there is one impact which remains significant and unavoidable. despite implementation of mitigation measures. this is the demolition of the existing church building on the project site, which is considered a significant unavoidable adverse impact on historic resources. if you certify the eir and should decide to approve the project, you will need to adopt a statement of overriding consideration that explains how the benefits of the project outplayed the unavoidable adverse environmental effects. -- outweighed the unavoidable adverse environmental effects. that item is not before you now, but it is next on the agenda tonight. the document is adequate, objective, and accurate. this concludes my presentation on the matter and i'm available for any questions. thank you. commissioner fong: thank you. commissioners, i have been asked if we could take a five-minute break so staff can do little bit more research. i would ask that we take a quick break, if that is all right. thank you. >> welcome back to the planning commission regular meeting for june 28

these impacts were all determined to be significant and unavoidable. even with the mitigation in draft e.i.r. and due to some mitigation efforts, the significant conclusions remain unchanged in the final e.i.r. we did receive letters after the publication of the c.i.r.'s. they contain comments dated to be relevant to the c.n.r. dobblingment of the e.i.r. in general. the individuals and organizations were copied to planning staff and i'm just going to summarize what their concerns were because of the recent date of those letters we were not able to include them in the c.n.r. we did include a letter from the district and we have the response to that letter since it was a little more detailed than something i could read out at the meeting today. staff has reviewed the concerns and find them similar to comments already addressed in the c.n.r. documents as i will explain. the topics of concern this these liters we received through yesterday include request for continuance. the san francisco administrative code requires 10 days for review and we gave 14 days

of those 17, six are significant and unavoidable. i will cover the specific intersections in just a minute. three are related to trends and what is construction related and 1 loading impact we were able to get to less than significant level. with that, let me focus on the intersection and let you know what some of those impacts are. we see significant and unavoidable impact at the intersection of van ness and market. the sheer magnitude of the hospital -- and will cover that in just a few minutes. said impact that the remaining 23 intersections are less than significant. that is not to say a facility of this size isn't going to bring a lot of vehicles, all of pedestrians, lot of trends are writers and general transportation activity to this region. absolutely will and in doing so, it will create some friction tween the district -- between the different modes. it will produce some1/ various intersections surrounding the project site. there is no doubt about that. it is just that the significant impact for the cathedral hill is that th

this would be a significant and unavoidable air quality related helped impact. since publication, the planning department has received two additional comment letters on the project. the first comment letter from the assistant professor of asian american studies at san francisco state university was a letter of support for the proposed project. the second letter from san francisco architectural heritage, comments week related to the mitigation measures -- comment related to the mitigation measures. these comments raised objection to the project itself and urged that the mission to approve -- the commission to approve an alternative to the project. they aren't the same as those that were raised during the draft -- they are the same as those that are raised during the draft eir and have been fully responded to. please see comments letter number b7, from san francisco architectural heritage. and response to this letter in the cnr document. no new information is presented. no new issues have been raised. that would change the analysis of conclusions of the eir. overa

this would be a significant and unavoidable health impact. the historic preservation commission held a hearing on may 2. comments related mainly to historic resources, specifically the proposed project significant impact on the individual historic resource that is the 1924 mab. on the national register of historic places, the chinatown historic district, and the cumulative impact on chinese historic resources, particularly concurrent area projects. they also spoke on the design, recommending design alternatives and additional historic mitigation measures. i have copies of the eir receive from the hbc, which i have already received -- i have already shared with the commissioners and i have put a copy on your desks. please note that staff is not here to answer questions or comments on the draft eir today. all comments will be transcribed and responded to in writing. in the comments and responses document, which will respond to all questions received and make revisions to the draft eir as for writ. i would like to remind all speakers that this i

there are some impacts of ever which would remain significant and unavoidable. transportation, noise, air quality, and tim wood impacts on air quality, and we did anticipate a long-term development impacts -- air quality, and other impacts on air quality. the significant impacts include noise and air quality. so, again, the december 15 planning commission certified the eir. on december 16, the port commission approved the project and adopted a statement of overriding consideration that explains how the benefits of the projects outweigh the unavoidable adverse environmental impacts. the mitigation and monitoring and reporting programs were also adopted at that meeting. the board received two appeal letters before january 4 deadline, one from keith wagner, representing san francisco tomorrow, golden gate audubon society, telegraph hill dwellers, and others, and a second letter from rebecca evans on behalf of the sierra club's san francisco group. since then, there have been three separate appeal memos from the appellant, one on january 17, two yesterday, january 2

we have to decide whether or not we think that unavoidable impact is mitigated will. many of us do not believe that it is. we believe the document, at least, identifies that the impact is significant and there is an environmentally superior alternatives available to us. that is what i would say on this point. it is not about whether or not the project is great or not great. it is whether or not, for the threshold of what ceqa seems to require, i've been trying to find out the project description of should actually say. i will said the project objectives in this eir are very similar to project objectives in many other e i ours -- eirs that we see. we prioritize their objectives -- in the language, i guess that is how the document is supposed to be written. but we have to exercise discretion in choosing the alternatives we might want to pursue. i do not think certifying the eir contradicts that. commissioner miguel: to follow on commissioner borden, this is a situation with whatever has been discussed and evaluated in the eir, in the project comes after that has to fall

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moving on8'e 2015, we identified significant an unavoidable impact on the 19th pole to 38 than the 38 carry and the 49 van ness mission lines and 20, 30, those lines are9] impact on the 47 van ness and the three jackson. impact on other lines were less than significant but that's not to say cathedral hill is not going to be adding riders. while the impacts are identified as significant an unavoidable, this forces mitigation measures that would compensate and to a financially for the agency to provide transit service needed to service hospital. on the bicycle and pedestrian impact, there will be more friction just by virtue of putting more people on this site. we have found that impact on bicyclesxv significant with this project and similarly would be less than significant for pedestrians. there are streetscape and other improvements being added that we can cover in detail.  the construct- related pedestrian impact willt- discuss a minute. we did find a significant impact as far as for large trucks pulling in off of franklin. that is mitigated with making sure the loading hours for la

taking grass out of golden gate park that close to the addition will have been unavoidable impact. thank you for your time and you're serious consideration. president chiu: thank you. >> hello, supervisors. thank you for the time. i live out at 48 avenue which means within earshot and sand shot of the ocean. i used to live within eyeshot of the stadium. i know what stadium lights are like. i have to say it is bs the stadium lights would not be throwing off extra light. i live with and half a mile or 1 mile of where the beach shelle would-be -- city lights would be and i know that any chance i have of seeing any stars at night would be gone. i am opposed to that. the other thing is people have not mentioned up until now is that traffic will be a problem in particular, on the great highway. traffic is already a problem when any sunday afternoon where the sun shines out at the beach, great highway is jammed. if we throw in a major soccer field as well, it will be a nightmare. no one seems to have taken that into account when i read -- wrote that into the draft er, they refuse to answe

there are some impacts of ever which would remain significant and unavoidable. transportation, noise, air quality, and tim wood impacts on air quality, and we did anticipate a long-term development impacts -- air quality, and other impacts on air quality. the significant impacts include noise and air quality. so, again, the december 15 planning commission certified the eir. on december 16,

as far as the recommendations, the first recommendation is to eliminate switchbacks except when unavoidable. muni disagrees with the recommendation reasserting that switch backs are valid and necessary given the operating environment. they have worked on reducing the switchbacks and keeping the public informed and would further denigate service and safety. the jury answers, "that's what we're getting at that muni think it is switch backs are a normal way of business". other transportation systems were aghast, appalled that a transit system could inconvenience their customers so cavalierly and we want them to have the feeling that we are doing a good job" when they deem them unavoidable. recommendation two, contact and learn from paris not resorting to switchbacks regularly. muni agrees there is room for improvement and they will reach out to their peers to study their standard operating procedures but note the claim that others are using procedures similar to muni. the jury answers "the jury approves part of the response about contacting peers. we hope that you contact those systems that we

there are lots of impacts that are significant but unavoidable. the way to approve the project, given that, is to do the statement of overriding considerations that they outweigh the harm. those are tied to the amount of money generated from the spectators who are going to be here. you have cut a reduction in the estimate for the number of spectators. the money is not going to be there. what are the benefits to the city? that is more of a policy question, but it is something that is required by ceqa. it is enough of an environmental review question that i wanted to point it out. supervisor campos: thank you. supervisor avalos: a follow-up. if you could amplify your statement about the change we have seen in the number of spectator and supply vessels that were in the d-eir? you mentioned we would have to report back to the numbers of the earlier version, which have been thrown out. >> the draft eir had projected large numbers of spectators both on the bay and on the land side. the notion was that there would be lots of money being spent by people c

all of these would reduce the project was a significant unavoidable impact to historic resources.that the commission adopt the motion before you as soon as the contents are verified as accurate, and the procedures through which the final eir was prepared comply with the provisions of ceqa. this concludes my presentation unless commissioners have any questions. if commissioners do not have questions, i will hand over the microphone to neil from the planning department. commissioner fong: thank you. i do not see any calls. there might be questions for you later. >> good afternoon, commissioners. i am a planner with the city wide planning division of the planning department. it is a pleasure to be before you this morning -- afternoon. at issue before you today is the renovation of the soccer field at the beach chalet in the golden gate park. the staff report provided for you provides more detailed analysis, so my summary today will be brief. the planning department received many hundreds -- perhaps over 1000 -- e-mails in response to this project. the majority of e-mails were opposed

what in politics is unavoidable and inevitable? it is not the case. it is certainly not essential if we want to defeat the great ideology, that great threat, it is certainly not essential that we embrace the people who have that ideology. what does that mean about us? it means that we are vanquished cowards in the face of that ideology. it is not essential. let us try to defeat it. peacefully, if possible, through the means that we know, the ones we have used in the past against other ideologies. and we know it works. and we can find men and women in this part of the world to be our partners to do this. >> reuel. >> i thought rob was making my arguments for me until the end. >> class strongly recommend you read jeane kirkpatrick'. -- i strongly recommend that you read gene kirkpatrick. the thought that democracy is a cancer, perhaps a number one thing they fear -- in iran, where they have a fraudulent democratic system, the process of actually going out to vote crated the earthquake in 1997 and created even greater earthquakes in 2009. there is not a

that makes them unavoidable and essential. if you believe you have to go down that path, some path, then you are going to have to open up the road and the option of them. now, what the opposing side is really saying, i think, is you know what we really wanted to have and may be too late now but still want it, is they want to have kamalism. that's what they believed him you were going to have kamal and enlightened despotism, that is the authoritarianism that grew out of the turk movement in the late ottoman empire and enlighten despotism and create a new liberalism that would become democratic in the middle east and take the sharia and take the faithful and you more or less passed them off and replaced them with swift legal codes and at the end of the process, muslims would be bavelly us. well, you know, one, let's look at turkey, that hasn't exactly turned out so well. what happened is that as soon as the turkish military allowed a free vote, islamic history came roaring back. you don't get to cut off 600 years of islamic hist

reality of war well it's an unavoidable reality of real bombardment and then has to be taken.you know no longer can we regard the killings. aerial bombardment as mistakes we nor they are going to happen and yet he persisted in creating war through aerial bombardments you know other words no longer is it a mistake this is part of the process of fighting a war from about ten to thirty thousand feet above the ground if you're going to conduct a war to aerial bombardment you're going to kill people therefore it's not unavoidable you have made a choice to kill civilians by conducting warfare from the sky feature is there any doubt about the credibility of this report by human rights watch. no listen in on the march the second of this year the united nations human rights council released a very large very important report that got almost no publicity and in that report the human rights council of the united nations suggested that there was credible evidence of civilian casualties they could not however see that these were the result of deliberate targeting because nato refused to co

the impact of the visit on the diplomatic tie between tokyo and moscow is unavoidable. it's going to be a major issue in the next line of talk between president vladimir putin and prime minister noda. over the past few months, putin has showed that he is ready to solve the dispute. the contrast with the action of prime minister medvedev could be a way of testing japan's willingness to make a compromise. >> all right, nhk moscow bureau >>> british bank chief executive stepped down amid an interest rate rigging scandal. he said he was stepping down because of a level that risked damaging the franchise. he stepped down one day after marcus announced his resignation. regulators ordered barclays to pay a $350 million fine after manipulating interest rates. the interest rate is used by libor for banks it lend money to each other. more than a dozen other institutions are under scrutiny. the british government decided to set up a special parliament to look into the scandal. >>> people in japan have been watching a political drama play out and guess how it'll end. . one of the m

in addition, circulation and access variance would result in significant and unavoidable traffic impacts. other potentially significant impact with regard to archeological resources, noise and vibration, air quality, and hazardous materials would be reduced to less than significant with the implementation of mitigation measures. a hearing to receive historic preservation commission commons was held on july 18. i actually have the comments in a letter for you. staff is not here to answer comments today, but comments will be transcribed by the court reporter impact transferred to the comments and responses document. this will respond to all comments received, and make changes to the draft eir as appropriate. this is not a hearing to consider approval or disapproval of the project. that will follow the final eir certification. commons today should be directed to the adequacy and accuracy of the environmental analysis contained in the draft eir. i would remind, enters to speak slowly and clearly so the court reporter can produce an accurate transcript. also,, andrews should state their name

it is not unavoidable. it is not inevitable. what in politics is unavoidable and inevitable?t's not the case. and it's certainly not essential that if we want to defeat the great ideology that jim spoke about this morning, we want to defeat that great threat, it's certainly not essential that we embrace victory of people who have that ideology. because then what does that mean about us? it means that we are vanquished in the face of that ideology. so it is not essential. let us try to defeat it through the means that we know, the ones we've used in the past against other ideologies. and we know it works. we will find men and women in these parts of the world who will be our partners to spend okay, last but not least, reuel spent i thought rob was sort of making my argument for me until the end. do you know your writing is psychopathic? [laughter] i strongly, i strongly recommend that you read jeanne kirkpatrick's dictatorships and double standards and also recommend you read my good friend bob higgins demolition, of that essay later and commentary. i would just say this. i'm,

the city of piedmont's eir concluded that sbr astroturf creates a significant and unavoidable health risk so they analyze the alternatives. piedmont is installing cork, cork is a great underlayment, and has been installed in hundreds of fields around the world. los angeles and new york have abandoned sbr chrome rubber and are using other alternatives. there is no set -- no reason san francisco should fall behind these other cities. how many of you buy organic produce? the cancer risk you get from eating produce that is not organic is less than one in 1 million. we pay twice as much for the organic stuff because we do not want our kids to eat the pesticides. we think that is worthwhile. this risk is about somewhere between 8 and 19 times higher than that. whether that is significant or not i do not know. it seems like we ought to try to avoid it. the principle of the city has adopted, if you have a known toxic chemical and it creates a risk, just avoid it if you can. if there is something safe, use the save stuff. supervisor chu: it does not sound to me like the department is proposin

we found in 2015, there were three significant an unavoidable impact. however, there are a similar number of impacts operating at a lower level, so the project isn't having any additional intersections operating. in 2035, due to be significant background growth, things like the hospital in this area and city-wide, we know we need to look at significant changes to help people get in and around the city. but due to the regulations, we cannot anticipate what those will be. the system is operating close to the brink of what we project for background growth. there are between six and eight sections that would operate in 2035 but we would like to start thinking about how we can change on a larger scale the way people move in and through the city. there are concerns from people living on the street parallel to van ness ave. even if it is not operational yet issue, there may be an increase in traffic on the side streets and we know we want to start planning for what a potential offsets, pedestrian prove mens and those sorts of things to offset any increase in t

the draft eir identified mass' pollutants as an unavoidable impact. the impact was identified as single begin to even though air quality resources are regulated. and back -- regulations require the use of best available control technology. this is because the extent to which he missions achieved -- emissions reductions achieved with these regulations are not known at this time. we still considered this impact to be significant and avoidable no additional mitigation measures are necessary to make the requirement enforceable. it is a regulation that the project has to comply with. appellants state the final eir emissions is incomplete. this is inaccurate. the eir mitigation measures specify the most stringent, feasible mitigation known as tier 4 stan disappeared near term projects specified in detail mitigation measures based on a refined construction plan and an extensive feasibility analysis. near-term pressures require the use of level three does look predicament pelters. these are capable of producing a particular matters by 85%. appellants argue th

of this size and magnitude of the cathedral hill campus would result in over 30 significant and unavoidable impact just to traffic. you would think, given all these significant impacts, there would be a thorough look at alternatives to reduce these impacts. this was absolutely not the case. the eir violated every alternative legal requirement in that type of analysis. it set forth a narrow set of project objectives. it failed to analyze a reasonable range of alternatives. and it set forth really disingenuous reasons for not following through with the alternatives. under ceqa, the lead agency may not give the project's purpose and artificially narrow definition, but this is exactly what the eir does. it states that a project objective is to consolidate specialized services and women's and children's services into one acute-care hospital. whether our efficiency basis for consolidating a particular type of service in one place, there's no fundamental need to consolidate every service in the same hospital. the only function of this objective is to improperly favored the project as proposed. ceq