Transcripts For SFGTV Government Access Programming 20240714

If you have an argument in the city where the elites, the rich people they have plenty of housing. Theres no problem. Its the majority of people, the core worker in the city. The not underclass, middle who is not served by affordable housing, or work for affordable housing, or anything like this. When we do Something Like this this is what bothers me. You are taking an and elation of a dozen items that will serve a group of individuals who by this one type of car that is no less six pensive than 30,000, and extend to over 100,000. Which currently, inclusive of every person in the city is far less than 5 , and if anybody wants to come up with the metric to deny my less than 5 , i would love to hear it. In that, so, we are making a big compromise for an elitist group. If this was while charging stations that was going to charge electronic vehicles, from fiat 500 down to chevy volt, two teslas, i have a different opinion. I have a completely different opinion. Then we are serving a broader can do truancy. We are encouraging the public to get into the electric car world. This is really tight youd and then, what are we sacrificing . We are sacrificing an item, which happens to be a tree that services 100 of the people in San Francisco. That is what bugs me. We are just getting narrow. If tesla came back and said, okay, we are going to put these things in, were going to sell more cars, we acknowledge that, were going to make money off this parade were going to make it more convenient, because we have 12 more in relation, and now chevy volt, or fiat 500 and they said, but we will plant 25 trees, because we understand, this is a Marketing Sales ploy. I might have a slightly different opinion. Its not, its 13 trees, up to six trees that is my problem. Do i have a resolution other than to deny the permit that was improperly issued an interest of the citys upset residents of San Francisco . I can say that. We are also setting a precedent that it can happen again and again. I hate setting precedents. That is all. I do not have a resolution. I will probably say what i think and. That is why we are here. Have a very different view, that i think has become clear. The question here was his permit for the issued . The homeowner wants to put a driveway in his poverty. Hes rick byard to replace 11 whether he is mark zuckerberg, or your prototypical middle class worker does make a difference. That is how urban forestry does it, that is how public works does it, i did not hear anything tonight for mr. Buck that says, theres all of these other factors and teslas meeting them. Electric vehicles are public good. The city has declared it. The state has declared it. This morning the San Francisco chronicle ran an article saying that in california there is a crisis of insufficient vehicle charging that is jeopardizing the plan for extending electric vehicles in the state. California wants be a leader and it cant be. It is not my opinion. It is the citys opinion, the states opinion and i think it is what is responsible. This is not about the elite versus the middleclass. This is an un negated good reedit is is a winwin and i am not skeptical of this public and private. Good point area. 144 teslas that are in the station, in 12 hours, that is 144 teslas that are not lining up at the station at the chevy uses area. Fair point. Thank you. Would use it my motion . Sure, i mean, if mr. Buck thinks theres a way . Can we make that happen, mr. Buck . Good evening, chris buck area we a. We can plant six trees area there are a lot of underground utilities in the tenderloin. Public works would be open to renting planting of six new street trees that are not replaced once, we would on the tenderloin. We can commit to that. Awesome. Thank you very much. Did you want to supply a timeframe that you will plant them . Prior poverty owner has six months to plant. You know, there is a couple of options. We need to start canvassing for those sites. We need to mark utilities and clear sight. Timeframe . 36 months, and or i am willing to go as far as the trees are planted prior to tree removal. Perfect. That is what i would ideally like to get. Trifecta tonight. Okay. Was that your motion . I think i need to understand something about that. You are saying he will commit to aunt the trees before tree removal, but youre not committing to any timeframe. If public works never gets around. Inc. E. Thank you. Why dont we just do six months . It is consistent with code. Can we clarify within six months of the decision tonight . Correct. Okay. We have a motion from that was my motion. I dont make them very often. Dont feel my motion. Motion from commissioner hondo to grant the appeal and uphold the order on the condition it be revised to read 24 the bureau of urban forestry plant six new street trees, within six knots of the final decision issued. Is it implicit that the developer, that tesla has to fund the payment . Right. These trees he by the permit holder. Okay, so come on that motion [role call] that motion carries 50. Thank you. Moving along. Inc. You for your patience. Welcome back to the board of appeals, september 18, 2019. We are now on items nine a and 9b. Nineteen 080, and 081, joshua klipp and lance carnes versus San Francisco Public Works Bureau of urban forestry. Subject property, 1150, 1500, 1616 2000 16th street. Appealing the issuance on july 11, 2019, to San Francisco Public Works Bureau of urban forestry, of a public works order approval of request to remove eleven street trees with replacement along 16th street in conjunction with phase 1 of the sfmta 16th street improvement process one pear tree at 1150 16th street; five ficus trees at 1500 16th street; four ficus trees at 1616 16th street and one ficus tree at 2000 16th street . Order no. No. 201495. We will hear from the appellants first. Mr. Klipp. To the of the public that have waited the whole evening. Thank you for hanging in. The night is young. I am here to talk about the citys concerted piece mail removal of travertine trees that constitutes a project. Triggering the citys obligation to conduct an Environmental Impact report. Im not here to talk about the citys 2014 urban forest land. They called for 50,000 new street trees, added to the San Francisco canopy by 2034. We are five years into that plan, if we are being honest the city has treated it like a joke. Weve never come close to that many trees in the air. Last year we had a grand total of one tree to our urban canopy and thats just on the streets. We never funded the urban forest plan. We did not hire the resources to make it happen. I made a plan and that is it. We did not think about the execution and we did not live up to it. As far as the 2014 urban forest plan was a nice idea. Ironically, the city rests on this plan and its defense tonight. It explains the evaluation is the reason it doesnt have to take any action to evaluate the impact of its actions regarding tree removals is happening today. The fact is, the 2014 urban forest plan never anticipated with the city is doing now. Specifically, after the urban forest land was adopted after the determination was made, they made an orchestration against one particular type of tree, the travertine tree. [reading notes] the webpage note that there are 7,000 ficus trees in San Francisco, 6 of our already stamped urban canopy. They have gone out of its way to use the civic this one type of tree. In the citys exemption determination, under the plan, dpw will continue to maintain street trees. First, there has been no determination that ficus are unhealthy and hazardous area second, the keywords are continue to. Here after the ceqa determination was made, the city decided to make it even easier to remove ficus and dedicated an entire mission to making this happen. [reading notes] there is no other tree that is subject to the same focus as these are a no other tree that has a special directors order dedicated to its eradication. In other words, this is not part of the urban forest plan. This is a subsequent effort by the city. No other tree is targeted, by the dozens, city wide in its own way, the city has admitted as much. Neighborhood after neighborhood the city has held countless Public Meetings trying to negotiate plantings, soothing angry neighbors seen their entire neighborhood go from green to tiny saplings overnight. I know the bureau of urban forestry is trying to do the right thing. My point is that this underscores the fact that these large scale removals absolutely are not part of the urban forest plan. The city knows it, and it shows a by this shall treatment they giving this removal project get this is a project is set forth that requires a ceqa evaluation for the city does not get to chop up the project, no pun intended, and little bit to skirt this conclusion. Nor does it get to say it is part of the tree removal, when the city has clearly defined its initiative to the contrary. A couple of additional points i would like to make here. The exemption determination says the plan would address funding for the planting of new street trees to address their distribution throughout San Francisco. It has not done that. According to the 2,000 urban forest plan 2014 urban forest plan, as you already know we have one of the worst urban canopies of any city in the united gates at 13. 7 . The mission district, which will be coming up in future appeals as an average canopy of 7. 5 . Meeting after meeting the city has told neighbors that does not have the funds to plant to the of their neighborhoods. So much the urban forest plan creating equitable canopy. The city determination would not result in significant impacts with respect to availability of water. How many times as public works that it cannot plant trees because it cannot water them. In short, the city is essentially reminded of this option that has not bothered to implement in every single way. The city cannot have it both ways. You cant say that the ceqa exemption for the urban forest plan, they never bother to find or execute that plan. Subsequent to that exemption they went ahead and created an entirely new large you targeted initiative for us to civic type of tree that was never discussed in the plan. I respectfully request that the board asked the city to comply with urban forest plans requirement. Thank you. We will hear from mr. Carnes, the appellant in 19 081. Welcome back. Good evening. My name is lance carnes, im in north each resident. The reason i am here of healing the 16th street phase one removal order. My north beach neighborhood, and several others in the city have been hit with orders on most trees order for removal are ficus. This first side shows, sorry, the different neighborhoods that have been hit. We heard from the main library tonight you north beach you heard last week the tonight is 16th street phase one. I will come back to this side. The one i was researching, bureau of urban forestry in their handling of street trees come i found a database that said a 2017 tree survey which shows the 16th street phase, ficus needing routine pruned, certainly not a removal. The survey was done by a contract between the city of San Francisco, at a cost of 500,000 one happy outcome was funding 20,000 more trees than previously thought. On the foot about the condition that San Francisco urban Forest Management that lost 20,000 trees. On this slide, heres a comparison between what is called the bus staff survey. These are the folks that work in our Public Works Bureau of record forestry office. They have targeted these neighborhood with removal of all of these ficus trees, hundred 14 total. When you compare the same trees to every tree sf survey. The number of removals recommended, for example, the main library zero, north each of zero, that one is kind of high at 24th street. Basically 19 trees out of 124. There is a big dirty here between what the bureau of urban forestry thinks is right and what the survey provided. The order status to phase one, the sfmta is committed to plant 53 new trees prior to the design phase of this project. Architects identified trees which should be removed. So, we are Walking Around 16th street, looking at things making the street scape project more successful. These are the 75 trees that are on the 16th street phase one. Notice the road trees here are trip ficus. Those are the ones a survey rated as being priority removal. In other words, dangerous to people and property. When they marched through and looked at these trees, the ones i picked removal for the healthy one, these eight or ten ficus trees, ignoring all the rest. Here again we have the district ten map of all of the trees, in the vicinity of six teams a phase one. The ones that are not green are also priority removal, and then these are the subject. Going out a little bigger, this is all of district ten. The ones that are not green are also priority removal. Kudos b. U. F. Go after but the ten healthy trees. But we discovered is there is two databases associated with the 2017 survey. One is the tree data. The other one is the new planting rights. I went through that and plotted it on this, this is the phase one area here. We discovered there is 56 new planting site, and that is enough to accommodate the 53 trees that sfmta wants to put in the phase one area. This plan, no ficus trees need to be removed. We have 53 new trees, we have the ten mature trees, not sure if it is ten or eight, that can survive. So we have or trees. Down here is the fine print. Im sure chris locke will be reading heavily for the rebuttal. That ends my presentation, i want to thank you for listening. The trees think you, as well. Thank you. Thank you. We will now hear from mr. Buck. You have 14 minute. 14 minute. [laughter] chris buck with San Francisco Public Works Bureau of urban forestry area forestry here. I will be respectful of everyone time. Said that last time, and you did use it all. My wife criticizes me, double what you say, one estimate time. I think we can do more than criticize here. Good evening commissioners, and thank you, i appreciate the work that you are doing last week, and this. Chris buck, San Francisco Public Works Bureau of urban forestry. This particular site, we will get into the specific details regarding ficus removal along 16th street. I didnt have time last week, and i should have started with this. You know, looking in the last couple of years, what we have been up to in urban forest the, you might think what is going on with a lot of empty basins. I know it is difficult to ask somebody to look at a 20 year arc of the urban forest. That is been my involvement. Five years as an advocate with friends of the urban forest as an education coordinator. Dreaming of the day that we would get funding to maintain all of our existing street trees. It has been a battle, literally, for decades. Historically, San Francisco public works only maintained at third of the street trees in San Francisco. That means two thirds of Property Owners had the maintenance responsibility for those trees. That was great. Most new homeowners were excited to have a tree, and they put a tree out front. 1020 years later, when that tree needed sidewalk repair, and we denied the removal request, they were not too happy. It took a few decades. People realized, i have a Corner Property and the tree on third is maintained by the city, the tree on blue is maintained by me. Wheres the sign that says how can you determine this . Label of our list of trees. It was dysfunctional. It was not a good system. It took many, many years, or decades, we finally had a watershed moment. We have the urban forest plan which is a big deal. We have a lot of advocate working on that. One of the key recommendations, of the urban forest plan was to secure funding for maintenance. During mayor newsoms run in the mid 2,000, we were renting trees everywhere, and re tree advocates said how about we maintain what we have first and then maybe we start like an expanding new trees . That was the feedback we got in the mid 2000. We did not make that mistake 79 approval for property, which means that the responsibility of the city to maintain the street trees. Mr. Klipp with respect, says the urban forest plan is not worth it. We are getting 19 million as a result of proposition e. 19 million, now going to allow the city to maintain all of the street trees on a 35 year printing cycle. What notably was absent from probably was planning for tree replacement. We knew heading in, all the leaders and advocates, we knew this a few years ago, we do have funding for maintenance. We are going to need to address this first read coming across a lot of trees that have not been maintained. We are not going to have funding to plant replace once in a timely manner. Did we underestimate the blowback from that . Up lately. We have an urban forest land, we are maintaining all of our trees on a 35 year printing cycle. Many of those plots shown by appellant carnes, where i live come have been completed. We have pruned thousands of trees across the city. Weve earned 23,000, we have removed several thousand. We are working on those authorities, across the city, including my own neighborhood. I understand, you know, with one of the appellants brief, lets back up one more moment. One of the other things the plan recommended, which public works has executed is to fund a complete tree census. So we know how many trees we have. It turns out we have 125,000 street trees, we were up by 20,000. The arbor pro census was critical, great information. 500,000 to do that report is great. Theres a lot of accident rate worked. It is tremendous. That is what allowed us to get proposition e passed with a mandate. Are you going to say that i should take a third parties assess of a ficus tree, someone who may be lives in southern california, best, ive been doing this for 20 years my five years of an advocate. If waterpipe are breaking across the city, and in one month, 15 out of 20 pipe rates are at 101, does it take a lot of research to understand have a problem with the pipes . No. We have a problem a ficus. That is why we are being aggressive and moving them. We have a number of cases where arbor pro census has recommended removal, more than printing. Pruning. We dont need to remove that tree right now, were going to downgra