government audit and oversight committee. >> >> please stand by... >> >>

i'm the chair, supervisors supervisor london breed: and we have >>supervisor katy tang: and >>president david chiu: the city clerk is erica major and i would like to thank sf gov. tv. san francisco television. madam clerk do you have any announcements? city clerk: please make sure to silence any cell phones or electronic devices. items will be on the agenda unless otherwise stated. >>supervisor london breed: please call the next item.

>> item 140828. hearing on the status of the 8 washington sight including but not limited to questions. >> >>president david chiu: i have asked for this hearing for two reasons given the proposed washington project on november 2015 and i have been asked as many of you have been asked by members of the public on what is the status of this site. there has been a lot of confusion about it and members of the public who are not sure if there is a project that is not proposed yet and what the future entitlement project might look like and i have asked the court to give us an update on what the future may hold. the second reason, the neighborhood groups that i have worked with over the years have raised questions about the history of the entitlement of this area and

around long documents that didn't is surface years ago. while they are technical and historical, they get to the heart of the concerns that many members of the public have had about this project. they include added height scale of the the site and recreation and open space that accompany the new build out of the area when it was under the new redevelopment agency decades ago. i have asked for questions. one more final comment. my goal today is not to replay the drama of 2013. i would like to have a discussion as we look into the future. at this moment i understand the port is taking comment on the water front land use plan and it is my hope we can move past mistakes from our appropriate development on our water

front. i would like to invite representative from the port, mr. jonathan stern and i want to thank mr. stern for you being here and i want to ask you a number of questions around the status of the washington project. my understanding that the pacific water front partners, the specific project that lost the height increase referendum and the ballot measure still have some negotiating agreement with the port of the san francisco and i'm wondering if that's correct and if you can talk about what's in effect after november 2013 and the election results? >> thank you, >>president david chiu:. we have an exclusive negotiating agreement with the water front partners. this ena has been enforced

and amended since 2009 when we started working on a public private partnership. it is enforced currently essentially as the time frames, the terms of the ena is suspended at this moment after force majority to acts or events that are beyond the control of the developer or the port. in this case, there is a number of issues related to lawsuits about this project specifically about ceqa as well as permitting. so, currently we received a letter from the developer i believe is dated august 2012 that essentially says that we are asking for a pause or the terms on the exclusive negotiating

agreement until matters regarding ceqa, lawsuits and permits are cleared and that's the current status. >>president david chiu: i understand typically the course measure are considered acts of gods, earthquake, fire, some catastrophic natural event that no one anticipated at the time of the contract, you are saying that lawsuits trigger -- >> i think, if i can a pine without an attorney. it's often acts of god or things beyond control. many contracts regarding complex real estate deals use the concept of force imagine you're in other ways in any other ena, development agreements for ceqa and litigation.

>> i used to negotiate force masseur classes and i understand why you would want to have a provision in effect. so the ena you are saying is indefinitely? >> it's not indefinitely. force masseur as a landlord are we expected to hold our land indefinitely when we are on hold with a contractor trying to clear these issues. they are limited to 48 months to four 4 years. partially because many of these are legal matters and unfortunately these kind of lawsuits 48 months of

force from 48 months from august of 2012. >> that's august of 2016? >> that's correct. >> there is no way to get out of that? >> we have to give them time to clear these issues. >> i'm the city attorney, i'm not familiar with this contract. happy to discuss with you or the department after the hearing. >>president david chiu: i

would like to take a look at that to see for myself what those documents like like. can you give us an idea of what's happening at this moment? >> at this moment both parties are obligated to meet regularly, but we haven't received any proposal from the private developer. they are considering their options about what a future project will look like from a financial perspective. we as the port have been trying to make it clear that the public benefit that we sought and agreed to in the original project that will be in place and that's been our position that we do these projects as much of anything for public benefit. and just a perspective we see a lot of

351, which is a sliver of the project. about 29,000 square feet and represents the whole site. our primary what we are seeking as a department is better public access and public open space along embarcadero and the water front and better access to the water front. >> you've been having meetings with them? >> yes we are having meeting as required. >> what are you discussing if there is no proposal? >> there are a number of issues and talk a wide ratio of issues because the party is a party in this lawsuit and that's been an issue we have been discussing. we have been discussing preliminary ideas but they haven't advanced any proposals to us. >> i knee -- know there are rumors that there may be something

unveiled soon. can you talk about that? >> i this i the developers, their investments and there is lawsuits and other reasons they couldn't move forward. anyway they are always concerned about timing on the party's part and that's normal in our development and i think the way they have been expressing i have been trying to be as open to the public. they are striving to have a project so they can start talking to the public and neighborhood groups about it. >> do you have any sense of contours of what that might look like? anything what you might propose? >> we are talking about affordability levels about the ports and sf took in discussion now about the and

we are talking about affordable housing and we have been talking, i think there is a presumption that we also heard the voters on prop b and heights and not increasing heights and those are principals we have been discussing across the table. i think those are the most important building blocks of the project. >> so you think it's fair to say the ports position it should not be higher. >> correct. >> can you talk about the water land use plan and as you know this is a document that has taken into heart -- lessons of the proposed project and can you give us a sense of how this draft plan has incorporated

in the last few years and discussion around this project? >> i will do my best. it's a large document. it's about 250 page document. it covers about 125 for projects that have dealt with the land water useful plan. we are trying to do an analysis by subarea. so the greatest amount of element that has happened here has been reflecting the northeast water front directly adjacent to the property. technically this property is in the ferry building area water front area. so, when you look at port property in the ferry building area 351 is first of all almost that area is

designated as an opportunity site with the land use plan which means a development site. we have been very successful over the last 15 years or so in the renovations of pier one in the ferry building called land water use and 351. so the review really says that other than this relative small site that the ferry began looking on the ferry basis from the plan and the review, that the site is largely been successful and renovated and built out and notes that we do have a contract and exclusive negotiating agreement for this site. so, i'm not sure the site, the water front land use plan reviews this particular project or particular site in greater detail. >> can you also just let the public

know how long everyone has to county comment -- comment on the direct view? >> the water land use plan we are asking for written comments through november 30th. we have stakeholders who have been good to point out that practically means sending comments before the thanksgiving holiday is appropriate and that won't be the end of public review but after we receive the formal or written comments we will try to assemble that into a final review with some action items and we'll present that to the port commission without knowing the magnitude of the number of comments and the extent of the comments because the water front has many many issues to deal with. we don't know exactly when with that second round if you will to come before the hearings. >> one more question, do you have any information about the contractual

relationship between pacific water front partners and the private owners of the swim and tennis club site? >> i do not have any current information. >> okay, because i understand at some point that contract is going to be up and the port may not be look k at a project that comprise of the c 1 lot around that. >> i think it will change the terms dramatically if they don't control the site. >> to my knowledge it's going to be up before the four 4 years is up. >> when we find out specific word of that, we will monitor that and that will affect our ena relationship. >> are you aware of any in >> i'm not aware of any deadline in the contract. >> okay. i want to thank you for your perspective on this. we may have more questions for you after the planning department

speaks and public comment. at this point i would like to turn to the planning department. i would like to thank mr. ram for being here many welcome back for this project. as my staff informed you and your staff, there were some documents uncovered a few months ago that surprised us all and i want to take a moment to thank the public attorney who worked on neighborhoods association and neighborhoods in the area recently uncovered the 1977 plan use development that covered most of the gold gate swim and golden club. i know you had a chance to review these documents. can you explain what that is? when i read these documents it appears

the term of the document required the maintenance and development of the recreation area, in other words spelling out the conditions of the pud that we protect that recreation area. i think many of us want to understand why this document did not is surface earlier, why should the planning department have considered it that this site went through years ago. >> good morning, supervisors, john ram, planning director. the planned union development an approval where the planning commission can approve a project that vary some of the requirements of the code of the site plan that addresses some of the concerns or requirements in the code or different ways and it might vary some open space requirements or set backs of the open requirement of the code to return from the site

plan and return from meeting those in certain ways. the plan did meet the pud sight in 1977 which was developed back in the 70s. in 2012, the planning commission approved a pud for the proposing washington development. same basic concept approved in different ways. since a pud is not a legislative action, it's an approval of a plan. the planning commission by approving one plan much like changing one zoning to another, the planning commission changed the one sight to another. there is not an action to undue a previous approval. it's changing one plan of the approval to another. >> did you know about these documents?

>> certainly we knew that the commission had approved plans in 1977. i certainly don't know about this specific plan but certainly we were aware of the plan. >> i have a question for the city attorney on this issue. my question is when a planning unit development is approved that it supercedes and become the planning code that governs that site. can you elaborate on it? >> i don't think i can. >> the actual approval in 1977 praufs approves the boundary of that. in fact most of the tennis club is not within the pud. >> but it does involve a portion? >> a half of tennis court basically. >> what you are saying that

even though you weren't aware of this 1977 specific pud at the time because of the action the position of your department because of the action you took in 2012 even though you had known about it, it supercedes what happened in 1977. >> that's correct. >> i guess you can imagine the concerns here that took place on this project whether the existence of this document cast doubt on the legality of that. i guess we'll continue to ponder that question. i know also the planned unit development and er's questions the height of those areas and the documents from the 1970s reduced the height in the parcels to 84 feet which we knew were at 40 feet. at the time in 2012 we were

told the height was really 275 even though 84 and 40 feet. can you comment why it would have been incredibly helpful to potentially have legal ramification that this board was not aware of the fact that in 2012 those 1977 decisions had already been made and i want to understand your department's perspective on that. >> the plan put forward did include 25 story towers in the entire area and that was reduced in the development proposal from 8 to 4 stories. the pud approved, the actual plan did include what is out there today which is a 4 four 4 story complex. the zoning is 275 feet for whatever reason the board of supervisors did not choose to actually change

the zone height limit on these sites. they are still today zoned for 275 even though they are only 45 feet or so. >> my understanding in 1977 the planning commission and board of supervisors each enacted to amend the golden gate way redevelopment plan reducing the firm to 84 feet. are you saying they did not do that? >> they took the action in the redevelopment plan, but the redevelopment plan expired in 2009 and the underlining zoning is at 275 feet and that's been in effect for the last five years.5 years. >> can you explain that again. there was something the board didn't do? >> the board did not actually amend the planning code. the board amended the redevelopment plan. so what happened in the 70s when you amended the development plan you amended the redevelopment plan which was

the controlling document at the time. the golden gate redevelopment plan expired five 5 years ago. when a redevelopment plan expires much like the western addition or embarcadero, this is the document what controls the land use on that site. that it's reverted back to the underlining zoning when it expires. >> so your per expects -- perspective it was 40 feet. >> it wasn't an elimination. redevelopment plans have an expiration date for 30 or 40 years. this plan expired in 2009. >> okay. that's a really interesting point. so in other words we should be careful and look at all redevelopment plans to ensure that we are not having any

inadvertent zoning. >> there are a number of plans that have expired recently because the plans were put in place in the 70s. the western addition, yerba buena, embarcadero, there are several that have expired. >> it might be helpful. in fact i would like to ask if you can give our office a summary of those plans and what accidental up zoning we might see with the expiration of those plans. so given what has happened is it your department's perspective that the height limit is 275 or should it be 84 or 40? >> i think, it seems to me that golden gate commons with the exception of the site