exemptions and there is absolutely no reported case law under class six. it's kind of a wild west exemption, but perhaps not for long. the other exemptions that have been granted have been for real research where we are taking water samples or digging test wells. that's what the exemption is for. if they were just running around the city taking air samples, that will be information collection exemption. here it's not just information collection, the city's actually proposing to amend the city's transportation code to make legal what is currently illegal. it's currently a violation of the state vehicle code for a private bus to stop in a public bus stop. the mta has amended the transportation code to make it legal in the city of san francisco. i think that's preempted. i they the

city's law cannot violate the higher state law. regardless, this city is taking this legal action which will have a significant impact. although, the city is also proposing to change the location of many of these stops. that is not just information collection, that's moving the desk chairs around. the court's have construed ceqa exemptions very narrowly which in the cast ak lake got leveled in an earthquake and they said we are going to do a ceqa exemption and build higher and the courts said you can't do a ceqa exemption because you are not building it the way it was. once you go outside the narrow scope of the exemption, the exemption doesn't apply anymore. here the city is changing the law and changing the location of

the stops, transit, we've got transit engineer tom bror hard who says those changes alone will increase the number of shuttles, increase amount of traffic, increased amount of pedestrian impacts because many operators don't want to operate illegally. but they will operate once the city makes it legal to do so. >> if i may, when someone is cited, what is the basis of the violation, is it the code that they point to? >> yes. it's state code 22500 which makes it illegal for any vehicle to block the bus stop. >> who enforces that? >> the san francisco police

department or muni zone enforcement officers. >> are you saying the pilot says it's okay for the shuttles to violate that section of the code? >> yes. the primary legal action occurred in the pilot program is to amend the city's transportation code. the city's transportation code makes it ill egal for a private bus stop. the pilot project amends the city's transportation code to make it lawful for these private shuttles to block the muni stations. >> is the city amending the transportation code to allow any private citizen to use the stops? >> no. >> so you have a situation where the shuttles can park there, but if you and i do,

we will get -- >> $271. >> okay. >> the private shuttles would pay $1. >> another question, is there any requirement that a ceqa exemption relate to a pilot project that is actually legal or can you issue a ceqa exemption to do something that is illegal? >> i don't think the city can authorize an illegal activity, period. there is another argument in our letter that the transportation, there is this hierarchy in law. you are a harvard guy, you know this stuff. federal law supreme and then there is state law and local ordinances. the local ordinance has to comply with state law. state law flatly

prohibit private vehicles from stopping in these red zones. the city can't change that. in fact there is a california supreme case out of oakland that he would. oakland tried to make something lawful in the city of oakland that was illegal under the state vehicle code and the city said you can't do that. >> just a final question, do you have any case law that deals with that in the context of ceqa? >> no. not off the top of my head. there is azusa landfill that was leaking in violation of state water code and the court held that because the landfill was violating the state water code it could not be exempted from ceqa. that is fairly close and that is

cited in our papers. >> thank you. >> supervisor avlz avalos? >> >>supervisor john avalos: i'm a uc santa barbara guy. there is a comparison that my colleague was making well, there are bike lanes and zones and lanes that are blocked by cars that are not shuttles that there is an existing problem because cars are already doing this. but then there is private shuttles that are doing this as well. we are singling them out in our enforcement here. what are your thoughts about that? i think that there is consistent routes that the private shuttles have that are different from cars that randomly might be in a zone?

>> i think supervisor wiener mentioned things like cars, fedex trucks and shuttles. these shuttles are huge. they are much much larger than a private automobile and larger than fedex and larger than garbage trucks. >> we talked about the difference between intracity and inter city shuttles. the difference is that i don't notice the intracity buses that much. i know there are stops that are zoned and built out. i think of uc being that way. when i'm riding my bike on valencia street or when i'm with my kids on 24th street in noy valley and i see a shuttle go by, if i'm on my bike i have to swerve out of way deeply into traffic that i'm going to get blind sided and

on 24th street i see cars backed up for blocks trying to get around a bus and people edging around buses blocking their pathway make it very dangerous. what are your thoughts? >> absolutely. the buses tend to be much smaller and they have stops for a shorter period of time because there are fewer people boarding and unboarding. they have a less of an impact on pedestrian and bicycle safety and interference of traffic. i live around glen portal and that place is a mess because of giant buses getting in and out. you don't have that kind of impact with private cars or even with these short hall shuttle buses because they are smaller. here is a great visual from

the report commission by supervisor mar by the budget legislative analyst which shows the impact of the shuttle buses being greater than cars and other shuttles purely because of the size. these are giant 60,000 pound buses. >> then i heard from one of my colleagues that there is people who are in the bus on the shuttle buses are ascribed as not being san franciscans. i didn't hear you say that. did you say that? >> i never said that. >> i thought it was something taken out of context. i didn't hear you say it either. in fact i heard you say quite the opposite that they are contributing to local economy. >> they do wonderful thing. i know many of them and they drink very good scotch. >> so just something that hasn't been talked about and i think it's significant or could be significant or i don't know if you thought

about it yourself is that i look at other places around the bay area and the land use policies that are around these places make it very restrictive to build and build large amounts of housing. i think that's a contributing factor to people living in san francisco. not just that we have a brighter whiter tablecloths here but the fact that people can move here and there are more buildings going on here and market street dramatically change in the past 3 years with large high rise buildings and that is happening here. have you analyzed in any of your work what the land use policies are with people living here and on shuttles? >> a lot of these communities like mountain view are highly restrictive on housing especially low and moderate

income housing. there adds to the quality of restaurant. there are lots of good places in mountain view but other aspects driving people into the city. we do need more housing in the city of san francisco. >> certainly. i support that as well. do you think that land use policies, that you have elsewhere that are more restrictive saying in mountain view as your connection to our displacement issue in the city >> yes. to the extent that they won't build housing in mountain view or other areas near these large tech hubs, it forces people to look for housing elsewhere and if you are going to travel you might as well travel to a great place like the city of city of san francisco. i want to say one more thing about tech workers. i think they are good people and would like to see

this program mitigate it's impact whether they have to pay $2 to get on those buses and those $2 is used for low income and moderate use in san francisco. i think they would applaud that opportunity and we can give them that opportunity if we do an eir for the program. >> supervisor kim? >>supervisor jane kim: first of all the fact that we refer to tech workers as if they don't belong here. the asian immigrants were prevented from going into schools and which was in school. i don't think this is at all this same type of thing and i hope we stop using that type of analogy. i have a couple of questions in this appeal. first i want to

address the issue of displacement which you had that you have been asked quite a lot about. two questions, one, how strong does the correlation of displacement need to be. so i read the bla report as well. they were clear that there was no yet causal connection between the increase of the google bus. it does not show causal correlation. there is evidence of rent increase in that area but not sure of the rest of the areas. in terms of the case law that you looked at and how it defines displacement how strong does the correlation need to be and is there case law where there is not direct displacement. usually the displacement that i have seen in ceqa is

demolishing a placement. >> ceqa has three steps. one is a categorical exemption, two, a negative declaration, third is eir. that is step one. at step one which is the city saying we are not doing any ceqa at all, the standard is low. is there substantial evidence to establish a fair argument that the project may have significant environmental impacts. that's really low. and what the court's have held generally is that fair argument is created by any expert testimony. here we've got published journal articles and public legislative analyst report, we've got a report by alexandra goldman and report by stam an design by urban foundation and report after

report concluding there is a high correlation around these stops and higher rental displacement and that is enough to create a fair argument that these shuttles maybe having a significant environmental impact. that should trigger an eir which the city can do a full analysis of those impacts and are they significant and what can we do to mitigate them. is there enough of a nexus to require a fund for low and income housing moderate. i think this company would welcome the opportunity to do so as with the workers. unless we do the ceqa review, we won't know. >> under case law do you have examples of where this low standard where expert testimony simply gave a ruling that displacement had occurred and that further review need to occur?

>> not on this. it is set forth in the ceqa regulation appendix g subsection 12. the 710 freeway project is probably best known case on displacement where there is a direct displacement where the the neighborhood was bulldozed. this was different. i think we have enough expert testimony to establish an argument to establish that it requires further review. >> my next question was on the classic exemption and you said that this is for scientific research project. our office has been able to pilot pedestrian safety and bike safety efforts in our district both on sixth street and folsom street on this time of

exemption where we are studying removal of parking or car lane to but in a bulb out or put in an actual painted stripe bike lane to study as we move forward with a larger eir and redesign process for safety on those streets. the way you argued it seems that those types of pilots do not deserve those types of exemptions. i was hoping you would comment on it or how you would distinguish? >> i think this is a significant difference between this program and those. this one is illegal, those are not. >> there is nothing in what you quoted in the guideline that you can do the data collection as long as it's not

illegal activity. >> true. there is the case law like in tahoe case, a federal district court case. it is publiced. the glams case which is not published. both held that illegal activity cannot form the ceqa baseline and also those significant improvements, i think it would be difficult to find any expert that there is a fair argument that those have significant impact on the environment. whereas here, the emissions from the buses, the pedestrian safety and the noise impacts, experts have calculated those that would exceed significant thresholds. >> would you be able to define how you would exceed those ceqa thresholds. i agree, i think there is a difference from a lay terms standard to a citywide pilot project on shuttle buses. i in

intuitively understand that but how you would explain that in a legal argument how would you differentiate between those two types of exemptions if you say it was plainly for a scientific project that would draw the line between water testing and shuttle bus programs, is there something that you would articulate to the two. one of the arguments being made on the other side if you don't uphold this exemption, you are threatening other pilot for our city that makes it dangers for our pedestrians and cyclist. we are having this long-term study process to determine what is going to move forward best permanently. >> honestly, i haven't looked closely at those other class six exemptions. class six is

somewhat usable compensation. i think the city might use those under class one which is no possibility of any significant environmental impact and then it would be up to an expert to say that there is a significant impact and it would have to exceed numerical thresholds. the difference here is we have experts who have calculated that the impacts of this program exceed a numerical threshold that has been established for ceqa purposes by our regulatory agencies. >> my last question was on the supplemental letter we got yesterday on case law river

clammest. i was hoping that you could talk about that? >> it's not authority but it is in the administrative record. i think he got it right. he did a thank -- thorough job as the typical of judge goldsmiths where it is allowable to do an illegal pilot on this baseline. but there was a kwoerey. there's no way to put it back. in this case, you can put it back. the city could just start enforcing the law. that's like more like the lake tahoe case where there were illegal buoys in lake tahoe. and the

court said you can't not enforce the law and put a bunch of buoys in and say that's the baseline. that is entirely reversible. the buses are moving around. they can say don't use the red zone anymore. >> one of the arguments against the tahoe cases that it rested on the national environmental protection act versus ceqa. why would you use that case to support your argument here today? >> thank you. i love that question. lake tahoe is our best client. it didn't rest on neeb a. they have their own planning exact. it is called an eis which sounds like nip a, but it has to comply with

ceqa and nip a. the court analyzed both laws and it's very very similar. >> you think the court was clear on that ruling. i didn't read that ruling but you think the court was clear in that ruling that their definition of baseline applies to both ceqa and nipa. >> the court based that on the entire regional law which must comply with ceqa and nipa. >> but did not clarify? >> it wasn't crystal clear. >> back to my final question, back to the other case that was referred in this case, the airport. the fact case. in this case they actually did allow illegal activity to include in the baseline. it

seemed the county did the have authority to permit or not permit the expansion of the airport. how would you distinguish this from the fact case? >> well, frank fat owns a very popular restaurant where all the politicians have lunch. it's a funny case. but it was a permanent, basically baseline was a permanent change to the environment kind of like river watch. the airport was expanded illegally, the run ways were on the ground and they have been there for a long time and already some enforcement action and they ak gsh acquiesced to it. we don't have a set of permanent shots

and set of shuttle terminals. i think that is the difference between river watch and lake tahoe and clams and whether there is a base on a real fact on the ground or just a lack of enforcement. >> thank you very much. >> thank you. colleagues. any further questions to the appellant. thank you, mr. drurey. with that why don't we hear public comment from the members of the public which a support the appellant. what i would like to do is start with the ceqa appellants themselves. i would like to call mr. short, if there are

others who would like to speak, please lineup. every public member will have 2 minutes to speak. >> can i pass these out? >> yes. our clerk will come and circulate them. >> okay. thank you very much. my name is alexandra goldman, a city planner and i wrote the report on google shuttles in san francisco. according to my research and the literature the buses are having an impact on rental prices in san francisco and that's what i would like to summarize for you today. my research focused on five shuttles stops which you can see here on this map. it compared rents within a

walkable distance to the shuttle stops and i found that rents close to the shuttle stops are rising faster than rents outside the shuttle stops up to 20 percent as faster. my research is focused on transit development which shows that rental prices near transit investments tend to go up. does this mean that the city should stop investing in transportation. it provides a public good for people. what we are looking at this in situation creates a private good but a public rising of prices and negatively impacting people in that way. these companies should be held responsible for offsetting the negative they create.

additionally the housing marketing economics agree with my research. when they talk about the cost of housing and transportation combined because the further you live away from your job and grocery store, the more you have to pay to get there. this eliminates the cost of transportation for an already reasonably well group of people it's not surprising at all that the shuttles would be attracting more people for rent and driving rent up in san francisco. >> i have an equi -- quick question. in your study did it include the shuttle stops across the city? >> no. we focused on 5 shuttle stops. >> how did you select the 5 stops. >> mostly i looked at the high area of renters and we looked at tenant issues when i was

doing this research. >> do you know how many shuttles stops there are in this city? >> i'm guessing 50. maybe someone has a better guess. >> the other stops that are around the city they are in residential areas as well? >> generally, yes. >> so these areas they are in they are also homes, single family homes? >> yes. there are some single family homes. >> do you know the areas where there is a correlation of single family homes being sold? >> i can only speak to rent. i don't know anyone studying the impact of housing prices. that would be interesting to look at. >> thank you. >> next speaker?

>> before i start. i would like to say that i have answer to your questions. >> we don't want to stop buses. we want to minimize impacts on muni and mitigate their safety rest. until they are able to measure the employable, the mta schumann force the law to regional buses to continue to operate the buses. the planning department opposes out appeal because the commuter appeal is part of the existing environment. but their proposed baseline is invalid because of illegal activity allowed by mta's willful failure to stop in muni's zone and this directly relates to