quite dispersed. and the jobs, focused around the downtown area, where the transit is probably the best in the bay area. moving back to the principles. on the notion of office development, we know the city needs new jobs for its existing residents. office jobs are expected to be the strongest growing economic sector in the region. the best job -- the best places are to put them near transit. placing jobs near transit is more determined is of transportation usage than putting housing near transit perry from the community's perspective, office buildings are last gentrified. the next principle is to support growth at an appropriate locations. san francisco is expected to increase its amount of technology jobs as companies move appeared to compete for

urban-oriented workers. they want to be near the existing hubs. san francisco has high-paying jobs relative to education, with large will the pliers that benefit the whole economy. they want these inappropriate locations -- they want these in the appropriate locations. it will benefit all the spillovers. there is a lot of development potential for firms to grow and thrive. the next principle, support development of housing. supporting factors -- the bay area still needs a lot more housing to mitigate the supply and demand imbalance. many sites are too small or inappropriate for workplace development, and housing helps create a 24-hour neighborhood. it supports development for

diversity of housing, especially below-market rate units. this is relatively straightforward. there is a need for all kinds of housing in the city and we are woefully under serving the affordable housing. we said that every time we are appear. we're doing as much as we can to make as much affordable housing as possible. completing creative -- creating complete communities. there are three principles. the first is to maintain and enhance existing housing, especially affordable housing. historic resources should be given the appropriate amount of protection. many of the buildings have historic importance. we know it is possible to build new buildings compatible with existing historic buildings and districts, and is important to

continue with this. the next principle is respect the recent rezoning processes, that have been examined in the eastern neighborhood and western sonoma plan. this proposal should be treated as a baseline for further consideration. the easter neighborhood plant explicit the deferred zoning and other plants. the next concept under creating complete communities is to support the first land uses. it permits a diversity of land uses. we have already talked about offices and housing. we want to serve different ages, economic segments, different times of day, different lifestyles, a diverse neighborhood.

we will like retail, though not necessarily stand alone big box. we know that live entertainment is important. we need to find appropriate locations. we need to make sure that industrial still has a home here. finally, creating a complete communities, supporting a high quality of life. first, supporting open space. the next, support and enhance cultural and public uses, the next is development should pay for necessary infrastructure, standard practice in the city, and the last is to support an eco-district. we have been working with people from the city of portland and vancouver, and basically looking at ways of creating an eco-

district or their shared energy usage, shared water, all kinds of things we are excited about, the director is excited about and the director of the department. it is new to us, so that is why we are talking to other cities. we have also applied for a grant from the epa to help us figure out what this means barry -- what this means. we will be talking about this in the future, but this is still early on in the process. we have strong green building requirements in the city, but we want to network that into something bigger. with that, i will turn it back over to josh. >> so based on what we heard and our own assessments and recollection of the existing urban for men policies, the general plan, and other ongoing recent planning efforts caught

-- efforts, but we boiled this down into four objectives. slides? thank you. some of these are related to land use. increased density and support the growth of new economy work places, with controls that affect -- reflect uses. second is enhance the city's skyline, including the views to and from the hills, the bay, and downtown. preserve and enhance it. visibility and unique character, -- preserve and enhance the neighborhood visibility and unique character. last, appropriate urban form controls.

we looked at many common building prototypes to see the range of forms that we are considering and what are appropriate forms to piece together for this area. this is a key card for the urban for a meeting. we spent a lot of time meeting with architects and brokers, local employers, especially the tech firms and developers, and we also looked at many buildings both old and new to see what it is about the buildings in south of market and downtown better so attractive to the firms that are locating here. of course, decisions to locate a business is based on the culture and mixed uses, but there is definitely some key lessons to be learned in terms of building

form. specifically, there is a certain prototype you have seen, talked about a lot recently. buildings that have large flexible floor space, open floor plans. this means that the elevators are not in the center of the building like a typical high rise, but off to the sides so there is expansive sightlines and flexibility. uniform high ceilings, 12, 15 feet, more than you typically find. and typically not incredibly tall buildings, typically for stories, eight stories. these buildings tend to top out at 10, 12 stories. recently built buildings are about 10 stories, about 120 feet. the margin by smart is about 10 stories.

there are a lot of good examples around south of market. older commercial industrial buildings that have these characteristics that are so attractive. this is important not just for cultural reasons but also because of the dynamics of the industry's. companies go from five employees to 50 employees, possibly merging and supporting, and they need the flexibility to move around and reallocate staff. while they may not be extremely tall in terms of height, there typically very high density, even more high-density than the typical downtown high-rises in terms of employees per square foot. we have seen up to one employee per and hundred 20 square feet. and then back to the culture, a lot of these firms want to be in this location because it is that a high rise culture.

it is sort of a subjective cultural thing about standing in line for an elevator with a bunch of suits going up to the upper floors. we hear that again and again, and maybe it is something that is intangible, but it is important to remember because that is possibly why they are seeking these areas. they're willing to pay high dollar values for these kinds of buildings. in terms of the heights, we're starting to analyze the existing height limits. clearly, the deepest red colors on the map are the high-rise downtown, extending. a heights quickly transition down to 85 feet or so, quickly down to 40, 50 feet south of

harrison street, with 85 feet immediately along the house and street. that is sort of the baseline we are working with. a high level objectives, making them more specific to this project. this is a synthesis of what we have heard, as well as our own assessment of the policy direction. one is to reinforce fourth street as a major housing corridor. that we should focus higher heights and the far northern and far seven sides of the planned area, which is where the greatest regional transit areas on market street has sort of book in it that area. and that we should sculpt the height, very important to the hills from the bay and back.

we should be mindful of open spaces, preserving some light to the open spaces. there are not a lot of open spaces. south of market is basically it. in the north, we have existing open spaces. there are not many park spaces, but there are open spaces, community gardens on the alley south of folsom, school playgrounds which are important on harrison street. to the far west, there is the recreation center, but that as far west. i mentioned to a potential open space. we want to realize this opportunity to create open space and make sure that it is active, but we also want to make sure that it can happen and financially we have the best public benefits to pay for this

and make it happen. we will be balancing those objectives, particularly with the creation of new open space. in terms of historic resources, we've been starting to work with our team, looking at the survey that was completed recently. there are some areas near the existing south than district that are important to expand, to be taken more historic resources. we will be looking at adjustments to height there. also, the zoning and height to reflect the open spaces that are there. maybe if there was redevelopment, we would want to make sure those uses are supported and cared for parr. and important areas around the freeway. at the height limit immediately adjacent to highway 80 have been kept fairly low.

a highway in this area is generally not higher than 40 feet. at the height limits have been generally 30, 45 feet. one thing we heard it through the listening faced is we should not be using the height of the freeway to set a benchmark for the building heights immediately adjacent. this is still part of the core of the city, and three-story buildings are not the proper response. another it is we have a lot of large lots in the planned area, particularly in the more southern parts. we've been hearing this for mothers and our own analysis, in terms of work place and that housing mix. that maybe we should look at large lots differently and allow more height flexibility to

achieve different mixes of uses, and also recognize the work place prototype buildings, that we need large lots to make new commercial workplace the element. these are not going to be built on 6000 square foot parcels. we have a lot of large lots, but there are not many, and we need to make sure we target them for workplace developments would not miss opportunities. as we move forward, taking these principles, coming up with scenarios to mesh with the land use in areas, doing 3-d modeling. this is standard protocol, the city just received a 3-d model for the first time in the last two months, and the planning

department are the first people to use it. we will probably be the primary agency to use this information, though the fire department may use it. we had to do a lot of work mapping the existing zoning and getting things like mission that filled out -- mission bay filled out so that we could start mapping the scenarios. these are just some snapshots. we are color coding the buildings. things in red are in the planned area. as we develop scenarios, we will be modeling them and we will see what the defense areas do based on the different forms. that sort of wrap sos up this pt of the presentation. that steps, we have party started spending this month of november intensively taking these principles and putting the

pen on the map and sketching some areas in terms of land use, general land-use controls for different parts of the planned area as well as different heights and areas. we are currently tentatively scheduled for the day after thanksgiving to hold a major public workshop to present these draft ideas, just finalizing our venue. we hope to be announcing that within the next week. we're not going to stop at just holding a single public workshop. we found a meeting with individual groups is also productive, so we will see if we can do more focused meetings with additional groups. we will have a separate workshop on public realm issues. we will take a little longer to develop concepts for streets and

open spaces and do that sometime in january. we hope to synthesize and wrap this up with a draft plan for public review sometime in early spring. since we were here last, the city planning department was toward it -- was awarded a $4000 grant for the ceqa plan. we are fully fund it to move straight through to the ceqa review, so that will get going and the contract will be signed and get going in january. that is some of the background work. we hope to have some of the e.r. are completed by the end of

2013. we hope to have the eir completed by the end of 2013. with that, i would be happy to answer any questions, steve or myself. thank you. president olague: just to let you know, we plan to expand the time for written comments by couple of weeks. >> translated. president olague: oh, i'm sorry. i just wanted to get that out of the way. so we will open this up for public comment. >> good evening, commissioners, my name is sarah. the first thing i wanted to say, i had the pleasure of attending one of the storefront meetings

that start at the planning process, and it was incredibly wonderful, and i wanted to complement the staff on this. it was one of the most pleasant experiences i have had a public meeting. there were people interacting in a really positive way. i wanted to complement the department and staff on that. a couple other things. we're finishing up work on a paper entitled the future of work, where we analyze some of the best places for jobs in the region, and one of the things we found is that the san francisco downtown and the downtown adjacent areas are incredibly important and good places for work. part of that has to do with the fact that over 50% of downtown workers currently take a sustainable mode of transit to get to their jobs.

what they were talking to you about what the intensive nest of development, jobs and transit, is quite shrewd. we are pleased this planning process is going on. we are excited. we look forward to it analyzing the height a little more, but we think this is a nice step in the right direction. thank you. president olague: thank you, is there any additional public comment? >> sue hester. before we get too deep into this, i want to hear some discussion of the soil. this is fill, it is a former marsh in large pieces, and before the planning department starts putting ribbons on a plan, the needs to be a discussion of land failures because we had quite a few of them during a minor earthquake. at some point, we have to put

what is happening in global warming, which is the water table is shifting. we have a lot of saturated land. marshes have problems in an earthquake. they become jelly. we need to not trip out totally on big designs but also basic, what is the land? part of what i am concerned about is the assumption this is a transit-rich area just as the starting point, without understanding how does the transit system work. it is a long haul if you are going latterly, trying to conduct it to go to north street by third street and you are on fixed-rate. -- and you are on fifth street. we have a transit system south of market that does not lend itself to east-west transit.

when are we going to resolve folsom street? we need to be driving these connections, because if you are on a 10th street and you want to get to fourth street, it is a long haul and you have to figure out where the buses are going. if we do not solve the real transit situation south of market and just assume everyone will bicycle, you are being silly. what we really need to do, those transit maps that have the but of a line showing the density of the transit service, how many people and how waffen -- you need to have this rather than the -- you'll need to have that rather than the flat lines. this area deserves attention on both of these issues, and i am asking staff to do the stuff

that is the hard stuff, not just a pretty stuffed. the soil condition, because we will have an earthquake and this will have a jelly-like consistency on the large marches, as well as really tackling the transit because we need it. thank you. >> good evening. my name is jamie route would occur. i just wanted to complement joshua and steve for doing a really good job. i think i was in three community group meetings where they presented an sot feedback, and you guys are leading the city as far as reaching out to the community, having information available on the website, and doing it right. i hope that other departments can learn from you both. president olague: thank you. >> very supportive of this project.

president olague: is there additional public comment on this item? >> my name is aruban santiago. after carefully viewing and reading the current proposal of the height designed for the transbay powetower -- president olague: i am sorry, that is the next item. right now we are on the central corridor. >> oh, ok. president olague: is there any additional public comment? seeing none, public comment is closed. commissioner moore? commissioner moore: i have a question with one of the drawings. the orange line tracking through on a number of streets -- you see that?

south of tehema, west of third street, behind the museum of modern art. is there in orange line? >> there are some crosshatch lines on the map. they represent alleyway improvements, key alleyway improvements identified by the community and various community documents. the plan would support endorsement for which we are not doing specific design, they would be mapped and policy endorsed in the plan, but they are not focus areas for our specific design efforts. commissioner moore: that is important to know. as we are dealing with buildings and projects, it is important to hold them up with the connections. the second question i have, and

i may be completely wrong, you were talking about the height along the freeway corridors. at some point, i was assuming that much of the media parcels on either side of the freeway are owned by caltrans, which means we would not have any ability to discuss that. we had a project a number of months ago. in the context of that, we were discussing that some of these parcels are not even owned by anybody in particular other than caltrans. >> actually, in this area, that is not quite the case. on the block where all of the off ramps are, most of that is owned by caltrans, and there are a couple of lots in between the ramps. on the block between second and fourth, the entire block, those are all privately owned lots,

many of which that are under developed, but caltrans didst not on them. they own immediately underneath the freeway in various buildings, oat but in those areas i don't believe they own. >> if you look at the height map and the packet, you can tell from the parcel delineation, caltrans owns the large green parcels, but east of fourth, those are privately owned along the sides of the freeway. commissioner moore: ok, it is partially correct what i am saying, partially not. ok. generally, this is exciting to talk about and i hope that we will talk about it often and in great depth. m alsos. hester's comments about the soil and water table

are very important, and lead of the fact that we have rising sea levels, which means rising groundwater, and last but not least, the issue of cross traffic, being brought up in almost every project which we are now reviewing the larger areas from the eastern neighborhoods towards your area. i think that becomes important. i believe the issue shouldn't fall vote a discussion with sfmta so we go further than just the transit corridor. we need all of the connections east-west to create a framework, which makes sense. thanks. president olague: commissioner antonini? commissioner antonini: thank you for a very good job. i am glad the