and let someone else speak. your time is up. next speaker. >> you had your two minutes to speak and that's it. deputy. >> president cohen: next speaker. >> my name is michael nolte and one of the many titles that i have is on the board of that alley. i just got here so i'm not sure all the things that have been said. i do have concerns about how a development that is going to be market rate coming into to our neighborhood is going to gentrify our neighborhood. we have concerns about that. i'm also the alliance for district 6. i'm the executive director. our organization deals with preservation of historical

assets. that's one of our main issues that is going to be discussed here today. i think that's also very important concerning when preserving the past. i happen to be a fifth generation san francisco an and it's very important that the past is still preserved in some manner. if it's not, you are tearing down several buildings or lots that are going to have historical issues in our community, and when they're gone, how are they going to be remembered. i'm not clear how they're being remembered. there's no mitigation for that. if you are tearing down what was there. i would expect that our decision makers make some concessions here for what is on the agenda and listen to the issues that need to be discussed. thank you. >> thank you. are there any other members of the public that would like to

comment on item 61? seeing none. public comment is closed. just want to note that now that the hearing is closed, item 61 and 62 have been filed -- excuse me item 61 and 65 have been filed. 62, 63, 64, 67, 66, 68 are now in the hands of the board. supervisor kim, i want to pivot to you to see if you will make any motion. i would imagine in your opening remarks, you said you would approve 62 and 66 and tabling 63, 64, 67 and 68, is that still correct if. >> that is correct. so, i would like to make that motion to ask the board to affirm the final environmental impact report certification and approve the conditional use authorization and table as madam president stated, item 63, 64, 667 and 68.

i did want to note this project is come to the place that it is today under months of negotiations with neighborhood leaders, central city s.r.o. ole ab ra tive and tenderloin housing clinic as well as the historic heritage society. i do want to thank all the parties for being involved. i do wish all the of the community members did let our office know that there are other requests. i did not field any other requests prior to today. and so, at this time. i do ask colleagues to support this project. we have been under negotiation for this project for years and it did take us quite a bit of time to get to this point that our office could support this project. so colleagues, i do ask for your support and i want to thank our stakeholders for working with our office to come to a place where they can support the project that is before us today. >> president cohen: thank you, very much. madam clerk, let's do a roll

call. the clerk is just reminded me i need a second for supervisor kim's motion. seconded by supervisor fewer. thank you, madam clerk. call the roll now. >> clerk: [ roll call ] >> clerk: there are 11 ayes. >> president cohen: all right. the final environmental impact report is affirmed and the c.u. is approved. thank you. madam clerk, please call items 57-60. the first special order. >> clerk: these items comprise the washington square water

conservation project appeal. item 57 is the public hearing for persons interested in the determination of exemption from environmental review under the california environmental quality actor ceqa issued as a exemption by the planning department on may 17th, 2018 for the proposed washington square water conservation project to reduce the parks' existing irrigation water by two-thirds and improve sad rated soils condition on the main lawn. to affirm the determination that the project is categorically exempt from further review. item 59 reverses the department's determination subject to the adoption of rent and findings and item 60 is the motion to direct the preparation of findings. >> president cohen: thank you, very much. colleagues, what we have before us today is one appeal for the categoric exemption located in district 3. similar to the board meeting october 30th, 2018, before considering this appeal, we must

release our colleague supervisor peskin. he has indicated he has property close to this project and he would like to be excused. may i have a motion to excuse supervisor. made by supervisor fewer seconded by supervisor yee. >> thank you, madam president. as i indicated at the last time this came before the board, i own real property within 500 feet and have been advised by the city attorney that i must recuse myself in this matter so thank you for that motion. >> president cohen: thank you, very much. all right. supervisor peskin is excused. this appeal involves analysis of adequacy, sack r accuracy and sufficiency of a categorical exemption. we have so minutes for the appellant, who is mr. mark bruno and save north beach. are you here today?

great. and sir, you will have 10 minutes to describe the grounds of the appeal. there are two minutes for public comment to speak in support of the appeal. then, there is up to 10 minutes from the planning department to present its analysis foray firming the cat x up to 10 minutes for real property in interest to present their project and that is the rec and park. rec and park, where are you? i don't see you. thank you. up to two minutes for public commenters to speak when they are in support of the affirmation. the appellant will have three minutes for rebuttle in their argument and colleagues without objection, this hearing is open. mr. bruno -- i'd like to call up the appellant, mark bruno and save north beach to describe to us the grounds of their appeal.

>> my name is mark bruno and i am the appellant in this matter. as many of you have seen before, i will place it here but you will see more details about this notice of public hearing. we see them all the time in our world, especially yours because it's how we rely on telling our constituents and our friends and our neighbors and fellow citizens of san francisco about something important happening in their lives. this was given to us here in north beach. >> it's upside down. >> i just got out of a medical hearing and i feel upside down. if yo you have to interrupt me,

please feel free. i'm hoping not to take 10 minutes. our argument is simple. when da dan mackarini came to me following this hearing on may 16th, and he and i filed an appeal on june 15th, 30 days following this hearing on may 16th, the last day possible, that we did what was proper, what was called for and accord with the administrative code of san francisco. for the planning of senior officer to deny us that right to appeal denies every citizen the right then and now and in the future to take ceqa seriously to allow us as citizens to question planning decisions or in this case a rec and park/planning decision. the expenditure in this case of $3.05 million. isn't it important that citizens do question that and don't we want citizens to be allowed to

do that? under sook ceqa, it's hard to remember this stuff. i don't remember it, but it's an interesting call to action for all of us as citizens. it says, in the policy and objections section which mirrors the state code on ceqa, it says, what are the purposes? well the basic purposes are to provide decision makers and the public with meaningful information. regarding the environmental consequences of an action. identify ways that environmental damage can be avoided or significantly reduced. provide for public input in the environmental review process. on all counts, our appeal filed on june 15th, in a timely fashion, meets these standards, these high ideals and we were trying to build a save our skin in the neighborhood because we thought it would damage all of us as business owners and as residents to have the park

closed. so the issue here in wash ton square is that this project has a lot of good as many things in government have and a lot of negative effects. that's what we were opposing, not the good, not the safing of water, which we're all in favor of. we were opposed to the bad. the bad for us are three things. number one, it cost $3.05 million and to get the same effect, the same conservation of water two-thirds of the water in the park the city itself decided back in 2015, that it could be done for $184,210. i question all of us, as citizens, do we care or not that 2.8 million extra is being spent to do what is a make-work project for contractors? now i know you will hear from the other side this project is good and wonderful and i agree with all those things. i agree that it's quote, quite good and renews the park. the issue you have as

legislature is there enough good to justify the down sides? the expenditure $2.8 million more than what was originally allocated for this identical project. two the closing of the park. a statement to the neighborhood, especially to head of north beach business association and myself, that our appeal on june 15th, can be arbitrarily ignored to convenience the city to allow the city to move forward with its committees, namely the rec and park, budget committee to allocate that 3.05 million, why? because the senior planning officer decided, subsequent to our appeal on june 15th, it was untimely. if you look at the record of untimely appeals, you will see that the vast majority are called untimely because they're not there on time.

the man and woman on the street, you think untimely it's you are too late and you missed the college application deadline and the deadline for the application to appeal this extraordinary expenditure of 3.50 million. you just missed it. that wasn't what is said. what was said is that you are too early. you don't have a right to appeal because you got here too early. that brings us back to this notice, which i'll move over here and show you. you will see right here, it says -- thank you. thank you very much. you are very kind. it says, right here where my finger is. it says a historic preservation, we'll all read it together and it's significant to our appeal. it's the heart of our appeal. a historic preservation approval at the public hearing is the public hearing described in this notice -- >> president cohen: you should

use the microphone. >> i'm sorry. would constitute the approval action for the project for the purposes of ceqa pursuant to san francisco administrative code. i know that there are people here who are lawyers and someone out there in the world who will arthritis difference between the word would and will and shall. but that isn't the point. the point is the common person in the street and i'm not an attorney, and dan is not an attorney and neither are the other people who saw this notice attorneys, we would presume that sentence says that this hearing that you are coming to, if you want to spend your time, your time that you could be spending with your kids or working or cleaning the park or doing a lot of good things, your time is being spent in part because to come to this hearing allows you to watch the initiation of a significant, legal process. the ceqa process. it's a ridged schedule. it has a very serious process because it stops people, in this case rec and park, from doing good things. buildings are good things.

i'm often against buildings but let's face it, they provide housing. everything that can be good that is a construction. this park project can be looked at as good. this is the an invitation to say if you disagree with us, you msu can come to this hearing and afterwards, you can appeal. why do we know that? because that mirrored a text of the administrative code which is 31.04 definitions of the administrative code tells us, so i'm leaving behind the policies and objectives and getting into the grassroots, which is a good analogy for a park problem. so the grassroots here are under definitions and another section of the administrative code. both of which confirm that our appeal was not untimely but in fact exceedingly timely. should have been accepted. at that point, as many of you know who have seen ceqa repeals before, this 3.05 million could not be allocate today. we would not be having this

hearing today. the remedy in this situation is that 3.05 million was incorrectly allocated because some people in the world, your citizens, your constituents had a legal appeal which was denied without any cause whatsoever. and that appeal is defined here. it says, under definitions, 31.04, if it's not a private project, a public one, it says for all other projects determined to be exempt. so what happened at that appeal at that landmark hearing the historic preservation commission was the planning department said it was exempt. this project rec and park project is exempt. it has see, for all other projects determined to be exempt, meaning a public project, the first approval of the project in reliance by a city decision-making body at a notice public hearing shall be the approval action and that's what we're stating here today.

we had the right to move forward at that time because that was the approval action date. how else do we know that? we know it because afterwards, the landmark's commission now hauled the historic preservation commission, did in factory lion, so i know it's hard to remember those words, but part of it is not just that they put it on a notice and invited us to believe that it was the approval action date. so the approval action is when you are permitted to begin the 30-day period to set fourth and appeal. which is what we did. so, it says also, that the first approval of the project and this project was approved at the historic preservation commission, in reliance on the exemption and that exemption we know is relied upon because on the very first page of the approval, by the historic preservation commission, motion number 0340, it says whereas the project was determined by the department of planning to be

categorically exempt from environmental review, the historic preservation. if that isn't reliance i don't know what is. if you want to quibble about whereas clauses in a contract, you may -- is this 10 minutes? >> president cohen: you may finish if one sentence. >> it also finds these are the findings of the resolution that approve this project. in two cases they confirm this. thank you. >> president cohen: all right -- next, we will take up public comment. two minutes. your public comment speak in support of the appeal. again, these are members of the public that support mark bruno and the save north beach grounds

for appeal. >> it was clearly demonstrated by him. he is learning the hard way, even you go through the red tape and demonstrate rules and regulations before this board of supervisors and the oval administration, you put profit over safety. you put profit over safety because yo you are reckless. as long as your paycheck keep coming you go through with the project regardless if lives are in danger and you demonstrated that. i've shown you the origination of radioactive material, how the battle ships were blown up in their sea with the atomic bomb explosion, the battleships which contaminated the hunters point shipyard and you still go through with providing housing next to pier 70 and the hunters point shipyard. the only way to punish you is to

get you in the united states federal district court. now this is already been picked up by the justice department already because it's fraudulent information. i demonstrated you were using a scanner machine that's not qualified to detect cancer-causing materials and you still went along with it. so, for the gentlemen that spoke before me, he is learning the hard way no matter what rule and regulations is on the books, you are not going to follow it. a good example of that is mission work. 4.10 says that 15% of the apartment unit complexes at mission rock is supposed to be for low income and very low income bracket people. all of you still carved out and don't include the most vulnerable people who are eligible to be tenants in that building. that means 225 of those apartments are supposed to be for low income bracket people. you don't include them in inclusionary rule.

you are reckless. >> president cohen: next speaker. >> boy oh boy. this is such a treat. in the white house, washington d.c., it's a new blue wave. we have a black wave coming through here. ladies and gentlemen, i got my race card here. don't look at me like i'm a villain because i speak up here for black folks because if no one else speak for them, i'm going to speak for them. i have three generations under me. i have my kids, they got kids and my grandson has got four kids so i'm a paw paw. right here at city hall, y'all know what they call me, ace on the case. let's get back to this here. i hope and pray when we have issues with the western edition that our supervisors can recuse herself because we're going to have issues that she's not going to be able to talk about. i would appreciate she leave the room so we can get down to business. my name is ace and i'm on the case and i'm not a politician, hold up. i'm not a prosecutor.

i'm a truth recruiter. did y'all hear that. look it up in the dictionary. i'm not a prosecutor, i'm a truth recruiter. and i happen to be the c.a.o., the c.e.o. of the new thing i'm ruling out y'all is called community assistance service and we're going to make some money. enterprise. that's going to replace ace. so y'all think i just jumped here from space and i'm ace on the case in your face, no, on filmore street i'm ace in the place. i'm going to have my own live tv show there because they have a new entity this you have people on here. san francisco housing development corporation. the original lady was -- what was her name? most people in this organization don't even know jodie johnson. never met her. but they're perpetrating they're for the black community. i'm here to tell you, my name is ace, i'm on the case and i would

not tolerate race. the city right here is the most racist city in the united states. >> president cohen: thank you. thank you. any other speaksers that would like to speak at this time? all right. the next 10 minutes we will hear from -- my apologies. i didn't see you. >> can you hear me? my name is maria and i am reading from a letter from a travel agent in north beach an and -- not a travel agent. she's a tour guide. she has her own business. she says, i have lived in north beach most of my life and i have a tour guide here. my job and joy as tour guide is to introduce visitors from all

over the world to the food, art, culture and history of this beloved and fascinating neighborhood. in spite of high overhead and rent, small mom and pop businesses survive in north beach because of their hard work. businesses survive because of their hard work, love, dedication and pride in what they do. it is impossible for rec and park to lay claim that the same love and dedication to our park, after allowing 10 trees to die without cause simply because rec and park didn't supervise their own work. if private businesses acted like this they would lose their own business. so often, i present -- even the most recent history of north beach to my guests through photos of places that used to be. cafe roma, the gold spike, cafe

corner and they're now gone. if this project goes forward, instead of these eight businesses, i will have 18 more that we will lose. that is how fragile things are for mom and pop businesses in north beach. north beach today looks almost like a deserted war zone. look at columbus avenue. between green -- >> president cohen: thank you. any other member of the public that would like to speak in support of the appeal? please come up, you have two minutes. >> yes. i am here tonight because the board of supervisors, you guys are spending about $2 million to replace and repair the sewage treatment plant and the company that got the bid is walsh, who

has decided that he is not going to have any black employees. they are in the middle of evans avenue. they are 26 employees who say they were not hired blacks. and i hope that most of y'all on this board is white and i have been before you ones before. one of the problems i keep finding that white people are not sensitive to what is truly happening to black people in particularly in san francisco. in san francisco, there's a 35% of black, young men unemployed. but nothing is done about it unless they are sleeping under the freeway. something needs to be happening in bay view-hunters point. it wasn't nobody that said anything about what the white companies were doing until ray white man went on nbc and said

he had the toxic waste spreading in the middle of water black children live. now they stopped the construction but we had been complaining about that three years before and before. but i understand that most of all, why nothing is done when black people are having a problem because white people don't care what happened to us. because slavely is the product. i'm just saying that we're going to have a strike at the sewage treatment plant where y'all are spending $2 billion and they will not hire black people. >> president cohen: any other members of the public that would like to peak o speak on the app? >> for the members of the inside audience, this is about support of the appeal. this is not general public comment. >> i own a restaurant right in front of washington park. i wrote an e-mail so i will read

some parts of this e-mail. i just say we are never been contacted by phone, e-mail, letter or in-person by anyone from rec park to explain the projector to listen to our concerns despite the impart the proposed project would have on our businesses. given the size of the project, $3.05 million, this lack of communication is unacceptable. i have also been told the school facing the square from the north was not contacted at all. the failure to contact us indicates a lack of concern by rec and park department. it's much more matter of fact. if rec and park cannot even do the outreach responsible way, why should we trust them to move forward with the removal of 165,000 cubic feet of soil and

all of the parts. why we should be asking to do this is to trust rec and park when the reasonable alternative that would conserve the same amount of water but not require the closing of the park. the approach to water conservation also saves taxpayers $2.5 million. given that they will be in the new project promise to reduce the carbon wall in the park by two-thirds, it makes sense to me as a business person to at least try the approach first. i think i may speak for my employees and for the diners and everybody who visits us and formally making the park as beautiful as possible. we also are in favor of saving water. of course.

>> clerk: the speaker's time has concluded. >> president cohen: thank you. that's it. thank you. >> thank you, very much. >> president cohen: next speaker. any other speaker that would like to comment on the appeal? all right. next we'll hear from the planning department. are you coming to speak up, ma'am? >> good afternoon, i'm sorry, i'm late. i couldn't figure out where to go. my name is joan wood. i live in north beach. i support mrs. bruno's appeal but i also wanted to say i object to the whole project for many different reasons. at the last -- there were no public meetings about close the

park, built irrigation system and about adding a seemingly at the last minute that this cement sidewalks around the park were just thrown in on top of it. this is the a whole separate project of the there was no public hearing about it. at first, it was said it would be completed in six months by mr. conner and then it was a year or less and now the history of the m.t.a. is such that i doubt very many people truly believe that two separate projects involving closing the park, could be completed within a year. also, it seems that an easterly year evaluation of what needed to be done about the irrigation system was commissioned by the public utilities commission back in 2016. we haven't heard a word about that. now, the plan is to dig up the

whole park and going down six inches. that has not been justified at all. it's just not right to close a well-used park. one of the park participants have never been notified. people walk their dogs there everyday. i still have a few seconds. >> that's right. >> this project should be postponed. there should be hearings on it. there should be competitive bids. thank you. >> president cohen: thank you. are there any other members of the public that would like to speak in favor of the appeal? i want to pivot and go to the plan department so they can present up to 10 minutes. the analysis fora for affirminge categoric ale exemption.

>> good afternoon. i'm sherry george, senior environmental planner with the planning department. on may 13th, 2018, the planning department determined the washington square water conservation project is categorically exempt under the california environmental quality actor ceqa. because it meets the criteria for a class 1 existing facility's exemption. the project required an approval of a certificate appropriate nesbitt historic preservation commission because washington square is designated as a san francisco landmark under article 10 of the planning code. the project also required an approval of the project's concept plan by the recreation in parks commission. the decision before the board today is whether to up hold the department's decision to issue a categoric alex 'emion and deny the appeal or to return the project to the department for additional environmental review.

our responses to the appeal generally deal with two different types of issues. the procedural and substantive. they relate to whether the project is exempt from see q for my presentation, i will highlight the issues that the appellant brought up that relate to whether we go adequate noticing, and did not interfere with the appellant's ability to appeal the exemption. the first procedural issue has to do with noticing to the public. the department complied with the requirements of chapter 31 of the administrative code by posting a paper copy of the exemption at the offices of the department as well as a link on the department's website. the ceqa determination provides the required information to comply with chapter 31 of the administrative code. which is to include the type of class exemption applicable to the project, a project description and any other supportive information that provides sufficient detail to

explain a location and the ability and the app lick ability of the exemption. the action for the project and date for issuing the exemption. the certificate of appropriateness case record stated may 13th, 2018, states that the project is categorically exempt and continue analysis of the project's impact to a historic resource. therefore, the historic preservation commission had adequate time to review the department's determination that the project is exempt. although the department did not include a separate exemption determination document in the case report, it did not prevent the commission from understanding the determination that the project exempt from environmental review and would have a less than significant impact on a historic resource. the second procedural issue has to do with what the approval action is. that establishing the point in a project's approval process that the ceqa appeal is considered

timely. the historic preservation commission notice of public hearing incorrectly identified the approval project as the approval of the certificate of appropriateness. the department acknowledged this error and notified the appellant in writing it is the recreation and park commission's approval of the concept plan for witt project that is approval action. when determining the timeliness of an appeal of an exemption under ceqa, it is the department's practice to consider the approval action as the approval of the whole of the project for both public and private projects. the recreation and park commission's approval of the concept plan for the washington square water conservation project was the first approval action for the project as a whole. the historic preservation commission certificate of appropriateness was necessary for the project to proceed but it was not an approval of the project as a whole. specifically because it does not

authorize any project work to commence, including project construction activities or commitment of funds. therefore, it is not the approval action for the purposes of chapter 31 in determining whether the appeal is timely to be heard at the board of supervisors. as stated, the department clarified the approval action as the recreation and park commission to mr. bruno. the clerk of the board also notified mr. bruno that the appeal would be held on file until there was an approval action for the project. which occurred by the recreation and park commission on august 16th, 2018. thus the appellant's a peel ceqa exemption is now being considered by the board. the appellant's right to appeal has been preserved. the error on the commission notice did not render the categoric aleal exemption inadequate. for the reasons stated in our appeal response and active

hearing, the appellant has not provided evidence that there is a reasonable possibility of a significant other. i request that you up hold the department's seek request determination and deny the appeal. as i side note, should the board return the project back to the department to renotice the h.p.c. hearing with the correction approval action as the recreation and parks commission, it would still not render the categoric exemption inadequate. the timeliness of the appeal is unrelated to the exemption issued for the project. this concludes my presentation. and planning staff are available for any questions that you may have. thank you.

>> president cohen: any questions? thank you for your presentation. next up we'll have the real party and interest to present their project. the recreation and park department for up to 10 minutes. >> good afternoon, commissioners. good afternoon supervisors. my i am the director of capital and planning for the recreation and parks department. with me today is levi conver, who is the project manager and has been managing this project. just a bit of background, washington square is locked in north beach neighborhood at the intersection of columbus and powell street. it was established in 1847. washington square is one of the city's oldest parks and it was issued a landmark designation status in 1999.

in 2012, the recreational and parks department partnered with the sfpuc to develop parks water conservation plan for 12 parks within our portfolio. of the 12 parks surveyed, washington square was the highest user of water on an annual per acre basis. with a total usage of over 3.3 million gallons of water per year. contributing factors to this high water consumption, so the age of the infrastructure itself, the current irrigation system was installed in the 1950s and poor layout of the irrigation zones and controllers. inefficient sprinkler heads, insufficient water, pressure regulation. in addition to the aging irrigation system, the park suffered from over saturated

soil on the main lawn and deteriorating pathways that do not meet a.d.a. standards. the project scope also seeks to address the issues through replacement of the parks infrastructure beneath the main lawn and full replacement of the pathways to make them a.d.a. compliant. i'll speak a little bit about our community process. the department has worked closely with the friends of washington square to develop the water conservation project from its early inception in 2016. the support from supervisor peskin's office was central to obtaining the sfpuc grant award for the irrigation improvement scope. the larger community work began in february of 2018 with a goal

of messaging the project and obtaining community feedback. with at least count has received over 225 responses. the north beach community is highly engage and it worked. three our outreach, the department set the support from the community groups to circulate project updates to the e-mail distribution. this collaborative effort help ensure the neighborhood received up-to-date project information from sources that actually read and we estimate that this should help the department message the project to over 1,000 people.

this includes the north beach neighbors. the friends of dimaggio playground. the friends of washington square. additional outreach community groups has included project updates to the china town community development center, the chinese press, the north beach business association and a community meeting that was held in july of this year. letters of support from the friends of washington square and russian hill are available for your review. community feedback obtained during our outreach had a direct impact on the project scope. at its inception this project was irrigation project with the goal of conserving over 2.2 million gallons of water a year. the community raised concerns and advocated for addition of scope items which resulted in

the inclusion of pathway improvements and drainage improvements to improve user experience in the park. additional significant focus of the community feedback were received has been on the over all project delivery and related of constructionment we believe we have achieved a concept design and project scope that the over all community is supportive of. with the understanding that we have support on the project scope and we have a focus a significant effort of planning the management of the construction impacts of greatest concerns to the community. as i indicated, the project scope includes installation of new irrigation with 20 irrigation zones up to from about two zones that we have right now. planting new drought tolerant

landscaping, installation of new sub grain infrastructure and replacement of the main lawn, pathway improvements for a.d.a. access, tree maintenance and maintenance of the existing benches. the department has done extensive community outreach during the project planning and believes the vast majority of the communities are supportive of this project. followed the appeal on june 15td park department developed a letter of understanding with a core appellant in north beach neighbors. the north beach neighbors subsequently removed their organization from the appeal and understanding outlying steps the recreation and park department will take to reduce construction related impacts to the project. phase in. the project will increase the

preparation increasing poet joke from six months to about a jury will be a huge impact, we believe. increasing the project duration also would also add cost to the project. in terms of schedule, the continuance could result in project delay of up to two months on the timing of our rec park calender. they begin the project as early as possible in 2019 to make the park available during the warm summer months. additionally, the community, as it spreads concern the department reopened the park in time for the animal parade of the indigenous people's day in october. if this project is delayed, i don't believe we'll be able to meet that.

in previous conversations with mr. bruno, he has expressed one of the major concerns is the displacement of the parks homeless population during construction. the department has engage with the department of homeless, homelessness in supportive housing. the san francisco police department, to begin early outreach to the neighborhoods on this population and we continue to do that during construction. additionally, the community and the local business advocated for former plans to reduce construction impacts. we've included specific requirements in our contract documents that would address some of the concerns like homeless outreach, pest control, dust and noise mitigation, park and plan, and traffic and pedestrian plan. the project has received and been reviewed by the planning

department with a presenter you saw before me and was heard by the historic preservation commission in may of this year. the project was issued a categoric alex 'emion on the class one existing facilities. the project concept itself was subsequently approved by the rec and parks commission in august of this year. which was their approval action as defined by the subsequent add-min code. barring any delays, the project anticipates starting in the spring of 2019 for a six-month project. in closing, i would like to say this project will be saving over 2 million gallons of water. in addition to that, i'll be open to answer any questions that you may have. thank you. >> president cohen: thank you, very much.

are there any other members that will present from rec and park? seeing none. colleagues, do you have any questions for rec and park? let's keep moving. let's -- let me find my page. let's go to two minute presentation from the public. public comment speaking in support of the affirmation. they support the planning department's findings. are there any members of the public that would like to come and speak? please come on up. >> thank you, madam president and members of the board. my name is ken mayly, i'm here on behalf of friends of washington square for more than 20 years, our neighborhood organization has advocated for improvements to a park that

dates back to the 1800s. it's one of the first three parks that with designated as open space in this city. the first park bond that was passed by this city in 1957, was the very first improvements to this park since it was set aside in the mid 19th century. we have advocated for many years to save this park, one, from a garage, which we did manage to do, unlike port smith square and union square. it did cost us jack shelly as mayor and got us joe alioto but we'll live with that. we have lobbied on behalf of this park and neighborhood. this park is the living room of our neighborhood. it's the largest in only open space of its kind in our highly dense population. our organization has paid for trees. we have replacements. we have worked on various clean

up project for years. we designated the park and lobbied it to be a landmark. we are here to up hold in support and up hold the finding that will move this project forward. we're looking at a project that not only will improve us for today but for the future generations of this park. thank you, very much. >> president cohen: thank you. are there any other members of the public that would like to comment on this categorical exemption? please come on up. >> dale whitener. member of friends telegraph hill dwellers, north beach neighbors. i would just like to say we thank rec and park for all the work they've done. i don't want to take up your time. everything they say is true. i worked with the community. all members, i've never seen a project in our community where more organizations have been

involved. they all want to move ahead. no one wants to shut it down for six months. everybody i've talked to, we've talked to a lot of people, are ready to move forward. we need to do it. and basically we're willing to bite the bullet now for the future generations to enjoy the park. thank you and please help this move forward. >> president cohen: thank you. any other members of the public that would like to speak on this item? ok. well, we're going to close public comment and give the appellant, mr. bruno, an opportunity to come back with the rebuttle. just keeping in mind, mr. bruno, you have three minutes. >> thank you all for allowing us to come here today with this project which is much importance to us in north beach. you've seen fantastic people from north beach on both sides of the very important issue. that's why, as legislators, it's so important to be fair referees to offer an administrative process that is fair and neutral. let me read you something from the administrative code. i'm sorry to bore you with the

administrative code, the last thing you wanted to hear someone talk about was the administrative code. we have someone and i apologize for not recalling the representative's name from the planning department but she stated it's the tradition or the practice of the senior planning and the environmental control officer to do something. that's something something was what? it was like, oh, well when the project of a whole is considered and the project is considered as this whole, it's nothing about that in the administrative code. what the administrative code says specifically is that the planning officer, the environmental control officer, senior officer has no right to suddenly interpret when the ceqa process starts. but it says here in 31.05 is revision of an administrative regulations, this is a section called environmental control officer. revision of an administrative regulations to implement ceqa shall be by resolution of the planning commission. after a public hearing. and that is why this is so

wrong. we wouldn't even be having to bothers you guys in the referee process, by planning, and by the environmental control officer, was done correctly. you can't just kind of chose when things are going to happen in a schedule because it conveniences you or i'm sure it's done honestly but by the representative here of the planning department to say well, we've chosen our practices is to decide that when the whole project is being considered, that's when the approval action date begins. first of all, i receive many notices from the planning department and many of them are before the historic preservation commission. to this date, they often say those same words that i showed you earlier, namely that that is the approval action date. when you a fare i appear in froe commission. i want to correct something said and i'm sure the representative will confirm this, we were never given an explanation before we filed the appeal on june 15th. you never stated a date that we

were given this explanation about it having to go before rec and park and somehow we were bad because we did this despite that to muck up the system. we were given this explanation well after we were told, for the first time, by the senior environmental control officer, that our appeal was supposedly untimely. by the way, we communicated with your co-worker, the planner and she communicated with the city attorney's office, specifically asking, we have those e-mails are part of this appeal. specifically asking if we were doing this in a timely fashion and they said yes. [ please stand by ]

[roll call vote]

>> clerk: there are 10 ayes. >> president cohen: thank you. without objection. madam clerk? >> clerk: we have items 46-51 that are still open. and supervisor kim wanted to return to items 52-56 at some point. >> president cohen: are you ready to return to your items, supervisor kim? no problem. please call item 46. >> clerk: ordinance to amend division 1 of transportation code to establish a procedure for board of supervisors review of municipal transportation agency decisions related to bus transit projects that don't include transit-area lanes, vehicles, taxis, vehicles, and/or golden gate to affirm ceqa determination and make the appropriate findings. >> president cohen: supervisor peskin, i see your name on the

roster. >> supervisor peskin: colleagues, before you is an amendment to legislation that we passed that was originally introduced by supervisor safai and co-sponsored by myself earlier this year that enacts a condition that was in 2007's proposition a, muni reform charter amendment, which i authored then and voters passed, which gives the board of supervisors limited review authority over m.t.a. decisions related to management of our city's valuable curb space. that legislation exempted certain public projects from that review including bicycle lanes, large infrastructure projects, and bus rapid transit projects. but following the m.t.a.'s decision earlier this year in august to allow preferential access to geary by commuter

shuttles and other vehicles, i'm amending the ordinance to expand the review authority to include review of rapid transit projects not solely designed for the reliability of our public transportation system. this does not mean that the m.t.a. cannot make a decision to allow preferential access for private transit vehicles including transportation network companies, but it does create a check on that authority, which i expect will lead to more careful consideration and more robust public debate around the critical decisions related to the use of our public realm. i have one further amendment to the legislation, which i passed out to all of you, which is highlighted on page 2. it's a nonsubstantive amendment to clarify the nature of it and pull it from subsection 1, where it was located into its own

subsection, reading as follows. "final m.t.a. decision shall not include, 3, decision by sfmta, related to a bus rapid transit project and that there is not preferential access and loading zones that is in vehicle, taxi, authorized emergency vehicle or golden gate transit vehicle." i want to thank the m.t.a. staff and my staff for helping to draft the amendment and chair tang and supervisors kim and safai that sent this to the full board with a positive recommendation. with that, i ask for your support and would like to move the amendment. >> president cohen: thank you for that. supervisor peskin. any other discussion for item 46? motion has been made by