>> i'd like to welcome everybody back to san francisco's planning commission hearing for november 29, 2012. i'd like to remind members investment audience to turn off any mobile devices that may sound off during the proceedings. commissioner, we left off under your regular calendar for the benefit of the public item 15 has been continued which places you under item 16, case no. 2003.0527u, 1000 16th street (daggett park) in-kind agreement. >> good afternoon, commissioners, steve [speaker not understood], department staff. i'm please today present to you an in-kind agreement for 16th

street daggett park. it is the mile steyn towards a new park in ship place square [speaker not understood]. this agreement reflects over a year in coordination and collaboration between the city, the developer and the community including the planning department's plan implementation team, office of economic and work force development, the port, department of public works, department of real estate, recreation and park department, the arts commission, and mta. if i can get the overhead, please, i'd like to first orient everyone as to the site. so, this patch of land you may be familiar with the intersection of 16th and seventh is the area of the future daggett park and its affiliated development. the new park will be located along the daggett street right-of-way which is currently an unimproved patch of land at the intersection of 16th and seventh as i said. this area here. through the in-kind agreement the new park will be built by archstone [speaker not understood]. the project includes

approximately 470 units of rental housing accompanying floor retail and [speaker not understood] by the planning commission in july of 2011. so, the next overhead show is the project orientation. see the park in the middle along the public right-of-way and the development along the private parcels. the project is projected to owe the city $4.2 million in eastern neighborhoods infrastructure impact fees. archstone is seeking a waiver today of 1.88 million of those fees in return for constructing this park. the construction of the park would fulfill the vision of the showplace square at potrero plan policy 5.1.1 calls for the city to identify opportunities to create new public parks and open spaces and provide at least one new public park or open space serving ship place and potrero. the eastern neighborhoods process identified the creation of a new park in the showplace square as an eastern neighborhoods priority project. the parka long daggett street right-of-way was identified in 2009.

ship showplace square plan. the advise have i committee identified the daggett park site as a top priest for new open space in the show place area, voted unanimously in july of 2011 to support the creation of a new park at this location. the proposed park would be .88 acres in size, about half the size of southpark and substantially larger than patricia's green in hayes valley. include large air lawn areas for recreation and gathering, ample seating opportunities dispersed throughout the park, architectural features that double as play area, [speaker not understood] american with disability act and mayor's office of disability. fenced off dog run, public art piece selected through a process facilitated by the arts commission, easing welcoming access [speaker not understood] so the clearly reads a a public park.

[speaker not understood] stormwater garden and drought resistant trees and landscaping. now i'll show you a couple more images of the park. this is kind of an area perspective maybe here are seagulls looking down the park towards the freeway. here's one more image you would see from 16th street, housing to the right, to the left, and the freeway behind it. so, to talk about the value of this in-kind agreement. improvements are cal claythved at over $3.72 million, well over the 1.88 million waiver asked for in the in kind agreement. the city is so enthusectiontion enthusiastic is we can leverage the money archstone would otherwise have to spend improving the right-of-way. [speaker not understood]. they are proposing to gift over a million dollars of

improvements to the city. this gift would occur as a separate agreement through the board of supervisors. as part of this in kind agreement archstone is also proposing to maintain the park in perpetuity. therefore there will be no subsequent costs to the city for this park. the recent developer is willing to convey so much value to the city they see their ability to rent the adjacent development. this isn't meant to be a private park. we work closely with the design team, park team, to make sure it looks and feels public based on signage, visibility and design. is [speaker not understood] already embedded in our community. let's talk about the process. the approval of this in kind agreement is only one aspect of completing the proposed park. other elements acquiring the land from the port of san francisco, entering into a legal agreement to receive the gift of the park improvements from the project sponsor, phase iii of the civic design review process, the completion of an operations and maintenance plan with the project sponsor.

completing this in kind agreement will enable us to finalize those within the next couple of months. in time to meet the construction schedule. based on their schedule both the park and surrounding development would be completed in mid 2014. at that time the park built with further requirements of the legal agreements made between the city and the project sponsor. now talk about the required commission action. to complete this in kind agreement requires the planning commission to approve an impact fee waiver of 1.88 million dollars for the in kind improvements. there are certain thresholds daggett park must meet to approve the inkind agreement. i'll walk through the thresholds and how we believe the park meets the threshold. it must be eligible for an in kind agreement. to be eligible for an in kind agreement the proposed project must meet the following three requirements. first fulfill community improvements. second, infrastructure type is identified in the fee ordinance and third, the expenditure category for the infrastructure

type has not been exhausted. so, the proposed daggett park meets all three requirements as follows. as mentioned before, the showplace square open space plan -- excuse me, area plan calls for the city to identify opportunities to create new parks in this area. the creation of daggett park would fulfill that goal. for the eastern neighborhoods plan, parks are a type of infrastructure for which impact fees can be spent. timely, the park's expenditure category has over $1.88 million in it. next proposed improvements must be a priority. as discussed before the creation of park in showplace square area is to showcase the area plan. also building a new park in showplace square is also a priority project per the eastern neighborhoods infrastructure prioritization memorandum of understanding completed in january of 2009. in the eastern neighborhoods we are required by law to spend 80% of our impact fees on these priority projects so this project helps us fulfill that legal obligation. finally the project must be

recommended as discussed before, the proposed project was supported by 2009 showplace square open space plan. it was supported by a community meeting held in early 2011. it was unanimously supported by the eastern neighborhoods citizens have iery committee in july 2011. the proposed project has been reviewed and supported by member city agencies including department of public works, the port, park and recreation, arts commission, park and mission civic design review and office of economic work force and development. based on the community support, supported by other agencies and excellent return on value to the city and public the planning department recommends approval of this in kind agreement. thank you. >> is there any public comment on this item? commissioners, isabelle wade. i wanted to speak in favor of this project. i'm actually really excited to hear about it. i'm here for another reason today. but i was part of the eastern

neighborhoods planning process in my capacity as executive director of neighborhood [speaker not understood] council and also being being in the subsequent open space work group that steve put together because those of us in the eastern neighborhoods planning process felt there wasn't enough emphasis about open space in the plans. and even in the work group we struggled so hard to find places to make parks or open space. i think this kind of a project is increasingly going to be the way the city gets open space and parks in our new neighborhoods. and i think this looks like an excellent design that is open to the public and conveys that it's a public park. and i just want to encourage you to look at other projects in the future for this very reason to see if there's ways we can squeeze in more parks and open space. thank you. >> thank you. is there any additional public comment on this item? >> seeing none, public comment

portion is closed. commissioner borden. >> hi. i think this is a great project. i just wanted staff to go over this. it was a little confusing. i know there are overall -- they're on the hook for fees for 4.2 million. then there is the 1.88 million that we're approving and then i guess there is another gift. is that part of the -- >> they write a check for the difference of the 4.2 million and 1.88 million. >> what is the gift, is that something different? >> the gift is -- what they're proposing to build is worth $3.7 million, right. we're only giving the waiver for 1.88. so, the city by law to receive that kind of value -- they need to legally take it as a gift. that is a good way to legally structure so everyone is kind of legally obligate today provide what they have promised as well. >> but then there is another layer. it sounds like we also need to buy this land from ourselves.

* obligated to so, thatses what another thing confusing to me. we have to find additional money to actually buy this land from ourselves? >> um-hm. we've been working internally, not necessarily in kind agreement, but a separate process going on between representatives from the mayor's office who are here today if you want to speak about this as well as the port. and try and negotiate what is the value of this land. it's been a tricky proposition because it's public right-of-way. interesting the port owns this land but this is the vestiges of mission bay. so, within the port trust. so, for them to -- we can theoretically build the park on t but it's just cleaner to not have the port own the land any more. the city ons the right-of-way. dpw gets to own the street right-of-way, but the port owns underneath. we're in the process of appraising the value of the land as open space whereas publicly owned land with the open space designation which basically means you can't build on it, a building, and getting

the [speaker not understood]. and then we have a different strategies we're trying to figure out how to negotiate with the port about how to convey that money to them. but they've already shown their willingness to go through the process, do the appraisal, to take the money over time to talk about different means to receive the money. that is a separate conversation. >> there is no availability -- i know we just passed the park bond or park recreation bond. i don't know if any of the funds there were not earmarked in a way they could be used for this project. do we know? >> i'm not sure actually. i feel like we're turning over many different financing stones and even laying the [speaker not understood] to take the lead on that. and everyone kind of feels confident with this we'll get done. it just hasn't been done before this in kind agreement was done because we want the timing of this presentation, we want to get that done first. the timing of this presentation was moved up because archstone is now ready to build and they need to go out and get the financing for this project. and we wanted to show the commitment of the city, hey, we want this park. it's a a great value for us. then they can get their funders

to support it as well. that is why we timed it as such. >> it is good for us all to know. because we haven't seen it. perfect. thank you. >> commissioner antonini. >> i had a few questions. i think this is really a good project in its concept, a wonderful one. i'm very ken urged to hear project sponsor will be doing the maintenance also in the future. so, one would assume they will keep it well maintained because they have an interest in making it attractive for theirors. -- rentors. or will they have security or will it be up to sfpd? >> we have to develop an operations and maintenance plan for this. i'm sure it will be part of the consideration. i know there will be security. we haven't determined what that process will be yet. >> that can be worked out. the other thing is you spoke a little bit about the landscaping and you mentioned there will be these lawns which one would assume they will have

the flexibility to put in what they want to do and it would be the kind of grass you can actually sit on because the city has been putting a lot of this bent grass in that they don't mow to save a little bit of water and you can't walk on it and ruin it. i'm assuming it will be able for anyone in the public who wants to actually sit there or walk on it or kick a frisbee, throw a frisbee around, they can do it. >> i would hope so. we've been to the civic design committee, arts commission, that has people who -- there's landscapers and architects on this committee and asked the questions. i remember back in february we had quite a greueling session with them going through specific trees and maintenance programs and the grass and all that stuff. so, i feel they approved it unanimously. i feel they are supportive of the landscaping plan. >> i'm hoping there is enough flexibility to make it attractive. the same goes with the trees. all this drought resistance stuff often looks dry and unattractive. if they want to put somin