>> to me, that's the -- that's

the biggest thing that could -- best work i could have done in my life, changing someone's life -- at least one, but that touched me, and i want to thank you all for this opportunity. thank you very much. [applause] >> president cohen: thank you. [applause] >> president cohen: congratulations. >> thank you.

>> president cohen: all right. thank you. thank you for your service, all of you. all right, folks, this concludes our portion of the agenda where we do the commendations, and i'd like to pivot back to item 21. i think item 21 is fairly self-explanatory. madam clerk, do we need to reread it or recall it? >>clerk: it's already been called. it's on the floor. >> president cohen: all right. colleagues, is there any discussion on item 21? colleagues, can we take this same house, same call. without objection, this resolution is adopted. madam clerk, could we please move to the 3:00 p.m. special order. >>clerk: yes. the first 3:00 p.m. is our items 27 through 30. they're hearing and motions regarding the appeal on the ceqa issued by the planning department.

ce . >> president cohen: thank you very much. so colleagues, we have before us today one appeal for the final environmental impact report for the washington square water conservation project in supervisor peskin's district. before considering these appeals, supervisor peskin has a conflict of interest with this project and would thus like to be excused. may i have a motion to excuse supervisor peskin. >> supervisor peskin: madam chair, just before the motion is made, the conflict is i own real property within 500 feet of washington square and therefore

as a matter of law am required to recuse myself. >> president cohen: thank you. made by supervisor kim and seconded by supervisor yee. without objection, supervisor peskin is excused. supervisor fewer, would you like to make a few remarks? >> supervisor fewer: yes, thank you supervisor. i would like to make a motion to continue this item to the next board meeting on oct-8, 2018. >> president cohen: all right. thank you very much. and seeing that there are no names on the roster, colleagues, this matter can be continued. let's open it up for public comment on the continuance. again, ladies and gentlemen, we're opening up public comment on the continuance. are there any members of the public would would like to speak on the continuance only? all right. seeing none, public comment is closed. seeing no other speakers for public comment, may i have a motion to continue this appeal? may i have a motion to continue

this appeal to november 13, 2018? a motion made by supervisor fewer, seconded by supervisor -- supervisor kim, thank you. without objection, items 27 through 30 are continued until november 13 broord meeting. thank you. madam clerk, please call the next special order. >>clerk: items 31 through 34 and they're hearing and motions regarding a community plan evaluation by the planning department under ceqa issued on may 30, 2018 for the proposed project at 2750 19th street, approved on august 23, 2018 to demolish three existing industrial buildings, retain a principle two story facade and construct a 68'6" story mixed use building with approximately 10,000 square feet of ground floor p.d.r., 60 residential units above and bicycle parking in the basement with item 32

conditionally finding the -- approving the determination, item 33, reversing the determination. >> president cohen: as a reminder, these appeals involve analysis of adequacy, sufficiency, completeness of the final environmental impact report. we will begin as follows. first, up to ten minutes for the appellant, and the appellants are our mission no eviction. the appellants will describe the grounds for their appeal. two minutes for public commenters to speak. these are commenters that are speaking in support of the appeal, and then, we will have a ten-minute presentation for justin horner from the planning department to present his analysis of the -- certified e

feir, and then, there will be a ten minute presentation from the sponsor, and another two minutes for public commenters to speak that are in support of the affirmation of the environmental impact report, and then finally, the appellant will have up to three minutes for a rebuttal argument. and i think colleagues, without objection, we can get started. [ gavel ]. >> president cohen: the public hearing is now open. i'd like to take a couple minutes to give a few opening remarks. i've had an opportunity to meet with both the project sponsor and the appellant involved in the appeal. just for reference, this is a mixed-use development comprised of three existing industrial buildings which will be turned into approximately 10,000 square feet of ground floor p.d.r. space. it will retain a principle two story facade and construct a six

story mixed-use building with 60 residential units above with bicycle and vehicle parking in the basement. i'm looking forward to this particular hearing. seeing that there are no names on the roster from my colleagues, i will now ask the appellant to come forward. come forward, and to present their case, and just as a reminder, you'll have up to 15 minutes -- excuse me. you'll have ten minutes. please introduce yourself, and welcome. >> thank you. my name is lariss pedruncella, and this is lisa kelly, and we are with our mission no eviction. technology. >> president cohen: all right. maybe we should pause your time. are you ready? >> yes. we check it had earlier.

>> president cohen: okay. let's start the time again at the top of the ten-minute timer. all right. you may begin. >> thank you. good afternoon, supervisors. our mission no eviction requests that you uphold the appeal of the planning commission's decision to adopt a community plan exemption and require a project level environmental review prior to further consideration of this project. this project has substantial adverse effects with its low percent of on-site availability, it causes further disproportionate construction of market rate units and will further exacerbate the displacement of working class residents surrounding the project site. this project will further exacerbate traffic congestion, pollution, greenhouse gases and noise as a result of adding provide cars, the heavy use of

t.n.c. ride hails, and constant deliveries. added congestion brought by this project will directly endanger pedestrians and bicyclists. with no guarantee to the community for working class p.d.r. manufacturing, this project will contribute to further displacement of manufacturing businesses and the loss of working class p.d.r. jobs. 2050 -- -- the c.p.e. approval rested on the cumulative impact studies on the western neighborhood's e.i.r. that was done between 2005 and 2008. so what's the problem with this? conditions have significantly changed. substantial new information affecting environmental analysis has become available since the adoption of the plan e.i.r.

ceqa guidelines require that comprehensive analysis be done for new issues, and since the community plan evaluation is tiered from the plan i. e.r., it is imperative that the plan e.i.r. is reliable. if the e.i.r. is missing areas of study, it is no longer viable as a tool for evaluating cumulative impacts. so does this project have impacts that are accumulatively considerable? the eastern neighborhood plans studied three housing projection options and recommended a preferred kwauquantity of 1,696 housing units in the mission from 2008 to 2025. however the study never anticipated the number of more thanes of more than 2,054 in plan c. or the impacts of higher

housing production. over 3,000 units have been built or are currently in the pipeline, and we have seven years more to go in the plan. what are the cumulative impacts of pipeline projects? we don't know. the plan has not cumulatively analysised the effect of this project, the 226 units being built across or the other pipeline projects. as of 2018 quarter two, san francisco has exceeded overall housing production goals. san francisco has exceeded its goals for above moderate income outside housing and built or entitled 218.9% of its planned arena housing production. we do know that our projected housing balance shows that low-income housing productions

in d-9 and d-10 are well below targets. there are environmental impacts related to traffic, land use, health and safety that have not been studied. what are the unforeseen cumulative transportation impacts in unintended increases of automobile ownership of high income earners, displacement commutes of mission families driving back and forth long distances for their jobs and schools, new silicon valley reverse commutes, the advent of t.n.c. ride hails, the advent of services for align meals, groceries that have increased frequency of deliveries to well to do households, and know we see private drivers making drifr

res of amazon because traditional dliefr res cannot meet demand. what about shuttles? the e.i.r. did not study shuttles because they didn't exist at that time. 40% of tech workers in sf use shuttles, and they said they would move closer to their offices outside the city if there were no private shuttles. 69% of no fault evictions have occurred within four block radius of tech bus stops between 2011 and 2013. so why is old methodology being used to calculate transportation impacts? impacts assess were based on outdated motion denied ellig from sf champ and the 2002 s.f. guidelines that did not studied t.n.c.'s. these used a methodology based on analysis by a study done for

sf planning in september of 1 1980. delivery vehicle impacts are vastly understated by the relines on these outdated guidelines, and according to a recent report from the sfcta, 51% of the city's traffic congestion and 51% of e.m.t. measured from 2010 to 2016 is attributed to t.n.c. ride hails. these impacts are particularly acute in urban areas, including the mission, and they throw into question the accuracy of using v.m.t. analysis. a recent global traffic score card shows that as of 2017, san francisco driving is now ranked fifth most congested in the world. are there appropriate community benefits in this project? are there adequate community benefit overall, such as

pedestrian-bicycle safety measures, open space, affordable housing production, to offset the cumulative impacts of this project? this project includes bicycle storage for residents, but there is no adequate bicycle infrastructure to ensure their safety. the san francisco bicycle plan that is used in this c.p.e. was adopted in 2009, before the advent of t.n.c.'s. none of the intersections identified for improvement in the plan e.i.r. were within the vicinity of this project. is there adequate pedestrian infrastructure to support this project? are there adequate loading zones for the constant stream of deliveries and ride hail loading that 60 households will generate? and then, there's the lack of on-site community benefit. the project sponsor has offered

the ground floor p.d.r. to the fi fitzgeralds for 20 years. a there's no guarantee that the site will remain a site with working class p.d.r. jobs, no guarantee that the project sponsor will not try to submit a change of use for this ground floor space, and roll back to their initial retail proposal for this site. there's an unacceptable percentage of on-site affordability. the addition of a single unit at 150% a.m.i. does not contribute to affordablity in this working class neighborhood. and lastly, teaching the joint -- the use of the community to build affordable market rate housing that will cause correct and indirect harm to themselves and their families

is not a community benefit. so eastern neighborhood communities deserve better. ceqa requires a cumulative environmental analysis based on

people who are being appealed to to get away with intentional time delay. you set the requirement to be

attendant in the building at 50% of the a.p.i., which comes to about low-income bracket

people and created a loophole and make sure that the only people that benefit is people in high income brackets. >> president cohen: thank you. are there any other members of the public that would like to speak in favor of the appeal? mr. gilberti? >> on the housing side of things, again, last

so the main problem with this project is it will cause direct and indirect harms to the mission community, and these harms haven't been studied. so the city allowed this project to use an outdated e.i.r., and

the actual impacts have not been studied. so how can they be mitigated? the ceqa guidelines require that current circumstances be studied. they were not. so again, no studies were done for the current level of housing development in the mission, and no -- as you heard, cumulative transportation analysis was done, either, and it should be, based on the current transportation modes. so there's no recognition or study of the t.n.c.'s anywhere in the environmental review for the project. so this -- this project will cause adverse effects. it'll -- as you heard, it'll make traffic more congested than it already is.

noise, more cars, do we need more cars? more lyfts, more ubers? and above all, the displacement of the community, of the latinx community who will be driven out by the housing and not enough low-income housing, so i ask you to consider that. >> president cohen: thank you, miss barshak. next speaker? >> i'm here today to speak on behalf of tsupporting the peal for this project. with 326 units already entitled to be built in what we've dubbed the beast on bryant, this mission is experiencing a deluge of market rate clients that are included in this project and the beast on bryant, and there are other units that are coming

on-line. what we know is high income wage earns are the ones that occupy these units and the ones most likely to use t.n.c.'s. in a study released, in 2017, an estimated -- san franciscans took over 75 million trips using ride hailing services. it's not only the most percity, that's the most in raid share density. 60% of t.n.c. users in large cities would have taken public transportation, walked, biked or not made the trip had t.n.c.'s not been available for this trip. finally, they put 2.8 new t.n.c. vehicle miles on the road for each mile of personal vehicle moved, an overall 180% increase in driving on city streets. this project, along with the

beast on bryant, is going to contribute -- is already going to significantly contribute to what we already have as a problem in traffic congestion, yet it's also a safety problem. earlier this year, supervisor ronen met personally with uber and lyft who acknowledged that the problem of crowding and traffic congestion was a problem on valencia street. and it wasn't just traffic, it was a matter of safety.

>> they are analyzing from a study done in 1980.

it corrects to the impacts with 60 new absolute majority which will be high income. adequate analysts of noise, air quality, greenhouse gases, emissions, emergency vehicle, access, pedestrian and bike safety are all dependent on the accurate realistic traffic projects. they should not be using outdated modeling and 2002 guidelines. i was part of the neighborhood plan when they were doing the redoing the heights years ago. we're in a whole new world. the reason we're having this problem and litigating what's not affordable and in this mess in the housing crises, because this neighborhood needs to be

redone. the effects we're feeling from gentrification is at an all time high. we need to revisit the neighborhood plans and take into all accounts. that doesn't seem to be getting done. this is where the crisis began. we need to start over. >> thank you very much. next speaker. >> thank you for your time. my name is kevin ortiz. as an early lead on this project, we understand what is actually negotiations. it was incredibly difficult to meet the sponsor team to get the discussion going around community benefits to mitigate the harms this project is creating and ensure that p.d.r. space will keep working place

jobs. agreements includes rates for pdr space, guaranteed length of time. yet there's no protection in this case if fitzgerald leaves or is bought out. it's teaching them to contributed to the displacement of their community. 60 units, yet 17.5% affordable. that's a joke. we fought for 25% minimum affordable as part of the action plan 2020. thank you for your time. >> thank you. >> good afternoon supervisors

peter papadopoulos. i want to hit a few key outlines here which will frame a little bit what we're hearing from other folks. the context -- we believe very much what is the equitable framework. we know that this project will add impact in certain ways. what happen are those impacts and have they beenaccounted for and mitigated. what will those potential mitigations be starting with the environmental. we saw this before -- i thinks

cumulative issue. we see it's significantly over including its affordable units by a whole 60ers. second the question is, is the e.i.r. accurate? i think here we can see that the t.n.c.s through the san francisco county transportation agency has truly taken a look at the impacts. we'll see the huge size of those impacts. if you see in vehicle miles traveled, which is the mode of analysis see, we see enormous increase of 47%, knock included anywhere in the peir. if we look at the federal reserve study, the recent study says for 1277 units of new housing we build, the price of one bedroom will drop $18 or for this project will drop by 85

cents. >> thank you. are there any other members of the public? please come down. >> just to let you know -- this is in regards to the part of the housing implementation. >> sir, we can't hear you. maybe you can speak into the mic or turn up your voice. >> this is for the purpose of the housing and implementation of the united states code. this is the united states of america committee of judicial authority of rules. yo[indiscernible]

this is highly important. i want you all to understand something. i'm here and i've been here to reform this government.

that's what we're going to do. if you keep pushing that button to deter me or anyone else on reading, you don't belong here. just let me read this. >> thank you. time is up sir. your time isq up. are there any other members of the public that would like to comment and speak on behalf of the appellate? public comment of this portion is closed. i like to go on the record and correct something that i said earlier in my remarks. i want to restate that the purpose of the hearing is to

evaluate of the community plan exemption not to evaluate the eir. i want to correct that. planning department, are you ready? thank you. >> good afternoon president cohen and board members. justin horner planning department staff. i like to start knowledging public testimony today. concerns about public, safety and community benefit. some of the communities relate to environmental issues these are addressed in our field response. others relate to speaker support or opposition to the project. the merits of the project are not concerns related to the environmental appeal before the board today. our response only addresses whether the community plan

exemption prepared for the project. the department recognizes the concerns around displacement and gentrification. the department written appeal response provides a summary of various he wa efforts under wayo address the policy concerns. the project is consistent with the development density established by the easter neighborhood rezoning for which an environmental impact report or e.i.r. was certified. ceqa requires stream line review for some project. the preview must be focused on examining whether there's significant impacts from the project that were not anticipated in the prior easter neighborhood's eir. one of the main arguments made is that the department did conduct up to date analysis that considers the effects of changes in easter neighborhood and eir

was issue. we have performed new analysis to address these factors. as the eir disclosed, adoption of the rezoning would allow for a substantial increase in growth throughout the easter neighborhoods. with total increase of potentialousing supply about the 26,500 units. eir determined the growth would have significant impact on land use, shadow, noise and air quality. the question now under the streamline review is whether this project will result in environmental impacts that are new or more severe than those disclosed in the easter neighborhood eir. to address this question the department projected-analysises.

for example, the transportation analysis uses the regional vehicle miles traveled methodology a evaluates the projects under current condition and updated conditions for the year 2040. the cpe includes updated analysis of air quality, 14 house gas emissions and noise. the board has heard arguments of the easter neighborhood eir. three additional issues were raised by the appellate in the appeal letter. i will briefly address each. the first claim is that the ceqa finding did not take into account the potential impacts for the gentrification and displacement.

the easter neighborhood's eir found in the rezone could have secondary socioeconomic effects. those effects would not in turn lead to significant physical environmental impacts. at the direction of the board, the department prepared detailed analysis addressing gentrification and displacement as part of its responses to ceqa appeals for 2675folsom street. the second claim raised by the appellate is the cpe cannot rely on the easter neighborhood eir because the plan public benefits have not been adequately provided. the public pint -- there were no

impacts identified in the eir a were determined to the less than significant as a result of the adoption of the public benefits program. even if none of the elements of the public benefits program were implemented the conclusion reached by the eir will not change. the appellate claims that new information become available which requires new analysis. the appellate claims that the new information results in impacts related to transportation. each type of new information alleged by the appellate is address by the department written response. it's important to that the clarify dclaire -- from the rezd anticipated development under the plan. the board accepted these impacts and increased density throughout the easter neighborhood when it adopted the plan. as presented in the ceqa appeal

responses traffic counts taken in 2016, 2017 and 2018 showed the traffic congestion is generally the same or slightly less severe than anticipated in the easter neighborhood eir. earlier this month, the county transportation authority released a report about transportation network company and congestion. the transportation authority's report findings are consistent with the eir's conclusion there will be increase in traffic volume and congestion. as discussed above, recent travel counts which included transportation network company have not revealed an increase in congestion over and above what was expected in the easter neighborhood eir analysis. it is our view that the appellate is not demonstrated or provided evidence to support a claim that the cpe failed to confirm the requirement of ceqa. the planning department recommend that the board uphold

the department ceqa determination and reject the appeal. that concludes the department transportation. >> colleagues any questions? i have a few. mr. horner, if you can reiterate what we heard is that the methodology is old. the methodology that we using is old old and outdated. could you explain your rationale, you or someone else. i don't know. >> president cohen, the methodology that we heard from the public about today, 2002 guidelines that we do our transportation analysis with. we're in the process of updating those methodologies currently

and we do have some preliminary results. that's getting updated in the next two months. we're releasing more reports. but what we are seeing from the new methodology walk trips -- we heard about some motor-related questions and walk trips are increasing and drive trips are decreasing cellulit slightly. we don't actually see ther result effort eir actually being any different or impacts will be more severe. >> what's the reason you're updating that methodology? >> we're updating the methodology because we also recognize things are changing in the city.

the eir did study vehicles in 2008. we are seeing that the number of vehicular that the eir studied in 2008 was a lot more. it was more conservative than today. >> supervisor cohen: what other changes are you making to the methodology that you're using to evaluate projects? >> we're basically looking at every single aspect. we're looking at pedestrians, bicycles. we're looking at the travel demands. we're looking at loading, park parking, construction. every single transportation topic is being updated now.

>> supervisor cohen: thank you. what if any, transportation impacts this area have you considered -- sorry. recently, the transportation authority, this body, had a report that was submitted that took into account that quantified roughly, the impacts of tncs to neighborhoods. i was wondering if you had an opportunity to review that data and if you were able to talk little bit about the impacts of tnc? >> yes, we have had the opportunity to review that data. every single agency is working together. we are consistently talking to the transportation authority and mta and planning in the two agencies are actively involved in updating the way that we're looking at tnc and the way they

are actually becoming more prominent in the city. there are other studies that will be prepared. going back to the question of tnc and congestion. we did review the report. as justin mentioned in his presentation, we are seeing that the report consistent what the easter neighborhood eir said in terms of congestion. when we were analyzing for the impacts we used level of service. which is a measure of congestion. ta that's basically what're seeing now in terms of the eir projection. >> what about the impacts or the implementation of vision zero?

the recommendations a vision zero made? does this particular project reflect the incorporation of those recommendations? >> yes. this particular project actually -- we have a process by which every project actually go through team of inner city officials. this team is actually recommendingification thachangeo happen. >> supervisor cohen: , colleagues any other questions? seeing none, what i like to do now is call up him to speak up on behalf of the project

sponsor. >> good afternoon president cohen on behalf of the project sponsor. pursuant to administrative code chapter 31, i will limit my presentation to discussion of the merits of the ceqa appeal before this board and not the relatively policy decisions underlining the easter neighborhood rezoning. as detailed in the written material, the use of the cpe for this project is proper in all respects under ceqa. thappellate's issues are with te easter neighborhood's plannite and not ceqa or this project's environmental review. this is not the appropriate inventorvenue to raise those co. on the other hand, denial is

consistent with past precedent when an easter neighborhood's project has no unique environmental compatibilities. in upholding the appeal with threatening a significant number of housing units in pipeline or recently approved, that would similarly be expected to use the easter neighborhood's eir. ceqa's analysis is straightforward. i'm trying to translate into plain english. projects are not allowed undergo additional environmental review unless there's effects to the site or effects that are not analyzed related to the project in the eir. the cpe process is used to figure that out. this is not a rubber stamp

process. it took almost three years for this project's background studies to be prepared and analyzed and for the cpe to be issued. it relates to preservation, noise, transportation, general plan and zoning consistency, archaeology, green house gas, soil and hazards. none identified an effect. none of these documents are challenged by appellate either. as part of the cpe the project will prepare the following plan to be implemented during construction. archaeological testing, noise, treatment and site mitigation for ground stripping activity. it will be subject to the san

francisco noise -- more generally, the appeal does not allege any problems or defects with the cpe. the appeals written material hardly discussed this project. there are no projects specific issues identified by the appellate. the project does not cause any peculiar ceqa impacts. the appeal should be denied. ths appeal arguments from past appeals in easter neighborhoods. these arguments have been raised by opponent of market rate, mixed income and 100% affordable housing project. they are not new to this board. three recent examples provide direct precedent to deny this appeal.

in february of 2017 this board did not grant an appeal. a project appellate claimed easter neighborhood eir of fail and failed to address issues such as transportation, land use, growth, significant finding and impacts. those are similar to the claims raised today. this board rejected each of those grounds unanimously. more recently in october of last year, in save the hill versus city and county of san francisco, the san francisco superior court rejected a ceqa lawsuit filed by opponents of a 395-unit project at the base of the hill. relevant to this project, the court explained that a plan level eir does not have an expiration date and cpe is

required. exceeding growth forecast or suggesting a growth forecast may eventually be exceeded, does not render a cpe moot. instead, pursuant to the ceqa guidelines section 15183, evidence needs to be presented showing it will cause significant environmental effects that were not identified in the eir. simply pointing out the development patterns in easter neighborhoods have produced more housing and less office or other commercial uses is insufficient. finally, when this board did recently overturn cpe it identified project specific . this board overturned a cp earthquakebased on two adjacent

schoolyards. the board unanimously concluded that the project cpe was adequate in all respects. declining the same claims before you today about the adequacy of the easter neighborhood's eir or the use of cpe projects. finally, the easter neighborhood's eir continues to be important for the production of all types of new housing. in the mission alone, there are at least 193 units of affordable housing that are expected to rely on the easter neighborhood's eir. one of the 12 story density bonus project, and another project at 681 florida street. throughout the easter neighborhood plan in total, we estimate 19 or