get that, to have a staff report of these instances with respect to architecture and compatibility and all of that. secondly, if staff other antenna. i do not know if it even came to the department. >> the was a project on st. joseph, i think. they worked on the design. they worked on the location of the equipment. it was perhaps a year they did that. we got to the point of noticing it. it did get a lot of opposition. they did voluntarily withdraw it, but did not say why. they just withdrew a without prejudice for future application. commissioner sugaya: does the person who testified have any questions? you can meet with staff.

commissioner moore: the skeptics are subjective. the public needs to have an ability to judge and to see our actions within something that is tangibly explained, which might mean if there is indeed an architectural reconfiguration of part of the building with an antenna, i am all part of that, i think there has to be a mechanism which allows the public to participate in the discussion. normally, an alteration to a building becomes a d.r. and i think you can create your own rules to prepare yourself, to give people notice on a potential architectural discussion, should it involve the modifications of the building.

this is positive, you just need to properly anchoret in how you bring it forward. commissioner sugaya: move to approve. commissioner miguel: second. commissioner sugaya: with conditions. >> the motion on the floor is for approval with conditions. commissioner antonini: aye. aye. -- commissioner borden: aye. commissioner miguel: aye. commissioner sugaya: aye. commissioner moore: aye. vice president wu: aye. president fong: aye. >> the motion passed unanimously. you are now on item 10 for 1245 south van ness avenue. >> good afternoon, commissioners. brittany bendix, planning department staff. this is a request for a

conditional use authorization to pursue a retail grocery store doing business as fresh and easy. this is within the nc-3 and rh-1 districts, 40-x/50-40-x height. this will divide into a grocery store and a commercial retail space. this involves removal of approximately 16 off-street parking space, and we will reconfigure the law to provide 45 parking spaces, bicycle spaces, and to improve traffic flow. this was originally scheduled on february 23. the commission moved to continue this item to today at the request of supervisor campos, to

allow a project sponsored to meet with opponents in the hope a compromise could be negotiated. my understanding is that meeting was scheduled for last night. however, it was canceled earlier this week at the request of the project if opponents. i have some e-mails that have been presented to me. i have copies i can pass out to you. they are divided by letters of support and opposition. i also have a letter from malia cohen's office. those are all individual copies. at the time the case report was published, only one resident opposed the proposal, stemming from an easement dispute bween the neighboring property owner and the subject property owner. the issue remains unresolved and the department has not received any information that suggests the easement legally excess. there have been 22 e-mails in

opposition, climbing areas of concern. the first is a crime that the market does not include vouchers and under the wic program. in march, 2011, citing budgetary limitations, the california department of public health established a moratorium on new vendor applications to wic. however, the market continues to participate in the federal government program commonly referred to as food stamps. the second concern is that the market is not unionized and will underemployed because they operate only using self checkout stands. the perception there are no cashier's present has led to a fear the market would facilitate the sale of alcohol to underage youth. the market is not unionized. however, they have stated a 100% local hiring objective for this site and will partner with local

organizations to attempt to reach that. only four bank of eight stanzas are operated by the customer -- only four of 8 stands are operated by the customer. the previous close retirement acquired a liquor license that predates the special use the strict controls. after 30 days of inactivity, the non-conforming use license expired for the site. however, any new grocery store may still acquire a new liquor license, so long as it conforms to the floor area and sales restrictions required by the special use district. the final claim is that the market will this place alternative course three options in the neighborhood. with the exception of the past 18 months, the site has been occupied by a grocery store since 1959. the first tenant would be considered formula retail by

present standards. the second tenant, delano market, had 11 stores before borne by group. fresh and easy will occupy a smaller retail space than either previous tenant. the department has also received comments from 11 individuals in support of the project. these projects cited the store as an important addition to the neighborhood that would complement existing activities and provide immediate access to greater variety of goods and services. supervisor cohen has also indicated the positive contributions and good neighbor efforts made by fresh and easy in the bayview. the planning commission must consider the applicable zoning districts, for military uses, the availability of similar retail uses, existing vacancy rates, and uses within that district. the commission must also consider compatibility with the architectural and as that the

character of the district. the only parcel in the district is the subject parcel itself. the nearest alternative general grocery store is over a mile away. to provide a better frame of reference for the formula retell presence within the neighborhood, staff collected information from both the mission street and 14 mission street nct districts. formula retail sites represent a minority of retail uses within both districts. the department is recommending approval of the project, because the proposal will reestablish a use that has existed on site since 1959, but will be at a lesser intensity than previous tenants. additionally, modifications to the sun will make the building were compatible with the overall neighborhood anesthetic. it meets the requirements of the

general plan and planning code. this concludes my presentation and i am available for any further question. president fong: public comment, i have a stack of cards here. sorry. project sponsor. >> good afternoon, members of the commission, director rahaim. my name is larry boehner -- badner, and i represent fresh and easy markets in their application for a formal retail use. we have here fresh and easy representative scott whitney, who will talk about the specific site in the commitments they have made. he will talk about the

corporation and commitments that are making to the site. i believe this is the first time the commission has seen fresh and easy. briefly, i will tell you i think you know much about it. the program is simple, fresh, and wholesome food at low prices. they have their own brand in the neighborhood of national brands. they have no artificial flavors or colors, no high fructose corn syrup -- say that 10 times faster. but also her freshly prepared ready-to-go meals. as the planner correcting noted, we are here for a formal retail use. there are external issues that are relevant, but external. fresh and easy will occupy 2/3 of the site that previously bell and delano's occupied. it is smaller than those two. delano got to within one of

being a formal retell. they were a local chain, but they had the same effects that a formula retail would. the occupant of the site until the mid 2000's had more than 11 sites. delano had up to 11, one less than the formula retail trigger. this will not change the character of the neighborhood or the individual district, north of the mission or 24th street. this has been historically a chain store formula retail site. it will maintain the historical number of formula retail uses in the district. furthermore, the city has recognized the loss of gross restores as a major issue in san francisco. -- the loss of grocery stores as a major issue in san francisco. this will occupy eight vacant

storefront, help the surrounding neighborhood by eliminating a vacancy, and improve, frankly, what is a sort of outdated store. it will look up to date with greening, sidewalk treatment, etc. with that, i will turn it over to scott whitney to talk about specific features of the store. >> good afternoon, commissioners. my name is scott whitney of fresh and easy markets. i appreciate your time today. when we came to san francisco, the first thing we did was look for locations we felt were underserved and would benefit from an additional grocery store. under those particular requirements that we were seeking, we felt it would be a

good fit for us. to date, through our process, we have had in excess of 15 meetings locally with a variety of residence, organizations, schools, businesses. we hired five people to visit locally door-to-door to spread the word of what we were trying to do, and understand the concerns and issues within the community. we had over 213 people participate in our community planning process. and from there what we did is developed the platform to build upon for this particular location. what we found was a variety of needs the community wanted to see. bicycle parking was one in particular the was a large need within the community. many people either walk or use bicycles for transportation.

we have incorporated in excess of 30 parking facilities for bicycle travelers. in addition to that, because our store is a fresh model, we have sharper date codes and most grocery stores. it is not because the products go out of code, but because we want to keep the french model in the store. we want to work with local partners. we have had discussions to work with a food bomb -- a food bank. from a construction perspective, one of the things we seek to do, if we get to the point where we are ready to go to construction -- we are going to work locally and hire locally, and go out to bid to all facets in the construction community, union

included. we have set a goal to hire locally. we want to hire 100% in local from the mission. we are a neighborhood market. neighborhood means hiring locally to us. the other thing we addressed was the parking lot. currently, it is in a poor state of appearance today. we are going to go through and enhance it with a variety of factors. additional landscaping. we are going to incorporate murals to further benefit and integrate within the community. we are working with presida eyes to take the existing merrill on the former -- mural on the former delano location and relocate it. in addition, there is a fence that is in a state of disrepair. we plan to take that and enhance it and put up a split face

concrete block wall. rather than having a wall there, we are going to incorporate some mural opportunities, as well as cleaning and landscape opportunities to make a living wall, as well as prepare it as a display piece for the community. trees. again, there are not a lot of trees in the mission district. we feel enhancing the site with additional trees and green scaping is a huge party, and the neighborhood said they want to see that as well. we are working that into the plan. there has been some concern raised around us being a serious competitor. at the end of the day, we are not trying to compete with the local merchants. we are trying to enhance the offering. we will not be selling products such as yucca. security was another concern an

issue, not something we will be addressing and focusing on, to make this a secure and safe place for people to shop. cars are another issue that was raised. we want to see if we can buy a car shares for the community. i know larry spoke of the size of our store. we do not need to take the whole space. we are taking roughly 2/3 of it. we have created a sublet space. we have had great discussions and are working through a letter of intent with mission neighborhood centers as a potential adjoining tenant, which we are really excited about and hopefully we can bring to fruition. with that said, we would also like to work with the local business to have vendor workshops to understand there are products and services they may be able to incorporate.

we can see if that is a possibility. in a nutshell, this is kind of the property side of where we have been and what we have tried to accomplish. unless you have questions, i will turn it over to my counterpart, robert howard, and she will discuss specific issues related to us as a business. president fong: thank you. >> i am robin howard. thank you for having us today. i want to give you a little background on the company, and possibly clear up some misinformation that has been circulated about our company. we have been in business for only four years. we still consider ourselves kind of a startup. we have opened 191 stores. the majority of those are in california, three of them here in san francisco. the the second and clement,

third and carol, and the bayview. we are a different kind of grocer. we are smaller. like he said, it is basically a 10,000 square foot sales floor. what really makes us unique is fresh and easy products. no artificial colors or fibers. no high fructose corn syrup. the trans fats. preservatives only when necessary. we're trying to give wholesome food to everyone in every type of neighborhood. that is one of our values going into every neighborhood, especially if it is underserved, and trying to fill that need. our culture is also a little bit different. one of our values is having fun at work. being able to build the culture from the ground up, we were able to make our own culture. have fun at work. for your best self. green t-shirts.

we have these great meetings where people can dress up for st. patrick's day. if you do not bring your best stuff to work, you are not going to serve the customer well. that being said, we hire locally. if you are from the neighborhood, you know the neighborhood. you're going to give the best service. that is going to work best for everyone. on the issue of jobs, we do hire locally. our goal is always to hire 100% local. that is not always possible. however, we believe we can reach that goal in the mission of 100%. we would like to take some employees and train them and one of our existing stores, so that when the store is ready to open, they can come in as managers and team leads, and we can get closer to the 100% goal. everyone must work enough hours so they are entitled to full benefits. everyone that works for us,

part-time or full-time, are entitled to full health care, with a 3% company match. we do quarterly bonuses, up to 10% of your salary in a bonus each quarter. we do life skills training. you can handle the skills of life and work, so you can bring your best self to work. we really value our people. we have worked with young community developers at the bayview store to build -- to fill our vacancies there so we can keep having people come in from the community to work for us. that is jobs. second is wic. i want to say this is not fresh and easy path policy to not accept eas -- easy's policy to not accept wic. we have an application pending

for the bayview store. during the start of phase of our business, california has had a moratorium. the first was put in place in 2009. that went through to the end of 2009. in 2010, they lifted it. that is when we started applying. it is not an even process, and it is a long process. when we were developing our plan to roll out, the state imposed another moratorium last year. there were going to list it at the end of february. they put out an alert that said it was continued. i have all the alerts hear from the california wic program. i feel passionately about this. if we are going to go into underserved neighborhoods, it is something we have to have, which the community wants. it is not our policy to not accept wic. i want to make that clear.

when love to partner with schools. we have a shop for schools program that starts, i think, in september. it runs through the end of the year. all schools within the radius of our stores can register. $1 of every $20 spent goes directly to that school. the parents can support the neighborhood. we have shopping nights. on certain nights, schools give 5% of sales for that night. at the end of the program, the school that has raised the highest amount of money gets an additional $5,000. it has been a very successful program. it created over $2 million last year. we have been talking with cesar chavez school. we are going to adopt them and work with them for field trips and all kinds of things to learn about fresh food. ok. alcohol -- there has been

concern about alcohol sales. we offer assisted checkout. we have people at our front end. it is not self checkout. it is assisted checkout. president fong: that was the bill. i am going to ask you to wrap up. >> we have a very brief video, if you would like to see that. president fong: how many minutes? >> two minutes? >> one or two minutes? president fong: am i allowed to extend this, or can someone from public comment request that? >> as president, you are allowed to extend. president fong: because i think this is an issue about the self checkout and it is maybe a new way of retailing, i would like to let this video roll, if it is a couple minutes long. >> can you turn on this

microphone? >> fresh and easy takes the sale of a call seriously. we work hard to make sure it is only sold to those who can legally buy it. our system does not allow a remote override. employees must interact face to face with all customers buying beer or wine. every time a customer scans and of college beverage, the checkout system alerts an employee and freezes before the transaction can be completed. and employees stationed at the checkouts approaches the customer for a face-to-face interaction to check their id and for signs of intoxication. if the customer appears to be under the age of 40, employees request an id. the employee even scans their unique bar code to enter the customer fifth birthday. -- the customers birthday.

it also read and products of similar size and weight to our call our scammed. this reduces the chance that alcohol can be swapped with another beverage. >> thank you. president fong: thank you. on to public comment, correct? i have a stack of cards, and a couple more. first card is phil lesser. then it is lisa duncan. i will call three in a row. if you want to expedite time, be ready to roll. q up on the side here. -- cue up on the side here. >> the project sponsors came to our general meeting in january. you perhaps have a letter in your file folder indicating that there were almost 40 people at

that meeting. what you heard from the project sponsors, we heard. it was enthusiastically received, and we unanimously endorsed the planning department recommendation for approval. on a personal note, waxing historical, my first business job when i was very young and a student at hawthorne elementary school, which is now cesar chavez, was stuck in between where i lived on the 1300 block of south van ness and where i went to school and helping elderly people -- i thought there were elderly, but they are probably younger than i am now -- load their groceries. it has always been a supermarket. i am sure as long as the oldest resident of the neighborhood can remember, it has always been a

supermarket. it is a gaping hole right now and a very important part of the mission. the renovation sounds fantastic. i congratulate the project sponsors. i hope we have an approval from the commission. thank you very much. president fong: i believe it is lee said duncan. roger wawrinko. >> good afternoon. i am liesel duncan, speaking in opposition. the store is located in the mission of college beverage restricted use some district. the purpose of the subdistrict is to protect the community. specifically, to protect the distribution and selling of an alcoholic beverages. this is of significant concern to the community, and it is embedded in the language of the mission subdistrict ordinance. what is being ignored here is

that the same abandon the license that was used by delano is being transferred to fresh and easy. it is false that they have attacked -- have obtained a new license. it is the old license. because the have obtained the old lessons, they fall under provisions 781.8, which was changed to 249.60, which prohibits the use of a license that has been in disuse for 30 days or longer. that has been ignored because the commission report claims that fresh and easy falls under the exception of a grocery store. that may or may not be true. it is not clear that fresh and easy will meet the parameters prescribed to meet