things that have to be dealt with more severely, but i think, to be able to eliminate that -- certainly, the greening of san francisco and the college on a number of the streets helps to take some of the harsh edge off. it is a little troubling to walk around sometimes. but also brought up the lack of middle sized housing, particularly adequately sized middle-class housing. i think that is something we will be addressing in the housing element, making sure we pay attention to what you hear time and time again from people who begin to raise families and have to leave san francisco because they cannot find not just a portable, but any kind of housing that fits their needs. those are some issues that will be coming up. the other thing i wanted to mention briefly was a fellow

that passed away during the time we were on break. his name was mike gregotti. he had a heart attack. he was the basketball coach at lincoln high school. the thing that was particularly nice about mike is two things. he grew up in epiphany parish in excelsior, but stayed here, raised his family here, and did not go off to the suburbs. most importantly, he pursued his avocation, which was coaching of high school basketball. he helped so many kids. the whole lincoln high school team was at the remembrance. i hope more of our young people decide they would be well served raising their families here and that they can use those talents to help others. that was something i did a lot of. commissioner fong: i want to wish everyone a happy new year.

and i wanted to share my congratulations with our mayor, mayor lee. it is a great opportunity for major league. i want to call him dead. he is a capable man with great integrity -- it is a great opportunity for may aor lee. i want to call him ed. he is a capable man with great integrity and will be great for san francisco. with the america's cup, our waterfront has an opportunity to showcase itself. the project has not come before this commission yet, but the work the community has done with the public program along jefferson street is fantastic. if there is any way to look at accelerating that plan with the america's cup deadline looming, it would be a great opportunity for san francisco to showcase some great streets to the world.

vice president olague: i wanted to also congratulate the mayor lee. decided to have our first asian mayor in san francisco is very exciting. during his acceptance speech, he mentioned he was progressively -- that he was progressive before the word progressive was coined. i think that is true. he was a longtime attorney at the asian law caucus. i have no doubt that he will help the entire city. i am excited about having the opportunity to work with him. one thing i forgot to mention earlier is the local hiring ordinance that was passed by the board. is that going to affect the language in some of our conditional uses in some of our permiting? i guess that is something i was wondering how that is going to have an impact on some of the decisions we make here and the

language of that. >> i believed it had to do with construction projects, but i will confirm that and get back to you. commissioner borden: i have one question i forgot to ask. it is my understanding new governor brown's budget will be cutting out tax increment financing in development areas. i would love to have someone from the redevelopment agency or the mayor's office of housing discuss how that would impact our house and development here, and our job growth and some of those empowerment jobs -- empowerment zones such as bayview hunters point. it would be nice to raise public awareness about the implications if we can mount a successful campaign to do whatever is needed to be done to meet that aspect, if it is indeed counter to what we have been trying to accomplish. commissioner moore: i would like to add my voice to welcome our

new mayor. it will be wonderful to work together, particularly with someone who has as much experience as he has in the city. i would also like to welcome the supervisor who will be sitting on the land use committee, an important bridge to our work, a supervisor -- supervisors mar and weiner. i am excited to meet them. commissioner sugaya: i would like to note supervisor mar is the chair of that committee. i do not have much more to ed-- to add, but but to the director, congratulations on some new glasses. [laughter] president miguel: obviously, my congratulations also.

i have already congratulated the supervisors individually. i have not had the chance to do so with our new mayor, although i have had the pleasure of working with him in several capacities over the years. i am not sure that people understand, following on commissioner olague's comment, how active a progressive he was in san francisco. very much so. the other thing, following on commissioner gordon -- borden's request regarding the presidio, that is a very controversial issue. i, through a couple of organizations, have been involved in presidio matters for over 20 years now, and there are

two major groups in addition to the presidio trust that should be invited to that hearing so that we do not have a one-sided presentation, which is the way it normally has come out with the trust when it is invited somewhere. one would be the presidio historical society. the other would be the neighborhood association for presidio planning, which is a group of neighborhood associations that touch the presidio which have been reading at least monthly since before the army closed down. it is a longstanding group of neighborhood associations. they should be included in any hearing on the parade ground, lodge, etc.. commissioner moore: i want to share with you and observation about the transformative values of redoing trees. i always hated to drive down a

street. it was a street i avoided at all costs. but last night, i drove down divisadero and it was late at night when you don't want to go there, but it was beautiful. is one of the streets that has good pavement. the lighting, the landscape -- it pulls together the street as a space. it is remarkable. i want us to remember that as we move into our discussion of our better street plans. i think it is a wonderful it simple. i hope it will be one of many to come. >> that puts us under the director's report, item 5, directors announcements, and six, review of past week's events at the board of supervisors, board of appeals, and historic preservation commission. >> let me add my thanks to all

of you for getting through another year last year. happy new year to all of you. i look forward to an interesting new year. we have a full year ahead of us, as is already showing up on our calendar. a couple of things the last few weeks. as president miguel mentioned. , staff has briefed three of the four new supervisors. supervisor kim had to reschedule. it included senior managers and the zoning administrator, and the director of legislative affairs. it was a good overview of what the department does, the commission does, the historic preservation commission does. it was useful to hear from them what their concerns war -- were, and what they know and don't know about our work. i hope this is the opening of a good dialogue with the new supervisors. as you know, we are entering

budget season next week. we have a memo in your packet that will help you today, the first of a series of budget briefings. the good news, i think at this point, is that this will be the first time in three years when we will not have to consider layoffs. i hope that sticks over the next few months as the budget moves forward. many of you mentioned america's cup. we are gearing up very quickly, working with the office of economic development and the port and the department of public works. they will all play a role in this in terms of creating facilities and properties. we are part of that interdepartmental team. our primary role is the eir, but will also be playing a role with respect to preservation issues. many of the piers are historic resources. with respect to improvements to streets and the public realm,

that is an important part of it, especially given the new plan, where there will be separation of the piers used for the event. the connections will be an important part of how we plan for the event. the last thing -- i wanted to mention briefly, related to the presidio, we will ask the trust to come back with the other organizations you mentioned. many of you might recall -- i believe that will count as part of the original plan that you saw. i do not believe they have proposed changes to that master plan. president miguel: it has changed configuration considerably. >> i stand corrected. i will make sure we get the change plan in front of you, because that has been an important concern of the commission for a long time. i think that wraps it up for my report, if there are any questions.

>> good afternoon. amory rogers, here to give you reports on the board of supervisors. there was a lot of excitement. i will let you read the papers for that. there was a land use committee hearing. they did hear an ordinance sponsored by supervisor dufty that would allow neighborhood banners to be posted on lampposts along market street. the committee began deliberations on the ordinance in advance of the recommendation from the historic preservation commission at the end of the legislative session. the committee moved the legislation forward without recommendation while waiting for the hpc. the hpc did recommend modifications, such as a fastener that is reversible and will not damage the historic landmark. that also recommended modifications to specify the

procedure for how banners may come before them for a certificate of appropriateness consideration. that ordinance was amended to take into account the historic preservation commission recommendations. this week, it was adopted on its final reading. also on tuesday, the board heard a ceqa appeal for 10 lundy's lane, for a single-family dwelling in normal heights -- bernal heights. the appeal was to rebuild two rear walls originally built in the 1970's. they found the permit to be categorically exempt from ceqa review. even though they are correct that the building was a category d potential resource, the work in question was restricted to rebuilding rear walls on a non- historic addition that was less than 50 years old. that was approved for the cadx.

the ceqa determination was unanimously upheld, 11-0. there were four new ordinance is introduced -- ordinances introduced. the first would amend the house an ordinance to add a new alternative in the market to save your plan area. you'll remember the planned dedication we had in eastern neighborhoods. that came before market octavio was adopted. this would add this as a possibility in market and octavia in lieu of a fee. also introduced was an amendment to the nc3 district to require active commercial uses for some properties within the supervisor's district. leslie, there were two ordinances introduced, both of which you have considered in

full before. the first one i know you have. it is changes to the market octavia plan. the ordinance would include some parts that were inadvertently excluded from the zoning map having to do with the western addition area. the staff has checked this. you passed the zoning amendment exactly the way it is included in this revision ordinance. we will just recommend that since you have already made this recommendation, we will recommend to the board that they act on this correction. the second one -- we still need to confirm that you have considered this completely. the second one is an ordinance introduced by super back to work -- supervisor maxwell that would provide a waiver criteria for affordable housing. you considered this with the visitation valley plan amendments. will make sure it is exactly the same as what you considered that time.

if it is, we will recommend we not have another rehearing on this since it is the same as your earlier recommendation. the other two ordinances will be before you in 90 days, per our usual process. commissioner antonini: ms. rogers, thank you for your report. i have a question on the path of gold. some years ago, i made inquiries about the possibility of putting american flags along there. i think i was told at that time that the flags could only be hung during a parade, before and after the parade for a period of time. i am not sure if the ordinance or body of law has changed, but i would like to hear if that is any different. >> the law previous to this new ordinance did require exactly as you stated, only temporary banners having to do with an event. this would allow longer banners

and if they pertain to neighborhood -- pertain to a neighborhood resource. people would be referred to the hpc for appropriateness, but they would be allowed to stay for a longer period of time. commissioner antonini: thank you. >> commissioners, that will put us on item 7, action -- i apologize. >> scott sanchez, planning department, with pork appeals updates. the commission did one sign -- did one thing the commission might find interesting, and appeal of a building application that was not before this board as a dr. it had gotten a section 311 notice. it was a modification to the existing fourth floor at the rear of the building, very sensitively designed from the adjacent side property. the appellant was in an existing legal non-complying

building which a box on the south street. they are within about 20 feet of this rear addition. both the addition and the proposed debt were set back 5 feet from the side property line. the board felt this was inappropriate design and unanimously upheld the permit. -- was an appropriate design and unanimously upheld the permit. >> this will put us on item 7, action update informational presentation. >> this is a report that kelly and other staff will largely give on the action plan. you will remember the action plan is a department series of reforms and improvements that we started a little over two years ago, certainly after i came on the board, and was the result of

a number of studies of department activities. there has been a consultant report on some of the department's activities prior to my arrival three years ago. what we are doing today is giving you the final report on that action plan. i am pleased to say we have accomplished most of what we set out to do. most of the changes you have heard about that will be talked about today are partially internal operational issues. but they are important to how we do our work. what you will hear today is a quick overview the that kelly will give on the overall status of the plan. but then a more specific update on specific measures, including a new development and review process, or i should say an updated development and review process that we will rollout on february 1. i just want to, before kelly starts, think all the staff who are here -- thank all the staff

who are here. most of the staff participated in this effort. all the items in this action plan involved more than 50% of the staff at some point. i really appreciate that and appreciate all the hard work that has gone into this in the last two years. with that, i will let kelley go over the power point and talk to you about the status of many of these items. >> good afternoon, commissioners. kelly ander, department staff. i would like to give credit to a couple of people who cannot be here. i am standing in for lisa jeanbaptiste. she was the coordinator of this effort but is still out on maternity leave. when she went on leave eight months ago, mark zwellen took

over. he unfortunately had to stay home sick today. i am standing in for him. he was an important effort in keeping these pieces going. i will try not to take too long. we would like to specifically explain some of the accomplishments we have made. in summary, we started a little over 2.5 years ago in the summer of 2008. over 70% of staff have participated. i heard from our i.t. staff this morning that we lost over 7000 hours of time in total on the various efforts included in the action plan. the 25 objectives were grouped into categories -- commission dr, project management, preservation, and a general category at the end. there were four main goals -- to update review and approval

procedures, to support staff in their day-to-day work, and to be more responsive to our constituents. in the past two years, we did assemble our mailing list of stockholders group. we held three meetings with the group. the were a couple of hundred people that attended. that was in the middle of our d r process. the last meeting was a smaller group focus more on our review process. we did also a symbol -- assemble an advisory committee made up of property owners and developers, and that group met a total of five times. several accomplishments -- in the first year, we developed a streamlined procedure for environmental review. this is our community planning process that has been underway for a little over a year. we established a consultant for

certain types of environmental work. we corrected a research -- a resource for a faster review of cadex. we established a group to enable us to carry through with a lot of our area planning work. we increased staffing for transportation planning, established an interdepartmental review for major projects, and created stand for replacements. -- standard replacements. several action items are pending, including litigation of common measures, the launch of a redesigned web site, dr reform, a permit-tracking website, the capacity for in-house 3d modeling, and a class for

support staff that has been ongoing for a couple of years. some of these efforts are things that really should be ongoing and will never be done. we are constantly expanding our capacity and trimming staff to use --training staff to use dis. improvement of public experience at the planning information counter -- there are always ways to improve that. we hope to continue working on that. we will go into a slightly greater level of detail for you today or on standardization of conditions of approval, an effort to revise and update all of our forms, applications, and handouts, and a revised development review process, which includes a project review application you will hear about.

i would like to mention the planner that has been the project manager for the conditions of approval group has also called in sick today. her name is kate conner. i am standing in for her today, where another hat. i will run through our conditions of approval. today, you will receive the packets for next week's hearing containing the build group of conditions of approval, new conditions we have created. as i will go through, you will see a certain set from which planners will draw from. you'll see these changes reflected in the packets you will receive today. the objectives of the conditions of approval or to provide a standardized list of conditions of approval to increase consistency, to provide the commission with conditions that are enforceable, and to provide more information to the project sponsor in neighborhood about the agencies that enforce each condition.

we gathered over 300 conditions of approval from a variety of motions. we wrote each warrant and deleted a lot of duplicates -- wheat -- we rewritote each warrant and deleted a lot of duplicates -- we rewrote each one and deleted a lot of duplicates. one of the changes that has been made is a before and after the situation. a condition that was used commonly for a lot of the tent and drinking establishments was that the proper -- was that sidewalks should be maintained in a clean condition. our enforcement team struggled to understand this condition and what it meant and to make sure it was being complied with. after being rewritten, because this is something dpw and forces

and cares about, the conditions as the project sponsor shall maintain the main entrance to the building and sidewalks abutting property in a clean and sanitary condition in compliance with standards. members of the public and sponsors will know to call dpw. there will be a clear enforcement procedure, contact information, and the idea that it is better to depend upon a reliable standards rather than generic ones. if -- there are other types of conditions we used to use that were part of other entitlement agencies, such as the entertainment commission. like police with noise, we have no reference to those agencies with these conditions. there will be more direct rules and enforcement of them.

we have a process internally for reviewing new conditions where a project has specific situations or concerns. the master list will be a living thing we adjust overtime as needed. -- over time as needed. we do not believe we have lost intent of any of the original 300 conditions. there were reasons for all of them. we tried to maintain all of those. the conditions that are enforced by other agencies are important to neighbors. a couple of details related to these conditions -- we often require that a project sponsor has a community liaison for the project. we have developed a procedure for tracking those contacts. we can now get that information out upon request. we have developed a contact list for planners.

one of our other efforts that has been ongoing for over two years now is work to evaluate, we write, and update the graphic look of all of our forums, applications, and handouts. the group leader for this work is here today. he is one of our core planning information planners. he led a group of a dozen planners who worked on this effort. phffyou have probably already started to see some of these changes. the public has enjoyed the website for some time now. the objective was to provide a standardized look for all handouts issued by the department, create new ones as needed, update them, make applications and affidavits electronically evitable --