>> i would like to welcome everyone back to san francisco planning commission regular

hearing for november 15, 2012. we left off in the middle of your regular calendar item 12, the western soma community plan informational presentation number two and we just concluded public comment commissioners. >> commissioners, comments? questions? commissioner antonini. >> thank you. i appreciate the presentation. with the neighborhood districts in folsom seems like a logical place for that zoning. i'm a little bit concerned -- i would have to hear about no maximum density in some of the residential -- you

know the red districts where the district residents are and some of them are finely grained and might be fine with machine is comfortable in the two unit building and then there are eight unit building and i'm not sure this applies to new building or existing and if it's existing it could change the whole complexion or climate in a small quiet cult sack or red district, and the same for the parking maximums. i think i would need to know more about what it says and one size doesn't fit all and some places should have more parking allowed. i think mixed use

makes sense. we dictated that we have housing above ground floor retail and it sits empty forever. just because you zone today for that, adjust because you created it doesn't mean somebody is going to occupy the space, so having the flexibility to mix and match a little bit more with the idea or probably the idea that the lower floor has to be of a higher height and doesn't necessarily have to be retail or office or other things. that's probably a good idea. when we get into the area of 11th street, and i maybe wrong. i'm not sure i get all of the classifications right but i am sort of in agreement with option 1b that has been suggested by a lot of people. there is also a 1c -- i

misspoke. i said 3b which is the option that would allow office but not new housing. it would i believe allow entertainment as a right, and it would allow for entertainment that gets burned down or somehow demolished it could be put back again. maybe i could get clarification from staff the difference between 3b and c? i don't see the difference between the two of them. >> sure. 3b would basically rezone that corridor to dmo and allow office or entertainment and not residential. the difference with 3c it would

also rezone the alleys adjacent to the corridor of rads and what that would do is then cause that 11th street corridor to fall within one of the 200 buffers around the rads that prohibits night time entertainment use so you would effectively have the corridor and no new night time entertainment use or residential use and from the perspective that corridor would be static but it would introduce the office as a permitted use on that corridor. >> okay. i think i understand so option 3b is more favorable to the entertainment option but c would be -- would not allow new entertainment uses in there. i am not entirely sure of these but that's my inclination. my feeling is many of the spaces are already entertainment uses.

legal is legal non conforping and allowed to go on and maybe there were exceptions. there was a gentleman who spoke, mr. goodman and talked about a site he has and i'm not sure exactly where that is. is that within the aws pinses of the 11 ethstreet zoning. >> yes. essentially across the street from slims. >> okay. it's one of the spaces on the map that is marked in whatever color we're using -- >> it's actually not designated as a soft site because it is developed right now as the purple building but the proposal is to demolish that building and develop it as housing. >> the other consideration i might be interested in learning about is some kind of a middle

ground if a project was begun 10 or five years ago and grandfathered if the investor decided to go go ahead and what they were doing and housing and good instillation i am not opposed to that grandfathering thing but to encourage more housing in the future for what is in process i don't know if that is a good idea. it's a fairly small zone and we have the rest of the area for housing. although the other thing that concerns me a little bit is when you look at some of the zoning the sally apparently does not allow housing. am i correct about that -- housing or

office? and you have areas that are pretty much pdr and i would have to look at that closer to make sure it makes sense to restrict things for those areas that are fairly large. many many of the uses are already industrial uses and viable. that is one i would have to look at a little bit closer, and the other thing somebody brought up about the differences in restricting the zoning administrator as not the case for the rest of the city. i'm not sure why we're making this more restrictive on the powers of the zoning administrative and mentioned about restrictions on deck and these are some of the details we have to look at as we work our way through the plan and there is a lot of detail and this is the first day we are getting into the nuts and boltds but those are my general

feelings on the overview. >> commissioner wu. >> thank you. overall i am supportive of the plan as is. i think there should be some sort of compromise on 11. my opinion is office is probably better suited to be compatible with night time entertainment rather than housing so i believe 3b points us in that direction but curious if other commissioners have thoughts. >> commissioner hillis. >> just a couple of questions on the proposal and the options on 11thth street. when we say something is grandfathered in and not allowable but grandfathered in like paradise lounge that is vacant could that be used as a club if this passes and it's not used now and stop its in the future.

>> the code sets parameter for legal non conforming use. if you're legal when you went in you can continue to operate if the zoning changes and no longer permit but there are rules of abandonment and essentially if you are vacant for more than three years you can be considered abandoned in terms of the use, so specifically yeah you can have turnover and tenants for some amount of time. it doesn't have to be the same tenant forever for legal non conforming use but at some point it's abandoned, or if the owners of that building put in a different use, put in a restaurant and later wanted to go back to a night time entertainment use they wouldn't be able to do that. if you have a legal non conforming use you need to keep it in operation without abandonment. >> so slims could close and

come back as something different and allow to do that? >> yes. paradise was only paradise lounge for only so long. i can't remember what was there before that but it wasn't that long it was something different. >> right. and under the proposals an entertainment use is proposed and allowed is there a cu for that or under the other options and entertainment use and allow -- >> under those options we're basically taking the sally zoning or the wmou zoning and extending it there and the districts south of harrison the idea is it would be opened up for night time entertainment use and unless we specifically made it conditional use on that corridor and for implementation purposes could be tricky, but as the options are before you it's permitted as a right. >> okay. i don't mind housing and maybe it's housing in these

adjacency areas too and to approve with certain conditions like better sound proofing that could allow it to happen. i am concerned about the others and two and three and have the entire corridor to be night time entertainment with the other spaces. that would happen and have this one block concentration of entertainment uses, so i don't mind 2a and 2b, but i would at least like to see if it's expanded beyond the current uses and maybe cu and something now a restaurant within that district becomes an entertainment use. that's not done as of right but as a cu process but the one are there grand forthed in -- >> intl something along those lines. >> i would

offer a few comments and i am confused by the optionses and i get the tone there is restrictive compared to other plans that we looked at. i think mr. meeko pointed out why clubs move to the area and my recollection in the 80's there were few residents there and body shops and pdr and there were people living there but you were there as well and that's why larger clubs and footprints ended up there, so whatever this turns into, it evolves into i think we should set it up so there is a little little flexibility, room for creativity, entrepreneurship. this plan is prescriptive. i'm not sure it allows for that or not but i'm looking forward to learning more and hearing more. commissioner borden.

>> i think i kind of agree with what commissioner wu said -- 3b, i was looking at that and i do believe every week almost with restaurants that have music that people consider too loud, issues in the corridor and people complaint about restaurant usage and don't necessarily have amplified music and sound and i know there is a challenge of having more lively restaurants sometimes in neighborhood commercial corridors. i personally don't like when too many things are legal non conforping. i think we always see that as a challenge in the code. if there is a preponderance of use in a area and ideally like the part of the plan and what is the existing and that is my rational for favoring something like 3b. the other thing i do believe that

office is more compatible use with the night time use and day time use and you can have night time use and create other sources of income and revenue for those buildings or property owners so that the two uses could co-exist and i know entertainment has the peaks and valleys for the financial success for them and having other options in the neighborhood would be worth while as well, and i think it would encourage restaurants and other uses, not just night life to be in the neighborhood. maybe a restaurant that has live entertainment. i do have a couple questions -- i saw -- you mentioned about no vertical architecture elements. i just wanted to understand what is the rational behind that? >> sure. so there were a number of design components as part of the neighborhoods that were codified, and one of those

things tended to be, and if you look at the urban form elements of the area plans and mission and soma there is a emphasis on emphasizing the corners and through the community process and especially the people on the task force focused more on design didn't necessarily favor that course, and even though in eastern neighborhoods you have a large project you can propose one vertical architectural element and it can be fairly high and not inhabitant and just a design feature. most times it's proposed or comes forward it's at a corner and there is that tie in there and just as a design feature. it's not something the task force felt they wanted in western soma. >> i don't have a huge opinion

about it but i was wondering -- particularly with larger lots and harrison street it's appropriate. if folsom wasn't going to be two way it might be appropriate. again i don't have any strong feelings. i just wanted to understand that. the other thing you have no bonuses for making open space publicly accessible and i wanted to understand the rational behind that and that might discourage developers from creating open spaces that are publicly accessible. >> sure. this is a common situation where you have competing goals. in western soma there is not a lot of open space and in eastern neighborhoods are you provided to require 80 square feet whether private decks or common courtyards but publicly soabl

it's 54 and provide half so you could provide less open space in exchange for making it publicly accessible. in this situation it was determined publicly accessible is good if that is enough of an incentive they don't want 50% of the open space reduced by a third. they want to generate as much open space as possible and that is obviously an issue in western soma. >> again if we could figure out a way to make it you reach both goals so maybe not do the reduction like eastern neighborhoods but there is some incentive to do more publicly accessible space. i would hate for people to design -- there is motivation and i don't know what it is that is a nexus on what we're trying to accomplish. another question is about

notification of the i know the task force met and i have been on the email notice for the entire time i get the notices and canceled or going on and i know in eastern neighborhoods even at the end there were people all of a sudden the rezoning process was happening and to their lots. when do or -- since the in factiation and people in the area, property owners gotten notice about the rezoning? >> so there are two parts to that. the notices are in the process of going out in terms of mail and newspaper notices for the adoption hearing and go to all the of the property owners and within 300 feet of the boundaries. other meetings like today are done more informally through th