my career as a student is fight for homeless youth and for homeless students. right now we have a little over 30 to 35 homeless students at sf state that live on the side of the street in tents and rvs and places where no human being should live. that's one the reasons why i ran for president and now i'm trying to help the people like me, foster youth. one thing i got lucky with was being adopted by caucasian parents. i was able to be given help so i could get into college, move across state and move to sf state. one thing that really burdened my was the cost of living. coming to sf state is hard. we have one of the largest schools in the state.

we have a large student population budget but don't have enough housing to house students. the difference is this project would basically help people like me because people that have housing insecurity and have these issues coming out of a system that is broken and coming out of a system that doesn't hold you up. so for me, it would be very helpful if i was in the situation to get one of these houses. it would essentially lift a giant weight off my shoulders. a giant weight some may not be able to comprehend or seen the people i have seen living in the streets because they had nowhere to go. thank you. >> thank you, mr. hernandez. next speaker, please.

>> hello, committee. thank you again for allowing me to speak to you guys. i'm a student at san francisco state university. i'm currently doing any undergrad in humanities and i experienced homelessness for a little while. i'm not here to give you a sob story but a few statistics. in 2017 there was a statistic over 23,000 foster youth will become homeless after they emancipate after the age of 18. it's urgent especially for people in youth. people in foster care we come from families that are immigrant families and families of people of color and we need the support. we need the stability. it is crucial for the development of our youth. i'm 28 years old now. i've been able to get on my feet

essentially on my own but if i would have known about transition housing i would have been more applicable to college and more provide fomore sustainable for myself with these avenues. having the housing available for youth is essential for their mental health and essential for the community. as san francisco kiss cans we know -- we know there's a huge opioid epidemic and placing them in the streets after emancipation will only prone them to these issues. everything i've experienced

allowed me to be the person i am and figuring out where i want to go to school and where i want to be in my own life. having that stability is essential for the development of our youth. other than that, thank you for allowing me to speak on my behalf and on behalf of the john burden advocates for youth. other than that, i would cut my time a little short. thank you. >> thank you, mr. tonoco. next speaker, please. >> i'm sandy fan. not debbie. he called debbie on accident. i'm also a former foster youth but i'm not here to tell you a sob story but a success story. next month i graduate as a communication major and hoping to pursue a master's degree and i advocate on behalf of foster

youth and the lgbtq community. and a lot of what i do is giving a voice to the people who don't have a voice. as a former foster youth myself i've been on multiple stages and been on tv and in the news purely due to the fact i'm able to advocate on behalf of those who don't have a voice. those people in this case i'm talking about former foster youth. i've done a lot of work with the department of behavioral health for the state of california and spoken at their integrated care community conference and done things like that and i tell you these things because statistically speaking at the age of 28 i should be in jail working the streets, pregnant, and/or have had a teen age pregnancy at this point. and statistically speaking i beat those statistics. the statistics are daunting. foster youth don't have an upper hand in this world however i was lucky due to the fact i was able to obtain transitional housing at a younger age due to that

[technical difficulties] >> that's what's happening to hundreds of youth. thousand across the united states. we're essentially put on the street at 18, good luck, have a nice life and we hope you make it. a lot of the time we make up the majority of the jail population of the homeless population and things of that nature however, success stories come from that

and i stand before you as a testament of that. i graduate next year san francisco state and plan on continuing on being successful and if you provide opportunities for foster youth intern, -- in turn they can achieve the same successes. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> i live on ballerton court behind the proposed project. when i picked up a speaker card it asked whether i was in favor or opposed and a wasn't sure how to answer because i'm in favor of more affordable housing. the problem in this particular neighborhood is really parking. it's an older neighborhood. there's limited street parking and looking the the plan there's 66 parking spaces. if you go to green trip which specifies what the balance of parking ought to be they come up

with 114. that needs to be considered in the project because it will significantly diminish the quality of life in the neighborhood. having been in the neighborhood i know of some households that have four cars because they have adult children that have moved home. you look around, there's ride share stickers on a lot of the automobiles. in order to make it affordable nor -- for the residents you have to provide parking. that's my point there. thank you for your time. >> commissioner: thank you very much. inasmuch as. been next speaker, please. >> i'm jesse fernandez t. i want to appreciate the stories and testimonies of the young folks here. incredibly powerful and i shared the sentiment of one of the

develop developer earlier and wanting to give coming from an immigrant family is a wonderful sentiment. i think on behalf of cuhj i want to say we're encouraged on private development go beyond the minimum requirements demonstrating creativity. at the same time we want to maintain the rent control protections and maintain the 50% market rate units. wed like to recommend approval of the conditional use authorization and the development agreement

particularly under the of the b.m.r. units among the low-income earners. and also rezrks distribution of the unit mix so there's an increase in one bedroom and in particular two bedroom and three-bedroom units for those lower income earners. currently there's -- i'm getting my statistics confused. there's an increasing allocation of larger unit configurations as incomes increase. in addition to that, there's going to be expanded opportunities for higher income earners to apply for the b.m.r.

units which would increase the competition for a lot of low income working class residents to be able to land some of these b.m.r. units. that's all, thank you. >> thank you very much. next speaker, please. >> my name is david hooper the president of the new mission terrace improvement association. our neighborhood includes the site at 915 cayuga and the adjacent site at 65 ocean avenue. both are scheduled for development. there'll be as projected an excess of 300 units. at present the two sites are grossly under outilized and the community realizes this. there's hesitancy and people find themselves a little hard to

embrace it in total because it's such a change from what the present neighborhood is with r.h.1 yet the buildings at the sites should come down and apartments should go up and the city is desperate for housing especially affordable housing. i'd like to say a couple things about the site. the question one neighbor wrote about is there enough parking on site for automobiles? i think it's delusional to say the neighborhood is the central core where you can do without automobiles. nobody believes that. if you decide to accept the idea of having the decreased level of v vehicular parking we can live with it. at the same time i spoke with ms. flores about the vehicular entrance for this project will be a pedestrian entrance for people walking up to bart.

it's a path of desire. people will take the shortest possible route up to the bart station. i'd like to make sure this is included in the effort to try to deal with vehicular traffic and it's next to balboa high school. there's lots of kids on the street. supervisor safai has tried to address this but i believe the planning commission should also be well aware and push the sfmta towards sharing your goals. and i'm not always sure that happens. so in the meantime, i think the project deserves to be built. people are supportive or resigned. and change comes hard. i also hope that this project will help push mission street and the effort to improve the commercial viability of mission street in our district.

these two projects and the others also to say i've supported affordable housing in the past. i served on the advisory board for the affordable senior housing built almost 20 years ago at 5199 mission street. a long time coming to see further steps in this direction. thank you. >> commissioner: thank you very much mr. hooper. next speaker, please. >> good afternoon. my name is reyna tillo. i am part of poder. i work mostly in excelsior. i want to say we're very encouraged by this project and it's affordability and the promises and we don't think we need any kind of housing in the city. we need affordable housing. this is an opportunity to set a new standard for the development on private land in excelsior.

we think it's very encouraging. thank you. >> commissioner: thank you. next speaker, please. >> good afternoon, commissioners. we've not formally reviewed the project so we can't speak to the specifics of it but generally this is the type of stuff that not only makes sense in the city of san francisco but in the neighborhood as well. looking at a map a couple days ago about where this is. this say half a mile from -- is half a mile from the bart station. we have a huge proposal we're looking at the balboa reservoir and we can always have transportation improvements without a doubt but the fact we'll be building more homes, creating more homes for people in areas that are not typically seeing new housing in the past 20, 30 years we're excited about that and when you hear people

talking about how the project will have a quantifiable improvement on people's lives is something we're always excited about. thank you for taking the time and as an individual person, i cone encourage you to move the project forward today. >> commissioner: thank you. any other public comment on the item? with that, public comment is now closed. commissioner koppel. >> thanks again to the planning staff. i think it's an amazing project. multi-family housing in this district is few and far between and maybe the biggest ever. 50% affordable on site , local architect, local developer, increas increased a.m.i. levels and increased foot traffic for the

neighborhood, commercial corridors and the transitional foster youth. i think i got it all there. in full support of this one. >> commissioner: commissioner hillis. >> thank you to the project sponsor for telling us about the project. we don't see this level of affordability when the city owns the land. it's a huge win. i don't know why the room's not filled with people saying we want to duplicate this. we see it take courage on the supervisors' part. it's bigger than most the housing around. it's more transit oriented which comes with some growing pains but i think this is a great project. it works well in this neighborhood. i wish there were more of these to come in other neighborhoods. beknow what a huge lift toss do

50% affordable housing in a project. so i can't say enough good things about this project. i think it's great. thank you, supervisor, for bringing it to us. >> commissioner: commissioner johnson. >> thank you. i'm thrilled to see this project. i'm so grateful for the leadership across the city that made this happen. i also just want to thank folks who came out and shared their personal testimony and experiences. foster youth and youth that are transportational age, i think are such an important population i don't think gets the light they deserve and understanding the unique challenges and unique opportunities and we need do everything we can as a city to resource and support our young people coming out of foster youth and helping them get the stability and opportunity they deserve.

i'm grateful that was part of the conversation that units have been set aside for that. i hope that folks watching this, folks that hear about this effort really ask themselves, as you walk through the streets of san francisco as with heavy heart you look at the biggest challenges that are facing our city particularly around homelessness. we're number three in the nation. a report recently came out behind new york and l.a. it is a travesty. it will take every person asking themselves with the power i have and the resources that i have, what can i do to help the city through this crisis. i just really appreciate that this could be a model that i hope others follow. thank you. >> commissioner: thank you. commissioner moore. >> i think this is definitely a moment for pause to really thank the family for stepping up to

the plate. we don't see that very often and i hope it will serve as an example for how we'd like our sit distance all to participate -- citizens to participate in the larger good. i think it's marvelous and courageous for those who spoke and it's humbled me personally to sit through and hear it. because even when we review a project of this merit i have to make a comment and i would send an encouraging comment. if you wouldn't mind coming up, i want to say something to you. i owe it to you and that is that the quality of life in these units is even more important than what we do in market rate. market rate resolves itself because of more money being

there and more money to be expected in return. i need to restate my concerns about open core -- corridors often addressing new projects. i want to remind all of us, when we come home grocery bags, etcetera and it's raining and we're coming in over an open corridor into our units, we have to make sure that we don't have water in the middle of our living room and i'm always saying let's avoid doing that to b.m.i. units because the quality of life issue is huge to me. i know you have a cover but these are still open corridors. so maintenance and taking care in the future will be a major part of helping. that's all i want to say. i'm in support of what you're doing because the project is just exceptional.

i want to also thank the mayor's office because the terms as i read through them are remarkable. it take a lot of work for all of you, i understand that. for you perhaps the project is a small one. it is huge in what it symbolizes for the city. thank you to those who worked on it. move to approve. >> second. >> i'm sorry, i want to say one thing. thank you supervisor safai for sticking with this and i'm heartened this kind of development is happening in the community. in the city sometimes we have a hard time accepting more than the minimum and that was the case with the project. it's a challenge for us in the future. as i understand it and correct me if i'm wrong, i don't know,

ms. flores, the issue with the rent-controlled units and the issue of condo mapping and financing, it is currently not possible to get a loan from a bank without condo mapping those units and we cannot figure out a way to follow compliance on rent control units.

>> so moved. that motion passes unanimously 6-0. that will place us on item 10. case 2019-001604pca.

building standard code planning amendment. >> good afternoon, commissioners, i'll be presenting an ordinance for the planning code to mend in various ways the allowed bill able area and build able envelope for properties in the art districts. however, before i begin my presentation, i'd like to provide kyle of "power & politicssupervise ormandelman. >> kyle from supervisor mandelman's staff. i wanted to provide context to address some of the recommendations provided in a staff report.

first, some context. our office believes in the value of housing density. but we believe that value must be balanced by the need for diversity and housing options and preserving the character of our neighborhoods. those are the underlying principles of the legislation before you today. first, with controls that limit the size and bulk of residentses adjacent to narrow streets and alley ways in neighborhoods, we aim to promote gentle density. the ordinance will help ensure that new development on narrow streets and allies in the city's r.h. districts are calle scalede street and buildings. it will ensure new development does not diminish the small streets and alleys as neighborhood spaces for recreation and greeting the city. second, this ordinance seeks to permit accessory dwelling units on corner lots and certain through lots, known as backyard cottages which help housing stock including vancouver,

seattle, portland, berkeley and santsanta cruz. that's the intent of the legislation in brief. i'd like to touch on an issue that came up that served as an inpo advertise foinimpotence. this body heard a review of a project in glen park. a proposed four-storey structure on a 900 square foot lot which sits adjacent to an alleyway known as the old mission trail. when it came before this body, a significant number of neighbors, some of whom i believe are here today, voiced their concerns about the sale and appropriateness of the development. in response, this commission made, what we believe, to be reasonable changes to the project including removing the fourth floor, taking off the roof deck and creating a light well. the project subsequently came to the board of appeals in february of 2018 and that body reversed when this commission decided voting to remove the light well and allowing for a larger roof deck. so when supervisor mandelman took office in july 2018, a

group of neighbors asked us to look into that project. upon review, we realized there wasn't very much that we can do in the aftermath to roll back what we thought was a bad outcome. we did learn in the process that there were few protections for neighborhood alley ways in residential districts and we decided to do something about it. so working with neighborhood advocates, we crafted the ordinance that is being considered today. with that context and history in mind, i now want to briefly turn to the staff report. i know that diego will go into that momentarily but i wanted to respond to a few of the points. the recommendation one proposed to modify the front set requirement from 15 to 10 feet for properties in the districts that face street or alley less than or equal to 40 feet in width or our ordinance calls it to change from 15 to 5 feet. we believe, given the sun angle requirements that have five feet or 15% of the average depth lot

maximum front setback, it will allow for more build able area without negatively impacting our aim for neighborhood compatibility. recommendations three proposing to further study the effects of imposing additional height limits for narrow streets and allies in rh districts. on this point, our office is amenable to language or amendments to address those concerns. as mentioned previously, given some of the feedback from our constituents about development that's have come before this commission, we believe that it is important to move this proposal forward. that said, our office is open and amenable to continuing discussions on the applicability of height and bulk controls as it played tasapplied to zoning . recommendations for proposes to eliminate language regarding the purpose of rear yards as providing views into green spaces. i believe there's clarification that would be help. it's not our intention to define green space providing views into

private parks or skyline views rather we want the highlight the benefits of making space for back yards and grown spaces. we do appreciate that as written, this may cause some concern as to misinterprettation and we are open to clarify it's not a right for private views into a park but instead as an attempt to promote green spaces in our yards. in closing, i want to thank planning staff for the time they've given to this proposal and recognize tom from livable city who provided expert guidance. and i want to thank the commission for time and consideration. i would be happy to clarify any provision as helpful. thank you. >> the department supports of ordinance and balance the proposed ordinance and the amendments to be a bill able area help reinforce city politics on urban design and housing production. the department is making full recommendations i think kyle went over those.

we have concerns with respect to the first one with respect to allowing the department to apply the ground floor residential design guidelines, if the front setback with only be required at five feet. >> can you speak louder. >> definitely. >> so that's the first concern. i think i'll just defer to you to hear public comment and we can definitely hear to answer any questions. thank you. >> >> thank you. we're going to open this item up to public comment. i have one speaker card for tom. any other members of the public are welcome to address this. please, lineup on the screen side of the room. >> good afternoon, tom. we just wanted to thank supervisor mandelman for bringing this forward.

i'm a constituent and i'm very proud of my supervisor. thinking through these things, you have a basic paradox in our one district right now that covers half the city's land areas. those a will you the biggest buildings. you can actually go further back on the yard and you can in any other receipten -- zoning district it also has the lowest density permitted. one unit per lot. what you get from that is two things. one is you get this monster home problem, which you've been hearing about for a long time. there's a huge incentive to build a monito monster home becu aren't adding units just bigger once that are less affordable. if someone wanted to say build a two modestly side buildings on a lot that goes through, or a lot on a corner, you can't do that. you can only build the monster home. we're happy this is coming before buzz it will allow these cottages, these smaller buildings, with yards separating

them from the building on the other half of the lot, in these rh zoning districts. one aspect of this is legalize san francisco. you see these in older neighborhoods that existed before the planning code. you see lots of rear cottage and so on. it's a great time-tested housing type. unfortunately, illegal under our current zoning. this would legal size those. it also is a way to bring more housing and more diverse types of housing into established neighborhoods without fundamentally changing their charter. one of the things when we read this staff report was that sort of the freak out about using the grown spaces. the idea is that would be the yards themselves, that the buildings would have a yard in between and that people are looking into our yards. i thought why didn't they get that's the rear yard. there's a funny -- i don't know a funny paradox in the planning code which is, there's no requirement that you have one stick of green in a rear yard. there are requirements that you have lan landscaping in the frot

yard but the rear yard you can build like a prison yard. concrete, razor wire, planning code compliant, right. that might be something you think about. what are the purposes of rear yard? one is existing code that is a continuous landscaped mid block open area. the view into -- but there's no requirement you landscape anything. so, this relates directly to the next item which i have to go and not be able to speak on which is biodiversity. i love that i live in a dense neighborhood. the mission multi-family housing, we're all stacked close but everyone has got access to a rear yard. that's a great neighborhood pattern allowing more people to enjoy those types of neighborhoods. higher density but rear yards. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker.

>> thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak today. my name is jeff surf and my wife is with me on the audience. speaking on buy half of both of us and wanted to share that we strongly support the building standards and planning code amendments proposed by supervisor mandelman. i want to thank him and his office to the extent his first day in office, my wife and i went to speak with him about a situation that occurred that kyle shared with you, and he stepped up to do something about it. which i think is really tremendous. i wanted to just tell you the quick story of what happened to us. we, a long time residents of glen park, my wife and her parents, before her, lived in glen park in a family home. my wife raised her son there and next to the building, the building that we own or my wife grew up in, was a very small lot. some of you may remember it, it's less than a thousand square feet and it was brought forward

to build a significant house on that lot. the developer is currently building a single-family resident and it covers 100% of the land. the green space allotment, as some of you may know, was addressed through a top deck and there's no backyard and i think in addition to that being a problem, is that that piece of property is right next to an alleyway or open space, which is of historical value. the glen park historian has done research and believes it's part of the old h he old h heel cami. it's now becoming a black, dark tunnel. there are fences on one side and a three-storey building on the other side and no space in between. this is an area where neighbors, many times have come and there's

a bench there where they sit and eat lunch. and this is on the public alleyway not to mention it's so, what we want to do is just share our story with you express our desire for you to move forward with the proposal that it will help the city as a whole from building better buildings, coping neighborhoods viable and helping to address open spaces and places for people to people to take. thank you. >> this isn't on point with this good legislation that's been proposed by my supervisor and his staff. i want to say that, i've seen this trend and you are seeing it too and why think that you have the ability to do anything with it and that is what i like to

call -- i don't like to call it the bunkerrization of back yards. where, a big project is coming where there's an alteration or increasingly demolitions now and the whole lot is excavated. and because they're excavating so much they need retaining walls so the space becomes bunker-like because they have to have levels so, i don't know if it's something you can deal with in the design guidelines which are percolating since 2014 but it's something to think about. i don't think that i'm getting back to the roof decks, why think roof decks should substitute as open space for year regards that provide help to climate change as i pointed

out

>> clarification on the use of lawful structure which is in italic, i think lawful structure, if i understand

correctly is permitted structure, correct or structure which has permit? >> that's what we take it to mean. >> i italicize the existing code and what the supervisor proposes. the italicized language is to show what's different between today and what would be propos proposed. >> i would like this legislation to help diminish the hours and that means that sometimes language which i believe is correct of five feet or 15%, the average depth of the lot, whatever is less. why not just say five feet? that is for alleys, for small streets, pretty much a condition we have, in the area. i do not understand the distance

for corner lots with respect -- the requirement for properties in the l1, 30% of the total lot depth but in no case less than 15 feet, i would suggest, to eliminate -- no, not that. why is the distance 60 feet? >> the corner lot discussion. >> i believe you're references additional height limits which is an existing code. >> propertied on a narrow street more than 60 feet from an 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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? 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. item 11 for 24.1477, san francisco bio diversity resolution.

>> we're thrilled to present a 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. >> 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 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 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. 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 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. 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 nativela