the middle of construction. and that is a problem. so, really the heart of my legislation is to set that firm deadline, to set it at the first approval of the entire project and then not to allow for appeals in the middle of construction, multiple appeals. and when i say no appeals in the middle of construction, let's assume there has not been some sort of material change that changes the project. so, it appears that these amendments would be consistent with that core of the legislation that i proposed. and i think it's good to clarify, and i appreciate that, especially in terms of being really strong in how we define what is a modification because i do understand the concern that projects in some circumstances can change, and that that has been a frustration for some people. sometimes they change and they don't bother to go back and get

new permits. and that is an enforcement issue. so, that all seems reasonable to me. president chiu, yes. >> i just wanted to say a couple things. first of all to the public who may be wondering why we hadn't had a chance to talk about this again, for folks who are not familiar with the brown act, supervisor wiener and supervisor kim and i cannot confer on this. so, this is the first time they are seeing this list even though it's been worked on with the planning department and members of the community ferment i do want to mention there are also handouts that summarize the amendments i just made up at the front. ~ so, folks want to get a copy, it is up at the front. and the third thing i want to mention is on this issue of the public hearing with the environmental review officer, this is a concept that needs to go back under our rules to the planning department for their consideration. so, it's going to trail as far as the legislative process likely trail by a few weeks, us being able to consider the main body of legislation. but it is my hope that we'll be

able to wrap up this issue as soon as possible to really address this for everybody. >> thank you. and just a few other things. i was also, in terms of these amendments and what they do not encompass as president chiu just mentioned, which i think is very important. and i have a lot of respect for the work supervisor kim has put in at this legislation and i think the feeling is mutual. but we had -- there are some significant disagreements. i pointed out repeatedly that i do not agree with requiring the enhanced notice for every building, every -- even minor exterior on buildings 50 years or older 50% of our stock and park projects. i'm glad that is not included in the amendments. the appeals of addenda and automatic allowance for appeals

of any modifications, i'm glad that is not in the amendment. again, i think that these are -- this is a positive step. two other things. president chiu, in terms of the amendment for prioritizing ceqa review of affordable housing and bike and pedestrian safety projects, one of the -- and i've said this before and i think my perspective is the same. but i understand the desire for that and i certainly want these kinds of projects to be able to move to the process as quickly as possible. these are projects that are resource constrained and, so, it's important that they not be delayed. and they are all extremely important. what my question about this is when it comes to the use of the planning department's resources -- and again, i don't know exactly how this amendment is going to be couched. when it comes to how we allocate the planning

department's limited resources, there are a lot of very important demands on those resources. affordable housing, bike and pedestrian projects are certainly among those demands. obviously if a small homeowner is trying to do work and is delayed, that's another demand. but in addition, there are other i think -- probably i assume stipulated high priority projects such as park projects, library projects, public transportation projects, clean energy projects, building a child care center. i mean, we could go on and on with projects that i think we would probably all agree are very important or also resource constrained. and that should also be prioritized. so, again, without knowing what exactly this is going to say, you know, i just have that continuing question. and i don't know if the planning department and mr. ram, you may know more about the details of this proposal than i do, but that's just a

question that i continue to have. >> thank you, supervisor. i've always been concerned about codifying this because of the very issue you just raised. at what point do we define what those priority projects are. right now our practice has always been to prioritize all public projects, especially affordable housing for elks. and if you recall we did get some additional resources last year to prioritize environmental reviews for large public projects since we were constantly shifting private projects to the bottom of the list when the large public project came in. but, you know, again, my preference is not to have this codified, but allow us to do it in such a way either through a director's bulletin or planning commission policy, something that could be relatively easily changed and amended rather than where we have a process to change the code when a new type of priority project comes down the pike which would be my own preference. i understand the reason you want these projects prioritized, but it's very

challenging when they're that rigidly embedded and embodied in the code. >> thank you. president chiu, i'm keep an open mind until i see what the actual proposal. is. i've been frustrated sometimes with the pace of approval of affordable housing, bike projects. i would certainly love to see them move faster. ~ so, i'll keep an open mind on that. >> if i could say a few words on that. obviously we've been working with the planning department to have language that i think reflects the current reality that director ram just referred to, the fact that these projects are prioritized. i am sensitive to the fact that we do have other public projects that probably to supervisor wiener's point, ought to receive prioritization as well. but these are the ones that we certainly heard from the community and frustrate the public over and over again when they're not prioritized. so, i'm not necessarily saying that there aren't other worthy categories of projects that ought to be part of this mix, but at least articulate what is already generally the practice of the commission. we're working on language that

we will be circulating to the public shortly that hopefully we can review. >> thank you, i look forward to seeing it. finally, i'll turn it over to supervisor kim. in terms of the fair argument versus substantial evidence, this has been, i will say, just to be honest, a frustration since the beginning of this process. we are -- ceqa is the state law and we are bound by it. we cannot amend it. we cannot change the standards under ceqa. ceqa provides certain standards around substantial evidence, fair argument, and we could amend our local code until the cows come home to say something different and we're still bound by the standards of ceqa. since the very beginning, intent has been and i know the city attorney's intent has been to inform our administrative code to what ceqa requires and what the ceqa guidelines require in terms of the different $125ctionv ardx of

substantial evidence and fair argument. ~ my intent we have made a number of amendments going forward to make it sloper and clearer and clearer. if there are further amendments that's totally fine. i have no problem with that. but there's been a ~ i think frankly some -- this argument that we're somehow trying to deviate from the sand ardx of ceqa doesn't have any basis because, a, that's not what we're trying to do. and b, even if we wanted to do that, which we don't, we would completely lack the power to do that. ~ so, with that said, these amendments look quite positive, president chiu, and i appreciate you taking the time to work on them. supervisor kim. >> thank you. i just want to address a couple points. i'm also appreciative with where we're going with a lot of these amendments. i think that they do largely bring our legislations closer together. and they also put into place a lot of the key things that i think i heard from community folks in terms of what they would like to see in the final

legislation, including the electronic notification and something where we address modification. i just want to talk again about modification because it comes up over and over again. my personal issue with modification is we have not defined what modification is. i think ms. jones articulated again, it is always in her discretion. there is nothing that outlines that a second for the modification, that increasing the envelope is a modification. we all generally assume that's a modification and i think generally it is considered one, but if we don't have anything enumerated, then members of the public are going to distrust the process. they want to be able to point to something in writing and say, we know this is a modification, we know this isn't a modification. we can argue about what that definition is and [speaker not understood]. eros has full discretion. the second thing i'll say, it is a bit of a misnomer to say every modification can be

appealable. because someone would have to actually -- a department would have to actually refer it to the ero to determine whether there is a modification or not. and i don't think dbi sent -- every time they think there might be a slight modification and ask the ero to make a determination if there is or is not. so, it's not like every time there's some kind of modification the public will come out. it is every time a department refers a question to the ero and asks whether that's a modification. that's the opportunity for the members of the public to weigh in. so, i think that -- i just wanted to outline that kind of distinction. priority projects... the reason i think these priority projects are important because these are the projects that were outlined to me as a reason for why we needed to set deadlines for exemptions and negative declarations. over and over i heard when we introduced the original legislation that second, booker

t., bike lane, this is the reason why we must set some type of reform ative process around how we hear ceqa appeals. so, if these are the projects that were enumerated in the beginning ~ as the reason, the impetus behind why we are doing t then we are going to respond. so, we decided to put something into place that will help expedite pet safety, bike lanes and affordable house. ~ housing. those are the three we heard about. i didn't hear about child care centers, parks. we were addressing exactly what we heard. i think that's why that was the piece that moved out of here. last, on the alterations to buildings 50 years or older, i want to clarify, we did amend that language. it is a broad scope, but we want to put it out there to get feedback from members of the public and planning. buildings 50 years or older that changes the roof, adds a garage, modifies the facade except replacement in kind and

expands expands the occupied square footage of the building. ~ i do think that was a compromise way to define character defining features of buildings 50 years or older. last thing i would say, i think it's important we do what is required by the state. that is either in the ceqa ordinance, the state ordinance, or in its guidelines. what i think makes this very challenging is that a lot of the guidelines in the ordinance is suggest how local entities and municipalities take on ceqa appeals. and i think a lot of what we debate about is how lawyers -- how we interpret state code and state guidelines. so, i do think there is a lot of room in how we interpret that. and i think many of us are attorneys in this room. words are meaning. , but they also mean a lot of different things. i do think there is still a meaningful debate about how the state gives us guidance on ceqa appeals. the last piece that i just

wanted to continue to push on a little bit that supervisor chiu has put into place already and supervisor wiener's legislation, but i want to hopefully have a discussion how to make it more specific what triggers review at hpc. so, the language that i see here is that for proposed projects that the ero or the planning department has determined may have an impact on historical cultural resources, the hpc and neighbor viewing comment on such environmental documents. and why i think that's largely the practice today, i do think it's important to make it a little clearer what triggers a hearing at hpc and not leave it to the discretion of the planning department, although i think largely the discretion would be the right projects at the hpc. we did have some specific triggers in terms of what types of projects e-i-rs would get heard at hpc and i think it's important -- is that in there? >> the e-i-r you're talking about or negative declaration? >> i'm sorry, projects,

environmental documents, all environmental documents. so, i just was hoping that we could have as we move through this discussion, a discussion of what exactly would trigger a hearing at hpc and not just by discretion. that's the one thing that i would push back on. and if i'm misreading the way the amendment is, please do clarify. but other than that, i think the amendments that supervisor chiu is proposing are largely in line with what we'd like to see and so happy to see this all be put in place. >> thank you. and there definitely is a debate here about how to treat changes to buildings that are 50 years or older which is almost everything. and it does have a pretty significant ramifications, even if you limit it to facade and roof, et cetera, whether it's requiring added notice, whether it's an automatic referring for

an hpc hearing. i completely understand the rationale for wanting to do that. it can have pretty extraordinary impacts on people's ability to fix up or make changes [inaudible]. colleagues, if there are no additional comments, why don't we open it up to public comment. public comment will be two minutes. i'll read the cards that we have. rose hilton. tess well borne. kathrin howard. tim cohen. steve aiello. linda chatman who filled out two cards. aaron franks. fernando marti. [speaker not understood]. ms. hilton. good afternoon, supervisors. the land use and economic development committee. i appreciate your work in incorporating the class of the larger community of stakeholders and crafting this very important piece of

legislation on chapter 1 of the administrative code on california environmental quality act ceqa procedures. many projects are cad exed from ceqa after an initial environmental review and the legislation being massaged over these many months people have said projects and more from both sides have agreed that after a permit approval, this occurs on many occasions. the legislation [speaker not understood] the right to appeal projects after changes even if those changes are within the original project description on the permit application or within the scope of the project, due to the fact that there could be nonfindings at the time of the initial project review, but evidence of environmental impact subsequently with the modifications. [speaker not understood] appeal a change of a staircase bannister provided in example of the earlier meetings. [speaker not understood]. it is to protect the right of the public to appeal these modifications that could impact the environment and to afford the elected and appointed

government [speaker not understood]. this sometimes is about hard decisions, but this is about land use which does impact the environment and economic development, but may not necessarily care. so, since you have the strongest environmental protection for the future of our city as the greatest model for the city, ensure people have right to appeal, it can damage the environment, i ask this be included in the main body of the legislation rather than as a supplemental piece of legislatev asian as needed for clear and open government process. and i submit these. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker. good afternoon, supervisors. thank you for your continued attention on this important setting of the rules for ceqa which affects so many projects in san francisco. i'd like to thank supervisor wiener for getting the ball rolling in something that we've all wanted to see some closure on. and supervisor kim, thank you so much for working with the

public and getting many, many issues included in your legislation. thank you, supervisor chiu, for getting the best and bringing in your own wisdom, too. i'd like to ask that, again, that the hearings, the modifications continue to be public as you put in, that the electronic notification occur, that must be, that the legislation be fully finished, not with any trailing legislation. and i'd like to speak up for giving the historic preservation a chance to weigh in on things. they are a newly created body and they need to have a chance to have some real charter. thank you again for including the affordable housing and other priority projects to get their initial leg through planning. we want this to be a success for the public. there are many projects that

are going to be built in san francisco and we want to have this work well for everybody. so, thank you for your work and please get this done so that we can be all pleased and go on with the next big project like plan bay area. thank you. >> next speaker. good afternoon, supervisors. kathrin howard, golden gate park preservation alliance. i want to thank you for working to integrate the various proposed ordinances. we support the community amendments and the ability to appeal projects that have been modified after they have already passed the environmental review. we hope that you will endeavor to fast track the modification appeal language so that it is included in the ceqa ordinance at the full board. this language is especially important for our parks and open spaces where projects are often modified throughout the review process. our parks and open spaces are vital to the overall health of

our city and residents. open space once developed cannot easily be reclaimed. last year i attended a celebration of a golden gate national recreation area. many listening here today may not be aware that there were massive plans for the marin head lands which included a houston housing development. it took many people working hard to protect that land. there are always people who are ready to build inappropriate projects on our park land. at the ggnra anniversary celebration, amy meyer, a founder of the naggra, what it saved, saved temporarily. but what is lost is lost forever. our parks and open space need strong ceqa protection. we hope that you will support strong modification appeal language. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker. linda chatman, north hill

neighbors and i'm confused about the summary that was given. maybe i don't understand it. appeals, whatever is the final date when you can do an e-i-r -- appeal of a negative declaration or cad ex or an e-i-r, i would hope is not the date when that is -- that item is approved by the planning commission. i hope that it's a date when the project is finally approved because you run into situations -- we certainly did -- where, you know, making an e-i-r certified that the proswore is turned down. there is no plan or approval of the project. you could file an appeal, but it costs $600 which you may not get back. it may cost a lot of lawyers fees. otherwise it creates a tremendous burden on the citizens who have to do it themselves and who may not be capable of doing it themselves and that creates a whole appeal procedure. and yes, the developer was turned down. he may be starting a conditional use appeal, about he may never get his 20%. that certainly has happened to us. or they get the 20% and then it

goes on for maybe a year or two and before the board of supervisors, that's certainly happened. we're then asking for, you know, continuances until the city attorney would intervene and say no more continuances. now, the time when the last -- you could do your e-i-r appeal initially and have that all considered by the board and so forth, you should also be able to do it after that is finally approved by the board as opposed to turned down or they drop out or they didn't get their signatures or something. i think that's really important. another thing is that if a cad ex -- the appeal of the decision of modification or something, modification or project only goes to the planning commission, if i'm understanding that, that isn't right. it should go to the board. 9 cad ex appeals have gone to the board. it's a different body. ~ the the planning commission listen to their staff, they may disagree a lot with their staff. they may actually or question the staff.

or they may sort of approve it. >> thank you, ms. chatman. next speaker. good afternoon, supervisors. tim colon on behalf of the san francisco housing coalition. i'm looking at the history of this proposal. maybe it's an indication of the problems we faced. the tortured history of this is what we see in san francisco is endless process, perhaps 17 years to deliver a brt on van ness, 10 or a dozen years to do neighborhood area plans. there's no shortage of process. i'm encouraged that there's discussion going on of amendments here, but it's a pretty simple test. will the proposal coming forward, which we hope it does, reduce the crazy process we have in terms of building permits, in particular for our case, for housing? we're relieved a little bit to see that perhaps relief is being sought for affordable housing bike and pedestrian projects.

we're saying sure they've been subject to a crazy disfunctional process. everyone else will be subject to the crazy disfunctional process we have in the city. on the issue of the ero, again, it's a simple test. is this going to expedite it and allow the city to move forward or is this going to open up more avenues for more appeals? it just seems the ero has the expertise and has a whole department with expertise to work on this, calling for another hearing to us would seem to see we're putting it back into the political process again. we can't favor taking the discretion away from the ero. the 50 year deal doesn't affect us as deeply, but i'm afraid it would beware of the unintended consequences bringing those even for small changes into some kind of more infinite democracy as we would say.

it's after 11 public hearings, it's time to call a question. we need to move this forward. it's a discussion between moving the city forward or keeping us standing still. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker. good afternoon, supervisors. my name is stephen aiello. i'm the chair of the housing action coalition and hold that position as a volunteer representative for greenbelt alliance. i'm also a licensed architect in the state of california. i'm going to support what tim just said. we have concerns about removing the discretion from the ero officer. they're the ones who see the most of these projects on a regular basis. they know what has broken the boundary of an environmental document scoping limitation and what doesn't. as an architect, i can tell you there needs to be some amount of flexibility for a project to

respond to either unforeseen conditions, changes in budget, changes in the desire of the client. and, so, for small projects that might be subject to the categorical exemption, yes, it's obvious if you expand an envelope so much that you're adding a second story onto a building, when you only had approval to do a single story building, what if you're just going to add a dormer onto the roof? is that going to be something that's enough of a modification that then triggers renoticing of a categorical exemption? so, what i have seen in the past is that the department typically allows about plus or minus 10% variation in the entitlement approval of a project that says if the approval or the redesign goes beyond that 10% plus or minus, then the project basically has to start over. so, -- or at least it has to get a new approval for that

modification that exceeds that 10% boundary. so, as long as the modification language is written very clearly and very specifically and doesn't carry a bunch of unintended consequences, then it can probably work in the real world feasibility from that standpoint. but if it's too narrow, you're going to end up [speaker not understood] the process which is what we don't want. so, thank you. >> thank you. next speaker. hi, i'm erin frank [speaker not understood]. this laze been going on the last eight months and we believe the amendments put forth to supervisor wiener's proposal in fact address most of the points the previous speaker just touched upon. his proposal currently has very strong, clear language that discusses what is a modification and how the environmental review officer will look into that. it also [speaker not understood] a significant section requiring noticing and improved noticing electronically including a section that puts in the

prohibitions on this going into effect in it will it actually has that noticing in place. we are in very strong support of this not just because it helps affordable housing in part and walking programs, but we are -- our organization supports, but also because it supports transit oriented development. and perhaps mixed income projects that include affordable housing components. this is a very important development for the study and there are things that should not be given second [speaker not understood] thereby delegated below the affordable housing component. again, i think i'd like to urge you all to move this forward to the full board because we really think that these are -- have been discussed and debated to death frankly and it's time to have this resolution. thanks. >> thank you very much. next speaker. bernie shoden with san francisco tomorrow. you have my previously submitted documents. i wish to indicate that in

[speaker not understood] expediency does not abridge state ceqa. state ceqa specifies cumulative environmental impact be considered in its totality. you cannot piecemeal the concerns of specific environmental impacts. as a result, you need to address the issue of supervisor kim has, the need for very specific codified criteria in advance. that has not been done and it needs to be part of what you proposed. that means that hiring 27 planners to process an open door which you are creating, but needs to be abridged and instead hire people who can deal with environmental impact in terms of the overall cost of housing accessibility and life safety. this needs to be part of what you do in advance or it becomes

a process in bad faith. i think -- i hope that's clear because it's been said many times. wait, one more point, may i? namely that obviously [speaker not understood] set criteria for ministerial providence is not sufficient. there are political influences as you all are aware in our process. there needs to be an objective appeal at the level of the board of supervisors when significant cumulative impact has been abridged. that needs to be part of their codification. >> thank you. next speaker. thank you, supervisors, for carrying throughtion this very long process. thank you for seeing you working together in a collaat