tv Government Access Programming SFGTV April 12, 2019 10:00pm-11:01pm PDT
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intersection with a street wider than 40 feet. >> that aspect is an existing code right now, in existing 2.1. so those height limits own apry to 60 off an intersection. if your street is less than 40 feet, that would not apply. >> yes, if the intersection is less than 40 feet, this does not apply, the existing code does not apply. it's very complicated. >> some of these things are harder to understand. what would help more diagrams which explain it. diagrams are usually easier than ambiguity of words. i'm trying to understand and be very sympathetic to your recommendations and the basis of your recommendations. it iif i read you correctly, yoe
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vacillating between talking of a discussion focused on narrow streets to a discussion toward the narrow discussion about residential guidelines rather than sticking with the subject that's in front of us. and with that, there's a lot of ambiguity when you say go through your recommendations and focus that solely on the discussion of narrow streets. you'll figure out that a number of comments you're makes is a contradiction to what you're trying to tell us. and then i think my most important comment is that i would like to see the discussion include all of rm and all alleys, no matter where they are. and whatever you are legislating here, ultimately it's consistent and with your residential guidelines and takes the
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powerful ideas that would specifically on va valiencies ad apply them to the rest of the city. >> thank you very much, commissioner, for your careful analysis. i want to speak quickly to applying this to rm districts. we have been in discussion with supervisor aaron peskin's office and we're amenable to making that change and to how else this can be applied city-wide. as one of the public commenters mentioned, this was something brought to our office early on and we wanted to make sure we found a way to fix the problem and then if there's a wider conversation to be had city-wide, that we could continue that then and i will let planning speak to other sessions, if that's help approximately. >> mr. star. >> one of the reasons that wants
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to study further this idea of setting upper stories back on alleys is because they were for the market district and a very specific area of the city. as you know from this distance from the corn and all those special provisions, we're not quite sure how they'll interact and how successful or useful they'll be in an rh context. so we ope only have 90 days. also, we have heightened bulk controls, so in rm districts, rather than adding yet another layer on to the controls we have, if there is concern about the bulk or height in the city on these lots, it would be better do more holistic approach than look at those lots to see if the height and bulk needs to be amended in that, rather than adding an additional planning code layer on to it. that would be my two cents on
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that. >> commissioner moore. >> this commission a year or year and a half ago, maybe longer, went through very, very difficult alley battles in upper knob hill, lower knob hill. at that time we clearly understood that protections like the ones you have in hayes valley, it's a simple definition of where height should be, where not and what, for example, the sun angle requirement would be, would make it very, very easy. if that requires more study or discussion with the supervisor, sobeit but these alleys, many are in rm. although, the surrounding zoning maybe justified but the alleys, basically fall prey when it comes to not having this kind of
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protection. >> yeah, i don't disagree. i'm just saying rather than add yet another layer on top of what we have for that is to rethink the original control, that's all. >> that would be a discussion with applying it to the larger alley away in district 3 for the supervisors themselves. >> commissioner richards. >> i think all of the study you'll do looking at the cases we've had and experience in terms of what we're trying to achieve would reveal what we may or may not need to do. so i completely get where you're coming from. but we have had a lot of discussion on alleyways especially in discussion three. so we look forward and i move to approve. >> second. >> with staff recommendations. >> staff recommendations. >> very good, commissioners, to approve this code amendment with
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staff recommendations. (roll call). >> motion fails, 3-1. >> is there an alternate motion? >> can this not be forwarded? there's ongoing work, so what is there to approve, except saying we're forwarding it with comment. isn't that the way it works. >> well, the charter provides you the authority to approve planning code amendments. >> i'm going to ajourn the meeting to get a couple of missioners. let me suggest taking a break
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for ten minutes, please. >> very to silent your mobile devices that may sound off during proceedings. we left off on item 10 for 1604 pca for the planning code amendment. you took a vote to approve with staff's recommended modifications and that motion failed 3-1 with commissioner moore voting against. is to there an alternate motion? >> director ram? >> excuse me, i was going to suggest, maybe a motion that would get missioner moore's concern which would be to approve with staff recommendations and the addition of a request to staff or direction to staff to analyze how similar measures could be employed in rm districts. >> would somebody like to make that motion?
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commissioner kopel. >> i make the motion to adopt with the staff recommendations and a direction to staff to analyze how similar controls could be employed in rm districts. >> second. >> i'm sorry, who was the seconder? >> it was two seconds. >> commissioner johnson, very good. on that motion, then, to approve this code amendment with staff mosques amodifications to consid review controls. pair operato(roll call). >> so moved commissioners and that motion passes 4-1 with commission moore voting against.
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biodiversity resolution building on collective efforts the past three and a half years through joint biodiversity work order with ins from the working group and this meets the request to our department from the board of supervisors biodiversity resolution. i would like to thank adam varret, jeff rosalind, director ram, our new intra--agency biodiversity team and partner agencies and especially the director of sf environment for her leadership. peter and i have become quite the biodiversity duo, so we'll copresent here today, just to provide background on why this matters, where this all came from and then walk you through the resolution before you. so with that, i'll turn this over to peter for the first part.
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>> great to be here. so the first thing to say is what is biodiversity and the first question, i don't want to lecture you today. i'm sure most of you know what this is the variability of organisms, the web of life that is part of planet earth and has made human life possible and the biodiversity is what we defend on for food, clothing and shelter and goes without saying it is critically important and essential, of course, for thriving and resilient ecosystems which we'll be covering some of the ones we have in san francisco today but this slide here is kind of a schematic of the global biodiversity hot spots around the planet. so there are 35, mostly in
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tropical and mediterranean ecosums and it's southwest australia, southwest africa, chile' and california. california being the only biodiversity hot spot at this scale in the united states, as you can see, although a part of the one in mexico expends into the southwestern united states. just making sure i cover my points here. and, you know, i just wanted to kind of emphasize, too, that we are talking a lot about the climate crisis right now, climate change, but for years, we've got an environmental global crisis and that environmental crisis is biodiversity, ecosystems and life on that planet and so now people are increasingly talking about the interrelationship between the bio diversity and
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climate crisis. to emphasize that, the u.n. just announced last week the next u.n. decade, 2021 to 2030 will be the u.n. decade on ecorestoration and following the decade on biodiversity. this is adapting to climate change. let's see, what else? the california province which is the biodiversity hot spot in this part of the world is an incredible place because it has seven to 8 thought 8,000 specieo of those grow nowhere else but in california. thank you. i'm trying to make sure i have everything covered.
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and so before i talk to this slide, i wanted to -- one of the latest things that people are invoking in terms of this crisis is this crazy term the inspect apocalypse which is incredible and scarry. if you look at the guardian, which is a great source for environmental news, tons of articles about the collapse of insect populations, most notably here in california. just in the last year or so, according to data collected in the end of 2018, there was an 86% drop in the monarch in the wintering population in california. the largest drop ever recorded, the lowest numbers ever recorded. so i know it's gloom and doom, but we're here to talk about the truth and try to address it. so this is a slide of san francisco and just to represent the biodiversity here in the city, it's remarkable how much we have considering 95% of the
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city has been developed, concrete, steel, streets and the developed parks, those are not our original landscapes. so there's little left but within what we have left, we have incredible diversity. and so this is just kind of a snapshot in time of the cities n the city. throughout an entire year, 365 days, you could see 400 species of birds in sanfrancisco which is phenomenal since we're this the pacific flyway and then land ma'amammals and amphibians and 5 and in the presido, they counted 58 species of native bees alone.
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plants is an interesting and important for the discussion today in terms of what we do. i mentioned there are 7 to 8,000 species of plants in california and just thi in in san francisco alone, there's 460 native plants to san francisco. so when we contemplate taking that wonderful diversity that we have in the natural area such as twin peaks and bring it in for more resilient landscape, we have an incredible pallette to work and at this point, i'll turn it over to lisa. >> we can help sanfrancisco to be a green space and each time we turn pavement, it's an opportunity for us to turn grey
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into green and how we plant that green and what species we choose makes a difference if we're supporting biodiversity outcomes. it helps us to maximu us maximis and helps us to connect to nature daily. so we spent a good amount of time the last couple of years helping to get the city to pass as a san francisco biodiversity policy. in april it passed unanimously at the board of supervisor. the genesis of that work was part of work order and it was peter and then myself and then adam and gill looking at all of the codes and policies on the books across the departments and where are we mentioned bio diversity and greening? we found it but it was ad hoc and we thought, let's try to make a more powerful statement
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for the city, help elevate this as a san francisco value. and so in part, we realized experts like peter that can't be at every meeting and every project review, likewise, staff who are trained to interface with projects and care about this, it always is, of course, helpful when you have a clear policy direction to point to. for example, we do now have biodiversity mentioned in all of our major waterfront project design guidelines but would that have hatched i not provided alle reviews and we don't rely on that but institutionalize this. also, you know, for years, we hear stories about mta has a budget for vision zero to build a new street and sidewalk but that doesn't include money for landscaping. when it goes to public works for the construction drawings and they implement it, they won't
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add greening because there's to money for maintenance. so like our ordinance last year, we want to get this above the kind of department to department fray and we've been working closely with these 15 departments. so how did we get to this policy? >> thank you. i'm back. so these are the 15 city departments with whom we're collaborating to basically try to lift up biodiversity throughout the city family to operationallize as lisa eluded to. the way this started, five years ago, i started convening this group of departments and we is been working together on creating sessiocreating vision d what are the holes to fill in termsfus of getting the work doe and that lead to may 23, 2017, our commission of the environment actually passed a resolution that identified five
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city-wide goals and you'll look at those in a moment and then, a year later, as lisa just said, last year, we passed a resolution at the board supervisors unanimously on apri. and so, since then, we've been implementing that resolution and this is actually the first resolved clause in the resolution which i'll read. sanfrancisco is the place where our local biodiversity thrives and ecosystems that integrate healthy wildlife and health habitats throughout the city's environment connecting all of san francisco to nature daily and inspiring stewardship of our heritage in every neighborhood. so i think we've covered some of the points, but bottom line is, we are working really hard this spring to kind of meet the resolved clauses that were in the resolution at the board of supervisors and that includes
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all of the departments kind of file a survey, filling out a template that looked across all of their work and what they were doing as it related to biodiversity and we spit that back out to everybody to try to figure out what are the priorities. but also to highlight what's great about what's going on. so we did that exercise and then all of the departments are articulating their commitments such as what's happening here today. so the port commission passed a resolution, i think last week or two weeks ago, that there was a presentation made by staff at the library commission which was well-received and the airport commission passed a resolution, so we're making a lot of progress and several other the departments have written mem mes and sent those to their leadership and let's see. is that it? >> notably public works in mta are signed on as public commitments. >> yes, i think that's it.
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ors, and then those are the goals. and so as lisa said, the idea behind all of this, creating kind of a guiding vision and goals was to have a kind of concise set of values, right, something to aspire to, that is the most current thinking language, what we -- the vision we want to see for ourselves, for the city. so the vision that i read is kind of broken down into five goals. as we've been talking about as in the slides i showed you, biologically rich ecosystems, connecting to nature. everybody connected to nature, ecological planning and design as was being emphasized today, of course. and then community stewardship and empowering people and partnerships to take care of nature in all of the nakeds and
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neighborhoods and i can't read the last one. resilience in climate planning. so using nature. the best example, when we talk about the shoreline and sea level rise, how we resign our shore landscape tline to be resh the sea-level rise. >> so now is the part we get to celebrate the grea great thingse planning department is doing. these were daylighted through the survey that we completed last october. you know, in order to do that in an effective way, i convened in a new interagency team and we had representatives from environmental planning and design folks to mang sure we're capturing all of the places the planning department and then the second half of the survey was thinking about the future opportunities. so highlighting some of the successes, of course, better
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roofs and we're the first city to your a compliance of the living roof. of course, that provides great co-benefits not open to habitat and pie yand bio diversity, com, happiness, et cetera. i would like to highlight in the central sum of plan, we have pushed beyond that regulation and in central soma, 150 feet tall buildings which only it applies up to ten floors are required 50% of the roof in addition to the solar requirement. and just in central soma, if you hadn't heard the statistics, it's 20 acres of living roof in an area that we know is one of the city's greatest and air-impacted neighborhoods. more highlights, things that we have been doing and some for a long time, of course, better streets, living alleys, our bird-safe design stars, the
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first city in the country to pass those. we just hosted a delegation from singapore last week and andrew perry did a great demonstration and looking way to boltster requirements and then the urban design guidelines. we've been sure to start integrating this language in these documents. also, these are some highlights from the work order itself. last year, we completed a street tree census so we have a database. we understand every street tree, what type it is, how it's doing and the statistics that i was most excited about was there are 35,000 vacant street tree wells. so as we can connect that to projects redeveloping or a new projects and get trees in the ground, that would be a great partnership with public works. of course, the urban forest plan, the green connection's plan was done awhile ago but we're thinking how to integrate that and inform our built
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environment. last, i would like to highlight the sf plant tool and that's been online for a few years but we continue improvements. most notably in the last year and a half, we added the city pallettes to this tool and worked with public tools, rec park to pilot this in their project and it allows staff to, say, with the thriftfy fifty and they can add tools through pollinators and certain flowers and focus on native species. we're excited to keep being a tool and that's something the department hosts and maintains. this is a list of the ongoing and future opportunities that we brainstorm together in the department and we have pulled from this list to create the resolve clauses that you see before you today. so i'm not going to go into them here.
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so lastly, the last section is the review of the planning resolution before you and we want to just take a moment to reexplain that this was part of the board of supervisor's resolution a year ago, asking all departments within a year of that, to make their own public statements. so here we are in earth month again before you to recommend the adoption of this resolution. you know, part of it, the planning department has a unique position and a great perspective and purview for how we can support this vision. through our lan use principalling, design control, through inner-face with a built environment with project sponsors that a lot of other departments who actually manage natural areas don't necessarily have. we also have looking to improve our surrounding environment, to improve our neighborhood, quality of life, to mitigate
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biological resource impacts through sequa, et cetera. the last point as planners, we're natural conveners, we work with a lot of other departments. when we're in the room with folks working on the design for fulsome street, we can be a part of the voices in the room championing greening. so finally, the resolution includes eight resolved clauses. the first, they're organized in three basic groups. the first is things in the planning code and ways we can build on that and the second group is really about how to institutionalize biodiversity and create it like a lense to what we're doing with equity work. the last piece a collaboration and what are we wanting to commit to doing with our fellow departments, kind of as this working group. so in terms of the code, we talked about the bird safe standards. we have two areas of the code where we do require greening. those have coincidently come up
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today about the frontyards. i did not plot that item to go before my item. but also living roofs. so in those areas, though, how can we promote the right types of plants and went people are getting complaints about them in the sunset because they're paving over their frontyard and how can we help them respond with the biodiversity guidelines. the sec chunk of code is requiring open space but we don't require greening. the rear yard came up, roof decks came up today. so we do have open space requirement, rear yard setbacks, certain things about better streets, our open spaces and how can we dig in and think about greening as an element of that. and then, right types of
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greening. we are cognizant that we're growing, dens denseifying. the climate spaces are more important than ever. i was talking to the biggest living roof designer and installer in the city and they have statistics about the drop in temperature that occurs within a certain distance from a living wall. how can the planning department empower those solutions. in terms of the biodiversity lense, we developed a biodiversity training and we ran a beta test with folk at planning and other agencies but we're excited to roll that out to a larger staff. finally, in collaboration, we drafted the biodiversity design guidelines as part of the work order and now we have at least
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five agencies signed on to help us make those real and into a website, something used by the public in their own private yard or given to a developer, like provide some consistency, you know, from, like, the city, not necessarily just from planning about here is what we hope to see. and again, just all of this takes ongoing commitment. people showing up at meetings, showing up at the table and many people feeling emparamedic to start using term terms like biodiversity. that's the conclusion and we're pleased to give this for your consideration and adoption. thank you. >> thank you, miss fisher, great work. >> so with that, we will take a public comment on this item. i do have a couple of speaker cards susan kuransteph and tom
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dulan. anyone who wants to speak, go to the left and come on up. >> i'm from the san francisco resident and with california native plant society and i want to thank the san francisco planning department and planning of department for hosting and creating the san francisco plant finder tool. this tool permits residents, landscapers, developers and city agencies to select plants that will not only survive in san francisco but that will also enhance san francisco's biodiversity but this suggests successful native plante plantsd native plants are for the food web that provide wildlife and insects and wild birds to survive in the city with the rest of us. so not only is this is a useful tool, but this business card format is a wonderful way of
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marketing it and so, peter basteau who developed a business card gave him to the plant society and says we use that when we're out in public to help new gardeners find a way to discover the plants that are best for them. so thank you so much for the superb support for san francisco and for california's biodiversity resolutions. >> thank you very much. next speaker, please. >> five years ago when i started to come here to talk about the alterations that were demolitions, one ever the things that werone of the thingsthat we so-called monster homes would take the yard and make it part of the building. and you would see it with privacy fences which are
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constantly being lacquered, relaxerinre lakquering their pry fence and putting in a turf. i know this isn't about private space but when somebody comes into the staff with a project and say what are you planning for your rear yard? if you do an excavation or make it a bunker? so i think it's not just the public space but private space can do that, too, and maybe that's something the staff can do and when you have a cr or dr. thank you very much. >> thank you, miss shitis.
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next speaker, please. >> good afternoon commissioners. i'm the executive director ofliable city here to speak in favour of this resolution. i'm an environmentalist who lives in the city and i love that i can live in a dense neighborhood. i can walk and bike to a zillion places and that i have bumble bees and we can sustain biodiversity cities. this wisdom is, oh, well, pack the biodiversity because it's here. we nee need to do it with finese and preserve the green that's here there's health and happiness benefits from greening. there's a lot of data and this
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should be data driven. look for how greening neighborhoods, views of green and how it makes us happier and healthier. the city of cambridge, massachusetts, did surveys about happiness and they said if you live on a street with trees, for example, it's the equivalent in terms of health of being four years younger and it was the quiequivalent of being $10,000 0 wealthier. u.s. planners can't $10,000 a year into anybody's pocket and you can't make them four years younger but you can make them healthier and happier and you can do that things like the planning code and the public benefits that come from development. things that we were talking about earlier. if you in a rear yard, some green in it. so it would require us to think about the public open spaces in a different way. a quarter of the land area is in the right-of-way, city streets,
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using to move and store automobiles. so making your developments less automobile dependent is certainly a way to do that but seeing if we can reclaim that space for people is another way promote health, happiness and bio diversity and we support the goals of this resolution and that they will translate from good policy goals into standards, guidelines and practices so that we can have a city that is much greener and more biodiverse. a lot of. landscapers use the same floor plants or and over. it will help on resiliency mentioned around climate change, reducing flooding, reducing the heat waves on the effect those have on seniors who live without air conditioning. will make the city more habitable, more happier and
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healthier. so please do it, thank you. >> thank you. any other public comment on this item? with that, public comment is now closed. commissioner moore. >> amazing presentation. i learned a lot. i was sitting here saying wow, i didn't have any idea. i hope this will be on the department's website, easier to fine and marvelous and i wish it could be shown and the audience stage would be larger. i am in full support of it. no other questions, except wanting to push it forward to start working on it as quickly as possible, including how we look at the design and implementation of this, how we support and sustain our open spaces. how we support the departments for better streets, et cetera, et cetera. it works in the same direction
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and i'm happy and proud that the department has prior to this, done a lot of work in the right to action that is coming together at an extremely important time. >> thank you, commissioner. commissioner johnson. >> so i just want to thank mr. sherman for your leadership and the department of the environment and just your leadership and really, i think, convening lots of city departments around this issue and finding ways that we can all kind of be speaking and working with one voice to our commitment for biodiversity. you know, i think it was spot on to say we have a unique perspective as we live and breathe the changes in the environment to really hold to the unique and amazing and beautiful place that we are in and really understanding the diversity and the opportunity to continue that biodiversity
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throughout how we're building and making that easier for people both to celebrate and to implement. and then going along with implementation, i think resolution, i'm thrilled to support it and i think it would be helpful to hear how implementation goes over time because as much support as we have for this, we want to make sure that folks are kind of translating it into their different pieces of work. so i would welcome hearing a report back at some point in the future about how it's going and how we can help. >> thank you, commissioner hillis. >> thank you, miss fisher. just a question on rear yards. are there other jurisdictions that have regulations or incentives to do things in rear yards, that we could emulate? and by the way, every month is earth month for me.
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[ laughter ] >> me, too. >> i wait sever wait 11 months . [ laughter ] >> our intra-agency team is starting to dig into that. we have been looking at, like, seattle has a green be factor. in portland, they do biodiversity yard certifications, where you get a cool plaque in the front of your yard and part of a garden tour. we're starting to look at both, what are the stick opportunities? but it's a little intimidating of a space, private rear yards but we definitely are game and have started to dig into what opportunities are and that would be a great example of something we could bring back. >> that would be great to hear how we can do that, because i know we have focused on frontyards, but anybody who looks back in their rear yards, there's broad diversity of how
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neighbours treat them and what we do with it. but if there could be an incentive, p crustuc, sewer, for people to use backyards in a different way, that would be great. >> there is a puc grant for doing this is your backyard because i applied and got it. so i have turf that's ai irriga. so you can always forward those people to me. >> commissioner kopel. >> great job and glad to see everybody is on board. living near golden gate park on 34th avenue and litterly, i've never had it quantified but definitely feel it everyday i
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get to walk outside and look at that park as opposed to concrete and more houses. so definitely supportive today. >> commissioner richards. >> it's amazing. i learned a lot, especially with the number of different types of plants and mammals. when i moved to sanfrancisco, i didn't see mammals and now we have a raccoon problem and we have coyotes and i don't know what's going on, we're building things out and still the animals are coming in. interestingly enough, i think -- and the idea of an outdoor livingroom, i'm guilty of that, miss shudish, but i don't astroturf down. we our gravel down in the backyard because we don't want to have a lawn to water. but all of the planters boxes on the side, i should check your plant finder whether we got the better ones or not. my next door neighbor let's his yard grow completely grow over
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and it's pretty -- brambles and it's green but there's bugs coming out and the racoons there and there should be some standard for a level of care for your open space. one other comment to mr. radulovic, let's pack everybody into san francisco. i think we should be working with our state delegation to offer concession or incentive, you're not taking away from the biodiversity or liveability both for humans, animals or plants. but i would strongly suggest that because we had a planning commission hearing on one of my favorite topics and it took the density bonus and took the building to the rear yard. so, you know, you have down here
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on page 3, yard requirement. those things are traded these days. i think we should work with state delegation to do exemption for biodiversity. >> thank you. peter and lisa, thank you so much. this was an excellent presentation and really practical thinking in terms of the work with other departments in the public. you know, i also will echo the calls from my fellow commissioners to have some kind of reports. human beings will say that this is a really great idea, we love the bees, we love the plants until it inconveniences us in some way personally. it's great to have less cars unless you take away my parking. so i'm lucky and live in a neighborhood with lots of open space. about five years ago, the coyotes moved in and i saw
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marked changes in my environment. i'm an avid gardener and there was the gofer population plummeted and the ferile cats. the hawks came back. and so these are just things that i observed being outdoors. there were more changes but my neighbors are going nuts about the coyotes. so part of what i'm suggesting, there is a culture change, change about aesthetic standards. changes of being able to live in the natural environment. that we may not be used to, really, after so many years. i would be interested in how it will change people's behaviour
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habits, culture and what the outcome will be and are we can increase the biodiversity five, tense years from now. i think it will be great. but i'm really so grateful for your leadership and for the good work of the department and for also being at the forefront of this work. so commissioner moore. >> this is a question only for peter and for lisa. is the san francisco plan finder enough of an educational tools for citizens to have a copy of it so when they make planned choices for planter boxes, yards or whatever, that they have a better understanding to contribute to the larger hole and be more responsive to what we need? it would be great to see that used in experimental gardens where school children learn first to be outside because we need take you seriously here and
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here is how you find it. >> commissioner richards. >> move to adopt. >> second. >> thank you, commissioners, on that motion to adopt the resolution. (roll call). >> that motion passes unanimously 6-0. commissioners that will place us on item 12 for case number 2017, 16041 pc for phase three, chinatown, this is an initiation. >> good afternoon, commissioners. i'm the manager of legislative affairs. this would initiate the
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organization for the districts. this started five years ago. as an effort to standardize the definitions and planning code and to create one format for all zoning districts. remember that far back? the first phase of this project tackled article two, while the second phase focused on article 7. the last phase will work on the eastern neighborhood districts. reviewing this ordinance, they identified several substantive changes. these are outlined in the staff report and the letter sent to the commission by ccdc. staff does not see significant issues with the items or including the items in the final ordinance but is leaving that decision to you all. since the amendments would be substance activity. substantive. they're recommending the proposed planning change and set a hearing date on or after
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may 9. thank you. >> that's it? no other comment? >> we will take public comment on this item. i have one card, ray chan, but anyone else who wants to provide public comment can please come up. >> good afternoon, commissioners. roadway chan chinatown cdc. i wanted to thank aaron star as well as supervisor peskin's office on this project, just to ensure that it reflects the reorganization reflects the intent of the chinatown zoning adopted in 1987 which has actually over 30 years preserved chinatown from encroachment from
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the downtown high-rise development from coming in and this is important it's done right. as mentioned, i would like to introduce -- as we've been exploring two substantive co-changes in the visitor region, through feedback from the community, the first one encourages more nighttime small business activity by making the nighttime entertainment use conditional and removing a current condition that restricting that used to be tied to a restaurant, so that the community can vet entertainment uses on a case by case. with that said, to ensure large nightclubs from entering into chinatown, woe would like to wea second amendment to close a loophole allowing projects to go beyond a 5,000 square foot limit. when there's a change of use in a nonconforming structure. so together with these two amendments, we hope to encourage
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more nighttime activity in chinatown but at the same time to really honour the chinatown zoning in a way that continues to protect viability of small local businesses. so i want you to direct staff to work with us on that language. >> thank you. any other public comment on this item? ok, with that, public comment is closed. commissioner hillis. >> move to initiate. with the recommendation to look at those substantive co-changes. >> as well as scheduling a hearing on or after moos may 9. >> second. >> the motion maker if we could acknowledge the staff include a conversation. >> yeah, we did. >> ok, great. >> thank you, commissioners. if there's nothing further, there's a motion seconded to
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initiate and schedule the hearing for adoption on or after may 19, 2019 and on that motion? (roll call). so moved, that motion passed unanimously 5-0. placing us on item 13, scv for the city-wide cultural resource's survey presentation. >> good noon, commissioners. i'm here to present an overview of the city-wide cultural resource's survey including goalses for the survey,
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historians, legacy data and proposed survey staffing and budget and when jonas gets done passing those out, he can give me the slides, please. they're up, thank you. feel free to ask questions as i go along. surveys are an integral part of my programme as they provide tools for understanding, identifying resources that give them their care and sense of place. among other things, surveys provide information needed to make informed planning decisions, develop and implement lan use policies, perform environmental reviews and assist in the identification of resources worthy of designation. although there have been many surveys conducted in san
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francisco since 1967 when our historic preservation programme came to life, none have approached the survey at a city-wide scale. previous surveys were generally project-based or community sponsored, focusing on a single neighborhood or single property type. in their 2013 joint report on historic preservation, spur and fs heritage stressed a need for city-wide survey. the city-wide cultural resource's survey is intended to be a multiyear effort to identify and document places that reflect important themes in sanfrancisco's architec archited culture and history and support the new housing development. surveys are a process of identifying and gathering data on a community's historic resources and maintaining an
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inventory of this data. the primary components are o ofa survey are historic content which is preservation planning, describe patterns of development, of a community and region and identify important associated property types and eligibility try tear ya. criteria. there's resource and evaluation. and this is where we identify and record the potential resources within a community or neighborhood. invent torinventory or databased outreach where we share communication with stakeholders. in the first process, it's defining methodology and looking at where you're going to be surveying. the second step is the field work and three is reporting and adopting that survey results and then four is maintaining that database.
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given the number of previous surveys and the variety of forms that constitute our legacy data, we have spent time reviewing past documentation efforts in an effort to determine how many properties have been surveyed previously and where properties are located across the city. to identify historic theme and context and determine the age of building stock and how that building stock is dispersed across the city and understanding the best practices from previous studies and wider preservation community. as part of this effort, we've prepared this map identifying areas of the city that have adopted surveys. now within these shaded areas, the majority of parcels have been evaluated. the areas outlined in black represent most of the city's neighborhood commercial districts where we have a draft survey that's not yet been adopted. even with these shaded areas and
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the properties within them surveyed, only approximately 20% of the parcels in the city have been surveyed to date. this map is the map of the designated properties and districts that are designated either locally at the state level or at the federal level. this is just to show sort of their distribution across the city and to demonstrate how few there actually are as compared to rest of the city. and then also meant to point out that while survey information can provide background for a designates, survey itself does not equate to designation. so one of the things the previous maps demonstrate is there are large swabs that remain to be surveyed. all of the grey areas in the previous maps are without surveys. and within these unsurveyed
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areas within the majority of properties are currently identified in our property database that the planning department maintains as category b, which means they're age eligible but historic resource status is unknown. so one of the primary goals of the survey is to substantially reduce the number of category b properties and increase the number of properties that can be categorized as a, historic resource orb not a not a historic resource. it's proactive data collection that will improve response and recovery time following emergencies and reduce application costs and make everyone aware of what the property of their status -- the property of their status is before they embark on a project. (please stand by).
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