purpose of [speaker not understood] attachment a is really a decision. [speaker not understood] figure out what the c-e-q-a exemption is applying to. the second point i want to make from the legal side is it appears the mta would like this to be considered an appeal of the entire budget. there is rarely necessity under c-e-q-a for the board to do so. you can treat this as an appeal of the c-e-q-a decision to cease sunday meter parking. k-5 by the planning commission that has you have to look at the whole [speaker not understood]. projects were being proposed with 10,000 units and the agencies were trying to segment that project into different pieces the idea of looking at the project as a whole was designed to protect the environment, it was designed as a shield so agencies couldn't

avoid -- agency couldn't shish you your project [speaker not understood] within an overall budget proposal. the other thing is on my letter that i submitted yesterday, there are a number of cases there on page 4 of the discussion of why the board has the discretion to treat this as a limited appeal, object to decision on sunday meter parking. the last point i would make is my colleague has mentioned that free muni for youth is an important initiative that they support and i believe there's a number of ways to avoid having to go through the same process that is here under c-e-q-a, that their data grid exemptions are common sense subjections, [speaker not understood] avoid the process. thank you. >> thank you, kiloton. ~ colleagues. any final questions to any of the parties involved today? seeing none, this hearing is held and is filed.

is there a motion? supervisor wiener. >> thank you, mr. president. i want to thank the departments and also the appellants not just for being here today [speaker not understood], but also for the incredible work that i know the folks who are here today do argue on a basis to try to improve san francisco. as i mentioned before, we worked together on those issues and sometimes frequently it's been an uphill battle. as i mentioned at the beginning, this is -- this appeal is not about whether members of this board would like sunday meters or don't like sunday meters. this is not about the vlf. we all have a lot of us and develop these issues this is whether they applied a statutory exemption to its decision to no longer enforce sunday meters. i won't repeat some of the

questions that i asked to the appellant before. i do think that the appellant's lawyer did the absolute best job that he could do in trying to turn what is a policy disagreement into a c-e-q-a argument. i don't think anyone could have made that argument any better than the appellants' attorney did, but i think that it is pretty clear that this is not a c-e-q-a issue. the statutory exemption was correctly granted regardless of what thing of a substantive policy decision. and my concern is there are times when it's tempting as a member of the board of supervisors, if you agree on a policy level, you can say [speaker not understood]. there are times this board has done this over the past i think 12 or 13 years, at least the

[speaker not understood] will come to the board of supervisors. it doesn't matter. that affects that appeal and i'm done with it. i'm very concerned to say if we [speaker not understood] cannot [speaker not understood], it would start a broad precedent and we would see appeals around all sorts of decisions around fees and reductions and so forth. and we would end up probably seeing higher levels of c-e-q-a review. mr. tyler mentioned negative declaration. negative declaration, it's a big deal. that is not such an easy thing to do. they are expensive. they are lengthy. we went through a negative declaration on the lois park renovation and it added a year and a half to the project and cost a lot of money. and so that's not a reason to do c-e-q-a review if it's required.

but i think rejecting a correctly statutory exemption because one might disagree with the underlying policy decision and trying to force it into a higher level of c-e-q-a review has profound i ~ implications not just for this issue, but others that mta and other agencies deal with situations around fees and fines and fares and so forth. and, so, i have tremendous respect for the appellants as a legal matter. i believe we have a responsibility to apply c-e-q-a consistently and consistent with state law. and, so, i don't think that a broad c-e-q-a appeal has been stated here. and, so, i will make a motion to reject the appeal to move item 30 and to table items 31 and 32. >> supervisor wiener has made a motion, he [speaker not understood] affirm the

statutory exemption. seconded by supervisor cohen. any further discussion? supervisor campos. >> thank you, mr. president. i do want to thank all the parties in this item that have spoken on both sides of this issue. and i certainly want to thank the appellants who i think have raised some very important questions. and i have to say that for me it's been a difficult thing, this item, because i think that a number of issues, legitimate issues have been raised by the appellants. and i actually think that even if you don't want to see sunday meter parking irrespective of where you are on the issue, i actually think that the way in which this matter has been handled by the mta respectfully is not something that anyone on either side of the issue should be happy with.

because i do think that the appeal points to the fact that we do have a muni mta system that, in my view, is broken in terms of how we say board decisions are handled. and i think that the way in which muni, the mta board of directors came to essentially not make a decision on this illustrates that the forum is needed. and let's be very clear, that the reason why the mta budget included the -- an item that basically did not include -- did not provide for funding out of sunday meters is because the mayor wanted it that way. we have a budget system that essentially is run by decisions

that are made in the mayor's office and the fact that the mta board of directors did not expressly vote on that issue is precisely because that's what was wanted by the administration. and whatever side you are on the issue, i don't think it's a good way of transportation policy to be made. i think that there should have been a robust discussion by the mta board of directors. whatever you felt about the issue i think that the public deserved, the opportunity to have a public debate about the issue. and the fact that under the current governance structure, something like that doesn't happen points to the need to reform that governance structure. i don't think that irrespective

of who the mayor should be that those policy decisions should be made out of [speaker not understood]. i think they should be made by the governing body of this agency. and that's why, you know, for quite sometime i have been saying and will continue to say that we need to restructure the governing body of the mta, that we need to provide more accountability so that these kinds of decisions are made in the open and not behind closed doors. and i think that if we have a governing body that was not controlled by one branch of the executive, or even by the legislative that actually reflected the interests and the needs of the ridership, i think that you would have a different process. that said, i am appreciative of the fact that the appeal has raised those questions. the question, though, is, you

know, what is the right -- the right solution. and i don't think that c-e-q-a or environmental law ultimately provides the solution here and i think that even if we were to grant the appeal we still would have a fundamental problem. and it's a fundamental problem that goes to the very governance of this agency, and that's why as much as i appreciate the intent of the appeal, i don't think that c-e-q-a is the solution here. i think that the solution is to actually perform the way this agency is governed. and i think that if we did that and we made it more accountable and transparent that we would actually have a better result irrespective of which side of the issue you're on. and it's not, by the way, just issues around parking, but about service and how service is -- decisions around service are made. under the charter, the board of

directors only have to make decisions on certain items. . and the way that service decisions are made, they're made in such a way that the difficult decisions are voted in terms of public discussion ~. and i don't think that's right either, so, notwithstanding the good intentions of this appeal, i don't believe that legally this is the best way to resolve this issue. i appreciate that the fact that the appellants brought this up, and i would encourage the appellants -- and i would encourage the appellants as well as the people who are on the other side of this issue to work together on reforming this agency because i think that there is a lot of common ground irrespective of how you feel about the underlying issue. but based on how i see the law, i will be voting against the

appeal even though, like i said, i think that some very important issues were raised. thank you. >> supervisor wiener. >> thank you, mr. president. i just, i just need to -- i appreciate supervisor campos' perspective. i don't think that the struggles that we've seen with the mta and with muni have anything to do with transparency or lack thereof. i think the mta -- it's an imperfect agency like any large agency, but it is quite transparent in many ways. the struggles that this agency has are because, let's really be real about this, because of political decisions that are made in this building by elected officials including the board of supervisors and including the mayor, and not just this mayor, but mayors going back for a long time. and systematically, the elected officials in this building have not prioritized transit

funding, period. and the fight that we just had about the vlf, the fight that we had about the transit impact development fee and the conversation about free muni without finding a source to actually pay for free muni on sustainable long-term basis, those all have real impacts on transit delivery in this city. so, i think it's important to recognize that and not just say we have transit problems. let's just blame it on the agency so it needs to be more transparent f. this board of supervisors appointed all 7 members of the board of directors of the mta muni would still have $2.2 billion in deferred maintenance and the system would still be struggling. so, i think it's important if we're going to be discussing what the challenges are around transit in this city to look at the political dee significants that get made by elected owe fishedv in this building that for many years have placed muni at the bottom of the list when it comes to budgeting priorities and making sure we're a transit first city. >> supervisor campos.

>> i do want to respond to that because i think that there's been a lot of rhetoric about how we're supposedly transit first and how we don't make decisions that prioritize public transit. but the fact is time and time again, some of the same people that are making those statements have refused to hold developers and other interests accountable when it come to public transit. so, i think we have to be clear about where the facts are. i do believe there will be a difference if you had a different governance structure at the mta. i do believe that there is something to be said when your entire appointment or reappointment is dependent on one elected official who gets to decide whether or not he or she likes decisions you make. i do think that's relevant. but i do think that what's happening here is that you have a budget that basically -- a proposed budget made the decision for the board of

directors, a decision that quite frankly should have been made in the public by that board of directors which is the policy setting body. i don't think that we are elected or appointed to run away from important decisions. i don'ttionv those should be made by staff, they should be made by policy makers and i don't think that happened here. >> colleagues, we have a motion on the floor on whether or not to affirm the statutory exemption. supervisor mar, final comments. >> thank you. i'll speak against the motion. i'm supportive of the appeal. i'm in agreement with supervisor campos that having a split appointment of the mta board would have allowed more of a thorough discussion of the environmental impacts of rolling back a great policy on sunday parking meters. that was a compromise from noon to 6:00. i do feel it important to respond to supervisor wiener's points. i don't agree that this would

-- that his rationale to reject the appeal would be wise. i think the precedent set by tucking a bad decision by the mta board within their full budget without any analysis and great points brought up by the appellants, and also other entities like walk s.f. and the bicycle coalition and others. it's a bad precedent to hide the political elephant in the room, which is a mayoral decision to roll back a policy that was to protect the environment and lots of important benefits without any discussion and without a thorough review of the environmental impacts which i think are significant. and i'll just read from the december mta report and i think there is tremendous contradiction with the mta's decision given their december report which i think needs to be referenced more and more. i'm just reading from the street blog article from aaron [speaker not understood] from january 16th where he questions

whether rolling back the sunday meters would lead to significant environmental impacts. he's asking in the article that the mayor's position could be framed in another way. do we want to double the average time drivers take to find commercial parking spots on sundays? do we want to reduce turn over by at least 20%, meaning that fewer customers can park in each space? do we want to cut the availability of commercial parking during sunday business hours in half? do we want to reduce occupancy of under utilized parking garages on sundays like 13%? i think the december report shows that good benefits of the policy, and i feel that reversing it and rolling it back is not a step towards the transit first city. i feel like it's a step towards car dominant city and that's the total opposite direction i want to go as a supervisor on this board. all just say that the appellants have raised some good issues and i hear the legal arguments from some of my

colleagues, but i do feel that framing categorical exemption or statutory exemption is really the legalese of what you've done, which is tucking important issue that needed much more environmental analysis. so, that's why i'll be supporting the appeal. >> colleagues, let's take a roll call vote. madam clerk? >> supervisor campos? >> can we have a motion? >> supervisor wiener's motion to affirm the statutory exemption. >> aye. >> campos aye. supervisor chiu? chiu aye. supervisor cohen? cohen aye. supervisor farrell? farrell aye. supervisor kim? kim aye. supervisor mar? mar no. supervisor tang? tang aye. supervisor wiener? wiener aye. supervisor yee? yee aye. supervisor avalos? avalos no. supervisor breed? breed aye. there are 9 ayes and two no's. >> the statutory exemption is finally affirmed. [gavel]

>> madam clerk, can you call the items related to the housing element e-i-r p.l.. >> items 33 through 36 comprise the public hearing of persons interested in the planning commission's decision dated april 24th, 2014 certifying a final environmental impact report for the proposed 2004 and 2009 housing element. item 34 is a motion to affirm the planning commission's certification of the final environmental impact report. item 35 is a motion to reverse the commission's certification of the final environmental impact report. and item 36 is a motion to direct the preparation of findings. >> colleagues, we have in front of us today the appeal of the final environmental impact report for the 2004 and 2009 housing element. for these hearings we normally consider the adequacy, accuracy, sufficiency, and completeness of the final environmental impact report of which you all have copies. but because this is an appeal of a revised e-i-r, chapter 31 of the administrative code limits our board's review to only those portions of the

e-i-r that have been revised. in this case, these would be just the alternative section. we'll first hear from the appellants who will have up to 10 minutes in total to describe the grounds for the appeal. we will then take public comment from individuals speaking on behalf of the appellants. each speaker will have two minutes to present. we will then hear ha from the planning department who will have 10 minutes to describe the ground for the certification of the e-i-r. we will have someone speaking on behalf of the real party in interest. then appellants will have three minutes for rebuttal. colleague, any questions? seeing none, i will ask appellant to make your initial presentation. >> thank you, mr. president, members of the board. i'm cathy supervisor farrell and i represent san franciscans for livable neighborhoods in this appeal. we're here because the superior court found that the city violated the requirements of the california environmental quality act because the e-i-r's discussion of alternatives was conclusory and unsupported by fact and the findings rejecting

alternatives were conclusory and unsupported by fact. the court set aside the certification of the e-i-r and approval of policies with potential for physical environmental impact. and the city -- excuse me. the court issued a writ ordering the city to refrain from approving the enjoined changes in the 2009 housing element until it complies with c-e-q-a and significantly. the writ states that the writ will remain in effect until the court determines based on your return that you fully complied with c-e-q-a as to the matters set forth herein. i mention this so that you don't overlook the fact that the city may not reapprove the 2009 housing element under this writ. the writ which is served on the city requires the court determine whether you've corrected the deficiencies before you can reapprove the housing element. and i see in item 24 you passed the reapproval on the first reading. so, i just want to make sure

you haven't overlooked this. now, the revision has not corrected the defects in the analysis of alternatives or findings. they're still conclusory and unsupported by facts. a couple preliminary facts, the e-i-r states the pipeline units anticipated to be developed to 25,000 more than the 31,000 units sought by the regional housing needs allocation for the 2007 to 2014 planning period, and further rezoning an area planning could add another 27,000. the e-i-r also admits that the allocation can be accommodated under existing zoning. the city has been overproducing market rate housing at 150% of its target whereas only 13% of the moderate housing was produced. the e-i-r eliminated the focused development alternative and the discussion is still conclusory. the revision explains that this

alternative would comprise existing zoning at the time of notice of preparation was issued and it would include the increased capacity provided in area plans adopted after the 2004 housing element which increased capacity by over 55,000 units and served to expand potential development capacity in these areas using tools such as high increases, removal of maximum density, removal of minimum required lot sizes and reduction or elimination of parking requirements. since the area plans approved included strategies that encourage affordable housing, evidence does not support the claim in the revision that this alternative would compromise the city's ability to achieve the affordability goals of the arena. the allegation that these policies and this alternative allowed little or no growth for outside of these areas with unexplained and contrary to the definition of this alternative

as utilizing the existing zoning outside the plan area. so, the allegation this alternative would require down zoning or limited [speaker not understood] outside of the plan area is contrary to the definition of this alternative as using the existing zoning. what it means is that you just don't rezone the areas outside the plan area. the plan areas have already been up zoned. so, that made no sense. the reduced land use alternative stated in the e-i-r was some allocation which distributed projected growth to unidentified geographic areas and assumed less growth city-wide. the revision and responseses to comments still fail to identify the geographic areas to which the land use allocation would be allocated and fail to state the lower number of units. so, we still don't know. the revision claims that housing produced under alternative a would generally result in patterns of

residential development that are relatively dispersed throughout the city compared to the 2009 element. so, this is flatly contradicted by the definition of alternative a [speaker not understood] existing redevelopment plans were 90% of the additional housing is expected to be constructed. and as explained by the legislative analyst, the tools that were adopted in these new area plans such as maximum density removal, and height increases and elimination of parking requirement or reduction approving development strategies which increase housing production. ~ where 90% the evidence in the record shows that the lion's share of the growth is intended to be focused in these plan areas. so, since 90% of the growth is expected there where growth is directed to transit, there is no evidence indicating that a significant or appreciable amount of growth outside the

plan areas would occur in disperse locationed throughout the city and the e-i-r provides no estimate or attempts to explain how much growth would occur outside those areas. so, the discussion of alternative [speaker not understood] is it still conclusory. and the assertion of alternative a could result in more developments built to the maximum building heights city-wide than the 2009 housing element is also conclusory and unsub poderthed because the policies in the 1990 residence element strongly maintains neighborhood character and didn't contain any policies that encouraged development built to maximum building heights. ~ a so, the evidence does not support the [speaker not understood] alternative a would increase housing to a greater extent in the 2009 housing element. we submitted expert testimony by city planner david [speaker not understood] that there are feasible alternatives available that would reduce effects and because this project would have a significant effect on transit

it's unlawful for the city to approve it if there are feasible alternatives available. so, based on this evidence it would be unlawful to reapprove the housing element. the june draft of the housing element was feasible. it contained language stating that in rh-1 and 2 neighborhoods, density would be maintained to preserve neighborhood character. this was eliminated in subsequent draft and an expert explained this would degrade the quality of those neighborhoods. and also this change was not vetted with the community advisory group. another feasible alternative explained by the expert is to eliminate the unlimited area plans and policy 1.2. the 2009 housing element generally promotes increased density through use of community planning [speaker not understood]. while implementation of the housing element would not directly affect area development plans, the e-i-r

says it would encourage new area plans with similar planning related strategies that may be designed to accommodate growth. directing housing to fewer areas or providing lesser housing units would reduce the significant impacts on transit which are based on lack of funds to increase the transit based on the increased housing growth. and there is a lot of testimony that the city is currently experiencing incapacity problems with muni and it's not just a future problem. the expert also explained that the excess market rate transit subsidy alternative is feasible and under this one the alternative would impose a appropriate per transit mitigation fee on all market rate housing units that are produced in excess of the market reallocation of market rate units in the applicable planning period and use the money to reduce the significant impacts on transit. this was feasible and as we

explained, the over production of the market rate housing units is contrary to the [speaker not understood] allocation. the overproduction of market rate condominiums [speaker not understood] silicon valley and other locations to the south of san francisco especially as to the condominiums being built in the south of market area near the freeway on ramp. the city used the wrong standard in rejecting alternatives. if there is any evidence in the record that there is a feasible alternative that could reduce the significant effect, the city is precluded from reapproving the housing element. but the city instead referred to the different standards saying that the e-i-r analyzed an appropriate range of alternatives. that's a different standard than the standard that applies to whether you can approve it based on the fact that there are feasible alternatives available. so, these are just some examples, you know. we incorporate our comments

that we previously submitted and of course there is not time orctiontion you know, go through all the examples, but i just want to read the end of the writ which says, you are further command today comply with the requirements of c-e-q-a concerning the housing elements described herein by june 30, 2014 and pursuant to the court's retained jurisdiction over your proceedings by way of the return to the writ, this preemptory writ will remain in effect until this court determines based on your return to the writ that you have fully complied with c-e-q-a as to the matters set forth herein. so, this body cannot determine that you have complied. the court must determine it before you can reapprove the project. i want to thank you very much. >> thank you very much. let me ask if there are members of the public that wish to speak in support of the appellant. please step up. good afternoon, board of supervisors.