political activism, and they are low-impact residents. the typically do not bring automobiles. they support a public transit. the support small, ethnic restaurants, small businesses. -- they support small, ethnic restaurants, small businesses. we are obligated by state policy to make our entire enterprise self supporting. we are not allowed to redirect student the revenues or state appropriations to support auxiliary enterprises, and student housing is considered as such. so many of the inclusionary housing policies do not apply to the university of california, but these projects are challenging nonetheless because of the need to provide affordable housing and win 87% of the students qualify for need-based financial aid. we try to provide a high value low-cost education.

given the diminishing levels of public support, that is becoming increasingly difficult. it is vitally important that students who come to san francisco are able to participate in the intellectual community that they are paying to do, while providing that these benefits. i cannot speak highly enough of the benefits of student housing, the benefit students bring to this city and the vibrancy of its streets. i think the commission for its time. -- i think the commission for its time. -- i thank the commission for its time. >> i am jason smith from the san francisco conservatory of music. i am the associate dean for student life. i want to speak in favor of these modifications. currently, the conservatory does not have student housing, and we find it more and more a disadvantage in attracting

students. students have a desire to live near the educational facility. they want housing that is safe and affordable. that is incredibly important for their parents, when they send them away to school outside of their home town. schools for the most part have an interest in having students in living environments where there, curricular academic beads and the developmental needs of students -- where their co- curricular academic needs and the development needs of students are met, particularly younger students who are not yet ready for the rental market. i see them come into my office, very upset about what they have gone through. the school has lost a lot of control over that. we currently do not have student housing. being able to provide that is

another educational element to our program, one that is incredibly important to our young folks in a college environment. these proposed changes would encourage the development of new student housing and reduce the burden on the existing housing stock. i encourage you to approve the amendment to the planning code. president miguel: thank you. >> brad paul, speaking as an individual in support of this legislation with the changes to staff has recommended. i have a confession. when tim cullen first mention this, i said "as long as it does not apply to the academy garden." i figured they would find some way to use it against us. but on more careful reflection, it is exactly them we need to apply this to. the only way we are going to get this institution back on the

straight and narrow -- it is going to take not just regulations, fees, and penalties, but incentives as well. this is just the tool we need. this, as you recognize, is the map of the 17 areas they would like to move into. what we need to do with those regulations and incentives is to concentrate them in the transit-rich mid market area around civic center. this is where there are residential projects that could buy. there are vacant lots that could be developed. there is the great building, which recently approved as a youth hostel. that is a shaky project, given the size of it. if the academy of arts or to lease half the building for students, or some of the other institutions here today, i think it is likely they could get the financing to do that project. how would this impact the city? this is what i find fascinating. these are bus routes. you can see this great long line

out here to the star motel. that is the only thing it serves. this red line goes all the way out to fisherman's wharf for basically two buildings. if we can focus their residential and academic buildings in the transit corridor, the transit-rich market, the civic center area, you can eliminate these empty buses that are basically running buildings. i want to commend supervisor dufty and tim cullen for doing all this hard work. i think tim's reference to boston creating 10,000 units of student housing with these incentives is exactly the model we are looking for. i think we all know what -- where this can be concentrated. i have two recommendations. my only concern is that you have in here that they have to provide annual reports to the city to say they are still being

used for city housing. we know in tough budget times there are not staffed to do that. i looked to the hotels for a model of the private right of action. it is not everybody. you have to define who has that. it is nonprofits that have in their mission statement the preservation of affordable housing. there is a way to narrow it. if there were a few private institutions who could go in and read these reports, and if there is a suspicion that are breaking the law bring that to the city's attention, i think it would be helpful in making sure nobody abuses it. i think you could states some preference for this housing being on or near transit. those are my suggestions. i support the legislation and commend the people who worked on it. president miguel: thank you. >> my name is henry. students are a segment of our society that many sort of think all they can do is go out and protest. let's face it. they are the future leaders of

our society, our future doctors, lawyers, engineers, developers, innovators, and explorers. that is what they are going to provide for our city. they also need housing. there is wonderful legislation before you. i applaud supervisor dufty and the san francisco housing coalition for drafting the amendment before you, and i urge you to approve it. thank you. president miguel: is there additional public comment? >> commissioners, i am glenn loomis, director of operations for the university of san francisco, a private university in the richmond district. we are currently able to house about 2200 students, about half of our on-campus students. the rest of our students go to

craigslist or live at some distance and commute. as a university, we are very interested in our campus becoming more walk-centered, so students are able to walk to class, walk home, and not drive automobiles, or at least take transit. we very much support this legislation. we see it as a great thing. we hope you are able to pass this. thank you. president miguel: thank you. is there additional public comment? >> my name is clark. i am the dean of student affairs at the art institute of california, san francisco, not the art academy. our campus is located on the u.n. plaza. we do not currently have dedicated student housing. we do have a master lease with the property at the fillmore center to provide housing for our students.

this has probably been mentioned ok -- mentioned already today. we use apartments rented by the school or we refer them to craigslist. they are often taking low-cost, low housing -- low-income housing in the city in order to afford this. this amendment supports the creation of student housing, therefore making more housing available in a community. i fully support this legislation and the amendments. thank you. president miguel: thank you. is there additional public comment on this item? if not, public comment is closed. vice president olague: i guess we all recognize the need for student housing. we want to create that here.

i guess the only questions -- i had questions i think i just want to put on the record. my concern was on allowing the conversion of other uses by conditional use authorizations, and i know that we are prohibiting the conversion of single room occupancy hotels, but i was concerned because in the past i think that speculators will always find an out. in the past, with little work loss, where we now have -- or senior housing -- you always see speculators of use the system. -- c. speculators abuse the system. i want a little more understanding of the other uses. when we talked earlier, i mentioned i was concerned because of the industrial uses. the live-work had a serious

impact on entertainment issues, and even industrial uses. i just wanted some assurances that this type of thing would that happen here with this. i was just wondering if you could address the industrial uses. would it be offices that would be converted? what are we looking at when we talk about conversion? >> thank you. to your first point about abusing the system, and that a developer could come and say they are using it for student housing, come to see you, and do whatever they want -- unfortunately, having seen other types of exceptions, sometimes it is hard to catch those people. however, i do believe that the way this is set up, primarily because it has to have the imp trigger -- we would need that in place.

if there were not qualified academic institution, they would not be able to use this exception. we would be able to catch them through that. in terms of other uses and conversion of other uses, i think amory mention to you earlier there are other checks and balances in terms of what can or cannot be converted. those would still be in play, and this would not trust them. i think it would be a balancing test for the commission to decide whether or not the neighborhood controls allow that, and if so is this used worth the conditional use authorization. i am not sure if that answers your second part. >> it would not be allowed warehousing would not otherwise be. >> yes, thank you. vice president olague: great. it is just by the very nature of

the zoning prohibited. so there is all of this other -- >> right. all the underlying controls of zoning districts will apply. student housing can only go into areas where housing is allowed, or the conversion of housing in those districts. like the director said, eastern neighborhood does not allow conversions. vice president olague: then where would this be done? i mean, where would it be done? there is such limited -- are there any sites that have been identified? i just want to know. how would this happen? >> i have thought about that as well, and i would defer to the institutions themselves. it primarily would be allowed in the core of the city. c districts, rc districts, probably the nc districts. anywhere housing is allowed. there are some r district, but

there are some limitations. it would probably be primarily in the c districts. vice president olague: i know mo has probably been doing some work. how do they feel about it? >> i have reviewed all of this and they are in support of this. craig alderman was working closely with us for many months on this. vice president olague: i think it is really necessary. one other question i had. i guess that the imp will describe the following. you get one bad player and you get paranoid about all institutions, which is unfortunate. the question i had was the cost of the housing. the housing program itself -- sometimes -- how many students would live in each unit? i know that many student dorms are overcrowded anyway. what would those standards be that we would be using for

student housing -- the quality of life, the number of students that would be living, the amount of space peck'? would it just the group housing? >> amory rodgers, planning department staff. we have been working with zoning administrator scot sanchez. we have asked that the supervisor allow us to work with the city attorney on going through the fine grain proposal. we have a group housing sort of controls. vice president olague: great. i know that sometimes in institutions where there is -- most people are using financial aid, obviously, but i do not think there is any way of really -- i know there is some language year of qualified students in 30%, but i just note there are not any ways we could really, in other words, limit to

how we have some discretion over the amount a student would be charged for the type of -- there is just no way. i do not think we can do that. this is just me thinking out loud, i guess. i am going to move to approve it with the modifications of staff, and i would like to add -- in courage on or near transit -- encourage on or near transit. president miguel: you have a second. commissioner antonini: i have a modification i want to get into. we are primarily interested in new housing. our chief object is to incentivize the schools perhaps to get together and be able to build new houses. however, the details are going to be on what happens with conversions of existing facilities, that being housing

and non-housing uses. i would change item 3 and a lump all existing residential housing together and make it require a cu. if you prohibit things, i think it is a little broad. there may be situations where you would have run down, seismically compromised sro's or residential hotels. perhaps if the schools pulled together, they could paper that as housing and convert this into a structure that would be good for student housing. but prohibitions, you eliminate things. conditional use is, i think, a good tool. the other item was the hotels in general, large tourist and smaller tourist hotels. i would like to see that may be being done by a permitted method rather than having to go through the end ttire cu.

as was mentioned, the large tourist hotels already had to go through a whole process to be able to convert to condos, and doing the same thing for them to become student housing makes total sense. i do not think you need a cu necessarily for that. the smaller hotels, motels often, a lot of them are in a lot of trouble which uses that are less desirable at the present time. this could be a wonderful way to get them to be converted into student housing. i would like to encourage that rather then -- maybe cu might be too strict for them. the final issue is about eliminating -- i like all these other provisions. i think removing the requirement of certain income levels -- i do not know any students who have a lot of money to spend on housing. i think to analyze their housing -- their family income or

anything, i think is very difficult for a student going to a state college with a good summer job and working for the school year, maybe they can pay for their tuition and housing if it is already providedan francisco state, otherwise they will be needy, because by definition, you are a student. you aren't making a lot of money. i think we can micro manage it too much by looking at income levels. it's up to doing these things. and i can remember, you know, the dental school is a good example because i can remember being a dental student in the late 1960's and we were scrambling and we had the requirement of having a lab because we had to do our dental technique all weekend long and we had to find a garage to convert into a lab. the dental school was able to buy 25 years ago a building that was going to close and converted

it to student housing and it includes a lab and is walking distance from the dental school. so that is a successful story for them but they had the wherewithal to do it and their student body is small. those are the kind of things we want to encourage for sure. so i guess -- i don't know if we could -- i don't know if commissioner would allow us -- vice-president olague: i think the single occupies si stuff and i think it's too complicated. i would be unwilling to remove that -- yeah. >> obviously it's a policy call that the commission can make. however, the department feels strongly that existing housing needs to be protected, particularly like the

commissioner was saying, s.r.o.'s and there are pieces of legislation that could take care of that. the department feels that we need to encourage a diverse range of housing. and i understand what were mentioning already there are maybe some instances where an occasional building may be converted but the department felt that was too rare an instance and encourage new housing rather than converting existing units. commissioner antonini: there is a prohibition on all existing housing units? >> all housing units. commissioner antonini: ok. let's try to pull out this tourist hotel. i think that's not a housing unit. i would say perhaps we could modify it. vice-president olague: we saw some other things. i mean, i don't want to

encourage that we start converting tourist hotel uses, because i think sometimes it's not really appropriate to a neighborhood -- i don't know. it got into a complicated conversation. it's not the type of thing i want to encourage. even the way they are structured may not be appropriate for students to live in in many ways. commissioner antonini: what do we do when we convert tourist hotel rooms to nonstudent housing? >> ann marie rogers worked on that legislation. i would like her to answer if she can. >> the large tourist hotels that are over 100 years are regulated by the administrative code and it's by lottery, but a lottery will not be allowed until the

city produces 600 new rooms of these large tourist hotels. we aren't going to see anybody being able to convert a large tourist hotel into housing in the near term unless we build at least 600 units. commissioner antonini: that's my only problem, i don't know if i can be supportive. i really like the measure, but we have to look at -- particularly the other uses, such as smallest tourist hotels, smallest motels that are tourist, not residential. and i can live with the prohibition of conversion of existing housing units, but allowing those can do many good things, because the ones that are converted are the ones that are failures and they aren't getting the tourists and doing other things that are often not legal, and i think it would be a good method to do it. >> maybe it wasn't clear, but tourist hotels that are under

100 units, those are not regulated and those would be allowed to be converted, even with this ordinance and recommended modificationses, you can convert those with less than 100 rooms. commissioner antonini: not the largest ones? >> due to the administrative controls that are in place and also with our modifications. commissioner antonini: so as written, there is a modification in the language of this now with that large hotel. you started talking about that? >> our modification that we are recommendings to the commission that are large hotels be converted. if the commission agrees -- >> i disagree. commissioner antonini: i love the whole thing but that might be an important issue for me so i don't know if i could go with the rest of it but it will go to the board and go with it.

the other thing i think with the other uses, which was alluded to being a little bit vague and i think we have to sort of encourage. that would mean any time that you have a commercial or a retail or a garage perhaps -- and let's assume these are in areas where housing is permitted as you said, then those would all have to have conditional use. >> that's right. the idea in this recommendation is to encourage the production of new housing and then for other conversions, it would be possible, but you would be able to determine in your discretion if it was appropriate or not in the conditional use. commissioner antonini: or you could actually be silent on existing housing and that might make it simpler. thank you. president miguel: commissioner moore? commissioner moore: i'm in strong support of the legislation and i would like to ask for clarification whether or not con -- retirement homes and

housing for the elderly are protected from that or is that too specific? >> if it's group housing, then they would be protected. if it was part of a hospital use, it would be a medical institution. commissioner moore: the other thing i would like to ask and if ms. sullivan could answer that, we had issues with understanding what i.m.p.'s need to be. when you say the i.m.p. trigger, there are a large number of i.m.p.'s particularly nonprofit organizations of the city have made some efforts to show and disclose the institutional master plan. however, we won't mention the name, has greatly failed to even understand the basic requirements and even among ourselves and sometimes there is a some degree of ambiguity of what is required.

i hope we can find a way before we fully deal with this legislation that we have the i.m.p. definition very clearly defined, including reflecting on this particular chapter, institutions, what the students mostly do. we heard that have 30% on campus, et cetera. and i was real interested in following the comment of the witness mentioning nonprofits, which would need support. and then mr. paul coming and making a case -- i won't repeat, she was very eloquent and i find myself between those two positions and i was wonder if the supervisor had given that particular thought because i don't see it in this current writing. >> the i.m.p. process is

outlined fairly clearly in the code and was amended to be clearer four years ago. the process is triggered if you are a post-secondary educational institution or medical institution. those two types of uses must file an i.m.p., profit or nonprofit. if you are triggered to do that, those are the base triggers for an i.m.p. that has to be developed and come to this commission for approval and you close the comment period on it. so all of those would be triggered. commissioner moore: thank you for clarifying that. the second part of my question, the nonprofit versus for-profits and how do we look at that? whether there was any thought of this. you could listen to both arguments, but we have had so many heartbreaks here that we are probably reluctant to

support the for-profit groups. president miguel: one more time. >> i'm not familiar with the master plan. maybe someone could help me out. president miguel: the commissioner is asking whether it would apply to both profit and nonprofit. i.m.p.'s include both. >> i don't think there is a distinction in my mind. there isn't between profit and nonprofit institutions. >> i will say, commissioner, the one thing that this does that perhaps can address the institution we have been talking about is that we are preventing -- this would absolutely -- this would absolutely outright the prevention to