>> if i can remind everyone to turn off your cellular phones or any other devices. moore? sugaya? fung? antonini? olague? miguel? borden? here. we have the full commission. the first category is calendar items proposed for a continuance. case no. 2011 -- proposed for a continuance until 2012. i am not aware of any other items on the calendar for a continuance. >> and is there any public comment? public comment is closed.

>> i moved to continue items 1-a and 1-b. >> on the motion for a continuance of item 1-a and b to january 12, 2012 -- >> aye. >> aye. >> aye. >> >> thank you. the item has been continued until january 12. next is the consent calendar. items 2, 3, 4 and 5 are the consent calendar. these are considered to be routine in would be acted upon with a roll-call vote. there would be no separate discussion unless a member of the public requests. the matter or matters would be removed from the consent calendar and considered at a separate hearing on this or

future hearing, as a separate item. case 2011 -- for 44 garry boulevard, the conditional use authorization to combine the space with a massage establishment on the three-story commercial building. case 2011 -- the request for a conditional use authorization. to modify the conditions of approval placed on the small- service restaurant. to add seating, including the outdoor seating within the 12th- street neighborhood commercial district. this is for 242 balboa st., the conditional use authorization,

with 1800 square feet of floor area into a massage establishment. item five this case 2011, the conditional use authorization to convert 15,000 square feet for retail and office use on the ground floor of a three-story building. this is listed as a contributor to the south district. commissioners, following any public comment on these items, which would remove them from the consent calendar, these items are in your hand for consideration. >> and is there any public comment on the consent calendar items? antonini? commissioner antonini: i would like to recuse myself because of

ownership interest within 500 feet. >> i would request that we take this up -- >> i would like to approve items one-fourth -- q-four. >> on the motion to approve item two-four, as proposed on the consent calendar, antonini? fung? moore? sugaya? olague? >> is there a motion for the recusal? >> on the motion to recuse m -- from participation in item number five, on that motion --

antonini? fung? moore? sugaya? olague? >> aye. >> antonini is recused. and is there a motion on item number 5? >> i moved to approve item #5. and i thank you, commissioners. on the motion to approve item #5 as it has been proposed? thank you, commissioners. the item has been approved as proposed. you are now at the general public comment category. members of the public may address you on items of interest to the public, that fall within the subject matter jurisdiction of the commission. the agenda items may not be addressed through this -- with

respect to this category, each member of the public may address you for up to 3 minutes. the entire category has a 15- minute time limit. bob iverson, followed by brad paul? >> i would like to use -- >> if you could identify yourself, this will come up automatically. >> i am bob iverson. i have masters degrees in urban

planning and architecture, and i cannot believe i have been practicing for 18 years already in architecture. my concern is with the presentation that has been brought forth on 8 washington. this is an attractive project but there are some issues that i feel are slipping by, and have not been noticed by many people. first off, i would like to compare the proposed plan against the existing plan. some of the imagery, and the square footage areas are very disconcerting. if you look at the existing projects, there are a couple of small buildings -- covering this site, and basically the entire site is open except for the pavilion. if you go to their charts, this

talks about 15 feet -- this is the other chart about open space. all they did was change the name from private, the public. to get these seductive numbers, using imagery to get seductive shots of this site. i would like to start first with -- the proposed verses the possible issues that have come up. i look at this upper condition all the time and i know that this is a corner of washington and embarcadero. i went out with a tape measure, and i got 16 feet for the existing sidewalk. this -- i went up and down, and this is 17 feet.

the gap building is the most narrow one, the 13 feet and most of this gap is over 15 feet, and all of these areas are more. here is the identical condition. this is 15 feet, and this is the imagery of what 15 feet will get you, against a very pedestrian version at hills plaza. this is not a highlight. and then, if you go to washington street, they have conditions -- with the existing building that is greater than the existing building -- this is greater than anything except for on the far right. this is definitely an exaggeration of the dimensions. if you were going to look at --

moving over the fence from the drum walk -- we see something very seductive here. they are taking half of the tennis court and coopting all of the space around us, and calling this the north end park. if you were going to look at this, there are many -- >> thank you. >> i would like to speak to the individual today. i would like to show you to alternatives -- this was developed in 2007 by iverson. and you can see -- what happened to this? you can see that this is actually a very attractive hotel over retail. if you put them side by side,

the 2000 -- 2007 proposal, it is fascinating, what is the same and what is different. the ground floor is exactly the same, and it fascinates me that there is even an extension to the recreation center, with a curved roof. and what you can't see is the lightly-colored wall that is behind us. and let's go to washington street. this is a very playful frontage that is there, a little structure that you can see through on the left with a couple of tennis courts, and the next picture? what we remember from this study is we came up with -- the next slide? this is exciting. you have seen this. the next slide? what we came up with is a very similar thing for this -- this was a transit bicycle recreation

center. we also looked at all of this comprehensively. what we presented to you -- they agreed with us that this was a good way to go. we could not do that in this case because the owner of 80% of the land. this is golden gateway and this is important for a couple of reasons. they are converting hundreds of affordable, middle-class families rental housing units, and the executive suites. you can see that they are featured on there. in 1993 when they bought this land through a loophole, they figured out a way to avoid recording the sale. each year, for three or four years they have less than 51% interest, so there was no sale or reappraisal.

they were paying property taxes based on a different value. a whistle-blower gave information to the assessor, and said this was $75 billion less than they should have paid. do not give them an increase in the height that will add to the height of this project. it will take away the middle- class housing that we need in this city. thank you. linda chapman? >> linda chapman. this weekend, i should have been communicating with people about a different project but was overcome by events on polk street. twice, recently, you have approved more alcohol licenses,

one of them which stated that the termination time, and the other, you gave off -- with a free community support. you'll be having to live nations coming up. the sound that you heard from the tape that was heard -- at bar closing time. this is under the senior housing and rental housing that the manager came in to tell you about. these are the sounds that people will hear on top of the hill. after that, it will only be 11:30 and they will go down to polk street. don't go to the mission. polk is the place. what happened is that the firemen had to take control. the police do not even try.

the captain says there is nothing that he can do. he only has five officers. the sergeant says that there is nothing they can do. then they describe how somebody tried to get taken away because of the complaint from the bar owner. and all of their friends came and stopped the policemen from taking her away, and then the have to call and five more police. this time, the brief fire man stepped forward, without anybody even calling them, trying to take control of the street and cleared it. it is very dangerous. we had a meeting with the city attorney this week about shutting down these places as a public nuisance, about how people came out of the bars on another occasion, lit fire to

cloth, then threw it at a car. propane tanks are used under the senior housing, under their windows. this situation is horrible. last weekend, i had to go to abc for a hearing to try to. -- to try to prevent the license from being put in on the same block. they said, well, abc is fine with that, the board of supervisors found it was a public convenience, annual approved it, so whose fault is it what is happening to us? abc, of course, and you. you know that i am not mean when i come down here. president olague: thank you. is there any additional public comment? seeing none, public comment is closed. secretary avery: thank you, item

number six, the disability access of small businesses and landlord obligations. >> hello, again, could afternoon. i am not justin -- justin will give a brief introduction. >> good afternoon, just in from out president chiu's office. i am here today to talk about the proposed legislation, working closely with members of the small business committee and people with disabilities. the primary staff person is ill today, so you will also be hearing from regina. i can cover parts of the legislation from the planning code, but i think it is straight forward. we're trying to help small businesses avoid the often

painful and sometimes business closing lawsuits that are generated as a result of issues with the implementation of the americans with disability legislation. there have been other supervisors we have worked with over the years on these issues, carmen chu among others, and this is part of an ongoing effort by the city to address the problem with these businesses have to close because of speculative lawsuits. with regard to the planning code changes, the legislation exempts the parts of the business related to excess ability from the floor space, and we are completely in agreement with modifications suggested by staff and we will track the restaurant legislation when it comes to us next year to make sure the line up appropriately. i am available to answer any questions, i will stay through

the item, but i did not want to go on and on. thank you. >> so the legislation before you exempts floor area dedicated to disability access from the calculations from small self- service restaurants, limit it to two dozen square feet, as well as seating areas for coffee areas, limited to 400 square feet. the staff recommendation it is instead of making it specific to these only uses to exempt access for disability from the gross area calculations. this access is necessary for the operation and focus of the building -- and function of the building and in many ways ada access is required by law. it is fairly straightforward,

the recommendation, and it does not change the planning code much, but i would like to have bought regina from the office of small business give comments on this as well. >> good afternoon, commissioners. when the legislation came about, discussing it with the supervisor's office about ideas, one thing is we saw many of the lawsuits or pre-lawsuit, businesses that try to do it accessibility improvements, their inability to do the accessibility improvements that they would really like to do, especially in the small self- service restaurants because of the construction of size. but that is one of the reasons why this particular section was added to this particular piece of legislation, but i really want to support the staff recommendation this concept is applied across the board to all

businesses, because i think we will see probably as time goes on more businesses are going to be required to allocate more and more space towards accessibility. so increasing accessibility and not having the space size reduce a business's ability to achieve that i think is the direction that we want to encourage. president olague: i guess i will open this up for public comment. i am sorry, i saw you sitting there. i am not sure which department or with. b>> hi, i am with the mayor's office of disability. president olague: i'd love to hear from you because i was wondering if somebody was here to represent them. >> sure, the access to small businesses is a huge issue. anything that makes it easier

for small businesses to provide that access wheat support. as most of you know, any time you have a small area and a few inches across the street, you need to provide 1 foot of ramp for every inch of rise that is false -- that is off the street. that takes up a fair bit of space. that is not usable space. you cannot put anything on it, you should not put anything on it, so it is not space that a business can make money off of. exempting it is something that we would support. president olague: thank you. >> any questions, i am happy to answer them. president olague: thank you for being here. i would like to open this up for public comment. david line? >> good afternoon. i am david levine, a private

lawyer. i have had the pleasure of representing any number of small businesses afflicted with these lawsuits. my clients as a rule are in favor of the disability act, however, what they are finding is they are being burdened by unexpected litigation costs that they simply were not anticipating when they moved in. with this legislation seeks to do, particularly in the park with the leases as to costs that may come up as a result of disability access, is a very worthwhile goal and we are here to support it today. we hope that there is a day with the city or perhaps the state goes further and reallocate its costs between landlords and tenants with regard to disability access, but for the time being we believe, and i think i speak across a fair number of small business owners,

we believe this is a good for step towards getting the word out as to who needs to -- as to who need to pay for the costs so that small business owners can open up their businesses with their eyes open and not unexpectedly hit with costs. on behalf of the group i represent, we urge you to support this. thank you for your time. president olague: thank you. is there any additional public comment on this item? >> linda chapman. i like to comment because i was a civil rights specialist with disabilities as a specialty for a while. but i was also on the federal executive boards disability council. i read with concerned these articles about the persecution of small businesses by lawyers and people who are really not out to get access for people but what money can be gotten out of

it. my specialty was really employment. i have not researched exactly what is happening here. but one of the principles was that whether it was an employer or a business that has an access issue, one of the questions it is, is it an undue burden? how feasible is it to do? it is not like you have to make everything accessible. some things cannot reasonably be done with the amount of costs that would go into doing it. this applies to employers. unless you are huge. the department of the army could do anything, but a small employer or business does not. there are limitations. i certainly read that there are some lawyers who were making cases on the take, so on. even in the employment office, we would find that sometimes. one day, i lock my door and

cried and said, what happened to it edgar matters? she had this devastated look. i think of violet. there are people who would come in, cash settlement, a cash settlement, people who would say, i want to thank you for the wonderful investigation, but really they are giving out checks and that is what i am after. that is something to think about here. i cannot really opine on whatever legislation is proposed to happen because i have not researched it, but there are limitations on what is supposed to be done. i used to read about crazy cases, like in sacramento, some people who were disability advocates, nonprofits, demanded to remove all of the trees on the streets because they were barriers. bearing that in mind, i hope that you will try to adopt the moderate approach.

president olague: is there any additional public comment on this matter? seeing none, public comment is closed. commissioner borden: this was one of the number one issues at merchant meetings that was in place. unfortunately, there were attorneys taking advantage of the fact that a lot of small businesses are not able to meet or to not currently meet compliance and were going in, sending somebody into basically lodge a lawsuit or get compensation for its. i think it is important because there are small retail spaces. we have this conversation all the time, places that are 400, 5 powder square feet, and to create the access is very costly, especially if it does not allow them to expand their foot. -- barefoot. to accommodate these accessibility improvements that are needed. with that, i would move for

approval. commissioner fong: second. president olague: commissioner antonini? commissioner antonini: i have some questions. it looks like if i am reading the ordinance correctly, in addition to excluding the square footage required for disability access copulation, maximum allowable space-bar footage that is allowed for these establishments -- maximum allowable space-bar square footage that is allowed for these establishments, leasing to small business accommodations to bring in ground floor entrances, compliance with federal access laws. is that part of the legislation, too? >> it is, it is not part of the planning code, but it is under the san francisco campaign and government code. commissioner antonini: okay, it is my understanding, and i may be wrong, but i always understood that these

accommodations were to be done at the time that there were certain amount of improvements done to the structure and it would be a percentage of the total improvement cost with the most important access being done first. obviously, entrance access would be the top priority, and down the line, restrooms later, but it was not required at least making -- correct me if i am wrong, but this would be in addition to current state or federal laws? is that true? >> it would be any time a new lease is signed. if it was not up to compliance, it would have to come up to compliance. bucommissioner antonini: think e planning part of this, maybe you could answer that question? >> thanky