[Sustain] Update: SF CEQA Vote Postponed To Tue, July 9 - We Are On Track To Get Almost All Of What We Demanded (As Long As We Stay Vigilant In July)

[Eric Brooks]

Hi all,

The CEQA procedures legislation that was up for a vote at the SF Board
of Supervisors today was, as we expected, continued to July 9 for a vote.

This means that we have two more weeks to nail down our compromise with
Chiu, Planning and the City Attorney; and it gives us the possible
ability to get the project modification appeal procedure (which is now
trailing legislation designed to give us public appeal hearings on
modifications before the Environmental Review Officer) to a vote closer
to, or possibly on the same day as, the main legislation. And at the
very least, we should now be able to nail down the exact language of
that modification appeal procedures text and make sure it is locked in
as per our requirements.

I'll post updates on the status of the negotiations over both texts as
they come in.

At this point it looks like we are going to get almost all of the
-basic- protections we demanded, and we have stripped out almost all of
the bad provisions of Wiener's original, with the exception that the
'first approval' remains the initial appeal trigger - but this is with
the firm understanding that in return for accepting the first approval
trigger, that the approval itself must be clearly established and
publicly noticed, and that we -must- be given the right to appeal
subsequent modifications of projects to the Environmental Review Officer.

All in all what we've got, if it stays in place, is definitely not
perfect, but it is massively better than Wiener's original corporate
giveaway monstrosity, and will give us roughly the same protections that
we have now, but with a lot of very real and strong public noticing
improvements.

Important Note: We may still have to do one more big round of public
comment and email/phone pushing to get the modification appeal procedure
voted forward as it has been agreed to. And there will also be a
Planning Commission hearing (and possibly a Historic Preservation
hearing) on that measure, within the next month.

I'll keep you all posted on next steps.

REALLY excellent job, everyone!

in solidarity

Eric Brooks
Campaign Coordinator, Our City
415-756-8844