years the difference of 75 to one hundred and a plus is measurable as well as quantifyable the scraper hosts the urban trees those trees serves metric tons of carbon and over 22 metric tons there's a value for the carbon as established 20 metric tons $14.3 million of storage and $1460 million every year the carbon is what we allows or losses the amount of carbon is not a small issue but the largest organizations on the globe are leading effort to

remove carbon in the atmosphere the future survivability of the planet thank you. >> thank you. we hear frompermit holder. >> good evening. i'm rob isaacson i'm with the ownership when is laguna hayes, llc i want to introduce marta fry are m f la we're fortunate to have marta as a our architect she's worked for us in the past and a long time resident in the past and responsible for the greening committee she knows this issue as well as anybody thank you.

>> good evening marta fry i wanted to give a brief history of our tree application and appeals process that is eaten i'll go into more detail the proposed new 580 hating street the question was read the removal of two trees within our sidewalk and public right-of-way the responsibility of the prove or disprove the adjacent prove or disprove i'm sure you're aware of we requested those be replaced with red maples we want to add more trees but feel appropriate trees this was primarily due to the condition of the fikdz trees permission to remove those trees was noticeably denied and this was the protection application we appealed dpw appeal denial and

the department of urban forestry we considered their inspectors opinion and agreed those are trees were struggling come down la print on an appeals hearing exhibits 3 outlining the reasons for the removal request i feel illustrating their intent on replanting twice the number of trees on the frontage as well as new trees on the other footages laguna and ivy street the subsequent site visit by beginning as well as the property owners new arborist report has a condition that replacement tries be 36 inch box

size along the frontages that permit approval was appealed we're here to represent that the argument for the removal of those two ficus trees we're advocates of the healthy and gifted urban foresty streetscape we're all in argument like the appellant court we're not questioning the benefits nor the goals by the city of san francisco it is those reasons we're asking for the removal upon the recommendations of our firm and i arborist this is do trees important structure as a relative to structural or suckle soil it's age and years of neglect and years of structural pruning the assessment of the trees is bookend not only my

professional experienced but supported by an independent consulting arborist the ficus trees in san francisco are not loud for replanting we've seen this last storm assault weapon numerous flurlz causing dame the property owners don't accept the risk or the responsibility in essence their inheriting trees in poor condition and the yearly pruning of the knapp can occur it is eir reversible and they represent a potential liability and should be replaced with the trees with narrow sidewalks in hayes valley and a heavily

traffic pedestrian and commercial street that will provide the correct memoranda support so for short term and long-term will provide irrigation for long term tree growth without compromising pedestrian passage we assert the appellants premise is ill-informed and didn't look at the subject trees as part of healthy urban forestry we believe in replacing those potentially discerns trees with other trees we're improving the urban forestry and the streetscape as rob isaacson mentioned i was one of the members of the greening committee and some of the appellants and the speakers we share a similar commitment for greening hayes valley we analyzed the entire hayes

valley district and analyzed the trees and look at it parks and expansion and soil and snippet and alleys this was very much part of the process as my firm is doing 5 proximate causes projects if the immediate area those trees are not corrective and the site vital by chris buck after the dbi appeals hearing deemed those trees structurally unsound the appellate has not gotten qualified opinions that is spinal to counter dbi's assessment they have not brought up my new issues and suggested an alternative that suggests the

comprehensive review and the basis of our opinion on the viability of the trees in question pr rather than maintain trees in decline and trees with are structurally come down and fought with viable we have more costing option it is a more thoughtful streetscape for future generations thank you. >> i have a few questions so i see the replacement size are 36 box it looks like this is all the tree replacements. >> that's correct. >> on the species that your replacing with what is the time estimate to reach the current height of the trees that your

replacing now. >> we don't know we want them to reach the hielth of the trees right now. >> what will the growth pattern be. >> the growth pattern we have the rendered plan i'll see i'll say the plan is 6 to seven years. >> in your belief you've noted some of the trees have been hit by buses and other vehicles how do you know those trees one way or the other won't suffer that. >> it has a different structure in form had been a more difficult form appropriate for very 7 to 8 foot sidewalk how do we police that we can't trees can be hit that i buses there's a curb when you get

street trees that are pruned to be limped up but you want to keep lower branches so normally street stredz are stacked with a 3 stake system no guarantee against the risks of people driving over sidewalks and curb. >> the final question is the document you've shown would take seven years where your illustrate and if you go to a 48 box how long. >> we'll be 2 years ahead. >> great, thank you. >> i have a question diagram that shows the plan on laguna and ivy some are new and some replacement. >> that's correct they're not replacements their alleged we've

got magnolia trees with or that are laguna on a wider street an laguna we're replacing in kind with the same magnolia on the boulevard. >> and your adding. >> we're not adding we're keeping the magnolias and adding more magnolias and ivy street is part of the alley we've started to establish another our project on 450 hayes. >> thank you. >> okay. we'll hear from the department. >> good evening, commissioners chris buck with the public works urban forestry i'll outline a

come up of items in the brief we've provided at the hearing on november 24th last year in precipitation for the hearing we evaluated the two ficus trees both trees had poor structure at the time of the hearing due to an going health of the ficus and the limb flurdz we were finalizing the guidelines guidelines which were going to be issued so the same day of the hearing on november 24th-hour public works issued titled tree removal. ficus the orders outlines the concerned about the species pattern of flurdz and have large mature ficus adjacent to 580

hayes street with the stems with the bark are prone to experiencing large limb failures they have poor structure with limbs that included the barbara total of 6 photos i'll put on the overhead this image is subject tree number one and what i wanted to point out on this image on the rhetoric the main litter to the right has 3 items with points of told them and two main stems with the attachment was constituent with the bark the stems in the rear has a indicator and two stems attached below that plant i believe that's a poor attachment and this is close up image of that union as you can see there's a indicator with decay

within that wound and two pogsdz of the stem extend this is the rear tree number one showing the included bark and the attachment where we're seeking the trees typically fail and tree number 2 to the west has co-.com in what capacity leaders one injury above the injury have two stem that are joined this stem needs to be removed if the tree is retightened there's multiply co-leaders in tree number 2 this image there is a hook or sweep in the stem with that litter going out over the rod and another behind that this 1 stem ocean boulevard enough has two stems off of it is an unusual

tree structure this image here is at the back of the tree towards the building and this stem those 20 stems have a narrow point of attachment so the two ficus trees have poor structure both of the fikdz have disadvantaged the sidewalk and the property owner will be responsible inform repair the sidewalk and the permit to replace the trees is typically a requirement where the construction is take place if the trees were retained the sidewalk will need to be repair their 3 by 5 circles and that's 6 feet by 9 the sidewalk is 12 feet wide and that expanding the trees will reduce the pedestrian

through zone to 6 foot wide and this block as heavy traffic is at the staff level to recap we believe the approval the permit to you approve the permit was a reasonable approval and public works request that the board of appeals deny the appeal and uphold this will remove the trees that the project object the relocated and the trees in all 3 frojdz be a minimum 36 box containers thank you. >> mr. buck what would you guess is the percentage of ficus street trees in our city. >> the percentage there's a lot of ficus but the overall percentage is not that great there's no way to be close to 5

percent it has to be less than that we have 5 thousand street trees i'll say 5 to 8 percent ball park guess. >> does that seem to be in some areas more - i seem to recall theiry're mostly on the east side that's correct before me we have a thoroughfare hiding street and mission hill and towards coit tower and individual owners throughout the city more than on the earner half of the city a number in the gentle hayes valley neighborhood last question there's there was a i guess a couple of limb failures on oak street were they

ficus. >> oak street has a number of large ficus failures we've been looking at ficus trees along katrero we've identified 5 to 10 trees along oak and bell streets and really trying to target the largest fikdz trees and want to reiterate that our criteria is not a death sentence for ficus trees we're going to identify them individually and if they've been pruned to create better structure those removal applications may be denied it's a case by case example. >> so my question since those have the potential limb failures

being in the city i understand that ficus get north of 50 or 60 feet their jefferson one-sided those trees don't appear to be one-sided but if there's limb failure are you suggesting any of the trees are up for removal and the majority of the ficus trees on oak street is the responsibility of the property owner we recommend the property owners be responsible for the ficus have the trees be evaluated with the arborist and it does understandly raise mrmthsz if you look at large fikdz trees our department has a

sense many are candidates for removal we're looking for the general public to do the same with the fikdz trees their maintaining the last question is that those trees can't be saved. >> our opinion is that the approval the permit to approve the trees is reasonable i'm not here to say if their hazardous but i think that as part of the retention on a construction site that there are a lot of uphill battles to face with the best of tree protection we'd hate to see a lot of effort put into protecting those trees and having limb failure within a few years that's frustrating i

think for everyone. >> as you noted in picture tree one and 3 there were attachment with rock removing the attachments be healthy for the tree. >> tree number one has 3 stems it will be difficult to give that stem a clean bill of health one approach to reduce the trees through 39 dbi is doing on, on one street we're putting e pruning them heavy will i preponderance of evidence there are structure dwshts. >> the department denied the permit. >> that's correct at the staff level decision the first progress when we receive an application we have several

arborist evaluate the trees we approve the trees removal that have structural problems or dead or dying or some deficiency and trees that are healthy we deny so at the staff level the inspectors issued the denial and the appellant appealed that when we pochtd the removal notices the public saw it was going to a hearing i was actually putting together the slide show and as and was reviewing the images i found that the ficus trees several co-dominant items our inspector was aware of the tree criteria but not at the level that carli short and i where we were literally working directly go with our director of public works to finalize the criteria to in light of that several

months when the trees were evaluated it was not as pressing an issue i think with the number of failures that have occurred has we presented those slides and the presentation we felt that was a reasonable denial that approval was actually reasonable. >> are you satisfied that the 36 inch replacement. >> i am code requires 15 gallon replacement tree when something is going to a hearing a public offers for public works recommend a 24 inch box if the tree is dead or dye with construction we bump that up so in this case the hearing officer recommended the 3 trees

be 36 inch i'm satisfied with the box size i think that placing 38 inch box size on sidewalks is problematic in terms of existing utility and smaller sized trees the faster is will grow so sometimes those larger box replacements you don't actually you know 5 years later they've caught up so 36 is a reasonable replacement size. >> thank you. >> thank you are we're going to take public comment i want to remind somebody someone from the hayes valley officer your time is the same time as at appellant other than those people are there public comment let me see a show of hands let me have the

first person step forward and if you can fill a speaker card it will help us in the preparation of the minutes. >> hello, i am here to speak in favor of upholding the approval so in favor of the removal permit had he that's because i want to talk about what was on the sort of like what maybe is at stake which is the 29 unit they will eventually be built anyway, i guess the thing is in making decisions about those kinds of things we're in a housing crisis and difficult for like a general matter of renter; right? to find apartment at all so the trees are about how far

and wonderful and also san francisco is looths several years coming up of very you know dramatic building and part that have is having to let go of some of the things that are novice in the short-term to for instance, the hayes valley person kaubd u talked about the tree wouldn't coming come back for a decade it's good to think about the long term and after a decade like at least 50 people will be living until that building probably because more like a turnover and hundreds of people this makes the process more - and you know take longer which is counter productive for our overall goal of having abundant

housing my name is sonya part of the general public. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> hi i'm gail i'm a board member of the hayes valley association we work closely that the developer on this project and we support it there are a couple of things i want you to take into consideration number one we believe that the championship of the street will be come down by having especially the replacement trees they're proposing will not be at the same height of the existing trees not talking about ficus trees but other types of tree and in addition the mta is proposing a bulb out in front of the new property that expands the length of the sidewalk to

the entrance of the prospective that's going to make it a different environment for the walkable space for that area i want you to consider that in terms of taking out the tree now, when it is based on what you see on the landscape on the hayes street side may be different when mta is done where the bulb out. >> excuse me. was there a suggestion how to handle the design on the landscape. >> that came up. >> the boublt is a new thing that is happened in november so you know i advise the developer team this is a different consideration that none of us were aware of as mta is trying to speed up the buses and having

the bulb outs it will speed up the buses compound hayes street. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> thank you hi, i'm jim i'm also a member of the haildz association and you know, i look at this and you know, i welcome this development i certainly was part of the process of them having the approval of the neighborhood association to do the development so we look forward to it however, removing the trees is not something that any of us are looking forward to for me the compelling thing when we pruned the one at 568 it was a successful pruning and karaoke frankly they looked to me not an

ooshl for a structurally balanced trained arborist did a very good job and so, now we have a stand for two year and the two that are pruned this is just to any the compelling thing when you mature trees have those been neglected they have is it correctable it is certainly it is there a long term benefit for 4 or 5 or seven years before the other mature yes that's part of it you know, i certainly want the housing to come on one element that we've been made aware of the wholly project came to a halt i'll hope for