% >> good afternoon and welcome to the san francisco board of supervisors land use and economic development committee. i'm scott wiener, the chairman of the committee. to my right is supervisor jane kim, the committee vice-chair, and to my left is supervisor malia cohen. our clerk is ahn drape aausberry, and i want to thank sfgov-tv for broadcasting today's hearing, specifically jesse larsen and jonathan gomak. are there any announcements? >> yes, there are. please silence all cell phones and electronic device he. completed speaker cards and copies of any documents to be included as part of the file should be submitted to the clerk. items acted upon today will appear on the february 25th, 2014 board of supervisors agenda unless otherwise stated. >> thank you very much. and, madam clerk, would you please call item number 1? >> item number 1 is an ordinance amending ordinance no. 16-10 to authorize the levy and collection of special taxes within city and county of san francisco special tax district no. 2009-1 (san francisco

sustainable financing) for seismic safety retrofits to certain privately owned buildings or real property; and directing the clerk of the board to publish a notice of public hearing and other matters related thereto. ~ retrofit >> and pat pa* trick otellini is here from the mayor's office for item number 1. >> thank you for having me. i appreciate your patience as we go through -- created the software and financing program. we're at the tail end here and i want to thank for the unanimous support we received at this committee and the full board. important to note two weeks ago quick retrofit fair over at bill graham civic auditorium, as well as 150 vendors provide the necessary services for folks could complete their retrofit in the time allowed by the ordinance. i want to note we had almost 3,000 members in attendance, noticeable for soft story. i want to thank you for your continued support for providing comprehensive menu of financing optionses for the folks under this ordinance and happy to answer any questions. >> thank you very much. supervisor kim? >> i was hoping actually you could talk a little about what's before us. >> sure. >> so, including seismic retrofit within the special tax

district and how it would operate and also how it's operated previously. it's been in place for a while. while it included seismic retrofit before, i was curious as to what it's been like over the last program started. >> sure. what we had to do was adapt the city's green finance program through several pieces of legislation and the approvals were predicated upon one another which is why this is the fifth in a series of ordinances that have come before this committee. the purchase is to get people together into a pool of buildings. so, we have a dead line r line we've established by april 18 ferment so members that want to qualify for the first pool of financing have to complete an initial application which we've done with the department of environment and their assistance. that information would be submit today their quick safety implementation program and all these properties are pooled together so we can come up with a total dollar amount that needs financing. from there we'll have to vet the applicants to make sure they qualified. from then the bonds will be issued and sold to the investors and we would have a pool of financing to offer very

low interest loans to folks over a long term. it's a good option for folks that cannot secure conventional financing. >> haven't groups of parcels done this already before, authorized within this special tax district? >> unfortunately to date only one project has been financed through green finance sf. so, we're working with our partners over at the department of environment. we all agree this is kind of a much needed shot in the arm for this frame ~ program and a great way to kick start the project. >> what was that project? >> a project financed by the port a few years ago. >> you said there are some interested now for the april 18th deadline. >> um-hm. >> can you talk about folks that are interested or is that -- >> absolutely, sure. these are large property owners that have come to us saying they don't want to go to the banks even though we provided 10 to 15 banks providing different style loan products. a great way to have the private industry. we have to be responsible and

come up with our own financial industry. ~ optionses. it's a great way for mom and pop companies to allow them to pay back through property taxes. it's a unique way to fund it. loan transfers of the property, in the event the property is sold, the individual loans not responsible for paying the debt, the new owner that just assumes the loan continues that 20-year payment. >> you mentioned property owners. are they -- i'm curious what the outreach and the response has been like and do you try to cluster them together? >> geographically we wouldn't try to cluster them together because the boundary of the special tax direct is essentially the city and county of san francisco. so, really more so what we want to do is on timeline. we have this kind of first deadline. we have to set these deadlines because it makes much more sense it is a much more advantageous interest rate to the property owner if we have many properties that are pulling together. so far our interest has been in about 130 to 150 properties that have submitted initial interest and then we're starting to have the applications flowing now.

we're probably at about 20 or 30 applications so it's a great start. then what we'll do is based on the success of this first pool, if it makes saxes there is a demand, we'll go ahead and do continuing pools of this kind of financing. >> i'm really interested to see what properties are interested throughout the city and just to get a sense if it's an even mix throughout the city to ensure that we're doing outreach in neighborhoods that may not be applying. so, if you could provide that to us after the committee, that would be great. >> sure. >> thank you. that's all my questions. >> thank you, supervisor. >> he thank you very much. okay, we'll open item number 1 up to public comment. is there any public comment on item number 1? seeing none, public comment is closed. [gavel] >> colleagues, could i have a motion to forward item number 1 to the full board with positive recommendation? okay, moved by supervisor cohen, and we'll take that without objection. [gavel] >> madam clerk, can you please call item number 2? >> item number 2 is an ordinance amending the planning

code to change the designation of 660 california street, assessor's block no. 0241, lot no. 011 (a.k.a. the old st. mary's rectory), from category v (unrated) to category iii (contributory) under planning code, article 11; and making environmental findings, and findings of consistency with the general plan, and the eight priority policies of planning code, section 101.1. ~ california street. >> thank you. and we are joined today by mary brown from the planning department to speak to this proposed landmarking under article 11 of the planning code. >> if i can have the overhead. good afternoon, supervisors. mary brown, planning department staff to present the proposed changes designation of 66 0 california street, the old st. mary's church rectory building pursuant to article 11 of the planning code. the four story building was designed in an early modern contextual style [speaker not understood]. architectural firm skid more owings and merrill and construction was completed in 1966. the building meets article 11's criteria and grounds for a change of designation to a category 3 contributory building. the building's identified and clarifying features include all exterior elevations, the connecting bridge walkways and sustained glass buildingses at

the rear designed by mark adam. this change in designation was initiated by the property owner, the san francisco archdiocese. the building is located within the c-3 downtown zoning district. on november 20th, 2013, historic preservation commission voted unanimously to support a change of designation to a category 3 contributory building. there is no known opposition to this change. this concludes my presentation and i'm happy to answer any questions. is the owner supportive in >> they initiated themselves, great. thank you. colleagues, any questions or comments? okay. thank you, ms. brown. we will open item number 2 up for public comment. is there any public comment on item 2? seeing none, public comment is closed. [gavel] >> colleagues, could i have a motion to forward item 2 to the

full board with positive recommendations? so moved by supervisor kim and we'll take that without objection. [gavel] >> thank you. okay, madam clerk, can you please call item number 3? >> item number 3 is a hearing directed to the department of public works, municipal transportation agency, public utilities commission, and pacific gas and electric company to explore a number of issues, including where projects are occurring, including sewer, water, natural gas, and road resurfacing, and what the benefits of these infrastructure improvements are; how the projects are coordinated to comply with the city's mandate that once a road is resurfaced no work will be done for five years -- absent an emergency -- to minimize repetitive street disruption; why some blocks remain under construction for very extended periods of time, with on-again-off-again work and repetitive digging; how blocks are chosen in terms of scheduling work; how many blocks are worked on annually and what the future schedule looks like; how departments are minimizing disruptions to the public caused by road work (parking, traffic, detours, noise, dust, et cetera); how contractors are held accountable for completing work in a timely manner, complying with contractual requirements, delivering high quality work, and minimizing impacts on surrounding neighbors; why some blocks, after undergoing utility work, only get paved on one side of the street and what we can do to prevent this-- one please. i called for this oversight hearing to receive an update from various city departments, including department of public works, mta, puc as well as pg&e on the very significant amount of road work that is currently he occurring in san francisco. i think it's really important in looking at the big picture

to understand how important, in many ways unprecedented this road work is, and how positive it is. we have in this city i think delayed a lot of important road and underneath road truck work for way too long, and we are finally addressing it in a meaningful way. ~ infrastructure work we are gradually replacing our entire 100 year old sewer system that fails all too often. we are gradually upgrading our water system, and we know that we have too many water main breaks and so we're trying to address that. particularly in some neighborhoods like in diamond heights in my district which has a lot of water main breaks. we are -- pg&e is upgrading its gas lines, which is very important particularly from a public safety perspective. and the department of public works is aggressively engaging

in road resurfacing and, indeed, has doubled the amount of annual road resurfacing that it performs. thanks to the generosity of the voters in passing prop b, now thanks to the mayor and this board, we a prop b funding runs its course, we are fully funding road resurfacing out of the general fund. so, this is critical, overdue investment and it has to be done and the city is going to be better off for it. with all that said, any time you're doing a lot of road work that's going to benefit the city, of course any kind of road work is disruptive. streets get shut down. parking is temporarily lost. roads are not in great condition while they're being worked on. and, so, it's always going to

so they can come in and doing it before you complete the project and cover up the street. that is a very important rule because in the past the sewer department would come in and do work, finish it and resurface the street and then a year later someone else would dig up the street again. it was very frustrating. ~ ~ so, now we try to avoid that. but what that means when you have three or four different projects that have to happen, they happen one after the other and you don't know when one is going to end. and, so, then you have to have mobilization for the next project. and so forth. in addition, there have been some challenges with some contractors ~ in terms of how long a project takes or sometimes starting and stopping with no clear explanation why,

or having a gap during the project but there is still no parking signs up. and, so, it's led to some frustration, lack of understanding of the public in terms of what projects are happening, why they're happening, why are there gaps, why are there stops and starts, and so forth. and, so, the purpose of the hearing today is really to give an opportunity for the department and pg&e to talk about what work is happening, how the different departments are coordinating both internally and externally, how contractors are being held accountable to make sure that they're complying with their contractual obligations, how information about these projects is being communicated to the public particularly surrounding residents and surrounding businesses that are impacted, and how people can get information if they want

that information. so, i think people understand how important this work is and we just want to make sure that the coordination and the information is a good as it can be. and then in addition we want to make sure that we're being efficient, and particularly that the mta is given a full opportunity to come in and determine whether while we're digging up a road, should we be putting build outs or doing other upgrades to improve pedestrian and bike access because it's sometimes more efficient to do that while we're already doing the work. so, with that, colleagues, if there are no additional comments, i will invite mr. suites from the department of public works to come up and who will make some introductory remarks. ~ sweetses i know there is a presentation as well. >> good afternoon, supervisor wiener, supervisor kim, and supervisor cohen.

my name is brad sweetses i'm the deputy director for public works and the city engineer. and i want to start by thanking you for such thorough and comprehensive introduction. you made my job easier. i'm going to skip some of the sentences i wrote here today. we have representatives from public works. the municipal transportation agency, and puc here at your request to answer any questions after our presentation. and as you noted, when you called for this hearing on road work oversight, the unprecedented level of investment in our road and utility infrastructure is vitally important. you also noted that these projects, to upgrade our sewer, water, gas lines and streets disrupt people's lives on a daily basis. we don't dispute that, but what we hope to make clear today is that as stewards of the public right-of-way and our critical

public infrastructure, we go to a great length to minimize those disruptions through a methodical coordination and oversight. this is not only my mandated by city code, but it's also the core component of our collective missions. and it must be noted that these short-term disruptions result in long-term gains. there is no doubt that we would rather be praised than criticized for all the work that's taken place to improve san francisco, making our city safer, more resilient and more efficient to serve this generation and many more generations to come. like you, supervisors, at times we hear from constituents when a project seems to be taking too long to complete when there is dust, traffic congestion, vibrations, parking restrictions or noise, we take thea complaints very seriously and work to resolve them or make them less disruptive whenever we can. and sometimes when we can't or when we unintentionally drop the ball, we look for ways to

do a better job going forward. as you will see in one of the slides in the next presentation, we have hundreds of projects underway and the pipeline at any given time. and i assure you that the city agencies and when applicable private utility companies coordinate the work every day. i can tell you without hesitation that there is unpresidented level of synchronization. throughout all of our organizations, we hold regular safety first meetings including monthly check ins involving our directors to coordinate our projects to minimize disruption and to use our public funding wisely. we track progress using time technology and we make public outreach a priority. again, i want to thank you for holding this hearing. as i stated earlier, we have representatives led by vince harris who is the director at

mta and emilio cruz at puc here to answer any questions you have. together we prepared a powerpoint presentation presented by lynn fong at our bureau and street use mapping. the presentation will [speaker not understood] steps we take jointly to coordinate these projects. thank you. >> good afternoon, members of the board. my name is lynn fong. i'm from the department of public works. and the purpose of this presentation is to provide an overview of how city agencies work together to coordinate infrastructure projects within the public rights-of-way. again, i just wanted to emphasize, we have representatives from all departments on hand to speak about the specifics that you might have. so, coordination is imperative in the city's effort to improve the quality of life in san francisco, and coordination can

be successfully achieved through efficient, effective, and fair administration of the city's excavation code. the excavation code can be found in public works code article 2.4. article 2.4 governs the rules and regulations for excavating, coordinating and notification for excavation projects. this map you see is a map extracted from vista, the city's mapping tool that maps out projects in the public right-of-way. each icon on the map represents either a currently planned or ongoing construction project. as you can see from this map, we have a lot of excavation and projects going on in the city. and in order to ensure that public visitors and residents are able to safely navigate the city within the least amount -- with the least amount of construction disruption possible, it is imperative that excavators are required to coordinate projects. to give you just a summary, in 2013 alone, over 4,000 excavation permits were issued resulting in over 10,000 street

segments or 100 miles of impacted roadway. that means one in nine blocks in the city have a planned project or a project that's currently under construction. that includes 50 miles of paving, 15 miles of sewer, 15 miles of water replacement, ~ and 23 miles of pg&e gas main replacements. so, our goal to coordinate include minimizing the impacts of streets that are under construction, protecting the public's investment in the infrastructure improvements, and improving the public right-of-way by completing all public projects in the most efficient and effective way possible through the use of coordination tools and effective public outreach. coordination is a requirement of the public works code. specifically, public works code 2.4.12 is called the coordination of street construction and the requirements include the following. coordination shall occur when work is planned [speaker not

understood] within a five-year period. when work is planned in the time frame for two ore more city agency, one agency shall perform the work with an agency joining in a joint contract. also when work is planned within same time frame for two or more private utilities, one agency shall perform the work with the other agency joining in. permits shall be conditioned to maximize coordination and minimize construction [speaker not understood] construction period that owe can ierx. -- occur. as part of administrative code chapter 5 article 7, they are required to participate in a meeting called [speaker not understood]. it is utility liaison on construction and other projects. the duties of the subcommittee will be to work out scheduling of utility work that is connected to the department of public works projects. the purpose of the monthly coordination meetings are to create joint projects and to minimize the impact of construction on our streets and in our neighborhoods. members of cold call include

dpa, dpw, mta, puc, pg&e, comcast, at&t, dtis, sf thermal and other various telecom companies. >> in terms of how the coordination actually happens -- and i know it's very challenging so, you know, if pg&e goes in and starts by doing its work and it's going to hand off to the water department and the sewer department, so forth, i can imagine it being very challenging because there's no way to predict exactly how long, say, the initial agency is going to take and then presumably the second agency that's going to go in, they he need to bid out their contract. so, it can be a cumbersome project. presents a lot of challenges. and i know we ideally would love it that one agency ends and the next day agency picks up where it left off. how do the departments work to minimize the gaps between the projects?

because -- i've seen this in my district a few times -- from beginning to end it can take an awfully long time. how are you all trying to minimize those gaps? >> one of the main ways to minimize the gaps is to create what we just called joint projects. what that entails, there would be one contractor that does all the work instead of multiple contractors with multiple schedules. a joint contract will create just one contract with water, sewer, and paving, all tied into one. and to minimize the disruption, it is in a linear fashion. first sewer goes in because it's the leest utility, followed by water, and then finally by the paving. but it has to be in a linear fashion. and the way to minimize it is we do it in block segments at a time. we don't try to dig out the whole entire length. let's say there is a long project along market street. we would not completely dig out

the whole entire market street from first to ninth, let's say, and then come in later and do sewer. what we try to do is in more discrete segment at a time so we go from area to area. >> how does that work in practice? because i have heard of some projects that are very fast, where constituents report everyone got in and out pretty quickly from beginning to end was a few months. we've had a few others, like on casalle street, going up the hill, ended up being the sort of never ending projects. i'm sure there are complexities -- in practice, how does that play out? >> so, there are complexities like you did mention, the complexities do include sometimes there is repair work, unintended repair work that is discovered. and if that does happen, that type of work does need to go back into the design plan and although it doesn't seem as though we are not coordinating or we're not being

effective with the timing, there is some back -- there is behind the scenes work that is going on where let's say there is a repair work of water that is unattended that has to go back to the designer, that has to be replanned out, that has to be redesigned out and then has to go back to the contractor. change orders need to occur, and this does take time. it does seem like it takes a lot of time, but there is a coordinated effort to try to get that work done and completed in that segment as fast as possible. so, that's what happens. it's just the public doesn't see that. it's all behind the scenes. >> is there some sort of safety net to flag, for example, streets that it's taking an inordinate amount of time? that's what ends up causing the frustration where people say i know this is really important work, but why is it, you know, why are there these huge gaps in time and the streets in bad shape? >> well, what we do have are just -- when there is work that does occur, there are permit

requirements that start an end date -- say there is an extension. questions are asked, you know, the department doesn't just allow extensions to occur. they say, well, why do you need the extension? what work is entailed with this extended work for the water department, sewer? and if the contractor does have a reason why, we say, well, is there a way you can condense that time frame, do you need the extra two months or are there areas you can work on while you do the investigation for this particular area? so, there are questions asked instead of the contractor being allowed to work as long as they want. so, that's how we mitigate to what extent we could. >> in terms of the contractors, how are we -- i know there are different agencies that might be the contracting department with the contractor. how do we make sure the contractors are complying with their -- in terms of their contracting?

not just the timing aspect, but also just i think some of the smaller things that really can frustrate people in terms of cleanliness and picking up after themselves or trying to minimize dust so people aren't having enormous dust coming in their windows or covering their cars, or only putting up no parking signs when they're actually going to be doing work. i know that really drives people nuts when, you know, no work is happening for a week, yet the entire side of the street says no parking. how do we -- how do departments really hold the contractors accountable for those kinds of things? >> so, that's why we have inspectors at hand. we have bsn inspectors, we have department of public works, inspectors that are assigned to specific city contracts. we have puc inspectors and nmt inspectors, we do -- inspector are required to ensure that housekeeping is met, restoration is completed in a

timely manner, and basically to make sure the contractor adheres to the public works code excavation code 2.4 i mentioned previously. you know, like i just said, there is so much work going on in public right-of-way. inspectors can't be everywhere at all times. so, the way we engage with the public is you can always call 311 if you see a trench that needs to be repaired, or if you see dust that seems more than what it should be, or you know, just more construction disruption. we very much encourage the public to come out, to come and contact us through 311. and that's -- we work together, you know, with the community in that way. and as far as the parking signs, you know, that is a really big challenge for us. if you do see -- part of our notification is the parking signs. the parking signs are required to be placed a minimum of three days in advance so that the public does know, hey, there's work being planned in thi