ommittee report? i'd like to make a motion to move this forward with a positive recommendation >> we'll take that without objection. that will be the order thank you madam clerk call item number 4. >> item 4 an ordinance mit the general plan. >> why not wait - >> sure. >> here i have a whole box. >> thank you.

>> okay. once the door closes which i think it is - okay. >> item 4. >> okay madam clerk call item 4. >> admiting the recession and open space element. >> okay. i'm the sponsor of item number 4 this legislation all the times the general plan and sets the city's long term strategy to make sure the stunt of our streets keep part of our urban forest this plan, which is exciting we're moving forward with it is long overdue and long-term in the the making i want to commend the department

of public works and for the thoughtful and deliberate process that processes this document the plan was supported by the planning commission and the urban forestry council it is a key component of our uttering and key to our healthy environments and our quality of life and have an estimated 5 hundred and plus street trees they remove pollutant from our air and water and confer millions of dollars to and city sadly many of the trees are not in good shape and san francisco ranges low for the canopy coverage this is unacceptable for a city hates

environmentally conscious currently of the hundred and 5 thousands street trees in san francisco 60 percent are the maintenance for the property owners awhile 40 percent are maintained we the city we know that the city is now unfortunately flowing a process of dumping those trees on property owners we'll soon be at a point that one hundred percent of the street trees are the probability for property owners that's the case whether or not the property owner own or planted the tree or whether or not they want the tree or have the financial process to take care of the tree they're to take care of that it is radio extremely unfair the property owners have a hardship when maintaining the trees and fixing the sidewalks for the damage and

the trees that are massive in nature it is is very, very competitive so the city's policy is an awful one we've worked with the friends of the uttering to create awning urban forest fund so the city can take on the responsibility of taking care of the street trees we don't have a solution but this plan creates a good road map how to have the best pobld urban forest for the street trees it is important to follow up on the creation felt affordable funding with that i'm going to turn it over to mr. sway to present from the

planning department. >> good afternoon, supervisors i'm john sway with the planning staff and also the manager of the uttering supervisor wiener you gave my presentation (laughter) i wanted to start with on overview of the urban forest and talk about the problems related to the street trees and invite carli short and talk about the policy plan direction and the action we're requesting from the supervisors today so we estimate seven hundred hundred trees in san francisco and one hundred and 5 thousand street trees and up in the parks and those trees as the supervisor mentioned produce a number of environmental benefits from the green house gas emissions and formulating gases from the freeway and the connective benefits increasing

the property values studies show the commercial areas improve the economic fists and the public health benefits in terms of the health and wellness with things like traffic calming so some of the studies for the first serve those are overall urban forest estimates as a capital asset in the city the city trees if we replaced them will be $1.7 billion each year the trees give back benefits to the city and there's an estimate they're responsible for one hundred percent of the property values so this you know one of the things that san francisco is a top list of the world stresses but many of the city's trees we have a lack of green trees

as the supervisor mentioned we have one the lowest canopies of street trees in the united states in addition the trees are not disabled city council throughout the city there are neighborhoods with less neighborhoods the dictate end neighbors neighborhood there's an interesting greening equality in planting new trees so with all those things we're working on the urban forest plan this is a partnership between the planning department public works and we've been in talks with the rec and park depth and the urban forest council meeting and with the support from if the friends of the urban forest plans take place in 3 phases i've focused on street trees and next issues recommended to the parks and open spaces and the

third trees on approve property we're talking about the first phase we completed last year, i wanted to invite carla from public works to talk about why we're focusing on street trees. >> good afternoon carli short specifies i gave both our presentations. >> we've been working together for a long time carla. >> we're focusing now on street trees because of the current policies you've alluded to the streets in san francisco is unfair property owners have had maintenance for years and others provided care by the city and the department of public works is currently transferring that in many cases to the adjacent property owners. >> this is not done out of

despite or for some reason other than the fact the department of public works has had our funding consistently cut from tree maintenance he did we've seen additional mranlts gotten on we were on a roughly 5 year tree cycle it is 3 years to prone and as you can see we're currently at 12 year printing cycle. >> so this process of transferring maintenance responsibility basically the goal from the departments prospective to transfer about 21 thousand seven hundred street trees that are currently being retained by the city to adjacent property owners the city will maintain a few stressing adjacent to street properties as well as trees in mediums where there's no adjacent property owners that has the responsible

the distribution will require 80 percent of the trees will be the responsibility of the adjacent property owners you mentioned a few of the challenges property owners are either unable or unwilling to care for trees they're facing costs they've not born in the past or planned for one the biggest concerns the urban forest for the department is concerned about the quality of tree care we've seen already that people have either dlbl or inadvertently damaged street trees because they don't know how to maintain them there's a high tree cost when we have a pruning program one property owner might prune a tree on monday and did crew will mobile the tree and the same week another neighbor will have

pruning for the outcomes so this is a real world example of a tree that was killed by a property owner who had not even received notice it had a had been transferred he had concerns and turned the tree which california kill the tree so probably thirty years of growth and those viable benefits are lost in one instance. >> so again we estimate we have one hundred and 5 thousand street trees in san francisco 24 is what the maintenance responsibility looks like currently this is what it would be if public works continues to transfer maintenance responsibility throughout the city and county city this is what we want to see and the urban forest plan suggests the

best plan a higher standard of care we did a lot of research and as best practice we recognize that a municipal managed program results in a higher standard of care as you noted urban forest provides benefits and we have invest in having the best urban forest we can. >> a thanks carla as part of our service we did a few minutes study we talked about with the supervisors and looked at other options to fund citywide municipal street trees and we have 28 thousand trees to collect data we've kickoff the full citywide status and this is the plan itself you should have received a copy of it

a quick not on the process over 2 years we've gone to a number of public event and held working groups and think tanks and worked out with the elementary schools when we have spent a lot of time engaging the public and laefrp about what their goals are for the city quickly on the key recommendations of the plan itself to maximize the benefits of the street trees in san francisco we provide all those benefits the carbon segregation and providing habitat we should think about the benefits in the city and making the benefits aware through signage to the public and other means we put the goal for the street trees population if one hundred 5 hundred to we have a modest

goal to add 50 thousand street trees over the next 20 years in order to do this kind of thing the plan recommendation the city should a citywide maintenance program by the department of public works and to do this to identify some sort stable programming for this and finally the plan proposes to manage trees throughout their cycle from leases to a newer in san francisco so grow our own trees locally and reusing the wood from your trees after they've died we're here to ask the supervisors to consider forwarding for approval the draft ordinances that will amend the open space ordinance policy 3.6 that will incorporate the

urban forest in the general plans recreation and just to be stated this commission found that the plan itself was supportive of many of the general plan other elements as well as the prop 101 findings and that concludes my presentation. i'm happy to answer any questions you may have. >> madam chair. >> supervisor cowen. >> i want to take a moment to give a shout out to carli short she's got a tough job pruning trees is political thank you are you still here you're amazing (clapping) i wanted you to know you get beat up a lot but i recognize your hard work and wanted to take a moment to extend that to you.

>> great thank you and i want to reiterate that dpw really has gotten decimated since the recession of the forestry and does the best with the limited resources and just further prove we need a sustainable funding source thank you to all the departments and so with that we will now move to public comment i have 3 public comment cards (calling names). >> afternoon i'm dan flanagan with the executive director of the friends of urban forest and with the urban forest council i think many great points have been made i want to make the

point this was a cooperative effort between a lot of city departments and also friends of urban forest in addition to the urban forest council this is the product of many many months of work and is really overdue because the city is in desperate need of as supervisor wiener seven hundred we need a road map in dealing with the street trees one of the most important recommends is the sustainable funding source for street trees in san francisco history of street trees in san francisco is very long and very 2r0ub8d because it supervisors - board of directors has given money prefixing and taken away money this is not the way to take care of urban trees they need to be taken care of i

strongly recommend the supervisors endorse this plan. >> thank you. >> john i'm on the board of friends of urban forest and want to thank you for having this hearing and urge you to approve this plan and recommended to the board of supervisors for passage as you've heard as you introduced and you've heard from the speakers trees add a tremendous value to our community add million dollars of value and improve the quality of life the promotion of the uttering is vital to the offer all health of the city as mentioned we're a green city one of the areas where we're in need of improvement improvement at a policy level and improvement at the activity level as just mentioned one which the key

component of the plan is the funding plan that's something we've seen it's been under great pressure over the years and as trees compete with other limited resources unfortunately at the end to lose out one the key components to create that stable funding plan that will allow us to really grow the effort and maintain it's health over the longer i urge you to pass this plan. >> actually before we precede with public comment i'm sorry, i didn't royals you were here for this item so before we precede i want to give the mayor's office on disability and call the department up so - >> i really appreciate your graciousness i'm actually here for another item but when i saw this on the agenda i of the i wanted to join the conversation

that which or last night i returned from nufrlz and atlanta that the trees make the city and it was a very stark reenterprise into san francisco when i saw how 2350u trees we have here and how the many trees of the other beautiful cities i visited made any sty so much more enjoyable there's another side that is a well maintained street tree he has us to make the pedestrian environmentalist when we neglect our street trees and allow the roots to drive up the sidewalk we're creating barriers in the public right-of-way 24 plan i've seen the capital plan previously is a rational and thoughtful effort another looking at improving our street trees canopy but also looking for the long term maintenance of the street trees

and sidewalks thank you. >> thank you, my apologizes. >> good afternoon, supervisors i'm mark christianson the president of the triangle association i support of the urban forest plan, however i support transferring the maintenance of the street trees from the property owners back to the department of public works but the budget for this must be restored the board of supervisors has systematically taken money out of the 50ur9 3wu7bd u budget over the past temple to 12 years i want to see it restored to the helpfully of 12 level when there there were more arborists only after the recession of all diverted fund should you consider supporting this ballot initiative for the taxes to increase the funding

levels thank you. >> thank you very much let me call more cards (calling names). >> thank you as we've seen from the urban forest master plan we're losing more trees than we're planting this is a shame and question definitely do something about it as the urban forest present to reiterate what someone else said a rational plan the city to take to restore the trees and or to restore to make urban forest the best it can be so thank you. >> thank you. >> hi doug friends of the urban forest i'm excited to see this moving forward and there's been a lot of work you've mentioned both with carl a short you i was

reviewing our plan in 2006 but very few specific examples of trees and very general notes it's exciting to be moving forward especially look at the focus on the financing so again i'm stoked very excited to have this moving forward thank you. >> thank you. >> next speaker good afternoon with the friends of the urban forest i want to say i very much support in and anecdotal we get phone calls from folks that had a tree relinquished and don't have the know-how or resources to take care of it is scary we can recommend a ash bolster to take care of it but that is costly i think the only way to take care of this for the city to take

back the trees and make it so it's a safe urban forest. >> well said. >> next speaker thank you very much i'm laura with spur and also on the board of the friends of the urban forest i'm pleased to be here to support i mostly helped to support and looking forward to see this comprehensive plan laid out in terms of what we need to do being the code is sfoeths all the benefits of the urban forest that everyone has described cleaner air and traffic cadging and public safety and 09 things i wanted to speak to the one benefit that's not been described the equality issue as john distributed some places have more of an effort than

others it's a geographic issue and some people have more resources and ability to take care of the trees in front of their homes there's an elderly woman that lives on my block is he she could barely walk i've observed this happening and offered to help but it is very staircase and from my own prospective of how this policy that we have with the property owners taking care of their trees it is increasing the risk of the forest and finally an equality issue i was speaking about one thing i worry about is that our kids will say to us where are all the trees and 90 why not plant more and take care of them we have to think about protecting and managing our urban forest this plan go a long

way to do that. >> thank you, very much. >> good afternoon, supervisors tom from liveable city very much in support of the plan another thing you might look at an prelims stopping step to see what the requirements are for developers when they you know tear out and replace sidewalks that's a great opportunity to get private you know this happens when people are building a lot in this city and i think we could do a better job of capturing public value from those private investments a few examples only 18th street two we have conversions of garages into storefront i was waiting for the property owners to put the street trees where the driveways up to the time cut maybe someone in the platt missed it so opportunities when a driveway is

removed and we have hopefully in the future of maintaining you them but not installing every tree we'll do it when other people are working on the site on the corner of sanchez and market they did those smallest if you turn the corner on 18th street they also did a similar small tree baselines but would have made the trees healthier i think you can emigrate more value off the private investments if you look at the controls and the planning code and look at the standards and the public works exposed when properties are developed.

>> thank you. next speaker. >> hi, i'm sonya with the presidio graduate school of sustainable management and work with john and carla on the issue of looking at the different because of reuse of any wood removed by this program generally when the wood is removed it's removed from original seconds i want to be clear not only because they want to remove trees we really look at the benefits of having that sustainable cycle and keeping the beauty into the city and keeping the carbon that they collect over their entire life i approve that and keeping the sustainable cycle alive is

important. >> thank you. is there any additional public comment on item 4 seeing none, public comment is closed i want to thank everyone who came out and the departments for their work putting this plan together as well as the work generally to improve urban forest and thanks to the friends of the urban forest for their work they do amazing work in the neighborhood every week to get more trees planted and take care of them for the first 3 years in a way that engages the neighborhoods to colonel together and make it a come municipal thing it's about the community and not the individual trees and want to thank awe distresses power he was to the planning department and done a lot of work on the issues as well as any office it's been mentioned we i did announce last

last year their forming a working group for a urban forest funding solution in the near future so we're beginning the work on this and start meeting next month i look forward to coming up with a solution a because we need to make sure that whatever we do it is a completed solution there's been too two many bandaged solutions i'd like to restore our fund to the urban forest what it was in 2003 the problem of that happens in this year's budget cycle i'll have absolutely no confidence it wouldn't be slashed next year or 5 years because we've seen over and over again there