>> commissioners, i just wanted to give you a 10 second reminder of the product before we go through the final draft. we began the process in august, 2008. we continue to do out reached through the next year and released our first draft in june, 2009, solicited feedback, and continued out reach for another year. it is now february 2011. after several workshops, hearings, and edits, we have a final draft and will and a couple of weeks have a final eir in front of you. it has been a long process and i hope that you could help us move beyond the difference of opinion that will probably always exist, debt to common ground, and towards compliance for state housing wall -- state

housing law. thank you. >> good evening, commissioners. i am with the planning department. i'm joined by two others who also worked on this project. as sarah said, we started this process in the fall of 2008. it since we were here last, we had published the second draft and a working on the third draft, which was a response to the comments that received both from you the commissioners and from committee members on the second draft. and that is in the packet. while you were on break, i added and eight page document which was the ordinance piece that was

missing from your packets accidentally, and there are a couple of copies here for the public, nothing substantive, but just the ordinance for the peace. since we were here last, the director joined us in hosting a few meetings with community members to go over draft two and any other necessary changes. what you have before you are what we hope to be the results. tonight, we are here to try to initiate. we proposed march 24 as the potential adoption hearing. we believe the environmental impact report will be ready for certification at that same time. i wanted to just talk quickly about some of the changes that we made between the second draft and the third draft. i believe on the website there

is a version that has tracked changes, only the changes, and the version before you is clean, but the cover letter spells out the specific policies were the changes have been made. so, our main focus for the changes were to clarify a few points that seem to have multiple interpretations or cause confusion among community members. the first was to make sure that we were making clear our commitment to include community members in all long-range outreach projects. we changed the terminologies and try to make that more clear. we also wanted to clarify the city's preference supporting -- the city's preference will for supporting the housing lines. this has been a major topic, and

there was confusion about it. last meeting we heard comments that we did not want to have them back in, but the version before you has a map, but not a policy report. we did a couple of changes to the discussions about neighborhood character, to emphasize our departments coordination with both the different design and planning controls that you all have approved and other private things and how we work with those. we wanted to make that process clear. finally, we included a new policy that discusses a lot of the new process these for design review and project review, the pre application process, and the preliminary project assessment, making everybody aware and to be clear about how we are planning to work as a department in the

future. with that, i want to also respond to a comment before i handed over for public comment. the first request i am happy to say is implementation of number one, and i think we have been able to at least provide a mechanism, committed to provide a mechanism where we report to you on a proposed development project. the relationship to the polls and it asserted report, basically where we are. that is something we have and the implementation measures and we will be working with neighborhood planning. the others i think are much more interesting and we have already spent a couple items discussing them. but we are here for questions. thank you. >> before we open, i want to

reiterate a couple things. i hosted a couple of discussions about that element, and it is clear there are areas of the housing element in agreement with the public and certainly areas of disagreement. a lot of the discussion has been a revolving around the notion of a neighborhood character and preservation of neighborhood character and accommodating growth and sustainable growth and transit oriented development. that seems to have been the crux, not the only issue, but that seems to be the core issue of the discussions. there were people at those meetings and here today who would like to speak on both sides of those issues. we think we have struck a balance. i just wanted to remind us all,

the housing element is not the planning code. the housing element is a policy document, not the code. it does not change zoning, it does not reduce site limits, parking requirements. that is the subject of the planning code. that sets the stage for what happened to the planning code, but certainly it is where the rubber meets the road when it actually comes to actually controlling development projects. i just want to reiterate that again. president olague: we have a couple of speaker cards. sarah, followed by rose. >> good evening, commissioners. i and the deputy director of the san francisco planning and urban research association. the discussion tonight has been very interesting and somewhat

upsetting for me. i really relate to comment that the director made at the beginning, or maybe some more throughout i guess it was item 11, with regard to the fact that growth in the region is going to happen. the question of where these people will live and how they will live is incredibly important, and each jurisdiction has a role to play in answering that question. i guess the depressing part comes in when we have all of these incredibly bright minds talking about a city that everybody loves and cares about so much, and we are working so hard together to figure out how we're going to find affordable housing, transportation

improvements, and we are doing that in the context of a local government that is seen diminished resources budget that is seeing diminished resources, which only has control over its own resources, and i just want to bear in mind we are not working in a vacuum. we actually have incredibly complicated context that we are working in. there's been a lot of discussion about gentrification pressures from development, but i want to point out there is gentrification that comes from doing nothing. that is because people move here regardless of whether we build housing or not. people move here because it is beautiful, tolerant, because of jobs. it if we fail to build housing, they cannibalize the rental

housing stock and convert it to condos. there are gentrification pressures that come from both sides, and it is import remember that. i also want to compliment staff on really walking a fine line. it is hard when you have groups of people with competing interests. to try to make sense within the document. there are a couple of points that we had -- we had some concerns about. it might be helpful to have staph clarify policy 11.4, which was newly added, and we had a comment in this letter. my time is up, and think for that to me speak. -- and thank you for letting me speak. >> good evening, commissioners.

my name is rose. i sent a three page letter to the director. i understand that this is using more generic words, more generalized, like, focusing things, encouraging things, using the term community-based rather than neighborhood based. it got to the point that the director was making, this is just a policy document, it does not dictate how things will be built, but a kind of makes it easier to say this is the policy, we have to go this way. although we will have meetings and if there are code changes, it makes it easier. jordan part is concerned with a

lot of neighborhood character issues, and it is very different when you walk through. you cannot have cookie cutter policy because then the visibility issue that was being talked about earlier on a sustainable communities strategy thing would be diminished. that concerns me. the other thing that concerns me about the new housing element, draft 3, is the basic increase in population, but what is the increase based on? we have the jobs here, we need the people, but where are the jobs? i don't see a lot of jobs in the city, but i see people committing out to the jobs and coming back. -- i see people committing out to the jobs and coming back. the other thing it is policy 1.7, considering public health objectives, talking about how the devil and tools. -- but the about the healthy development tools.

a lot of the management tools on the web site is not really talked about. i think that needs to be emphasized a bit more so we can get more visibility standards -- more live stability standards put in. thank you. president olague: thank you. a couple more speaker cards, erik chapman and richard. >> good evening, commissioners. eric brooks, not representing san francisco green party -- representing san francisco green party working group. i am here specifically because of what has happened the past few months, to ask for one key

change in the housing element, and that is around demolition. it is easy to find it. there are not many instances. look in section 2 in search for the word demolition. right now with the housing element says is we're not to demolish affordable for rent- controlled housing unless we are going to build an increasing number. it conceivably you could demolish 200 and build it too hot one. what we saw what the park merced discussion is that is far too ambiguous. we have to get with the 21st century, make sure the housing element gives clear direction so the next time an item like that comes before you there is no ambiguity. it there are not several hearings of a debate between attorneys that still cannot make

up their minds whether rent control can be protective, what does that mean for affordable housing. i would strongly recommend that we change that section of the element so it makes clear that demolition of the housing that is not in need of demolition because it is not say if it should not be taking place -- because it is not safe should not be taking place because they cannot prove beyond a shadow of doubt that their vote will be a high gain of affordable and rent-controlled housing and a guaranteed continuance of rent control when it is destroyed, and that cannot happen until state law changes. and at the same time a high gain of the environmental sustainability standards in san francisco in relation to greenhouse gases. that section of the element needs to be changed so there is

a much higher bar, so the next time anything like that comes before you there is no question on that section. you will know that you need to ask for the project to show it will do a great job for creating a massive amount more truly affordable housing that will stay that weight in perpetuity. because i was not here for items 11 and 12, i want to reiterate what many other groups said, and that is this in seen continuance of 1-to-1 parking must be ended . we simply have to stop with that. we have to drastically curtail it and make sure we're not creating excess parking spaces. thanks. president olague: thank you. >> i am linda chapman, speaking

in a general sense because we don't have an overall organization like we used to have, but it is formed on years at of housing. i am quite impressed with this plan compared with what we used to have back then, and i feel, though, under community plans it does not acknowledge the van ness plan as an adaptive plant -- i don't know why. the policies are in place, the cmpc and the rapid transit that was proposed, and that would have liked to have seen that included. it does not mention that van ness tis is a housing opportunity and the definition of a transit corridor. i would like to keep that in mind. we really need to uphold the policies and project review in dealing with these issues on van ness, because we have conflicts

in the proposals right now. what is the van ness potential? it does not show their what was achieved, what is remaining, so forth. we need to update that planned to them eliminate the parking requirement that has been talked about. flexibility and the number of units, 1.6 policy is excellent for densely built neighborhoods. if you were to look at the rm-3 it is possible in some cases if you replace a building within the height limit you would have fewer units that are larger based on our past experience. that may still be the case even with the 65 foot height limit. is also cite efficient and cost- effective not to have the 1-for- 1 parking requirement.

it keeps the densely built. liveable not to have that parking. discouraging demolition it is really important. we have had a huge progress on this back in the day, when we had no demolition controls and everything was threatened, but now we have to be concerned about enforcement of the policies against conversion to commercial and short-term rentals, which is still rampant. we have lost whole buildings, including a whole high-rise building, to short-term rentals because there is no enforceable requirement at present. and we need to it and force the sro laws. i see those lost from time to time. you need enforcement and actually do it, not just have policies. economic integration it is important, but i would suggest avoiding doing that within a building if it is home

ownership. for rentals, it might work. that does not work for home owner buildings, which i could explain at another time. president olague: thank you. cathy? >> thank you. after closing the public comment last august for the 2004 and 2009 housing element combined, the planning department just released this revised draft this month of part to end part 1, and they provided a red line version of the part two changes, but not of the first part, and they said that the director asked for changes. those must have been important. but the changes in part 2 are significant. here are a couple examples. policy 1.4, before we had neighborhood>> now we have commd

planning process is to generate changes to land-use controls. and interpreted if taxed that said to ensure an accurate community outreach, changes to land use policy might be proposed with comprehensive support from the community. they left out comprehensive support for the community. the use of flexibility into the number and size of the units well as expanded to apply for the community based processes. it would apply to individual parcels where before it would apply to community planned areas. interpreted taxed -- interpreted ive text of