should be eliminated, as they are sometimes dangerous to people who are disabled, using walkers or wheelchairs. that is all i'm going to say on the eir itself. for the rest, for the project itself, i had an office at 16 beale street, that was put there because it was the best use of the area at it was the closest to supply goods to the rest -- to the restaurants, hotels, and

everything else. we had to move traffic through the city and we put up a three- w freeway. we thought that we should get rid of the freeway after the earthquake. there has been constant changes this area. it is not the same as it was then and it is not the same as it was back in the 70's. there were several comments to the gateway and to the housing towers. some of them, we love it here and some of them, this is a disgusting piece of architecture. the way that we view in this city also changes over the years.

i like the line that there is a gatt -- gap-toothed nature to the west side of the embarcadero. i've expressed my dismay to the west side. this is a disgrace for san francisco as far as i am concerned. i rarely referred to so many speakers but i have to comment on some of the things that were said. the letter was seconded by john stuart. these are two individuals that have worked in affordable housing very heavily, and middle income housing and in height and housing at times. this is not a place where you can put affordable housing nor should it be put there.

the comments come at two people who are involved in the city, in landscape architecture in this city for as much of their working lives for as many years as i have known them. in addition, the comments on in the historic nature of this area. you can go right on to the suitability to the area and the right place for the project and the right density for the area. these are people that are respected within this concept of san francisco. they have been around us for a long long time. they understand the history of the city, what it was, how it is developed, and where it should go.

my wife and i are down in the farmers' market on saturdays from it is actually open three days a week, tuesday, thursday. we have shown friends and relatives and shown them the businesses and the developments that have happened to their. -- happened tthere. this is something that has happened in order to support the east side. as to the club itself, it will be shut down for three years. that is what happens when you have a major project. the western athletic club's, as far as i can tell they have stepped forward, as they should have. with the bay club, where i used to swim, and with the tennis

club, will provide the facilities. i might rather see middle income housing, workplace housing built.

>> the first thing we talked about was shadows. there is no actual shadow limits for the park. there is no shadow limit which stands to reason.

i want to understand the relationship of golden gate way, also with the western athletic club and maybe you can explain or talk about who your project partners are and the relationship. >> thank you, commissioners. we have no relationship with golden gateway center other than they are selling the land. there is no residual interest other than there is a portion of the land which has been set aside for the new club that we will not be buying but we will be paying for the new club. there is no partnership interest and there is no residual benefit from this project. we are simply under a purchase agreement and our partners at the port of san francisco and the california state teachers retirement system. >> in terms of the club, the decision about the size and

scale of the club, was this a project this edition or what direction they want to go. they felt this would appeal to the majority of the members. >> and thank you. >> i just wanted to understand the relationship. a lot has been said about who is profiting and who is benefiting from the project. i wanted to make sure that i was clear. i was one of the top three debaters growing up and i can debate any type of issue. if you have evidence and you can tak article and you can say that this is good or bad. from ground to ground, do

debate the affirmative or the negative and sometimes you use the exact same sources to qualify what you thought something was good or bad. it reminds me of the eir process where there are designations for what the process is but the agreement or disagreement whether around things have been adequately addressed or covered. it is looking a little bit in some of the language, it talks quite a bit about that the legislature did declare that even if a project is -- even if there is a significant impact, if the mitigation and measures make a project on feasible, you can still approve the project. there is language in the code that says that and it talks about the cumulative impact and

says that if something like the america's cup has been considered another and mitigation and measures are put in place for how they would deal with those, then you don't have to necessarily consider those in another project. there is a lot of information that was put out there and there is some language that says that this is not exactly that way. this is about providing information so that the decision makers can make a decision about whether not the project should move forward. i always find it somewhat complicated that every time someone does not like a project, of the ceqa is bad. sometimes people work on the same documents. when people don't like the project, it is bad, and when they do, it seems to be adequate.

there is always a matter of where you stand on the project. >> i think some of my colleagues covered the point on how the adequacies have been produced identified or dressed. kind of moving to the different issues, one thing i have a distaste for is class warfare. i think that this happens too often in the city, everything is that have and have-nots and it is true that there is a huge wealth gap in the city and in this country and no single project is ever going to address that and i don't think anyone has any sort of big ideas that that could ever happen but if you really wanted to do class warfare in this situation, it is kind of interesting because you have neighbors who live in the

neighborhood verses labor. also the teachers union. it is interesting because i saw an article on february 26th talking about -- they said the average california household is on the hook for $35,000 for unfunded liability which goes to 307 $9 billion. the way that they make their money is through investments and real estate like this project. also other sort of investments in the market. because as we know, the market has not done as well, a lot of the funds are not doing well. then i went to look at the california teachers retirement system and i wanted to find out what their monthly benefit was and is $3,300 a month. it is not like the teachers are getting huge amounts of money. they are actually protecting a

shortfall. this project is one of the ways in which the teachers union can afford to pay their teachers. i have a lot of teachers in my family. this is a different thing than what i was thinking. people are talking about the waterfront plan. in the update, it said that this site should be mixed use development and that was something that was designated.

the founders could not have conceived of the country as it is today. people cannot have conceived in the 1970's without the embarcadero freeway being there. this is something that we need to take into consideration. someone made the argument, well, there are more people against it so therefore it should be that way. if that is that we made decisions, we would have a process that is a less of an of a vote for 10 days and people can vote and then everyone can choose whether or not they want development. if that were the test by which whether something should happen, i think that what it make a justifiable argument. in terms of the height, i think this could have as many as 600 or 690 units under the current

zoning. i actually cannot imagine anyone in opposition to the project would prefer to have that many units on this site. if people think there is a major impact with 145 units, i cannot imagine that there would ever be support for a project that that had that many units. as far as to militant impact, going at that level would be far more intense. i'm reminded by the fact that immediately behind the site, buildings are 275 feet. then, it is the bottom. that street is the western athletic club, the tennis club. that entrance is like a fortress. it is not even look very welcoming. it is like people drive through

to get to the other side. to me, that is a vast improvement. i recognize that people did not want 84 ft. height said they are not excited about 136 feet but i think the project from its original iteration is far superior to the project that had been proposed previously first. another thing is that the people were talking about the impact of all of the congestion from the people living in this project and that action to live a block from the millennium towers. even with these units, the congestion has not gotten worse. it is actually not. there are 416 in that project, far more dense. you have people going to and from the bay bridge. that has actually been an interesting thing that i found in that case. i also find it funny because

people say there will be a lot more congested but they say the people will buy these places and never lived in them. if they never lived in them, there will be no congestion. it is not work to have it both ways. there was also the issue around affordable housing and obviously we like to have affordable housing on site. we know that this would not have affordable housing and as it is, we have heard in other projects that they are in desperate need of money because they can leverage it to get more housing. it was compelling and mr. stewart got up and said that they leverage at $10 million to get $48 million. we have had affordable on-site housing, hoa's and the like

make it difficult. it is not preferable to have it, even if it was possible, because it sounds like there would be constraints. i think it was the cost of the units. that tax revenue would be quite great for the city if that indeed how much these units costs. this is talking about a person that will obviously not even live in one of those buildings. i don't own a place now and i don't think i ever will. this is quite an interesting piece of information. i think that we have reviewed some of the other money that is generated from this project. going back to the tennis club, i understand how upsetting it is to lose a tennis club and to lose some courts but obviously there is a business decision made and regardless whether this

moves forward or not come on the golden gate way club along with the pacific athletic club can choose to go any direction they want. they bought the san francisco tennis club south of market in looking to how they were going to cope with the distribution of their resources. i don't know their business plan but at the end of the day this project really does not impact that. the benefit, obviously, is that if you remember you have a far superior facilities and to say that it is a community club, i have looked at the rates there and it is upwards of $100 a month. this is not really affordable. the ymca is affordable. they have lots of camps, actually.

i looked at the golden gate way website to find out how much it costs these days. they talk about how it is affordable housing. the studios are going around $2,300 a month. i thought it was quite shocking because i thought this is going to be part of this system. anything is affordable if you have lived there for a long time. it is not very affordable. at this point, is a bit disingenuous. going through anything else here, i think that this is covered by the other commissioners.

there are many people upset about the potential change on this block and on this lot and i really cannot see it. i have read through a lot of the materials that have been delivered to my home. i actually think this is a good project and i know it is sometimes hard for people to believe that reasonable opinions -- that reasonable people can have different opinions. if you don't belong in that club, you don't go to that area and that lot is nice. the offenses are around it are attractive. we know that housing is going to go on that side. any future projects would not be affordable and they would have

all of the issues that they are uncomfortable about. unfortunately we live in a city and this is very unfortunate at the time you are going through it but it is a reality of living in a dense urban environment. i do not really understand. i used to play tennis and all of that and i understand what it is like to lose that. i feel that the game for the city, the city doesn't have any bethey benefit from this project moving forward given that this will be developed.

>> on the issue of the eir, i have a lot of questions about traffic. i believe the eir says there would be two that come out. partly from the way that i understand about how cars come in and out, i think that there would be a back up on washington and i am not sure if it will extend into the embarcadero itself. it has been stated how much transit is around this project and how transit rich this area is and we wanted to promote the area.

we're talking about the northeast of the embarcadero steady. this raises some questions for me. the main issue are really want to talk about is this question of who are rebuilding housing for. i know the social and economic consideration cannot always be considered. if they have a physical change, then possibly they can turn to the question is, when is something a change to the physical environment. the question of who gets to live in the city is a big one for me.

a lot of people have brought up the $9 million. as the way that the project is proposed, this does not even meet the goals. the regional housing, the needs assessment, this sets up a number of goals within each income category. this city is over its goal and in all the other categories that the city is underperforming and i believe that the idea of a- board system brought up before is a way for us to assess whether or not we are meeting our housing goals and the way to talk about these within the larger context of the city, especially when they put a project for this type of height increase. this would be the high increase along the embarcadero. to give that big give, what is the city getting back? is there enough public benefit

from the project? with regard to the shadows on the park. there are no shadow limits set for the park itself but the embarcadero plaza going north was part of the original list that has the no shadow increase. embarcadero plaza is closer to the embarcadero and on the northern edge of it. , i have some questions about giving exception to shadows for something that is not an exceedingly great public good again. i have seen the shadow exemptions. i have not seen it done before

for something that is not an affordable housing project. the pud allows the developer to ask for a number of exceptions with regard to zoning or parking. parking in particular, the existing zoning on this site is rc4. because the pud, the developer is able to ask for something that is similar to parking regulations. the question is why, what is the overriding public good? i know there is a park or an open space considered on part of the site and they are paying into the fees of the city but i feel like what is being asked and what kind of public good is

being given, they don't match for me. especially considering his own to 92 feet and then 136 feet on the two different hours. those are my comments for now. >> let me start with something that was handed out before i lose this piece of paper. it has to do with of st. loading and it cites a planning code section 154b3 as allowing a substitute way of meeting the third full of street parking loading space which he described.

i also understood that this provision applies to c-3. how is it that we can take a provision that is allowed in one zoning district and apply it to another zoning district? is it because if we approve deu -- dsud then it applies to that? >> this applies through the process in the code wherein the sponsor can request modifications to certain aspects of the code. this is one of those cases where essentially there is this allowance for the substitution of the places. the project sponsor is asking to make a comparable substitution for this particularoj