available at city hall monday there friday 8 to 5 and if you don't vote early be sure to vote son teon tesn testesess

>> good afternoon, everyone. to the san francisco land use & economic development committee i'm supervisor wiener the chairman of the committee our committee vice chair supervisor kim was unable to join us today so supervisor mar is sitting in place the of supervisor kim and supervisor cohen a member of the committee we're also joined by the president of the board of supervisors supervisor chiu sfgovtv is broovtd toys be hearing i want to thank jessie larson and derrick our clerk is announcements? >> yes. please silence all electronic devices. completed speaker cards and documents to be included should be smoimentd to the clerk and items acted upon today will

appear on the on september 4th agenda your madam clerk call one. >> a vacation of an area between twin peaks boulevard. >> i'm the author of item number one colleagues speak proposal vacancies an embankment and the construction of a stairway and installation a permanent landscaping by the adjacent property owner curling you're going u during any rains we'll eventually have rain the dirt slides down the hill it will stabilize the hill and provides paul mccartney the improvements has strong support in the neighborhood and the neighbors have submitted letters that are includes in the agenda materials the proposal has been reviewed by the planning

department and the public works and both agrees are in support of the proposal the project sponsor in terms the adjacent owner who will be performing this work is judge walker how is here as is council colleagues i'll ask for your support and i don't think we have departmental presentation so weight proceeded to public comment on item anniversary do we have any public comment cards do we have - we have two judge walker and another card. >> thank you very much mr. chairman i'll be hemisphere to answer any questions you've well stated the stabilization of the hillside to provide public assess by an unused street

right-of-way that is presently inaccessible and to prove the amenities to the neighborhood. >> any questions no and the public we appreciate our willingness to do the work thank you, judge. >> ma'am. >> morning supervisors i'm donna the former director and former president of the t pi a the twin peaks association we help to maintain the strip between clarence ton and along the with twin peaks boulevard a go scenic drive our neighbor edith started the garden area and helped to maintain it along with the city judge walker has the corner of racking coon and

twin peaks boulevard this is a steep slope i live on glen broke slightly above the property it is dancers e dangerous during the rainy season and will be very, very supportive beyond supportive to have someone maintain the strip there is a preservation it just happened many years ago on the corner of crown terrace and twin peaks boulevard. >> thank you. >> any questions i'll be happy to answer the neighborhood is supportive. >> we've received a letter in the packet from the curiosity president of the twin peaks is there any additional public comment on item number one seeing none, public comment is closed colleagues could i have a motion to forward to the for with a

positive recommendation okay on a motion and second we'll take that without objection. thank you madam clerk please call item 2. >> item 2 the hearing requesting public works status on trees relinquishes program i'm the sponsor along with supervisor cohen to ask for a status upgrade for the so-called tree relinquishment program that is a fancy way of forcing the adjacent property owners to take care of trees 38 they may or may not want or have the ability to take care of going back a number of decades san francisco disinvested in their urban forestry we know that trees are a key part of the quality of

life in my neighborhood and have benefits economic and environmental simply the beauty of a neighborhood it makes a huge difference unfortunately san francisco through our budget priorities or lack thereof has the city has really reduced what it spend in taking care of our urban forestry and as a result san francisco has one of the lowest coop coverages of any major city in the u.s. the city as green of san francisco we don't have enough trees and isn't it a fact because of the trees in the second degree that coop is shrinking we're losing the number of overall trees in the city it is gradually shrinking so this needs to be a

priority currently, the city maintenance approximately, one third of the strrts in san francisco the riermd have been the robert responsibility of the adjacent property owners when the city doesn't take care of the trees maintenance becomes consistent inconsistent so property owners do a phenomenal job or many owners do know their supposed to take care of the trees or refuse to do it or hire the cheapest service that end up mutilating the trees about three years ago, the public works after a number which budget cuts relating to try maintenance began the program with the goal of turning offer pretty much the

remainder of the streetcars street trees and disadvantage causes empty the trees whether or not the property owner planted or owns the tree or wants the tree it it doesn't matter in the tree is a large tree or a big, big tree it doesn't matter property owners responsibility it it doesn't matter that the homeowners is on social security and the not having the economic resources they're responsible for fixing sidewalks damage etc. so when the department first began the relinquishment project it began slowly because in the first floor of the relinquishment the department didn't have enough money to get

the trees turned over the mayor pit money in the program and the program has been moving forward i i've been a stinging strong critic of the program since it started wanting chiu and other colleagues on the board of supervisors it is an unfair system that places an unfair burden on property owners to take care of the trees s it also guarantees a continued decline of our uttering despite the amazing work of the friends of the urban forest and others r others who want to improve our urban forest we've been work with the friends of urban forest to figure out how to end the relinquishment program and have the city resume all the

responsibility for all street trees in san francisco and take care of the trees to because the funding didn't exist and how do we actually create a stream of dedicated funding for maintenance or urban forest because the last thing to do is put the responsibility to the department and not fund it i wanted to stress even though i'm a critic of the program i really recently is are respects the work our employees that they do to take care of our urban forest in san francisco the department is grossly unstaffed when it comes to urban forestry and didn't have the resources it needs to do what we all like it to do this hearing is not about criticizing the department but the long term policy in san

francisco it isv. in our urban forest so that's where we're here to really hear on you got erupt on the relinquishment program what the timetable is looking like and the current resource levels at the department and now i want to recognize president chiu who is the co-sponsor >> thank you members of the public and others it is often said when a tree faulgz in the forest no one hears it but when the tree calls in the city it's serious i want to thank supervisor wiener both of us share the prospective many of us building the city's relinquishment policy is not working and need to be significantly very invested a picture is worst a thousand words and the clerk to show a

couple of the pictures in the northeast district loan and ask our sfgovtv staff to focus on them this is a photograph of what happens let september near vallejo other north beach obviously significant significant damage we go to the next photo arrest this is from early august and st. francis at the corner of broadway and columbus if we could into to our next slide in just like if you could well in was going to be light final photograph this was a car crushed in february at lombard and mason in front of the toifl

you'll note a child seat right underneath where the tree fell detain to the next photo it's hard to see that that is the try that collapsed in front of the toifl center it is a very serious problem we've been fortunate as a city no one has been injured by the collapse i believe without intervention soon the next tree collapse could result in serious injuries to residents i want to take a moment to acknowledge the health department this has been a challenging issue for everyone but from my prospective i think that when a tree collapses our city needs to take the responsibility for the clean up costs and disadvantage and structures and the safety of our residents

a number of months ago my constituents know i championed an at bat to help to replace some of the trees in district 3 this was part of the district 3 budget process we we had specifically put you the in a lens $90,000 for the trees in the neighborhood i'll point out a few things we know that the funding is not accurate for the trees in 2nd district, and, secondly, this is funding that was allocated in the summertime but we don't have a replacement program so dpw staff if you could respond to our constituents around the questions of what is going to happen in particular in light of the trees collapsing and the

whole point of the hearing for supervisor wiener to focus public and government attention to try to figure out how to deal with the short term issues and as a city how to insure long term funding we need to also consider a dedicated source of funding in this area and folks need to understand it may not collapse on you today or tomorrow but increases earthquake so supervisor wiener thank you and thank you to the friends of the urban forest that have worked with the members of the public for a canopy it is safe and worked for our urban city and a couple of additional points ms. short from the dpw when you talk about the

importance of the tests it's an important sell and i'd like to go to the friends of the forest and every time i go it's amazing how many people show up it's a if i house people are passionate about planting stresses trees and having a green neighborhood that is what makes it frustrating when our city budget and policies coming out of city hall are not consistent with that view that is widely held in san francisco we also know i think this is in due to many property owners fear of having street trees in front of of their house they think even if it's not their responsibility at the beginning there's concerns so we see geography inequality with tree canopy coverage my

district district 8 is one of them and supervisor kim's as well as has quite a few of the trees and parts of the cities with few trees but one of them has to do with the concern of having to stenographer of the trees and i also want to know note the diversity of situations where 0 people are required to take care of the trees some of the trees it president chiu showed are large they can be a major, major problem for homeowners they can't do it themselves and it is expensive to take care of a tree that's at all and multiple trees one was on a property in one person's land they had 50 trees

fortunately the department takes care of those trees with that, i79 to cail up the department of public works carli short that don't a phenomenal job. >> thank you, supervisor carr lo la department of public works to talk about the tree relinquishment program so i'd like to start by the department buildings the easter reduce water and air and noise pollution and you did a good job of talking about the benefits

from the trees to creating better pedestrian and walking environments and raise property values we need to do a better job of taking care of the see economic structure public works has jurisdiction under all trees and is charged with madam secretary the urban forest our management includes planning, planting and maintenance and removal of trees in the public right-of-way we take care of the street trees for privately maintained trees as you stated at the introduction resources for tree maintenance has declined over the past few decades and public works is not able to care for the trees we have current

maintenance responsible we believe the transfer of the responsibility to prove or disprove is not ideal but important i want to emphasize the department has taken this over but industry standards say that trees are pruned every 43 to 5 years but we're on a schedule for 10 years lack of the maintenance we're well aware of the fears just a quick snapshot of the state of urban forest property owners have had the rocket for 2/3rd's of the trees and the department 1/3rd under the proposed program we'll continue to maintain a number of trees in the public medium and in the public facilities by the

majority of the street trees adjacent to private property is transferred to the private property owners for maintenance this justice an example of decline of resources and the impact on the pruning cycle as you can see in our had a deal 19 arborists and over time this has declined and currently only 11 arborists i note that acknowledging the shortfall from funding recently to launch an arrest warrant above the apprenticeship program we hope in the future they'll help to improve the circle but they're providing ground support - >> can you ask you as of 2002, 2007 and 8 as the recession was

getting started 19 and up to that number so actively when you had 9 how infrequent were you doing maintenance. >> we were on a six or seven year maintenance program with 19. >> even with 19 is not adequate it was even more. >> that's exactly right i'll note that as we've had the reduction in staffing we end up ronald inform more emergencies because we're in active to remove a tree and unfortunately, that limb breaks and ferocious circle it creates for emergencies in many ways the reduction in staffing has increased because we're doing

more and more emergency response and less pro-active trimming so again, just to note the purpose behind transferring the maintenance responsibility to align the public works assets with the available resources to allocate responsibility for equality soiling 2/3rd's of the trees have been the responsibility of the city and this is argue will i makes it for equal citywide this was to provide the caregivers maintenance for the trees we were failing in our responsibility to care for the trees the idea for the caregivers was to protect the pedestrian safety. >> in terms of your experience i know that at some point in terms of how property owners

approach their maintenance be responsibility i know there are owners who do a good job and on that don't do people for the 65 thousands are the responsibility and have been for quite sometime do people tend to know or others blow it off. >> thank you for asking many property owners take great care of their trees and everyday at work he get a question from people that has no idea the tree in front of of their property is not their responsibility this is a property owner that may have would on the property for 10 or 15 years so those trees are getting absolutely no care that leads to limb failure and this demonstrates the property owners as you stayed don't want to take care of the tree or invest or

have the resources so they hire someone speak don't a terrible job and one of the concerns in the program is the actual loss of the trees either total neglect or what is sometimes wours extensive damages from the pruning. >> what happens we know that even though some of the stereotypes that all property owners are weighty we know many san franciscans that are not weighty they've bought it thirty or 40 years ago what happened when someone didn't have the resources to take care of the tree i mean, there's no exemption for that. >> there's no exemption for that at the time. >> thanks. >> i'll quickly go over the