sarah jones from the planning department. i want to address supervisor kim's specific questions. i think i'm going to back up a little bit, though. the aspect of notification that this ordinance most heavily addresses is notification of the actual approval actions and the reason for that is that under ceqa, appeals can be filed after an approval action has occurred. so, the important -- the important event for people to be aware of with regard to filing of appeals is approval actions. so, under this ordinance there would be notification as to the issuance of a ceqa document -- or the fact that a ceqa document was issued. and the timeline for the appeal connected to our existing notification of approval actions, which is extensive. we have 311, 312 process. we have the notification of hearings. we have a lot of ways to notify people that approval actions occur. what we don't have now is a ceqa notification that is tied to that, that informs people that now their ability to appeal has begun. so, that's the aspect of the notification that is extended in this -- under this ordinance.

aye lane warren from the city attorney's office, sarah jones ann marie rogers and bill wii co-before he retired. john ram, of course, and an dress power in my office. ~. this laze been a wonderful collaborative effort. so, with that, colleagues, if there are any introductory remarks. yes, president chiu. >> thank you, mr. chair. and let me first start by thanking the members of the public who have all engaged very intensely on this topic. and let me start by saying that i think this intense debate has caused ceqa to become everyone's new favorite four-letter word. [laughter] >> let me also state a more serious note that i have met with supporters and opponents of the various versions of so-called chapter 31 reform. and let me suggest that i think that everyone in this room shares the overall goal of legislating clear procedures for handling appeals of categorical exemptions and negative declarations. as supervisor wiener just outlined, our main guide on these appellate procedures is a publicly available 2008 city attorney memo that reads like a conflict version of choose your own adv

along with our planning department staff, ann marie rodgers, and our ero sarah jones. we believe this legislation offers a balanced approach to c-e-q-a reform that focuses largely on improving public notification and maintaining a robust input in the environmental review process. we do establish the much needed deadlines for the appeals of cad ex and negative declarationses, but we also realize if we're going to put deadlines in place, that we need to have an easily understandable process in order to file the appeals. we believe that increasing triggers for notification will greatly enhance the ability for the average san franciscan to understand when projects are coming up in their neighborhood and when they can appeal those projects. ~ so, i will just highlight some pieces of our legislation that are being reviewed today. the legislation before you will substantially improve the notification process for projects as i have mentioned. it expands upon existing noticing requirements to ensure that communities stay informed about the projects around them. in addition to h

. >> good afternoon, sarah jones, planning department. for a project that is not reviewed over the counter, often the environmental determination will be made and, in fact, we review the project for whether or not a it qualifies for an exemption. ~ and that occurs before the 311 notification on a single-family project is even sent out. so, that notification doesn't even go out until the environmental determination has been made. so, then, there can be a lag actually of really several months between the time that the environmental determination is made and when there is a project approval. >> and, so, then, my question is in supervisor tang's legislation, so maybe you can answer this or the supervisor, is it put forward that after the environmental decision and then maybe that's noticed on the website, then an appeal can be -- can be made at that time even though the first approval has not yet been made? ~ supervisor kim >> yes, supervisor kim's legislation would allow for an appeal to be filed at that time, and that is actually -- at the

as i mentioned i'm joined today by our acting ero sarah jones, and you have a detailed case report before you that describes our department's recommendation. the recommendation before you is to support certain portions of the proposal, but not all of the proposal. as i mentioned earlier during my board report this week, on monday when the board committee heard supervisor kim's proposal and supervisor wiener's proposal, supervisor chiu made some amendments to supervisor wiener's proposal which he felt responded to the community concerns. as a result of those amendments, supervisor kim's proposal and supervisor wiener's amended proposal are much closer in content than they were at the time this case report was originally written. therefore, the commission secretary is now providing you with a supplemental memorandum today which compares and contrasts the two current versions. while staff will be available today to go over our detailed analysis as provided in your first case report, for this presentation i'd like to focus on a little bit higher level of review. our department, like this comm