CALL TO ACTION:

Call or write London Breed, Scott Wiener, and David Chiu, asking them to hold Wiener's proposed CEQA legislation until both Jane Kim's and Wiener's can be heard at the same time before the Land Use Committee and the Board of Supervisors.  Wiener's legislation is scheduled to be heard before Land Use on Monday, April 8. 

Here's why:

Two pieces of legistlation regarding local implementation of the California Environmental Quality Act are now making their way through the legislative process at San Francisco City Hall.  Representatives of the Community CEQA Improvement Team are supporting the legilsation sponsored by Supervisor Jane Kim and hope that the legislation serves as the basis for improving local application of CEQA.

It is important to remember that CEQA was first passed four decades ago, in 1970, to:

• mandate environmental analysis of projects that may have environmental impacts;
• require alternatives to and/or mitigation of those projects that do have environmental impacts;
• mandate public disclosure of the environmental findings;
• allow the public ample time to appeal those findings.

The coalition has several areas of concern with the Wiener legislation.  Two of the most serious ones are:

1) The official action that starts the clock ticking on the window for filing appeals of categorical exemptions and negative declarations.  In Wiener's legislation, the clock starts ticking at the "first approval," which is poorly defined, may be poorly noticed, and lasts for just 20 days.

In San Francisco, the Planning Department can require projects to undergo a full environmental impact report (EIR).  Alternatively, projects can receive a designation of negative declaration or mitigated negative declaration (neg decs), or be declared categorically exempt (cat exes) from undergoing EIRs.  EIRs are significantly different from cat exes and neg decs.  For example, the Planning Department issued a finding of categorically exempt for the Beach Chalet Soccer Fields project in January 2007.  Park advocates did not know about this finding until December 2009.  Projects that are subject to full EIRs - such as Treasure Island, Park Merced, the America's Cup, the Transportation Effectiveness Project, and the Warriors stadium proposal - all go through longer processes that involve scoping comments, draft EIRs, and final EIRs, and thus tend to be in the public to a greater degree than cat exes and neg decs.

2) The elimination of the right of appellants to appeal environmental findings to the Board of Supervisors as a whole when the Board as a whole must take action to approve a project (for example Treasure Island, Park Merced, and the America's Cup).  The right of the public to appeal projects (with sufficient time to prepare and to respond) is an important incentive for project sponsors to negotiate in good faith with the elected officials and the public - note the improvements to the term sheet with CPMC that may not have happened if the threat of appeal did not exist.

HANC has voted to oppose Wiener's legislation.

Supervisor Kim's legislation will undoubtedly be amended, but currently it addresses all these issues satisfactorily.  Kim's legislation is a completely new alternative based on extensive input from community groups, which is now being finalized.

CALL TO ACTION:

Call or write London Breed, Scott Wiener, and David Chiu, asking them to hold Wiener's proposed legislation until both Kim's and Wiener's can be heard at the same time before the Land Use Committee and the Board of Supervisors.  Wiener's legislation is scheduled to be heard before Land Use on Monday, April 8.