i'm here to say many of us object strongly to the pagoda palace location. really promised it would be presented to the chinatown option, option number 2 apparently was never presented to you or it was presented to you with the built-in instructions how to vote. i would like to say the chinatown option explore the extraction boring machines. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> gregory geiber followed by lance carnes. >> good afternoon. >>> good afternoon. thank you for allowing me to talk. i'm relatively new to san francisco. i went to school here. i spent my life in new york city and know how long a subway project can take from start to completion. when i arrived in new york city in the '70s, the subway was being planned. i hope to get there sometime before i eventually die and it might be completed. these things take a long time. when people favor the pagoda theater, it seemed to be an a versus b assumption. there were no alternative to the chinatown that it seemed to be you want union street or you want the pagoda theater. with little conside

we continue to make progress with the pagoda palace plan. the effort to change the retrieval site has involved a significant amount of work and a very tight timeline. a little too late to do what they're doing. with a strong supportive supervisor chu, the mayor's office we have worked closely with several city agencies including the planning department, the department of building inspection, to make the pagoda palace option reality. they forgot to consult with the citizens of north beach that will be disrupted by this extrication that has not come up until recently. i resent the planning committee even addressing this. i represent the citizens of san francisco and especially of north beach. thank you for your time.

to change the tpm extraction location from columbus avenue to pagoda theater parcel. included in this package is a [speaker not understood] and geotechnical report, a letter from the various teams, geotechnical [speaker not understood] larry carp. there are issues also which include issues of dewatering and impacts on very fragile adjacent buildings. two, the subsequent and supplemental e-i-r is required to assess the impact thev historic resources which were not included in the previous e-i-r or the current evaluations. and finally, three, the subsequent supplemental [speaker not understood] to assess the environmental impacts of expanding central subway service north beach. so, i will submit the package. >> thank you so much. next speaker, please. >>> and i'm here to answer any questions. >> thank you, sir. next speaker is? >> tina moyland followed by joan wood. >> good afternoon. >>> good afternoon. thank you, director reiskin, and to supervisor chiu and all of you for all the work that's been amazing. i'm the current president of the russian hill neighbors. some th

for example, misrepresenting community support of the pagoda alternative. at both of the community meetings, the majority of people in attendance opposed it and negotiate behind closed doors, back room politics to say the least, what other changes are being contemplated or negotiated that we, the public, may not be aware of? furthermore, many questions have been raised in regard to the risk to adjacent properties. not even mentioned in the e-i-r is the most at-risk structure on the northwest corner of columbus and filbert. the narrow e-i-r does not mention that building or the playground across the street at st. peter and paul school. the building was tagged after the 1989 earthquake and never repaired. the shifting of the building is quite evident from the street and many of the double hung windows no longer function. an e-i-r process that ignores this issue is an inadequate e-i-r process. it struck me as a cut and paste project. i also understand the tunneling will go underneath the bank of america building at stockton and green, again, omitted from the e-

and of those the pagoda palace option removing the tunnel boring machines from the pagoda site as opposed to from the public right-of-way was the one that both had community support and the one that would not inhibit a future project. * the community was supportive of a few different options. the pagoda palace option swills another, leaving the tunnel boring machines in the ground in chinatown. however, what we advanced to our board for recommendation was the pagoda palace option because leaving the tunnel boring machines in the ground anywhere along the alignment would make any future project more difficult. we did present those options to the mta board on december 4th. we had a number of community members speak to the mta board at that meeting in support of our recommendation to advance the pagoda palace option. those groups included representatives from supervisor chiu from north beach business association, north beach neighbors, russian hill neighbors, spur, and the chinatown community development center. and from that the mta board directed me to work with city staff and the communit

it moves them just to the other side of columbus. this pagoda property faces columbus, so the disruption to traffic is inevitable and the dirt and all the other things are still there. it's not a handful of people that are opposed to it as supervisor chiu said. in all the meetings i have been to, a majority have been opposed to. one official at the community meeting was cut short by a fire alarm. it's been very frustrating to the people attending that meeting that we were not allowed to ask questions. the likelihood of a north beach stop is next to nil. the agreement with the owner does not allow for a station at that site, i understand. i would also like to dispute the idea that they keep saying it will be a 50' height limit on the project. it's supposed to be based on the conditions of the original permit, which limited the building to the existing building envelope only part of which was 50' high. i worry about the loss of that particular specific wording in all of these documents and i brought this to the attention of mr. chiu's office and j

and also i want to take a moment and thank the owner of the pagoda theater, the pagoda campos and his team for the work we've done together. i know we're not completely at the end of this and this has been not the easiest discussion and set of negotiations, but with the feedback from the community, with the feedback from all the lawyers, planners, transit advocates, and all of you, i think we've gotten this to a much better place. so, thank you for that work. my staff i know will be here during this discussion to hear from additional feedback. i know that there have been a lot of questions that continue to be raised and i know that sfmta has circulated some written comments to answer those questions, but i gather that there will probably be more information and questions that come up and i look forward to working with all of you to answer them and hopefully move this to the process and get this going and get this on the right track. so, again, thank you for all your work. >> thank you, president chiu. we wouldn't be here without you and your leadership and office's leadership. thank y

palace, is to write into the lease with the pagoda the possibility, should it become possible to do this in the future when the machines arrive in north beach, to leave this disk, not the train 300 feet long, but just this 15-foot disk in the ground. and that's how it's done in many places around the world. thank you so much. >> thank you, mr. bruno. anyone else care to address the board on this subject? if not, okay. members, questions, comments? >> let me speak to that, mr. reiskin, the comment about leaving the disk in. is this something we looked at, considered, would that be a viable possibility to try to build something like that into it at this point? * >> the answer is yes and yes, it is something that we looked at i believe originally as part of the project and then as part of the review that we undertook this past summer, it was on the list of options that we presented to you in december. it is doable, it is viable, that there are with that option, with the current option, with what we're proposing, there are various pros and cons. the the win/win

then somehow the pagoda palace was cited as the preferred site. suddenly, it's like joel campos, the original developer of the site he was given permission for condos and restaurants and commercial space two or three years ago but we were told that he ran out of money. suddenly he was offered a two year lease, and for god sake a suppolmental eir renewing all its permits which have expired. 27 parking spaces for 19 condos, that would not be allowed now. all the push is for the pagoda theater. i insist all people want to stop at chinatown. (off mic) >>: my name is mark bruno, (sounds like), head of a group called save north beah. and the proposal to extract the tunnel boring machines at the corner of columbus. i will list the businesses that are included in save north beach. you will have trouble finding a

my name is dori hajjin and i own the restaurant adjacent to pagoda theater. we have been in business for eight years, and since 2005, in and around washington square, most of the businesses have come and gone, at least three times. and we have been there, we have struggled, and we are a very successful business. we support 18 families. this project is going to hurt us immensely, very much. i am not sure if i am going to be able to stay in business after two years or three years. this project the building was supposed to be condominiums that would take a year, year and a half and on top of that, we have all of this extraction. i have talked to city officials and i have asked them for help, information and lots of other things and i haven't had any help or information given to me to help me cope with this whole project. so i am against this whole thing. >> thank you. next speaker. >> good afternoon. i am brian hirsch, structural engineer, resident and business owner in north beach as a consulting firm. quite frankly, i think the overall subway planning has been

the pagoda theater still impacts several businesses, and for all we know, others as well. as you know, tunneling and subway projects do have risks. in the original approved final eir in 2008, the north beach tunnel was capitalized the north beach construction tunnel variant. the base contract was the boring of the tunnel-boring machines in the chinatown area. we have learned since then, according to mta, that the northern tunnel will not be used in any way for conveying materials to the chinatown station. thus the northern tunnel has no construction use. thus, the north tunnel itself is no longer -- and it's rationale is no longer adhering and there have no reason to be built. the pagoda theater $1.5 million is unnecessary. the tunnel construction of 2008 is unnecessary. we can save up to $80 million by burying or extracting machines in chinatown or burying them anywhere between chinatown and northern beach, as has been done in brisbane australia, which entombed them in concrete. the tunnel in the english channel did that. new york city's two subway and rail projects are en

but in weighing the different pros and cons of the project and the impact on the community, the pagoda was -- seemed far and away the best option. >> and just so we know, it's irrelevant to the approvals. what is that process like? i mean, actually, you know, excavating and making that extraction tunnel and extracting the machinery, how long does that take? i mean, is it similar to building a building there? how long impactful is it to the neighbors? >> so, the extraction itself, it will be somewhere between 10 and 12 months. as mr. funge said, we're not going to be pile driving, we're going to be drilling to basically build a wall, building kind of a water-tight wall. and then it's excavation and pouring concrete. so, you know, it's significant construction. we're confident that we can manage it without any -- without undue significant disruption to the neighborhood. we're very aware of the concerns of the abutting restaurants and abutting buildings and want to make sure that we do everything we can to minimize the disruption. arguably, the subsequent construction of the new building

last meeting, the agencieses, the different city agencies have been working together to secure the pagoda site at the tunnel boring site. since then and have been making good progress. we will be asking, we're almost at a point -- not today, but at the next meeting -- we expect, we'll be asking the board to approve a 24-month lease for the site. that's assuming that we can finalize the negotiations, but at this point it looks likely that we'll be able to do so. and if we're able to narrow things down in the next 24 hours or so, the planning commission will consider the revised conditional use application on thursday, their meeting on february 7th. if we're unable to come to terms in time, they will continue that the following week. the special use district legislation which enables pagoda property owners to retain the existing development rights is planned to be heard at the board of supervisors on february 11th. again, this assumes that we get the lease negotiations done. so, those are the planning commission tentatively on thursday, the land use committee on february 11th. we're estimat

to change the tpm extraction location from columbus avenue to pagoda theater parcel. included in this package is a [speaker not understood] and geotechnical report, a letter from the various teams, geotechnical [speaker not understood] larry carp.