comments. >> colleagues, any questions or proposals? seeing none. public comment. >> for sf green. especially for agenda items if you are going to have a meeting with the puc. the budget issues were raised earlier today . i know a big problem that was part of the budget. it's now $20 million more per year. it's good to find out how we got stuck with a new inter connected agreement that is going to be that much more money. i don't -- i think it due to be approved in 15. especially that brings up another item besides cleanpowersf for their 10-year projected budget, the sfpuc has agreed to remove $30 million when we have been trying to get it up to $5 million a year. we need to find out what's going on with the pg & e interconnected agreement and find out why, when we've seen evidence that minnesota solar is beating fossil fuel or price, in usa -- austria -- this is benefit for these departments and not liabilities. it doesn't make sense when we are in a budget crunch to be cutting things. we need to find out from the sfpuc what the heck is going on. that is the key number, that $20 million a year that's digging in. they have a big water project that they say is a surprise and we have to look at that because it's half a billion dollars. those energy things are something we should really dig into. >>supervisor john avalos: perhaps, sfpuc staff are not here but they can comment. we have a joint meeting in the inter connect agreement. i think there is a discussion that they are -- appealing that 20-minute price tag. >> jason freed. lafco staff. what i remember and what they are planning is now is they don't have the agreement. when they are projecting farther out. i will double check on it and i think they are projecting all the stuff may not be there so they have a higher price down the road. it's better to do it that way because the current one will be continued and to find out it's not right. i think budgeting towards the worst case scenario in that case. i will double check that for you. >> thank you. okay. we just had public comment. we can close public comment. our next item. >> item no. 8. adjournment. >>supervisor john avalos: colleagues, we are adjourned. have a lovely weekend. [ meeting is adjourned ] >> >> >> joining me is the vice-president with commissioner hwang, hurtado and fong will be absent this evening. to my left is our city attorney and he'll provide any information tonight and victor pacheco. i'm cynthia goldstein, the executive board of director. we have matters before the board. carla is here representing the bureau of urban forestry and also representing the planning commission commission with the planning department. duffy will be here senior building inspector representing the department of building inspection and john fong with bureau and mapping. mr. pacheco please go over the meeting guidelines and conduct the swear in process. >> the board request that you turn off all phones and pagers and please carry out conversations in the hallway. the procedures are as follows. department representative have 7 minutes to present their cases and 4 minutes for rebuttals. people must include their comments within the 3-minute period. members of the public not affiliated with the parties have up to 3 minutes each to address the board but no rebuttals. to assist the board in the accurate preparation of minutes, members of the public who wish to speak on an item are asked but not required to submit a speaker card to board staff when you come up to the podium. speaker cards and pens are available on the left side of the podium. the board also welcomes your comments and suggestions. if you have questions about requesting a rehearing, board rules or hearing schedules, please speak to board staff during a break or after the meeting on call the board office tomorrow morning. the board office is located 1650 mission street. this meeting is broadcast live on san francisco government television sf gov tv. thank you for your attention and at this time we'll conduct our swearing in process. if you intend to testify this evening, please stand, raise your right hand side and say i do after you have been sworn in or affirmed. please take note that any member of the public may speak pursuant to the sunshine ordinance. thank you. >> do you solemnly swear or affirm the testimony you are about to give will be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. >> i do. >> thank you, mr. pacheco. we'll start with item no. 1 which is public comment about any item to speak about what is not on the agenda? any public comment? is there any additional public comment? seeing none, public comment is closed. item no. 2, which is the annual election of board of officers. the vice-president and president shall be elected after the 15th day of january of each year. tonight is the first board meeting after january 15th so the election of officers is on our calendar. if i can take a quick minute before proceeding with the meeting, i would like to thank the president. i want to extend to both the presidents how much i appreciate your supporting my work and the work of the board and guiding us through the year. president hwang for a year 1/2. with that stated, i want to start the process with the office of the vice-president and ask if there is any member of the board that would like to nominate a colleague or themselves for this office. >> i wonder is it a good idea for us to put this off until president wong is here? >> if the board wishes to postpone it? >> that would be my preference. i don't know what my fellow commissioners would prefer. >> i think that will be fine with me. >> okay. just a heads up, i will not be here next week. >> commissioner honda will you be here next meeting? >> yes, i will. >> okay. so we need to postpone until the 19th. is that what the board would like to do? >> i would move to do that. >> commissioner fung, did you have a comment on that? >> it doesn't matter. >> is there any public comment on the election of officers? there is a motion to postpone this item until february 19th. >> on that motion to reschedule the election of officers to february 19th, commissioner fung, >> aye. >> president hwang is absent. commissioner hurtado? >> aye. >> lazarus? aye. the vote is 4-0. this election is rescheduled until february 19th. >> the next item is 3 comments and questions. any? seeing none, item 4 is the board consideration and adoption of the january 15, 2014, minutes. any changes to the minutes? >> no. >> motion to adopt? >> i will move to adopt. >> any public comment on the minutes? seeing none, mr. pacheco, if you can call the roll please. >> on that motion from commissioner hurried -- hurtado to adopt the january 15, 2014, minutes. commissioner fung, lazarus, honda. the vote is 4-0. those minutes are adopted. >> thank you. before moving on i want to make sure the parties to item no. 9 are here. with the vice-president's consent i would like to suggest the board to consider whether this item 9 should be heard tonight. a demolition permit. the permit holder is requesting the matter be rescheduled. with the vice-president, we can give the parties to discuss regarding the hearing date. if the matter is heard tonight, it can be heard in a normal order. if not, they can not sit through most of the meeting. we would start then with mr. yee. who would have 3 minutes to speak on the date of the hearing. >> good afternoon. i'm with the parks and recreation. the parks and recreation department request that we reschedule this hearing to make a decision on the design. the committee has a three phase review on the process. the project has already received a phase 1 and 2 approval. however, it has come to our attention that the project has not received the final phase 3 approval. this was an unintentional oversight caused by the design of the three separate restrooms and were packaged and heard together by the arts commission at the one and two approvals. out of the three approvals, one has not yet. with phase two, the arts commission has already received the findings. the purpose of phase 3 is for permits and construction drawings and for recreation of arts department to respond to commissions comments from phase 2. the parks and recreation department has already quoted the comments into design and is confident that phase 3 approval will be granted. the parks and recreation is scheduling the phase 3 approval for the court's at the arts commission civic design review hearing on february 10, 2014, we believe it would be most orderly to hear on this case until the final approval is obtained. that way the board can have benefits of any additional input from the arts commission and review the project in its final form. thank you. >> thank you. mr. kelly? >> madam vice-president, commissioners, i request the hearing be held today. they received the permit to construct the new structure without approval from the park commission, the arts commission. that's one of the crucial aspects of my proposal today. i was mislead that will phase 3 approval was an enhancement of the previous one, but in fact they got a permit to develop this site without proper authority. okay. any comments from the department? any public comment. if you wish to reschedule, we will. if you don't, we'll move on to the next item. >> the arts commission has at times modified the design. i think we should get their final approval and proceed with that. >> i agree with commissioner fung. i don't think there is any reason to hear until we review the final phase. >> move to continue to february 19th. >> okay. okay. thank you, mr. pacheco, call the roll please. >> we have a motion from commissioner fung to reschedule item 9. 13-076 for february 19th. >> i'm sorry. how does that work from a point of view? >> i think it's okay. there are items on the calendar that may go away between now and that night. it could be a full night. >> on that motion to reschedule to february 19th, the president is absent. commissioner hurtado? aye, lazarus, fung. this is now rescheduled. >> the next item for a tree removal. this was heard on january 18th. the matter is continued to allow time for department of water and power to research the replacement of two trees. i think we should hear from the department first since they are the ones tasked to provide the board with more information. you have 3 minutes. >> good evening, vice-president lazarus, department of public works. so at the last hearing the department of public works was asked to replace the property with trees. our guidelines require certain methods be met from the sidewalk and that includes a minimum of 3 feet away from the gas line. this is a gas meter here. we would want to be 3 feet on center away from that line. the sewer line property. generally we try to exceed these minimum differences as possible but they are the bare minimum that we can allow a tree to be planted by an ordinance. if we mark these two sites, that gives us just over 13 feet between them. 13 feet on center is smaller than normal. there are a variety of trees that could be planted. from our perspective it would not be ideal. even the columnar variety of trees for the most part has a spread of somewhere between 15-20 feet. if these two trees have seven or six 1/2 feet between them for each canopies to grow, i think we are looking at once these trees mature essentially creating a tree. there would be little competition between the trees for creating space. having said that, there are some species that we could allow to be planted with that distance between them. i'm available for any questions. >> ms. short. for a while they were able to put trees there. on the alleys. how are they doing? >> i'm not sure. we were able to put them on the alleys but as long as the cap pee -- canopy that is competing with the structure itself. there is a columnar variety. certainly one of the alleys have princeton planting on it. it's an over grown species. but it has a spread about 16-18 feet. that would be competition between those trees. what are the ramifications of the competition? >> it's primarily so you wouldn't see the dive back. i think one of the reasons i was making the point is i think one of the arguments in this case is the cottage is being screened by this very large tree. if we have them grown together, that would create another screen. it could take time before that happens. i don't think the competition would be so severe that you would see substantial impact to the health of the trees. but there would be some pruning to cut out small dead branches that might be competing. >> sorry, what timeframe are we looking at before they get to the canopy before they are competing? >> it depends on the tree. ironically the up right variety of the gingko is the fastest growing species. probably a number of years, easily 10 before you would see some competition possibly even longer, but it's a little bit hard to predict without knowing what species would go in. >> given the home owners concerns, are you recommending two trees be planted or sfwhun -- just one? >> i think they are requesting one tree be on-site. we appreciate some of the solar and other ability features that he's interested in and have some improvements made to his property. the prevens would -- preference would be to see one tree remain. >> if that's not possible, one or two trees? >> that would be one or two trees. >> okay, mr. macmillan? >> thank you. that's a picture of the cottage the tree is planted in. that's the tree today. this is a view of the street. the street has lots of trees, but it's not distinguished by a particular sort of trees. there is a variety of evergreens and low trees and tall trees. my tree is sort of the one at the very back. there were some comments about the trees. this was a tree as a commemorative by my relative that owned the house. the tree was the identifiable. when i remodeled my house, my neighbors were concerned about what i was going to do with it. that's the previous years with the maximum sunlight. this is the tree today with an a little bit of sun at the very western side. so i think there are two competing sort of interest on the street. one is the lively fully blooming tree and the other one is the tree. as a result, the sun does not encourage blooming. again, that's the photograph. the width of the property, i suspected was 30 feet, but it's less than 20 feet. the width of the property. it was mentioned. therefore two trees bring it close together. so my preference again would be to stay with the single tree, but i would go with two trees as a replacement, a deciduous tree of this variety as opposed to the solid canopy which i have now which totally blocks the sun to my property. but you can see under the canopy there. >> okay. is there any additional public comment? seeing none, public comment is closed. >> commissioners, the matter is yours. >> i think commissioner fung mentioned it when we heard the case initially. i personal have this tree in front of my business. they are very fast growing canopy trees. i believe someone trimmed it down to nothing demand eight 8 years it was back to 25-30 feet. i think one tree would be nice to replace it with one tree so that you can see the actual property. if that's a problem with my fellow commissioners, i'm willing to go to two trees. i would support the renewal of those trees with two deciduous columnar type trees to be selected in consultation with the department. >> i agree, i would support ms. short's recommendations of two trees if we are going to allow the removal of the existing tree. i think it should be removed given the size and intrusion on the property owner. >> okay. i will move to grant the appeal and to grant the removal of the existing tree on the condition that two new trees be planted that are deciduous and columnar in nature to be selected in consultation with the dwp. >> >> we have a motion then from commissioner fung to over rule the denial and issue this permit or condition that there would be two replacement trees be planted with the species to be decided in consultation with dpw. [roll call vote taken], the vote is 4-0. the denial is over ruled with that