peter cohen, council of community housing coalitions. just a few thoughts on this and like you've heard from previous speakers, great compliments to the staff, andy, claudia, gabrielle, the team. this is the kind of work we've wanted to see for a long time, which is fantastic. sitting down and talking to folks on the ground, that's an approach that's been a little bit missing for some of us, sort of responding to a whole bunch of research and analysis and having all this critical feedback versus calling folks together who have done this all day long and done it year after year and developing the knowledge base and ideas from that is an excellent way to kick this off. i think that's why you've seen very positive strokes from the commenters so far. also in a policy context, the fact the planning department is doing a community stablization strategies and will have policies and recommendations is a very new thing because we've had such a heavy frame emphasis in this city through this economic cycle. if you step out of san francisco, we're v

peter cohen. i know this isn't a competitive position, but like the speakers before, i want to say a couple words about kevin ortiz, who i've gotten to know over the last year-and-a-half. you know, he is a young guy. i think it's really important, as i'm aging in our housing advocates. the folks who are willing to get into the weeds and understand the technical questions. kevin is one of these young people who has disciplined them themselves. i've served on the cacs and this is not just the kind of head talking panel, these are people who become colleagues to staff so it requires a willingness to get into the details and be thoughtful and not just be there. he will be a great addition to the c.a.c. thank you. >> great. any other members wish to comment. public comment is closed. i'll just say, before we make a motion, i also have had the opportunity to work with ms. phillips, and she's been active in the soma community. she's been a strong advocate for families in need. just add my voice to the ch

. >> good afternoon, supervisors, peter cohen. small sites, big sites, medium sites, obviously we're very enthusiastic about this coming into effect. we want to thank all the folks involved, the mayor's office of housing, the advocates, our organizations and also the supervisors who led the charge. this is an example of creative way to find money and i'm going to give a lot of credit to whitney jones who kind of uncover it but we all worked to figure out how to make this happen. it's 72% of voters supported prop c november 2016. 72% of voters. most voters don't really under bonds and the narrative around that was to acquire housing and get it off the speculation market and make it permanent leah forward able to low and moderate households. that sold 72% of san franciscans. i want to reminds us that this is something that makes total sense to folks. we can really build on affordable housing program and strategy on an acquisition platform as much as new construction. and i think that's what the voters really told us with that strong

. >> good afternoon, supervisors, peter cohen, community housing organizations. i guess that it's frustrating to be at this point after such a sort of kumbayah in the legislation that now we're faced with a situation of changing negotiated timelines and goalposts. but you already are. and i would offer just a few things as you decide what's appropriate. a use it or lose it provision should be progressive and it's intended to actually put the fire under the process and the onus should be on the project sponsor. so whatever you think is appropriate at this point it should be as aggressive as it can be for those projects that already have a deeply lowered rate, they should be moving it fast. that was the original intent. the second point is that there should be cause for an extension. and i think that we've heard that already. i'm glad -- i think that it was supervisor peskin pulled out the 2012 prop c of trying to figure out what is the right process for flushing out where there's been cause beyond the project sponsor's control, versus sitting on one's hands and ta

>> commissioners, peter cohen, counsel of community housing organizations. i wasn't intending to speak on the item, but just to reiterate that, you know, one of the frustrating issues that this project continues to expose is how badly san francisco got hammered by a state bill two years ago that created the change in state density bonus law, which because of a unique set of circumstances intersects but cuts san francisco's inclusionary requirements. i haven't talked to anyone in an elected position or on this commission or even advocates that think that this is a good thing. there's no fix because it's grandfathered, and it pains me to think that this sponsor is capitalizing on this grandfathering. new projects going forward are at least levelled by paying the additional fee to makeup for it, but i think this is a sticking point, and i hope it never happens again, and i hope you remember it. thank you. >> president hillis: thank you. mr. marti, and if anybody else would like to speak on this, please lineup on the screen side of the room. >> just to add to pe

peter cohen with council of community housing organizations. however you land this grandfathering extension, one issue that was brought up last week, which we would highly encourage you to do, is bring to an end grandfathering projects access to state density bonus without paying, if you will, their fair share of additional affordability requirements, which all other developments now have to deal with. that, if you will gift of 26 or 30 months from the original inclusionary to be able to use state density bonus has resulted in projects that are coming in around 11% of affordable housing, when they already had a lowered rate of maybe 13 or 14. and to provide the extra 18 months or whatever it might be to get them to the pipeline sounds reasonable, but not then to be able to, again, dip into that added advantage with no public benefit in return. so that would be an amendment that would make a lot of sense and, frankly, create the level playing field in this policy, even with this small extension. thank you. >> supervisor tang: thank you very much

>> president cohen: yes. >> peter dreckmeyer. i'm with the tuolomne river trust, and i want to thank supervisor peskin his plan in support of the bay area water delta plan, and the other supervisors who have cosponsored that. i want to mention there are some speakers that had to leave, but the environmental and fishing communities are really united behind the bay delta plan. it's a really high priority for us. i've worked for the tuolomne river trust, and we've had some good times with the sfpuc at getting things done, but i've appalled what they've done on the bay area delta plan, really stifling public dialogue about it. they've had two meetings -- two public meetings in a two-year period, and we had to lobby for both of those. and there was 1.5 years in between them. and now, what's happened is they are working behind the scenes with the trump administration to put pressure on -- from department of interior on the u.s. fish and wildlife service. it really casts a bad light on san francisco. we have one of the most dynamic ecos

. >> supervisor cohen: we have peter from the department of environment here to present on this resolution that allows the department of environment to accept an additional grant fund from the association of bay area governments and to continue the implementation of the bay renin energy efficiency program for large family and commercial buildings. thank you. the floor is yours. >> thank you. good morning. thank you chair cohen and supervisors. i'm from the department of environment. before you today is an accept and expand on the association of bay area governments in the amount of $334,000. the grant funds will be used by the department to perform additional multifamily and commercial energy efficiency projects as part of the bay area regional energy network or bay renin program. we have been participating since 2013 and we receive an annual grant allocation for this work. that allocation was already approved by the board earlier this year. what is before you today is a mid year augmentation of funding that is being awarded to the city of san francisco because of our success and expertise

>> peter baker, the president trotted out his, i hardly knew him explanation yesterday. i think it was in the context of michael cohen and michael cohen's comments as reported by "vanity fair" about, i think he spent dozens of hours now with federal investigators. manafort is the variable here. manafort is now telling mueller's investigators anything and everything they want to know. any sense that the white house has ticked up any of their anxiety around these questions, around roger stone, around manafort, around cohen? this is the russia piece of the investigation which has always been the deeper trigger for the president. he cites no collusion, no collusion, almost like a nervous tick. >> he does. he says no collusion often enough and emphatically enough that it's sort of penetrating the larger conversation. a lot of people out there have come to the conclusion that maybe, in fact, mueller doesn't have anything on collusion. that's premature. we don't know what robert mueller really has. we're all reporting from the outside in trying to figure out what he's interested in by talking to people he and his people are