things that we did not include on what we passed on to the board, the higher affordability level. it was changed at the board. this commission did not support that then. as we know, there is already a lot of affordable housing in that area partly as the settlement that happened years ago. i think what we need to do is increase the quality of life there by doing the things that the fees will provide rather than trying to put more affordable housing. our best successes have been blending affordable housing in with market rate housing throughout the city and we're seeing a lot of those things happen where one building or there will be a lot of market rate and you'll see an affordable right with it, broadway and battery right around china basin on king street and there are many, many more that are going the same way. we just approved some, i believe, in the mission district. so i would support a nonapproval or disapproval of this for the reasons stated

because i think we can do a lot better job as we work forward with some other legislation. it also is premature because we just past eastern neighborhoods not long ago and i think a revision at this point would not be in line. president miguel: commissioner sugaya. commissioner sugaya: yeah, a couple of things. first on the corner of folsom and fifth, there are two parcels i think we just approved a project on and have we gotten -- and the other, across the alley. so it would be interesting to me if we could ask that developer what would happen if his project suddenly became subject to this particular provision 3 subject to this particular provision of increased housing. i don't know if you have already done that or not, but they seem to be fairly reasonable. i don't know, you know and it might be interesting to see as a developer who is in this area

who is paying the highest tier at the moment, what their + at the moment, what their take is on this particular provision to see if they feel that it's at all within reason that they could afford to go ahead with that development or not. >> of course, i can't speak to how they feel about the higher affordability, but as commissioner olague mentioned, part of the impetus of this legislation in moving forward was that the 900 folsom project and discovering that the tier c affordability that is applied to the interior parcels in the youth and family district were not applied to the external or the main streets. so in some ways, that was the impetus, but at the same time, honoring the fact that this commission has already passed or entitled that project, this is not meant to retroactively

apply to any projects that have already been approved. this is more moving forward to forward the goals of the affordability that was set forth from the original youth and family zone. this was just to make it consistent that these affordability requirements would be applied towards all of the parcels knowing that we respect the fact that this commission moved forward with that project. commissioner sugaya: i didn't mean to apply that this was retroactive. i was thinking, since we just recently approved that and to see if they had any opinion on what the affordability would be to them or other developers since we just did it, so to speak. it's just something in terms of maybe getting some feedback. that's all i meant. but i would have to agree with commissioner olague and somewhat with commissioner antonini with respect to i

guess the danger of trying to continue to impose higher and higher impact fees and affordability levels on development. just to think that you're going to then get affordable housing. there has to be a limit and a tipping point somewhere that says, you know, the developer isn't going to do it. so then you're in this conundrum where the community may be seeking community benefits, affordable housing, support for libraries, child care, open space, street improvements on the one hand, but, you know, it may not come to fruition because the levels that the city would impose. and i think that's kind of what the issue is up here -- well, among several of us anyway and how to find that kind of balance and i think somewhat the staff report is saying that we don't have enough experience

yet to find out, figure out whether that is really working or not working. on the other hand, if it's really the case that you want to stifle development, i guess we can make the impact fees as high as we want to. i don't know, that doesn't seem to be the goal of the community either. so i think it's kind of like this, you know, vice president olague: a rock and a hard place. commissioner sugaya: yeah. i'm curious. i'm going to try to go back and try to rezone everything and figure out now in more detail why in a lot of these tier c areas are surrounding the smaller parcels in the neighborhood. i'm sure we had that discussion, but it escapes me now as to why that happened. i'm for kind of moving it ahead. i don't want to make a motion to deny, to disapprove it because i think that sends the

wrong message to the supervisor and supervisors. so i think could support a motion of either continuing it even though -- or something that says that we're in support of the idea of it and that kind of sort of vague idea or whatever you want to call it, but short of out and outright denying it or disapproving it. >> commissioner, if i could, maybe i could suggest some language that you support the intensity of the youth and family zone and you seek to strengthen that as a youth and family zone, but -- oh, shoot, but that you don't feel like this articulation is the best way to strengthen the zone. you want staff to work with the supervisor to find a way to strengthen the purpose of the zone. commissioner sugaya: and i think that, i know that the supervisor has been working probably with some of the other

city agencies, but again, the kind of land use tools that we have sometimes are not quite, don't always work the way we think they're going to work and that it's kind of like using a hammer sometimes and i think maybe in combination with the mayor's office of housing and oewd, there might be a more kind of comprehensive package you might say that could be put together and maybe redevelopment, kind of like a more comprehensive approach to the whole issue. anyway, that's -- vice president olague: that's your motion? commissioner sugaya: i'll make a motion based on what ms. rodgers said. >> and we support that. president miguel: commissioner moore. commissioner moore: i would strongly support what the other commissioners are saying including the intent of the motion what ms. rodgers just

spelled out. it requires an ongoing discussion including we reflecting on the reason of why we establish the zone-specific parcels in the area. it mostly addresses areas of where you have adjoining very small parcels which are the signature and the kind of building block in this neighborhood. so coming in with blockbuster project which takes the spirit of this neighborhood away which is part of the core, at least as i remember some aspects of it. this needs to be carried further because i don't think any of us wants to stop this dead in its track and not encouraging development, but not creating restrictions which make it impossible for anyone to step in. i support here what was intended with the motion. president miguel: i would support the motion, also. this is an odd situation because of the economic situation, we are premature. we have nothing to base develop

on really in the area other than a project or something. there is a balance with the community benefits. you don't have projects, you don't have any community benefits. so you can only strain the economics so far on it. it has to be done, in my opinion, with a little more finesse than the way it is at the moment. and i would support an ongoing discussion based on the motion and the analysis of it which i appreciate. this is an experiment in a way and we haven't had enough time in my mind to see whether or not the experiment works or whether it has to be tweaked. so we have to be very careful with it. commissioner olague. vice president olague: i just

wanted to thank commissioner sugaya that came up with language that was acceptable to all of us. that was hard. that was not easy. i think i support the work of supervisor daly has been working hard to make sure that we preserve some -- it's not just about the youth and families, it's about preserving it for low-income families and working families who want to remain in south market and always have a place there. it's been real challenging. i know trinity plaza, there have been some real victories. so i think with the help of -- you know, that howard and sixth street building is going to become family housing now thanks to the work of the community again. i think there is ways of working through this so that it's about more than just preserving youth and families, it's about actually preserving people who are working families who have a history of living in that community and have been maybe pushed out due to certain

pressures there. so i think it's doable. it's just going to take a lot more work and conversations. but i'm glad that they are onboard with this. i know staff is supportive of working with the community. president miguel: commissioner antonini. commissioner antonini: yeah. i mean historically if you go back far enough, i mean this was a greektown and it was a lot of other things and it was housing for usually single working men who would live in the housing that has long since been demolished. it depends how far back you go in history. i probably would not be supportive, even though i like to see working to bring solutions, but the legislation itself calls for a higher degree of affordability which i think it should be citywide if you're hoping to attract any develop at all. you need blended development. there is a lot of low income housing already. you need market rate housing in blended with that to make it an area that brings the amenities

and brings things that will help people in the area. if you make it too high, it's an area that is underserved. the better success is to spread things around. president miguel: commissioner sugaya. commissioner sugaya: as an aside, i think there is already some oewd activity with the planning department on the social, cultural heritage side of things in which paul lord has been discussing some additional planning tools for the area and oewd is also trying to work now with planning on more economic development type issues. there is already some cooperation going on with respect to this particular area. vice president olague: good stuff. interesting. >> commissioners, let me see if i understand. you are not disapproving, but you're also not approving. basically your motion is to encourage the intent of the legislation to move forward

with the continued dialogue between the community and the supervisors office and the planning department. president miguel: correct. >> and other city agencies. >> and other agencies of the city. ok. and on that motion. [roll call] >> thank you. commissioners, that motion passed 4-1 with commissioner antonini voting against. commissioners, you're now on item number eight, case number 2010.0833 t, proposed commission sponsored planning code amendments related to the upper market street neighborhood commercial district. >> good evening, commissioners, commissioners, you requested

initiation of this ordinance after hearing from residents of the area over the past year. in response, you asked planning staff to evaluate the proposed ordinance and to prepare for today's hearing. you also asked that the community provide any outreach beyond the required newspaper notice. on october 25, the community held a discussion on the proposal in the community room at the market, on market streets. the proposed ordinance would amend the following. on the map, i have a map of the area, it would amend the upper market n.c.d., the existing district in this area, it's the darker purple between approximately castro, a little bit over and a few parcels over here to ensure that commercial and residential development in this area is consist with existing development patterns, provide relief from the park requirements and require for transit oriented development and new development provides

community benefits to offset new impacts to infrastructure due to that development. specifically, the proposed ordinance would amend the zoning controls in this district as follows. for rear yards, this section would be amended to generally provide for rear yards at the ground floor and above. there would be a requirement for ground floor commercial uses in this district. the offstreet parking controls would generally be amended to permit one car for each two dwelling units and to allow by conditional use authorization up to .75 cars per dwelling unit. section 155, the general standards for parking and loading would be amended to not permit new garage entries that face on market street as the transit, premiere transit street in san francisco. section 207.7 would be amended to add restrictions on demolition, conversion, and merger of existing dwelling

units in this district. also, a division of dwelling units would be amended, section 207.8 to add restrictions on the splitting of dwelling units into smaller units. there is a special height exemption existing in section 263.20 that would be applied to this area to add up to five feet, no more, but up to five feet height bonus for each feet that they add to the ground floor retail space and that would only be applied to areas which have a height district that are either 40 or 50 feet high. and then the development impact fees in 401, 416, 421.1 and 421.5 and 421.3, all of the impact fees that apply to the market and octavia plan area which is across the street would be applied to this area that i showed on the map. and then finally there would be

notes made to the zoning control in article seven to note all of these changes to the height limits and the rear yard parking. so commissioners, staff analysis of this proposal found this request to be in line with our recent planning work by the department with one exception. the department recommends that the proposed ordinance be modified to grandfather in certain existing applications. most of the ordinances introduced by this commission are the result of lengthy community planning processes which provide some level of notice to property owners and potential developers. because the ordinance did not benefit from the substantial processes whereby potential property owners would be aware of the pending fee changes, the department recommends applying all of the controls upon adoption of the ordinance while providing exemption from certain impact fees to preexisting projects which have already been submitted. in this area, i believe we only

have one such proposal and it would be at the corner of castro and market street. and we would recommend that on page 5 of the executive summary and/or page 2 of the draft resolution in your packet that we would strike the language that requires a code complying project. by the way, this exemption is currently written in order to be exempted from these fees, the project would need to be code complying. the project at market and castro which is the intended beneficiary of that, they had an application in since able 2006, is that right? since 2006 and they have been involved in the lengthy process so it wasn't applied to them. the further, the ground floor requirements doesn't currently exist in this district. if it were applied to this district, to this parcel in the corner, it's a steeply sloping lot going up castro street and if they were to provide a rear

yard at the ground floor, it would result in a big hole down that's not really consistent with existing rear yards or compatible. so in this case, it might be propose that the zoning administrator would grant a variance and therefore the project would not be code compliant. we would recommend one additional modification to the resolutions before you and that would be striking that you would need to be a code compliant project in order to be exempted from those development impact fees. that concludes the staff presentation. i'm available if you have questions. president miguel: thank you. a number of comment cards. an degreea, wade, david troop. if any of you are here? >> good evening, president miguel and commissioners. my name is lee molson and i represent the owner of 2301

market street which houses the gold's gym. we have been in discussion with the neighborhood for a little over a year now of modifying this building, adding to it and expanding the gym and adding rental housing. generally we're in support of extending the octavia, market-octavia plan to castro. and in incorporating this orphan block that really is sort of an orphan block. we have some concerns. we designed this more so to the new development design guidelines put together by the upper market design guidelines in 2008. so there is some conflicts. one of our concerns is that we will have new impact fees, but the benefits which we really are looking for which is height, will not be granted as part of this. i understand from the planning director that's not possible in this process, but we will have

to come back to you and possibly to the board of supervisors to ask for this height variance because this project is not viable without it. and if you look at the pattern going up and down market street, all the corners are going to be at least 65 feet or higher and we're asking for 65 feet to allow this rental housing. i'm just introducing ourselves, our project, and we will be back. but generally we're in support of this, but we do have some concerns. president miguel: thank you. >> we have been working with many of the various neighborhood groups here over the last year and we had a lot of transparency about this development, thank you. president miguel: thank you. >> good evening president miguel and commissioners, david troop. i'm speaking generally in favor

of this and we worked tirelessly with planning staff to make this happen. as you're aware of, the upper market neighborhood was really split arbitrarily by the market-octavia plan leaving us with this orphanned block with antiquated planning controls. so the, extending the planning controls is something that we do support. i personally have some skepticism about completely exempting the market and castro location that's been discussed from the community benefit fees, but if the commission decides to do that, the project should definitely be subject to providing community benefits in kind and we believe that the,

that particular project should be required to come to the commission and be reviewed before it is entitled to ensure that it is meeting the community benefit goals of the market-octavia plan and meets the zoning. other than that, we're generally in support and i would like to thank the department for working with us to extend the zoning. president miguel: thank you. michael benjamin, joe curtain, dennis richards, judith williams. >> good evening, planning commissioners, i'm mitchell benjamin. we wrote you a letter on october 18 but our concern of the proposed legislation of the market octavia plan expansion. our office has been working on the project at the northwest

corner of market and castro street since 2004, over six years now. presently we have a code conforming project and request that you completely grandfather this site. since we have filed the application prior to december 31, 2005. i would like to give you a previous history of our project. it's a multi-family building with commercial space at street level. we have been working diligently with the planning department since 2004. for the last -- for the first two years, we were adjusting the schematic design of the project with the direction from the planning department. we pro gressed far along with that process. in 2007, supervisor dufty spearheaded a design of the upper market area which included this property. we were informed that our project would be placed on hold until final guidelines for the upper market plan were approved. this happened in the fall of 2008. the upper market development guidelines recommend very

different zoning for the planning code in place. we were directed to file an s.u.d. and follow the recommendations of the new guidelines rather than existing zoning. our office worked on a completely different building. the structure was taller and denser than existing codes would permit. we then began the process of filing the s.u.d. including contacting the various neighborhood groups of the plans but found little assistance with this process. we concluded that to go ahead with the project, it must be 100% code compliant with the existing zoning which is how it has been submitted for the completion of the environmental evaluation. near our office or the project sponsor was ever notified of the recent proposed legislation of the expansion of the market octavia plan. when i discovered it a few weeks ago, i immediately wrote to you of our concerns. the proposed zoning incorporates only part of the market octavia plan, the

components that would actually make this particular project less desirable to the neighborhood and in direct conflict to the approved upper market design guidelines. in particular, under the new zoning, the rear yard would be required to be placed at grade. i know we just discussed this. this would not serve the residential units but reduce the required ground floor commercial use. in this specific case because the uphill slope of castro street, this would locate the rear yard of the project three stories below the rear yard of some of the immediate neighbors. also residential density would not be increased as recommended by the upper market design guidelines and permitted by the existing market octavia plan. in the last few days, i understand that there has been a recommended modification allowing a partial grandfathering of projects. unfortunately, it is of little substance. president miguel: thank you.

>> good evening, president miguel and commissioners. my name is joe curtain. and i'm with the area planning and action. we have been working with other community groups throughout the past couple months on this proposal. of course, as you know, over the past three or four years, the castro and upper market community has been engaged in a very popular and successful planning process to envision how the upper market corridor would be developed and where underutilized sites can become vibrant residences, shops, and community institutions. the upper market design guidelines specify design and development guidelines ensure that the new development conformed with community vision and that the i78 packets were mitigated. the final part of the plan process was to enact the zoning

changes which happened, as you know, on most of upper market but did not occur on this orphan block between. so this year, several of the major community groups on upper market were engaged with the planning staff and developers in the community. and it is in our community's interest to have our vision enacted into code and to have consistent regulations throughout the entire upper market corridor including building height limits that support the urban design goals, rear setbacks that mitigate impacts on adjacent residential properties, parking maximums to encourage walking and transit use and impact fees to ensure that the public realm improvements in the plan are

implemented at the same time as the private development. our coalition is disappointed that some projects, including the one at castro and market which is the most prominent site in the neighborhood and certainly an important site throughout the entire city and we're disappointed that this project has not, will not be subject to some of these zoning changes and also the community benefit regulations. we strongly encourage that the commission require a mandatory discretionary review of this project so that we can ensure that the developer and the community will come together and ensure that this project is as good as it can be and that community benefits are somehow