. >> good afternoon and welcome to the san francisco land use & economic development committee i'm scott wiener the chair of the committee to my left is supervisor cohen our vice chair jane kim will not be joining us today she's been called into

jury duty your clerk is andrea ashbury and i want to thank sfgovtv for broadcasting today's hearing jonathan and the others. >> madam clerk, any announcements? >> all electronic devices. completed speaker cards and documents to be included should be submitted to the clerk. items acted upon today will appear on the february 2nd, 2015 board of supervisors agenda unless otherwise stated. >> call item one. >> on ordinance to define homeless shelters. >> the mayor is the sponsor we have the planning department to present following by mr. duffy. >> good afternoon. supervisors i'm kim the planner with the san

francisco planning department today is an ordinance amending the controlling for homeless shelters it was unanimously recommended approval by the planning commission on december 18th this ordinance will bring san francisco planning code into experience with the state law regarding the homeless shelter controls to allow the emergency of homeless shelter as a right meaning without required public hearing in a place one zoning district this legislation is a part of the housing element that will be up in a few weeks currently the planning code didn't exclude a defines for the homeless shelter it is interpretations of the cod to define the use cargo of the proposals that are monthly group housing or hotel uses human resources hotel uses are a

variety of zoning in front a few cases are interpreted as hotel use san francisco out of compliance with the state law the proposed ordinance will bring the planning code into compliance with the homeless shelter and create a definition for the planning code this new depiction is enhanced the more currently trend of shelter partition and allows rights in zoning jikt with continental approval there that rebuttals the zoning controls existing in the codes that will exempt the homeless shelter from open space car and bike parking and fee requirements and feinstein apply got policies federal or state to the homeless shelter in the magnificent code includes the relationships with neighborhoods like the hours of operation and the sidewalk maintenance and

plan signage and 0i7b9 management the planning commission again unanimously recommended approval of the legislation and the commission found this legislation will streamline review and approval process for homeless shelters we suggested you recommend approval of this legislation bev and dusty from the mayors office of hope is here to talk about that. >> thank you very much mr. duffy. >> thank you, supervisors allison park beacon hill duh the director with the engagements and partnerships i wanted to thank the mayor for sponsoring this measure this is extremely important we come into compliance into the ordinances to establish the ordinance of the right of shelters to be on truthfully the city is not going

to be opening many shelters on the focus is on housing but you have taken the time to visit the application center we have tools we'll need to respond to the endisplacements and other abilities to open the facility i hope this legislation helps to keep the people in part of san francisco they feel services are slight in their district we've circulated maps and met with the industrial members of the board it causes them to think about down the roads the services they might consider a small shelter or program help to be responsive i want to point out increase quite a few a number of providers some outstanding providers and clients and staff and w07bd if i can can the

individual from the different organizations in support of this legislation to stand for a moment so i say that to say the providers represent a cross section and serve the diversity of the city in terms of the be 4rsh9 community and seniors and we are so grateful i want to acknowledge and commend ca me and the fact she and the colleagues took the time to visit the facilities and there are times they took to look at the neighbors neighborhood and the element of the district in san francisco and recognizing we want the facility serving those to have access to transit and other shops we take for granted i appreciate our consideration. >> thank you very much mr. duffy and your work on this. >> okay. we will now on

opening it up for public comment i have a few public comment cards (calling names) come on up public comment is 2 minutes. >> good afternoon, supervisors and general public i'm daily receptionist the homeless board c-2 this is a great piece of legislation that needs to be done and i'm aware of some of our supervisors feel their district is un235ish8 burdened by the services for the homeless folks i myself for the people in the avenues and the parts of the city that don't have a lot of homeless shelters they feel why put a shelter in my neighborhood

because you you have homeless there i go to the far avenues and the oceans interests quite a few of the unhoused folks we need to have our services citywide this is not a option it's affordable unit a net not a privilege a right for people to be housed so i commend the mayor and your body here for trying to move this along and bev and duffey and i was so surprised to see not more people to stand up i can't imagine why not this is something we should pass and get on and try to work towards permanent housing i appreciate all you can do. >> thank you very much. >> good afternoon, supervisors just wanted to you work jeff with hampton family center we operate the largest shelter in san francisco i want to commend

the mayor and at planning department and bev and duffey it will go along ways to help to place shelters in neighborhoods in a clear and transparent way i wanted to point out that mary go from dpw and scott walton are here they have a lot of information and background u background this in particular issue thank you very much for your support. >> thank you, sir. >> good morning tom executive director of liveable city i'm very much in support of this this is is an important piece of solving our homeless problem a small part putting people in homes rather than shelters i'm here to talk about a code the second agenda item the clean up of article two, that clean up

months the defines in section 102.1 and 7 so this will for the purpose those other depictions so you might look at today, i is ask the city attorney's office just to sync those ordinances it has a definition of homeless shelters and adding section 1022 will be smart to make sure that the definition lands in the right place in the code as we organize it from this time forward and the definitions to the subsequent parts of code use 102 and i believe this can be done in the morning as well as striking up the .8 and lying that as 102 we're trying to clean up the code and not be messaging it up simultaneously. >> mr. gibner.

>> john gibner, deputy city attorney the gentleman is correct this ordinance breathes a new 10.8 and refers to that the second item on the agenda modifies section 102 and puts the definition of homeless shelter in under we can by tomorrow morning go through and. >> or so how to think up the first piece to make sure there's the references for 102 i suggest you not make the amendment amendment today but tomorrow >> great. thank you very much mr. gibner is there any additional public comment on item 1 seeing none, public comment is closed so first, i want to thank even that participate in making this project and moving forward

happening i had an opportunity to go with mr. duffy and the gentleman to visit the site it seems like an exciting project to me and i hope it after it is mod it defines a permanent home it should be successful i hope it end up being a model for not only san francisco but another places we for too long we've had a disjoined approach to certain populations of homeless people and this seems like a pro tem way for them to bring everything together for certain populations that are very difficult to reach and to help in a systematic way it is exciting and i'm glad it's moving forward i discussed with mr. duffy and my predecessor, of course the importance of

including the castro in the outreach to help the castro for the shambles the folks are not here as well as the other areas we have a population that needs the outreach and i think sometimes because of the very, very significant challenges in other parts of the city we don't get the same level of focus it's not a criticism only a reality i'm happen to support this today so with that, moaning can i have a motion to forward this to the full board reception. >> as a committee 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