>> did afternoon. this is the regular meeting of the san francisco wedding

committee -- san francisco planning commission. before we began, may i remind you to turn off electronic devices that may sound during the proceeding. please speak directly into the microphone, 32 6 inches away, and state your name for the record. -- three to six inches away, and state your name for the record. faug[roll is called. a;; all present] item one commence planning code section 243, van ness special

use district to require a conditional use operation -- authorization for other entertainment uses. the other is planning amendments as part of parkmerced. your printed calendar shows a proposal for continuous of 25 07 pacific ave to december 16, 2010, but staff asked for it to be continued to -- i am sorry, january 13. we are asking if the continued to january 20, 2011. item four is for the park

merced project 3711 19th ave. the items for 226 cabrillo street -- the proposal is exempt from your review per planning code 317 (d) (3) because the proposed building for demolition was fun to be unsound at the 50% threshold. the project may be administratively approved following completion of section 311 notification unless a discretionary review request is submitted by a member of the

public, in which case a new hearing could follow that notice. at this point, the matter is no longer before you for your consideration. further on your calendar, item 12, case number 2,009.0646c. there hasn't been a request for a continuance of this subject from the product sponsor to generate -- to january 13, 2011. staff supports the request for a continuance. item 13, case # 2,010.0717c 4777 for 777 valencia street -- a neighbor has sent a request for a continuance. staff is not in support, and neither is the project sponsor.

i am not sure if the requestor of the continuance is here, but i would ask that you take up the request at the call of the item. president miguel: absolutely. >> with that, i am not aware of any other item on the calendar being proposed for a continuance. i do have a number of speaker cards for people who want to speak to the continuance of other items. president miguel: the agenda item before us are requests for continuances. anyone speaking is requested to speak directly to the continuance, and not to the item. there will be a one minute time limit on these. >> one minute.

president miguel: laura traveler, kathy linn, and mark christianson. >> good afternoon, commissioners. my name is laura traveler, and i am sure of the new committee called parkmerced action coalition in parkmerced. i wanted to call your attention to the item. [no audio]

residents together. thank you. >> i am mark christiansen. i am speaking on this. my rationale is the following. the height and bulk amounts were put partly to minimize construction on the planned near the san andreas fault. i have given each of you a copy of the california earthquake of

april 2006 report by the carnegie institution of washington in 1908. i am going to read this partial as to why it is important we have a continuance. the disturbance seems to have been violent. an old railroad trestle crosses -- the bridge was wrecked. the bridge was broken into places. at one point, the break was 12 to 14 feet past the other. it failed to join the section by six or 7 feet. the west section remained with the bank that was practical and lower court to 5 feet vertically than the other piece. displacements here are largely due to be slipping unsettling of the west bank of the like. just south of the bridge across lake merced -- president miguel: 12. >> i sincerely hope you look at this and consider yourself in

these deliberations. president miguel: eric, carol sautner. >> eric goodman, a member of the parcmerced action coalition. i wish to extend this to the january 27 date as an organization formed in parcmerced is forming. you have students going on holiday. there were limited comments from people able to attend, listen, and learn about the documents. i think the entire series of documents is extensive. you commissioners have problems with the size and scale of the documents presented to you. i do not see how you can rush through this into hearings without giving the community time to go through these documents adequately.

i am an architect and a savvy person with the computer, and it was difficult for me. i do not see how a lot of people who have full-time jobs have the time and energy to go through this during the holiday season. president miguel: thank you. >> thank you. >> my name is dr. foster. i am appearing as an individual and on behalf of janis norrington, the oldest longtime resident of parkmerced. this includes a map of the united states geographic service, which indicates that parkmerced is one of the most dangerous areas of san francisco. is a level mined area, the most violent area of san francisco in

terms of earthquakes. to build a high price -- a high- rise like that are proposing is very dangerous. i urge your continuance on this matter. think you very much. president miguel: kathy lenz. >> i am ms. ting. i support a continuance until january 11 or further out so we can have as much time to speak to individuals who are blind, hearing impaired, or elderly. those individuals -- many of them are not computer literate, cannot get down here, and were hoping very much you would come out to visit them there. many of the people who are working were hoping you could come on a weekend at 12 noon. thank you very much. president miguel: is there

further public comment on items proposed for continuance? if not, public comment is closed. commissioners? commissioner antonini: i would move that we continue items one, t and two to the dates proposed, item 3 to january 20, 2011, item 42 the date proposed -- four to the date proposed, and item 12 to january 13, 2011. president miguel: is there a second? commissioner borden: second. >> was there a second? president miguel: yes, commissioner borden. >> on the motion of continuance of items one, too, and for as

they are proposed, item 3 to january 20, and item 11 to january 13? commissioner antonini: aye. commissioner borden: aye. commissioner moore: aye. commissioner sugaya: aye. vice president olague: aye. president miguel: aye. >> you are now on your consent calendar. that consists of item six. it will be acted upon by a single roll call vote. there will be no separate discussion unless a member of the public or staff requests, in which event it shall be removed from the consent calendar and considered at a future hearing. case no. 2,010.0638c, a request for a conditional use authorization to convert a

vacant retail commercial tenant space to a full-service restaurant on the ground floor of a two-story residential and commercial building within the inner clement street neighborhood commercial zoning district. i should note it is my understanding that the item is being called from consent. as so, commissioners, staff is requesting, because the staff person has another item later on the calendar -- we are asking that you move this item to the regular calendar right before item 14. for the benefit of the public, item 6 is of consent. it will be moved to the record calendar and will be heard prior to item 14. that takes you to commissioners questions and matters. president miguel: a couple of items, if i may.

first, i would like to, at the end of today's session, to close in memory of brother kelly cullen, former director of tndc who recently passed away. i believe he was only 57 years old. if we could do that at the end of the hearing today. during the week, i testified, as did other commissioners, at the board of supervisors land use committee regarding the health care master plan proposal. i have had meetings with people regarding parkmerced. i had the pleasure of attending a department-level meeting at the glen park elementary school the other night regarding the continuing work on the glen park master plan, which will probably

come to this commission sometime next year. i have had meetings with people regarding the project at 374 fifth street. and i had the pleasure of meeting with a couple of people from leaderships and francisco who are investigating -- from leadership san francisco who are investigating middle income housing in san francisco. last night, in the north like court, the neighborhood empowerment network held their annual awards unfair. i just wanted to mention that jim meeko, who all of us know, was given a lifetime achievement award. then i was at the board of supervisors rules committee hearing this morning, when rodney fong's nomination for the planning commission was heard. i am sure the department will report on that in due course.

commissioner antonini: i also have a few things to report. i was involved and participated in a meeting on tuesday night, the 16th, on 777 valencia, which will be before us today, with neighbors, with the project sponsor. jim meeko was there, and owners of properties in the area. i thought it was very productive. i spoke with regard to the project 307 for 5th street. i spoke to leaders on middle income housing and and led the group is it -- is exploring that closely. i was somewhat troubled to hear there is a planned city funds are being spent on a concept to charge fees on drivers entering san francisco or downtown san francisco. i think particularly at a time when our funds are somewhat

short it is probably not the right time to do this, and it may never be in my opinion. i would be interested in what percentage of our restaurants, our retail big and small, our cultural, and our medical facilities and our sports facilities -- the revenue comes from people who are non-san franciscans and non-tourists who were staying in san francisco. a lot of these people will continue to use automobiles. it is not like they do not have options. we are getting a lot of competition for destination shopping, restaurants, and other things we take for granted from other parts of the bay area. if we want our economy to go further south, the best thing we can do is make it more expensive and more difficult for people to come here. i will say in no uncertain terms i do not like this idea. vice president olague: i attended last night a south of market short survey informational session. it was pretty interesting.

i know that right now we are seeing -- the department is releasing a lot of the survey work that has been done in the mission and in some areas. a lot of us are keeping a close eye on it. i think at some point it would be nice to have another joint hearing with the historic preservation commission and talk about some of that work. also, a couple of weeks ago i attended a workshop on sustainable transportation in sweden. the san francisco bay area -- it was a very interesting discussion between both countries about this issue of sustainable transportation. they had folks here from -- who worked in that country on those issues. we had individuals represented from uc-berkeley. timothy papandreou, the deputy

director of transportation planning here in san francisco, spoke about a lot of what i thought were really interesting ideas and work that the mta is doing currently. i think it would be really good if we could invite him back here. it has been a while since we have seen him. he could give us an update on the work the mta is engaged in. i think it does obviously intersect with a lot of work we are doing here as it relates to some of these allegedly sustainable development we are doing here. i would love it if other commissioners were interested in having mr. papandreou come by and give us an update on the work of the mta. it was a really interesting workshop. i was glad i attended that at spur.

the point of my comments today was to invite him to give him a presentation -- invite him to give us a presentation. commissioner sugaya: director, i assume you are going to talk about the grants memo we received in your report, correct? thank you. secondly, also to staff, i assume the city has been looking at the potential effects of proposition 26 on various fees and what not that the city charges. at some point, if there are any implications for the planning department, just a memo to the commission would be great -- would be desirable. commissioner moore: on a brighter note, i just came back last night from a panel i sat on about light and architecture. i am not going to talk to this

commission about light, but it was fascinating to hear 126 speakers from 25 countries speak about the importance of urban space. and to the matter of congestion, venice is obviously the most perfect city, because there are no cars. when you see the millions of people who come to venice every year, shot in their suitcases over small venetian steps, it becomes clear everybody agrees is a car is something which should be seriously thinking about how we can do without it. there was an example of one group from spain who talked about a remote village that had an economic engine and as an experiment it started to paint its entire downtown streets in white and blue, so the surface of the car became white or blue respectively. out of that arose an art movement where children and adults came together for three

weeks and started painting and painting away. this started a couple of years ago. today, it is a recurring event in which people from all over the world come to watch what it is like to live in a city where streets can be blue or white. it is fascinating. i hope to perhaps show you a video of the presentation. from that thinking, from hearing from other people around the world of the real issues of urbanity end of the region and how we live together -- i inject that as a bright note and hope to come back with some more detailed information for you on that. president miguel: thank you. vice president olague: i attended a couple of workshops on which i believe for sponsored by our city agencies. i think it was dpt, the department of parking and traffic, and i believe the mta also. it all has to do with congestion pricing. i think that rather than have a

reactive approach to it we should be informed. it is probably a mixed bag. it would be good if we could have someone come to talk about what the city is actually thinking in terms of that issue. commissioner antonini: it is actually the ta doing the work. president miguel: people standing the door, you cannot block it because of fire. there are seats in the room if you would please sit down. >> and the front row is reserved for staff. [laughter] you can be obstinate. it is ok. president miguel: thank you.

>> thank you. commissioners, if we can move forward on your calendar to directors report, directors announcements, and review of the past week's event at the board of supervisors, board of appeals, and historic preservation commission. >> a number of announcements. i was good to mention the meeting last night with the south of market historic survey. that was attended by members of the historic preservation commission. that is the latest survey information to be released. it also identifies the number of potential historic districts in that neighborhood. that is scheduled to go to the historic preservation commission. also this week there was the glen park meeting. staff presented our latest draft of the plan and is accepting comments on that plan during the next few weeks. the hope is that the draft eir would come to you in the spring for that plan as well. president miguel: the new

supervisor elect was also present there. >> great. i also wanted to mention -- i think i mentioned last week that on december 11, a saturday, the department is hosting a meeting of the stickler advisory group on our action plan, -- stakeholder advisory group on our action plan, our internal review and how that process is planned to be changed. we will have a memo coming to you shortly on that and a public meeting on the morning of saturday, december 11. we will bring to you some more details in january. we hope to roll up that process in february of next year. tomorrow, i will be speaking at the annual retreat of the san francisco chamber of commerce. they have invited me to come to their annual meeting to talk about the activities of the department and what we see on the horizon over the next couple of years. i will be speaking to the chamber tomorrow on their

retreat, which happens to be in monterey tomorrow. finally, i also want to mention the memo i sent to the commissioners on our grants. we have been very -- we have had great success this year in grants, way beyond our projections and our budget. based on the grant proposals we of put together with other departments, we have raised a total of $5.2 million. not all of that comes to the department, but one of the the vintages of doing this work is that it fosters cross department to collaboration on this project. -- cross-departmental collaboration on this project. there is work along the forestry corridor which of talk about that is just getting going. there was a large grant for the part at fulton street, one of the first parks to be proposed out of the inter-neighborhood

plan. the real thing we have learned in that process is not only is it important to have that part identified in the plan, but also the fact that we have conducted community workshops to develop a preliminary design for that park is largely the reason we got the grant, because we had gone so far into the process. there is a lesson in doing that planning with the community. it brought us a $2.7 million grant for a great project. we also got over $1 million from the federal epa for the caesar taba street improvement. -- for the caesar chavez street improvement. we got a caltrans environmental justice grant for a streetscape improvements for broadway avenue in chinatown. the national park service program called "preserve

america "vote will support some of the preservation efforts in market and octavia. we got another environmental justice grant for our work on cesar chavez on another avenue. all of that is to say that we have been more aggressive about seeking grants, but as you recall last year we got a grant to hire a grant writer. that has more than paid off. [laughter] it has really helped a lot. we are actually able to hire some temporary staff because of all this grant work. we were able to do our small part to help the local unemployment rate in the process. i am very pleased and one to think staff for all the work on these grants. -- want to thank staff for all the work on these grants. because anne-marie is up this w