are getting incredible amounts of complaints about the shelters being used, not as a resting place for our residents, but really as a space for people to either use drugs or to kind of hinder sight lines of police officers for criminal -- low-level criminal activity. i think that's one area of concern for us. we would really love to explore with mta creative ideas around that so that the only solution isn't getting rid of the bus shelter. the second issue that is of interest to me although i didn't talk too much about it is of course the street furniture, but particularly on the sidewalks that lead to our open space such as our parks and our schools. so, i would be -- i will be reaching out to our department about some of the proposed street furniture on those blocks. thank you. >> thank you very much. so, if there are no additional comments or questions, can we have a motion to file this hearing? >> so moved. >> can we do that without objection?

that will be the order. [gavel] >> madam clerk, please call item number 2. >> item number 2 is a resolution imposing interim zoning controls for an 18-month period requiring conditional use authorization for limited financial service and business or professional service uses in the upper market neighborhood commercial transit district; making environmental findings and findings of consistency with the general plan and with the priority policies of planning code, section 101.1. ~ transit district >> thank you. i'm the author of this legislation. colleagues, today before us are interim controls that i have -- that i'm proposing to address potential -- challenge relating to the significant new development occurring along the upper market corridor. we have quite a few developments happening along upper market between octavia and castro, and with a significant amount of new retail space that is going to come online. this is an exciting opportunity for the neighborhood in terms of a new retail space, more

activation of our streets, more opportunities for residents and visitors to the neighborhood. particularly in parts of upper market east of sanchez street where you see right now a drop off in the amount of retail and pedestrian foot traffic and that is going to change which is going to be very positive. we have also seen the potential of some of that retail space being used for nonactive retail uses, office use, potential photo companies, real estate companies, et cetera, and uses which provide important services in our community, but with too much -- taking up too much of the retail frontage, could de-activate the street lights in the upper market area. right now in upper market there are basically no controls on

using retail space for those kinds of office space, specifically limited financial services and business and professional services. there are other mtds around the city that require conditional use in order to use street level retail space for those uses and these interim controls would provide for an 18-month period that in order to place limited financial services or business and professional services on the street frontage in upper market, a conditional use would be required. we are in a unique period in the upper market neighborhood in terms of addition of so much retail space, and we really have a one-time opportunity to get it right. and if we don't get it right, it's going to have long-term ramifications for the neighborhoods. so, this is a very measured approach that would require conditional use for this type

of office use on the street level. and, colleagues, i ask for your support. so, ms. rodgers from the planning department. >> thank you, supervisor. ann marie rodgers, staff of the planning department. as the supervisors know, this particular item has not yet been heard by the planning commission and will not be heard by the commission if the very nature of interim controls, that they require quick action and do not provide for such a noticed hearing. that said, the department staff have reviewed the interim controls and we believe that this is an important step in ensuring appropriate land use in this area under transition. a policy concern with the uses that supervisor wiener seeks to control is that these uses are typically deadening uses. interim controls take a step towards ensuring active uses would be required for all spaces in the upper market nct by requiring this commission review. without such review, these uses could be approved as of right

in certain areas in this district. the code requires active uses, but only for the market street facing facades, and certain side streets such as church also require active uses under section 145.4. but it is notable the code doesn't currently require active uses on side streets such as noe in this district. and it's on these corner parcels where they may have just as much prominence when they are on the side street as if they were on the market street facade. one of the uses that is the focus of this interim control, the business and professional service uses would actually be prohibited on the market street facade, but here on the side street it would be -- it would not even require neighborhood notification as with the other safety controls which is the limited financial service. so, we would like to work with supervisor on perhaps applying these active use controls throughout the upper market area and believe that this interim control will provide

the commission, the board, and the public with the opportunity to and the issue and develop permanent controls that are appropriate without sacrificing the lively character of the area while we undertake this work. and for this reason we would recommend that the land use mmrward with a positive recommendation. >> thank you very much, ms. rodgers. colleagues, do you have any questions? okay, we'll now open it up for public comment. i have one card. andrea aiello. good afternoon again. andrea [speaker not understood]. and while the board has not taken a position on this, it it kind of came up quickly, i just wanted to comment that the cbd and other planning organizationses were involved with supervisor wiener in talking specifically about this property on noe street and there was a strong consensus

that the new retail be broken up into small spaces, small spaces that would accommodate small privately owned businesses, retail businesses, and not, you know, have the space be another financial institution. i just wanted to say there was a lot of community discussion about that and kw in the end that this space was to be divided up into small spaces for business use. thank you. ~ agreement >> thank you. is there any additional public comment on item number 2? hearing none, public comment is closed. [gavel] >> colleagues, i have a motion to forward this with recommendation. sorry about that. supervisor kim. >> i wanted to make a motion to pass this with recommendation or send this forward to the board with recommendation. and i know that there are a

number of these actually in formula retail controls that are being proposed throughout the city. so, i know our office is going to be introducing one tomorrow that we announced last week on mid-market from van ness to sixth street. and i think there just is, again, an increasing discussion amongst a lot of our neighborhoods in terms of the types of businesses and the character of the neighborhoods that we're trying to build as development continues. so, i look forward to having this ongoing conversation with the planning department as we move forward with these interim controls. >> thank you. if there is no other discussion, can we take the motion without objection? that will be the order. [gavel] >> thank you, colleagues. madam clerk, can you please call item number 3? >> item number 3 is resolution acknowledging receipt of the office of the city administrator's recommendations regarding the establishment of an urban agriculture program; supporting the recreation and park department as the location for the new urban agriculture program to coordinate the city's urban agriculture activities; and setting reporting goals related to urban agriculture. >> and the author of this resolution is president chiu. >> thank you, mr. chair. colleagues, this legislation is a resolution that falls on the heels of legislation that i had sponsored the last year and

worked closely with san francisco and agricultural alliance and spur for city-wide agriculture program. spur had previously released po harvest report that showed even though we had seen tremendous demand for urban agriculture, community gardening and urban farms grow across the city in recent years, there has been a notable lack of coordination among different agencies that govern urban agriculture. the legislate ition helped create the program designed to serve as a one stop shop for urban agriculture to assist in the formation of new garden projects, to provide resources and tools, and partnerships with various community organizations. the legislation last year required that a strategic planning process take place and that is something that happened in the second half of 2012. i want to thank the office of the city administrator who is the lead city agency for this planning and the city administrator released the results of the strategic

planning late last spring. and today will present its process and recommendations which include a recommendation that our recreation and park department be the home for this new program. the ordinance that we passed last year requires the board of supervisors to pass a resolution so that we can have a little bit of a public dialogue on that. that is a resolution we have in front of us. i also want to mention that i have been supportive of the creation of the first full-time staff person in this city who will hopefully be housed at the rec and park department to solely focus on the coordination of city urban agriculture activities. last year in the budget process we had placed a small amount of money, it was $120,000 into the budget which we didn't spend last year because we had not yet made this decision. we have officially transferred the money that we were supposed to spend last year so that it can be spent this year hopefully shortly when this new person is hired. i want to just take a moment

and thank all the city staff and departments and community advocates who worked with my office on this, in particular to thank the urban agriculture alliance and spur for their ongoing support and their endorsement of this resolution. i want to take a moment also to thank [speaker not understood] for her hard work on this. we do have a number of representatives from various city departments who have some brief comments they want to make about these efforts. i'm not sure if bill barnes is here or someone representing the city administrator's office. i don't see mr. barnes. assuming he's not here, i know we have representatives from the rec and park department. i'm not sure who is going to speak today, but if you would like to say a few words and then to be followed by representatives from puc and from planning. and then we will hopefully go to public comment. >> good afternoon, supervisors and staff.

my name is melinda stock land, project manager and community gardens program manager with recreation and park department. very excited to speak today here to give you a little more background in terms of the work to date and next steps for the anticipated city-wide urban agriculture program. i do have a presentation here that we'll just get up and running. authorized and working as the rec and parks department point person on urban strategic plan president chiu outlined since about a year ago in july of 2012. so, just to give a background on the work to date, last july the urban agriculture ordinance was adopted and in september the city administrator's office convened an inter agency working group and also invited public stakeholders to participate in the formation of a preliminary strategic plan to

help serve as the foundation for this -- the launching of this new city-wide urban agriculture program. on december 31st, we delivered the working group comprised of department of public works, the puc, sf environment planning, the public health department, basically all city agencies were invited to come and participate in the strategic plan. and at the end of december we delivered a strategic plan recommendation to the city administrator's office. in april the city administrator's office officially published the recommendation to supervisor chiu for how best to meet the ordinance goals. we then posted a urban agriculture open house together with supervisor chiu and the city administrator's office on may 15th. that was an opportunity for the public to come and find out more about what we were planning and to weigh in with questions and concerns. ~ hosted we also did outreach to the park recreation open space

advisory committee, to sf urban ag alliance, and we invited other groups to know about what's going on. we have started to -- at rec and park we have started to do our internal process for hopefully hiring a full-time staff member to come on. and i will give you more information now. [speaker not understood] on the screen, but this is not to go over it in much detail, but to mention that rec and park together as i mentioned several city agencies and public stakeholders invested quite a lot of energy from december through december 2012 to look at developing goes tov. the check marks next to the first five or six goals represent we feel these have been accomplished through the strategic planning process which brought together departments in collaboration as well as input from the public, sf urban ag alliance, and the strategic planning process also

involved three town hall meetings in november and december in which people were invited to come and give their input and individual stakeholder interviews with groups who were heavily involved with urban agriculture and community gardening. so, we've done a count of waiting list, active site and site coordinators, list of all urban agriculture programs and then the city administrator's office recommendations also list where we are to date on reducing the wait list, for example, and on working with the department of real estate to complete an audit of city building rooftops. so, these are our work plan goals. because i work closely with other departments and with supervisor chiu's office on the strategic planning process, the goal is to transfer all the great work that's been done to date to an urban agriculture program coordinator to be housed within rec and park, to take the work that's been done to date, to continue working

with an inter agency working group, and to formulate a work plan with actionable metrics for success. and to move forward with that. so, just briefly -- i'm sorry, i was under the impression the city admin office was going to speak in more detail about this plan from the fall. i'll go over briefly the streaming recommendations that came from the city administrator's office were that the rec and park department, the puc, public health, and the department of the environment continue their leadership roles on urban agriculture. one of the other substantial components of the strategic plan in the fall was the mayor's budget office worked with all of the agencies that were working on -- all of the city departments and agencies working on urban agriculture to do an accounting of the funding and the staff time that's allocated to urban agriculture. so, that identified that these departments were playing a leadership role. the second recommendation, the one that i'm here to speak a little bit more on key tail on,

is that the rec and park department should be the lead agency for the urban ag program. and finally, that san francisco's public spending on urban ag is significant and should be used to leverage new private investment. we're really excited to have someone on board who can help us look for private funding to leverage this position and i also want to emphasize that we're hoping that this addition would be a permanent part of the city budget so that rather than it be a temporary thing obviously based on the success of the position, that this role would continue for the foreseeable future. so, just briefly, in the process during the strategic planning process during the fall, the rec and park department was asked to put together sort of presentation for substantiating why would the department want to take on this program. we have strong support from our department leadership including general manager phil ginsberg and capital planning division manager don [speaker not understood] who is here today.

we have extensive experience managing community gardens program that includes 35 sites on rec and park primarily on rec and park properties but also on dpw and puc properties. we have close working relationships with other city departments that were strengthened through the strategic planning process, specifically for urban agriculture, but also, of course, on many of the renovation and capital projects that we do in operations we partner with other agencies as well as nonprofits. we have successfully -- we have a successful shift riff of recruiting volunteers and managing them. we have a comprehensive community process for running meetings and workshops. and we also have a partnerships division specifically meant to be the front door to working with folks in a collaborative manner. again, sorry for the poor resolution. this map just shows the red, yellow -- red and yellow dots are our existing community gardens showing, of course, the new urban ag coordinator will

come on and look at what's our distribution across the city and how can we work to build that. this is to show we're currently managing 25 park sites, 90 [speaker not understood], and what dpw and puc jurisdictions. i have been working in my capacity of community gardens program to support the department in developing our community gardens program website as more of a resource. the plan is for us to hire an urban agriculture program coordinator who will build on this website and have a portal that's specific to urban agriculture program. the i am p/e test largely for the urban agriculture resolution and program is to have sort of the front door for urban ag. so, we are not planning to take over other urban agriculture activities that are going on from other departments or other cities, but rather to be a front door so a member of the public can know if i'm interested in working on this land or i want to know what's going on here, that there's a clear contact person that they can come to who can then point

them in the right direction. so, our plan is to develop a process calendar to outline year one which i'll show you in just a moment, to hire a full-time urban agriculture program coordinator to build on the work we did in the fall. and also to develop the urban agriculture program alongside or in conjunction with our community gardens program. so, the rec and park -- so, i will continue in my role as community gardens program manager and that the urban agriculture program will be looking at how to improve the community gardens program, but also looking at other initiatives that are going on both on rec and park properties and of course not on rec and park property. so, once this resolution is passed, we will consider the urban ag coordinator position official tali transferred to rec and park. we have a high priority on transparency moving forward, letting folks know what's going on and being inclusive. to that end, we are planning to

identify commissioner wuedthctionv members who would participate in our hiring process in an advisory capacity. we'd like to have that person identified by the end of this month or early next month. we are going through the process of filling out the required human resources paperwork and we hope to host a recruitment in august and have someone on board as early as september. we also will develop and implement a year one work plan with the inter agency working group and community stakeholders incorporating mechanisms for reporting and evaluation along the way so we can take all the great work that's done and make sure we have metrics for success and we have benchmarks to evaluate. this is a brief calendar showing the next -- the second half of 2013 as well as 2014 moving forward. our plan is in august to reconvene the working group that met last fall to check in with folks from city departments and also from the public to find out if they'd like to continue in that capacity and to open it up to

others to join that working group if they so choose. and i guess we'd like to convene a meeting to look at the goals that have been developed to date and hone in on goal set fog r year one. obviously we're looking at one year. we have a lot of folks involved, and there's a lot of work that could be done to make urban agriculture even smoother and fantastic in the city. we want to really focus on having approximately three achievable goals that we can go for success and we can accomplish tangible things in the first year. so, september we hope to have someone on board. we reconvene the working group and start to set up that one-stop shop of contact information. at that point we would work to finalize the work plan. we think it's important that the person -- the employee be hired and on board before we finalize the web plans so they can also be in the know and take ownership of how that looks. in november we've been asked by spur and sfuaa to make quarterly presentations to the rec and park commission.

we're happy to do that. and it's also been suggested that we return to the mayor and the board of supervisors before the end of this year to sort of report back on what's been done with urban ag to date. we're happy to do that. and we will consider our year one in rec and park as from the time the person is hired, which hopefully will be again september, early october latest. and, so, we have in april 2014 a year one midterm evaluation with the working group and stakeholders. and then in october, a year one evaluation. we'd like to meet with the working group at least bi-monthly if not monthly, and it's not on the calendar but the urban agriculture coordinator would be working to implement the goals at every month. i would put [speaker not understood] working closely with in supervisor david chiu's office as a contact member -- as a contact -- excuse me -- person between now and when the resolution goes to the full

board and, of course, if you have additional questions you can reach me or general manager ginsberg and don. thank you. i'm happy to take any questions. >> thank you. i want to thank ms. stock man. i also recognize don from the senior staff of rec and park for the work you've done on this and your leadership on this. and unless there are questions -- supervisor kim, do you have a question of rec and park? >> i do. although this may have been appropriate for the city administrator's office. i was reading through the report last night and i -- there was a survey done for all the city-owned property and buildings [speaker not understood]. the city is considering affordable housing sites we actually grant funding to. so, we have a series of affordable housing that we support with financing or we do master lease with granting for. and, so, i think it would also be great for us to survey those sites as well since we have many residents in them that may

also want to [speaker not understood] in urban agriculture [speaker not understood]. specifically because i think we have sites in neighborhoods that are [speaker not understood]. [multiple voices] >> that certainly was done by the city administrator's office. i don't think it was done by rec and park. >> it was. >> [speaker not understood]. >> we expect bill lawrence from the city administrator's office. i'm not sure if he's going to be coming down. i hope he is, but certainly rooftop gardens was one aspect of the will thetion asian we were looking to explore with the city, part of the city administrator's study was to do an audit. and i would certainly be supportive of that possibility. i don't think the city just looked at city-owned buildings, but affordable housing developments the city has significantly invested in, that's a great idea. >> or public housing. >> or public housing. rec and park, if you could pass that along to the city administrator and add that to your mix? i know we have a couple representatives from the puc.

i'm not sure who would like to speak to represent the department, but thank you for being here. >> good afternoon and thank you. chair wiener, president chiu, supervisor kim, and a special thanks to president chiu for introducing this inspiring legislation that brings us here today. my name is yolanda manzoni and i'm the [speaker not understood] for the san francisco public utilities commission. i'm here today on behalf of sfpuc to show our support for the recommendations of the city administrator regarding the establishment of the urban agriculture program and supporting the recommendation that the recreation and parks department serve as the location for the new urban ag program. because of the many established benefits that urban agriculture brings to our city, to our communities, and our environment, the sfpuc is proud to be a long-time supporter of many various types of urban agriculture activities ranging

from programs that really focus on environmental education to those that focus more on economic and work force development opportunities through urban agriculture. specifically, the san francisco puc commission passed a secondary land use policy that seeks to proactively promote urban agriculture as a secondary use on sfpuc land. and that is a policy that is actually quite unique nationally and with that policy and in context of this overarching city-wide urban ag program, we are really looking forward to continuing our leadership role particularly over the next few years as we roll out the development of three new sites on puc land for urban agriculture within the city. now, as manager of those urban ag projects, i've also had the pleasure of participating on behalf of the puc and the working group convened by the city administrator's office for the strategic planning process. and i would like to say that the inter agency collaboration

and cooperation that i experienced while participating on that working group was indeed commendable. and i really look forward to continuing that inter agency collaboration. i hope by continuing that kind of collaboration in close context with the community and stakeholder groups, that we will be able to continue to refine and enhance existing urban ag policies to better support the many various types of urban agriculture initiatives that benefit our communities. because working together, collaboratively as sister agencies slag in close collaboration with community and stakeholder groups such as the urban agriculture alliance, i'm confident that we can accomplish the many goals that are outlined in the ordinance and do our part to make this city even better. thank you. >> thank you. i just have one comment based on that, not a question to you, but i think one of the things that i certainly want to recognize or all the city departments that have been doing good work on this. and as we centralize the coordination of the strategy, i think it is important that we

continue to encourage the work of all the various individual agencies. so, to that end, i do plan and colleagues, i've circulated a quick amendment to you to add additional whereas clause to the ordinance that states that the intent of the ordinance is to help bring in-scale urban agriculture activities throughout the city by maintaining the [speaker not understood] agency and established urban agriculture initiatives while at the same time fostering enhanced inter agency collaboration and providing more centrally coordinated institutional support to the urban agriculture community. i think it is important as we centralize again, the whole point of centralization all the parts of the city are doing their piece. so, i do plan to offer that as an amendment to this resolution. i think we have one final presentation from the planning department. thank you for being here. >> good afternoon, supervisors and staff. my name is diana and i am the

food system policy manager for the san francisco planning department. i wanted to just say that the planning department is very supportive of urban agriculture in the city and as you know, beginning in 2011, we passed planning code amendments at the fine urban agriculture land uses and also allow for the sale of produce from production sites directly. and the planning department also worked very collaboratively with all the other departments who have already been mentioned today and really enjoyed that experience. and we also enjoyed participating in the development of the urban agriculture strategic plan and fully endorse its findings. i wanted to just mention that the planning department's goal for sustainable food system include increased access to healthy food and the urban agriculture program is certainly a strategy that helps us achieve that goal and will help us achieve that goal. so, i am here to profess my support for the resolution and for the city's continued support for urban agriculture. thank you.