>> this is the regular meeting of the planning commission, november 4th, 2010, i would like to remind all of you to turn off your pagers, cell phones, any electronic devices that may sound off during the proceedings. i would like to remind you when you speak before the commission, speak directly into the microphone 3-6 inches away. state and spell your last name for the record. it's also very important if you feel the need to engage in a secondary discussion that you fake those discussions outside as they become extremely disruptive to the process, thank you. roll call -- [ roll call ]

clerk: commissioner borden is absent today. the first item on your calendar, items for continuance, item 1, 2010.0716c, for 1556 stockton street. your printed calendar shows continuance 9/11 december 9, 2010. commissioners, let me just rewe mind you, we are working offsite to address park mer said. it is recommended that we have park mer said on that calendar and you might want to continue this item a different date. with that commissioners, let me also announce to you, item is 2 on today's calendar, case number 2010.68b, the dr has been

withdrawn, this matter is no longer before you for consideration. item 14, case 2009-08d for 35 ma lin that boulevard, the dr has also been withdrawn. and it is no longer before you. with that, i am not aware of any other item on calendar proposed for continuance or that has been withdrawn. president miguel: any public comment? commissioner? vice president olague: , i would like to move item 2 to december 16th. clerk: commissioners, staff has just reminded me that item 13 on

your call len dear, 2010-0802d for 2774 to 2776filbert street, staff is requesting this continuance, there are some project technicalities they need to address and they would like to continue this until the last hearing in december, which would be december 16th. david lindsey is here to address any questions you might have regarding that continuance. vice president olague: , so, yeah, both to that item, and item 13th, to december 16th. clerk: correct. vice president olague: the stock top item to the 16th and the filbert street to the 16th. that's my motion. is there a second?

president miguel: commissioner antonini? commissioner antonini: i had a couple of questions. for the benefit of the public, what is the basis, what is the problem with the project on filbert today. >> david lindsey from department staff, we discovered late today, or late this morning, that the project at 2774-76filbert street doesn't comply with the rear yard planning code. staff erred in its application of that part of the code and we must have that revised before we can bring it back to you. commissioner antonini: so you couldn't grant a variance if approves, the procedure has to be different? >> yes. commissioner antonini: one follow-up comment or question, on this idea to have an offsite hearing, i thought we were thinking about it. i didn't know we were really moving forward on it. i guess if it's the consensus of the other commissioners, i would tend to speak against that, even

though i could virtually walk to it, i am sure i could walk to it from where i lived. but that's not the point. we have beautiful chambers here and if we begin doing that for too many projects, it's not a good policy. people were here, were accessible, we have all the equipment we need and we will accommodate the public if they have problems. but if that's what's been decided, i will be there. >> in that case mr. lindsey with respect to filbert street, we would be expecting new materials to come to us? >> there would be a revised plan which would be reduction in the project. >> it's just for storage reasons, whether we should keep these or not. >> i would say you can keep the bulk of them, but maybe get rid of the plans.

clerk: commissioners, the motion is for continuance of item 1, from 1556 tock southern, and for item 13, 2774-2776filbert to december 16th. on that motion -- [ roll call ] clerk: thank you. those items have been continued as we have indicated. commissioners, the next category is consent calendar, consisting of one item, item 2. it is considered to be routine and would be acted on by a simple roll call of the commission. there would be no discussion of this item unless a member of the commission, the public or staff so requests. in that event the matter would be removed from consent calendar and considered at a separate

item at this or future hearing. item 2, case 2009.0770c, for 678portola drive, a question for conditional use authorization to establish a new wireless telecommunication services facility by replacing three omni antennas with nine panel antennas, to be mounted and concealed within a church steeple as part of the at&t wireless telecommunications network. following any public comment, which, again, would remove this from the consent calendar, this item is in your hands. president miguel: any public comment on the item? if not, public comment is closed, vice president olague? vice president olague: move to

approve. >> second. clerk: commissioners -- [ roll call ] clerk: thank you commissioners. that item has been approved. commissioners are there any commission matters? >> rather than comment earlier, i thought i would save it for here, as to the possibility of an offsite in december regarding park mer said, there was comment from commissioners here that was affirmative in that regard. i've spoken with a number of people from that area in organizations, as well as with the mayor's office of economic, and work force development. i am sure we will hear from later this afternoon as well on park mer said. and the concept is that doing

such a truthfully massive and extremely involved project on which we are going to -- and we will hear more in detail later this afternoon, a number of informational hearings, was the thought that those particular matters regarding the project that are of most interest to the residents, the tenants, and the general neighborhood, would best be heard there. and so i have, actually, been working with director rahaim and with the mayor's office, the economic work force development to determine which items would be heard there, which ones would

normally be heard here, any actual votes would be done here. i know it's an unusual situation. not that totally difficult to accomplish and we will get more details, as we go along. president miguel: commissioner moore? commissioner moore: , i support what you said. it's a very large community and we need to be out there doing what we do. i was extremely proud to hear national television label us as the most beautiful city in the country which we obviously all know. we all try to contribute to keeping it that way, but it was wonderful to hear. i want to commend the city on how well they organized the thing, that not a speck of anything, orange, black, or whatever, when you walk across the big plaza down the streets.

it's remarkable with so many present that they organized it as well as they d. it was fabulous to watch and i am happy the city was able to pull it off that well. on another note, i attended a meeting last night at the southeast community center, candlestick point state recreation area. the parks service presented the plan. it was a number of people that come here that showed up. what i was concerned about, and i am not speaking about the design and how it's being don, but there's a slight disconnect bringing the candlestick hunter point forward to open space connections. the design as presented last night does not seem to be fully on top of the knowledge and the breadth of what was done in that plan. i hope there will be a meeting of minds for those two groups

that come together and work out where the marches need to occur. the other thing i want to talk about is there are two items which were settled and off our calendar today, those are items 12 and 14. and i want to comment on the weakness and short comings of the drawings which accompanied both of these projects. i am continuously dismayed and have been for many years that we are not encouraging more consistent sets being submitted to us, relative to what is depicted and how it is depicted. i would probably call these two drawings remotely sophomoric. perhaps my first year of architecture school, that's about where this is. for this commission that is not consistent or appropriate to render the type of decisions we need to make and i want to help

and empower the department that generally we are raising the bar of what is being expected as a minimum for visual depiction in these applications. sometimes we see window sill details and foundation details which don't really matter. but what we really want to see is how does it fit the context of the neighborhood, to how does it meet the department's guidelines to determine them. three dimensional or whatever, but these sets are way short of what the department should be able to expect. just want to put that into the discussion and see if we can help, perhaps, develop a set of criteria to help the department. president miguel: commissioner antonini? commissioner antonini: and like all of us thrilled with the giants world series victory, particularly it happened on monday so we aren't sitting here biting our nails for the possible seventh game today.

i might have been there, but in any case, it was a thrill to walk up the same steps today that the giants walked down on the entrance to city hall and this does rekindle our image as a city which we used to be known as 80 years ago. that has fallen by the wayside recently, but the way it was handled yesterday, between the city, the giants, and the project sponsors, how well it was done. on a smaller stage, but also i think of equal importance, today was the first round of golf tournament out at harding park, which was the champions, and some of the names that my age is more familiar with, tom watson and fred couples are among the participants out there. it's the second major tournament in two years there will be another, and i would like to

acknowledge the former and present supervisor who were instrumental in refurbishing harding park and making it great for local golfers and world champions alike. i am optimistic we can do the same thing in the future with our other capitol assets, and improve them and bring them back to their former greatness. so a good step in the right direction, thank you. president miguel: commissioner sugaya? commissioner sugaya: i am going to wear former commissioner bill lee's hat for a moment. the traveler magazine has named san francisco the most favorite city for travel in the u.s., so -- and i just wanted to comment on commissioner moore's candlestick park. i am sure they are going to have a lot of time to come to a meeting of the minds given the state budget and the failure of

prop 21. clerk: commissioners if we can move forward to director's report. >> thank you, commissioners, i actually don't have any special announcements today so ill defer to ann marie for her report. >> good afternoon commissioners, ann marie rogers here to give you a report on the activities of the board of supervisors as they pertain to planning and land use. this week there were a couple of libraries that were up for landmark designation. the first, marina branch library, constructed in 1954 by appleton and woolford, and the hpc designation on october 7th 2009, and they recommended approval on june 16th of this year. north beach was constructed by the same architects, and the hpc

designation on october 7th of last year and they recommended aapproval of this one on september 1st. the hpc found both were eligible for individual landmarks, based on events related to the national exes spawnion of the public library system and to architecture specific to this moment. the hpc moved to recognize both as a landmark under article 10, and on monday, land use volted 3-0 to recommend approval for landmarking the marina branch, while voting 3-0, for the north beach library, both items should be heard next tuesday at the board hearing. also before land use committee, 222 second street. on august 12th, this commission recommended approval of both the zoning ordinance and the map and general plan

amendment. it would relass identify a portion of this parcel from 150s, to 350s and make conforming amendments to the general plan. this was proposed in conjunction with the 26-story, 350 foot office tower in the c30 office district. also before the land use committee was the health care service master plan which was an item the director spoke at. you heard this last week at which point you recommended six modifications, increasing the threshold, including a cost recovery mechanism for the updated plan, simplify the content of the plan, if possible making the department of public health the lead agency for specific determine theyions. you asked they consider regional health care needs and add

cross-references to help with the implementation of the ordinance. in response, at this week's land use hearing, supervisor campos, moved the plan through the normal budgetary process and also chained the questioned threshold. while he did not change the content, he did add a qualifier where possible to give flexibility to the plan's content. he reported that due to legal considerations, department of health could not be the lead agency for consistency determinations. he pointed out there was existing texts they would consider regional issues. he did commit to put in all the class references we requested. so this week the committee heard over and hour of testimony and decided to continue the proposed ordinance for at least two weeks and it be be heard on or after

november 15th. the full board, you will remember, this was the ordinance introduced by mayor new some and president chu, it would also respond to the palmer court decision. you heard this item on march 25th of this year. at that time you recommended approval of modifications. your five modifications were largely incorporated into the ordinance, except the name of the program changed to the inclusionary affordable housing program. since you heard the legislation the mayor's office recommended additional changes to help the owners during these difficult economic times. i have described these to you last week and would be happy to go over them again if you like. these changes were largely incorporated into the ordinance. this week both the department and the city attorney's office identified another section of the planning code that should be

modified in response to the court decision. this would be the market and van ness special use district. it triggered the ordinance would be sent back to land use after the required notice is completed. also the car share ordinance is before the full board this week. this was initiated at your request and the final step of a three-part response to update our car share requests. including adoption of your commission policy and the draft ordinance. i am pleased to inform that the full board did unanimously adopt the car share ordinance and there were no land use or planning ordinances introduced that i noticed. that concludes my report unless you have questions. president miguel: thank you. commissioner antonini? commissioner antonini: , miss rogers, thank you, again, a couple of questions and i don't need an answer but i would be interested hearing what the

legal issues that were raised by supervisor campos in regards to the city-wide needs health assessment that would preclude public health from being the lead agency. maybe i can find out in the future about that. number two in regard to landmarking the applegate libraries and others, i know merced has had significant renovation a few years back, and i know merced is not before them, yet, but that has had an addition made to it. so i guess how much change can occur to a structure and still be eligible for landmarking? i know it's a subjective thing, but it just seems i thought they did quite a bit to marina. it was a great improvement in my opinion but it still was of the basic style of the original library. >> we can look into those questions. commissioner antonini: ok, sure,

thank you. clerk: commissioners, i am not sure if there was a board of appeals meeting, but the historic preservation did meet and i have to admit that i do not have a report for you. i can only tell you that they did continue their discussions on article 11. they actually completed their discussion of article 11 or their proposed amendments, but they did not take action. they would like staff to take those to the city attorney's office and make sure they are true to form. and they started their discussion on 309 modifications. and director rahaim was there and might want to elaborate. >> that summarizes it very well. thanks very much. clerk: ok, with that, we can go to item 3 under director's

report. this would be the environmental -- the ero's response, environmental review officer's response, raised to the final environmental impact certification hearing. it's an informational item. >> big riker, department planning staff. the memo i prepared was distributed last week. there's also copies on the table. as you can see in the memo, what i tried to focus on was the questions, not of the substance of what we would do, but of the procedural appropriateness or scope of the inquiry. and as i understood the questions, or at least as i tried to phrase it in responding, i heard three basic types of questions.

one was what kind of further investigations are appropriate, especially in relation to project sponsor's objectives. the answer to that, i think, is pretty straight forward. if the questions are asking for further investigation in relation to a potential ceqa impact, either for more information to be more comfortable with the conclusion or even potentially changing that conclusion, in essence, i don't think the project sponsor's objectives have any bearing on that inquiry. the inquiry could basically affect your conclusions in terms of ceqa findings. the second question was of a more general information request and that, i think, was of a much more ambiguous -- as i phrased it, to some people's chagrin,

question. anything that has a potential link back to a ceqa conclusion, i think, is totally in order. obviously their's lots of information that is included for better or worse in the eir that is not strictly in the ceqa conclusion realm. and to the extent these questions are raised in eir hearings, we try to respond to the extent factual information is brought to our attention, that we conclude was inaccurate. we correct it but also be clear we are correcting it not because it changes the conclusion, but just to have as complete information as we can. i think the area that i spoke to this the memo, in terms of alternatives, is a little -- i am not sure that i have expressed myself as well as i might have.

i guess what i wanted to make sure was alternatives under ceqa are defined strictly in terms of speaking, addressing, and identifying the significant impact. and the only significant impact was structured as they were. however, what i attempted to articulate and at least feel is personally appropriate, even if there is an alternative that is not strictly speaking inspired by a significant impact and that alternative were -- needed to be investigated in order to move forward with a version of the project that the commission felt was not encompassed in the alternatives, including the project in the eir, to me, that would be appropriate to add independent of the significance issue, just so you have ceqa clearance for whatever it is before you.

what i was trying to emphasize in the memo is that particularly as you move into that realm, and not strictly in this is an area of potential impact that we have questions, i hi it becomes very important that you articulate so we can know how to respond and so that the record is clear as to what the basis is for asking for an additional alternative is. so, for example, if the basis is, we think the impacts were greater in this area, or even if not greater, we feel there should be some version of the project that we want to actively consider, that's not within the range covered in the e.i.r., i think it's important that that be articulated, so we know what to do and the record don't look like it's an arbitrary request. the third area that i understood to be a question was once we come back with these materials, how are they