in compliance. we are applying to popos that were built after the 1985 downtown plan. we are recommending to [unintelligible] velleities are consistent with the approval. in order to inform owners of property subject to the downtown plan, staff sent a list of notices to the properties with consistent application, it would provide content for a passerby

and our enforcement staff committed to an annual section for compliance. the last recommendation is regarding consolidation of the special section and the ordinance proposed this details and the other two sections but staff finds this section 138 is the best place to house these comments. staff proposes to make cross references with 135. these -- some small changes to these sections -- this is only

to clarify that it is only optional is an alternative to usable space we have the dimensions and the logos and maintenance contact and we will provide an illustrator format to the project sponsors. lastly, i would like to make two new editions -- we want them to follow the same guidelines and the second one is an addition

where we are adding the contents that is the kind of open space and location of and direction to be spaces in case the open space is not available. this concludes my presentation. thank you. >> any public comment on this item? >> i am a property manager here in the city. i would like to consider the fact that how residential buildings are effected. the -- it is predominantly residential.

trying to keep vagrants out of the area, particularly near are building. even though this proposed legislation in theory is a nice idea, dealing every day with the problems san francisco has penned and likely, it is going to affect us. we only have a little bit of space. and we would like the commission to consider that. this may be a foregone conclusion. you may have already decided to do this and maybe consider making an exception for a mixed use building such as ours that will be effected. if we put a sign up there that says come on in, they are going to come in. we have problems on the hickory street.

we are trying to keep people out of our building and we know the building was built after 1985 and that would require to find this open space for a lobby that is small because it's part of what the general plan was. we would like everyone to consider the fact that there is an impact for those buildings that are mixed use and residential in nature. thank you. >> my name is george williams. as many of you know, i went to a staff member of this department and i was very active in the development of the downtown plan. when we did the downtown plan, i conceived of the idea and

adopted the code language. we wrestled with what standard should we impose and when should we impose them? they needed to be developed administratively. after adoption -- we thought we ought to let developers determine how they were going to respond to the code requirements. there are all of these office buildings and we conducted a so- called beauty contest and we were getting wonderful sign niche. our big mistake was not looking at it and codifying it. we are very much in favor of the zoning administrators bulletin

and spelling out in detail and so the general public knows what the logo means and will note to look for more information. a particularly important thing is cited for a space within the building, not on the ground floor unless you know weapons you are in the building where to go, what floor it is on and what corridor is down, you are not going to find the signed. this evaluation some years ago discovered virtually every single space that is internal to the building, the sign it is deliberately uninformative. in one case, there was a building that had a different letter from a background and spray-painted the whole thing dark brown so you cannot read

it. there are some instances where the sign will help you get it to the space but there are instances in the previous speaker raised one where it may not be appropriate. working on a variants mechanism with the open space doesn't have to be provided by the developer and there is a provision that will allow that to happen. that couple of the cap -- that covers the capital cost but not ongoing maintenance and the developer is obligated to provide ongoing maintenance but we are very much in support of this legislation and think the staff for their support. >> a couple of observations -- if we have newspapers in the future, we should put ticklers

in their file and check the issue every 10 years or so because i'm sure they thought they were doing the very first article and there have been too huge expos days done. this was the downtown plan when people were given bonuses and have all of these bonuses and you could not find them and it is my former client which gives the work which triggers the downtown plan. it basically turns everyone in because they got value, big bonuses for providing space which they were not providing. the second thing is extraordinary psittacism -- extraordinary cynicism is needed on this issue and a the staff

tends to be pollyanna yes about that. he need to be in the real world. there will be abuses because there will be a financial incentive for abuse. some people, the original owners sell it to another person who's into cutting costs, so this is a necessary step but i would go back -- it needs to go back before any bonuses and that means it needs to go back to the bonuses developed in the '60s because they still exist. those buildings were built with bonuses of a widening sidewalks and given for observation decks. all of that was obliterated when they did be downtown plan. the spaces are grandfathered and

you should go back and find the observation decks. i could probably go into my dusty file just-you could probably do that. as well as pull out the old newspapers. there were scandal articles. there was a double page split in the examiner which i still have in my desk the record. but you have to have an extraordinarily cynical attitude and require maintenance because of the article pointing out the deteriorating interests. people get the goodies from the department and it's a value on the building because the goodies from the department and five years it could be a different owner and different building manager. i'm very sick about it. thank you.

>> any additional public comment? if there is no additional public comment, commissioner sugaya. commissioner sugaya: i asked for a better map that improved upon the one we received because it was unreadable. i asked for a number of these things. whether it there are observation decks and the lobbies or whatever. the reason why they are there those with the comment whether they were bonuses or required under some statutes or maybe at some point we can't get that. i know the department is working on posting these places on their website at some point and that

would be really great. on maintenance prompted by john king's article and the testimony we heard, is there any maintenance requirement in the code when these things are approved? if not, can we put one in there? >> yes. there are maintenance requirements in all of them. do you want me to answer your previous question? commissioner sugaya: as long was it -- as long as you are working on it. >> i sent you an e-mail late last night. commissioner sugaya: i was in bed. [laughter] the other suggestion is based on personal experience, especially in buildings like the intercontinental or the building next to me which is also a hotel, if you walked in, staff

usually doesn't know anything about these. i happen to know the bell guy next to our office and he knows about it. his father is an architect and he has interests in buildings and stuff and he's kind to direct me and how to get up there which is in an elevator which you have to go up to which i think there's only one elevator that goes up to this particular floor and you have to walk down another corridor which looks like you are going to your hotel room or something and then once you get there, it's really great. it has tables and chairs and is all clean and everything. when i went in there another time and passed it to see if

anybody knew about it, they did not know anything about it. if possible -- i don't know if this can be done but if there could be some kind of information is she or some thing the manager of the building would pass out to do employees and existing employees informing them of this particular program. i don't know what the word would be. >> it's not part of the legislation. part of the department's west side is where we have the sheet. a bit cheat sheet for the building manager or property owners.

commissioner borden: i think that's a great idea. maybe it could be under the maintenance and contact information. i have a question regarding the residential project and i don't know if you have any statistics but i would not think residential projects would have this sort of space. >> for the ones in the downtown area, all projects are subject -- it requires all projects to require a open spaces and they are required to provide sign it. i assume they are required to provide open spaces. >> the total residential

project? is that true? >> over the years, the publicly acceptable open space has expanded throughout the city. there are some residential projects that will be accessible and we see it starting downtown and spreading to eastern neighborhoods and you probably do find some residential projects that have publicly accessible open spaces and those are generally plazas in front of the building itself. commissioner borden: i think they would probably be different than a lobby space. >> it does require the public have access to it. commissioner borden: i did not realize the residential projects

had these. when we give dwelling unit exposure and change the open space requirement or don't let them eat open space requirement, we don't always -- the way they are providing open space doesn't meet the requirements, do they also have them? >> the vast majority of projects you would review under those circumstances would be private. the example that comes to mind is the millennium tower. the lobbying area right off of mission street. >> for residential projects that to require the open space, they try to make it outside the building or in a very publicly

acceptable lobby which is the case of the van ness project where the lobby space is a required open space but it's actually inside the building. commissioner borden: it would be useful to know. i did not realize the residential projects -- to the extent we're looking at it as a publicly accessible open space required for the unit, it would be interesting. i learned something new today. i think it's a good idea we are, the planning code because things get married and it's hard to change them and they don't work the way we fought and i love -- i think that's really

smart. the public spaces don't allow smoking, correct? >> that's under the jurisdiction of the department of public health. it has standards limiting where one can smoke. generally, you cannot smoke in the public open spaces. commissioner borden: that might be something you want to look at. people might not realize they can't smoke in those spaces. >> maybe that is something we can add in the zoning administrator. i have b the intercontinental many times and i never realized was a publicly accessible open space there.

commissioner borden: by a like the fact you're doing compliance. rather than issuing another -- a notice of violation -- they think it's a good idea doing enforcement's round maintenance about the new rules to remind them of the maintenance requirements and maybe we want to be fed up somewhere in the enforcement section of the code. i discover open spaces all the time that i did not know they were there because i didn't see the sign in anything we can do to enhance the open spaces and i have one by my office and its always full because it's a space where people congregate. commissioner antonini: i think this is a good idea and i plan to spend the afternoon downtown

and find as many of them as i can. i would incur a couple of other things to be done. never one come to work with -- it's a different name, but the visitors information bureau to have maps available that are physically there. i opportunity for intercity use that are often hard to find unless you happen to go to a cocktail lounge and you often can't have a view but a lot of these spaces have that. i think there will be a lot more people that will avail themselves of these spaces. since they are privately owned publicly open spaces, one would assume the owner can set the conditions of occupancy. let's assume -- it was brought before about smoking but and certain spaces they did not want anyone to bring alcoholic

beverages or dogs or alcoholic solicitations -- i don't know whether they need to put any of these on the sign itself or whether it would be adequate to have signs on the space itself to discourage that activity for people who might occupy the space. we have to start considering the terms of occupancy for these spaces and how we notify the public of them. commissioner miguel: i would like to thank george williams and spur on this. when the report came out, i did speak -- i knew they had been involved way back on that and

they are always interesting to talk to on these items. in my experience, the street level spaces are not much of a problem. in general, they are well maintained. they are recognizable as anyone can walk again to that sort of thing. when you have to go through a building lobby and find an elevator, all elevators may not go to the space and no one knows where you are talking about. so they provide a different type of element.

you might find [unintelligible] in my experience, it's the spaces that are above the ground level that causes a lot of problems. my original thought is why our authorize that i -- authorizing them at the above the ground level. i revised my thinking on that. as far as the comments on the other uses like no-smoking, they are still privi think that for o

impose restrictions on private space, -- we have to be careful how we do that. if someone wondered out of a cocktail party holding a champagne flute and today public space, a big deal, perhaps. we have to be careful how we have to go about it. we have to be careful -- president fong: any additional comments? has there been a motion?

commissioner borden: i move it with the suggestions. >> second. >> the motion on the floor is the approval with the modifications offered by staff and inclusion of some of the suggestions of though i have not heard which ones offered by the commission. [roll-call] >> it that terrace is a great place to smoke because there's nobody else out there.

>> the motion is approved unanimously. you are now on item number nine. for jackson street. >> good afternoon. i'm rick crawford from department staff. this case is the initiation of a general plan amendments necessary for the chinese hospital replacement project. the request is to amend the general plan, chinatown area plan policy to 8 cents a new hospital building to harmonize with the scale of the existing buildings and amend the chinatown area plan to reference a height limit. the request today -- the chinese

hospital replacement project is driven by two factors. the strict size and standards for hospitals and the chinese hospital need to respond to health needs of the community. the existing hospital facilities do not comply with state law as far as seismic liability and must be replaced. the facilities need to be updated to comply with contemporary standards. finally, it will allow chinese hospitals to expand services to include 20 to bed skilled nursing facilities and the hospital. the average age is 76. the new nursing beds will improve service to these patients. the department has received