together with som architects made a presentation on this project a few months ago, and i'd say the quick answer is if a parking garage like 75 howard were proposed today, it would never get built, it would never get approved. it's a relic of a by gone era when the freeway was there, the elevated freeway. we think this project is a terrific use of land. to take down the garage and put up something that responds better to the needs of our city. we thought that the proposal itself was very attractive. it has the kind of uses that we like to see. we want to see more activation on the waterfront. if i had, you know, any reservation at all it's that some of our members are not convinced on the question of the height, having seen a rezoning there recently, how does this play off against value conferred and what's the best way to treat this. we know that there are a lot of people freaking out about

heights in the waterfront as we go into the political season. i don't think this is a time to be timid. we're going to hold back on that question and hope that discussions continue, but all in all this is a terrific use of land and want to see this move forward. thank you. good afternoon, president and commissioners. michael mckenna, iebw local 6 in san francisco. i just have to comment, too, on the use of the land and the heights. if you look at tapering down say from 101 first street that's being built and not 350 mission, it doesn't exist any more, millennium towers, there certainly would be a tapering down from transbay tower that will be going up at close to a thousand feet, the millennium tower at 600 feet, and this setback property that's setback in a way where the waterfront stretches around the front and the turn around the ferry building and into the ports, it definitely is not -- is more representative of the truth

than what was testified earlier. and as far as the housing component, we could look at my 2000 square foot house at 41st and rivera and determine only a millionaire could afford that house today. i'm certainly not a millionaire being just a construction worker here in san francisco. so, the rate of housing here in the city and the need for densely populated housing within the urban corps where people work and don't need to use their own cars and add to the greenhouse, i mean, this is what we're looking for, right, increasing the density and the ability of people to live closer to where they work downtown. i think this is a beautiful project and i would think we move this forward. thanks. good afternoon, commissioners. reid da meant. i'm a resident at [speaker not understood] folsom street, just a block from the project that's before you.

our condominium board has passed unanimously a resolution opposing this project and in that regard has joined the coalition for san francisco neighborhoods and many other neighborhood groups and opposing this project. it certainly is the wrong project for this site. the height limit, as you know, that now exists is 200 feet. this project is 350 feet in height. the e-i-r itself identifies six significant and unavoidable impacts which cannot be mitigated, six, and these include -- i'm quoting now from the e-i-r itself -- conflicts with the adopted height limit, impairs the scene i can vista, shadows public open spaces and sidewalks, cumulatively contributes to shadows on public open spaces and

sidewalks, cumulatively contributes to unacceptable traffic level of service at supervisor aioto-pier and howard streets, and sea level rise induced flooding. because of these six significant and unavoidable impacts, the e-i-r has found that the environmentally superior proposal or alternative is that which is code compliant. and i would urge you to take that into consideration when you are voting on whether this matter, this project should proceed. thank you. >> i'd like to take this opportunity to remind members of the public that we're discussing the adequacy of the environmental impact report or the draft environmental impact report as opposed to the project itself. good afternoon, commissioners. my name is john yadigar. i have been practicing

structural engineering in san francisco for 35 years and this is my first time in the planning commission meeting. i'm here to express my concern with regards to the proposed development. these concerns are shared unanimously with the entire board at hills [speaker not understood] where i live. i moved to hills [speaker not understood] at folsom and embarcadaro in 2004 to enjoy the quality of life at the san francisco waterfront. one of the only positive outcomes from the loma-prieta earthquake was the freedom of the waterfront [speaker not understood] created by the two-story embarcadaro freeway. the piers are finally being developed to their rightful potential. the embarcadaro is now a destination unlike any other entire city. my opposition to the proposed tower is that it does not fit appropriately on the waterfront.

the proposed height limit is 75% more than a generous maximum that was set by the planning department for the site. it defies many planning guidelines. the setback, bulk, and architecture are totally at odds with other structures on the waterfront. i fear that this project's approval will set a dangerous precedent for other under developed properties on the waterfront to follow. let's not send a message that the integrity of the san francisco waterfront is [speaker not understood]. thank you. ~ is up for sale. thank you. good afternoon, commissioners. and my name is keith bar tell, 75 folsom street. i live also in hills plaza, about one block away. i did read the e-i-rs.

the first time i was involved in reading an e-i-r in this city as a resident. i'm pleased to have the opportunity to read that. my biggest concern is on the bulk and height of the building, primarily on the issue in the e-i-r on the shadows on rincon park. as a memorandum we are of district 6, we have a very lack of green space in that neighborhood, particularly in district 6. i utilize that park, as do thousands of people and the green space on a sunny day and as evident in a e-i-r dramatic shadows will take away a lot of that sunny space that not only myself and other residents enjoy, but visitors alike. so, i urge you to consider voting no as proposed for 75 howard. thank you. >> is there any additional public comment?

hello, my name is david sincotta of jefferson [speaker not understood] and mitchell and i'm here on behalf of the property owners in the neighborhood. i do want to say that we'll be submitting additional written materials, but i wanted to address a couple of significant issues today where we believe this document is considered grossly inadequate and inaccurate in some areas. the first area that i would like to talk about is in regard to the land use impacts. the e-i-r, draft e-i-r, very adequately describes that this project is significant and unavoidable in its creating negative impacts on the land use of this area. and that -- as to how it's unavoidable is perplexing but i'm not here to address that today. i'm addressing because you have an alternative that says it is unavoidable if you reduce it. in any case, what i'm here to talk about is the things it says where it's not

significant. it's less than significant. that is on its impact on the character of the vicinity and its impact cumulatively on land use impacts, and i believe you've got the downtown area plan talking about how this steps do. you have the urban design element plan. you have the transit center development plan. all talking about how buildings must be stepped down to the bay or reduced, in fact, it actually says where buildings should be along the waterfront. one of the things that's not mentioned is the bcdc waterfront plan is ultimately impacted by this project. the only discussion -- these things are determined less than significant and i believe the character in the discussion of the e-i-r is only referred to as land use. the impacts of these buildings is height, its bulk, its proximity to the bay, all of that impacts the character of this neighborhood and impacts

the cumulative impacts of people going further and further towards the bay. the other point that i wanted to talk about just briefly is transportation and circulation section. it doesn't believe this project will have any cumulative impacts or any significant unavoidable cumulative impacts. this area of the e-i-r is it's wholly incomplete because it does not discuss the impacts the warriors arena will have just three blocks away. this project is considered on record as possibly providing parking for the arena, yet it's got one of its variants is for parking. and there isn't an adequate discussion of the cumulative impacts that this project will have on transportation in that area when it's already incredibly dramatic. there will be more in written materials submitted to you soon, but i think that this thing is not ready for prime time. it's got to be done again.

thank you. good afternoon, commissioners. christopher butcher from the [speaker not understood] speaking on behalf of some building owners in the area. the e-i-r needs to be revised and recirculated. we're going to submit additional comments with more detailed information, but some of the areas that are flawed include the transportation analysis as previously discussed. one specific issue in the transportation analysis is that they looked at data for just an evening and the weekend day to determine the level of service. there is no it analysis of weekend traffic. as mentioned, the warriors arena is coming to town. also we've got the ferry building that now is being thankfully a lot more used. we've got the farmers market and all of the other facilities in the area that bring a lot of transportation ands traffic

issues on the weekend. there's no discussion of that. in order for the transportation analysis to be adequate, there must be a discussion of potential impacts. there is data to suggest that the peak level on the weekends can be greater than a week night level and analysis. i believe one day in the e-i-r. in addition to that, the transportation analysis relies heavily on a transportation study and a driveway plan. it is not included in the e-i-r. it is not included in the appendix. c-e-q-a guidelines section 1-5 147 requires information like that either to be in the e-i-r or in the appendix. 15 147 also requires that information to be provided ~ to opr's clearinghouse so that other agencies, responsible trustee and the like, can review that documentation as part of their review of the e-i-r. that information was not provided to opr as part of the clearinghouse and therefore that information was not before other agencies that have looked

at this document, and therefore the comment period needs to be extended so they can review that document along with the e-i-r and its appendix. next, construction noise. there is a mitigation measure for construction noise. that mitigation measure lists potential mitigation that could be adopted if feasible. that's not consistent with the san francisco noise limits in that it doesn't prove that they will in fact be lower than what's required. in addition to that there is no discussion of nighttime construction. if construction is going to be allowed at night there needs to be analysis. if not there needs to be a mitigation measure that says construction will not be allowed at night. finally the range of alternatives is not adequate because there's only two alternatives in the document besides the c-e-q-a mandated project alternative. those two alternatives do not address four of the six significant unavoidable impacts. c-e-q-a requires any potentially feasible alternative that addresses significant unavoidable impacts in the e-i-r be addressed. there are potentially feasible

alternatives that can address the shadow impacts and can also address the sea rise level impacts, addressed in the e-i-r. we also echo the height and bulk concerns of others and you will be hearing more in our letter coming next week. thank you. >> is there additional public comment? okay, seeing none, public comment is closed. commissioner moore. >> i'd like to start with asking for an extension to comments from september 16 to september 23. reason is the planning commission received this voluminous document on august 5th with us going on break for three weeks. i was out of the country for three weeks. i did not have any time given the very busy commission calendar prior to our going on break, and i would like to spend a little bit more time for substantiating comments. so, what i will touch on are

thoughts which jumped into my eye with cursory review, and they are as follows. the project description for the e-i-r needs to properly describe site disposition and ownership, what building lots are and are not part of the project based on ownership. there is a lack of clarity about the freeway parcel that the project describes as an open space amenity. who owns this parcel at this moment? who is responsible for designing and disposing of it in whatever form? the record shows that the city owns [speaker not understood] was create and had transferred when the freeway was torn down. the project without color differentiation at the moment shows that the project will occur on four, for lack of a better word, lots with the project itself seems to only own the garage side with a corner on the southeast owned by the gap.

there is a public right-of-way, a street which will be occupied to the project's benefit, the e-i-r needs to fully disclose how this assembly of parcel will function as a full fledged building site. i think the draft e-i-r needs to become more of a disclosure of background for some of the projects in the area which historically were under the jurisdiction of redevelopment. and while the planning department, office of environmental review prepares the e-i-r, the jurisdiction of the projects were not under the planning department's purview. that includes the approval for rincon annex, rincon point, south beach, and other projects up to broadway. and i think in order for the background of issues surrounding this project, the

project needs to reference or make available those documents which substantially set the tone of this development. and i think it will be very interesting, particularly some of us remember the approval surrounding the historic rehabilitation of the rincon post office which is indeed a post office property, where the creation and the height of the residential towers were once [speaker not understood] to deal with height and bulk and [speaker not understood] to waterfront, but the height also justified the historic preservation of the building into murals of the former post office. i think those things need to be taken into consideration and ultimately properly weighing what this project does contribute, what it asks for,

and how you mitigate potential impacts. the other point is the d-e-i-r references a transit center. i do not believe the transit center ever implied there would be additional height and intensification of use going east. we saw the transit center speak to towers which are [speaker not understood] surrounding it more closely, but i do not believe that the transit center plan even remotely suggests that this building would go up to 31 stories. i have other comments. the one thing which is always very important to me is that i do not see that this project clearly references the urban design plan, the downtown plan, particularly when it come to

building mass and height and building expression. while this is at this moment only a draft e-i-r, it is particularly the sculpting and the silhouette of the building which will affect program and impact as it is described in the e-i-r. i also believe that the building at this moment in the e-i-r does not show any differentiation of the required base shaft and top, leyva loan the suping of building top which is at this moment just a block, a building block. it does not address setbacks as practiced by the hills building and the gap building, and it leaves a number of issues which are clearly spelled out as mandate in those downtown and urban design plans and would like the draft e-i-r to reflect on that. >> commissioner antonini. >> thank you. i have a few comments.

first, i understand this property does largely lay within the transit center development plan, and i would like to kind of if there is any history about this site or the height consideration, certainly it would be interesting to know. i sat through the approvals during that time, but, you know, it would be interesting to know if there was any consideration of this as we move forward with the plan, although that's not before us today. what's before us is the draft e-i-r. and i do agree with -- though it's not before us today, i agree with commissioner moore some kind of sculpting might be advantageous. we see he that in the ymca and the gap and some of the other buildings that have been built there. but are there a few things with reference to the plan itself? i think there is mention in the

draft e-i-r of the shadow impacts of the building, and then the effects that the buildings now or soon to be under construction in the transit district will have on mitigating these shadows because they will actually often be part of the shadow from the bigger buildings. therefore, their impact will not be there any more, in many instances. with that, i think there is reference to this in this document which is far reaching and i think it's good to understand that when we look at those shadow impacts. i don't believe that you have to analyze perceived socioeconomic impacts as part of an e-i-r, so, that is not necessary. another point is that the waterfront that we have is curve linear in its nature ~. so, when we talk about a building and its distance from the waterfront, we have to kind

of look at where it is really relative to the waterfront as we move further south, the waterfront becomes closer to the streets further in ~. steuart street in, spear street ends [speaker not understood]. that is an interesting feature as we look at where the waterfront is and isn't. the new park that's proposed, i believe there is an analysis in there that talks about the amount of park space being created and how much additional light is created relative to the amount of light being eliminated by this project as it's currently structured. so, it's good to look at both those factors. the speaker who talked about the hotel variant is probably good if we can have a little bit more in comments and

responses that would talk to impacts if that particular variant were the one that is selected. then there might be a little more impact from the hotel part of the project as would be the case obviously if it's entirely condominium. so, good to look at that a little bit. in terms of the traffic, i'm in agreement with the plan. obviously it depends on the variant. but if the variant is all condominiums, then it would be hard to believe that you're going to generate more traffic from residential parking than you would from commercial parking garage which it's their business to park cars. so, therefore, one would think more cars would be coming in and out of that. and if there is an increase in traffic in the area as a result of the arena or other businesses that are planned for the area, the traffic is going to be there regardless.

i mean, whether, you know, whether or not this project adds residential parking is not -- is going to have kind of a neutral effect on that. so, those are my main feelings after reading this over. i want to concentrate on it a little more, and i do want to see what the comments and responses are, but i do think the document seems to be pretty extensive. now it needs a little fine tuning, but i think it will be -- it will give us a good picture of the environmental impacts of this project. >> commissioner hillis. >> clearly height will be the issue that kind of is controversial and is kind of before us with such a substantial kind of request to increase the height limit. and i think the e-i-r does a good job in analyzing the impacts of the additional height. a couple things i'd like to see beefed up, or one that i know

is not typical in the alternative section to have actexture associated with those height alternatives. so, the code compliant alternative as well as the lower height alternative, it would be nice to compare what's being proposed which has architecture developed with projects or kind of scenarios [speaker not understood] with architecture at those lower height limits or those lower height levels just to compare apples to apples. and then also in the discussion of the feasibility of those alternatives, it seems somewhat scant, the information that's given on why they aren't feasible or why they can't meet the project sponsor's objectives, like tearing down the garage, so, more analysis or more detail on that would be helpful. and then i agree with some of the public comment, although not on the e-i-r issue on open space. i think we build a lot of this kind of inactive for open space on the waterfront. it will be nice to see a

variant or ultimately when this is considered, more active use of that triangular lot if it does become open space when we have rincon park across the street and other waterfront open spaces that tend to be pretty passive. >> commissioner sugaya. >> thank you, yes. perhaps it's only my ignorance or something, but when we've had -- when i've raised issues about potential impacts related to land use, zoning and city policy resulting from increased heights that are being proposed for projects, there's always been in my recollection rebuffed because the city has always argued that those kinds of things can be changed, that heights can be raised, bulk and other standards can be raised, that the general plan can be amended, et cetera.

so, i'm quite surprised in this case to find that there is a significant and unavoidable impact in the analysis in those sections. >> commissioners, if there's nothing further, we can move on to your next item. >> actually, commissioner moore. >> i would like to restate my question to extend the written comment period to october 23rd and ask for commission support for that. >> second. >> can we vote? >> you can vote on it. we can certainly take your recommendation to the ero who makes that determination if you all believe that that's the right thing to do. >> yeah. >> all right. >> the commission will take a very short break here and maybe back in about 20 minutes or so. >>please stand by; meeting in recess