>> supervisor tang: good afternoon everyone. welcome to our land use and transportation committee. our clerk is erica major and we would like to thank jim smith and madam clerk, any announcements? >> clerk:. please silence cell phones. items acted upon today will appear on the may 15 board of

supervisors agenda unless otherwise stated. >> supervisor tang: can you please call item number one. >> clerk: yes. [reading item #item 1] >> supervisor tang: thank you. i will turn it other to supervisor safai. i know we that had to continue this item last week. looks like you might have more. >> supervisor safai: no. these are the amendments that were made. i have one thing i wanted to talk about. i'm glad the director of the planning department is here. there was an amendment that we made regarding development projects regarding entitlements of the planning commission. it was about off street parking and loading. is that correct, director? we might add clarifying articles

that talking about the planning code. we called it into the record. we want to specifically call that out. so, if you would come to the podium either aaron or director rahaim, maybe we could just talk about that for a second. but i will call you up in a second. but we made a lot of amendments last week that were removing class two bike and class four separated bikeways from the process. we had talked about a lot of other amendments that specifically had to do with the fee amounts and the amount of time for review from the clerk and then finally whether or not something had been noticed in proper time. and then see ceqa -- ceqa review. we are happy about the piece we talked to talk to maybe for a

moment was on development projects that had already had their entitlements and already received entitlements. we were going to take more clarification as it pertained to parking and off street parking and loading. was that the intent of what you were all trying to convey? >> i was here for the second item and i can't recall the specifics. i believe it was related to parks and what constitutes an approved development project. >> supervisor safai: okay. the way it reads now and the language that is in the legislation, it says a project that has already received land use entitlements and when those entitlements and we called out

planning commission and planning department and we might want to clarify that to say a project subject to the review by the board of supervisors or appeals that has received land use entitlements only when it is pursuant to article 1.5. we can give you the language and review it. we can make that -- these amendments either today or we can make them at the full board to give you guys some time to review. >> if i may, staff reminds me i think the issue was more about on street parking an off street. >> supervisor safai: we had loading zones and off street. >> right. >> supervisor safai: we have off street parking and loading. i guess article 1.5 of the planning code refers to that. maybe what we will do is -- hey, supervisor peskin. what i was thinking of doing is since we have been going back

and forth with some of this language, we can make this final amendment at the full board or would you prefer to do it right now because they haven't had a cha chance to review this? supervisor peskin. >> supervisor peskin: thank you supervisor safai and chair tang and vice chair kim. i just wanted to -- i apologize for being a little bit late and thank supervisor safai and his staff and my staff for working on this. i think -- and i'm sorry. i missed the first few minutes of the meeting. but i think at a high level what is very important about the changes that we made at our last meeting is the fact that only fi five supervisors can ultimately bring an appeal. so, there's an aspect of self-regulation here. and i think in the instance of the exemption for development

project as defined, that -- and i don't want to sound conspiracy that we could end up with a scenario where people or agencies try to incorporate exceptions relative to this. and i don't really think that that game should be played. so, for my money, i would just take this definition out. but i concur with supervisor safai that i think what drives this code mandates that we all agree with. and primarily they are in 1.5. so, i think there's language that we could do. i could offer that language today. but again, i think it should all be seen under the general heading of the board's -- the board will self-regulate.

i think what's very important is that we all acknowledge that 11 years later, this is an experiment and to the extent that it's needed, i will -- because i will short of passing away untimely, be here and together with supervisor safai would want to call a hearing about this to make sure we're achie achieving the priorities of the board. but the language i would propose is something along the lines of changing the definition of a development project to a project subsequent to possible review by the board of supervisors or board of appeals that has received its land use entitleme entitlements, only when these entitlements require an application pursuant to article

1.5 of the planning code. it is only where a code requirement was triggered that there would be an exception. >> supervisor safai: right. >> supervisor peskin: but i'll defer to the chief sponsor as to whether or not we should make that today or at the full board of supervisors next week. >> supervisor safai: just because we hasn't had an opportunity to have them review it, i would prefer director rahaim, that we give you this language and we're letting you know that we're anticipating making this amendment. but we want to give you the opportunity to review it and then most likely we're going to make this amendment at the full board. so, give you some time to review it. >> that would be helful. >> supervisor safai: the only other thing i wanted to make sure deputy city attorney, that we put in the five -- you mentioned one other thing. we put in the five threshold -- oh. did bewrite the language in that

-- did we write the language in this allows us to come back and to be a report from the s.f.m.t.a.? >> no. that was not part of the amendments last week. there was about making it a pilot. you could add in a reporting requirement. a member of the board could just ask for a hearing on it a year from now. >> supervisor safai: that's fine. we'll ask for a hearing at that time. i don't have any other comments and we made all of our comments last week. i think we've gotten feedback and i think we're ready to vote on this as soon as public comment is over. we will give you a copy of this language, director rahaim and your team and we will make the final amendment on tuesday. >> supervisor tang: thank you. so, supervisor peskin. >> supervisor peskin: again i apologize for being late. i want to make sure the amendment suggested by the clerk of the board were -- >> supervisor safai: we talked about it. i kind of brushed over them.

>> supervisor peskin: i just wanted to make sure the clerk of the board suggested a number of amendments and i want to make sure those have been made by a committee member. >> supervisor safai: i talked about -- i thought those were the ones we talked about. why don't you talk about it. >> supervisor peskin: i believe this all falls in and around the filing fee requirements, which i think initially we wanted to waive entirely. >> supervisor safai: right. >> supervisor peskin: and subsequently it was suggested some language, which is primarily but not solely incorporated on page seven at the top at line one, subsection h, filing fee waiver, which conforms with the planning code provisions. mr. deputy city attorney are you looking at me because you don't know what i'm talking about or because you do? >> i do. in addition to the filing fee

amendment, the clerk's office also worked with your office to come up with timing changes throughout pages four and five of the ordinance. >> supervisor peskin: right. so that would be on page five in two places at line 12 and filing fee page will be returned to the requester and fine four at least ten days prior to the scheduled hearing and on page four at line three, that language that says, within 30 calendar days. at line 22 on the same page, page four and accompanied by a filing fee in the amount of $250 payable to the clerk of the board of supervisors. so, contrary to our discussions at the last meeting, those would take precedence and a member of the committee could make those

changes. i would be grateful. >> supervisor safai: right. i make a motion to accept these changes as proposed. >> supervisor tang: okay. >> supervisor safai: we have to do it after public comment. all right. just for clarity of the public and those listening, the main purpose of this is that we, members of the board of supervisors just for everyone's memory, we have to act on and move on any appeal of a decision within 60 days. so, that's essentially what supervisor peskin was clarifying. that we worked out with the clerk the process by which we would meet those deadlines and have appropriate time to review it at the board of supervisors. >> supervisor peskin: thank you. and not to put too fine a point on it, but i want to reiterate the words that we uttered and discussed last week, which is i think to a large extent the notion of reinvolving the legislative branch that ceded

its powers 11 years ago is already working for which i want to extend thanks and acknowledgment to the s.f.m.t.a. and its leadership. >> supervisor tang: we will go to public comment on item one. i have a couple of comment cards. eileen, jodie, matt and theodore. please come up. and if i didn't call your name, please line up. >> public: good afternoon supervisors. i just want to thank you for bringing this ordinance forward. the lack of trust in the s.f.m.t.a. is growing amid the gridlock and unfinished projects and constant bad contract decisions that are following a set of policies and procedures that the public does not understand and does not really know anything about. that is why you're getting all

the complaints that you're getting because the public really doesn't know exactly how this whole thing works anyway. and thank you for expressing some of the information that you've been bringing forward during this hearing. and i just want to say a couple of things. i sent emails out earlier and i just want to get them in the public record that are problems that the public is having. one of them is there's no direct email contact with the individual directors of the m.t.a. board and there's no ability for the public to interact with them. this leads to the level of distrust that's already there. the other thing i want to mention is that the board meetings have been conducted in such a manner that does not invite public participation and is actually also creating quite a bit of anger among members of the public that attempt to deal

with the board. and we're hoping that -- [bell]. >> public: these actions will change some of that. so, i believe unless the issues are addressed and the board, and the staff starts following what the board tells it to do, we're finding areas where the staff is not following board's direction, that this matter will not be cleared up with this particular ordinance. but we're hoping it will work. thank you. >> supervisor tang: thank you. next speaker please. >> public: hi. matt. i don't spend a lot of time looking at legislation, but i do spend a lot of time studying our dangerous streets. and i'm worried about any type of legislation that slows the transition of our high injury network to be a safe street

network. and so, if adding a stop sign is going to make a street like howard more safe, i don't think we should add 60 days of additional beaurocracy, three months, six months while more people get injured and killed on those streets. i would encourage you to exempt high injury network streets from this legislation, thank you. >> supervisor tang: thank you. next speaker. >> public: good to get one of

these hearings. i don't know why you move from four to five, but i would support lowering the number of supervisors that are required for this measure. we think this is a good first step, but obviously, in our opinion, the s.f.m.t.a. needs decided structural changes that we hope will be forthcoming in the future. thank you. >> supervisor tang: thank you. >> supervisor peskin: madame chair if i could make two comments, which is that number one, the five supervisor threshold mirrors the threshold as you noted when your suggested the amendment at our last meeting for conditional use appeals under the planning code. and as i stated earlier with

regard to the fee waiver provisions, we have incorporated page seven subsection h, the same provisions that exist in the planning code, which is that fee waivers applied to neighbor or organization that has been in existence for 24 months prior to the filing date for the request for review or is on the planning department's neighborhood notification list and an indigent person attest to his or her ability to not to be able to pay the filing fee. >> supervisor tang: thank you for the clarification. next speaker. >> public: good afternoon supervisors. i'm back again this week to continue to ask you to make exempt the high injury network from this order dance. the high injury network is a specific map of streets that s.f.m.t.a. will be working on in the next five years to achieve vision zero. we know the s.f.m.t.a. must

remove or modify parking to install vision zero safety. and this appeal process could stall our progress when lives are at stake and it's at a time when we need projects to move faster for vision zero to achieve vision zero. thankfully last week you modified the ordinance to exempt bike lanes, but you still don't exempt high injury network or transit projects. and this honestly doesn't make any sense. the s.f.m.t.a. looks at safety holistically. we can take, for example, upper market street. that is a bike project, a pedestrian project and a transportation project. and it's always on the high injury network. again, i urge you to amend the ordinance to exempt projects on the high injury network as well as transit projects because we can't be looking at safety piece by piece. vision zero honestly needs

champions and some bold action to achieve it. i hope you will stand by your vision zero making sure this ordinance doesn't slow down our progress. thank you. >> supervisor tang: thank you very much. next speaker. >> public: good afternoon, supervisors. i'm alice rogers. i'm president of the mission bay neighborhood association and i'm here on behalf of our board and the entire membership of our association to join in asking you that you exempt the high injury corridors from this legislation as well as transit projects. we feel in our neighborhood that outreach has been good and increasingly good over time. we also understand that it's our obligation as a community group to help extend that outreach and to make sure as many neighbors as possible know about these projects and can weigh in. we think that process is working. as an individual, i dabbled a little bit in public realm and a

few intersections here and there and i know personally that parking spaces are just the third rail. i really think that the board of supervisors has many, many more important issues to deal with. so, please exempt the high injury network. don't slow down the progress on vision zero or transit projects. thank you. >> supervisor tang: thank you very much. next speaker, please. >> public: hello. i'm theodore randolph. my brother was a grade below katy tang at lowell. and i think our districts have too much parking. we see -- my office now is near

the 101 entrance. there's backed up cars most of the day every day and there are cars backed up going to the freeway because there are parking spots on the other side. and actually, in sunset and excelsior a lot of the parking spots are illegal. people are parking on the sidewalk. so, we really need to have much less parking. and -- let's see. i also think we should abandon this particular project -- this particular legislation entirely because if we want to get rid of the parking, we need to have the parking be equitable fashion and tailored according to the needs of the community and so like my brother went to lowell. he took the bus from excelsior

to sunset and we need a lot more people to be taking buses. [bell]. >> public: i think the way that the s.f.m.t.a. has ability to do projects is a pretty good way to try things out, to do reverse small projects. try small projects that don't work well. they got a glowing review in the institute for transportation engineers last year because of freedom from all the extra hirings they were able to do in 10% of the time and 25% of the cost. [bell]. >> public: thank you. >> supervisor tang: thanks very much. next speaker, please. >> public: thank you. good afternoon. i'm peter strauss. i'm on the board of the san francisco transit riders. i will be brief because you have heard from rachel at your previous meeting and i think you also heard directly from a number of our members. let me say i appreciate what you've done in the last

revisions to raise the threshold from the appeals to five and exempt the petitions. we're very supportive of that change. i do want to as other speakers have ask you to reconsider two classes of exemptions that are not defined, one is high injury network to help the city to achieve its vision zero goals and secondly, that you exempt transit projects as well. transit reliability is the most important concern of transit riders these days. and improving reliability is achieved through small projects, not huge projects on the street every day. this is these transit priority projects we ask you consider exempting from these appeals. thank you. >> supervisor tang: thank you. before the last speaker if there's anyone else who's name i didn't call, line-up up.

>> public: good afternoon. i didn't mean transportation policy associate. like the others who have spoking, we appreciate the changes that have been made to the appeals legislation from last week. we also echo the concerns that were made by others today about the appeals legislation does not include exemptions. we think this is a mistake and these projects should be exempt from review. the s.f.m.t.a. needs to be able to act with speed and independence to achieve vision zero and also to improve transit and make it easier for people to walk and bike. thank you very much. >> supervisor tang: thank you. next speaker, please. >> public: i'm paula katz. i support this ordinance because it's about time to create a procedure to review certain s.f.m.t.a. decisions.

i would support a fee waiver for all residents because it is hard for individuals to raise money for this and we still want their participation and i oppose the additional exemption that other people have urged. we urge our neighbors to join on the project. our experience is that m.t.a. is too big to actually change many of their predetermined plans by accommodating input from people they are meant to serve. the park side district and other communities throughout the city are not sustained as downtown market street and m.t.a.'s one size fits all tool box of so called improvements they force on many communities doesn't fit. m.t.a. does not have any outside entity over them, so they don't have to be responsive to the public and there's no way for us to appeal their bad decisions. this ordinance is a great first step in changing that. and we are very glad that you're

working on it. i also urge you in the future to try to amend the charter to allow the board of supervisors to review other m.t.a. decisions, including the removal of muni stops. if not for the integration of supervisor yee who came up with a last minute compromise, m.t.a. staff would probably be recommending for the third time over massive opposition that our local community safely stop to save 20 seconds. they want more people to ride muni, but reduce service instead of coming up with better ways to speed up the lines and board of supervisors review of those decisions would be helpful. but that's in the future. [bell]. >> public: i urge you to approve it. >> supervisor tang: thank you. next speaker. >> public: hi. i commute by way of bmw, bart,

muni, walk. m.t.a. is a ward on the face of -- it's politically op -- obtuse. it's not going to work. i'm glad somebody is finally addressing this issue. i live in fear of what's going to happen on lower taylor street near city hall, which has a relatively high traffic capacity at the moment and which is basically the gate way to chino town. what's going to happen to business in chinatown if that gets closed down? and also you look at the new street cars, the plan. how are you -- with hard bench seats and not enough, how are you going to convince uber people to sit in those seats? that's ridiculous. >> supervisor tang: thank you. next speaker, please.

>> public: eileen here on behalf. i wanted to go to the ballot, i'm willing to support this legislation. it is definitely long overdue. it accomplishes checks and balances which are are a basic tenant of this country. even though the legislation doesn't apply to entire decisions as a sign of good faith, i would urge the m.t.a. and this board to re-evaluate the following. city wide decisions regarding emerging transportation technologies on the west side transit only lanes as after one year there's clearly no demonstrated purpose and need. i would strongly urge the m.t.a. and this board to approve their removal. as for concrete boarding islands, i would urge the m.t.a. and board to modify specifications and instead install more alternatives. there are modular and

eco-friendly islands currently on the market. los angeles transit has already installed one. you should also have received an email from the president of the park side merchants, also known as pops, on related issues and i also would oppose any exemption being proposed to the legislation. >> supervisor tang: thank you very much. any other members who wish to speak? seeing none, public comment is closed. supervisor peskin. >> supervisor peskin: thank you chair tang, and sponsor safai. i wanted to say a couple of things if which if you're sitting here, which exceeded the authority over m.t.a. to what's almost a parallel body that has the same legislative powers as

the board of supervisors who are elected and you saw the experiment roll out for a decade, and i remind everybody that prop a actually included, e pressly included a provision that the board could take matters up on appeal and the way supervisor safai and i crafted this is again very narrowly tailored and the amendments that have been made actually contrary to some of the public comment that we hear today do not allow as originally intended members of the public to bring this, but can only be initiated by a member of the public, whether it's an individual or individuals or an organization and then requires five supervisors to sign on i think is very healthy because it is going to build a modicum of public trust in the entire

system. so, let's try this experiment out for a year to the s.f.m.t.a., i think it is very important and i'm looking at sara b. jones, who hails from the planning department. so, her and mr. rahaim and mr. star and others can collaborate, which is that the planning department i think has done a very good job over time in its public noticing to let the public know where and when there are opportunities to initiate are. so, for you that is going to be in the transportation code division ii at section 203, which i think is going to require some work to make sure that the public is informed. that notifications include very clear language like you see on the notices that neighbors get and we as members of the board

of supervisors get that say this decision is or is not subject to review by the board of supervisors through a certain process. i think it's also very important that section 203, which is again under your commission's legislative jurisdiction be very clear as to what is a final decision that somebody can then petition five members of the board to sign. i just wanted to put that on the record. finally this is really i think a housekeeping issue and maybe is for the m.t.a. to answer, but i think there may be just a little bit of redundant language which is bicycle lane is defined as a class two bikeway or class four separated bikeway or cycle track. and subsequently, the provision that defines a final s.f.m.t.a. decision includes creating or eliminating a class three

bikeway or route. i think a cycle track, does correct me if i'm wrong, is a class three. this may be redundant. you may have staff here. but i think we're saying the same thing, which is that all -- that class two, three and four bikeways are excluded. so, just for chair tang, would be page one, line 18, the definition of bicycle lane and page 2, line five. >> supervisor tang: we have mr. jones here. >> public: yes. sara jones. i'm not the resident expert on the design features of different types of bicycle ways. my understanding is -- and i'm going to ask brian of the bicycle coalition to come up to clarify. but my understanding is that the

idea was to specifically call out bicycle lanes rather than what we term shares which is a street shared with bicycle facilities. i will let brian speak to that. >> public: thank you. this is guidelines and it's very confusing. but a class two or class four cycle track or bikeway are what you see painted on the feet or fully separated protected bike lane, the idea not exempting class three bikeways is we feel they are sub standard. they are just paint on the ground. so, should the s.f.m.t.a. water down a project, we would encourage the board of supervisors to review that on appeal. >> supervisor peskin: thank you. i will leave that issue alone. thank you for eliciting that. and you said something that is very important, which is the

right of appeal goes both ways. >> supervisor tang: supervisor safai. >> supervisor safai: i just want to say some closing remarks. i appreciate the hard work from supervisor peskin's office in collaborating on this issue and engaging on something that he's dedicated a good portion of his legislative career to getting right. and there are aspects we have seen over the last ten years people are happy with and are moving forward. i just want to say for the record, vision zero, pedestrian safety, on time performance of muni, all of those issues i think have been moving in the right direction. but there are a very loud and vocal i would amajority that are upset about certain aspects of the decisions that have been made and the manner in which they have been made. that was an important point supervisor peskin and i talked a

lot about on the record in community meetings and meetings with stakeholders that there needs to be a more formalized process for which the s.f.m.t.a. must follow for its public noticing and for its way of notifying people how decisions are and process by which members of the community and public can influence those decisions before they become final. and i think that's in many ways a part of what we're trying to do along with additional oversight, along with separation of powers, along with having some level of review at this board. which i don't think is a bad thing. we sit as commissioners on the transportation authority. we review every single project that is funded by the gas tax, prop k money. we have review but we have created this additional process by which members of the board of trustees have a very similar legislative power but don't have

that level of review that we do as elected officials. i think this is also going to be an experiment. we have seen some changes in s.f.m.t.a.'s behavior. all of my colleagues have come to me and said that the way in which s.f.m.t.a. is behaving and interacting with members of the board of supervisors has changed since we put forward our charter amendment. i think that's a positive thing. we are going to have more flow of information with staff. we're going to have more involvement in understanding the community process by which projects are noticed. i think that's all a positive thing and i think that's what a lot of the members of public are looking for. i will say people do want to be involved in the smaller neighborhood projects that revolve and safety. one point to clarify, this doesn't slow down the decision making. we have 60 days to act if we

intend to review a project and that's five members of the board of supervisors. but that does not slow down in any way. the only way it would is if we decided to engage on appeal and using the example that supervisor peskin used before on the cu process. i have been on the board for a year and a half and we have done that twice on two projects. again, i think this is not going to impede the progress that we've made over the last decade and i'm very happy to send this to the full board. i have heard from the planning department on clarifying the language. i think that what we are proposing, deputy city attorney, will not slow down the review in any way. is this going out as a committee report or going out to the board is this >> supervisor tang: going out next week. >> supervisor safai: we have time to get the language right. but in favor of citing the section of the code whether it is the transportation code or

planning code and we will refine that and introduce it to the board next tuesday. >> supervisor tang: thank you. supervisor kim. >> supervisor kim: i just what want to add a few words. i like some members out public was a little concerned about what this might do to projects we prioritized and vision zero. i think the change allowing -- permitting only five members of the board to appeal does change how my support for this when we originally included neighborhood appeal process. i was incredibly concerned because i know that that would put a lot of our vision zero projects potentially on the line. and of course would lead to many delays. but i am in agreement to pilot this for a year and to see what the outcomes of it are. i do want to support stronger communication relationships with s.f.m.t.a. and this board. i do want to reiterate last week

i said that i felt like i had a good communication relationship with s.f.m.t.a. so, this has not been my experience on many of the projects i have been working with on s.f.m.t.a. have moved through. the only thing that i would add was two things. one was figuring out how we can do residential permits in multi-use neighborhoods that are both commercial and residential. but i think this will be the future of san francisco neighbors. while not everyone should drive and park, i think that that's -- we should be thoughtful about that as we move forward. and finally, i think part of the reason why we have been able to get many of the vision zero projects that our office has been pushing have unfortunately been by-products of the neighborhoods i represent. i hope when we move forward on

vision zero that we are not motivated by the news of fatality but based on data where we have identified corridors. so, i think over the next year, let's see how this process goes. i have a lot more faith knowing that five members of the board -- it will be in the hands of five members of the board to appeal projects. but at the end of the day i think it's important to strengthen communication relationships between the department and the board of supervisors. i will be supporting this. >> supervisor tang: thank you very much. and i made most of my comments last week as well. but i think there are a lot of other issues we have to address with the agency. i think i'm willing to give this legislation a go and to experiment with it as well for potentially a year or so. but yes. so, with that said, supervisor safai had some amendments. >> supervisor safai: yeah. nothing additional as in what we read into the record. we will make that final amendment with planning over the next week. i make a motion to accept all of

the amendments as proposed. >> supervisor tang: we will do that without objection. >> supervisor safai: send it to the full board. >> supervisor tang: and we will do that without objection as well. >> supervisor safai: thank you colleagues. >> supervisor tang: madam clerk, item two, please. [reading item #2] >> supervisor tang: thank you. i will turn it over to supervisor peskin, the sponsor. >> supervisor peskin: thank you colleagues and madame chair for hearing this item even after mr. rahaim, the planning department i believe dropped the ball and missed the generous three-month window of time allowed under the charter to bring it before the planning commission even though we had several meetings to plan for the item and entertain staff thoughts on the policy and were told the item would be heard a month ago on april 15th.

later asked if we could move it to april 19th and then later told after the debacle with other items noticed, namely the central soma plan that our item has been pushed out actually without mine or my staff's knowledge to may 17th. and so, here we are. this item is properly before this committee and the board of supervisors pursuant to the charter and i have been looking forward to having this conversation for a couple of years because i think it's one that is long overdue. we have been a transit city for over a generation and yet the responsibility to put forward a thoughtful long term plan for maintaining our existing transportation network and expanding it to accommodate the city's booming residential and private sector job growth has fallen short. while we have intentionally

expedited projects that have added thousands of bodies to the city's work force, kor responding transit improvements continue to fall behind. a couple of years ago, voters let us know how they felt how we were doing when they approved proposition j and at the exact same time by a two to one margin voted down prop k sales tax revenue source by roughly the same apt amount of votes. we can all agree that transportation infrastructure is an unmet need in san francisco. but we want to make sure those causing the most impact to the system pay their fair share to build it out and to maintain it and operate it. and we're not the only city that has woeng -- woken up to this reality. we woke up to it very early on.

other metropolitan areas from new york city to seattle have come to similar conclusions. you must contribute to transportation infrastructure city wide, particularly and i say this because it's been stuck in my craw for a while as we have given tax breaks for property owners gifted by the trump administration. bottom line is you got to pay for it. if you want it, you got to pay for it. on march 1st of 2016, the board passed then supervisor ava loss transportation fee by a slim six to five vote. supervisor kim and i voted to pass it with the acknowledgment that an increase to the city wide fee was necessary to ensure that growth anywhere in the city was mitigated everywhere in the city. the tsf replaced what was around in my day actually started by

then supervisor or mayor feinstein and ensured it applied to not only commercial but to residential projects where the tidf originally only applied to commercial really office in the c-3 and in a few places outside of the downtown core. after exhaustive battle to reform our inclusion fair housing -- inclusionary housing laws, i decided not to pursue a residential increase but focus on the commercial side. and that is what is before you today. planning subsequently did two separate analysises including feasibility as well as a nexus study and the commission heard

those findings last summer as you all know in your incarnation as members of the county transportation authority. i co-chaired along with mayor lee a six-month long process to identify new revenue for the city's unmet transit needs. it was facilitated by the controller's office and included a really amazing diversity of stakeholders from every district as well as almost every single city department and regional transportation agency including the planning department and of course our own s.f.m.t.a. it was data driven and exhaustive. and many of our constituents gave hours of their time without compensation to put forth a list of recommendations that all of the members of the county transportation authority board reviewed and signed off on.

the transportation task force 2045 identified an astonishing $22 billion in need for transportation in infrastructure and operations over the next 27 years with the approvaled expenditure plan outlined in prop j, which was already behind schedule. our local contribution -- i should say our second local contribution because the voters of san francisco generously voted a one half billion dollars general obligation bond paid for by property owners and in many cases passed through to tenants and subsequently we all agreed, mayor lee and the board, that we needed to find an additional local source of revenue in the amount of $100 million annually. in december of last year, i introduced what i thought was a reasonable gross receipts tax measure that would apply a

modest increase to commercial revenues from office rents after working with the controller's office, the treasurer and tax collector and city attorney, that was thoroughly vetted and garnered the most overall votes from the ttf to 45 task force members and -- 2045 task force members and here we are with no ill will or offense to my colleagues on this panel. some of them chose to pursue an absolutely laudable measure for child care. others chose to pursue an equally laudable measure for housing and the source of revenue for transportation has thus far been left on the cutting room floor. so, colleagues, in your

incarnation as members of the san francisco county transportation authority and as members of the board of supervisors all of whom in both of their incarnations have a duty to deal with our monumental transportation obligations in this transit first city, i have been thinking about ways to reduce that $100 million nut. and one of them as chair tang knows is to go back to the tsf increase, which planning in its studies have showed are feasible and will not stop development. now, because -- and remember, when we considered this in 2016 and i acknowledge that supervisor tang voted for that legislation, which mayor lee vetoed, i acknowledge that supervisor kim voted for it when supervisor tang voted against it

and supervisor safai was not a member of the board of supervisors. we have an opportunity to reduce that $100 million a year going forward. had this been passed or not vetoed then, this fee would have been in place and i know that the current conversation is we have -- i should say had this been heard in april by the planning commission, had the scheduling screw up not happened once, twice but three times it would have been before us. all of that is water under the bridge or over the dam and i acknowledge that now. central soma will be here in late june and there is concern that given the -- what i believe is appropriate level of fees and fee structures for central soma, there is concern that this will

make development in central soma less than feasible. i differ with those concerns, but will ask the committee and will pass up to you shortly an amendment to reduce the $5 increase to the tsf in central soma where there are some 30 projects that would be impacted to a mere $two as was considered -- $2 as was considered in 2016. the nexus study shows commercial developments generate almost three times the impacts on our transportation system as residential developments do. commercial properties got off pretty well in the tsf discussion last time. though a supervisor tried to increase the commercial fee by $2 to make up the gap prior to the veto. by the way, all of this should be seen in light of the very

real and massive hole that may be blown into our budget if sb-1 is repealed. i want to put that on the table. all of these discussions have been very known to the development community who were involved in countless hearings and city meetings on both nexus and feasibility studies as well as the ttf 4025. had the mayor not vetoed the legislation commercial fees for properties over a hundred thousand square feet. [captioner switch]

>> supervisor peskin: -- the impact on residual land value is only - 7%, which is below or well below the - 10% threshold for a financial project's fiscal responsibility.

it also showed the tsf would still be economically feasible which is why i opted to start there for the tsf increase because i don't want to leave any money on the table. according to the central soma feasibility study, which i know planning will speak to, planning assumed a 7% increase in commercial rent over the two-year span between 2015 and 2017, and i would really like to fact check that and hear from planning on where they're getting these projected rent prices and how they calculated them, particularly given that the data is coming from jones lang lasalle who are the same firm that the controller has been using in its real estate score card where they projected a 12% increase. so i'm not exactly sure how jones lasalle can given 12% to

benjamin rosenfeld and 7% to the planning department. i work with planning all the time now that i am half the downtown supervisor, who can testify to the fact that we are fully leased before -- before these projected even come on-line. so it's odd to me that the planning department is presuming a 10% vacancy rate. most of the large footprint, 100,000-plus square foot spaces with highly desirable and they will have an impact on the rest of the city, whether you are in the sunset or the excelsior or the richmond. so with that, i will hand to you, colleagues, my amendment which i spoke to which would be a $5 increase except for in the

central soma, which would be a $2 increase and look forward to hearing your little bit more c

what we're looking at. i do have the central soma one in front of me, but i just wanted some clarity which study we're referring to, which report, which year, that would be great. >> thank you. john ram from the planning department. first, i just want to say that it is true -- and i will take responsibility for our noticing

error that prevented this from going to the planning commission on april 12. it was the same noticing error that prevented the industrial so some -- central soma plan from being here earlier. i would like the committee to consider a continuance until the planning commission hears the matter, on may 17, a week from thursday. so having said that, i am joined today by a star from my staff, sarah jones from the sf mta, and lisa chen who actually is responsible for that financial analysis. the one thing that i just wanted to mention and lisa can get more into the details of that financial analysis is that we are -- we do have a very serious concern about feasibility with central soma projects. i fully understand the goal of this lemgs latio-- legislation. i fully understand the need to finance our tran set systems, and we were doing the financial al