this appeal. we've just been handed october 2nd, 2018, a document called "revisions to air quality mitigation measures for the india basin mixed-use project." planning springs this on us now, after we have had an opportunity to appeal and to address you as the appellant. this is -- this is truly, remarkably improper. how is planning giving us a document on this particular day, a week after this hearing was supposed to be heard, and we're supposed to not be able to comment on this. this is outrageous. i would ask the members of the board of supervisors to ask the planning department how they can possibly change the mitigation on october 2nd, 2018, at 4:00,

when this hearing was scheduled at 3:00. this is completely outrageous. you should not allow this to happen. whether or not you support the appeal, this is a violation of our -- [ bell rings ] -- due process rights. this is a violation of our ability to address you concerning ceqa. what do they say? they say they are going to use some kind of renewable or clean diesel. don't we have an opportunity to challenge that? can't we have an opportunity to come before planning and say they are wrong, there is no such thing? [ bell rings ] >> president cohen: thank you.

thank you. [ indiscernible ] sir, you can speak for two minutes, but the gentleman has already -- [ speaking away from microphone ] sir, you are able to speak for two minutes. >> president cohen: are there any members of the public that would like to comment? all right, public comment is closed. all right. please sit down. now we'll have up to ten minutes from michael life from the planning department to make a presentation. mr. lye, i have a couple questions for you. mr. lee, my apologies. first of all, can you just start

with, this is a ceqa hearing, correct? >> yes, it is. >> what exactly is ceqa, what does it stand for and what is ceqa? >> ceqa is the california environmental quality act, and it requires lead agencies, such as the san francisco planning department, to evaluate the environmental impacts of a proposed development project. >> president cohen: and when you're evaluating the environmental impacts, do you take into consideration existing businesses? >> yes, we do. they are described as part of the environmental setting. >> president cohen: all right, thank you. and did you take into consideration the banya? >> yes, we did. the banya is described in the environmental setting throughout the eir. >> president cohen: thank you. >> and the responses to comments document, we identified the business by name. >> president cohen: thank you. and mr. lee, what exactly is this body supposed to do? there's been an appeal that is before us. what is the exact lens that we are looking through to evaluate

this appeal? >> your task is to determine if the eir is adequate, accurate, and complete, and if you find that is the case, then you would affirm the planning commission's certification of the eir. >> president cohen: all right. in your presentation, i'd like you to speak to the fact that you circulated a memo. perhaps you can begin there, speaking to the october 2nd memo. >> okay, i'll address that in my presentation. >> president cohen: okay, thank you. madam clerk, can you please start mr. lee's time? thank you. >> president cohen and members of the board, my name is michael lee and i'm the planning department's eir coordinator for the india basin mixed-use project. the item before you is the appeal of planning commission's

certification of the india basin eir. the commission certified the eir and approved the project on july 26th, 2018. the two appeals were filed. the first appeal was filed by archimedes banya sf and 748 innes avenue hoa and the second by greenaction. as stated in the department's september 17th appeal response and september 21st supplemental appeal response, the india basin eir is adequate, accurate, and complete, and it complies with ceqa, the ceqa guidelines, and chapter 31 of the san francisco administrative code. the department has addressed all of the issues raised in the appeal in our appeal response and supplemental appeal response. i'll briefly highlight some of the issues mentioned by the appellants today and the department's responses to the appellants' claims. regarding air quality impacts,

the eir disclosed that implementation of the project would result in significant air quality impacts and identified six mitigation measures to address those impacts. planning department staff have evaluated the existing mitigation measures and determined that mitigation measures maq-1a and maq-1c could be amended to require use of renewable diesel, which would further reduce the air quality impacts. >> president cohen: just so we can kind of translate the language that you're speaking, what impactly is maq-1-a? >> mitigation measure for air quality and it's 1-a. there are a total of six, so 1-a through "f." >> president cohen: thank you. >> we submitted the revised language for those mitigations efforts and this is done in

response to comments we received from the bay area air quality management district this morning. and we have copies available for the public. >> president cohen: thank you. the clerks will come and collect that. >> so the appellant does not disagree with the eir's conclusions. the appellant disagrees with the commission's decision to adopt a statement of overriding considerations and approve the project. the commission's decision to certify the project's eir is a separate action from their decision to adopt a statement of overriding considerations and approve the project. under the eir appeal, the question before the board is whether the eir is adequate, accurate, and complete and whether certification of the eir should be upheld. the question of whether the city should adopt a statement of overriding considerations and approve the project is a subject of the board's deliberations on the general plan amendments, the planning code amendments, and the development agreement.

regarding hazardous materials, the entire project site has undergone environmental testing, which includes soil sampling. the findings of the environmental testing are summarized in the hazards and hazardous material section of the eir and are documented in detail in appendix "m" of the eir, including over 4,000 pages of information related to hazardous materials on the project site. the eir disclosed that implementation of the project would result in significant impacts related to hazardous materials and identified five mitigation measures to reduce those impacts to less than significant levels. in response to recent information about a radioactive object being discovered at hunters point, india basin is distinctly different from hunters point. the object discovered at hunters point was a deck marker from a navy vessel. the navy never occupied india basin and the navy never operated at india basin.

it's unlikely any radioactive objects similar to the one discovered at hunters point would be discovered at india basin. one of the eir's mitigation measures, mhz-2-a requires the representation of a contingency plan that would address unanticipated conditions or contaminates encountered during construction activities. the contingency plan would be subject to approval by the department of public health. the project is also required to comply by a process for identifying, investigating, analyzing, and when necessary remediating hazardous substances in soils. regarding language access, the department has translated notices and documents into languages other than english, specifically when the department published the notice of availability of the draft eir, the department translated the

notice into chinese, spanish, in addition, build, one of the project's sponsors, translated the summary chapter of the draft eir into chinese and spanish. all of these translated documents were posted on the department's website with. by these actions, the department provided opportunities for a meaningful participation to all members of the community, including members of limited english proficient communities and they were afforded full opportunity to participate in the process. although the department did not provide a spanish version of the notice of preparation of the eir to greenaction due to an administrative oversight, this did not warrant recirculation of the notice of preparation. there was ample opportunity for meaningful comment at the draft eir stage and the department responded fully to all draft eir comments in the responses to comments document.

regarding the banya, as i stated earlier, the eir does include the banya as an adjacent land use that could be affected by implementation of the project. the banya's a privately owned commercial use with a privately accessible roof deck used by its clients. loss of a private view is not a physical environmental impact under ceqa. in conclusion, the appellants have not provided substantial evidence to support their claims that the eir is inadequate. for these reasons, the department recommends that the board uphold the india basin eir and deny the appeal. the department's project team is available to answer questions. oewe and the project sponsors, build and the recreation and park department are here, as well. thank you. >> president cohen: all right, thank you very much. supervisor peskin? >> supervisor peskin: thank you, madam president.

i am concerned about what i consider to be tantamount to document dumping, which is when i come into a hearing and in the middle of the hearing, not only members of the public, but then somebody dumps new mitigation measures on my desk. that is not the way this process is supposed to work. i think i understood what you said, which is that the air quality management district agreed with your conclusions, but you seem to be under the impression that you could not put these mitigation measures in the eir. this seems unorthodox at best. i mean, when you're adding mitigation measures, it means to me that the mitigation measures that you had were inadequate. so i've been doing this on and off for getting on 20 years,

i've never seen the department dump mitigation measures on the board in the middle of a hearing that the public has never seen before. that -- i mean, one of the fundamental underpinnings of ceqa is transparency and is public involvement and is that iterative process, so this is -- seems like that in and of itself is contrary to what ceqa intends, which is a real public involvement and input and people should come here and be able to say your mitigation measures aren't adequate and you need additional mitigation measures. that's why the legislature requires environmental documents to be appealable to an elected body. so i'm not sure, i mean -- i don't know what your response to that is, but this is janky. >> president cohen: supervisor -- i'm sorry.

i'm going to give the department an opportunity to respond and then we'll go to supervisor mandelman. >> good afternoon, president cohen, i'm lisa gibson, environmental review officer. i'd like to respond to supervisor peskin's question, if i may. supervisor, i'd like to assure you that this is a situation that we are responding to in real-time. this has been something that arose to us and was raised as a comment by the air district staff to our staff member jessica range, who is here and can speak on this more fully. the information that we provided to you and to the members of the public is to amend a mitigation measure by adding to it a provision that is recommended by the air district. it is a mitigation measure that has been included in the environmental impact report and as michael lee already noted, the eir finds that the air

quality impact of the project, with regard to construction, would be significant and unavoidable, so the eir does acknowledge that the mitigation measures would not effectively avoid or lessen the impact to a less than significant level. this additional provision, which relates to a type of fuel that the air district recommends be used and included in the measure does not alter the conclusion of the eir regarding the severity of significant impacts, but it does in the opinion of the air district, in which we share, we believe that it strengthens the measure because the type of fuel is one that would actually reduce emissions. so we do also face information that comes at us sometimes in the day of a hearing and i can assure you this is not something that we've upheld. we're providing it to you at this hearing at the earliest opportunity we felt we could do that.

>> supervisor peskin: if i may, madam president. >> president cohen: supervisor peskin. >> supervisor peskin: all these documents go to the state clearinghouse and various agencies like the air district. did they not get it? did they wake up one day before the planning commission for certification, i mean how is it that presumably renewable diesel didn't just get invented this morning. >> i'd like to ask jessica range to address this, but to the first part of your point, yes, indeed, we have distributed this environmental impact report and the earlier notice of preparation to state regional agencies that include the air district and this is not a comment we received previously. >> jessica range, planning staff. yes, everything that lisa said is correct.

we are responding in real-time to comments verbally from air district staff making recommendations to the eir's mitigation measures. we agree that renewable diesel can be something that can be included. there is a question about whether this is a feasible type of fuel to use. it is used in san francisco by muni and the port, but whether it is commercially available to all contractors, it's not like it is at your regular a.m./p.m., not like you can go fill it up at the gas pump. so there is some question about whether it is commercially available to contractors. and so that is why it may not be feasible. >> president cohen: supervisor mandelman. >> supervisor mandelman: yeah, i put myself on, took myself off. sounded like you got this comment today, so the air

district woke up and decided they would make this comment and then you are trying to respond to that comment. it was significant and unavoidable with this additional mitigation still significant and unavoidable, right? >> yes, lisa gibson again. that's correct and i'd also like to make the point that the eir is adequate as written. this additional revision, again, ask not alter the adequacy, accuracy, or objectivity of it, and even without it, it would be sufficient. >> president cohen: supervisor fewer. >> supervisor fewer: yes, i just have a question on the testing of the soil in that area and can you tell me about a little bit about the testing that was done and the results? >> from the planning department through the chair, the appellant did bring up that there was no testing on this site, but that is not true.

there was, as part of the analysis for the eir, the project site did undergo environmental testing, which included soil samples, and they are indicated in the draft eir starting at page 3.16-3, and the type of testing and documentation for the project site is included in appendix "m" of the project eir and briefly summarized and just to briefly summarized what was done, not going to go into too many details, but there was a site characterization report presenting the results of on-shore sampling activities undertaken in the late 2016 and offshore sediment sampling undertaken in march of 2017 for india basin shoreline park. at 900 innes avenue a site characterization report presented results of on-shore sampling activities undertaken

in 2016 and offshore sediment sampling in march of 2017. as well as at india basin in the india basin open space, and at 700 innes avenue there was a site mitigation plan conducted last year. the eir did disclose that the project would result in significant impacts and identified five mitigation measures, and they are noted as m-hy-1-ab, and then mhz-2-a through b that would impact through less than significant levels, and as we did discuss in the document, environmental testing was conducted for the entire project site, including the build portion at 700 innes, and there was a technical memorandum that stated in

appendix "m" of the draft eir on pages 4166 through 4172, it explains the environmental testing rationale for all properties within the project site and summarized the extent of radiological contamination at the adjacent shipyard site. the technical memorandum states there were no indication of materials associated with radiological contamination, such as radiological debris or sand blast material noted during the sub surface investigations within the project site. in addition, a review of the regulatory documentation of the investigations and remediation activities at the nearby areas of hunters point naval shipyard show no evidence radiological contamination has migrated or threatens the project site. there are many details about what the testing found and what

it has not found, but as michael lee stated in his presentation, there is a contingency plan just in case there are materials that are found that were not anticipated during the soil sampling, but during construction if they do find contaminants that they didn't anticipate, then work will stop and then they'll have to do some further testing and remediation under the department of public health. >> president cohen: supervisor fewer, does that answer your question? >> supervisor fewer: i'm glad that you mentioned about the testing also in relation to the hunters point shipyard site, because this area in general, i think, has had so many contaminants in it, and my main concern is that are we -- how we test it for whether or not it's a cumulative sort of effect of

what is happening all within the shipyard area and the hunters point area, so this is completely adjacent to it. and so we had heard before in other testimony that soil samples were sent, soil was shipped to other areas of the area. we had heard testimony that people said they saw other -- much of that soil being transported to other areas in the bayview-hunters point area and also near the shipyard, and so my main concern was that if we did adequate testing to see whether or not any of that residue has also gone over to the india basin area. so thank you very much for your answer. >> president cohen: supervisor? >> supervisor ronen: thank you. i just had a question about the notice in different languages.

i know that you had said that was a mistake, but could you walk us through what you noticed in what languages and when? >> so trying not to give you all these acronyms. at the beginning of the environmental impact report process, we determined an environmental impact was necessary, so the department has to send out a notice saying, hey, we're preparing an environmental impact report, and that's called a notice of preparation, and that just -- that's even before we scope what's going to go into the environmental impact report. we kind of guess based on going through the checklist what we might find out there, but knowing that we're going to do a full-blown environmental impact report, we ask that the neighbors respond or any regional agencies or state

agencies, and the local agencies can tell us what they feel might, you know, things that we may find. so that was the notice of preparation that went out, and it was in english. greenaction did request that it be translated. we did get it -- the notice, just the notice of availability translated into spanish, and unfortunately that was never transmitted to greenaction, and we did -- we did disclose that. it just never got to them. but there was still opportunities, other opportunities during the environmental process where we could translate. so for the draft eir notice that was translated into spanish and chinese and build inc. also translated the executive summary, which is that first portion of the environmental impact report that states all

the impacts and mitigation measures. [ please stand by ]

>> it was only spanish. which is not your normal practice. normally you would translate in all three languages. >> only if requested. we're only required to translate. >> did they request in all three languages? >> i can't recall. he is saying yes. that is for the notice of preparation. but understand that. >> ok. thank you. >> i have a follow-up question too, with supervisor about language action. we have a language access ordinance. are you not included or

obligated to up hold the language access ordinance? >> yes, we have a language access ordinance. we have one specific to the planning department. we do have -- >> hold on. when you say it's specific to the planning department. that implies it's separate or different from the one that we operate with. it's one and the same? >> lisa gibson. yes, to clarify we have a document that's a standard operating procedures from employees of the department. we are required to follow the city's language ordinance on separate ordinance. >> for what reason -- from start to finish, do then tying noticinthe the entirenoticing o? why does the appellant have to request -- >> it's what the ordinance requires. it's that the city must make available documents to non

native english speakers upon request. >> president cohen: only when requested. supervisor peskin. >> through the present to ms. gibson, respectliful, i understand it's your position that the document is adequate. and you can make that assertion. it's ultimately up to this body to make that determination. i just want to kind of remind you of that and i understand that you have a lot of time invested in it and that you are a professional. i under to go back to the mitigation measure. >> whether it reduces the

pollution you would consider significant, no one has had a chance to comment on this adequacy. so let me take a crack at it. i think this mitigation measure is inadequate. i think it is inadequate for the following reasons. i think the way it is written, it is very easy to avoid any manner. i think that if this mitigation measure is to have any meaning, words like the cost of renewable diesel must be within 10% of market price, have you done any analysis of whether it's within 10% of market price? i mean, we have millions of gallons of renewable diesel. we the city and council of san francisco. i was on the board a decade ago when muni retooled it's fleet.

is that commercially available. there's no real definition what commercial availability means. yes, it's not available at the ampm. does that mean that the project sponsor, the develo developer ss not commercially available. it's 11% more. this is not an adequate mitigation measure in the supervisor's opinion. this is not been before the public. yes, we put out the notice of preparation and the draft document, and people can come and talk on the final document and they can appeal it to this board. i mean, all of that is rendered meaningless if someone can't look at this mitigation measure and say i think it's inadequate.

>> of the e.i.r. in accordance. what would you suggest in terms of what are you suggesting? as a result of this new information? >> well, i guess i don't know if we want this conversation. some a pep ants are represented by comp tant council. one thing that one could do, we can ask the question of council, one would be just what you said which is to recirculate or recirculate for a short period

of time. the second would be, i mean, insofar as this is a sort of quasi judicial hearing, we can create some separation of time. which is to say, we'll have a narrow hearing wherein people can offer comments, which they can't do today because no one, including these adjudicators it had before them until the middle of the meeting. you can recirculate it for short period of time. you can say public, you guys get a week to render any comments you want to render on this mitigation measure? i see ms. jensen -- >> before you do that -- i think that is a fair suggestion. even with this new information it doesn't require under ceqa. i think in the spirit of

fairness and transparency and an opportunity for the public to comment, i would be in support of that suggestion that is why i wanted to ask you. on a limited timeframe given the fact that so much significant time has been put into this over all. >> president cohen: before you respond, supervisors, i don't know if one week's time would be enough. >> we don't have a meeting on october 9th. >> so it would be in two weeks. >> look to the deputy city attorney. thank you. turn your mic on. >> thank you. deputy city attorney to the president, just to clarify the record, the modification to the existing mitigation measure is not actually part of the ceqa

decision before the board. it's unclear but because when it arrived and the procedural posture that we're in, what the board will be decided is whether the i.e.r., minus this latest tweak is adequate, accurate and complete under ceqa. if the board concluded that it felt that this tweaked to the mitigation measure was appropriate, that would be handled in the project approval action that would be taken later in the day. that's not to address the continuance question, whether or not ceqa requires continuance is determination that needs to be made under the standards of ceqa but whether this board wants to continue it under its discretionary power, you could to allow more public review. i'm not sure of the question. it was a little more open-ended than that. i'm not sure if i answered the question.

>> president cohen: was that satisfactory to you? >> it's a huge project. it takes a while toe to title i. this is one supervisor's suggestion, but i would suggest we continue it to our next meeting, which gives the public two weeks. other things may be resolved in that two-week period as well. >> that's true. i want to ask a couple questions, because, as the sponsor or the district supervisor, i mean, i didn't foe about this as well until it was circulated. i want to know where the breakdown of communication has been? is there a representative in the audience that can speak to this? come on up. use ta podium right there. we don't like surprises like this. yeah, that one. either one works. >> we don't like surprises either. gosh, i did not expect to be here today as well. you are right, we did wake up

late last week, we got a call from one of our partners in the community. >> president cohen: wait, who would normally trigger this for your review? what is the normal process? that's where the breakdown is. aan advocacy group should not be alarming you or bringing this to your attention. i want to know who messed up. >> all right. should i say my name, first. >> i'm alison kirk from backmedicine. we have a process where we look through and we gather ceqa documents that are placed in the state clearing house and also from local jurisdictions. a year ago, when this was posted as a draft e.i.r., it should have gone through our list. unfortunately, we're human and we're not perfect and occasionally things fall through the cracks. this is one of those things that did not -- we did get commented on or placed on our list. had it been placed on our list, there's a possibility we would not have commented at the time.

we don't have the resources to comment on every single ceqa document that passes by us. so the fault is with us. we're very sorry to be springing this on you. we've also been really pleased working with the city. they've been so responsive. not just here but in other projects as well. i really appreciate the speed with which they were able to talk with me this morning and answer some questions about the project. >> president cohen: so, how would this normally be flagged for you? >> normally, we would see the draft e.i.r., we would comment if there was something to comment on. >> president cohen: did you see the draft i.e.r. e.i.r.? >> not until last week. >> president cohen: why did you not see it until last week? i don't understand. >> right. so when we gather documents to comment on, we have to go

through ceqa net. it's the stake clearing house. we look at all sorts of ceqa documents in our jurisdiction, which is the bay area. >> that information has been sitting up there for a very, at least a month, if i'm not mistaken. >> to a comment on a ceqa document, we want to do that during the public comment period. the appropriate time to do this would be about a year ago when there were -- when the draft e.i.r. was in circulation. when we missed that, it doesn't really come up again until it comes to our attention for some other reason, perhaps, the final document is posted or someone in the community brings it to our attention. or perhaps if there's a permitted source at the project that we will be responsible for permitting.

>> president cohen: so, it's your statement that someone brought this to your attention, someone other than -- some source outside of the ceqa net? >> correct. a member of the bay view community. >> if no one would have brought this to your attention, we would not be made aware of this mitigating factor. i say a significant one that has to do with the air quality. we would be just not discussing it. so, i would imagine back we would be quiet and not acknowledge the fact there could have been an additional mitigation offered on the discussion of this project, but that would require you to acknowledge your shortcomings on your process. >> if you would like me to do that, i will.

>> >> president cohen: i'm trying to understand is where the gaps are and get assurances that we can correct this. this is a really big problem. we're talking about a community that has been raked over the coals for years, for generations. to be treated like this again, it just feels so disingenuous and disrespectful. >> i absolutely agree. we are engage in a process of working with communities. we've already identified this community as a care community and there is an upcoming legislation called ab6-16 where we will work with our community partners and the city to address these types of issues. the air quality issues in communities within the next couple of years. we hope to ramp up that project in the bay view hunters point area. there are funds associated with this, with ab617 and we hope we can work with the community to design mitigations to go in and address issues like this. this is not our only shot at the

apple m.p. terms of the community as a whole. >> you talk about a care community. how do you designate a care community? what are some of the characteristics that would go into that special designation. >> care communities have elevated mortality rates. >> president cohen: continue. you are making my point. if this is a care community special care should be given on any kind of a project that has an impact around the neighborhood. since i have you here, i want you to answer this question. what's the adequacy of the mitigation as a mitigation -- mitigating measure that's you've presented? >> i haven't seen that. >> president cohen: you haven't seen it. you haven't seen it but what? >> when i spoke to staff this morning, we talked about a number of issues and part of my public comment was to suggest the renewable and biodiesel for off-road equipment that did not

reach the tier 4 standard. when tier 4 isn't available, we recommend that the city look into requiring bio or renewable diesel. i have a couple of other suggestions that we think might help reduce, particularly the particulate matter of emissions and concentrations. >> president cohen: is it spelled out in the memo? >> there is no memo. i just have talking points. >> president cohen: let's hear them. >> all right. ok. so, the air strict strongly urges the city to implement all feasible mitigation measures to reduce particulate concentrations in the neighborhood that neighbors of the project are going to be subject to during construction and operational periods of the project. including the bio and renewable diesel. we'd also like to know that -- we'd like the city to

investigate the availability of tier 4en begins for the offshore equipment that's going to be used, specifically the pile drivers and the cranes for offshore work. pile drivers in particular, are very large, high horse power engines so it's important to make the engine as clean as possible. we'd like to point staff to our recent changes to our regulation 6. our board of directors just made changes that updates our recommendations for construction mitigation. we'd just like staff to take a look at that and make sure that they've incorporated all the things we've recommended. for operations, we'd like staff to investigate the availability of hybrid or alternative-fueled delivery trucks and electrified commercial loading docks and to continue to investigate ways that the city can reduce exposure to toxic air

contaminants in existing buildings. my understanding is that the central soma improvement strategy includes looking into starting a fund that would set aside funds for existing buildings to spend money on retro fit devices such as the merve13h-vac. we would like that to be implied in the health vulnerability zip codes. this is in one of those zip codes. we appreciate what the city has done. it's been very progressive in adopting community risk reduction plans and article 38 to project health. we look forward to reduce emissions and exposure, including on ab-617 projects in bayview hunters point. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> president cohen: before you go, colleagues, i don't know, do you have any questions? supervisor kim.

>> i do. this is extraordinary for me. i also have not seen this happen in the middle of an appeal. you just got this this morning? i mean not -- you reviewed it this morning. >> late last week it came to our attention and we started reviewing the documents. we've had internal discussion and internal talks. some of our staff with people in the community and it was just this morning or last night that i reached out to michael lee and we had a discussion and we continued those discussions in addition with jessica range this morning. >> the reason why you didn't see the mitigation measures is because we all just got it. that's why you haven't seen it. >> correct. >> you provided a number of recommendations. i just want to appreciate that you were able to spend the time

to do that so quickly, within a number of days. so i'm looking at the map right now for the care communities, it looks like it covers the eastern half of san francisco. or is it more specific than this? >> i don't have a map in front of me. i would say it's areas of eastern san francisco. >> so the majority. and so, in these circumstances, do you dough pend on members of the public to come to you to ask you to review environmental documents or do you try to review projects and plans that are incorporated in the care area or neighborhoods? >> we absolutely do try and review the ones in care. this is an example of a document that we would be very interested in because it's mixed-use and very large. so, yes, this should have been

on our radar. >> so your concerns are relative to the fact that there are already high levels of contaminants in the air. so, you believe that there should be additional mitigation measures to protect the residents that live here currently with any additional new development? >> correct. our job is to make sure that developers and local governments do everything they can to protect public-health and air quality. i'm here today to just say thank you for working with us. we appreciate what you do. let's try and take a little step further. >> how much time do you think would be adequate for us to do that work with you? as elected representatives of the public, i think it behooves us to make sure that we're doing and taking every step we can to protect our residents, particularly in neighborhoods that have more than the average amount of contaminants or

pollutants. right now, supervisor peskin has proposed two weeks being that our next board meeting is in two weeks, is that an adequate amount of time for our agencies to work you to make sure we can come up with a list of mitigations to ensure that we are protecting our residents to the highest extent possible? >> definitely, absolutely. >> you had mentioned the central soma plan, we just heard that appeal last tuesday. i hope that you were able to per use that document. >> i have not recently. >> ok. [laughter] >> i will keep this in mind next time. we should be forwarding these things to you. i think your input is important. i guess, to the planning department, i hope we can also just include backmed in our recognize process. i'm not an expert in this arena.

i'm asked to make decisions, as a representative, that is really for the best interest of our city and of course our constituents. so often we have to do the best that we can with the information that is before us that we're really protecting the lives and health and safety of our residents. it would be helpful for us to continue that dialogue. in regards to central soma, we do have mitigation programs that we would be providing funds to existing residents to upgrade current buildings that aren't at the levels that we required new construction to be at. i think that's important. the funds do necessarily come in time for construction periods. in fact, you know, much period of time e.i.r. states that the impact is with kind of additional vehicles in the plans or workers' residents post construction. would you generally grow that thago that isthe case? or do you think it's equally important to make sure we provide these mitigations during the construction period?

>> real quick before you answer, i just want to pivot to lisa gibson, she is going to make a comment. >> thank you. i would like to note from record, they have the availability. that was done both for the india basin i e.i.r. as well as soma. we provide a note indication that this document was available for review and jessica would like to add something in that regard to the chair. >> i'm not questioning whether you did, i think that perhaps there's another layer of outreach we can do. we can send outpost cards and e-mails to people. i get a lot of them too. i'm a busy person. i'm going to miss some of them. and so actually i completely understand. i don't know. actually i don't know how backmed construction works. i don't understand why you missed it. perhaps, you know, for us, when

we really want the community to know about something and we want people to come out to our meetings. we call people and call community leaders. [ please stand by ]

-- this is a huge educational opportunity for me as one of the three representatives from san francisco that sits on the board. i was not aware this was a practice. it makes sense that it would be, but it did not occur to me and not something that we talk about on the board. the suggestions that you made to protect the house of a residence, especially in a care community, are great suggestions and should be included as mitt measures and e.i.r.s. i will take a look at requiring the planning staff, especially in a development in a care

community, that impacts air quality, that we do additional outreach and ask for additional attention on these projects. i will be on the lookout for that as a representative. i simply wasn't aware that this was something that this agency does and i'm glad that you do and that the impact or the suggestions that you have will make a big impact on our residents. so i will be following up with our city attorneys, but-day think this is something that, especially in care communities -- the onus is on us to get back med's attention to provide the expertise on mitigations for the

projects. so i will definitely be following up on that with you. but i thank you for -- whether it was last minute or at all taking a look at this and providing such details recommendations. and now that we have additional recommendations above the one that was brought to our attention just now, i believe we absolutely need a continuance to include all of those in the project. so thank you very much. i will look forward to following up with you. >> president cohen: what is your role in back med? >> i'm a senior environmental planner and work in planning division. >> president cohen: is this a normal process for you what we're experiencing today? is it how you conduct your business usually? >> no. we would much prefer to comment during open comment in writing when the draft e.i.r. is circulating. >> president cohen: should we pass a rule, ordinance or amend

a change that would require your organization to be notified? >> absolutely not. your staff has done an excellent job notifying us. it was an issue internal to our workings of staff in my department. >> president cohen: please let your executive director know that i will be giving him or her a call. >> i will. >> president cohen: thank you. >> thank you. >> president cohen: the drama never ceases. okay. where do we begin? planning, are you done with your presentation? okay. well, we're going to try to pick up where we left off. mayor's office of economic development, want to see if you have anything to contribute to this discussion? no. okay.

no problem. supervisors, any questions? we're going to have another opportunity here. what i'm thinking about doing is letting this hearing play out fully with respect to people's time that have come. i want it note that item 40, that we were supposed to discuss, we cannot hear until we dispense of this item. it sounds like there is appetite for a two-week continuance for october 16. so what we need to do is continue with the hearing. we will take public comment. i want to pivot to the deputy city attorney. i want to see if it's possible for us to leave a portion of this hearing open that would allow us to take comments and public feedback on the document specifically the revisions of the air quality mitigation measures for india basin, instead of having to go through this whole hearing again.

what portion of public comment or what portion of the hearing can we take up october 16? >> deputy city attorney john givner. it's really up to the board. you could reopen public comment and allow people to speak generally on the e.i.r. you could also -- and i think this is what you are suggesting, madam president -- keep public comment open and allow people to comment including people who have already spoken specifically on this mitigation measure, so on is the 16th, they would speak on the mitigation matter and then close it. it's up to the board how to structure that follow-up hearing. >> president cohen: i appreciate that. thank you. >> supervisor peskin: i would be inclined to open public comment on the narrow issue but broaden

it beyond what's in this mitigation measure. based on the department from the district representative, it's a slight -- comment limited to issues around air quality impacts and mitigations there, too. >> that makes sense. >> president cohen: all right. we're going to continue to move forward. i want to acknowledge the project sponsor. allow them the opportunity to make a 5-minute presentation. come on in. 5 minutes. >> excuse me, i understood we had 10 minutes. >> president cohen: no. let me double check. >> i think it's 5 and 5 -- >> president cohen: i'm sorry, you do. my apologies.

>> good afternoon. mary murphy, counsel to india basin, project co-sponsor. we're here to reask that you reject the appeals. e.i.r. is thorough, complete, comprehensive and meets the requirements of ceqa. i will address a couple of the ceqa arguments and then i will turn it over to mr. vasquez to describe the project and its merits. i would like to focus on two of the principal objections. as described in the e.i.r., all of the reports including 70 700 innes were subject to testing. they're site plans reviewed by applicable agencies