pedestrian safety now, today. the years ever promises are not enough. we are here again and again. our sidewalks are being narrowed down. there are more restaurants and restaurants, coffee shops, target, everybody is here for the moscone conventioneers. bike riders on the sake are everywhere, everyday. traffic is terrible. you can see very common seniors are knocked down and fall on the sidewalk. this is very common. please build more crosswalks. please fix the problem. please enforce the law. please finish the job now. you will see everyday mothers pushing their strollers, one hand holding their child, crossing the street to the moscone towers there. this is everyday. please help us.

thank you. >> thank you, next speaker. >> good afternoon, supervisors. can you hear me all right? >> we can. thank you. >> i am alicia duke. i now live in one of the senior houses, mendelssohn house. i have always been involved in the area since i moved to the city in 1988. and even though i didn't live in the area for a while, i have always come back to it to do what i could. one of the main problems i see is the huge groups that are there, the conventioneers who do not realize that when they are walking five abreast down the sidewalk, it's very

difficult to get by them; let alone someone in a wheelchair. if they had more ramps coming and going off of the sidewalks, so that if someone is being driven, they could get out of the car, get onto the sidewalk. things like that are not being done, and the museum that is proposed, wonderful, but in the various drawings they don't show -- like at the end of the block eh they have a ramp and it's a long block there. and cab drivers have said, what can we do? how do we drop people off here? there are no ramps to get off the sidewalks and that is just for ordinary people. so please think about us. >> thank you. let's hear from the next

speaker. >> good afternoon, supervisors my name is john, and i am a representative and also president of the african union. i wanted to make some reference in regard to fear or to reverse fear certification for the mexican museum and the residential tower. in november 6,2012 i made some statements here, regarding the presidential elections while there was a public comment period. i would like to refer to you to a federal form publication 55 7 it reads tax exempt status for your organization, perhaps 94600 or 1385, something like that. these shoes represent something of a model of voting in some

countries. in 1993 george bush had a shoe hurtled at him as he was visiting in iraq that started the first and second gulf war and rockport, called capital and i would like you to consider calculate when capital when you are doing this project. thank you. >> thank you, next speaker. >> [tkpwao-frpls/], my name is joe fang, president of the homeowner's association at 765 market street. i will leave the legal issues to the lawyers. as a resident of san francisco ask any tourist what is the

single important issue why they keep coming back and back? and they will tell you that the city has character. the city is unique and in this country and in the blend of the old and new, the traditional and the modern. i live here because of the sunshine, the clean air, safety in the streets, and the environment. as a developer myself, i know that barely three years ago, the city encouraged low-rises, buildings with a bit of class and character. now all of a sudden three years later, the pendulum has swung completely around. and in its effort to promote height and density, the city is actively encouraging skyscrapers, glass buildings, common in cities like shanghai, et cetera.

with little concern for air quality and shadowing. do you want to turn this city into another manhattan, shanghai or hong kong? thank you. >> thanks. next speaker. >> greetings, president chiu, members of the board of supervisors, my name is paul sedway and i live at 765 market street. i have served on the boards of heritage, contemporary museum and spur. i also led what at one point was the largest urban planning consulting firm in the united states, including over 100 environmental impact reports. our firm always tried to prepare eirs that were helpful as an evaluation tool, focusing

on two things, alternatives and cumulative effects. and i would like to use that experience to address quickly the eir we have today. first as to alternatives, the eir offered two con flicting reasons why the original design was supersedeed offered considerable light and few shadows on jesse's square. and it would have a reasonable amount of air around it.

as for cumulative effects, i believe that if we consider the level of spot-zoning that we have today, the city is going to be seriously damaged, and we will be reducing the human scale and unique qualities that make san francisco so great. thank you. >> thank you, next speaker. >> >> good evening, supervisors. i amount actually speaking on behalf of the mexican museum and i'm sorry to be speaking out of order, but my grand daughter has a soccer event. >> colleagues if we could allow the speaker to go out of order without objection. okay.

>> we have been in business for over 40 years. i fully support the 706 mexican museum project and all the benefits it will bring to the yerba buena area. millennium partners has proposed to considerably improve the pedestrian experience in the area, but rebuilding the sidewalks along 3rd and mission, adding audio and visual notifications for pedestrians and including wind comfort near the project. i urge you to reject the pales of appeals of the eir and allow this project to move forward. thank you very much. >> hi, i am coming here with my grandmother and i am here to support the mexican museum project. thank you. >> thank you, next speaker.

>> good afternoon, my name is matthew schoenberg and i am the president of the friends of yerba buena. >> could you bring the mic closer, please. >> thank you, good afternoon i am here today to ask to you reject the 706 mission street eir, because it is inadequate. one of the major inadequacies of the eir is the fact that the city is not looking at the cumulative effect of creating new zoning rules for every major project that comes along for the purposes of achieving greater height and density. looking at the downtown zoning map can you see this process is well underway and the result will be increasing what one might call an manhattanization of san francisco. with all of the environmental

effects that go along with that, the loss of sunlight pedestrian congestion, loss of skyline , the loss of historic character of neighbors and all of the pressure from the public utilities and their use. these are the characteristics of a poorly planned city and should not be the characteristics of san francisco. i often go for walks early in the morning at union square and i cannot imagine any additional shadows cast upon this area. if i look at these issues and relate them to the 706 project, i am even more bothered because the approvals that are being contemplated are just not necessary. i do understand the importance

of the mexican museum and i support that as a great addition. >> thank you very much. next speaker. >> hi, my name is richard and i'm a resident at 765 market and i just want to talk about one small issue, which is the traffic. which doesn't seem to be sufficiently recognized or mitigated in the eir. i commute to the south bay and everyday i have to go in and out through stevenson or the one-way road under jesse street and i can tell you right now that is quite difficult. there was a large fedex truck blocking it this afternoon as i came home. sometimes is there is a traffic logjam of cars, even on

stevenson or 3-d and sometimes 3rd and jessie try they close down the access. it seems to me there are lots of things that could be done about this one thing is in and out traffic. and i know this is an exception to either the bus stop nearby or the policy on mission street, but it seems so many exception are being made to create the eir, we could make some exceptions to make mitigations as well. thank you. >> thank you, next speaker. . >> chairman, supervisors, my name is ron wornick and i live at 765 market and i'm pleased

to have a couple minutes of your time. i recognize fully that this issue will be adjudicated ultimately by those who sit over the nuances of the particular issues that will distinguish the case being made by the developer versus those who think this is not a good idea. and i will leave that to you and to all of them. the one thing that i would add to your list of things that i would ask that you might be asked to do is to look at this issue from 10,000'. picture the yerba buena gardens with your magnificent fountations at one end, the beautiful lawn that gets hundreds if not thousands of visitors everyday, the contempt jewish museum, looking across this. the plan is to put a behemoth of a building with a shadow across union square, across the

yerba buena gardens and changes the whole character of that neighborhood and while i cannot argue the subtleties of each law, this will change the way we have live there had and makes it a non-san francisco place. please consider carefully. >> thank you, next speaker. >> hi, my name is deana rigs and i'm the ex-president of clementine towers. i have live in the yerba buena neighborhood for 27 years and every time a new restaurant comes into our neighborhood, the first thing that they do is put tables and

chairs out on the sidewalks. we have built that neighborhood up so big, with all of these conventions and everything, that there isn't room for tables and chairs on the sidewalks. so those tables and chairs need to go,because for safety's sake, when people are coming down and going to the convention, they are all the way from the building to the street coming down the sidewalk. and they are talking to each other, and they practically fall over those tables. they have to stop and walk their way back into the lines of people to get around the tables and chairs. we would like those tables and chairses off the sidewalks. also, putting a-frames on the sidewalks. some of the a-frames are so small you can't seem them until you fall over them. we have people on skateboards

and one man had a skateboard and another one in his hand to break his fall, in case he fell down and he had the wheels turned right to me. he came right up to my wheelchair and jumped off his skateboard and let the skateboard go underneath my wheelchair, and he went around my wheelchair and chased his skateboard and got on and kept going. and we don't need that on our sidewalks. we also don't need people riding bicycles on our sidewalks. and the sidewalk between shipley and harrison street, on the north side of the street, there are places along there, four places, the sidewalk is only -- [ inaudible ] >> thank you very much.

>> good afternoon, president chiu and members of the board. my name is edward colins and i live at 765 market street and i am here to comment on the public safety issues that have not been addressed. stevenson street is already jammed in large portions the day and if police and fire were to try to get through, it would be a difficult thing for them to do. this building and the way it's being planned will only radically exacerbate this problem that we have on stevenson and access to where we live to that area. so we ask you to focus on that specific issue that was not addressed in the eir to my recollection. and secondly, to say this project will not have a devastating effect on lifestyle

and quality of living in the neighborhood defies one imagination, please consider the quality of life for the residents in our area. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker. >> thank you president chiu and members of the board. my name is jack and we are full-time residents. first we are in favor of having a mexican museum become a reality in our neighborhood. however, our apprehensions of the presently proposed format would be lost within a residential building and not easily found and enjoyed by neighbor and visitor rather than a freestanding easy identified area. in your deliberations, you consider it to be restored to a

low format rather [speaker not understood]

it's ill-conceived and will treat multiple problems. >> thank you very much. next speaker. >> good afternoon president chiu and board of supervisors i'm john combs. i'm in the business of buildings and making a living off of that. i reviewed and thought the development was beautiful. the more i peeled back on the impacts of that building to our neighborhood, the more i became opposed to it. it's too tall. it's too big and it's poorly

sited. and i'm so concerned about the passenger -- not passengers, but the pedestrians who are working along 3rd street, about the pedestrians who are walking along stevenson. the exit off mission. i hold my breath and pray as i cross all those areas and i have seen so many near-fatal accidents. so i encourage you to believe, as busy as you are, stop this process and look at it further, because it's approved. thank you for your time. >> thank you, next speaker. >> president chiu, members of the board, howard wexler, i personally saved the aaronson build that was designed for demolition and helped to lead the development

of moscone convention center and the whole yerba buena complex. i have represented lots of very developers and office buildings and hotels and i'm for development and for the museum, but this project violates a number of rules. first, this could be built to 351' and not cast a single shadow on union square. at 550' in total height, it will cast 337,000-square-feet of new shadow on union square, when is more than the total allocation. the reason that they have to say in the eir it's not significant, because if it's ruled significant, there is no basis to make a overriding finding, because the benefits being gained here in the garage and land more than offset their

contribution to the mexican museum. similarly, it requested that on jessie square, that they look at an alternative to be setback 40', cast less shadow. this costs $8 million-square-feet of new shadow on a park and will shadow up to 12:30 during the day where there are all kinds of people. that is an inappropriate finding and look at nelson igaard's finding, that would put traffic off of mission, would be the best environmentally. >> thank you. next speaker. >> mr. president and members of the board, i am robert friend. i am too am a resident of 765

market street. i have one overriding issue, and that is traffic and public safety. stevenson street and 3rd street between mission and market is a disaster now. i can't imagine it being any worse, but if we have the only entrance and egress out of this new project at 611 mission street, if that is stevenson street, we're really in trouble, because i don't know how any traffic is going to get by. so what is the solution? there has to be -- there have to be mitigating factors with regard to traffic. i don't know if it's a police officer's directing traffic, which seems a little unrealistic, but possible. or a light, but right now you just stand there for an hour

and you will see near-misses constantly happening. so there have been to be mid gaiting factors. thank you. >> thank you, next speaker. >> hi my name is terry eckardt and my reason for the appeal to the eir is that it was found to have several areas of false -- particularly with traffic and shadowing and i don't think they still have not been addressed properly. i think to say that they were found not to be significant is really unfair. and those things really need to be studied properly. i also think having a very, very tall building next to that wonderful st. patrick's church is a crime. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker. >> hello, i am theresa

schoenberg and resident of 765 market street and absolutely agree with all of my colleagues here. i just wanted to add that i understand the importance of bringing the mexican museum to this area. and i support the museum as another great addition to jessie square. i would ask that the city take the time to look at this and the deficiencies in it the eir in order to bring the mexican museum to this site in a responsible fashion. we need to study this project properly and look at what is really necessary? i am confident that you can adhere to the environmental

standards that for so many years have made san francisco a great city to live in. thank you. >> thank you. anybody else to speak on behalf of the appellant? seeing none, we'll go to the presentation by the planning department. >> good afternoon, president chiu and members of the board, i am deborah dwyer with the planning department. we are available to answer your questions and addition staff from sfmta and the community investment and infrastructure agency are available for questions. i want to make some introductory comments, and then respond to as much of the comments that we have heard today as possible. initially i would like to remind the members of the board and the public that this agenda item is about the appeal of a

final eir for the proposed 706 mission street, mexican museum and residential tower project, the planning commission certified the eir on march 21st, 2013. the board may affirmer reverse the action of the planning commission by a [phra-eurpblts/] vote majority vote. if the board reverses the certification, it will make specific findings and remand the final eir to the planning commission for further action consistent with the board's findings. eir certification is not an action to approve or disapprove the project itself and a vote to uphold the certification of the eir does notice bind any votes.

the question at-hand therefore is the adequacy of the environment document according to ceqa, the california environment quality act, not the merits of the project itself. once the eir is certified, various communitis and boards and this board will have the opportunity subsequently to consider other aspects of the project for approval beyond environmental effects. a number of people disagree with some of the planning department's conclusions. and disagreement and difference of opinions with the determination presented in the f [kwrao-eufr/] feir -- the information analyses and conclusions in the eir are appropriate and legally defensible. the conclusions