false art. i would urge you to consider this plan and just taken action to look at the academy of art. is this just a real taste -- real estate scam? thank you. [applause] >> hello, a commission. i am katie monroe and i come here on behalf of the san francisco art institute. i have worked in the admissions office for about three years. i have seen what this is like to sit down with the prospective students to look at their work and look at how much money that they have. and to create a plan that works for that student. and to admit them because the institution sees that they have the potential to do well, to be nurtured by the institution and to graduate and go on to other

professional endeavors. there is no portfolio that has been set, or required to be admitted to the institution to be considered in this deeply concerns me. i am it in a considerable amount of debt by i feel that my education i received is one of great merit, and of great meaning and great individual growth. and this is what i have received. i worry for those who have not received the same. thank you. -- >> i live at the corner of sutter and mason, right next door to a dormitory. the buses to come to pick up the students who sit in front of the

dormitory and sometimes instructed the city bus so that when i take the bus, i have to go out into the street to get this. i am asking that the environmental impact study consider the exhaust from these buses that are sitting idle. thank you very much. >> thank you. -- >> i am barbara graves, i live next door to an academy building and i will divorce myself from my feelings of positive creativity and contributions to the community that the academy brings and think about for a moment as one of the largest landowners in the city. what this means is some responsibility comes with that position.

and if we divorce ourselves for the moment, this is pollution where we don't know the source. when you are talking about the academy -- we know where the pollution is coming from. a single transit bus, even with a modest filter and biodiesel, puts out approximately 0.8 lbs. of black carbon a year. this is a lot, and when you think that the water source will be depleted by climate change, the production of black carbon makes a big difference. there are ways to change this and one thing is to -- the previous speaker, i can tell you

what i dust in my house, my window is right by the bus stop, for the academy of arts. i don't give brown dust, i get black dust. this is a possible carcinogen, and it contributes to climate change. this is not radical thinking for anyone here. one of these is the clean bus program. i have time to the buses in front of the dorm for 20 minutes. this is astounding to me. this is a standard program to reduce idling. i will leave this for the secretary ed i am leaving the clean bus program, -- they will be participating in this.

the other way is to encourage the students to walk. do they need to get on at sutter and mason and ride? encourage them to walk and bike. the best way to transport small numbers of people, this is with the prius. this is put out by the co2 emissions for each mile. >> i am linda chapman, and i live at the heart of the campus. this is a good institution. someone in our building thought

this was -- and there is the academy of students. they were all at the academy. this is where the boss has to go. this is a very serious problem. the encroachment was a different kind before the academy. this is the executive suite. and they're turning this informally. and they would be out, one way or another. things were done and they were gone. the same thing happens with the academy. these buildings cannot be grandfathered in. as an official in the federal government, i would say -- they

have been doing something illegal. and henceforth they will not be able to continue this. they cannot continue to rent those units on those terms. they have to post this in the newspaper with discrimination finding that would be done, and they would have to know the rental agencies that they would have to go through. this is how they deal with the unlawful discrimination. under no circumstances can they be grandfathered in. they never went through the process. and the commercial buildings --

that are not needed, this would probably be a good idea. if not currently used, this would be an excellent place. this is not the same way that the hospital use will be. i would not have a use for this plan -- and you would allow this to go on for so long. >> we have been dealing with this institution of the planning department for about six-eight years now. they have filed consistently, for the master plan. and only came to a head when

they acquired st. bridges. this has made them very publicly visible. what you have heard here, is that they refuse to take the limit. this is where they are located. we will treat this as a real university. this is not functioning as anything i have been too. this is the governance. the bottom line is the pocketbook. we don't have something that

functions as a real university. you do not have anything before you. there is nothing with the academy of art. they reserve the right to do whatever they please, as a real- estate offering. since the last hearing, there have been a couple of the enormous building. a cannery, which was not on the radar. this has massive traffic problems. this is one issue that you deal with -- you will have this in one month.

you have the institution that basically barges through all of us. they have the buses that come through on their own schedule. and they're mostly in the end everyone knows about this. i follow them all the time and they are very empty. california hall, two blocks north. at polk and turk. this was an educational building and then the educational academy. we do not have any stability that represent -- if you let this go forward without the defined boundaries. this is the institutional master plan. >> and is there any additional public comment? scene 9, public, is closed. commissioner sugaya: i am sorry, i have to -- i came prepared to

participate. i have read the institutional master plan and the enforcement papers that were sent to us earlier. i was wondering what to wear. and i was trying to match myself for the hearing. in hearing one person's testimony, on pine street, it suddenly occurred to me that i am within 300 feet or 500 feet of the least two buildings. in conferring with the city attorney's office in these situations, usually, if this is something we are voting on, i would have to recuse myself. even though we are not taking the specific actions on this, the way that they are set up, i

should ask for recusal. commissioner moore: this is a moving target and we may have to recuse ourselves. there are implications that would hint that any of us will -- or are already living within a certain radius, which would require us for refusal. >> on the motion on the floor for commissioner sugaya? moore? >> no. sugaya? >> aye. >> fong? >> aye. >> antonini? >> aye. >> olague?

>> aye. miguel? >> a reluctant aye. moore votes against. sugaya is recused. commissioner miguel? commissioenr miguel: i appreciate the comments so far this morning. and i think that i agree with many of them. this commission is not an accreditation board. we do not determine if the university should or should not do, this is the internal governance, with many -- with the curriculum and everything else.

this is not an eir hearing. bus polition -- pollution will come out at the hearing that will eventually be in front of us. we are dealing with the institutional master plan. i support the a original presentation about what the report is to do, and this is an odd type of document in the information, and yet this is expected with the unusual situation. the only unique action. the only action of that kind that i have ever heard of. the only one that comes to the floor of this commission. this is what was submitted.

i consider a public relations booklet, masquerading this way. i just saw them come in, to the room. i have known him for sometime and i consider him friendly. his organization is the document's author. i did not know that he was in the public-relations business. it has been difficult for me to consider what i find as a very pretentious volume, in the commission. admittedly, there are facts and figures buried in there. but going through all of this, i have no other way of talking

about this -- this has been quite difficult for me. i am it only going to deal with a few specifics. and i may have more comments later. i refer to page 7. because of the industry needs that the serbs, the university facility needs are unique. this is a specious argument of the nightly false -- any multi- faceted institution, educational institution is in exactly the same position. the need for physical space for different teaching disciplines. there is nothing unique about them or their needs. this is a public-relations statement. also repeated is the argument that they use the historic buildings. they have lost their public

funding, and this is extremely questionable as argument, at best without any relevance. this is pure public relations. if you get to around page 41, and further, the document makes several attempts to gloss over the planning code violations, associated with the acquisitions and the control of property. these are the violations. these are the notifications and the enforcement. i will not even bother counting them. some of these properties, have formally served san francisco as a form of low-income housing. they call these actions technical violations. my estimation is estimation, thl violations were incurred by a

management and associate, completely aware -- and i said this before -- of what they were doing was unlawful. i have previously and again referred to them as scofflaw. you have mentioned this afternoon, at the present time, the lowest availability of rental housing in san francisco since 1999. we are down to, i believe, just over 3% availability. this is for san franciscans, people we want to live and work here. three different submissions, december 2007, april 2008, and this. both previous time the

commission determined the imp denied to satisfy the relevant code requirement, and did not except those imp's. this present overblown submission is a bit better than the others. as far as i'm concerned, given an obvious and blatant and ability -- inability to resemble anything coherent plan use planning, it is questionable whether this document, probably prepared by the company a month ago, it is even accurate as of today. there is no way to tell. i will have some more comments later. commissioner olague: i would

like to call on commissioner fong. commissioner fong: my comments and actions here will explain the overall sprawl and success of the university. i was prepared to participate today and hope that this is a first death in a new leaf in moving forward, answering and taken care of the frustration that many people have. but i will have to recuse myself and ask for refusal -- refusal, based on some transactions, interactions relates to private events with the business i known, and the university. -- own, and the university. >> this is getting ridiculous. i will move for refusal strictly on legal grounds.

>> [roll call] commissioner olague: we are going to be taking a 15-minute recess. >> if it rings, if you would take your call outside instead of answering in here, we would really appreciate that. commissioners, since commissioner fong and sugaya are reduced, -- recused, you are in the middle of your deliberations. commissioner olague: thank you for allowing us our recess so that we can get a sense of how we report to move forward here. i just want to thank members of the public for coming out and sharing with us the concerns

they have. this is nothing new, we have been here before, for several years, and i do again want to acknowledge the comments, students from the san francisco art institute. it is always courageous to be someone outside of the political process to take the time to come down here and raise some of the issues. what i do want to mention, though, a lot of the concerns that have been raised by the public are one that commissioner miguel mention the, one that do not fall under the purview of the institution a master plan. i know sue mentioned there were some definite issues that pertain to this, but overall, i

agree with the planning department's conclusion, that the imp does meet the standards that are set for that. a lot of the issues that people raise around housing, traffic problems, etc., have more to do with the eir. i know the institution has been working closely with our department now. delay, there will be more discussions with members of the public. -- hopefully, there will be more discussions with members of the public. i am hoping -- i guess i am fatigued. over the past five, six years, the conversation, the tone that it has taken. it has gotten nasty and bitter and did not really lead to anything other than more bitterness.

i would rather see us move more into -- maybe the next few years, we can resolve these issues and concerns, and in a fashion that is less combative. maybe we can actually sit down with some members of the community, with the mayor's office convening, the board of supervisors. the planning department will stay involved. we have christine from our enforcement division. but to do this in a way that is less combative spirit i am not sure it has gotten us very far. i think we are spinning our wheels and are in the same place we were six years ago. i know there has been some legislation recently proposed around student housing that we heard last week. issues around housing, traffic, are issues that, hopefully, we

can continue to work with the institution to see if we can get somewhere where the neighbors and others feel more resolved around. we live in the city, obviously. there is a lot that is perhaps unresolved, but i am at a place where some of the issues that fall out of the purview of the imp continued to be worked on, continue to move forward on. some have been working on this issue for a long time. i am hoping he can help us move forward on some of these things. i do not think i need to reiterate what everyone has already stated, some of the concerns. i believe the imp does meet the standards that are set.

my desire is to close the hearing on the institutional master plan. i see other commissioners have their names up. there is no motion. i would like to allow the other commissioners an opportunity to speak. commissioner moore. commissioner moore commissioner moore: i appreciate the voices that have come to the meeting. i echo everyone's concerns. this group has been sitting since 2008, repeatedly and in accelerated fashion. this is the crescendo. voices are loud and clear. the lack of definition on what an institutional master plan needs to be, as in section 3 04

0.5, makes it difficult to drive the point home further than what is in front of us. i just want to perhaps support and elevate what commissioner miguel said. given the fact that we are here with a very complete, comprehensive, attractive imp's from other city institutions, i would like to say that this is barely in the lower tier. it looks good, have the right graphics cover, the snappy binding, the heavy cover, heavier than any part of the content that is what is expressed in here. this is basically a light weight pr document, using commissioner miguel's words. since the definition in the code does not require anything other than that, i regret an

institution, which definitely is doing some good things, on its own, would not rise to the occasion to show what they are doing. that is, indeed, a more thoughtful description of themselves, more 4-looking mission statement of where minim expressing that they want to be a good citizen in city matters, which apparently they have not, given the violations. that is all watching old laundry. what bothers me is this imp makes it look like what architecture schools referred to as art 1. it tells me about the codes, the buildings, where they are. i deal with that every week. i do not need to fill the pages of this kind of plan with information which is obvious and accessible to all of us.