. ~ ~ planning staff, sara jones admitted the website is not user friendly. so until you have this notification well under control, user friendly, i think that needs major work. so, please, do not take any action. ~ ~ >> technical difficulty >>> [speaker not understood]. i felt compelled to come here today to come here to support supervisor wiener in had i effort to reform and make the c-e-q-a process a little more sensible. and i'm going to sound like a broken record. but again, i want to thank him so much for taking lead on this. this is a very difficult topic and i know it's very controversial. and i want to thank the staff as well for all the work that they've done on this. they've done tremendous amount of outreach and their homework and so forth. i think it's really terrific. i can't speak on the specificses of the proposal. i do want to second what jim colin said a few minutes ago. as an architect, i know a little bit about the c-e-q-a process. i have to deal with it sometimes. ~ ~ >> technical difficulty i think everybody in this room supports the con

i'm joined for this item sara jones, acting environmental review officer. before we begin our staff presentation i'd like to invite supervisor wiener up to make his remarks. >> hello again, commissioners. thank you for your [speaker not understood]. so, since the last time we were together on this item in november, i have as you requested convened a series of very well attended round tables with people in the community, some in support, some in opposition, some in the middle. we've also had other meetings with individuals who have been interested or organizations, and we've been listening and we've been dialoguing. resulting from these conversations, i have made 34 different amendments covering 26 subject matters into the legislation that is before you today. this legislation for the first time will put in place a clear and transparent statutory procedure forsee qua appeals of categorical exemptionses and negative declarations to the board of supervisors. ~ for c-e-q-a it is important reform for our process which is chaotic the opposite of transparent and w

so -- >> sara jones again, planning department. yes, at this point many of the projects that come through our department and all of these thousands and thousands of cad x's, there's one and only approval -- >> which is a building permit approval, that would be the first approval or last approval. a majority of these -- >> yes. >> c-e-q-a actionses or exemptions that the city takes on. >> yes. >> so, no change on those. and then for projects that require 311 or 312 notice, those that are not dr'd or there is not a cu that don't come here to planning, that are approved at the staff level, again, the first approval and the last approval is the building department. >> yes. >> so, no change -- >> right. it's one action. >> so, there is actually increased notice because you'll get notice -- you'll get c-e-q-a notice in the 311 and 312 notice that you don't currently get now. >> exactly, you would get c-e-q-a notice. the first approval action as a trigger for the c-e-q-a appeal process, that is defined here as the approval -- it's the sec

. >> good evening, commissioners, sara jones from the environmental planning section of the planning department. as you've heard this evening from supervisor wiener, this ordinance was developed with the help of our staff to address a crucial deficit that we have in our procedures right now under chapter 31. chapter 31 of the administrative code governs all of our c-e-q-a review work in san francisco in addition to the c-e-q-a guidelines themselves, of course. our department remains very firm in the belief that the current lack of rules is really to no one's benefit around these appeals of negative declarations and categorical exemptions. we've had procedures codified for several years for environmental impact reports, but nothing codified for these other types of c-e-q-a documents. with the lack of procedures, as supervisor wiener mentioned, a city attorney opinion is needed to determine the timeliness of each and every appeal. no one, not the planner, not the clerk of the board, not the public, not the project sponsor can answer confidently when an appeal of the environmental docum