deal with homelessness, this was very proactive and positive. this was by the city of merced. >> january 26 is when we will schedule the hearing, i want to make certain that this communication was made clear. if this is convenient -- otherwise we will have to move this over to february. some members of the african- american community, we're waiting for borden to return from her leave, and a hearing on the movement of african-

americans. we will schedule this for february. we want this to coincide with that. commissioner sugaya: the latest issue of san francisco is carrying an article on the new condominium development. this is interesting but it seems to imply that things are looking up a little bit. the foot of howard st., and there is the existing garage. in terms of the commission schedule for the rest of the year, do we have to dip below early meetings. >> we have added one. >> the way that this is currently scheduled, december 8 -- we are looking at 10:00 for

special hearings. >> if i may, by the end of the year, i would like to go down this hearing of this year. we have put together a draft but we have not distributed this. we have not consider the schedule for this year. i do believe there is a member of the public like to comment on the future hearings. >> good afternoon. the golden gate park alliance -- we are looking for an additional requests for extensions to the public, at for this, the neighborhood council and part of the neighborhood.

golden gate park along step everyone but this project will impact this neighborhood the most. i will speak to the next hearing, and that is why i am up at this time. we held a hearing on the athletics and due to the large crowd, the speakers were given only one minute to speak. the commission was left about 10 minutes to discuss their own comments. there is a it -- an official at reach list, to testify. there was no mention of the eir issue. the department says that despite any deficiencies, and there are many, they are in favor of this project.

the parks and recreation -- but they were looking to influence the local election. and parks and recreation, they were going to cancel the commonwealth club council on these issues. they tried to change the makeup of the panel and the content of the discussion. this has led to rulings of the sunshine task force, for parks and recreation, and therefore, through the december 1 hearing, we ask for a time for intelligent public comment. we will make certain that you yourself have adequate time for your own concerns. we look forward to hearing your comments and we know that you will review this carefully.

working to restore the historic integrity of golden gate park. both for today and for future generations of the people of san francisco. request an extension of the public comments. >> and is there any additional public comment? >> we were going to calendar that item to discuss the extension of the comments, and we will discuss that on that day. during the hearing, we never shortened the public comments. everyone will have three minutes. this is as usual. >> thank you. we can move on to the director'' report. and a review of the past week's events.

and the historic preservation commission. >> i just want to report on the zoning conference in new york. this was unusually good. basically, this was to give ideas to new york city, and get along with the zoning changes. the city is growing at an incredible pace. with 200,000 residents. the growth in new york is almost unprecedented. this is expected to be about 9 million soon. this was a very interesting topic because they looked at the zoning with speakers from the city, and in the afternoon they had speakers from other cities, washington and london, to talk about the future changes.

this was very well organized and i was happy part of the discussion. with commissioner miguel and his comments about rental housing, we see -- the way that we are saying this is actual -- the actual project will move forward in the discussion, the largest of which is the project, with the crescent heights development, which started construction a couple of weeks ago. this is a very large project. behind that, there is the affordable housing that they are also moving ahead with. and this is also -- the market being that tide is actually allowing for these projects. i would just like to remind the

commissioners that in light of the thanksgiving holidays will be closed on wednesday, thursday and friday. the office will be closed for three days next week. commissioner antonini: with your comments in regard to the growth in new york city, was this distributed evenly or was there a concentration of growth, more than others? >> the growth in new york is always in manhattan. in brooklyn and queens and along the riverfront, where there has been vacant industrial property for many years. the planning department of new york has undergone a major rezoning, so they have actually been looking at the industrial properties on the waterfront. these have been vacant for 30 or 40 years, not unlike the other

place is here. -- places here. >> thank you. >> there is no report from the board of supervisors but the board of appeals considered a couple of items, the first is the legislative affairs staff presented a report on the legislation as it was reported that the supervisor heard a couple of months ago and will be hearing next month. this is similar to what was done a couple of years ago. the second is a violation of the penalty, this is the appeal of the violation because they failed to continue with the violations of approval. the project -- they did not

require the units, so they raise some issues in the brief, with the board of appeals for these allegations. the board was very persuasive, -- very persuaded by the testimony, with penalty 5-0. and the board of appeals. there was a decision letter that many members of the commission may remember. the top four may be removed and we suggested that they replace this to the rear. we have hearings on this over the summer and i had hoped that this decision would satisfy all

parties, if we would modify and the appeal was modified by the neighbor. this was by the board of appeals in january. that is everything. -- >> the preservation commission that today, with a few items. the architectural committee heard about this and they were impressed with the modifications that were made based on the prior suggestions. and one of these commissioners thought that this was sufficient, and that the project did not need to be modified any further.

they did not believe the further modifications, that there would be a setback, that would bring light to the smallest window. they acknowledged that this is just a suggestion and there were the modifications that would be made. and also, they did hear this -- with the athletic reservations, and it was a very tight hearing. they had a couple of hours to cut the testimony down to one minute per person, and there were left with about eight minutes to deliberate. they take the room had a specific time. you get to stay in the room

until you finish your hearing. and day -- this was mixed. there was the comment in the letter format. the last item, they took up the modifications, for the supervisor weiner. there were very upset that the supervisor said modifications and suggestions, to appear before the commission. he was concerned that he was ready to table the whole thing until the need to come before him and make his case. they heard these modifications,

and some of them were acceptable and some were not. and they have drafted their comments before you consider those modifications. that will conclude my report. >> commissioners, with that, we can move into the 15 minutes public comment. and we can discuss the commission. each member of the public can address you, keeping in mind that the category is only 15 minutes and they may not address you on items that are not on the calendar. with that -- >> somebody did >> someone did not write in a name.

the general public comment relates to items that are not on today's calendar. >> i am a student at san francisco state university. this is based on your policies and what you can do towards future projects. i would like to suggest that this takes into account the project to be approved under your jurisdiction. we would like to see any remaining wildlife habitat remain in tact. entire ecosystems have been destroyed.

san francisco was once the site of diverse wetlands that provide services such as flood control, water purification. it is our responsibility to share that we protect as much wildlife habitat as possible and we should work to ensure that the public park and recreational areas are not threatened or removed. these enhance the city with beauty and also recreational opportunities. the committee support projects has sustainable projects. this is an environmentally sustainable san francisco. >> it is there additional public

comment? >> i was hoping to be here for the early special meeting. i was going to talk about the academy of art. this is very frustrating. you have done a lot in the last few months. you talk about the student housing and the definition of student housing. this is the student definition that your house and came down on. you passed exceptions when you

had student housing. you had a number of recent enforcement actions but i think the real opportunities as the commissioner said earlier will come with the eir and conditional use discussions. i think there are three fundamental problems we are trying to deal with. we have an institution that sees the entire city as its campus and they have an opportunistic real estate program. this year, i think it will be taking in $275 million from tuition 199 million is federal money. there is no ceiling on their body. they will grow, grow, grow.

the policy is to buy and use existing housing 10 town they are reducing demand that would only exists for that policy of unlimited growth. our goal going forward and i think the commissioners struck a good tone is to figure out a combination of regulations and incentives that get them to build new housing or convert buildings and to focus on certain areas that make sense with its high transit capacity.

>> good afternoon, commissioners. i have two separate comments. i would like to make a comment about the academy of art. the more general comment about the institution like this seems to me that the current mayor has 8 jobs driven economic development strategy. this it needs to lead to jobs. we are encouraging institutional growth.

this is a vibrancy to have cultural activities. we want to make sure that there are the housing facilities for those folks. how do you house the student population as it grows is very germane and we're not overstressing our housing stock and it raised the question whether we should do this as a matter of policy. there are things induced by the user population. we can take a breath and see how we can create some structured to this policy.

the second thing is noticing provisions and i am looking here at this tony administration i have said this to mr. sanchez, i think this is very low hanging fruit. i am a neighborhood activist and i do policy work for a living and the policy work that comes before you often has something to do with how much people know what is going on and when they know it and whether they know it at the right time to have some kind of substantive involvement. the first psychological reaction is to assume the worst.

there is a planning around the seat with determination. i heard a briefing on the sustainability fee which will lead to more exemptions. as we change how we do business on developing policy, we need to think about how people can be informed, engage, and where that makes them feel as though they are part of the progress and not impacted by it. think you. >> these lead right to mine. i was at the original hearing when d.c. "was implemented -- wendwhen the seqa was implement.

there was a uniform process figured out for how notice was given. we to notices differently from the state. the rudimentary state and federal processes are not what we use in san francisco. what we use is radius and the planning department lists and various mechanisms. i was shocked to find out that a major eir that was released and the only reason why i found out about it is that i read all the notices and i read the committee notices. there was a mention of a van

ness eir that had been released. i get every notice. i'm the only person that gets categorical exception. the fact that i got no notice whatsoever of that the i are shocked me and it is very hard and tedious to track it down. i would like you to have a presentation on how that happened, how did we get into a position where the mta does not follow the procedures that the rest of the city follows. no one got notice. there was a group of people that were on task forces that they had, that they gave notice to.

it was not on any planning department notice list at all. this is a big project and i hear that you will have a hearing on it. who knows about it? who is going to comment on it? the basic question is mr. white should be required to give a presentation about how this happened and are there any instances where the city agencies have fallen out of the procedures. i think it would be an eye opener to find out that you have exempted things. the other issue that should be discussed is the categorical exemptions because we have no more notices. we get nothing until the project is approved. thank-you. >> thank you. >> there are many people here

for 49 trillion. we will be hearing that after this item. it is the next item after this one. >> is there any additional public comment? seeing none, public comment is closed. >> i'm assuming that you're saying this will be after item 10. we are on item 10. proposed changes to restaurants, video stores, and related land- use control. >> before i start, of like to turn the day is over to their representative from supervisor mirkarimi's office. >> aachen supervisor mirkarimi

is not able to make it and he asked me to represent him. thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak. i'm here to offer some history and the context on this legislation that has been in the works. we would like to thank the planning department for all of its hard work. they worked diligently on this issue, particularly this summer and trying to accommodate the needs of various groups. we would like to thank the planning department for all of its hard work. supervisor mirkarimi introduced this after the community groups and small business owners came and expressed concerns about onerous restrictions on locally owned self-service frisch restaurants -- self-service

restaurants. these were meant to stop the spread of fast-food restaurants and chain stores in san francisco. now that there are clear rules, many believe that the code is out of date and confusing to many. the restrictions caused hardships and delays. current limitations include prohibiting on site food preparation and cooking and reading in coffee shops without a conditional use approval.