June 9, 2025 Design Review Board Meeting

Yerba Buena Room: Thank you for joining us tonight for the Bcdc. Design Review Board meeting.

Yerba Buena Room: Thank you for joining us tonight for the Bcdc. Design Review Board meeting. I’d like to remind the Board members to please speak directly into the microphone in front of you and have it on only when you want to speak. And please ensure that your video on your laptops is always on. But your audio is disabled.

Yerba Buena Room: Okay, so I think we’re ready to kick off here. My name is Jacinda Mccann, and I’m the chair of the Bcdc’s Design Review Board. I’m located here at the Metro Center in San Francisco. Our 1st order of business is to call the roll Board members. Please unmute yourselves to respond, and then mute yourselves again after responding. Staff, can you call the roll, please.

Yerba Buena Room: Chair Mccann, present board, member Battaglio.

Yerba Buena Room: Present board, member hall, presence board, member leader, present board, member, Pellegrini.

Yerba Buena Room: Present and staff attending the meeting tonight. Are myself Ashley, Tomerlin, Yuri, Jewett, Alyssa, please, and Catherine Pan.

Yerba Buena Room: Okay, good. Thank you, Ashley. We have a quorum present. So we are duly constituted to conduct business.

Yerba Buena Room: I want to share some instructions on how we can best participate in this meeting, so that it runs as smoothly as possible

Yerba Buena Room: for everyone online and in the meeting room. Please make sure that you have your microphones or phones muted to avoid background noise for board members. If you have a webcam, please make sure it’s on. So everyone can see you

Yerba Buena Room: for members of the public. If you would like to speak during a public comment period, you will need to do so in one of 3 ways. First, st if you’re here with us in person, we will ask you to form a line near the podium. If you wish to make a public comment. Speaker, cards are available at the door. You will be asked to come up to the podium one at a time. After all, individuals who are present make their comments. We shall call on the participants who are attending the meeting remotely.

Yerba Buena Room: The second way, if you’re attending on the Zoom Platform. Please raise your virtual hand in zoom. Please click the hand at the bottom of your screen, and the hand should turn blue when it’s raised.

Yerba Buena Room: Finally, if you’re joining our meeting via phone, you must press Star 9 on your keypad to raise or lower your hand to make a comment and star 6 to mute or unmute your phone. We will call on individuals who have raised their hands in the order that they are raised.

Yerba Buena Room: Please keep your comments respectful and focused. We are here to listen to everyone who wishes to address us, but everyone has the responsibility to act in a civil manner.

Yerba Buena Room: We will not tolerate hate, speech, threats made directly or indirectly, and or abusive language.

Yerba Buena Room: We will mute anyone who fails to follow these guidelines, or who exceeds the established time limits without permission

Yerba Buena Room: for public comments. If you’re attending online, please note that we will only hear your voices. Your video will not be enabled.

Yerba Buena Room: If you are attending this meeting on the Zoom Platform we recommend using the gallery view option in view settings in order to see all the panelists audio for in-person panelists is recorded through the room’s audio system and is not synced to the individual panelists videos.

Yerba Buena Room: If you would like to add your contact information to the interested parties list to be notified of future meetings concerning this project tonight. Please call or email Ashley Tomlin, whose contact information is on the screen, or is also found on the Bcdc’s website.

Yerba Buena Room: So with that, we’ll move on to the next item, which is the approval of meeting the meeting summary for May 12, th 2025.

Yerba Buena Room: I think everyone you’ve seen the draft meeting summary from our May 12th meeting. This was the Berkeley Peer meeting, and I just want to check if anyone has any comments or corrections to those meeting notes.

Yerba Buena Room: Anyone, Ashley, I mean, I just had one small, very picky minute comment.

Yerba Buena Room: which is in. I don’t have the file open right now, but in

Yerba Buena Room: One of the comments about the ferry it says that I said to study to study the benefits of the ferry, and I just would say, study

Yerba Buena Room: the impacts, positive or negative, just so that there could be more understanding of how the ferry would be used as a public transit option and potential carbon

Yerba Buena Room: reduction. I didn’t want to presuppose a positive impact. I just wanted to say that it should be studied.

Yerba Buena Room: Okay, yeah, thanks for picking that up. Any other comments.

Yerba Buena Room: Okay, I just want to make one comment. I thought, I just

Yerba Buena Room: want to say how much I appreciate the level of detail that went into the public comment section that was. And I really appreciate it, because there are a lot of great points brought up, and there were a lot of people at the meeting, so I appreciate how much work went into preparing those notes, and they will be very helpful when that project comes back. So thanks for that hard work. Okay, so let’s move on to the next item, which is staff update.

Yerba Buena Room: Thank you. Chair. Mccann.

Yerba Buena Room: I’m excited to announce that we have released an Rfp. For an update to the Bcdc shoreline plants guidance document. Alas! Our legal team has advised that Board members would likely have a conflict of interest. But if you know of anyone who would be interested in or position to submit a proposal, the links are available on the Bcdc website. And from yours truly, we appreciate any help you can give in circulating the Rfp in your circles.

Yerba Buena Room: I plan to provide updates to the board as the project progresses. But the document was last updated in 2,007, and we’re hoping to incorporate traditional ecological knowledge and some site remediation

Yerba Buena Room: and more adaptive management for soils and sea level rise.

Yerba Buena Room: So please circulate. I’m happy to share the link. If you have anybody that comes to mind.

Yerba Buena Room: next, we will not be having a meeting in July. Our next meetings are tentatively scheduled for an August 11th meeting and a September 8th review of Alameda Shipways Project. And that, concludes the Bcdc. Staff updates, I’ll pause here if there are any questions from the Board.

Yerba Buena Room: none from me. Any questions from anyone else. Stefan Ashley, can you tell us when the

Yerba Buena Room: Plant list update? Rfp is due?

Yerba Buena Room: The RFP submittal is due June 30.th Thank you

Yerba Buena Room: any other comments?

Yerba Buena Room: Okay, we will move on.

Yerba Buena Room: So the next next item is public comment for items, not on tonight’s agenda.

Yerba Buena Room: and we’ll open the meeting to public comment. Now for items which are not covered by the agenda tonight.

Yerba Buena Room: We don’t. I can’t see anyone in the room who will form a line, so we’ll skip that, is there anyone online who has any comments? No. One online chair. Okay, we will keep moving. Then.

Yerba Buena Room: Okay, that brings us to the 3rd post permit issuance review of the Brooklyn Basin Channel Park Project.

Yerba Buena Room: and really appreciate the team coming back, and very grateful to have seen the additional work, and got to say, I really appreciated this nice, clear comparison chart that you guys made. So thank you very much for that.

Yerba Buena Room: So with that we’ll begin our review on this is agenda. Item 5.

Yerba Buena Room: And just to remind you of the Project Review order, we will start with the Bcdc. Staff presentation. We’ll then have board clarifying questions to the staff.

Yerba Buena Room: We’ll then have the project team presentation

Yerba Buena Room: and then broad board clarifying questions to the project team. Public comment follows that and then board discussion and summary and a brief staff response

Yerba Buena Room: or project proponent response.

Yerba Buena Room: And with that I’ll ask Alyssa, the Bcdc. Permit analyst to introduce the project. So over to you, Alyssa.

Yerba Buena Room: Great. Thank you. Chair Mccann, and good evening Board members once again I’m Melissa, please. A shoreline development analyst at Bcdc.

Yerba Buena Room: And now I’m happy to introduce the project for tonight’s review. This is the 3rd review of Channel Park, a proposed 6.2 acre waterfront Park, situated

Yerba Buena Room: situated at the confluence of the Oakland estuary and Lake Merritt Channel, within the Brooklyn Basin redevelopment area in the city of Oakland, Almeda County, while many of us have seen parts of this presentation. I hope it can be a helpful refresher for those of us

Yerba Buena Room: who weren’t here during the project’s previous review, as well of, as well as for those of us who were

Yerba Buena Room: so once again, in 2011, the Commission authorized the Brooklyn Basin project, which involves the redevelopment of a former maritime and industrial district into a mixed use. Waterfront neighborhood. The development covers a 64 acre site at the Oakland waterfront, which is bounded by the Oakland estuary to the South Lake Merritt Channel, to the west, the Embarcadero and I 80 to the north, and the Broadsett local restaurant and North Basin Marina to the east.

Yerba Buena Room: The proposed project site for Channel Park is, as you can see in the yellow dashed line bounded to the north by the embarcadero to the east by the Brooklyn Basin Development parcel M. Outlined in the following slide and by private property along the project sites southeastern corner at 5th avenue

Yerba Buena Room: along the southwestern edge. The project shares a shoreline with the Oakland estuary, and is also across the Lake Merritt Channel, from Oakland’s Estuary Park.

Yerba Buena Room: the overall development of Brooklyn Basin is phased into 4 parts. This slide shows how open space requirements on the permit overlap with the overall development phasing as well as the extent to which the overall development is located within Bcdc’s 100 foot shoreline band jurisdiction

Yerba Buena Room: construction phase one is complete, including the development of Shoreline Park, which is now called Township Commons, with phase. 2. Construction partially Underway.

Yerba Buena Room: Channel Park is the 4th phase development within the larger Brooklyn Basin Project, which includes several parks established in the original Master Plan, such as Township Commons, Shoreline Park, Clinton Basin, South Park, and Estuary Park.

Yerba Buena Room: The develop the overall development project underwent 4 reviews by the Design Design Review Board prior to its approval by the Commission.

Yerba Buena Room: And now I’d like to briefly review the site’s existing conditions and discuss the existing permit requirements.

Yerba Buena Room: Once again, here’s an aerial from Google Earth to get a sense of the site as it’s currently situated. And since the industrialization of the Oakland waterfront. The project site has been used primarily for shipbuilding and repair industries, and though it’s remained vacant oops

Yerba Buena Room: 4

Yerba Buena Room: the past 20 years, historic fill placement and remnant contamination from the site’s industrial history have led to soil contamination throughout the site.

Yerba Buena Room: So to address this remnant contamination and to compensate for overall fill impacts. The original permit requires mitigation efforts before commencing

Yerba Buena Room: phases 3 and 4 of the project. This will involve the removal of approximately 0 point 9 3 acres of contaminated material

Yerba Buena Room: on the project site and backfill with clean material to create point 6 5 acres of new tidal waters along the shoreline of Channel Park.

Yerba Buena Room: And so here we have an overview of those permit requirements, including

Yerba Buena Room: 1,200 feet of pathways, 14 benches, one public view, corridor, bay trail, directional map and an approximately 30 foot wide segment of the Bay trail

Yerba Buena Room: with separated bicycle pedestrian pathways.

Yerba Buena Room: Today Channel Park remains a mostly vacant industrial Brownfield site with an interim, public access trail around its perimeter. As seen here, the images above illustrate views from the public access towards Lake Merritt Channel and 5th Avenue.

Yerba Buena Room: and here’s an exhibit showing how the site connects to nearby recreation and transit amenities. The site offers vehicular and bicycle and pedestrian connections to embarcadero or via the Embarcadero to Estuary Park, Jack, London Square, and the broader Brooklyn Basin Development.

Yerba Buena Room: It’s located approximately one mile from transit amenities, including the ferry Terminal and Amtrak station, and within a half mile of a weekday commuter shuttle service serving Brooklyn Basin.

Yerba Buena Room: Here are some perspectives from Google Earth approaching the site with views towards the bay, where the site will be accessed at the Embarcadero towards Lake Merritt Channel and the Oakland estuary.

Yerba Buena Room: another access point will be provided where the bay trail is diverted around parcel M, which is not yet developed.

Yerba Buena Room: The Bcdc. Community vulnerability mapping tool shows the project site census block as having high indicators of high social vulnerability and highest contamination. Vulnerability

Yerba Buena Room: for this census block limited English proficiency proficiency has also been identified as a social vulnerability indicator in the 90th percentile

Yerba Buena Room: the census block is also in the 90th percentile for multiple contamination vulnerability indicators, including cleanup sites, groundwater threats, hazardous waste and impaired water bodies

Yerba Buena Room: regarding potential sea level rise. This map shows what 24 inches of sea level rise would look like if the site remained unchanged on top of mean, high high water, using the Ocean Protection Council’s sea level rise guidance. 24 inches of sea level rise is equivalent to a king tide at mid-century, under the under the intermediate high scenario

Yerba Buena Room: under the scenario. There’s flooding along the shoreline with overtopping at such

Yerba Buena Room: at sections along the northwestern perimeter of the project site.

Yerba Buena Room: and this map shows what 66 inches of sea level rise on top of mean, high or high water would look like if the site was unchanged. From this map you can see that the site will experience significant flooding and shoreline overtopping along the entire perimeter of the project site, along with much of the neighboring shoreline along the Oakland estuary.

Yerba Buena Room: And now I’ll briefly mention the Board’s high, level comments from the project’s March 10th Review. And just for context, here is a side by side comparison of the previous Site plan and the Site plan that will be presented tonight.

Yerba Buena Room: During the Board’s previous review, comments were related primarily to the Park’s public access and bay trail, orientation, sea level rise, adaptation scenarios, planting and landscape maintenance and the open water basin and breakwater design.

Yerba Buena Room: But I will leave our project team to explain in more detail how the project design has been modified in response to the Board’s comments.

Yerba Buena Room: But before that I’ll provide an overview of the question in the staff. Report that we’d like the Board to consider in your review.

Yerba Buena Room: First, st please consider, as usual, how the project meets the public access objectives provided in Bcdc’s public access design guidelines

Yerba Buena Room: summarized above

Yerba Buena Room: and after the Board’s multiple reviews of this project staff has one question for your consideration tonight, which is, does the revised project sufficiently address the Board’s previous concerns.

Yerba Buena Room: including transitions between Channel Park and adjacent uses, such as embarcadero and parcelain?

Yerba Buena Room: And now I’d like to see if the board has any clarifying questions for staff.

Yerba Buena Room: Okay, thanks very much. Alyssa. Any clarifying questions.

Yerba Buena Room: Are are we gonna hear from the project applicants. Again, we ask, okay, I don’t have any questions for the staff.

Yerba Buena Room: None question, no questions from me, and I none from the board. So we will continue. Thanks. Very much.

Yerba Buena Room: Great. Thank you. Okay, we’ll move to the project team presentation now. So go ahead. Please go ahead.

Yerba Buena Room: Good evening. My name is Claire Janest. I’m a landscape designer with ein Willer keel, landscape architecture here tonight with Sarah Keel, Patrick Van Ness and Matt from Wra and signature development. Thank you, Alyssa, for the introduction and the background on the project. We’re looking forward to showing the board our Updated design for the For Channel Park.

Yerba Buena Room: There were some very helpful comments in our last presentation in March, and we really appreciated the opportunity to sharpen our pencils and refine the design moving forward

Yerba Buena Room: as a refresher. The park is located within the larger Brooklyn Basin Development, right at the confluence of the Lake Merritt Channel as it lets out into the Oakland estuary

Yerba Buena Room: and Channel Park is part of a group of 5 Parks in the Brooklyn Basin Development area, and as a whole they read as as a family, but each of them has their own unique character, and channel. Park, in particular, is planned as sort of the greenest space within the Brooklyn Basin development. It’s got the most sort of wild and open character and the most relationship with the surrounding natural world.

Yerba Buena Room: This is the plan that we presented back in March,

Yerba Buena Room: and it featured a section of the bay trail that winded through the park, the new open water basin, and then 3 main programmatic areas. There’s the Peninsula, an interpretive garden sort of in the center of the park, and then a more recreation focused area where the lawns are in at page South

Yerba Buena Room: The comments that we received from the board spanned 5 main categories. They were about the design of the bay trail and its connections to the public realm, as well as questions around public access, the planting palette, the water basin itself, and then sea level rise adaptation.

Yerba Buena Room: So we’ve incorporated many of those comments into our updated design, and we’ve also taken the opportunity to go back to the site and ground truth some of our design decisions.

Yerba Buena Room: and returning to the site has really confirmed for us that there are really no bad views looking outwards. There’s great views all along the edge of the park. In some places you get views all the way out to the downtown Oakland skyline. There’s interesting views over to the 5th Avenue Marina, where you see some of the industrial history. The only place where there’s a less desirable view would be looking back towards i. 8, 80, and we will be doing our best to plant trees to mask those views.

Yerba Buena Room: So our updated site plan reflects many of those changes that we spoke about in March.

Yerba Buena Room: primarily, that would be the the bay trail itself. We’ve softened the course of the bay trail. We’ve made those turns a lot softer. We’ve tried to incorporate more meander, especially out in the recreation area. And we’ve consolidated some of those lawn spaces to to get a more sizable

Yerba Buena Room: gathering space.

Yerba Buena Room: You’ll also notice in that Red Arrow shows where this the Bay trail could more easily connect through the 5th Avenue Marina parcel. Should that ever become an option or an opportunity.

Yerba Buena Room: and otherwise. They’ve just been some minor modifications to the geometry, but it’s all still very much in the spirit of our previous design. We’ve also worked to clarify the connection points between the Bay trail and Embarcadero Street, and we’ll have more details on that in the next slides

Yerba Buena Room: in red. You’ll see the Bay trail, and

Yerba Buena Room: where it connects to Embarcadero Street is the dashed red line. And so what we’ve done now is made clear that

Yerba Buena Room: the pedestrian and bicyclists are always separated from vehicular traffic, except where there are crosswalks that are already existing around the site.

Yerba Buena Room: We’ve also designed the bay trail to respond to a comfortable speed of travel for bicycles, and in many ways all the paths around the site respond to speed of travel. So the purple paths that you’ll see, relate to the pedestrian experience. Those are tighter, more meandering curves, and that’s really intentional, so that people spend time in the landscape. It takes longer to get through the the space.

Yerba Buena Room: and that’s really to encourage people to explore, whereas the bay trail itself is meant for a faster speed of travel.

Yerba Buena Room: There were some questions about how we are designing the width of the bay trail. And so this is our minimum condition that

Yerba Buena Room: responds to the minimum bay trail standards. So we’ve got a 30 foot wide area.

Yerba Buena Room: and in within that you’ll have 12 feet of planting area, 6 on either side, 3 feet of

Yerba Buena Room: paved shoulders on either side, and then a 12 foot shared. Use trail that is paved throughout.

Yerba Buena Room: and that planting area may accommodate some lighting or benches or other amenities throughout, but for the most part it will be planted.

Yerba Buena Room: We also wanted to clarify the distinction between pedestrian spaces and vehicular spaces, especially along the 4th Avenue corridor. And so we’ve cut 3 sections through there, and you’ll see that in each case the red and purple paths are separated from vehicular areas by planting.

Yerba Buena Room: The only exception to that rule would be in Section B, where we have a crosswalk at the parcel, M. Access and per the Board’s comments from March. We have lifted that crosswalk up onto a speed table to slow cars down as they access in and out of parcel M. So we’re prioritizing the pedestrian user rather than the the vehicular, the vehicles.

Yerba Buena Room: And here’s a view of what that bay trail experience looks like at the embarcadero connection. Point. So you’ve got planting between people and the 4th Avenue Road, and then on the right hand side, you can see a bit of the meandering pedestrian paths that are winding around the bioswale.

Yerba Buena Room: This is at the eastern edge of the park, the other point of connection to Embarcadero Street, where there will be a curb cut that allows people to come in between the 5th Avenue, Marina, and parcel M down the throughway.

Yerba Buena Room: We recognize this is a tighter condition than some of the park. But we think that with

Yerba Buena Room: extensive planting and benches and signage and lighting, this can become somewhere that really calls for the public to to enter, and it shows that they are welcome into this space.

Yerba Buena Room: And this is the view from the the flip side of that. So back at the recreation lawns, looking back towards Embarcadero Street, and you can see that parcel. M is on the left 5th Avenue Marine on on the right, and the bay trail goes between the 2.

Yerba Buena Room: There were some concerns as well about

Yerba Buena Room: the site being situated higher at a higher elevation than the surrounding context. And we’re we’re well aware of that, and making every possible effort to

Yerba Buena Room: make that transition comfortable for pedestrians.

Yerba Buena Room: And so we will be working on this as we move forward, but our intention is to keep this as as open and and comfortable as possible.

Yerba Buena Room: There were also some questions about bay trail amenities throughout the park there will be lighting all along the Bay trail. We’re intentionally keeping lighting out of the Peninsula, as that’s really meant to be more of a nature focused space. And so

Yerba Buena Room: we felt like

Yerba Buena Room: to prioritize habitat. We should keep lighting out of there and along the bay trail, where most of the public use will be happening, especially in the evenings. There will also be trash cans, picnic tables, benches, bike racks in the most sort of heavily used areas

Yerba Buena Room: in terms of the relationship between the pedestrian spaces and the open water basin. There were some questions about how we are

Yerba Buena Room: limiting public access to the water basin or limiting folks from walking down to the water, and we’re really doing that by incorporating planted shoulders, especially on the bay trail. There’s a 12 foot wide planted shoulder.

Yerba Buena Room: And we’re taking our cues from other existing open space areas and bay trail sections throughout the bay. The examples that you see at the bottom of the screen. A few of them have more riprap, but we are trying to move away from using as much riprap as possible and shifting towards planting. And so we’re hoping that the planting really encourages folks to stay on the path and signal where people are invited in and where it’s supposed to be for the natural world.

Yerba Buena Room: And with that I’m going to pass it over to Matt to speak about the open water basin and sedimentation.

Yerba Buena Room: Sure, we recognize that the the board had some comments about sedimentation

Yerba Buena Room: in the open water basin. The civil engineer that’s a Simpson Simpson, Gumpertz and Hager Sgh. What they had done in the pre-design phase of this is, they had done a bathymetry analysis between the 2 data sets shown here 2017 and 2024, and the 1st of those shows that the mean High water line had not changed in that time.

Yerba Buena Room: So we didn’t find there was a a change in this area of the Oakland estuary or the Channel.

Yerba Buena Room: and if you can go to the next slide.

Yerba Buena Room: and similarly, when looking at the local bathymetry, we found also, or the Civil found also that there was really no change at this location where we were designing the open water.

Yerba Buena Room: Given the local conditions that seem to indicate that there’s no net sediment, increase or accretion at this location. That’s where we that’s where our concerns were laid that we’re not going to have similar issues with the open water feature.

Yerba Buena Room: And lastly, we’ll just touch on the question of sea level rise resiliency to 2,100. We showed 2 options last time one diagram showed a walled condition and the other was a berm, and there was a unanimous desire for us to move forward with the berm condition as it offered a more, a managed retreat scenario for sea level rise. So we’ve incorporated that into our current design and made space for that berm for that berm to be built in the future.

Yerba Buena Room: It would be a 2 foot tall berm, and it would allow the park to be resilient to 2,100. In the interpretive garden and recreation area the Peninsula would support, managed retreat, and would slowly become marshland.

Yerba Buena Room: and the berm would work in tandem with a breakwater modification which you’re seeing in the top right section, and then a wall that would kind of transition between that breakwater and the berm itself.

Yerba Buena Room: And this is Sarah Keel. I’m going to conclude by just trying to contextualize what I think is important about this project for Oakland. One thing is.

Yerba Buena Room: there are places in Oakland where you can go to a park, but the places where you can go to a park and experience sort of a healthy natural world and ecology are the really beloved ones. And so this project is trying to be a place where healthy ecology is an environment that people are invited into rather than sort of drawing a line between them.

Yerba Buena Room: And the other thing is that within particularly the last 5 years in Oakland, Brooklyn Basin is a real success story. There have been tremendous challenges in cities in Oakland in particular, and Brooklyn Basin is actually doing well. It’s built 465 units of affordable housing, and they built them first.st So there’s

Yerba Buena Room: much more of a mixed community of people living there. The park, which is township commons. I actually just got an article while I was sitting here saying that they’re having a contest for what’s your favorite 3rd place in Oakland and Township Commons is one of the top contenders.

Yerba Buena Room: It’s well maintained. It’s not having some of the challenges of other parks. And so we really see this as building on something that’s working in Oakland building on what’s happening at Jlac, and something that potentially can extend the range of experiences. So we feel like it’s in a place in Oakland, and it really matters that it’s building on things that are already working. And so we’re we’re believing in the ambitiousness in some ways of the design for that.

Yerba Buena Room: and it’s not just anywhere. It’s somewhere where we’ve seen things succeed in the past. And with that, Patrick, did you want to add anything

Yerba Buena Room: Patrick Van Ness with the project development team. And yeah, I’m here to answer any detailed questions you might have about the history of the project or the interactions with surrounding properties.

Yerba Buena Room: Okay, thank you very much. It was a very clear presentation and appreciate the extra detail, evaluation and review of the various aspects of the design in the last couple of months. So thank you for that.

Yerba Buena Room: We’re now going to move to clarifying questions on the presentation from the board. I just wanted to kick off with one, and I wonder if you could just flip back to the

Yerba Buena Room: the 2 sketches perspective sketches that you prepared showing the Embarcadero Street interface. And it’s the southern one that I just yeah. Sorry. The one

Yerba Buena Room: flip today. Yeah, I just wanted to double check. It shows a curb cut there.

Yerba Buena Room: Just remind me, is this an emergency access vehicle

Yerba Buena Room: way as well or or not?

Yerba Buena Room: It could end up. I think that will relate more to the final design of parcel M. But it doesn’t have to be. The curb cut is primarily provided for bicycles coming from the bike path. Yeah, yeah, I mean, I. It’s it’s

Yerba Buena Room: in the sketch. It looks like, perhaps there could be confusion from vehicles who might

Yerba Buena Room: decide that that’s an access way, but to be determined in the design, of course. And I just wanted to clarify that.

Yerba Buena Room: Okay, any other clarifications. Bob, we’ll start with you.

Yerba Buena Room: Thank you.

Yerba Buena Room: What can I ask about the the basin?

Yerba Buena Room: I know you had discussions about this last time, but I

Yerba Buena Room: What is the the design elevation of the basin. And what is it? It’s expected condition. Is it going to be bare ground or vegetated? And what kind of

Yerba Buena Room: habitat, or, you know vegetation. Are you anticipating?

Yerba Buena Room: Yeah. The the inlets tied into the Oakland asteroid, a subtitle level

Yerba Buena Room: and the open water itself is also below mean high water, and below the where we typically find low marsh vegetation.

Yerba Buena Room: So it’s it’s kind of going to look like

Yerba Buena Room: what you’d see, perhaps a natural mud flat. We’re not expecting a lot of vegetation growth.

Yerba Buena Room: With the channel at the elevation it’s we’re recommending would likely not stay full of water, but only on the lowest of low tides. Would it also be empty in the middle by the 6? Right.

Yerba Buena Room: Thank you. Thanks

Yerba Buena Room: other questions, Stefan.

Yerba Buena Room: Thank you so much for this really helpful presentation, and I also found it very helpful because I wasn’t here for the previous review to see what the comments already were.

Yerba Buena Room: Fantastic. Board discussion. And I just a a few kind of grab bag of questions.

Yerba Buena Room: that future connection to Lake Merritt Channel is the idea that would go under the embarcadero or over. And is this very speculative? What’s the sort of story with that?

Yerba Buena Room: There is a many tons of 1 million dollar bike path project. That is an elevated bridge that goes over the railroad and the freeway. It is as of yet unfunded. But if it ever happened, it’s touching down from above.

Yerba Buena Room: Got it. So it does. It sort of loops around. Got it? Okay, yeah, that’s helpful.

Yerba Buena Room: I was wondering for the programming. It seems like, kind of primarily picnicking and walking. Maybe bird watching

Yerba Buena Room: was there. You mentioned a desire for this to be more natural? Was there some a process that led to those specific activities like a public process. Or how did you select that programming for this site?

Yerba Buena Room: So we’ve had the benefit of working on all of the parks at Brooklyn Basin, and particularly when we started with township commons, which is very built.

Yerba Buena Room: Some of the public who lives in the 5th Avenue community, and others really wanted a place that was for birds, for the natural world that spoke to that. And so this park

Yerba Buena Room: was always going to be a passive recreation park. But the dial towards ecology got turned up through feedback that we got during our other park meetings, and in other hearings that people did at Estuary Park was, which is the one across the Channel. And in conversations. It’s something that people said they wanted here

Yerba Buena Room: those activities of picnicking and the kind of recreation lawns specifically.

Yerba Buena Room: There’s always, you know, people putting tabs on picnicking and the trail uses themselves. But as a like detailed, I want a picnic lawn at this park.

Yerba Buena Room: Not not exactly. No, I’m also wondering.

Yerba Buena Room: the parking kind of comes very far into the park.

Yerba Buena Room: and I was wondering if there, I see that there’s a desire to make a vehicular connection into the blocks there.

Yerba Buena Room: But is there a reason why the parking isn’t closer to the road. Is it? Is there some the bioswale needs to be there, or is there some.

Yerba Buena Room: or is it just? That’s sort of where it landed?

Yerba Buena Room: More than one reason. So one partly it’s the existing bioswale and the need to make a grade change from embarcadero to a higher ground.

Yerba Buena Room: Partly it’s a question of ease, of access to the water, and other things for people who are mobility impaired, and a desire to have some close spaces for them. And partly. It’s just a geometry of trying to get the, you know, a square thing in a round thing and getting it to look good.

Yerba Buena Room: and then for the Bay trail. Was it important to achieve a 30 foot bay trail?

Yerba Buena Room: Was that like a because I noticed there’s a lot of planting which isn’t typically part of the Bay Trail section.

Yerba Buena Room: So Patrick can speak to this more the before my time document that guides all of the development at Brooklyn Basin called out for a 30 Foot Bay trail section, but when we drilled down to that for township Commons

Yerba Buena Room: we were told to follow the guidelines for the Bay trail standard, which is obviously less. But then amenities and things that support the trail, planting benches, lights should be within that 30 foot section. And so that’s the guidance we have continued to follow is that there’s

Yerba Buena Room: an 18 foot wide trail section which includes the trail itself and the paved shoulders and the remaining 12 feet is supportive elements that make the trail a good experience, basically. And that’s the way we’ve been following it on the whole project.

Yerba Buena Room: Okay, thank you?

Yerba Buena Room: And then last question, what are people connecting to across the embarcadero?

Yerba Buena Room: What’s the? There’s a crosswalk. There? Is there a future connection that would be made because it looks like it’s just the sidewalk, basically on the other side of the embarcadero. And the reason I’m asking is if there should be some sort of

Yerba Buena Room: light or pedestrian safety something, or if it’s really just not going to be a heavily used crosswalk, or if that was considered at all.

Yerba Buena Room: we are just drawing the existing condition. That’s sort of out of the purview of the project. But in terms of uses on the other side there’s an facility and a lumber yard, and the crosswalk is mainly being used, for if you happen to use one side of the bridge or the bike path that’s on the other side. But there’s not really a parcel destination, I would say. It’s just a movement across the road itself.

Yerba Buena Room: Do you know, if there’s been any like traffic studies, or anything to indicate that there should be some sort of enhanced pedestrian safety for crossing? Or is it not really a desire line.

Yerba Buena Room: The crosswalk, as I understand it, was installed with the Embarcadero Bridge, and in that design they had enhanced pedestrian access on both sides, so it was put in place to bring pedestrians from one side of the bridge to the other side, the thought process being, if somebody’s on

Yerba Buena Room: the upland side of the bridge. They’ll want to go to the Park, and so they would have done any pedestrian studies with that project. They’re the ones that installed the crosswalk.

Yerba Buena Room: Thank you. Those are all my questions.

Yerba Buena Room: Tom. Any questions? Yeah. Just 2.

Yerba Buena Room: Quick ones.

Yerba Buena Room: The

Yerba Buena Room: possible future bay trail connection to the south. I guess it is. Could you talk a little bit more about what would have to happen?

Yerba Buena Room: Would that become a reality?

Yerba Buena Room: Or maybe maybe there’s a bigger context map, too.

Yerba Buena Room: Yeah, maybe go back to one of the bigger context maps. This is pretty good, actually. Well, either one of these the sort of white zone between South Park and Channel Park is a piece of property owned by someone else.

Yerba Buena Room: And at the time that this development came about they did not want to sell it, so what would have to happen would be, they would have to decide to develop or sell that parcel, and then there would be an opportunity to request a connection.

Yerba Buena Room: and if they did develop they would have to accommodate Paytrail some way correct. That was the theory at the time, but they were very specific that they wanted to be excluded from all planning efforts for this project area got it. They did not agree to anything. The city of Oakland had asked, makes sense. Okay? One more question on siltation.

Yerba Buena Room: If somehow expectations were not met and there was some silk came in there. God forbid!

Yerba Buena Room: What would happen!

Yerba Buena Room: What would that be like? Is that bad or good? Or

Yerba Buena Room: I think certainly we’d go into a adaptive management mode.

Yerba Buena Room: I think the 1st thing we’d start to watch out for is what vegetation really is coming in. So the the current design of the open water is about at mean high water mean high water, the level of mean high water, so

Yerba Buena Room: like a like I mentioned before, almost like a mud flat. If vegetation did start coming in. I think we would likely be looking for things like Spartina

Yerba Buena Room: or other low marsh vegetation that would come in

Yerba Buena Room: and we’d look to the regional plans to to manage that, if need be, or to let it keep growing.

Yerba Buena Room: Now, if you know, I think if the channel was filling in.

Yerba Buena Room: That would be something a little bit different.

Yerba Buena Room: right? Especially into how it was. The intention of the open water is to invite the tide in right for that experience. Right? We’re watching. We’re watching the water go in and go out on a daily basis. It’s marking the time as you’re in the park.

Yerba Buena Room: So I think the idea there is. If that experience was being interrupted right by the saltation, that’s, you know, when we might consider

Yerba Buena Room: corrective actions right to to clear the channel or clear the inlet.

Yerba Buena Room: Corrective action like you mean, deep in the Channel.

Yerba Buena Room: I don’t think that would. Necessarily. It’s it’s designed pretty deep, right as an open water feature.

Yerba Buena Room: you wouldn’t necessarily you’d look for.

Yerba Buena Room: I think. I guess what I’m saying is corrective actions might be. If there’s specific blockages right? A blockage at the Channel, a blockage at one of the trees, right? Not necessarily a

Yerba Buena Room: wholesale sediment, accretion going on, so would it be fair to say that if it did salt up more.

Yerba Buena Room: that it’s not necessarily creating a blight or anything. That’s it’s gonna it’s gonna go to saltwater marsh in some form.

Yerba Buena Room: Yeah, I I think the difference between this and and other planned

Yerba Buena Room: you know, more traditional like a restoration right? Instead of a park feature is that this is designed

Yerba Buena Room: well, deeper than you might

Yerba Buena Room: right. It’s it’s designed to hold the water. Mark the time as as the tide comes in.

Yerba Buena Room: So so again, if it did silt in, we’d start to see vegetation. And and I think the evaluation is there is whether that’d be beneficial to the experience of the park or not. Not necessarily that the whole system would stop working.

Yerba Buena Room: Thanks.

Yerba Buena Room: Okay, yeah. Stefan.

Yerba Buena Room: I have a question about parcel parcel, M. And so I’m hoping that

Yerba Buena Room: staff can also weigh in on this. The parcel M will be proposed by others. It’s out of the purview of this project, but it also

Yerba Buena Room: is impacted by the shoreline band.

Yerba Buena Room: But so the way that I understand that is that there’s some expectation that parcel. M. Would

Yerba Buena Room: also be subject to maximizing public access to the shoreline.

Yerba Buena Room: Is that a correct assessment?

Yerba Buena Room: Do you expect? Parcel M to come through for review?

Yerba Buena Room: It’s my understanding parcel. M is not in the shoreline band, so we wouldn’t review it. For

Yerba Buena Room: for the project.

Yerba Buena Room: it’s Catherine. Did I get that right, because I’m just looking at the little purple band there that goes through the corner. So I think if

Yerba Buena Room: oh, it might be that with the new configuration of the shoreline resulting from this project that it

Yerba Buena Room: enters the shoreline band.

Yerba Buena Room: I’m not sure, if like, without

Yerba Buena Room: you know this project, whether it would be as that. I don’t know if Sarah is that correct, Patrick?

Yerba Buena Room: I believe that the purple band you see there is the new shoreline. So that’s with the reconfiguration of the shoreline. It pulls the

Yerba Buena Room: Ccdc jurisdiction line. In

Yerba Buena Room: that being said, we went through extensive discussions about development parcels through the entire. You know 4 plus

Yerba Buena Room: design review hearings that were in the original entitlement. And every time that we have a project that comes back to Bcdc design review.

Yerba Buena Room: so the development parcels are private development parcels that

Yerba Buena Room: are part of the project. But it was always intended that they were to be high density housing

Yerba Buena Room: in around the parks.

Yerba Buena Room: So I would say at the time the project comes forward.

Yerba Buena Room: Depending on what the shoreline is at that point.

Yerba Buena Room: It might require some action from Bcdc.

Yerba Buena Room: I think we’ll have to see kind of how things converge.

Yerba Buena Room: Well, Stefan, I I mean, I think it’s you’re raising a good question.

Yerba Buena Room: Can I put it to Ashley and Staff to look into that, and to determine what the position would be?

Yerba Buena Room: And I take it from previous.

Yerba Buena Room: the the sequence of reviews. Maybe you could help us with this. The

Yerba Buena Room: previous 4 reviews that happened during the Master Plan, or the planning process for the entire

Yerba Buena Room: parcel, the the master plan. Have you come back to Bcdc. With architectural proposals, ever or, yeah.

Yerba Buena Room: Not. With. So the original design review process envisioned that each parcel was a big block, 86 feet tall, property line to property line. So the what was reviewed was, you know, shadow view impacts, but the assumption being that that it would be a complete

Yerba Buena Room: covered parcel

Yerba Buena Room: we have the parcels that sit around Clinton Basin that are clearly within Bcdc’s jurisdiction and staff has reviewed those and

Yerba Buena Room: we did go to design review on

Yerba Buena Room: on one of them, I believe. But it was more for how the public access

Yerba Buena Room: was developed in that area, not for the parcel, but it was the final design

Yerba Buena Room: of that section of public access, and then, where the openings were from the future development. But it wasn’t

Yerba Buena Room: determined at that time that the Pcdc sort of overarching view of

Yerba Buena Room: requiring public access on the parcel development site, because the public access was the 30 acres of

Yerba Buena Room: right waterfront park. Yeah, I mean, there is a timing and sequential relationship here that in, you know, in other projects. We’ve certainly reviewed projects where.

Yerba Buena Room: the implications of the building as in shadow or wind, or

Yerba Buena Room: access or visibility privacy, you know all the issues that we would consider. You know we we are. It’s not uncommon for us to be looking at those issues and reviewing the the trail

Yerba Buena Room: in this instance the trail is being established, and the park.

Yerba Buena Room: before seeing any of the buildings which I presume on their own timeline. But

Yerba Buena Room: So it’s a little unusual to I don’t know what is the timing for the development of the buildings. Is it the same? Or

Yerba Buena Room: they would go likely of at the same time. Everything you discussed about, you know, shadows, wind views.

Yerba Buena Room: When we went through design review before it was an understanding that there’s a similar to Mission Bay. It’s a big building sitting on the

Yerba Buena Room: waterfront, and we’ll have those impacts because it’s a big building sitting on the waterfront. The the

Yerba Buena Room: really, the focus was on

Yerba Buena Room: the public access around there, similar also to Mission Bay and what those interactions were. And that’s kind of how it went through the design review process. And yeah, now, that was a long time ago, and and no one on this board was here. But that was a lot of the discussion at the time was, how do the development parcels interact with the open space staff gave guidance to the designer view on how to do that. And that’s how we ended up with these

Yerba Buena Room: parks. Yeah, actually, I think a few of us were on the board at that time, but we were reviewing master Plan proposals, and you know the park design, for example, here has evolved significantly from the master plan. So which again, is not unusual, but it does raise the question of

Yerba Buena Room: I I don’t know. If you’ve been able to find anything else out while this conversation is going on. But

Yerba Buena Room: Can you clarify anything for us?

Yerba Buena Room: No staff will have to look into the

Yerba Buena Room: preview, the plan, review history, and the design review history for the site and see how the permit is structured related to input on the building. I do recall from the last the Drb meeting in March

Yerba Buena Room: Gary string had requested more information on the interface with the public access and the site development

Yerba Buena Room: and we can look into that right.

Yerba Buena Room: Yes, go ahead.

Yerba Buena Room: Sorry. I guess just maybe just one follow up question is, is the vehicular access to parcel M

Yerba Buena Room: limited to the 4th Avenue connection?

Yerba Buena Room: Or will that be something that’s subject to future determination.

Yerba Buena Room: based on the layout of the ultimate project.

Yerba Buena Room: 4th Avenue was always envisioned to be the main access point for parcel M.

Yerba Buena Room: The design guidelines that we operate under with

Yerba Buena Room: city of Oakland, discourage direct access or development onto Barcadero, trying to limit the amount of

Yerba Buena Room: access points on the main thoroughfare and crossing the bike lanes and whatnot that are there

Yerba Buena Room: so 4th Avenues? And is your main access to parcelain and the park?

Yerba Buena Room: Is it possible that the number I’ll call it the number 9,

Yerba Buena Room: a bay trail connection could be

Yerba Buena Room: requested or used for future vehicular access.

Yerba Buena Room: The bay trail location on 9 served 2 purposes. One was originally intended to be an emergency vehicle access for parcel M. Because when I said before, we looked at large developments. They were required to have that access point there, but also because we have no ability to cross the out parcel. It was the Bay trail section

Yerba Buena Room: that got you back to the connection of other pay trail sections and bike and pad on

Yerba Buena Room: in the area.

Yerba Buena Room: So it served 2 purposes.

Yerba Buena Room: depending upon what happens on parcel M. That may or may not be used for an Eva for parcel M. But it may be still desired by the fire department

Yerba Buena Room: to have emergency vehicle access.

Yerba Buena Room: because now they could use that to potentially fight a fire or have access the site from an emergency standpoint

Yerba Buena Room: along the adjacent parcel that doesn’t currently exist, and I would not be surprised if.

Yerba Buena Room: regardless of whether or not we need it on parcel, M. That the fire department requests that that be a emergency vehicle, access to access the park and access this section of the park because it is

Yerba Buena Room: somewhat isolated from the rest of the site.

Yerba Buena Room: Just a follow up on that. Can you describe

Yerba Buena Room: how that section would change if if the fire department requires that for Eva?

Yerba Buena Room: Oh, go ahead!

Yerba Buena Room: Really not much in terms of the width of the path right now is designed at 18 feet, which would almost accommodate a fire truck. You need 2 more feet, and then we might need some places potentially to stop and have slightly wider areas. But it wouldn’t really change much from what we’re proposing.

Yerba Buena Room: They would use the trail as the vehicular access

Yerba Buena Room: the roadway it would, it would have a different section or wait.

Yerba Buena Room: I really appreciate this this additional clarification. It’s really helpful. I have one more question, and I promise I’m not gonna ask any more questions right now.

Yerba Buena Room: Is, is is there a precedent or

Yerba Buena Room: Is there a situation where a permit could include considerations or conditions of approval for a

Yerba Buena Room: internal private property that would bring considerations of public access into play when it is developed.

Yerba Buena Room: cause it sounds like there’s a scenario here where that would be out of Bcdc’s future purview.

Yerba Buena Room: And this is, I can’t think of a situation where we have.

Yerba Buena Room: I’m not saying that there isn’t 1 i can’t remember a situation where there is kind of an internalized parcel like this. That is maybe

Yerba Buena Room: potentially has future impacts on the outcome of public access.

Yerba Buena Room: That’s being considered right. Now.

Yerba Buena Room: You don’t have to answer that question. But that’s that is a question about like the reason why I’m asking this is because you have asked us is the considerations around the things that are outside of the purview of this project being parcel M. And the 5th Avenue properties, are we feeling? Okay with that? And so I’m

Yerba Buena Room: I’m putting a question back to you. so I’ll stop.

Yerba Buena Room: I would say, if it’s something that the permitee has control over or can enter into an agreement over and it’s something that would

Yerba Buena Room: protect or preserve some aspect of the public access. Specifically,

Yerba Buena Room: you know, we do often include conditions in our permits that are that affect locations outside of our immediate jurisdiction.

Yerba Buena Room: But it has to, you know, any condition that we include like has to like, have some

Yerba Buena Room: place in the findings that we make about maximum, feasible public access, and it also has to be something that the permitee is actually able to provide. So

Yerba Buena Room: you know, something that’s like, either on property that they control, or something that they’re able to enter into an agreement with the property owner over, you know something like that. So so it is possible.

Yerba Buena Room: I that answers your question.

Yerba Buena Room: you know, just not to overdo this right now, but just to clarify one other thing, the current

Yerba Buena Room: building, the the building areas that are shown

Yerba Buena Room: on parcel M, are they all residential over garage? Or are they separate garage structures.

Yerba Buena Room: What’s shown is a schematic plan that was submitted to the city of Oakland and was running through a design review process. But it’s been put on hold. But this design, if it moved forward, has garages on the ground floor, pedestrian or access at the ground floor as well along 4th Avenue. Okay?

Yerba Buena Room: Can.

Yerba Buena Room: I just want to say that I do think that?

Yerba Buena Room: You know, we’re in a housing crisis.

Yerba Buena Room: and we desperately need housing, and I would hate to see us adding a layer of review to an already very complicated thing to do, which is build housing in the Bay Area, especially at this moment.

Yerba Buena Room: and it sort of feels like we might be penalizing them for having increased the habitat, because that’s what’s moving that jurisdiction line in to catch the corner of parcel. M. So I think we should talk about any concerns we have about this Bay trail access. But I would just hate for us to say that housing has to come in for another review, because

Yerba Buena Room: it’s all this. This plan has already been through review, and I think they should be able to move forward with building housing without us having another review over that. That’s my personal feeling. Maybe not the feeling of the board. But I just want to say that. That’s I think it’s an opportunity we have to help

Yerba Buena Room: housing production. Yeah. And Kristen, I think that’s well said. And you know, I think to Stefan’s Point. It’s just

Yerba Buena Room: more typical, in fact, really usual for us to be able to appreciate the interface between the you know, a park and whatever the building development is proposed to be just so that

Yerba Buena Room: the protection of public access is maintained. Yeah.

Yerba Buena Room: for what it’s worth. Township Commons followed this model. We built the park first, st and there’s a lot of there’s a road, and there’s a lot of lots behind it that weren’t built and it’s worked out, I guess is what I would say, yeah, yeah. Okay.

Yerba Buena Room: Good.

Yerba Buena Room: I’m good. Yeah.

Yerba Buena Room: Okay. With that, we’ll move to public comment. Is there?

Yerba Buena Room: Before I read the preamble? Is there any public comment?

Yerba Buena Room: There’s none online. But I think, Ashley.

Yerba Buena Room: okay, we received 2 public comments submitted prior to the meeting. The 1st was from Mtc. Bay trail. Planner, Lily Brown

Yerba Buena Room: and her points were, she requested, clarification on the inclusion of shoulders on the bay trail, and suggested maintaining the paved portion of the bay trail at 18 feet to accommodate the anticipated higher use at this waterfront, observing the new neighborhood district in the nearby shoreline destinations that make connections through the site.

Yerba Buena Room: she requested clarification on the permit condition that requires a 30 foot wide segment of the bay trail where this is located, and how long that segment is supposed to be.

Yerba Buena Room: and she also requested the addition of a drinking fountains with a bottle, full station, and bike repair stations within the park, as well as a drawing depicting the locations and quantities of the Park and Bay trail amenities.

Yerba Buena Room: We also received a letter of support from Sullivan, Houser, Executive director of the Jack London Improvement District, emphasizing the crucial link that this helps fill between Brooklyn Basin and Jack London Square.

Yerba Buena Room: Thank you very much.

Yerba Buena Room: Okay, that concludes public comment. We’ll now move to board discussion and advice, and we’ll follow the usual approach here. As you know, we’re always

Yerba Buena Room: keeping the 7 objectives for public access in mind, and I won’t read them, because we know them very well. And I think we’ve already had

Yerba Buena Room: a very productive conversation with the applicants on those 7 objectives. There was the question, though, that the staff have asked us to consider as we discussed the project, and and that’s whether the transitions between Channel Park and the adjacent uses, such as the Embarcadero and Parcel M are adequate, so that touches on some of the conversation already.

Yerba Buena Room: So would someone like to

Yerba Buena Room: lead off on our conversation. Yeah, yeah, I wouldn’t mind leading off if you don’t mind. Yeah, go ahead and just

Yerba Buena Room: finish my thoughts.

Yerba Buena Room: so you know, I’m an engineer, and I’ve done a lot of wetland restoration. And so I kind of focused on the basin. But before I get into that I’m really happy to see a project where the bay trail is pulled back from the shore.

Yerba Buena Room: and that there’s a

Yerba Buena Room: a wetland basin excavated into the shore. I I don’t know how many times we’ve seen this, but usually it’s the other way around. So I I really like that a lot, and it’s nice to see.

Yerba Buena Room: So I like the design. I really like that as far as the sedimentation potential of the basin.

Yerba Buena Room: Typically, if you have a tidal basin.

Yerba Buena Room: You expect more sedimentation than you would on the

Yerba Buena Room: shore, or the perimeter of a site that’s

Yerba Buena Room: got higher hydraulic activity, like waves and tidal currents and stuff like that. And this is because

Yerba Buena Room: well, and also the so the basin’s calmer, and then you also the water that flows into the basin has more calm what we call residence time.

Yerba Buena Room: and so the sediment that’s in suspension, the estrine sediment, the vines, like the clays and the silts, tend to have. They have longer to kind of settle

Yerba Buena Room: and quiet water settle down in deposit.

Yerba Buena Room: and so you have more of the suspended sediment depositing.

Yerba Buena Room: and then. So I would actually expect sedimentation in the Basin is where I’m going now.

Yerba Buena Room: I don’t really see that as a problem, because, especially with sea level rise, because then, if anything, your site grade will just go up with sea level rise. Depending on it all depends on the suspended sediment concentrations that you have

Yerba Buena Room: and then it depends on the existing depth and the size of the basin and all these other things.

Yerba Buena Room: and I think that if you’re around mean higher high water and lower with any kind of slope you’re likely to get emergent

Yerba Buena Room: saltwater of vegetation, cord, grass, pickle weed going to sawgrass, whatever.

Yerba Buena Room: I’m not sure the salinities here. I think they’re probably pretty salty, but to the extent that you have some drainage swales, and it’s a little more brackish. You might get something like a Thule, or more like a bulrush, maybe.

Yerba Buena Room: But anyway, my point is, those are all good things, I think, and I’m not sure why they would be objectionable. I think you could still have the water coming in and out, and there would probably. Still, it’s nice to have channels excavated.

Yerba Buena Room: I think that’s the right thing to do.

Yerba Buena Room: I would tend to recommend providing.

Yerba Buena Room: making sure you’re providing enough width a big enough gap for the Channel, especially if it’s a little bigger than a tidal marsh, because you’re going to get a little more water going in and out.

Yerba Buena Room: and it’s better to avoid the scour around sharp edges. It’s a little more stable, and if it’s a low energy environment it’ll be fine. You don’t need to squeeze it with the rocks and stuff like that.

Yerba Buena Room: or walls. So I would actually recommend that you have somebody look at the

Yerba Buena Room: at the guidance on on these wetland restoration, or try to understand what the equilibrium of the project will look like.

Yerba Buena Room: Look at this, the set of suspended sediment concentrations, and there’s some guidance

Yerba Buena Room: that if you have enough suspended sediment, you can look at some regression curves applied your morphology regression curves that relate the size of the basin

Yerba Buena Room: to

Yerba Buena Room: the area of the Channel, the channel sizes and all those types of things. And there’s the

Yerba Buena Room: San Francisco Bay, tidal Wetland Restoration guidelines that were put together by Philip Williams and associates some years ago. And they’re widely available on the Internet. And they have all these curves and wra probably contributed to those years ago. But anyway, I just want to say I think it’s great, and I wouldn’t be afraid of some vegetation.

Yerba Buena Room: I don’t know what adaptive management, because once the vegetation establishes, you’re probably not going to be able to get rid of it from a regulatory standpoint, but I don’t know why you would. Actually, I think it’s it’ll be nice. So

Yerba Buena Room: I just felt like I should say that as somebody that’s done Wetland Restoration for about 40 years in in the bay. Quite a bit.

Yerba Buena Room: But I also really thank

Yerba Buena Room: you for the design where you actually have a basin, and you pull the darn

Yerba Buena Room: they trail a little inland so people can enjoy that that natural space. I think that’s going to be really nice.

Yerba Buena Room: So that’s that’s all I have.

Yerba Buena Room: Yeah, no, thank you both. That’s

Yerba Buena Room: very, very well said, thank you.

Yerba Buena Room: Comments from others. Kristen.

Yerba Buena Room: Well, yeah, I just am sort of embarrassed to say. I just went to Brooklyn Basin for the 1st time this morning to check out the site.

Yerba Buena Room: And it was amazing. It’s beautiful. There’s so many people. It was there at 7 30 in the morning. There’s people out rollerblading and walking their dogs. And it just was a really wonderful experience. And it’s sort of really an act of vision to imagine that such a vibrant, wonderful neighborhood could be built in such a tough location

Yerba Buena Room: next to the freeway and sort of separated by these tracks and all of the obstacles there. And so I just want to commend you all for having built such a wonderful place that really felt exciting and special, and I’m sure on a sunny day and not a foggy morning it’s even

Yerba Buena Room: it’s even better.

Yerba Buena Room: and I just I was as I was looking at this plan, I’m I’m understanding the desire for this kind of natural counterpoint juxtaposition to the kind of more hardscape really active township commons. And I think that this is a plan where the planting really matters, and we’re not seeing the level of planting at this level of design. And so without that

Yerba Buena Room: when I read this it.

Yerba Buena Room: I’m struggling to see the sort of clarity of the hierarchy. There’s sort of a lot of winding paths that feel without the sort of planting or the topography. It sort of feels like they’re sort of arbitrarily meandering

Yerba Buena Room: and intersecting. Can I jump in? Yeah, the previous presentation had a lot more detail on the planting and the strategy, if you like, for the secondary path systems and

Yerba Buena Room: grading relationships. So so that’s there. I’m just it’s there. And Gary, you know, responded on some of the planting great points. Yeah, it’s not from today’s presentation. Those details are not clear. Right? But there was.

Yerba Buena Room: you know, I thought, quite a thoughtful yes, and and quite convincing. The the designers, I think, are approaching it very appropriately for this sort of

Yerba Buena Room: for the ambition of the project. Great? Yeah.

Yerba Buena Room: That’s great. Then the only other comment that I had was

Yerba Buena Room: I’m from the renderings and from the plan. The parking feels very visible. I don’t know if there’s a strategy there about planting that would kind of help

Yerba Buena Room: hide it away a little bit more it just for a desire to be in this natural place. It feels like, you know, in the renderings everywhere you look. There’s cars still, and I am understand. You know cars are always the hardest part of any plan. And understanding that it’s an existing bioswale, and that that may not be a great place for parking.

Yerba Buena Room: I would just encourage you to think about more ways of kind of making that parking feel less present, particularly in the central part of the plan. I think once you’re out on this sort of the nose out there that goes towards estuary that could feel like a very lovely kind of removed space. And I think that’s what people are looking for when they’re looking for natural. This sort of like away from cars specifically

Yerba Buena Room: And then the the just. The last other point is, you know, this artist community next door? I could anticipate. There might be some friction between

Yerba Buena Room: that community and a new development. But I actually think that that identity there is really interesting. And if there’s ways to kind of integrate the quirkiness and the arts into this space, that that might be an interesting opportunity to kind of help give it a unique identity like how township Commons brings in the history of that space. Maybe there’s an opportunity here to add this overlay of kind of the quirky artistic

Yerba Buena Room: community.

Yerba Buena Room: Just a thought.

Yerba Buena Room: Yeah.

Yerba Buena Room: And I think that’s that’s a that’s an excellent point, because it is a very interesting place next door, despite them, not wanting to participate in the development. Stefan, any comments?

Yerba Buena Room: I just wanna say I I appreciate the

Yerba Buena Room: way that you approached responding to the previous review. I think that it is very helpful

Yerba Buena Room: to sort of address the Board’s comments in this way.

Yerba Buena Room: I’m sort of fixated on this.

Yerba Buena Room: The question that you’re asked. You’ve asked at the end. So I’m going to try to say

Yerba Buena Room: something about this that maybe makes sense.

Yerba Buena Room: Is that the way I understand it because of the existing multimodal infrastructure that’s along the embarcadero is that the primary access from the San Antonio side of Lake Merritt is via the 5th Avenue underpass.

Yerba Buena Room: and for those folks the primary entrance until

Yerba Buena Room: the Laney College flyover is built, which we know is sometime between the future and

Yerba Buena Room: right it, so that the access is at this new 4th Avenue intersection which has been constructed and which this park will now allow

Yerba Buena Room: folks to basically get to the Bay via that point.

Yerba Buena Room: So that means that from the San Antonio side, right? I

Yerba Buena Room: there’s a spot in the middle along the number 9 additional alignments where I really

Yerba Buena Room: I can’t make a southbound connection in that location, because I can’t cross the embarcadero directly at at. There’s no intersection there.

Yerba Buena Room: right? I can cross 5th Avenue or 4th Avenue, but where the Number 9 connection comes up

Yerba Buena Room: there is no intersection there.

Yerba Buena Room: So for folks coming from 5th Avenue they need to be able to stay on the north side of Embarcadero

Yerba Buena Room: and go to the 4th Avenue intersection

Yerba Buena Room: in order to get into the Park. That suggests that maybe most of the

Yerba Buena Room: multimodal traffic on the number 9 alignment is actually northbound

Yerba Buena Room: because it’s that’s really a write in. Write out access off of embarcadero for for pedestrians and bicyclists.

Yerba Buena Room: All of that points to a question about should there be enhanced multimodal

Yerba Buena Room: access on the front of parcel M.

Yerba Buena Room: And

Yerba Buena Room: that’s kind of a question in my mind, because, again, the 5th Avenue community is just providing a sidewalk

Yerba Buena Room: ideally, you would make that connection across both of those properties on the water side.

Yerba Buena Room: Of the embarcadero. But that’s

Yerba Buena Room: that is sort of a question in my mind is, if there was a

Yerba Buena Room: future condition of approval that you would put on parcel, M. Maybe it’s about the

Yerba Buena Room: access on along the the pedestrian access along the the embarcadero frontage that would allow for

Yerba Buena Room: that frontage to be used bidirectionally as opposed to

Yerba Buena Room: It’s that’s it’s just eastbound.

Yerba Buena Room: It’s just an eastbound connection on that side of the roadway right now for for bicycles.

Yerba Buena Room: Stefan, just to to make sure it’s what I understand what you’re saying. So you would suggest that

Yerba Buena Room: and this is I I when you say multimodal, pedestrian and bicycle. So

Yerba Buena Room: you know, in you would potentially have a wider, a wider sidewalk, I mean in theory, the bay trail.

Yerba Buena Room: you know, following a bay trail approach width so that the bay trail, you know you get that. Yeah, if I talk about sort of looking at this diagram, right. The the 5th Avenue intersection is off this diagram. Yeah, right? It’s it’s below it to the south. But that is the prime. Right now. The 5th Avenue

Yerba Buena Room: connection under the highway is the primary connection to the San Antonio side of Lake Merritt. All that that whole neighborhood access to the waterfront goes through the 5th Avenue.

Yerba Buena Room: I mean that is, that is the point of least resistance for that neighborhood to to connect.

Yerba Buena Room: It’s right there in the middle of of this drawing

Yerba Buena Room: right? So I can. There’s a very well designed intersection there. I can come down there.

Yerba Buena Room: I can find my way down 5th Avenue, but I can’t get to.

Yerba Buena Room: There’s no public access to the water at the bottom. This project will open up public access at the 4th Avenue

Yerba Buena Room: intersection to the north, slash west, left hand side of this drawing.

Yerba Buena Room: but where this Number 9 access comes out I cannot. I can’t cross the embarcadero in that location

Yerba Buena Room: right? So if I’m coming from the neighborhood, I really need to go down. Be of the

Yerba Buena Room: Via the 4th Avenue connection. That’s that’s why I really need to be comfortable to doing, because it’s really not safe for me to cross at the number 9 connection. There’s no intersection there for me to do that. I can cross it fit that.

Yerba Buena Room: Yeah.

Yerba Buena Room: right? And I can cross the 5th Avenue. But then I’m on the sidewalk right? Right? Which is maybe not ideal. I mean it’s possible, but it’s not ideal. And then when I come out on the number 9, section

Yerba Buena Room: right? If I’m traveling east west on Embarcadero, I can get in on the Number 9 piece.

Yerba Buena Room: But if I’m coming out of there I need to be able to travel either up to the 5th Avenue intersection or to the left

Yerba Buena Room: to get up to the 5th Avenue intersection in order to to get back into the neighborhood.

Yerba Buena Room: So all of us, I don’t know if I’m I’m telling this, but it raises a question about the frontage parcel. M.

Yerba Buena Room: Because a parcel M is improved to the condition, that is.

Yerba Buena Room: But both of those parcels in a future development situation

Yerba Buena Room: probably need more pedestrian and bicycle frontage

Yerba Buena Room: along embarcadero. And in my mind that is, it doesn’t have to be solved by this project. But it’s this question. It raises this question about the future design condition of parcel M.

Yerba Buena Room: Well, and it also

Yerba Buena Room: should apply to the parcel which is not part of the development and didn’t want to be. But ultimately the frontage to that parcel that you know, you would hope that there’s a an ultimate

Yerba Buena Room: aim. Yeah, how that would be handled as well. Yeah. And then the other piece of that right is that if the connection on the water side

Yerba Buena Room: of Number 9 of the number 9 alignment. If that actually also happens, then that it sort of lessens the pressure of correct. Because then I can. I can go. What I want to do is to be able to just go straight to the water on my path right? I don’t want to have to cross.

Yerba Buena Room: Yeah, another intersection, and we can go straight to the water. And then I can choose to go left or right. So that that is also something that we can’t determine when or if that will ever happen so again, it just raises this question.

Yerba Buena Room: It doesn’t. I do not. I’m I’m trying to sort of go back to answering the question that’s in the

Yerba Buena Room: staff report. I don’t believe that this project needs to deal with this, but it raises the question about what? How we deal with parcel M in the future.

Yerba Buena Room: That makes sense.

Yerba Buena Room: yeah. And I think the discussion here. I think you know, our role is to provide advice on you know how, especially for for staff. You know, for because they are dealing with these issues on a daily basis. So

Yerba Buena Room: I think we should be clear that you know the at

Yerba Buena Room: someone needs to be thinking about the you know the length of the the treatment. Sorry the treatment of that cross section on the looking at this drawing on the south side of the embarcadero. It’s really not South, but and you know, and how it will ultimately connect between 5th and 4.th And you know what’s optimal in terms of

Yerba Buena Room: accommodating the Bay trail connection and the sense of how public the Bay trail is to. Yeah.

Yerba Buena Room: You mind if I jump in. Yeah, I mean, I think one of the challenges of these large master plan projects is that they?

Yerba Buena Room: We sort of look to them to solve all of the problems.

Yerba Buena Room: When this is I. I agree with you, Jacinda. This is a a connection that’s being

Yerba Buena Room: frustrated by the existing parcel there.

Yerba Buena Room: and I would imagine that that parcel is required to provide bay access just like everyone else along the shoreline is. And so I think.

Yerba Buena Room: asking this number 9 connection, as we’re calling it to in some ways calling it a bay trail connection on the plan isn’t really

Yerba Buena Room: there. It’s like an interim. It’s a connector to the bay trail. It’s not really part of the bay trail.

Yerba Buena Room: and I think, looking, because 5th Street is a public street. You can go down it to the waterfront if you like, and I’m not sure I actually didn’t see if there was a fence or anything that would block the access to the North, let’s call it

Yerba Buena Room: to the to the west, but I mean, I don’t

Yerba Buena Room: think that that personally, I think that that problem

Yerba Buena Room: shouldn’t have to be solved by this plan.

Yerba Buena Room: Yeah, I think we’re saying the same thing. Okay.

Yerba Buena Room: yeah. I mean? The question was, Oh, okay.

Yerba Buena Room: well, and I think maybe just to be a if I can just jump in on this to be a little more, maybe

Yerba Buena Room: to dial it back to the project. You know it was very helpful to see the 2, and if you wouldn’t mind if you could just show us those 2 illustrations of perspectives at the 2 connection points that were in your presentation.

Yerba Buena Room: So this, I mean, I think, one thing that we

Yerba Buena Room: discussed last time. And, Kristen, you brought it up tonight as well is the sense of publicness, and you know openness. And you know that that parking lot that you can see those cars in that.

Yerba Buena Room: People who are thinking about coming to the park actually

Yerba Buena Room: can determine that there are some parking spaces in there. So you can see that in this illustration that you can see the cars, and I think that’s very helpful, because it is in the, you know, embedded in the site a little. I think the thing that struck me, and and even in this sorry before I jump to that, you can see some indication of some of the the grading, the birming, you know, to the right, but the

Yerba Buena Room: the the visibility, if you like, of the park, is is very good. At this entrance. This doesn’t. It’s not. The shot is obviously not taken showing the connection to the road. But if we go to the other perspective

Yerba Buena Room: you know. I just think.

Yerba Buena Room: I think that there’s we had the conversation about. Would this be an Eva? And we’ve had the conversation that ideally, you would connect across water, so we won’t revisit all of that. But but I think the

Yerba Buena Room: as the team is detailing this up further particularly, you know what will be project entry signage that would go into both of these. You know the the previous perspective, and possibly this, you know, naming the project and just the relationship to bay trail signage.

Yerba Buena Room: you know I would

Yerba Buena Room: if if this is not an Eva you know, I think there should be a couple of bollards there to just make it really clear that to a vehicle that they’re not meant to drive down the you know the

Yerba Buena Room: the bay trail and you know, maybe they’re

Yerba Buena Room: Ballards that, you know can be unlocked, you know, in an emergency. But I mean that I think that for me the thing that was very critical and helpful to see this. And I really appreciate you all producing these 2 perspectives, because

Yerba Buena Room: you know, what you can see here is that there is some which we talked about last time. You know, there is some space being devoted to planting.

Yerba Buena Room: and I really appreciate that illustration. I just think that there’s further the detailing of this, the connection, the sense of

Yerba Buena Room: clarity around, you know, public access here.

Yerba Buena Room: you know, could could be a little further enhanced. You know the the trail sign, is there?

Yerba Buena Room: But there could be something more if we flip back to the previous

Yerba Buena Room: one, you know the I mean. Similarly, I presume this is because it is the

Yerba Buena Room: 4th Street entrance. I’m sure there will be some you know more signage there. But

Yerba Buena Room: my primary concern at the last. Our primary concern at the last review was that

Yerba Buena Room: you know, people really know that this is public space, and to come in and be welcomed, you know, as into the Park, because when you have a lot of buildings there.

Yerba Buena Room: sometimes it’s a little unclear

Yerba Buena Room: but Kristen to your point. The other phases of the development have made. The relationships are all working very well, so you would expect this. This should

Yerba Buena Room: I found these very helpful. So, as far as you know, just being a little.

Yerba Buena Room: very just, very practical about this.

Yerba Buena Room: I think the project is, is has is demonstrating to us that you know the maximum feasible amount of of attention, or given the given the space constraints, I think the

Yerba Buena Room: treatment of the landscape.

Yerba Buena Room: the approach to signage which could be a little more enhanced, and you know the actual connection, safety, and so on, is, is

Yerba Buena Room: is looking good, Tom, what do you think you think I should talk?

Yerba Buena Room: Only if you

Yerba Buena Room: sorry I jumped in and I missed. I always get lost. Sorry, Tom. Feel like I’ve already gone on too long.

Yerba Buena Room: I just have really simple comments. Can we go back to the plan?

Yerba Buena Room: The the parkland?

Yerba Buena Room: Yep, so.

Yerba Buena Room: I feel like within the con context of this application. And what this applicant can do and can’t do, they’ve done what they can do, and I totally agree with everything that is being recognized and understood about how to make it better alone.

Yerba Buena Room: embarcadero. But this can only do certain things, and so I really feel like

Yerba Buena Room: we shouldn’t, you know, stand in the way of this any further on the issue of the design of the bay trail. I think these have been really been smoothed out to make the approach

Yerba Buena Room: work better, and both there at the 4 and 3, but also at 8. Hairpin is gone, and I also feel that? Does it matter

Yerba Buena Room: whether the little lagoon silts up or not? It’ll be something positive, and sea level rise will do its thing, and it’s going to migrate, and in whatever way it needs to, but it will continue to be a natural resource with a dynamic nature to it that’s influenced by

Yerba Buena Room: seawater, and and habitat, so forth. So I just

Yerba Buena Room: I don’t have anything to say except that I just support what we got here. Yes.

Yerba Buena Room: Tom, I’m glad you brought that up because I think the response, the applicants response to the bay trail alignment and the geometry is really good. It looks great. So, and one last thing that what everybody was saying about about

Yerba Buena Room: this applicant is important, I think, because, you don’t know what’s going to happen with regard to parcel M. Or the thing next door. But I think it’s it’s proven that there’s a trustworthy player

Yerba Buena Room: at work here. You don’t have to worry. There’s something.

Yerba Buena Room: Bizarro. Things gonna happen, I think. And that’s the benefit of the whatever does happen in the future, they’re responsible. But yeah, that’s it. Yeah.

Yerba Buena Room: Great. Okay? Well, I think that concludes our comments.

Yerba Buena Room: Does the project team want to say anything at this point?

Yerba Buena Room: But

Yerba Buena Room: well, thank you for your comments. I think we had some direction that we can respond to. And we’re looking forward to moving this project forward.

Yerba Buena Room: I think just I don’t want to draw this out

Yerba Buena Room: too far, but I think a couple of comments that really stand out for me from the board, and I think are generally supported, is, you know, we really want to see this project happen. The design is very good. It’s an appropriate, I mean, I’m actually really excited to see a design with this intention to, you know, produce a very natural area in this

Yerba Buena Room: part of Oakland. I think it’ll be an incredible draw for people

Yerba Buena Room: so great job on the design.

Yerba Buena Room: I think, the other comment that Kristen made. You know we are really

Yerba Buena Room: enthusiastic to see housing go ahead in the in the bay. So. You know. I hope. Parcel M. Moves ahead quickly as well. And

Yerba Buena Room: I think that’s it. I won’t reiterate the other comments that have been made all worthwhile. But

Yerba Buena Room: I just want to ask the Board whether you would like to.

Yerba Buena Room: with. Just let the project move ahead with the staff and the proponent working together from now on.

Yerba Buena Room: Great, that’s I’m hearing a yes from everybody. So

Yerba Buena Room: that’s good. Okay? Well, I think with that we move to the briefing of the San Francisco Baywater Trail Project.

Yerba Buena Room: So that concludes that for all of you.

Yerba Buena Room: thank you very much. Yeah. Yep.

Yerba Buena Room: Give us a second to transition here.

Yerba Buena Room: There’s something.

Yerba Buena Room: Okay.

Yerba Buena Room: Okay. I shall wait.

Yerba Buena Room: Little rare room and a half like you doing.

Yerba Buena Room: It’s okay. So we’re reconvening here

Yerba Buena Room: for a briefing of the San Francisco Water Trail program, which is agenda. Item 6.

Yerba Buena Room: And just to remind you of how this will go, the Bcdc. Staff presentation will occur. 1st

Yerba Buena Room: we’ll have board clarifying questions to the staff public comment

Yerba Buena Room: from folks, and then that will be it. So, I think. With that, let’s I’ll ask Yuri to introduce the project.

Yerba Buena Room: Thank you. Okay.

Yerba Buena Room: Good evening. Chair. Mccannan. Members of the Design Review Board. My name is Yuri Jewett, the associate.

Yerba Buena Room: Oh, hold on. Okay, the Associate Bay Design analyst here at Bcdc. And tonight I am joined by Shalini Kanan from the State Coastal Conservancy, and she and I are going to tell you all about the San Francisco Bay Water Trail program.

Yerba Buena Room: So our roadmap for this evening is I’m going to kick it off and go over some of the basics of a water trail, and then we’re going to do a deep dive into the planning process that went into creating the program. And then I’m going to pass it on to Shalini, who will speak more about implementation and give you a peek of our new signage program and next steps.

Yerba Buena Room: So water trails are not exactly a new idea. There are many of them all throughout the United States, and have proven to be an important vehicle for promoting water, oriented recreation for citizens of all economic means. Water trails can inform the public about natural, cultural and historic features and foster public stewardship of these resources, and they can aid urban renewal in industrial waterfronts as you’ve seen today.

Yerba Buena Room: And so wait a minute.

Yerba Buena Room: Something happened.

Yerba Buena Room: Okay? Sorry. But

Yerba Buena Room: but let’s focus on the San Francisco Bay and our water trail, which is a network of launching and landing sites around the 9 County Bay area and not for non-motorized small boats.

Yerba Buena Room: These little red dots represent both existing as well as planned water trail sites, and, to be clear, there’s no actual trail in the water. I like to kind of think of it as sort of a free form. Nonlinear. Choose your own adventure kind of trail. You can use these launch sites to follow along the shoreline, or cross across the or cross over to the other side of the bay. I mean, it’s completely up to you, but the key is that it allows you

Yerba Buena Room: access and enjoy one of the largest open spaces that we have, which is the bay itself.

Yerba Buena Room: So you heard me mention the term non-motorized small boats, which is exactly what it sounds like. It’s a human powered or wind powered vessel, and is a key part of what makes a water trail site. Non-motorized small boats basically means kayaks stand up paddle boards, dragon boards, kiteboards. All the watercrafts you basically see here on this slide fall into that non-motorized small boat category.

Yerba Buena Room: So I just want to recognize that it’s been a while since the water trail has come to the board, and I thought. We take a sort of Bcdc’s deep involvement during the early days in the creation of the water trail. And I want to highlight that one thing that makes our water trail so special is that it was born out of community advocacy. A small group of citizens called Bay Access, Inc. Voiced the need for more access to the bay and partnered with Senator Lonnie Hancock to adopt Ab. 1296, the San Francisco Bay Water Trail act back in 2,005.

Yerba Buena Room: This legislation, then included in Bcdc’s and State Coastal Conservancy laws, but it specifically outlined that Bcdc. Would lead the charge to create a steering committee and develop the water trail plan, which is sort of serves as our North star to guide the Coastal Conservancy’s implementation of the program.

Yerba Buena Room: This is the Bcdc. Part of the story. As we really held a lot of public meetings, workshops, we wrote many, many white papers to explore and analyze how to provide this network of unique public access in the bay. All of this effort then, led to the certification of the programmatic Environmental impact report and the final water trail plan known as the Enhanced Water Trail Plan, which is still in place today to guide the implementation of the program.

Yerba Buena Room: So again, the law was passed in 2,005, and finally, through all of this planning effort here at Bcdc. Coastal Conservancy, Mtcabag, and the Department of Boating Waterways, and of course, the public.

Yerba Buena Room: the 1st water trail site was designated into the program in 2012 at, can anyone guess the 1st designated site? Just curious. No, okay.

Yerba Buena Room: thought I tried. It was at Tidewater Boat Center, in East Oakland, which is a really great, great, great spot I highly recommend for you guys to check it out. It is part of the East Bay Regional Park system. And today this is still a very popular site launch, and that supports a diverse population in East Oakland. So really recommend that you guys go check that one out.

Yerba Buena Room: But there’s actually more

Yerba Buena Room: So let’s see. Again, my notes are crazy.

Yerba Buena Room: Okay.

Yerba Buena Room: I’m missing one. Okay? So so as we continue to implement the program, there were sort of other guiding documents that we relied on. One of them was the Water Trail accessibility, accessibility plan that we adopted in 2015 or sorry. The Coastal Commission created in 2015 the lovely Ashley Tomlin worked on that document. It’s lovely. Recommend that you look at it. And then, after the accessibility plan, we also developed some design guidelines. And basically the accessibility

Yerba Buena Room: plan and the design guide sort of work together to really sort of help shape what these launch sites look like. I mean, as designers. You know that landslide improvements are really important, right? I mean, you can’t just design a launch in the water. It’s like, is it an urban location?

Yerba Buena Room: You know, like restrooms parking all the things that we think about are sort of in that design guidelines document. And that’s something that Ashley and I use to review when we, as applications come to us. So I do want to mention that. And then, lastly, of course, there’s a regional shoreline adaptation plan that was just adopted by the Commission in 2024, and the water trail is actually contemplated as being sort of a asset, like a part of the public act.

Yerba Buena Room: Public access program for the sub regional plans, and the water trail is mentioned as a possible asset. So something at the very early planning stage to consider the water trail as part of your design is starting to be sort of contemplated, and that’s a lovely thing.

Yerba Buena Room: So I’m just going to end here and just say, you know of all this planning a lot of times when you do a planning presentation, you start with the vision at the beginning, and I just kind of wanted to put it at the end. Because what’s really interesting is that this started in 2,005. And here we are 20 years later, and this vision hasn’t changed at all. It’s really strong. So

Yerba Buena Room: you know, to preserve and strategically enhance access. I mean, we really want to respect the bay as an open space, and, you know, including all the wildlife and habitat and all the creatures that live here, plan for future growth, to explore ways, to increase water. Oriented recreation is part of our changing shoreline, and as our notes, you know, it is going to change. And so we want to be a part of that

Yerba Buena Room: promote safety and environmental education. Spreading the word about the water trail as best we can. Shalini is actually going to touch up touch upon a new signage program. So learn more about that. And then, lastly, increase funding to create opportunities for all the program has a core mission to support inclusive design and continues to find creative ways to fund that work. So, and that’s when I’m going to pass it on appropriately to Shalini, who’s going to talk about implementation of the water trail and funding.

Yerba Buena Room: Hi, everyone. So

Yerba Buena Room: the water trail program gets implemented in 3 key pathways. We have planning and partnerships, facilities and grants and outreach and education.

Yerba Buena Room: This program crosses the 9 counties of the Bay area, and it’s fully voluntary. So it requires really good partnerships with a lot of different stakeholders that have been cultivated over multiple years by the project management team.

Yerba Buena Room: Me and Yuri haven’t been on it the entire time, but we build on the trust established by the earlier project management team members. And this is actually like a key challenge and important feature of the water trail. There’s a lot of staffing changes at our agencies, as well as all of the partner agencies that manage the sites. But having everybody on board and in the loop is so essential for the program success.

Yerba Buena Room: This is our organization model. We have the project management team made up of 3 agencies, the State Coastal Conservancy, Bcdc. And San Francisco estuary partnership, which is a part of Abag or Mtc.

Yerba Buena Room: And our small core group meets regularly and really moves forward the water trail. We plan implementation meetings that are public meetings held by annually right now, and at those meetings we invite in our advisory committee and stakeholder group.

Yerba Buena Room: They really provide a lot of guidance on trailhead designation and other implementation issues. And when we want to designate a trailhead.

Yerba Buena Room: the Advisory Committee is the voting members that will

Yerba Buena Room: vote to designate a site.

Yerba Buena Room: And lastly, we have the site managers like I mentioned. It’s a voluntary distributed

Yerba Buena Room: management of the site. So various site managers operate the sites according to their own standards, and are part of our part of the network.

Yerba Buena Room: To make the water trail happen.

Yerba Buena Room: The process of site designation is how we adopt the launch or landing into our network. And this map here is what you’ll find on our website with all those points marking the designated sites. And this is a little bit about what that process is like. First, st the site owner or manager expresses interest in the designation of a launch site.

Yerba Buena Room: and then the Water Trail Water Trial Staff. That’s us assemble a Site description report.

Yerba Buena Room: And this report will have information on location, photos and maps, ownership and management information, information on what type of launch it is. Description of the facilities and accessibility for people with disabilities, proximity to other water trail sites as well as wildlife and habitat considerations and safety information.

Yerba Buena Room: We’ll review and discuss these at our implementation meetings with the advisory committee, and then folks discuss and vote

Yerba Buena Room: for a conditional designation that might have conditions like minor site improvements, or adding in putting in the signage that marks that it’s a water trail site. And then, once those conditions are met, they’re finally designated.

Yerba Buena Room: and of course, the designation benefits the water trail. But what’s in it for the sites? One key thing is that being part of the water trail network allows them to be eligible for our grants.

Yerba Buena Room: I’ll go into grants a little bit more later. We also provide educational and wayfinding signage and include sites on our website maps and outreach materials, so that more people from the Bay Area’s public and beyond know about these sites and come to use them. So really helps with usership.

Yerba Buena Room: Next, I’ll go into facilities and grants

Yerba Buena Room: the second pathway of program implementation. So we give grants for launches and landings that will become designated sites, or that already are designated sites.

Yerba Buena Room: and by providing funding we can encourage implementation of facilities that contribute to the goals of our network. So we want to make sure they are accessible to a variety of people, and for a variety of types of uses like different water sports require different amenities. We also want to have different habitat types like more urban settings as well as more natural wetland settings.

Yerba Buena Room: and we also have a goal of having overnight options approximately every 8 miles, so that people can plan multi-day trips. That’s something that we could definitely keep working on

Yerba Buena Room: and our team also provides technical assistance and guidance to help site designers plan their

Yerba Buena Room: plan, their water trail site. And we really use those documents that Yuri mentioned, like the accessibility guidelines and the site design guidelines.

Yerba Buena Room: And

Yerba Buena Room: at the bottom of this slide on the left you’ll see an example of an improvement that was funded with a water trail. Grant.

Yerba Buena Room: Just really, briefly, I’ll touch on some of the grants we give. The State Coastal Conservancy gives grants on a rolling basis. You can reach out to me. If you want to talk about that.

Yerba Buena Room: My info is here and will be on the last slide as well, and the Conservancy has a strategic plan goal around the water trail because it’s a regional trail, and so funding improvements to the water trail is a priority of ours, though

Yerba Buena Room: what we can fund always depends on the fund sources that are authorized to us by the legislature. So right now we have funding from proposition. 4. So that’s the climate bond and tie-ins to climate resilience projects make projects more competitive. So when a launcher landing is part of a broader climate, resilience

Yerba Buena Room: project or plan that’ll make it more competitive.

Yerba Buena Room: And then Sfvp

Yerba Buena Room: under a bag or Mtc. Has the priority conservation area grant program and the water trail is a designated priority conservation area in the Bay area. And that means it’s that any water trail projects are eligible for funding under this grant program, and they have a grant round every year that will open up in Fall 2025, and our colleague Ben, who’s the other representative on the project management team from Sfep. He leads that grant program. So his contact info is here, too.

Yerba Buena Room: We also like to share any grant opportunities we know of that are not led by our own agencies. So this is one that can fund water trail types of improvements from the California Department Division of boating and waterways for non-motorized boat launching facilities. And here’s just some more information on the grant. But I won’t go into it.

Yerba Buena Room: The 3rd component of the water trails. Successful implementation is education and outreach, and

Yerba Buena Room: the water trail really provides access to the bay, which is our largest open space, and a goal of ours is really for more people to know about and to access the bay.

Yerba Buena Room: Our biggest resource for the public is our website, sfawatertrail.org. A lot of people find this as they Google for

Yerba Buena Room: kayak or paddle board information in the bay. And we have a great map here that there was a picture of on an earlier slide. There’s also information on each of the trailheads. If you click on the point on the map, you can learn a lot of details on what each site entails safety information, things to look out for details on, like parking accessibility. How far you have to go from the parking lot. If there’s bathrooms, other facilities, etc.

Yerba Buena Room: We also have information on trip ideas and lists of local boating clubs and outfitters where you can rent

Yerba Buena Room: gear or go on tours.

Yerba Buena Room: Yuri foreshadowed to this before. But this past year a big effort of ours has been refreshing our signage program.

Yerba Buena Room: Every water trail site has an interpretive sign as well as a wayfinding sign. And this is also a key form of outreach, as a lot of people might only hear from the water trail by seeing this sign and then wondering what is that and looking it up.

Yerba Buena Room: So this is this plays a key role in spreading the word about the water trail signage is also required by our Eir as a mitigation measure to offset potential impacts related to safety and wildlife disturbances. So we provide information on safety and wildlife disturbances on the signage.

Yerba Buena Room: And this is the new signage. On the left is the wayfinding sign. We’ve inverted the colors. So it’s a little more bold. We worked with the consultant team. That did a great job, we think.

Yerba Buena Room: And here’s an example of the interpretive panel.

Yerba Buena Room: So on the last version that you may have seen out and about in the bay. There wasn’t as much site specific information. So we wanted to bring that in. In this version each sign will have some site specific information as

Yerba Buena Room: highlighted in that light blue section with those

Yerba Buena Room: orange icons to draw attention to some safety features or safety information for each site.

Yerba Buena Room: And at the top we have a QR code as well. That links to our water trail website where there is all that information that can help people as they plan their trips.

Yerba Buena Room: And then at the bottom, we really refresh this section. The wildlife disturbance used to have like a picture of every single type of species, and the distance you should be from them. But we realized that that was not very helpful for the public, because it’s really hard to remember what it says when you’re actually out on the water. So we

Yerba Buena Room: had a great intern who helped us figure out better, better messaging for wildlife disturbance. Where, like, we have these cute seals. And it’s a very simple message that if the wildlife’s reacting to you, you are too close.

Yerba Buena Room: So this is our new signage that will be going out to our site managers later this year. So look out for that.

Yerba Buena Room: Another way we do. Outreach is through media. So here’s just some recent examples of media coverage of the water trail. Just yesterday we had a short feature aired on Nbc’s open road. There’s just a few minute segment on the water trail where they interviewed me, which is exciting. You can also find it on their website.

Yerba Buena Room: Bay Nature Magazine and website wrote an article about Pacheco Marsh, which is a recently opened

Yerba Buena Room: new restoration site with a great kayak lunch.

Yerba Buena Room: And this one’s really exciting. 2 paddlers from Point Reyes Adventure Company. Liz Wilhelm and Dallas Smith, earlier this year, completed what we think is the 1st ever circumnavigation of the bay by Kayak. They paddled 225 miles about 20 miles a day, and we met with them before and after their trip to help them

Yerba Buena Room: navigate the water trail, though they definitely brought a lot more expertise of actually being on the water than we could ever have, and they did a great job raising awareness of the water trail. It got picked up by several media outlets, and

Yerba Buena Room: they were a great example of the the great potential of the water trail. They got really creative about overnight accommodation, sometimes like reaching out to Marinas and sleeping in their storage room. So not everyone can do that. But it is

Yerba Buena Room: the ultimate vision that more people can do these overnight trips and plan like a broader, bigger adventure on the water trail. So they were inspiring for sure.

Yerba Buena Room: The last thing about outreach that we like to do is presentations and tabling. This is a presentation we’d love to do more tabling, though we’re often limited by capacity. But in the past we have tabled at Bay day.

Yerba Buena Room: film festivals, other festivals, and talk to clubs and organizations.

Yerba Buena Room: So those were the 3 ways we implement the water trail, and that’s all for our presentation. If you want to contact me, Yuri or our colleague Ben at Sfp, we’re the Pmt. And happy to talk more, and also happy to take questions now, or discussion.

Yerba Buena Room: Well, thank you, Shalini and and Yuri and look, I just want to start off by saying

Yerba Buena Room: how exciting it is to hear a briefing like this. I mean, this is

Yerba Buena Room: a really important program. You know, a lot of the time we are talking about the Bay trail landslide. But we have so many projects where water access is part of the

Yerba Buena Room: proposal, and I just want to applaud you and

Yerba Buena Room: your team and everyone behind you and over the years for getting the program to where it is today

Yerba Buena Room: I have a question. The

Yerba Buena Room: and I know I could look on the map and probably do this. But you said 2,005 was, you know, when the

Yerba Buena Room: the water trail idea, if you like, started to coalesce. And

Yerba Buena Room: so how many trailheads or how many points are around the bay today? 20 years later.

Yerba Buena Room: I want to say, there’s 52 designated sites. Yeah. So it’s actually one of the big things about the water trails like, within the 20 year from the idea to I think it was 2022 was the last time we designated a site. So how we? And then so the water trail plan was adopted in 2011, and then the and then 2022 was the last. It was like 10 years. We just

Yerba Buena Room: plowed full speed ahead and got over 50 sites to be designated. Yeah, no, it’s fantastic. And I really just congratulate you guys, because I love the fact that it’s a sort of an organic grassroots, you know, multiple stakeholder

Yerba Buena Room: stakeholders that you, you know, communicate with plus the 3 agencies I mean. I think that’s

Yerba Buena Room: I think that’s government working at its best. To tell you the truth, you know, when you see a program like this.

Yerba Buena Room: you know, with such a impactful result on the bay. So I’m glad you’re getting media attention. I’m just gonna I’m just talking. But there are more questions, I’m sure. So, Bob, do you want to kick off?

Yerba Buena Room: Yeah, I I was wondering, do the

Yerba Buena Room: The landings have to accommodate all the different types, because I know. So there’s you know, kite boarders and windsurfers. And then there’s the kayakers, and

Yerba Buena Room: there may be a little different in in how they like to get in and out of the water and

Yerba Buena Room: there may be some conflicts between the different groups depending on.

Yerba Buena Room: You know what type of location it is? So. But and so that was one question. And then I mean, I’ll follow on, that is, would you fund

Yerba Buena Room: water access? That is more specific to

Yerba Buena Room: kind of kite borders and sail borders that are kind of a little more serious, you know, like intense about what they do.

Yerba Buena Room: to answer your 1st question. Not every site has to accommodate every type of use. We want to have a variety of uses around the bay. And

Yerba Buena Room: yeah, it just depends on what the site presents possibilities for, like we don’t want to exclude uses that would be possible, like, I think that like to maximize the types of uses, but also understand that uses can be conflicting. So yeah, we would fund

Yerba Buena Room: projects that have limited uses in terms of like more expert

Yerba Buena Room: users. I think it would be very situational.

Yerba Buena Room: Yeah, I just mentioned that because sometimes they get really excited about the high winds, and of course they’re probably in the water when

Yerba Buena Room: kayakers might not want to be necessarily in the water when the wind’s blowing really strong and stuff like that. So maybe it’s not as much of a con. I’m not a

Yerba Buena Room: I’m a regular surfer. I don’t do that other stuff, but I know that there are people that do, and they’re they’re looking for more access to the water.

Yerba Buena Room: That’s for sure.

Yerba Buena Room: There was a project a couple of years ago that came to you 4 10 airport, which was one of the Brit projects. It was another one where they were carving out part of an inlet, but it was both a site that was supporting kiteboarding and kayaking, and that was exactly what they found was there wouldn’t be the same user conflict because those 2 user groups were using it at different conditions. Yeah.

Yerba Buena Room: that makes sense. I just wanted to add, sort of at a high level. You know, a lot of times the water trail site is contemplated as part of a much larger project, with many other recreation, you know, amenities and things happening. So that’s where

Yerba Buena Room: the design guidelines come in quite handy, and to address what you were just saying. You know the variety of users, and

Yerba Buena Room: you know what happens. There is oftentimes already sort of driven by the project itself when it comes to us to be Cdc, so think about that, too. But yeah, that. And we like that diversity in the bay and the accessibility plan that we worked on to does sort of address, like sort of Geo regions throughout the bay, and making sure that in what in each Geo. Region there is at least like maybe an accessible kayak launch in each region. So there is sort of connectivity

Yerba Buena Room: for that one user that wants to network, you know, throughout the using that one, whatever vessel it is that they choose. So we try to also. Balance that as well like looking at the system as a whole.

Yerba Buena Room: Thanks. Appreciate it.

Yerba Buena Room: Thank you very much for this

Yerba Buena Room: information. I agree with everybody. It’s really exciting.

Yerba Buena Room: I have a question about advocacy, and how you’ve worked with

Yerba Buena Room: particularly sort of private property owners in encouraging them to

Yerba Buena Room: open up to these types of water uses if the setting is appropriate. And if there’s been any sort of examples that you can just

Yerba Buena Room: recall.

Yerba Buena Room: Well, recently, you guys reviewed Wind River, and that was a life science project in Alameda, and we were really hopeful to get a water trail site and with the Design Review Board’s comments, we were able to actually get a launch there.

Yerba Buena Room: So and another thing with a lot of the private development that’s happening throughout the bay. I would say that there is a lot of interest in water taxis and sort of kind of a Co. Like a partnership between like a water taxi, and then we can say, Hey, how about a public doc, too, you know. So we’ve been trying to do that as well. Ashley might have a couple other examples

Yerba Buena Room: following that model Alameda landing

Yerba Buena Room: where they have the new Woodstock boat, and then the kayak, the yellow. Yeah, yeah, Woodstock

Yerba Buena Room: And then the kayak dock is a low, free board that’s on the backside. So it’s actually still protected a little bit more from the wave action. Also Loch Lomond, Marina in San Rafael. Don’t believe you’ve seen that, maybe in decades, but that’s a Marina in San Rafael that has a couple of different

Yerba Buena Room: approaches for launches, so they have a low freeboard dock and also a boat ramp to accommodate.

Yerba Buena Room: there’s a number of marinas, but I think the large portion of water trail sites are public entities like East Bay. Regional parks district is a big partner.

Yerba Buena Room: They tend to be parks often. Yeah, recreation already.

Yerba Buena Room: But we do to answer your question. Yes, we love to talk to our private folks and and see what kind of access we can get.

Yerba Buena Room: Yeah, I have one more question. Do do you?

Yerba Buena Room: just sort of understand that you’ve been really involved with this now for a long time? Are there

Yerba Buena Room: opportunities for opening public water access in the San Francisco Bay that you are feeling

Yerba Buena Room: really strongly about? Or sort of? Are there key opportunities that

Yerba Buena Room: are useful to sort of opine on.

Yerba Buena Room: I don’t know that we’ll give you any specific sites, but we have been hearing more from open water swimmers about increased access for that use.

Yerba Buena Room: board. Sailors are also a vocal group. As we heard from the la at the last review, like they are particularly impacted with closure or increased intensity of use at like the limited number of launches they have available to them that meet their conditions for wind and waves that they find desirable for their own

Yerba Buena Room: level of expertise. See you.

Yerba Buena Room: Kristen.

Yerba Buena Room: thank you so much. It is very. I didn’t realize that. This has been something that you all had been working on for such a long time.

Yerba Buena Room: and it makes sense. I am a user of many of these sites, because I paddle and I’ve started outrigger canoeing. And it’s just it’s really amazing to see the thoughtfulness that’s gone into creating what I sort of enjoyed without realizing how much thoughtfulness had gone into it. So thank you so much. I my question that I had was about

Yerba Buena Room: clubs and sort of boat storage. And I you’re mentioning the kind of desire, for you know we know that the wing, foiling and other sports are kind of like growing. And I just. You know, I noticed that there’s a lot of development pressures and a lot of areas that have kind of always been

Yerba Buena Room: boat storage yards and things like that. And if you coordinate with clubs to think about

Yerba Buena Room: you know those kind of longer term, larger boat storage facilities that might not be as public facing, but are definitely important for the kind of more frequent intense users of these areas.

Yerba Buena Room: That’s a great question. And I will say that you know. Recently the Commission adopted India Basin Shoreline Park. So a lot of times for these sites.

Yerba Buena Room: the operator hasn’t been identified yet, and so it’s an opportunity to sort of reach out to some of those organizations to see if they’re, you know, wanting to use. I know India Basin is actually for rent. They’re looking for people. A lot of. Also a lot of those book clubs are just long standing. There’s a lot of history there. They’ve been at the same site for a long time and again the advocacy is so important with the water trail, and we listen. So

Yerba Buena Room: you know, if there is an opportunity, it’s a 1 good point is that, or in the past, as Charlie mentioned with these sort of smaller capital improvement projects, you know, the water trail was really good about doing funding smaller like. I mentioned the big projects, but the little ones. The water trail program at 1 point was really good about helping funding those small types of improvements. So a club, for example, that maybe just wanted to do some enhancement

Yerba Buena Room: to a launch, you know, instead of a part of a large project could come to us if they were designated, and then also, just maybe a reminder that there’s hundreds of launches all throughout the bay, I mean. In a way, it’s like we only have 52 that are designated, you know, like there’s so many, there’s so much more so. That’s kind of part of the education and outreach is to get the word out that we exist, and people can come to us and get designated and like hopefully, further whatever club or you know program that they’re trying to promote on the shoreline, we can make it happen, you know. So yeah.

Yerba Buena Room: thank you. I look forward to looking at this, because I’m always trying to get my friends to come with me, and if there’s some amenities that I could entice them with, I’m gonna map out a little route where we can stop along the way and get some bites and some drinks and then

Yerba Buena Room: make it worth our while. Thank you.

Yerba Buena Room: Yeah. I’ve been witnessed in the growth this program where I live. There’s a fairy point

Yerba Buena Room: there’s a spot there, and then there’s quite elaborate, elaborate, very nicely designed

Yerba Buena Room: facility. The point, Isabel, for for getting your

Yerba Buena Room: mouse up in the air, you know.

Yerba Buena Room: and I hate to ask a question like this, but I worry. And this is where the way we’re living now is anything about your funding at risk?

Yerba Buena Room: Well, the State Coastal Conservancy is state funded. So we are okay, and we have bond funding for now. So we still have funds.

Yerba Buena Room: And

Yerba Buena Room: I think that Sfep’s funds are also not Federal. So they still are planning to have their grant round later this year.

Yerba Buena Room: wasn’t there? But there was a big shortfall this year. The State budget wasn’t there?

Yerba Buena Room: Yeah, we can never like, totally predict the State’s budget. But bond funds are secured

Yerba Buena Room: regardless. Are you allowed to have private sponsors, too?

Yerba Buena Room: We haven’t had any before, but I think we could potentially. But it’s not really something we’ve thought about or work towards.

Yerba Buena Room: Anyway, it’s great work, thank you.

Yerba Buena Room: So just to clarify the 51 you’ve got the 51 designated sites. But

Yerba Buena Room: you said there are hundreds of points around the bay. I mean, I’m just thinking about, you know, just not far from here, you know Crane Cove, for example, which has, you know, a very significant access point, I mean, how do

Yerba Buena Room: is that a designated place? Or it is, yeah, yeah, green Cove is designated. And we actually ran out of signs. Which was another reason why we wanted to get some new ones, I see. So that’s kind of part of it. And so, like a place like Pier 40 would be designated. You showed a slide there, because that’s a really great, you know, dads. And I mean, it’s a really great access point. So so the question I really have is.

Yerba Buena Room: do people reach out to you, or do you reach out to them, or is it both?

Yerba Buena Room: So the initial waterfront plan actually did contemplate a lot of these sites sort of as a possible. So sometimes, when we get like an application for development, Ashley and I will look at the waterfront or water trail plan and you know. See if there’s a match there? But yeah, that was a while ago, I mean, in a way, maybe we should update it. I mean, there’s but there are quite. There’s hundreds of sites that have been

Yerba Buena Room: identified in that plan. Yeah, I just think the more that can make it onto the website the better. I mean, if if they meet the criteria that you have, of course. Yeah, yeah.

Yerba Buena Room: Okay, well, thank you very much for that briefing. It’s very helpful. Is there any public comment?

Yerba Buena Room: Okay, no public comment. Okay, thank you.

Yerba Buena Room: Good. Well, I think that brings us to the meeting adjournment.

Yerba Buena Room: So I would like someone to pass someone to make a motion and a seconder to adjourn our meeting.

Yerba Buena Room: Look to adjourn.

Yerba Buena Room: Second, I second, thank you, Bob. Okay, the meeting is adjourned.

Yerba Buena Room: Has everybody voted to adjourn?

Yerba Buena Room: Hi, yes, okay. The meeting is now adjourned. Okay, thanks very much. Everyone appreciate the work tonight.