or disagree. i think supervisor kim's process and my process makes it less clear and i won't repeat what

the planning staff report outlines a number of the issues and it recommends against supervisor kim's legislation. just a few points to make about it. supervisor kim's legislation will allow multiple sequa appeals to the board of supervisors on the same project even though through has been no meaningful change. and this will allow more appeals amid construction. in addition the legislation continues our current practice of allowing appeals to occur in the middle of a project. we say this in a appeal on

supervisor campos appeal resulted. we saw recently that the delores park was appealed to the planning commission after the commission approves that project and someone wants to appeal it it can wait until plans are pulled and at which the construction will have to grind to a halt and it will cost additional money. i think this is not the right process that will continue under supervisor kim's legislation. it will eliminate over the counter permits by requiring

that the planning department go there an analysis of smaller plans and when permits from what departments might be neat and then a compilation will be another delay. this abandons the delegation to other departments. this year hundreds of categorical reductions that are done every year. we have a reduction for any sewer repair or water repair that is in repair for one mile.

it has small bikes and pedestrian upgrades and a curb closings and painting determinations on the street. the planning department would have to do that that is a significant shift not only at work but it would make the projects more expensive and indeed that's why we got a letter today. the puc will allow people to raise new arguments without ever having those arguments before us so we couldn't respond that were it would allow people to hold back and not comment on a eir

after not commenting. i think this allows people to be productive in the sequa process at the beginning. so those are my thoughts and comments on supervisor kim's legislation and with that i'll turn it over >> can i respond to - >> sure. >> i've heard this a couple of times our election allows two appeals that's not true you are loud one appeal. now if that's legislation is changed then, yes then you can

have more than one appeal. that's important to also lay out. in the planning commission would have to approve all the determinations and that's not true the puc still issued the planning permits. now if they have issues they can turn it back to the puc but they don't have to approve every declaration. for the negative declaration our - the thirty day appeal window begins at the beginning the appeal process. and the last piece on the mta we

had asked planning for the universe that the puc gives but we simply were not able to get that information prior to drafting this so without having an understanding of a database it's hard for us to determine how best to make the recommendations. we had just drafted it so the determinations we are finally made. we looked this up and since january 1st mta has granted 6 and puc has granted 16 that's roughly 88 exemptions her year but we have to base our legislation on the data we have.

>> president which you. thank you to the public and who have been working on this topic not just the last 6 months but for many years. i want to say i still believe that sequa is everyone's four letter word. i have been cursing this. as you provide feedback be specific about what it is your relating to not reacting how you feel about a certain politician in your district but i think we're going and hopefully, we'll be making some important

modifications to our process but your land use politics will always be controversial. i want to thank the members of the community who have been raising issues and objections to the issues that supervisor wiener has put forth. i've had many meetings with persons in the community who have not been in agreement with supervisor wiener. i want to talk about categories of issues that can help narrow issues. what i have brought today is 9 amendments to supervisor wiener's legislation. i have copies if you want, you

can get a copy but i think they address the line share. what i have heard thus far are issues about supervisor wiener's legislation. first there is some how supervisor wiener's would delegate certain amounts of people could be involved but i want to clarify that the board can abusive the project only after the sequa have been recommendation for the purpose of relating an appeal before the full board.

the set set of minutes deal with supervisor campos said which is by and large the eir process has been working just fine and certainly in the context of the cpc a number of sub amendments that really minimize the requirement that the written materials be submitted with the agency to not to file the - that an eir can be filed after certification to allow appeals to be filed but not scheduled for an appeals approve and also after. the amendments i'm oeflg is the hearing