(a) An Office of Environmental Review is hereby created in the Planning Department, which shall be responsible, acting through the Director of Planning, for the administration of those actions in this Chapter 31 assigned to the Planning Department by Section 31.04.
(b) Said office shall be under the direction of an Environmental Review Officer, who shall supervise the staff members of the office and have charge of the collection of fees by the office. The Environmental Review Officer shall report to, and coordinate and consult with, the Director of Planning.
(c) In addition to the powers and duties conferred below, the Environmental Review Officer may, upon delegation by the Planning Commission as to specific projects, take testimony at supplemental public hearings on draft environmental impact reports, in addition to, and not in lieu of, the hearing held by the Planning Commission as set forth in section 31.14 of this Chapter, and shall report to, and make all such testimony available to, the Planning Commission at a public hearing.
(d) The Environmental Review Officer shall also take such measures, within his or her powers, as may be necessary to assure compliance with this Chapter 31 by persons, and officials, boards, commissions, departments or agencies outside the Planning Department, and shall periodically review the effectiveness and workability of the provisions of this Chapter 31 and recommend any refinements or changes that he or she may deem appropriate for improvement of such provisions.
(e) All projects shall be referred to the Environmental Review Officer except those exempt projects covered by a delegation agreement with the Environmental Review Officer as provided for in Section 31.08(d) of this Chapter. All other officials, boards, commissions, departments, bureaus and offices of the City shall cooperate with the Environmental Review Officer in the exercise of his/her responsibilities, and shall supply necessary information, consultations and comments.
(f) The Environmental Review Officer shall be responsible for assuring that the City is carrying out its responsibilities set forth in CEQA. In addition, when the City is to carry out or approve a project and some other public agency is the "lead agency," as defined by CEQA, and where projects are to be carried out or approved by the State and Federal governments, the Environmental Review Officer shall provide consultation and comments for the City to the other government agencies when appropriate.
(g) To the extent feasible, the Environmental Review Officer shall combine the evaluation of projects, preparation of environmental impact reports and conduct of hearings with other planning processes; and shall coordinate environmental review with the Capital Improvement Program, the San Francisco General Plan and the San Francisco Planning Code.
(h) Adoption and/or revision of administrative regulations to implement CEQA shall be by resolution of the Planning Commission after a public hearing. The Environmental Review Officer may adopt necessary forms, checklists and processing guidelines to implement CEQA and this Chapter 31 without a public hearing.
(i) Upon prior authorization by the Planning Commission, the Environmental Review Officer may attend hearings and testify on matters related to CEQA before governmental organizations and agencies other than governmental agencies of the City and County of San Francisco and may advocate on behalf of the City on matters related to CEQA.
(j) The Environmental Review Officer may provide information to other governmental or environmental organizations and members of the public.
(k) The Environmental Review Officer may delegate his or her responsibilities to an employee of the Office of Environmental Review. All references herein to the Environmental Review Officer shall be deemed to include the Environmental Review Officer's delegate.
(l) The Environmental Review Officer shall process applications for environmental review in accordance with the requirements for equal treatment of permit applicants, unless there is a written finding of a public policy basis for not doing so, as set forth in Campaign and Governmental Conduct Code Section 3.400 and the written guidelines adopted by the Planning Department as required by Section 3.400. For purposes of Section 3.400, this Section of Chapter 31 and any corresponding written guidelines of the Planning Department, the Board finds that expediting environmental review out of order, on a priority basis for the purpose of expediting permit processing shall qualify as a public policy basis for projects consisting of: (1) publicly funded affordable housing projects that provide new affordable housing in 100 percent of the on-site dwelling units (where such units are rented or sold at the economic levels defined in Planning Code Section 415); and (2) bicycle and pedestrian projects that are designed primarily to address public safety issues. When an application for environmental review for any project within one of the categories listed above is submitted to the Planning Department, the Environmental Review Officer shall, throughout all stages of the environmental review process, give precedence to all submittals associated with such project over other projects. The Planning Department also shall provide a written preliminary assessment of the eligibility of such projects for an exemption within 60 days of submittal of a complete Preliminary Project Assessment or equivalent application to the Planning Department. As part of the assessment, the Planning Department shall identify as feasible, based on the content of the submittal, the issues that may affect the type and schedule of the environmental review and the process for analysis of such issues.
(m) The Environmental Review Officer shall prepare an annual report to the Planning Commission and the Board of Supervisors on all appeals filed under any of the appeal provisions of this Chapter 31. The first annual report shall be filed approximately one year after the effective date of this provision of Chapter 31.
(Former Sec. 31.05 amended by Ord. 166-74, App. 4/11/74; repealed by Ord. 40-01, File No. 001007, App. 3/16/2001)
Editor's Note regarding Operative Date of Ord. 161-13:
Ordinance 161-13 amends sections of this Article, as shown in the history notes above. Section 6 of that ordinance provides as follows:
Operative Date. This ordinance shall become operative on the later date of September 1, 2013, or five business days after the Secretary of the Planning Commission provides a memorandum to the Clerk of the Board of Supervisors advising that the Planning Commission has held a public hearing at which the Planning Department has demonstrated to the Planning Commission that it has updated its website to provide up-to-date information to the public about each CEQA exemption determination in a format searchable by location, such as through the "Active Permits In My Neighborhood" tool now used by the Planning Department and the Building Department.
At the direction of the Office of the City Attorney, the publisher incorporated the amendments made by Ord. 161-13 into this Code on September 25, 2013.