it is currently the san francisco police department. that change occurred in about 2010. we have no record of any permit being submitted basically for the majority of those 20 years. as soon as we did receive a referral recently and it was brought to the property owner's attention they were operating without proper entitlements they ceased operations and filed for a permit. what went wrong is unclear but there has been a jurisdictional change and our department in general has been receiving a lot more referrals for surface parking lot. this may be a trend where we are catching things that weren't caught before. thank you. >> it is that small piece of history which i wanted in public record. it should not be looking as if the department all of a sudden is dishing out entitlements with no recourse on penalties but there was no jurisdiction

or land use jurisdiction from the department over this lot. that is what i wanted in the public record. i'm in support, as you are, move for approval. >> second. >> commissioner antonini. >> ms. wadi, just questions. i noticed some of the accompanying material approved -- assumed the project sponsor will clean it up and do landscaping and also be responsible for making sure that there's not trespassing and overnight habitation and things on the lot because, unfortunately, when there is that kind of activity, if the owner does not request police department remove people who are illegally occupying the space, you know, if you come by and tell the police that they won't do that unless the property owner himself or herself does it. i think that is part and parcel of this, you know, approval that they have to maintain and police the area properly. >> so currently there are conditions of approval dealing with security of

the facility or requirements relating to the police department. the other requirements about improving are code requirements. we have worked with them extensively to do. i could defer to project sponsor, if that is their intent. now it is not a condition of approval. >> i just kind of would assume that is when we approve this that you take care of your property in terms of maintaining a secure space. >> sure. one additional note. the property owner is the hold inn who owns the adjacent properties, so there are different more eyes on this than if there were an absentee landlord. >> that makes sense, that you want your place kept up and free of habitation. the there is a plan to develop this, from what i understand, for something other than a parking lot. >> yes. that i believe is the intent. there is no proposal on the table now; the nice thing about the two-year authorization in limit of the surface parking lots is it forces them to come back in two years or come up

with a proposal. >> good. i understand this should be legalized. it is unfortunate people that patronize the orpeeum and strand want areas for parking to get to the theater, for reasons we know about. hopefully that won't be the case and people will feel more comfortable walking a few blocks * to get to the theater. but for the time being it is an important resource that we have. i move to approve. >> motion is already on the -- >> sorry. >> any other comments? >> commissioners, motion is for approval on that motion. commissioner antonini. >> aye. >> commissioner borden? >> aye. >> hiller. aye. >> commissioner moore. >> aye. >> commissioner sugaya. >> aye. >> commissioner was. >> aye. >> commissioner fong. >> yes.

>> thank you. this passes unanimously. commissioners, you are on item 10. 2012, with the tax regulation code, * planning and police. parking implementation for residential property. >> good afternoon, commissioners. again, anne marie rogers, planning staff. this includes multiple planning codes. just a small portion will amend the planning code. however in general this ordinance is about simplifying the parking tax. supervisor weiner will describe the ordinance and i will go over proposed amendments just to planning code as well as our department's recommendation on the ordinance. first supervisor weiner. >> thank you. good afternoon, commissioners. * >> thank you. today i'm here to talk

about legislation that will -- primary goal is to make it -- to increase compliance among residential property owners with parking tax for those who rent out spots to non-residents. unbeknownst to about all residential property owners that i'm aware of -- and if you talk to the treasurer tax collector's office it appears a widespread lack of knowledge. the parking tax does not just apply to official commercial parking lots. if you are residential property owner, whether you have a garage and rent that out and a single family home or a ten-unit building and rent seven to tenants and three to non-residents, you have to pay parking tax on anything rented to a non-tenant or non-resident of the building. so people have not generally known about this. in addition we make it

incredibly difficult to actually pay the tax. we treat these property owners and all property owners as if they were the fifth emission garage. they have to get fingerprinted, they have to have certain kinds of machinery in place. they have to file monthly. they have to pay a $1,000 annual fee, significantly more than the taxes than they owe and have to get a bond. even if people may have had an inkling, it is not shocking. it is too much brain damage to even deal with it. so what this would do is for anyone who is renting up to five parking spots somehow connected to a residential property, they would be of course continued to be required to pay the parking tax.

the finger-printing and bonding and equipment requirements would be waived, as well as the approximate matdly $1,000 fee. they would file quarterly instead of monthly. the treasurer tax collector would be required to come up with a simple form to fill out. just want to make it very easy, fill out a simple form. every three months you remit the parking tax you owe. in addition, it would create an amnesty so people in a six-month period could come forward and be legalized. they would pay two years, assuming they would doing it for at eeast two years of back taxes. other taxes would be waived. there would be no penalties or interest. i note there are property owners of varying sizes whom the treasurer tax collector has started to go after them now, sometimes going back 20, 25 years, saying you should be paying this all along. you have to pay all taxes and penalties and interest

for people who had no idea they actually had to do it. this would recognize you should be paying some of the back taxes, but we want to, first and foremost, bring people into the system and get them paying and not have people fearful of coming into the system. in addition, and this is the planning code aspect before you, is currently there is a restriction on renting out to a non-resident who lives more than 1,250 feet from the residence, approximately two and a half blocks. so if i have an extra spot p'd eureka in my xtra spot district, you live at 23rd and diamond, it is technically illegal for me to rent a spot to you. it is problematic for a few reasons. it is completely and utterly unenforcable.

even if planning had enforcement staffing to do it, measuring the number of feet, et cetera, i don't see how that is even vaguely enforceable. it also, in my view, violates the city's policy for dis-aggregating parking from housing. we don't want to have parking automatically attached to the housing and we don't want a situation where landlords, for example, are encouraging their tenants to rent. we want to give them the opportunity to have the tenants maybe not have cars and be able to rent to people who already have cars, be driving them and parking them regardless. in addition, by having that kind of restriction you artificially depress the price of parking. we have a policy as a city -- some people love it, some hate it -- that we want people to pay the full price of parking and not have discounts on parking. if you are renting out a parking spot and it is restricted to this one little area, it is going to

be artificially depressed in terms of pricing. i'm not suggesting we completely eliminate the restriction and that anywhere -- anyone -- people from all over the bay area can just drive in and commute and park. that is not what i'm suggesting. this would limit it to city residents. in terms of the commuter problems that we have, people driving in to then park and take muni to downtown, my experience is that tends to be non-sanfranciscans. i don't have any problem with someone in richmond and the haight. does it happen? i'm not sure but i don't think that is a problem in terms of the commuters and i think it is a non-san francisco issue. i think this will make it easier to enforce if the department has enough

staffing to enforce these kinds of things consistently. it will be consistent with the city's policy of disconnecting parking from housing and alleviate the issue of artificially depressing the price of parking. commissioners, i'm happy to answer questions and i would be honored to have your support. >> thank you. >> anne mary rogers. this would do many things, a small portion is planning code amendment so let's talk a bit about the planning code amendment. they call these accessory parking therefore residential spaces are primary use, mainly to serve the residential use. these spaces are currently limited so they may be leased for not less than one month. as you heard to something who lives within a quarter mile of the existing space.

prior to 2008, these would only be rented to people who live in the actually building that had the parking space. this is an issue we have been looking at recently. there are a couple policy issues at play. first is the idea of discouraging the creation of new commuter parking, especially the conversion of residential parking into this commuter parking. this policy would support restricting parking, so those who live within the building or the neighborhood. the second policy is to separate the cost of parking and housing so those who are seeking housing are not also forced to rent the parking. in 2008 when we looked we talked about what we were aware of at that time, which was an open and flourishing but technically illegal renting of these parking spaces. i'm sure there is still some of this going on. the core of the issue is we wanted to be able to -- it

should not be used to encourage the commuter parking. the city's -- so we are kind of looking at how do we get the right balance on this issue. supervisor wiener would change it to allow small amounts of parking that is accessory to residential to be leased to anybody in san francisco, not just the neighborhood. so his change would only affect those buildings that have five parking spaces or fewer. our reports given that amount of parking leased in any one building would be limited to no more than five spaces. it is unlikely this would create a glut of parking or cause a sitting shift in modes of commuter traffic. since our report was published, it's come to our attention there are new social media companies that may be influencing this dynamic, like circa and park police can unite

parkers with parking resources, making it easy to lease small amounts of residential parking as commuter parking. some of these sites encourage and facilitate activities that are illegal such as parking in driveways or leasing the publish right of way in front of their garage where the curb cut is for the driveway. most notefully for planning these sites encourage renting of parking spaces for periods less than one month. daily or even hourly rates. for anyone who is willing to pay. so this is a violation of the planning code. these new technological avenues may in fact, create pressures that would enable residential parking in small buildings to incrementally converted to commuter parking. the department does not believe, however, this would be sufficient enough to affect commuter mode patterns. we wanted to inform this new information has come to our attention.

the recommendation and resolution before you explains the planning code amendment is one piece of a larger proposal that would simplify the city's existing taxation of parking spaces and by making the process of paying taxes simpler to implement and providing some amnesty for those who may not have previously known about the tax. therefore we agree compliance is likely to improve. for this reason the department recommends approval of the proposal. the planning code amendment itself furthers the goal of separating the cost of housing and parking by broad ening the potential market of those who may respect residential spaces to residents throughout the city. the proposed amendment is unlikely to increase commuting parking, as i said, it affects those of five or fewer spaces; however the ordinance did inadvertently remove the ability of owners of buildings with more than five residential spaces to lease these, to people who live in the neighborhood that. was one of our

modifications. we wanted to enable buildings that may have more than five residential spaces to be able to lease with anybody within our neighborhood. we also proposed a conforming amendment to section 150, also an oversight. we have discussed these modifications with the supervisor. he is supportive. i'm available if there are questions. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> is there any public comment on this item? commissioner antonini. >> thank you. well, i think this sounds like it is good legislation to me. going through family members who are looking to rent or buy -- particularly buy a place. you know, one of the issues is, is there a garage? often there isn't. the question arises, where are we going to put the car? are we going to have to drive around all night looking for a parking place or is there someplace that can be rented? it would make it easier for

people to connect with spaces that might be even as much as over 1,200 feet away from the residents and might encourage more buyers to consider places that don't have their own garages as a possible thing to buy because people do have cars. in fact, i think i'd heard a statistic there are more cars than people in san francisco. i'm not sure if that is true, how many cars are registered in san francisco. i think it is very close, a considerable number. though some people do not own a car, some own more than one. i don't know what that stat is but obviously they are. the only other thing i would say is i think it is going to regulate something that has been going on all the time. i think one of the mentions that the supervisor talked about was the elimination of the bond, or there is a bond that was necessary. i guess the only caution i would have is anyone in this business, since it is regulated by the city and there will be some tax on it, they would be

encouraged to have adequate personal liability and property damage coverage, just for their own protection and protection of, you know, if something were to happen to the renter on their property, it is just wise this be advised i think just in general terms. i think it is good legislation. >> commissioner moore. >> i have a couple of questions for the supervisor. first is there an urgency for this legislation to be approved today? the reason why i'm asking that, supervisor, is that i made several calls. the legislation as it is written is very hard to understand. coming back from vacation there seemed to be a number of people who were not aware officerit at all. i actually talked to the supervisor of my district * who is completely unaware. we have specific problems in our district, that being district three. my question is that many people felt this wasn't vetted enough by those people who normally weigh

in on transportation, parking and other issues related to this. could you address that for a moment, please? >> well, yes. i actually do think it is time-sensitive. as i mentioned the treasurer tax collector in recent months has become extremely aggressive about going after particularly small property owners, mid-sized buildings that have not been aware they were required to pay this. sometimes seeking 100, 150, 200 thousand against them. we are eager to get this this place so they can comply and take advantage of mechanisms we put in place to pay the back taxes, require compliance and move forward. this is not -- this is not on a speed docket. i introduced this legislation quite sometime

ago. it's been reported on in the press. having been on the board of supervisors close to tw years i've been accustomed -- i'm guilty of this too with supervisors, i'm sure commissioners as well smr*is that we have so much on our plate that you focus on things that come up. the fact i have a colleague who may not have focused on this yet is not surprising. i can't tell you how many times i go to colleagues three, four weeks in advance and say let's talk about this. they say talk to me the week before. i think that is the case. i know that mr. radulovich * sent out an e-mail. i can think of very few people who follow agendas and introduce lists and pending 30-day hold lists more than tom. so this has been very public and transparent and open. i think that now is the time for a decision. that is my view. >> i actually read this

letter. this came in about 10:00. i think he made a number of very important points. we not only see it with respect to issue of reduced parking, which is a constant discussion in this group but with respect to increased movement if you open up where parking is being allowed to occur, given that somebody might live in the sunset and wants to park on orange beach because there is a place that would be convenient to them. i'm concerned about transportation impacts relative to congestion. i'm also a little concerned living in a building where indeed people are respecting parking spaces but this is not because -- they own the parking space and they rent the space but an element of tenant security when the building does not have the supervisor or parking attendant and tenants are more comfortable having people within a certain radius. 1250 is somewhat arbitrary but people you kind of know and have seen in the

neighborhood and come and go, do you know them and more or less part of the building you are living in. i think there is like, from my perspective, potentially another week of two additional discussion because i had a very hard time understanding the legislation until you stood here explaining it. thank you. >> commissioner sugaya. >> yes. maybe this is more for staff, supervisor. anne marie, the legislation as affects the planning code uses the language accessory parking versus just parking. at least in your presentation you used the word accessory parking. >> it applies to residential accessory parking. >> can you define that for me? >> it would be where -- a primary use would be say you have a whole residential building. the primary use is residential. we would consider the

parking to be accessory to the primary use, so the use is housing but has parking. however the parking shall not be leased to the public, should be accessory to housing use. >> if i may add, parking within the allowed or limited amount of parking for a particular use of property. if you have a three-family dwelling in rh3, you have three parking spaces, those are accessory to those residential units and required as well, but the code allows you to rent them currently -- >> just the way we refer to parking. >> yeah. >> but where the two had -- only three parking spaces required but you are providing ten, we would say that is no longer accessory parking but as a separate use and considered a parking garage or lot. >> right. >> all right. but it is limited to five, right? if there is a condo unit that has 200 units in it and it provides 200 spaces. let's say it is an old

one-to-one ratio. those are un-bundled and only 150 of the current owners use their parking spaces, then 50 are available, but they would only be able to rent out five of those? >> the only thing the supervisor's proposal is changing is saying we will make it simpler for smaller units with five or less. what that -- by making it simpler in that case it would also expand the allowable market. so those -- if you had a small building you could rent to anybody in the city; whereas under existing controls buildings of any size have the accessory residential parking have to rent to somebody in their neighborhood, under the supervisor's proposal you could still -- if you had six you could rent to anybody in the neighborhood. that would not change; that would be the same. >> i don't get it. >> i don't get it. >> let me try one more time. >> okay. >> lets use a bigger number. let's use 50.

>> under today's law, parking of any size has to be rented to somebody that lives in the neighborhood within a quarter mile. >> right. >> everybody. >> so the supervisor -- >> that could be any number of spaces? >> right. >> could be one accessory parking or -- -- just exemplified, let's reduce the number -- 20 spaces that were available, the condo association could rent those 20 spaces to people within 1250 feet of the condo? >> that's correct. under today's law. >> okay. >> under the supervisor's proposal and he does support the proposed amendments. under his proposal with planning departments -- just say under his proposal as it is, that would not change for a 20-unit building. a 20-unit building would still have to rent to people who live within a quarter mile. his proposal would only change it for five or fewer parking spaces. they could rent to people that live within the city. >> okay. so okay, i got it.

so that larger number -- larger developments that have the potential for more than five -- or have more than five let's say available, that wouldn't change. they would still have to be within 1250 feet. >> yes. that is the core why the department was a de minimus effect. >> the smaller ones, as you just explained that are five or less, would be affected by the supervisors. >> yes. i'm going to let the supervisor discuss that. but that in essence is why we thought it was de minimus effect. the small units was only five spaces. i would be really cumbersome to go into this process with these people. we didn't think that would affect modes; whereas we might have a concern if it was larger -- a 200-unit building and they had 200 spaces to lease. >> just to be clear, it is not about what the size of the building but it is about the number of spots rented. so if you are a six-unit

building renting five or a 300-unit building renting five, you qualify for this legislation. so if you are a 300-unit billing and have five and thinking about renting out a six, you may or may not want to do that because it will trigger new things. if you are a condo association and people are renting individual spots the hoa will presumably have rules. they will not want to trigger all these requirements. >> commissioner hillis. >> i have a question also. i guess from a policy standpoint he made good points. to lift 1250 is arbitrary, i agree, with commissioner moore. if somebody is renting out ten spaces, why not change that also, the 1250. i think you made good cases. we are approving * projects with no parking. we'd like parking else where maybe to satisfy that and have people not rent in

those spaces. why 1,250 on -- >> personally, i think there is an argument for that. this legislation we were really focused on the people who were renting up to five, so we decided not to, you know, open up the larger policy issue for all parking, but i think there is a very valid argument. i understand the rationale behind the 1250, but for the reasons i have stated -- sounds like you are agreeing -- there are some issues with it. but in this particular legislation we were focused on the people renting up to five, so we just didn't go beyond that. >> so it seems -- i'm supportive. seems like it is a minor change. i would also look at that 1250 for more spaces. maybe it is not citywide. maybe it is five blocks but does seem like the two and a half blocks is somewhat arbitrary. >> thank you. >> commissioner borden. >> to that point, one of the things i -- you know, i

think i actually sent you, supervisor, an e-mail about it. i happen to know many friends rent spaces probably not considered 1250 feet from where they live. i know property owners that do that. they are in the same neighborhood. like four blocks away or five blocks away but not, you know, adjacent. we have a reality where most people are not abiding by the law and not aware of the law and not paying the tax, so we need to do something about that. for me, this was the first time i ever knew that. so i know buildings were violating the law. i don't think they were trying to. there is a larger issue that we also touched on about the larger buildings. i'm not saying you want to touch that in this legislation but, you know, one of the things i suggested is looking at maybe zip codes. maybe the immediate and adjacent zip code because that would prevent people from coming from other part s of the city. particar