commissioner fong: we have shut down gas stations, and i try to do that as little as possible. again, i would be in support of laying down some rail infrastructure for transit for san francisco, but to force transit by taking away things, i don't think it is the right way to do it. i think any of these things makes advances go look better, -- san francisco look better, and not sure it would make it function better. it is a logical way to try to tackle this. i really tried to read through but fell asleep about five times. president olague: i see there are other commissioners that haven't spoken that like to wait till the last to say things, but

i wanted to mention since you are here, i do appreciate the work that has gone into this. i think it is moving in the right direction. there is a lot in here that i would support. especially around parking requirements and that sort of thing. i want to thank the department's staff for all their work on this. based on a lot of the input i am hearing today and from other commissioners, i am wondering if we can work a little bit with the time, and whether i am looking at chinatown community development center, they ask that the restaurant item be, rather than a decision making hearing, that the november 10 hearing of the change to one of

the information. i don't know what the time frame is or what the calendar looks like, get back to us and let us know that it is acceptable. >> as i mentioned earlier, my preference based on everything you heard today, i almost regret that many of the comments, especially the surface parking lot, there is work that we want to do there. having another hearing in december would be our preference. i think we will respond more by letter in terms of splitting it up -- we are changing definitions, putting things in line with policies that are in

existence that you will have supported. we have an obligation to support affordable housing. we think we are moving in that direction. as you have seen, twice this year, we have dealt with controversial special units. we think this moves us in the direction of not having to do that. just on the timing issue, president -- president olague: rather than hearing it all in november, we change it to a 10 a.m. hearing. we probably should ask the mta, given some of the changes.

i'm wondering, because it is a transit first piece of legislation, it does shift some of the requirements. it to ask them to fill an the inflammation around a public transportation, how do we make this all together. >> maybe they can help me in reading the existing code. we have work to do on surface lots. we are not banning surface lots. it gives us the opportunity to grant the cu. what we want to do is not the development forward. we don't want to put fences around parking lots and we don't believe this legislation does that. i think i heard a little bit of confusion in terms of what is in the existing code on the restrictions. it is very clearly stated that

no discounted parking rate shall be permitted for weekly, monthly, or specific times. what we're doing is crossing that out. in terms of what we end up with, we are more than happy to continue at already begun a dialogue with the surface parking lot operators on that. that has been going on since i was at the mta. it is an issue we think we are addressing in this legislation. we think it is an important section. we want to make sure they have more information on that. my understanding is that the project is going to be a significant need and remind be able to open up the market. there are policy rationales. we're more than a adjusting --

when they approved code changes, those will apply to our project if they haven't gotten their final ones yet. we want to put a three-five year pipeline. if you change the planning cut now, those changes would apply. i feel a little bit like the legislation is being held to a different standard than every planning could change that you make. i think it is important to point that out as a fact. that is kind of where we are. i did let them know that we would not be seeking an additional hearing before this. >> they mentioned the restaurant. >> we're interested in restaurants as well. president olague: if we delay it or make it an informational hearing and see how far along we are with that -- i support a lot

of this clean up in legislation. i think it is great that the supervisor and the staff is willing to take this on and to move this forward because it is kind of long overdue. i think it is important to address the concerns that the public are raising. as commissioner fong mentioned, it is overwhelming. trying to outreach to members of the public, so hopefully with just a little bit -- >> i encourage every person that is listening or watching who is interested to contact me at -- i think we have tried some out raids that have not been responsive, and that a certain

level, we want to continue to be available and responsive. the process is a two-way street. we see this hearing as a big part of the process. president olague: i am excited about a lot of this. there is a lot that i wish we had in place, as i mentioned. but the devil is in the details and i am not sure everyone feels comfortable that they have grasped the the details of this legislation. i will be ready with my comments with what i like and what i support, but i support a lot. >> if there is a particular issue to peel off, i don't know what particular sections would be most appealing as a separate pieces of legislation, but we are more than an open to that conversation.

president olague: a december 15 hearing at 10:00 a.m. with the mta. and maybe you can have a little more time to engage in more dialogue with us rather than three minutes calling you up. commissioner fong: can i get some guidance? did you want to have a presentation or discussion on the entire ordinance? or did you want to break it down to the more one's of this seemed to be broad agreement on and move forward on that? president olague: we can talk about it more. >> we advertise it for action that day? >> on december 15, you would not take action on any part of the ordinance. on december 15, you will not take action but you will hear

about some of the less controversial items? president olague: i think that, you know, if we hear it as informational only, i think that we should have a date within just a few weeks for we would move to action may be in january because december 15 is the last calendar day of the year, but i think there is a lot of stuff in this that is really good that we need to think about. we need to discuss it a little bit more here and get input on commissioners about how they want to approach it. >> i would be more than happy to see it as an informational item and no possible action. i request would be that there would be specific recommendations. so that the commission and our

office, what you're doing is we hope sending this on to the board and will continue to work on. >> we would like to see as much -- to the comments are close to recommendation and if some comments from commissioners have the public, you can get recommendations, that would be the request. >> that is great. we will be there, i think. >> keep continuing this item because there is been a significant amount of notification done for this item. >> 7400 postcards. there has been significant notification, so we need to keep debate going on to prevent having to go back and notice the item. >president olague: is giving the public a month. it is giving people enough time to work out a lot of these things.

>> we can come back with more firm recommendations and we can move to another date. commissioner miguel: if we can have that on advance -- president olague: it gives us a couple of weeks. >> more than a week. thanks. commissioner borden: thank you for clarifying the parking issue. i think what will be very useful for the hearing would be dealing with support issues, to talk more about that, the grandfather issue, the issue related to parking lots, parking, and i think those of the issues that

have risen to the top today. if we can focus on those and deal with the other issues as well. i think there is a lot of great information, a lot of great changes in this. i am not daunted by them in the same way, but i think we have to be careful about the law of unintended consequences that happens pretty often so that we know what the consequences are. to that point, more outreach and more time to discover that is great. the core of the legislation is really good. a lot of great information, i think, is coming. they have been identified today as problem areas. we can probably get resolution on this. >> there is a lot i don't want to see water down or changed. commissioner moore: on a

positive note, simplification is something that we have talked about for years. we are much further removed from using the code in a day to day way except when it comes to specific interpretations and hearings. what is a concern to me, a very valid question raised by the public. the one that is strong with me is that the push back on what is a process and they have standing on the sidelines while the legislation in place gives them the right to speak about properties and act on them. is either oversight or a degree of hubris that i don't feel very comfortable about. i'm not wanting any rebuttal, i would just finish my thoughts.

i appreciate it for us, policy always being ahead of where we are. i am a great believer the only policy and higher ideas move us forward. we had a case where we don't just have policies alone, there is legislation that helps us create a high-density housing that is indicative of an unnecessary for us to become a sustainable city. we all know that we are way behind even in transit first as we talk about it. even with the glowing reports of bicycle collision. we are not quite ready yet to have a full working transit policies over the rest of the cities of that those corridors that will be affected by this legislation leave the rest of the city running high and dry because the people, all of a sudden, they can't get there

anymore. the transportation is not in place to create that. it is the same thing with bicycles. i know of the struggles have been regarding the -- you and i have talked about that at great length. it is not quite responsive yet to the needs of the bicycle movement in this city. we still read about the instances of unsafe intersections. we read about the accidents, so all of that is a good idea. we might still have to protest the physical realm of how that plays itself out, it is who we really are. it is with a clear reflection

that transit first, the transportation system for other reasons, it is not quite up to snuff where other cities in this country, not to talk about four examples. there is a whole bunch of things where i don't want to jump into just wanting to clean up the code, but i want to take those things that are clean -upabble. that is not a word that exists, probably. but those which indeed require a different form of examination. if you compare this effort with market octavia or with eastern neighborhoods, the people, some of them are sitting here get a great deal of outrage.

they also pushed a very strong physical manifestation of what they're trying to do. new ideas don't have yet a physical reality for me. i hope that as we are spending more time speaking that we can create a little bit more substance to the word itself. it deals with parking lots and imagining future buildings on the waterfront. there is a broad spectrum of other issues. a in the beginning point is good. any of those things are an uphill, long process. but i hope that we are engaging in a healthy and balanced process. i think the other commissioners have very eloquently talked about some of the pitfalls.

that is only making it more complicated. i am speaking a little bit in the abstract, but if you take everything everybody says here, it is appreciation and support. commissioner sugaya: first, i think cents we are trying to support historic preservation, anything along those lines need to be vetted before the historic preservation commission. i would ask ms. avery to talk to the staff and talk to scheduling a hearing. >> we are planning to go before the historic preservation commission for the parts that would affect them. we're also planning to go before the board of appeals before some things are taken. we appreciate the extra time.

>> i think it isn't only -- the preservation community, as was mentioned in testimony, downtown interests i think all the developers of the ones that buy these things. and on the surface, i don't have anything against it. although i am not sure what some of the consequences might be, and that is why i would like a little bit more of betting on that issue as well as others. i have some trouble going from wanted to because we of always given wanted to. if it is still a conditional use, we will always go to something else. that should be thought about, i would like to think about that a little bit more. support the port position and they should be involved.

overall, it is not ready for prime time yet. i would like to suggest that may be based on some of the other comments, we be given something that is in sections the next time. i know this is an sections, but more along the lines of what i think miss hester and what some of the other commissioners have said to make it understandable. not to say that we need to have the whole thing broken up and presented to us separately, but i don't think the mind holding the whole thing together as long as it gets broken up a little bit more. i dunno, i will leave it up the staff to figure out how to do that. there are districts, if it affects chinatown, or other

neighborhood areas, we can see how it pans out. >> i wanted to clarify where we were and where we were headed. december 15, it will be the next hearing. there will not be another hearing in november. call at the lack of a better term. at least two weeks in advance or maybe sooner, you can see what we are thinking in the preliminary recommendations would be. i have also asked staff to get you copies of the power point presentation because there is a high level summary of the legislation and it is posted on our web site. to me, that is a good summary that aron put together and very simple terms. reorganized this case report, and what i am hearing is that is

good, but you wanted organized geographically by neighborhoods. this sounds like a matrix of some sort, i'm not sure how we will do that, but we will figure it out and have it hopefully for the december hearing. erin has a few things to do over the next few weeks. that is where we were headed on this. and to reinforce that it is december 15, a morning hearing. >> we can talk about the details a little bit more, and i am hoping that we got a break, we're not back until the twelfth, but most likely the nineteenth would be the day that we would want to take action. it is a week after we get back from vacation, so there is that. and off to the board, the board will do what it does.

anything else to add? commissioner sugaya: i was just going to say that the length of the time between the hearings is fine, but i think the timing, we're going to start to receive complaints because it is right in the middle of the holidays. i am not arguing to change it, i am just going to point out that we will start getting people saying, is the holidays, i have got to do this or that. president olague: that's fine. they will have plenty of opportunities to give input, hopefully there will be different meetings with members of the community. it gives an extra month. we will hear it in december and

our goal is january 19, and we may not reach it. at least for an informational hearing, i think it is a reasonable time to set one. >> printing that out took a lot of paper and a lot of time. i won't print it out again for you. >> commissioners, would you like to take the action to continue this item? >> move to continue to the fifteenth of december. >> second. >> that is for a 11 at 12. commissioner antonini: aye. commissioner borden: aye. commissioner fong: aye. commissioner moore: aye.

commissioner sugaya: aye. commissioner miguel: aye. president olague: aye. >> this item is continue to december 15. commissioners, you are on item number 13. this is 25 years, the downtown plan monitoring report and informational presentation.

>> good evening, president olague and commissionaires. i manage to the city wide information and analysis group. i am here to present a document

that was submitted to the commissioners sometime in june, and i hope you still have your copy, it costs a bid to produce them. however, we do have that available on line as well. i am here to do the presentation because since we have submitted this to you to the commissioners, it was only until now that we were able to schedule this hearing. it is informational only. the person that was supposed to do the presentation, one of the co authors of this document passed away. and johnnie who was here earlier had to leave because he had to sit for an exam. i hope you bear with me. thank you.

i will talk briefly, i will give background, a sense of why the downtown plan was created, what the plan covered, and how well that we do in the last 25 years? the draft was released in 1983, and the plan was adopted two years later in 1985. generally, the plan was praised for its efforts to manage growth. at that time, the plan was a response to downtown office growth that a lot of constituents thought was