Clear, i mean, this is like eight affordable units out of 60. Okay . So its not 18 percent. And even 18 percent is way lower than the mission needs. These large state projects that come under state law you heard about oh we cant do anything about adus because the state says we cant. We cant do anything about this because the state says you cant. Youre widening authority is being constantly narrowed by these state projects that are, these state laws that are one size fits all. And that one size does not fit San Francisco. Youve got to find a way to push back on some of this stuff and particularly in the mission we cant have, you know projects that are done with such low affordability and false data. This project assumes their Traffic Studies or whatever 7 deliveries per day. Seven deliveries per day for 60 units. I get at least one a day myself. You know. Seven deliveries a day. And having adequate accommodation for that . Thats just false data. And its wrong. And it should be reexamined and some changes made to this project if it goes forward. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Speaker sir with the black shirt i need a speaker card from you. Thank you. Welcome. Hi. Good evening. Peter with the Mission Economic development agency. I want to pick up on a few of those points and move quickly through them. Can i have the overhead, please . You can zoom out on the top there. Katie. Okay. Perfect. Okay. So what we see here in the mission just to look at where are we in this mission area plant . Preferred number is yellow, 1700 units. Kind of high. We are up to 4100 i believe at this point. So just to get an idea how ridiculously outdated this plan is, lets start there. As far as even with it being outdated. Can i have the overhead again please . Even this plan itself is not comfortable with this outcome here. If you look at one of the policies. And we can cite many of them to ensure the significant percentage of new Housing Units created in the mission is affordable to people with a wide variety of incomes. This project does not do that. Its only 13 percent affordable onsite so im not sure why they are representing it as 18. Yes, there are other affordable fees. Those dont come back here. We know this will directly harm lowincome renters nearby. This data has been vetted and it holds up. It is expected to harm neighbors who are low income within 300meters around the project. Mission pipeline heres what it looks like. Blue. Already entitled. Explosive amount of units. Many of them already built, many around this project already built. Red is new tidal wave thats coming right now. This is one of them. We are a growing housing civil rights issue. And you have to address it at this time. Uphold the appeal. I have a question. So when projects like this go up in the mission, do they contribute or donate to your organization . Absolutely not. And im not sure why that was inaccurately represented. Weve asked for the media to make corrections. We run a fund called the Mission Community loan fund which has nothing to do with the new mission which was no part of this whatsoever. Okay. Thank you. So we hope they make those corrections. Thanks. Thank you. If you could give the speaker card to ms. Sullivan please. Thank you. Next speaker. Welcome back. I recognize you as well. How are you . Doing well. How are you . Good evening board, my name is carlos. Im a resident of 72 woodward street. Im immediately adjacent to 80 woodward and this project is directly behind my home. I want to go ahead and echo all the facts that were mentioned and do emphasize to you that your scope of review here is to review these things. You dont have to take the finding of facts by the decisionmaybing body and accept them as fact. The fact is there was a lot of work that was done here and research that should have been done that was not done. Number one leading with excavation. As i mentioned before, missing 25 percent and not looking in and seeing what is happening in those in what is happening below ground is extremely dangerous. Not just for the construction of the project but for the people that are living immediately adjacent and where theres going to be such a large area of excavation being done. Im worried about my housing and im worried about my life. Not just myself but everybody living down the street. With regard to tnc i live on woodward street. Its used as a thorough fair to cut across 14th to get down to the boat. I hate to imagine the amount of traffic coming down my street once this building is constructed. And seven deliveries a day i would say is definitely very, very conservative on the street i live in i know theres probably 60 or less if we are counting total units of the houses that are there i see at least ten delivery trucks coming down my street every day. Let alone that used to be a very largely Latino Community of color neighborhood. We are seeing it now im seeing all the families moving out and a lot of single upscale largely white individuals are the ones moving in. I would say please make sure they do their job and their Due Diligence in reviewing and going through the environmental report and making sure their project and the lives and housing of the neighbors adjacent are properly protected and look at what the impact is going to be because thats just not right. Thank you. Okay. Another repeat speaker. My name is fernandez. Im with our mission no eviction. Somebody brought it up, 10,000 plus people have been evicted from the mission. 8,000 of them. Sir that organization because they are the appellants. This is Public Comment time. Whats your role at our mission no eviction . My role . Yes what do you do there . Im a volunteer. You dont work there. No, i dont work there. Im a volunteer. Youre not an officer or do you just volunteer for them . Yeah. Okay. I apologize for interrupting. Can we start over . For my time. She stopped the clock. Now you threw me off. Okay. Start all over, brother. Yeah. You ask me after im done questions. Im like. You said youre from our mission no eviction, theyre the appellant so they wouldnt be allowed to comment during Public Comment. Im just a resident. Im born and raised in the mission district. You know that. Okay. Let me all right. Lets start again. Okay. So 10,000 people have been evicted from our neighborhood. 8,000 of them latino. No other neighborhood in San Francisco or across the country has been vehemently affected by gentryification like the mission we dont need anymore luxury housing in our neighborhood. Beyond that we have more luxury built in our neighborhood than any other neighborhood. The sunset bay do not allow it. The sunset residents fight it every time, and they win every time. The access is a developer, are you familiar with access . Axis bought this land. And axis sold it to them because axis knew of all the problems with this particular property. And lets talk about across the street the Mission Armory. The Mission Armory has a creek going have any of you been to the armory . They have a creek running through the bottom basement of the armory. Its real. The water is real. And then on top of that when the armory has events, they have to have public outdoor potty chairs toilets, because the sewer gets backed up. The city has failed to do anything. The board of supervisors approved this project based on the fact that off an old plan of 2008. Now my question to you has there been any changes in the city of San Francisco in the mission since 2008 . In the last 11 years . There has they need to reject this project. Thank you. Is there any other Public Comment . Seeing none, well move onto rebuttal. Well hear from the appellants. You have three minutes. Thank you. The general plan does require the adequate study is done. This isnt just something for ceqa. Mission area plan has its own requirements as well. You heard about the housing. And you read our brief. Its listed in the brief. But regarding this foundation, potential foundation work, commissioner honda, you would know, if theres an existing foundation that is 8 feet deep and has been abandoned is there a possibility that thats going to need to be excavated . This is not been addressed in any of the documentation that has been provided. So there are grave concerns that they are going to get in there, they are going to find debris and they are going to need to keep digging and they are going to need to do water to get the work done to remediate the soil, even if they are only doing the slab. A twofoot mass slab for a building of this size after seeing all the work at the adjacent buildings that have been done at the greek Church Everything else, i dont think thats going to be the case when they get in there. And a lot of the neighbors dont. And they are very concerned. And this whole idea of this Affordable Housing being 18 percent this isnt this is all one building. The base project is not a separate building. Eight affordable units out of 60 is 13. 3 percent. It is not 18 percent. And the community is tired of having these things pushed forward without what we feel is adequate study for the mitigations needed to stop the harms within this within a half a block radius of this project already 70 neighbors have been evicted under the table. These are immigrant neighbors that are terrified even if they do have Legal Protections and rights, they are terrified to meet with a lawyer. They are terrified to do anything. And so they leave, and they are living in their cars, and they are living in tents. They are staying gnat neighborhood, stay close by they cant keep their jobs because the police take their stuff. The people that taylor referenced, junior and her boyfriend, they were evicted. Theyve been living on the street for the last year. He grew up in the mission. And his parents cant take him in without risking eviction. And we need to have proper study done. We need to have amendments made so these harms dont continue to be inflicted on our community. Thank you. I would like to add our mission no eviction, no one gets paid there. This whole community saw its part of united to save the mission. We are here as a volunteer organization. We put in long hours. Compared to these two lawyers who submit nasty letters calling us names the supervisors pointed that out. I just want you guys to. Thank you. We will hear from the determination holder. Thank you commissioners. John on behalf of the project sponsor. The number of additional ceqa issues brought up in Public Comment im happy to talk to you about any of them if there are any questions. All of this was discussed quite a bit at the board of supervisors including tncs ubers lyfts, including amazon loading, including expected growth in the eastern neighborhoods. If there are questions, let me know. To respond to a couple other points street trees of course the project is going to be lined with street trees every 20 feet for the entire project frontage on three streets. We also worked with a group of neighbors on woodward street to agree to additional street improvements. Theres going to be a raised crosswalk across the woodward street. We are also going to do special paving up the street add additional trees on woodward street. So these are the things that we have discussed in some detail and committed to. The project is also going to be removing significant number of curb cuts around this site. Again, reducing the amount of conflict between automobiles and pedestrian. Thank you. And if you have any question please let us know. Of course i do. I think all three of us have questions over here. A lot of people from the members of the public so youre at 18 percent affordable so how many units and how many are affordable and does it come up to 18 percent . Per the state density bonus law you get your base project which is what is principally permitted under the planning code. You subject it the state law only requires 11 percent so qualify for the density bonus. San San Franciscos current rules 18 percent. So that 18 percent applies to the base project. The project the density bonus above that of 35 percent those units are subjected to inclusionary housing fee because per state law the city is not able to apply its Affordable Housing requirements upon the density bump. Those units are subject to the inclusionary housing fee. Okay. I wanted that explained. Thank you. My question is around the deliveries and curb cuts. It looks like from page r1. 0, driveway onto stevenson street. Theres a gate. Is that for bike parking . Can you explain that the delivery parking, trash, et cetera, situation is on property . Can you mention that sheet number again . R1. 0 site survey. Thats the first place in the plans that show a driveway and a roll gate, i believe onto stevenson street. So im trying to understand. There was a comment about pedestrian safety. I think removing curb cuts is great having limited parking, we can argue if its great or not great but i want to understand how deliveries and trash is imagined to be coming in and out of that site and what that driveway is used to service. Thank you commissioner. Currently weve got two curb cuts on the site. One is on. Do you want to use the overhead . Yeah. Thank you. The overhead please. Weve got a 22foot wide curb cut on 14th street and an 18foot wide curb cut on stevenson street. Those are both used for access to the current parking lot onsite. Leaf that up there for a second. Sure, yeah. I just wanted to. Thank you. Can i move on to the next . Picture is a thousand words. So the project proposes no offstreet parking. So theres no curb cuts along either stevenson or 14th street. The project is going to be seeking a commercial loading zone along 14th street, which is a separate process, of course this commission its something we have to pursue after approval. So the loading will take place off of 14th street pursuant to that process. Thank you. And then can you explain a little bit, and im going to ask mr. Sanchez about the waiver for the usable open space, how you are providing open space for the residents of the proposed building . Sure thing. The project actually meets the numerical requirement of open space and in fact exceeds it. I dont have the number off the top of my head but it exceeds the square footage. Its provided in an interior courtyard where the rear yard is now. Thank you. Great. So its provided at this interior courtyard and in the upper levels there are some groove deckses. The reason we needed a waiver is the courtyard, the sun angle is such that it doesnt meet the standards for the planning code. So while its actual open space it doesnt have a 45degree sun angle on i believe its three sides thats required so therefore it doesnt technically count toward the planning code requirement and thats why we sought the waiver. The last area of the questioning is around this slab excavation, et cetera. You know we heard cases tonight where people are concerned about excavation and what that does to surrounding buildings. Theres sinkholes that have been illustrated in neighboring area. How do you plan to assess and deal with potential changes . You dig up the asphalt thats there you find something else, its deeper than you thought. Is there a company that is prepared to address those issues . Thank you for mentioning it. This isnt even their description despite the fact they want to deal with this properly i was hoping inspector duffy would still be here because its not an uncommon condition to be in field doing work and something comes up thats not totally expected. There are provisions in place where we work with the Building Department its really a Building Department issue. The Building Department can make sure we deal with any unique situation adequately. And again not even at the discretion of the project sponsor, overseen by the city. Thank you. Thank you. We will now hear from the Planning Department. It feels like were at the Planning Commission doesnt it . Would you really want to be there . No. No. You guys . Come on. The Planning Department, just to clarify a couple issues that were raised and the comments. And i think they can represent how they are calculated under the code. They have the 18 percent code applied to the project. But with the ultimate project under the state density bonus it dillutes that requirement. It is effectively 13 percent. But under the planning code we have a provision that we will assess a fee and thats what i said previously was approximately 1 million for the Additional Units that is gained. The state density bonus law is not new. It dates back to 1979 burr we are seeing but we are seeing more of these projects now than before. The standard review as stated by the attorney is not d e novo for the review. It is improper application of the planning code so that is a slight nuance there. In regards to offstreet loading the section does not require offstreet loading. This is less than 100,000 square feet of use. There is no requirement of the planning code for that. And although this project has been around since 2014 and the first application actually looking at the history i think more than a decade ago in the mid2000s, there was another application i think for more, even 80 dwelling units. This was before the eastern neighborhoods rezoning. And actually part of the site is the rear portion which is being maintained as parking is a pdr Zoning District which doesnt allow housing but back 15 years ago when that previous project was sought and i dont have any details of what happened to that. Obviously didnt move forward. But the whole site would have been allowed to be developed as residential but less can be developed under the eastern neighborhoods plan. Although it has been around for a while i dont believe any Building Permit application has been filed for that so there will be substantial processing in going through the approvals for that. Im available for any questions. I have two questions. Can you talk about the difference of waiver in terms of the density bonus law. Ill do my west my best. Its getting late. So the waiver is the quantitative requirements where the concessions in that term is used interchangeably with more of a zoning or use change like they would be allowed to do a mixed use zoning the higher densities. There is no density limit here, per se, in this district. But the base project is calculated on a feasible code compliant project. With the rear yard waiver that has been approved im assuming it allows a certain height less than 78 feet. With the rear yard waiver, how do you evaluate that and determine it is justifiable and would be beneficial to the project and the neighborhood or how do you . Shows its necessary to achieve whats allowed under the bonus density and also the standard for denying the waiver is quite high. So under the state law, you have to show let me find the language there. That you could only, in acore dance with the state density bonus in acore within the permitted envelope unless the city finds the requested waiver without a specific adverse impact upon health safety, with a physical environment or have an adverse impact on any property registered in the california register of historical resources. The Planning Commission didnt find this was something that met those standards. Thank you. Yep. Thank you. Commissioners, this matter is submitted. And as a reminder the standard is error, abuse of discretion. And only a simple majority of three votes is required to overturn the departments action. Commissioners. Ill let you start this one. I find nothing wrong with the project so i would deny the appeal on the basis that the permit was properly issued. Thats probably too simple. Or maybe its not. I would support that. As in the previous cases our job here is to determine if this project was issued in error. When people talk about affordability in this city, affordability is really a myth. 18 percent and 13 percent 24 percent and then the units that are there are they really affordable to the people that actually are there . No. And as the public has said, the hit zone is really the mission. The bad thing about having great weather and solid ground is thats where Everyone Wants to live now. I know this block pretty intimately. My daughter attended school there for nine years there around the corner four years ago. To me, it was that ally was terrible. It was a rotten, rotten ally. I made several requests to dpw as well as the city and county, because it felt unsafe to me. Whereas now the ally is kind of cleaned up. Does it help with the gentryification of our city . No, it doesnt. But what is a parking lot doing any good for our city . I dont think a parking lot is actually doing our city any benefit. So unfortunately i am going to support this project. That was a motion. Okay. I would just suggest you add language that the Planning Commission did not ere or abuse its discretion. The department did not ere. We have a motion to deny the appeal and uphold the section 29 large project authorization on the basis the Planning Commission did not ere or abuse its discretion and it was properly issued. On that motion [roll call] okay. So that motion carries 50 and the appeal is denied. So we are now moving onto item numbers 8a and 8b. These are appeal numbers 19098 and 19013 joshua klipp and Susan Cieutat versus San Francisco public works urban forestry. The subject property located various locations in the hayes valley 501 508 515, 523, 534, 550 to 560, 600, 601 octavia, 430 hayes street, 499 grove street, 380 and 426 ivy street, appealing the issuance on august 28, 2019 the San Francisco public works urban forestry works order to remove 28 street trees with replacement unless otherwise neated due to utility conflicts. The necessary sidewalk repairs shall be completed within three months after removal. This is order 201797. We will hear from mr. Klipp first. Welcome back. Good to see you again. My name is josh klipp. This past year, San Francisco declared it is in a Climate Emergency. The effect was to instruct our department of the environment to draft and revise Climate Action plan. We had a plan. But our situation is so dire that we needed a new one if we want our city to be livable. So the Department Environment made that plan. The only difference was this plan acknowledged our desperate need to sequester more carbon. We have a lot of initiatives around carbon mitigation as i know this board is aware. If we dont sequester carbon we will fail in our climate goals and Climate Change will reach the point of no return in ten years. So lets talk about ten years of carbon sequestering in relation to the trees in this appeal. These trees are in horrible condition barely alive. Practically dead. So far, they have already sequestered around 40,000 pounds of co2 and even in their current state, around the next ten years they would sequester another 40,000 pounds. Now lets assume the trees that would be replaced by red maples and gingkos. Lets assume the trees are all in Excellent Health for the next ten years. Pretty big assumption. They would only miss the 40,000pound benchmark by a few thousand pounds. However, based on a joint survey, street trees in areas with this level of usage from an estimated mortality rate around 12 to 15 percent so now we are several tons behind the projected rate of the existing trees not to mention cost involved in replanting and maintenance. While we are on the subject of tree mortality in health, no hayes valley a recent Tree Planting resulted in 100 percent mortality after a row of trees was vandalized. Whats disappointing is the failure of the city to meet the goals. Youve heard a statistic that our city gained a total of one single tree in one year. You take out a 12inch tree, you put in a one and a half inch tree thats replacement. I dont know if youve heard the latest knews that is in 2019 our city lost 2,507 trees and those are only the trees under the citys jurisdiction and that doesnt include trees on private property. I realize that these are not all the urban forestrys fault. It is the only group in the city dedicated to our urban canopy. Better than anyone else, they understand just how bad our tree situation is. The recent urban Forestry Council noted at the citys current funding we have barely enough money to replant trees at the rate we are removing them. Putting all these things together if the city is serious about slowing down Climate Change and making this a place we can live in ten years if we know we dont have the money to plant the trees we need to achieve our goals then we need to do everything in our power to save trees that we have. Thats basic economics. Conserve until you have the spending money and right now we dont. Theres the issue of public trust, with funding numbers like these its Little Wonder the public doesnt believe city officials believe or trust the city officials to keep the city sustainable and to do everything they can to protect us from disastrous climate future. Initially this was for 39 trees now its down to 27. I appreciate our city officials went back and took another look. From a laypersons perspective and someone who wants to trust our city officials it begs the question if 39 trees didnt need to come out why were they proposed in the first place . Decisions to remove trees need to be based on science and not politics. And science says we must save as many trees as possible. To the extent this removal revolves around ficass, other cities have the same problem. We are the only one that has taken this approach. This Climate Emergency hasnt factored at all into this decision process. Appellants attempted to discuss climaterelated Solutions Prior to this hearing and i wont go into the details. What i want to note is that the Community Asked about a lot more than just saving the trees. They are asked about phasing removal so its not such a huge removal all at once about evergreen trees so the air is max maximally filtered now that we live in routine wildfire smoke. Maximum therapy trees so that we can so our pedestrians and our homes can be shaded as our earth continues to warm. The time of removal to cause the least amount of harm to the ecology and about trees that may be planted that support as much our ecosystem as possible. They ask about Tree Planting across the neighborhood. We are living in extraordinary times. Instances like this we cannot do business as usual. If we are to preserve our future we need to start making decisions for that future today. There are a lot of tools at our disposal to make that happen, almost none of which have been utilized in this removal. This removal will reverberate through this city and neighborhood for decades. And i wonder, if ten years from now when Climate Change is reversible when we look back and say that we did everything that we could from where im standing the answer to that question right now is no. And i would humbly request the board to further this hearing until such time as our city officials go back and look at this particular removal from a Climate Change perspective and determine what mitigating tools and strategies to be implemented to maximize carbon sequestering during a Climate Emergency. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We will now hear from ms. Cieutat. I apologize. I want to make sure i can use the overhead before i start. All right. Maybe come out a little. Perfect. Thank you. Thank you. Hello. My name is Susan Cieutat. I am a 17year resident of hayes valley. And i hope you had time to read my appeal. There are basically two points that i want to make. One is that buff really hasnt provided us with the evidence that they are using to conclude that the trees are dangerous even though weve asked for it multiple times. And also that the conclusions of their ash resist are contrary to the professional recommendations of arbor pro which the city paid 500000 to do a census of our trees. And they made specific recommendations about the trees in hayes valley. So on the issue of the evidence, at the request of the community, they did a walkthrough twice in our neighborhood, and we reviewed the trees. And they told us the structural reasons why they believed they were dangerous. But we said okay weve lived here like 15 17, 20, 30 years, and we havent seen a problem. So we understand what you are saying about the tree structure but why does that make you conclude that theyre dangerous. Whats the evidence of that. And they had none. When we came to the hearing in april, the hearing officer also asked buff to provide some kind of data about ficus tree failures not even just in hayes valley but throughout the city. Nothing. We met with a representative of buff this past friday and were told that their conclusions about the risk is based on an he evidence from 311 calls. So weve put in a request to get Service Requests to 311 for hayes valley for the last five years. But we wont receive those for a couple weeks. So we are really puzzled as to why theyre saying that these ficus trees are dangerous. So im going to show you some photos. I dont have time to go through all of them. And what arbor pro said about them. So this is one. These are all trees that are going to be removed. Arbor pro recommended that they be routinely pruned. Arbor pro recommended it be routinely pruned. They recommended a large tree prune which i guess is different from a routine prune. This was recommended for routine pruning. Also recommended for routine pruning. Also routine pruning. These are others they did not recommend for removal. They didnt have any pruning recommendations. This was a large tree routine prune. Now, there were theres one tree that arbor pro recommended removing that i think we can all agree with. We dont have a problem with that one being removed. And then this is one that arbor pro didnt recommend for removal but we agreed that it should be removed, because its dying. Arbor pro completed their they took two years from january of 2016 to do their assessment. So its quite likely this tree wasnt dying when arbor pro did their census but it looks like it also needs to be removed. This is another one that we agree should be removed because we cant really tell from this photo, but the bark is rotten. And then there are a few others that we agree should be removeed. But it is extreme. And we feel that we need some time to look through this 311 data, if thats really what they are basing their Risk Assessment on, theyve shown us photos of the structure and theyve shown us what their arborist said in their response brief. But they havent explained why it differs completely from the professional recommendations that the city spent half a Million Dollars to obtain. I also want to speak briefly about issue of replacement. These trees are approximately 30 to 40 years old. When you replace a tree its a tiny little thing. And it doesnt really replace what is being lost in terms of shade, co2 sequestering, sound absorption pollution absorption oxygen production, et cetera by the time they are actual replacements ill be dead. Many of us wont be here for that. And the replacement what we were told by them is that in their budget, theres no funding for watering of the replacement trees. So when you plant a new tree, it has to be watered regularly for at least the first year or its going to die. Theyve actually already started replacing some trees in hayes valley. But theyre dying because they are not being watered. So the replacement plan really needs to be a workable one. What they are doing now is not working. And im not sure when in the format of this is the time for questions but im certainly happy to answer any questions. And i think i finished a little early, which is good because i know we are all tired. Thank you. Thank you. We will now hear from the bureau of urban forestry. Good evening. Chris urban forrester with San Francisco public works, bureau of urban forestry. We included as much information as we could in our brief, because we know this is a big issue, the community in hayes valley understandably, recommending removal of 39 reducing that number to 29, we understand is a big impact in a community. And ive actually used hayes valley as an example for particularly in the avenues where a lot of commercial corridors have been embracing treelined streets and they are topping trees below the level of their signage. Theres amazing reports called trees mean business. And it was conducted by trees new jersey and trees new york. Really showing that treelined streets attract business. You shop longer you reduce exposure to sun. Weve been using hayes valley as the example. And thats why im wearing this sticker that natalie handed out tonight. We love trees. But the part of tree managers who have to look really hard at structure of trees and how trees stand up but also how they fall down. So im not going to go into every detail but i want to go through a timeline of events. Proposition e passed. So over the last couple years we have been systematically evaluating trees across the city. The subject trees are within grid map 25, slated to be maintained this year. So in december, we are looking at our view ahead and we can see we are going right in the heart of hayes valley. Lets go ahead and get on the agenda the hayes valley neighborhood association. We got put on the Safety Committee meeting. To say to the community that this is coming up. We have yet to evaluate every tree but we also can see the writing is on the wall. We are going to be evaluating these trees. And we want to be in conversation. We are open to having additional meetings. We want to make sure that way before public works hearing weve met with community. So we did have a couple walks in the community. We looked at a lot of trees together. And i will say it was challenging. Everyone that attended that hearing was very very respectful. I really tip my hat to the community. The very first tree we were at before we could begin everyone in the community was saying you need to plant these empty basins before you do anything. You need some trust here. So it is something we did do. But also after reviewing the first tree together i remember it stood out. And i shared with a colleague, someone said, okay this tree tree is a wreck but certainly not every tree is going to have this many structural problems. I said hold that thought. We walked through and looked at front back side, looking at these trees explaining how codominant stems with included bark narrows the angles of attachment are prone to fail. It unfortunate but its happening and we are aware of that as a city Agency Responsible for maintaining street trees. The big myth years ago by public works and Property Owners most of these trees were maintained by Property Owners were in the same boat with the trees we maintained. We didnt do any better. We know so much more now about the importance of early structural pruning. Other cities and towns down the coast may not have the resources to actually address some of their issues or they couldnt structurally prune those trees decades ago and they may not are the structure we are dealing with. So we did have a Couple Community walks. Not easy but i want to thank everyone for attending and being respectful. We delayed a resulting decision until we planted basins. We planted 37 nearby missing trees because the community spoke loudly that that was important to them. We heard very loudly that the impact would be large to the community. We went back out to again just look at the trees and say what could we scale back . That is a question that everyone is saying. We are in an unprecedented move saying 11 of these trees, they are a little bit smaller, considered safe, for very poor unions, maybe two or three, we will prune 11 of the trees and retain them. Its experimental pruning meaning its heavier pruning than we typically recommend. But it would allow us to remove and replant other trees and allow there to be some sort of presence of canopy out there. One example is on hayes where we have three ficus in a row in a bus zone. None of those trees would be replantable. But we looked at would we as the community is saying cut these back. And allow there to be some transitional canopy present. So it is something we are committed to doing. As youve heard in other settings, we are also trying to do that as well. So we do know that we have a problem with ficus trees. Theres a lot of discussion about evidence. I did make sure in our exhibit, we are very clear that public works was concerned about ficus stem failures two years before the public voted for proposition e overwhelmingly. So i didnt expect every community to be aware that this was something that was a concern of public works. But for twoyears we were talking about our concerns aboutify the trees. We put a lot of information in exhibits c through f to show we are concerned about the structure of the trees. One of the trees at 666 octavia has failed since we initiated removal. So again theres a request from the public to ask for evidence. And the evidence its right there in front of us. So again, i want to draw your attention to that. Regarding the replacement plan, i spoke about it in a more narrative format but i want to i created a one sheet for this evening. The commissioners have asked for very specific information about a replanting plan. So i have a one sheet here this evening. But looking at the number of trees that would be removed also the number of trees that would be replanted. If trees meet our replacement guidelines then we replant them. Four of the trees cant be replanted in the immediate vicinity. So we have committed to finding four new locations as close to possible as the trees that are being removed. Regarding the timing, the trees would be removed and replaced within three months of initiating the tree removal for that site. Theres a number of things that occur within that works scope. We remove the trees we remove the stumps, some of these sites we need to repair the sidewalk or slightly shift the basin locations. Also well find the four locations for the four additional trees. The replacement size would be 24inch box size. For establishment the replacement and new tree locations will be watered for three years until established. Water will be performed by city staff unless we end up getting a contract for that. Protection and monitoring, threeinch diameter sticks will be used and all trees will have protective screens placed on the trees at the time of planting. Also sturdy cross braces will attach. Staff will monitor conditions of trees. We lid i did have unfortunately, six of the 37 trees were vandalized. We were in talks with our Community Partner to have screens attached literally the same week. Unfortunate situation. Those will be replaced screens will be placed on them immediately. We have gone out and placed screens on all the 37 trees that were planted. Socraticers willso citystaff will repair the sidewalk. Either city staff will plant the trees or contractor if we are able to get someone to bid on that. Regarding replacement tree species, we have been meeting with the hayes valley neighborhood association. So by mid to late april we worked out a replacement tree scheme with very specific species heavily involved from the community to establish that. Also we have a list of the trees, the 37 trees that we planted with our Community Partner friends of the urban forest. And we helped locate those to confirm if those empty basins are replantable. One other thing i wanted to point out its with Great Respect that we listen to both appellants. Cieutat and klipp. We understand where they are coming from. We wanted other city departments to recognize the importance of street trees for a really, really long time. Carl and i sometimes feel like we are marathoners and folks come in the last year and asking us why our pace isnt a sevenminute mile. We are really in this together. So with Great Respect i respect what theyve said this evening. With that i just want to throw out a few counterpoints. So the appellant klipp stated the removals were accelerated. And the removals are a result of deferred maintenance. Some of this maintenance theres never been a dedicated funding for. We are referring to the works first. We are going into neighborhoods that have the highest concentration of trees and we are addressing those needs. This year, thanks to awareness of the board and mayor and advocacy from neighbors, nonprofits in a lot of our Community Activists we have a significant increase in funding for tree placement as well as Tree Planting. Appellant klipp stated our effort to soften the blow by planting other basins failed. We did have 6 of the 37 trees get vandalized. That wasnt 100 percent. That was 6 trees that were vandalized. We regret that. We are taking steps to make sure that doesnt happen again. The appellant cieutat states theres no evidence of harm to persons or property. While theres significant Property Damage and two injuries to people the goal of the program is to prevent harm to persons or property. We dont want to wait for someone to be injured before we respond. We also dont want to be overreactive. And i dont believe that we are. Appellant cieutat notes theres been a change in condition from the arbor pro census. We talked about that at a previous hearing and again in our brief. The arbor pro assessment is a point in time assessment. Much can change in urban settings which is why we always do a reinspection. Arbor pro did not recommend the removal of the tree in front of 666 octavia. We did. The tree has failed. As noted in our brief we reached out to community. We did respond to their concerns by agreeing to make an exception to our normal pruning standards and agree to experimental aggressive pruning in an effort to mitigate hazard. Appellant cieutat requests a tailored approach to the hayes valley trees. Our Maintenance Program is citywide and requires equitable treatment of all neighborhoods. To bring trees to a baseline standard of care, areas in the census with concentrated pruning or removal needs layered in with high pedestrian sensitive populations are being addressed in the beginning using a strategy we call the worst first. A lot of this information is based on the census that the city did in fact undertake. The tree condition and recommendation for removal is one data point of many that are vital for us to have. We like to say that we are going to be here before you for a very long time. We already have been for years. A Third Party Contractor who is staying at a hotel lives in pasadena. I would say that we are here before on a more regular basis. We are more familiar with the trees we have in the city. We are not ignoring that data. But again just to sort of pick on that one data point can be misleading. In fact, we havent done a complete study, but we are seeing that actually more trees are being downgraded from trees they recommend for removal, we are recommending for pruning. Now, we are going to have this again and again and again if the public looks to say arbor recommended this, you are recommending that, i dont blame anyone for using that as an argument. But i will say we are turning towards not removing a lot of ficus that are being recommended for removal. So with that those are the key points that we wanted to make to really try to include as much information as possible in our brief. We really have been engaging the community. We understand this is a large number of trees. And hayes valley is a great neighborhood. Its commercial corridor treelined. Its part of the identity. But we are doing what we can to listen to the feedback and scale back while also addressing public safety. Thank you. I actually got a couple questions. Go ahead. Okay. I have a couple questions. Ill let you go first. I dont have a couple. Okay. Im confused about the use of a consultant. So you pay for arbor pro. It was a quote of half a Million Dollars. I dont know if thats accurate or not. They give you a set of recommendations. You go on to say in the brief we believe what is discussed and locally experienced experts on staff. So why the use of the arborists . So the San Francisco didnt have a complete tree census. So the urban forest plan, that was one of the key things the plan recommended. The council said before we can start attacking everyone for funding for planting and maintenance we need to know what we have. So there was a playful contest to see who could guess how many street trees we have in San Francisco. We thought we had 105,000. We found out we counted 20,000 short so we have 125,000 street trees. So the Planning Department hired the contractor to do a census. And theres usually 15 or so data points that you want in a complete census. And one of them is condition of tree. So thats how that came up. Did public works do that directly . Not literally. It was through planning. The main point was to do the inventory. Do the inventory. Not assessing the trees. Absolutely. We also said diameter of trees species and overall a recommendation for priorities for pruning and removal. So its still access to where we have the most trees the largest trees. We have 125,000 street trees and yet we still have the worst urban canopy in the United States for a metropolitan city. And i get the fact that theres been some incidents with the ficuses with specifically. But yet that is a tree that dominates a large part of the city. And when you dont have a budget to replace all we are doing is removing them. And as you know ive been on the board for a long time since carla was here. And shes beat into us to be tree stewards. She really has. And so when you see trees that, you know i can tell if they are 50 feet high and they are onesided and you see the poor root structure thats one thing. But when you are looking at these trees i remember 75 howard, they look like healthy trees and they were healthy when i was a kid and im an old man now. So the question is are we the only city thats being this proactive in ring these trees . Yes. Im sorry. Please. I cant answer that question. I dont know the staff for other cities. I think whats challenging for the public is that ficus trees the reason why they are so popular is they look amazing yearround. They are green, evergreen. And that can be difficult thing for people to understand. It would be great if we only removed trees just that were completely dead. Unfortunately, dead trees, depending on the species some dont have much weight to them and can stick around a while. Ficus trees will look very healthy and yet still fail as did the one in front
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