Clerk good evening and welcome to the june 26, 2019 meeting of the San Francisco board of appeals. President rick swig will be the presiding officer tonight. He is joined by commissioner ann lazarus, commissioner rachel tanner. At the controls is the boards legal assistant, gary quintara, and i am the boards executive director. We have Scott Sanchez sitting at the front, acting deputy Zoning Administrator also representing the Planning Department and planning commission. And we expect shortly joseph duffy senior building inspector representing the department of building inspection, and chris buck, representing the department of urban forestry. To assist the board in the accurate preparation of minutes, you are asked but not required to submit a Business Card or speaker card to the board when you come up to speak. Speaker cards are available on the left side of the podium. We are located at 1650 mission street, room 304. This meeting is broadcast live on sfgovtv, cable channel 78 and will be rebroadcast on fridays at 6 00 p. M. On channel 4 00 p. M. On channel 26. Now we will swear in our affirm all those who or affirm all those who intend to testify. Please note that any individual may speak without swearing in pursuant to the sunshine ordinance. If you want the board to give your testimony evidentiary weight, you must swear or affirm. Okay. Board members, for item number 6, the parties have requested that the matter be continued. This is 19016, rabinovich, and they would like to continue this to august 28. So moved. Second. Clerk okay. Is there any Public Comment . Okay. [roll call] clerk okay. So that motion passes, and the matter is continued until august 28. Okay. This is item 4, general Public Comment. This is the time for anyone to speak on matters within the boards jurisdiction but not on the agenda. Is there any general Public Comment . Okay. Well move on to item 2, commissioner comments and questions. I had one. Since rick le one left, and have no Vice President , are we going to vote . Wait. Were the mayor people. Youre the board president. Clerk they said in terms of election of officers, i guess perhaps we could elect a Vice President to act in the event youre gone or Vice President swig yeah, that would be i have to carry out an official request from the Mayors Office. Again, im the board of supervisors appointee, so you all can go against your boss. Its perfectly okay with me. Commissioner honda i didnt get the message. Vice president swig i think its a reasonable request and it doesnt seem that we have any potential commissioners in the hopper, at this point, so given, you know im not planning on missing any meetings for the next six months, but its probably wise counsel. Commissioner honda i guess i better check with my boss. Okay. That was just comment. Clerk is there any other commissioner matters . I just wanted to say that this month is pride month, and happy pride month, and i hope that everybody comes out and has a good time. Vice president swig okay. What i will do in response to the commissioners request is phone the Mayors Office and request that we move forward in the next meeting and agendaize a formal election if thats okay with the rest of the commissioners. The election of a Vice President. Vice president swig yeah. That would make me formally i am the interim president i am officially the Vice President , so i guess that would commissioner honda youve still got my vote. Vice president swig i guess well do that whole slate. I dont really care one way or the other. Clerk okay. We will now above on to item 3. Commissioners, before you for possible adoption are the minutes of the june 19, 2019 board meeting. I move to adopt as submitted. Clerk okay. Is there any Public Comment on that item . Maam, are you here for Public Comment . Okay. So on that motion [roll call] clerk okay. That motion carries, 40, and the minutes are adopted. We are now moving on to item 4. Are the parties here for item number 4 . This is appeal 13018. Okay. Well, we can wait and move it. O okay. So we will now move on to item five. This is appeal 19015. Vi huynh versus department of urban forestry. This is order number 201007, and we will hear from the appellant first. Commissioner honda good evening. Good evening and welcome. Can i use the projector . Commissioner honda overhead, please. By the way, you have really neat handwriting. Oh, thank you. Okay. Im going to read you the 11 reasons why we need the two ficus trees on our street. The two ficus trees help fight Global Warming by cooling the air and the temperature in the area. And we need it for the seniors because sometimes they get heat stroke, and i dont want them to get heat stroke. Its very hot in the mission, especially during the summer. Three, the two ficus trees add to the canopy of the urban forest. Four, the two trees help suck up air during a rain. The two trees help lower stress, providing psychological comfort by being a calming presence. They dont make a lot of noise. The two trees help draw Carbon Dioxide out of the atmosphere and help us breathe better. The two trees add beauty to the area. The two trees provide home for wildlife, specifically birds and maybe squirrels, im not sure. The two trees help increase Property Value to the block and there by the neighborhood. The two trees are living entities, created by nature. They have a right to live, to exist. And thats my reason for not cutting them down. And i also have another fic should not cut down a tree. Basically, its information gathered by certified arborists, and im not an arborist, so i have to use this. While necessary in some situations, removing a tree can have serious consequences for your home and your property. Learn when you should remove a tree. There are plenty of good reasons to remove a tree from your property, but sometimes removing a tree can have ad verse consequences. Trees are salvageable. If the tree has a treatable disease or pest issue, homeowners shouldnt automatically consider tree removal as their only says a researcher with the internation internation international arborical culture. Researching diseases can help you learn about treatments that can save the tree. So for example, they claim the tree has limbs that fell down. Well, thats because the trees not getting the nutrients it needs, such as water and vitamins and minerals. Part of prop e should be care for the tree, too. We should feed and water them regularly so they stay strong and not lose branchs. Trees help lower energy bills. If the tree is near the house and provides a significant amount of shade, it can help lower the energy bill. Tim young of tim Young Tree Service in charlotte agrees that shade from trees can cut a utility bill by cutting the amount of energy needed to cool a home but suggests that homeowners consider trees to plant that would also provide a wind break. Trees can improve curb appeal and Property Value. If your tree improves the look of its home and the value, reconsider before replacing it. A well designed landscape with appropriate trees will always draw a higher selling price than a lot with no trees or illchosen trees. If the lot is enhanced by what you already have, by all means, keep them. Those are the two largest trees on the block. There is another one, but its not in good condition. There is another stump from a previous one cutten down. A beautiful, big tree takes four to five decades or more to grow. Is it worth it . I think it is. I know bureau of urban forestry plans to replace these trees with other tree, but i probably wont be here if they replace these trees with another ficus trees. Owners also have to give up privacy when they remove a tree. Youre connected to the tree. This is my reason for being here, because i walk by the tree every day. Can i commissioner honda you have 30 seconds. You dont have to be a tree hugger to know that sometimes a tree is more than just a plant, if the tree was planted in memory of a loved one or before you purchased the home, you may find it provides a certain significance. Thank you. Commissioner honda thank you. Clerk thank you. We will now hear from the department. We can go to powerpoint in a second. Commissioner honda good evening, mr. Buck. Good evening, commissioners. Chris buck with San Francisco public works. I would add that people write poetry about really large trees. They dont write poetry about really small replacement trees. Weve evaluated the subject ficus trees. Weve been here in the past, talking about the pourous structure of ficus trees. We were here back in october of last year talking about the removal of these trees. Our goal of public works across all departments is to ensure a safe, clean, and Green Infrastructure for all the reasons that appellant just outlined in great detail. One of the advances that we have for tree maintenance is increased funding. Unfortunately, most of the maintenance were doing is pruning. And we do come across tree thats have a much higher failure rate than other species, so ficus trees are something that were concerned about. We have more information on our rid pruning, which is strategic and systematic going block by block. Thats how these trees came to our attention. That long did which well that, along with which well talk about in a minute, the San Francisco street improvement. That, in addition to danielima the sidewalk, as theyve gotten larger in the several years before 2014, weve seen them failing at various locations across the city, including hyde and 24 and potrero avenue. Its hard to build support for urban forestry if we have large trees blocking streets from time to time. This is how large ficus trees are failing us and splitting apart. Multiple stems are fairly equal size with various levels of attachment. Absolutely the first thing we ever consider when evaluating a tree if we find that it has poor structure is can we mitigate safety concerns through pruning . Thats the first thing that typically crosses our mind. Weve seen across the city a large number of failures in several different neighborhoods. The department of public works lowered the threshold when we could approve a tree for removal, which is essentially lessening reducing our typically high threshold, and were saying. If these trees are large, and they have codominant stems, this is a tree were likely to approve for removal. This picture, we have two stems on the main trunk. So what happens naturally is that in wind or not even in wind, these trees split apart at these sections. Ideally, youd have a wider angle of attachment, and then, secondly, youd want the two stems to be of competing sizes, with a smaller trunk and secondary branchs. The two ficus trees, theyre large, they have little potential branch structure, and there are several sites of potential failure. On the right is tree one. This tree already experienced a failure. I included a copy of the Service Request of that failure back in 2015, just showing the tree on the right has already shown that its failing struck right lanely. So again, you have a single trunk that divides into multiple stems. Thats a really weak union from engineering perspective. There have been times when a ficus has one or two poor unions, and you could prune one or two of the stems off and keep the tree. Thats absolutely the first preference. Unfortunately, the trees have so many competing stems competing with multiple angles of attachment, its hard to say that pruning it this way is going to mitigate the large stem failures. We were before you several months ago, talking about the removal of two large ficus trees in front of the red Stone Building. Just a little follow up on that. We heard loud and clear that the community in that building largely wasnt aware of the tree removal process in association with that project, and we heard from you, like, look, both agencies need to step back, they need to work more closely together. Sounds like you need to do more outreach if theres a lot of confusion. So we essentially put things on ho hold. We had a Community Meeting, and at that meeting, we basically had four to five working group areas, and folks could rotate around each group. Im proud to say the tree related corner of that public meeting, we had the fewest member of the public. We did have a few folks come and ask us questions, but at least 95 of the folks that attended that hearing were really upset about transit issues related to m. T. A. And their project. Were not here to talk about tree removal at that end, but i will say this is an article about that Community Meeting, and there is no mention of street trees in that article. Weve come back to say we heard you, but generally, i feel were starting to address the public concerns, and we did have a meeting where street trees were largely not part of that conversation. In terms of replacement, it would be 36inch boxsize replacement trees. Also in maturity, in many years, a broad, everleaf tree. Theres no power lines, so we can plant a large stature tree at maturity. And im over my time, so thank you. I have a couple of questions for you. Can you talk about the replacement of trees in the project Going Forward . Ideally, we would wait for the project to implement phase two so that the project itself could remove the trees and replant them. Were still open to that possibility, but we are the idea with us moving forward with removal of these two trees and the trees in front of the red Stone Building is the project is being pushed back years, and were feeling we just need to treat this as an urban forest issue. My preference would be to have it done as part of the project so it reduces impacts to the community. So following up on that, if you guys did move forward more quickly than Thornton Thomasetti m. T. A. Project, would you be replacing them i dont know if that project has capital impacts on the sidewalks or not . Sure. So public works would then become responsible for the replacement. Instead of the six months time period we have to replace, wed commit to a threemonth turnaround, and wed cover the costs. The public wants to see us replacing trees right away. I noted in the document there was 3 1 replacement ratio. Would you apply that ratio here so wed have six trees instead of two . I dont know what the feasibility of what could be are y sustained in that area. Right. So well replace 1 1 trees, but through the project, anywhere theres a planting area, it would be planted 3 1 through the efforts of the m. T. A. And can you address the growing rates of the selected species . How fast will it grow before it reaches the comparable growth . Certainly. Its a magnolia grandifora. Its going to be years before you start to feel like theres a tree out there that several people can hangout in the shade of. Its going to take a while. Obviously, to achieve trees of this size will take at least 20 years, so these are big impacts, and thats why i just wanted to lead with pruning to mitigate these issues, not removing the tree at all, monitoring, everything we can do to not remove these two trees, those are all the things that were considering first. But again, even last night, a couple really windy evenings, with one of the trees that failed across the city, its ficus trees. So were just trying to address the known condition. Thank you. Commissioner honda mr. Buck, so these trees, theyre part of the 16 Street Project, theyre slated to be removed with that project, any way . They are exactly. So we identified them as removal candidates when we remove all the trees along that corridor. Theyre not being physically impacted by that project, so theyre not necessarily being removed in order for that project to be installed the way that vanness b. R. T. Is, but when theres other agencies doing a lot of work. Our goal is to come out and look at the condition of the trees so that at the end of the project, you realize that the city didnt come out and manage their own assets. Its the same city, but its two parallel departments trying to manage their duties in that same space. They are recognized generally as part of that same project. Commissioner honda okay. That kind of brings into the next question. Are you checking with the 16 Street Project so its in line with where they want their trees to be at . I wouldnt want you to plant there, and they decide to do a bulbout . The good news is our Landscape Architects were hired to layout the replacement trees, so those issues have been addressed for the 16 Street Project. Youre correct, there are some sites where with other if its a guy wire pull, or Something Else is shifting or moving around, that could impact the tree spacing. These two sites can be replanted. Theyre a little close together. We typically space or trees out a little our trees out a little wider, but we can replant both sides where they are, so theres no unforeseen project details that we havent reviewed. We reviewed it with the project team. Commissioner honda okay. And then final, there is a budget for trees, but there is no budget for replacement of these trees. So the concern is with replacement of trees with a 36inch box, we know that smaller trees get damaged more rapidly, so if these get damaged, what would be the case . I do know that public works has plans to replace these trees with 36inch box trees. We have limited funding for watering replacement trees. Were absolutely prioritizing major commercial corridors as the areas that should be replanted first. Anything thats gone to a public works hearing thats subject to a public works hearing and subsequently board of appeals would subsequently be prioritized. Unfortunately, there are some folks that are in the outer areas, little quieter, residential, those folks are were not guaranteeing that we can get t