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tv   [untitled]    January 13, 2011 2:30pm-3:00pm PST

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see forms on the web and not be able to type anything in, so we are working on that as well. the time line for this -- we broke worked into different chunks, categories of documents. this shows how we have moved through it and the final completion date of this phase. we did look at over 160 different documents. you know the variety of documents that we review is quite broad. there is a great complexity of applications out there. one important accomplishment is to create standardized templates for each category, so that with projects that require several applications, they will see the different types of an application that are asked to submit. here is a comparison to show you, a quick graphic look at what changed. there is standardize content.
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we used to have all kinds of different product destruction -- the product description, tables. we decided on a standardized format for that. here are the before and after director bulletins. all content has been reviewed and updated. an affidavit. a typical handout. we are working to develop new handouts as needed so there are clear instructions available to the public on any type of our process.
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presentation and now i will handed over to -- to talk about the revised development review process. >> thank you. >> good afternoon, commissioners. i am representing the planners and the department who worked on the revised development review process and luckily none of us called in sick today. we are all here. we have worked very hard along with many other planners. in a nutshell, we took the development review process and we formalized this into three
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distinct phases which includes all revisions throughout the review. the purpose was to ensure that we have a more coordinated and efficient review that did include all of the department revisions not just for projects but also better coordination within the department and we did identify the issues early in the project. this process is not applicable to release small projects. this is your to capture the same threshold which exists for environmental evaluation. this is also the creation of 10,000 square feet or more. within the process there are five major highlights, one is
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the preliminary assessment of, another acronym. the filing is that a specific time. a more defined project coordinator for these projects and a more timely review process. we are talking about this in more detail. the project coordinator, you can have an application, and you have maybe two or three planners working on the project in different aspects. there is no one person who is assigned as a coordinator and that might be difficult for the public or the director. someone needs to contact the main point person. moving forward for projects, not at all times there will be a person who is the case
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coordinator, they are the main point of contact and they will have knowledge of the project or who you need to contact to get the information you are looking for. there will always be a coordinator for the project. four design review, this happens all ready for a lot of projects with this is not formalized and we have been looking at formalizing projects for you for the past couple of years. we have worked with the residential design guidelines. what this would do would be for larger projects that don't fall under the purview. there are two stages of design review. the first would be a higher level review. this is really looking at large scale issues such as site design, height, mass, bald. the second stage would happen later during the time >> face. at that point, the design review would be looking at more fine
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grained issues in terms of materials and architectural features. the time line for rollout of this revised process, we work during november and december to train and work with our staff and get feedback on the process. as calley mentioned, we met with the stake holders group to get their input and make them aware of this process. this month, we are presenting here and a press release and the goal is to roll out the process on february 1st. before we have done the specifics of the revised process, we should look at what is the process now. the bottom line is that it can be very disconnected. there is no requirement for a sponsor to contact the department before the
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application. there is also no requirement to file any other applications so it is not uncommon for a project to be living within our environmental review division before some divisions really start to work on it and you are well aware of some of the conflicts. what we wanted to do is to formalize the processed into three specific places. i will go over the first phase and sarah will go over the first and second phase. the first is the preliminary project assessment phase. the point is that it will be required before you file any of the applications. if you need these, it must cut through the process before it will accept any environmental or
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problem applications. this is required. this is designed to be a formalized project review. right now, anyone can pay their feet and schedule and project review and come in and get 45 minutes or an hour and a group of planners to talk about the project. this is really good but this is not at level at what we are aiming at. we would like to give them much better information. this is designed to be generally neutral and we thought this was an important point. we don't want this to be seen as adding another process, another step, another fee. this is beneficial to the project over all because the review will be more efficient. because of that there will be a fee to cover staff time but that will be credited to their environmental review.
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the letter is a procedural road map. based on the project and the plans submitted, these are all of the requirements that you will face. you will need this kind of environmental study and so on. you want to get as much useful information as possible. but we have right now is limited and we might not have all the information that is relevant. we also want to give early design comments or just general comments may be based on planning department policy or other projects or issues that they will have to deal with and we will let them know that. the good thing is that it will create more ordination between the department of visions and we will get into how that will work later. this is not a project approval or denial.
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we are committed to turning this letter within 60 days. several projects had gone very well. people are being out on vacation. id republished on the web site. just to get into the internal processing, i will not go into too much detail. we will have questions later if you like. essentially, you have the application and the sponsor can opt to have a brief meeting with the signers if they like. they don't have to. essentially, a copy of the
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application and plans, there will be four of them. one is neighborhood planning, a major environmental analysis, and citywide. when will go to our design review team. each of the four reviewers will go through their steps of reviewing the project and will be a coordinator can tell -- will be a coordinator. everything will be reviewed by supervisors and effort to make sure that we are getting accurate and good information to the sponsors. once the coordinator dress at a later, their supervisor of the book over the entire letter again to make sure that we will get the quality information. -- once the coordinator addresses the letter, their supervisor will look over the entire letter again.
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once a it is issue, there is an 18 month expiration time. they have 18 months from the date of issuance to file their first development application. if you wait beyond that, you would probably need any nearby a -- need a new ppa. we will roll this out february 1st. in terms of being required, we are letting it be known that projects that are subject to this can require at any time. i will pass this over to sir john's.
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>> i will talk about the stages of the review process after applications are filed with the department. there is the ability for the project's sponsors to file an environmental review application. the major environmental analysis group can be working with those applications for six months, 12 months, 18 months. without a good mechanism for us to be working in a coordinated manner with citywide planning and neighborhood planning which have really key interest in these projects. we were as we look at this process trying to find a way that we could provide for all of that information that is
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necessary to be filed and the initiation process for bringing the project to the commission for approval. this needs to be filed at once. that is not feasible to do for developers are something that is even desirable for our department. as we work all of this through, we identified a new stage or carve out a new stage in this process called the project description stage and what that involves is that a project sponsored submit their environmental application and then -- would work in a coordinated manner with citywide planning, with the department of senior management, design review, to identify the project description that is going forward into the environmental review process. that process would evolves.
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i am happy to answer questions. review of the project and initiation of some of the special environmental studies, particularly those that are going to potentially feedback into the project. working out some of the policy issues that exist around the project and essentially everyone coming to the point both within the planning department and the sponsor where we are all understanding that we are on the same page about what the description of the project is that is going forward into the environmental review. sometimes we get pretty far into the environmental review and then we have neighborhood planning look at the project and there are major changes. in case people wonder why it takes so long to do the environmental review process, we
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are trying to deal with that issue. so, we will have this new stage and ultimately had a project description that is agreed on by all. at that point, we will require that the entitlement applications defiled prior to publishing any of the documents. -- applications filed prior to publishing any of the documents. then we will move into the entitlement status which is the point at which we would actually be publishing the environmental review documents and get to the point of bringing the project to the commission and to the historic preservation commission. all the steps in a process that are more visible now. i think that that covers it and
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we are having to take any questions or comments to anyone who presented it today. >> i just wanted to to summarize quickly the kind of major changes. i know it is hard to make the internal review process as exciting for public comment. for us planning geeks' to do this, this is actually pretty cool stuff. the most important thing that i want to say is that there is more certainty for project sponsors and more certainty to the public. the early review gives project sponsors an early read and that letter is posted on the web site long before the public receives a notice of the project. this is actually giving early notice to the public about the
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project. in terms of the changes, the first change is that the project application, you approve of that field so that is in place and that is an important change. we are requiring the project's sponsors who filed their entitlement applications sooner than they do today. it is very important because what often happens is that many of the issues that are not related to seqa come up in this process but to the are not really these issues. earlier entitlement, that allows us to involve all members of the department and not just the environmental stage. for all those reasons, i think that that represents an important change internally in terms of how we do our work that provides more certainty in the process as we go forward. i am pleased that we're able to
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get to this point after a lot of work by staff and i appreciate all of the hard work. but >> is there any public comment? >> i am the executive director for the little city. thank you for the invitation to make the stakeholder meeting. i appreciate that you're doing all of this as a department and you are inviting people to participate. just a few comments based on experience i have had with projects. on a large project review, there needs to be a phase where a general plan goal is discussed with the very large project. a good example, city place. there was a proposal to create a passageway through the block and
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that never got discussed and never really surface. when you are looking at these projects at the broadest level, how did they apply to this project? what are the opportunities to advance those goals? also, streetscapes. we have had a longstanding provision in the downtown plan. some projects are required to do in mid block projects. what are these public benefits? there is the impoverished public
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realm and what we're getting in san francisco. we are trying to bridge that we're not there. another idea is to use an example on the slide of one that was done in san jose. i'm not saying that this should be as a plan although there are things that they do really well. one thing that was helpful when we were looking at the height controls a set of the city had done a little fact sheet which shows the alleyway controls and i thought there is a lot of sections of the code that really benefit from a one-page double sided fact sheet. harder for some people. based on the fact sheet, it
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would certainly be a good thing. lastly, there is the style sheet. i asked about this. he is sending me the stasi. to determine how organized a section of the planning coat? in a. telling folks on the other side of the whole hide would like this to be done in the future with say was a lot of work. making it makes sense on the back end. get some style sheets for the planning code amendments. incrementally it will get better and better instead of more disorganized, which seems to be the pattern. paththank you. >> sue hester. the staff has done a good job
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and i want to talk about tweaking it to be really good. the website is critical. the planning web site is really hodgepodge. it is hard to find things. you can put all kinds of things on it. if you cannot find it its best as though it does not exist. it is really important for the community that is something is proposed to this site -- there is flooding. underground springs. if at the very dangerous grambling. -- at the very and you were scrambling. there is that memory. one of the other problems as there is no institutional memory on the planning commission practices. in the practice -- in the past,
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you always struggle with how you plan this. you say, we want to modify this. other planning commissions, and i do not think anyone else knows this, we are going to give you instructions. big problems, little problems. go back and review this. you do not have to have another hearing on this. you put the revision off in our package so you can make sure what we're talking about most of the time. sometimes commissioners have said that was not what we're talking about. that was the practice 15, 20 years ago for the entire planning commission. those kinds of things would make your time more efficient and less stressful about seeing here is how we need to modify a that the yen. -- modify it at the end. you need to modify how people
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are going to find out. you could down to the public computer and you call up the site and there is a little list. it is not always kept up. i think the people -- the people who know that is probably five of us to check that. it is an important way. people are trying to figure out -- they are trying to figure out what is going on. they really want to know how this is going on. how people find out who the parcher coordinator is that something is going on is really important -- to the parcher accord nader is is really important. -- who the project coordinator is is really important. please tell us how to monitor, that you are going to monitor the expiration of the approval. i could not see that.
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>> i think the idea of having the ppa is a really good idea. you get a snapshot before you go into the project. speakers talk about the website fact sheets are a good idea and a general access for the public to try to triage to the process because i often get calls and sometimes we are a abbas to tell them where to go -- we are at a loss to tell them where to go. there is a main site and then we direct them where to go to
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answer their questions. on the graphic revisions and hard to tell because it is pretty small but i would hope whenever these revisions take place, the -- stays intact. you have the address, the web site. certainly and facts number because i think that is good even though we get it with every document, oftentimes the public only gets one document and it is good at a glance that they can refer to this case. i think this is a great step in the right direction. >> i like it as well. i have a question. with respect to the coordinator, you have said that the coordinator could change the process but assuming that there is a coordinator in number 1 in the project, do you think that same coordinator carries through both on the environmental?
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>> the idea is that whenever possible that is exactly what we would like to do. >> this is intended to be sequential, is that correct. there is the environmental and then there is the entitlement. there could be some overlap. >> the only place where there can be overlapped is phases 2 and 3.
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once the project description phase-in is over, there will be more work to do and then you have to file your entitlement. instead of being sequential in terms of environmental and entitlement, there is an overlap. >> the last question, this is all internal within the department. i know that we have back-and- forth relationships and at some point maybe we could see a little flow chart of what happens between flanagan and -- what happens between dbi and planning. i assume those might get back to planning at a certain point. i know in some instances they