a material change to the project or anything that would impact the neighbors in a way that they should be concerned about. they have less cars queuing and standing in front of their building, so that is actually advantageous for them. commissioner sugaya: in the past, we have had some requests to change the way affordable housing was going to be provided. and in the past, we have also heard from the mayor's office of housing, at least on one project, that they preferred not to have on-site affordable. could staff get to moh and perhaps have them come when we have some free time next year and give us a little report on their current thinking on inclusion very housing and the

advantages and disadvantages of the options that developers face -- thinking on inclusionary housing? we have also heard that some on- site owners were having difficulties as homeowner do is escalate and that kind of thing and were not able to afford to stay there -- as homeowner dues escalate. then, mr. spears, alternate offsite -- is that going to be just affordable housing at this point? ok, thank you. then, there is a condition on page 24 which relates to offset rental -- of such units being mental, which says if the

project sponsor has entered into an agreement with the city permitting offset units to be rental, how does this relate to the recent court cases? >> [inaudible] under this, if the city entered into an agreement with the developer to provide certain types of public assistance, then you can have rental offsite housing. however, my understanding is that is not what is happening with the project here. i would assume that that condition is just to leave the project sponsor and the city's options open.

>> the language and conditions here have been amended since the court case to accommodate the ruling. commissioner moore: to the first part of what commissioner sugaya was saying, he was taking the words out of my mouth. i would like to ask that we schedule some time early in the year a meeting with the mayor's office of housing. there is a potential shift in policy commitment. now, with the overlay of people asking for changes and conditions on site which is now off site, i think we should discuss what that really means and how it is structured for feasibility of building affordable housing, given the lack of appropriate sites and the non sufficient cumulative funds available.

commissioner miguel: i would agree with the idea that we should get back together with the mayor's office of housing. my original thought was that it should be on site, but we were obliged legally to have options at that time. last time, i think there was a presentation, the concept of in was there, and now things may have changed. it is about re time is about-

briefed on the -- about time we get re-briefed on the topic. it is essential and a way to keep the concept going. there is no question about it. i also have heard of situations because of homeowners fees where it becomes a problem, and i do not know that this was something originally thought of when the concept came together. i do not know how other cities have dealt with that. as far as the notification is concerned, the 300-foot notification, everything else, i do not know, and i do not have to note at this moment whether that notification also would go to the normal number of neighborhood organizations. it is my understanding that it usually does.

i think in a way, that is covered as well. the idea of -- dbi and number of years ago started to change these -- started to change the entire concept. the idea that usually comes to us is the fact that they need it for storage. they may not use it for every day and probably do not, but they need some place to keep a car on the evenings and weekends, the sort of thing. the concept and increasing use of staggers does fulfil that concept, so i have no problem with the project. >> the motion on the floor is for approval -- commissioner moore: with conditions.

>> with conditions, as staph has outlined. with that motion -- [will call] -- [roll call] thank you, commissioners. that motion has passed unanimously. you are now at commissioners questions and matters. item six is consideration of adoption draft amendments from two sets of minutes that i actually forgot had not come before you -- july 8 and july 27 -- july 22, and also your regular meeting from december 2. following any public comment and an the other modifications or changes you may have to be submitted, ask that you adopt the draft minutes. commissioner miguel: is there any public comment on the items before us?

if not, public comment is closed. commissioner moore: move to approve the minutes as they are in front of us. >> thank you. commissioners, on the motion of approval of the draft minutes, commissioner antonini has stepped away. [roll call] >> i was not present for those meetings. commissioner miguel: we will say you vote anyway. >> [roll call] thank you, commissioners. item seven is any other commissioner concerns. commissioner moore: i came across a notice of the revised preparation of an environmental impact statement for the project in brisbane called -- i do not

remember what its name is. what struck me about the project is the enormous size to which this project has increased, and while we are aware that the project is happening and is bordered on the east side of highway 101, the increase in residential units, the decrease in open space is of grave concern to me because it does reflect and ripple through our considerations on a number of projects. the project is suggesting 4434 residential drawing units, which were never considered in the previous eir. the project produces 330 acres of open space, which for an area

as large as this project is, is rather reasonable and reduces the area to 205 acres, in addition to its 7 million square feet of office, retail, industrial, and institutional users. the reason why i'm quoting the numbers is only for us to keep it at least in the corner of our eye as we move forward, looking at all project, which border both sides of the freeway and which we are looking at for transportation and other impacts. so if anybody wants to read this brief outline, i would be happy to pass it on, but i think is important to be aware of. commissioner miguel: thank you. commissioner borden: there was an item on december 5 "conical" newspaper in the real estate column, and it makes reference to a project to a building -- the december 5 "chronicle" newspaper.

i contacted the zoning administrator because i was concerned. we often have people come before the commission saying that it was a shock to us that it was a single family home. our zoning administrator contacted the realtor, who said that the newspaper misrepresented what was conveyed. i wrote a letter to the newspaper asking them to print my letter to the editor pointing out that. indeed, the property is actually zoned for five units. not only is it sold for five units, it was turned down for a dwelling unit merger in 2005 by this commission. the newspapers did -- the newspaper said they are not the real estate police and that the properties and a listing. we checked it. the point is if you see something advertised in the paper even on the real-estate

page, the likelihood is that it is owned in a way for multiple dwelling units and that you should check into that because we do not like the demolition of dwelling units in the city that has a housing shortage. i just want to caution people about this challenge so that it is out there, so we do not have people coming before us. it is really unfortunate that the newspaper was less cooperative on that point. commissioner miguel: thank you. commissioner antonini: many of you may have noticed in the "chronicle" yesterday an article about a group that was kind of objecting to a policy that is being considered, which is, i guess, discouraging additional building near dense areas, which may be sources of pollution by freeways, by other areas, which is sort of counter intuitive,

and sort of the reverse, as he pointed out quite well. sort of an anti-grain policy. this is under discussion at the present time, but i have seen this brought up a couple of times where we have to really look, and there could be evaluations of the air quality near any new building going on, and using this as an evaluator on the approval, and i think he may be jumping a little bit ahead, but it seems to me it is not environmental to build dense housing and new housing further and further away from populated areas and increasing commutes, increasing pollution. i was glad to hear that somebody kind of picked up on that. second, i was very unhappy to hear about state compensation insurance fund is apparently moving in number of their employees out of san francisco, and i would expect that probably the chamber or the mayor's

office or others in the city have worked with these groups and tried to meet their needs and find these sites for them here. ironically, they had a building approve a couple of years ago, but economic factors were such that it ended up never getting billed, and i believe it was converted into housing, and it is going to be a housing unit. interestingly, in that article is that in addition to the cost savings they would have by relocating to people to areas that were a lot less expensive, they also felt there was a shortage of qualified personnel within maybe not necessarily only san francisco, but in the general area, so i think this is very much in keeping with the symposium i was part of today on middle-class housing and what we can do to promote that because there probably is a situation where many of the people who might be possible employees for firms such as this are having trouble finding housing in san francisco and are having to come from a distance away. so it is something to think about, something to reflect on.

hopefully to work with companies to find out what we can do to address their concerns. commissioner sugaya: when i first came on the commission about four and a half years ago, the issue of the brisbane bay lands -- i do not know what they are calling it now -- was on my mind because i knew the planning director down there. naively, i thought it would be interesting if two commissions could discuss the issues surrounding the development. specially since at that time, there was no housing being proposed on the site. we find this kind of -- i have to be careful how i say things. anyway, about other communities -- brisbane has, i think, a kind of approach to this which said

that they did not want any housing there. you find that in other communities around the bay area. alameda has no multiple family housing policy. so we are faced here in san francisco with the abeg housing allocations, and you begin to wonder how their housing communities are fulfilling their requirements. so i'm kind of encouraged by what commissioner more -- moore said. the new proposal. it just -- it is interesting that this is coming back around in a certain way that i think is of greater benefit, and the hope of having a joint meeting, as i'm sure is not even close to in the cards. maybe they listen to some policy

things that are going on in the greater bay area. i'm encouraged by that, and we should keep an eye on this since it is right next to our southern border. commissioner olague: we have not had a chance to really look at the calendar because we have been so busy with other things, but a couple of weeks ago, i requested that we have an mta presentation. i just want to keep that on the radar. most of the commissioners really agreed to that also, so it is -- they have some interesting ideas, plans in the works, so i think they are ones that directly relate to a lot of the discussions we have here. to the extent that we can be informed on what they are looking toward, i think it would be good.

also, a couple of weeks ago, asked during the park merced hearing -- i wanted to understand the staff's rationale behind parking requirements and what comes to us as a sustainable development. so i want to know if there is any kind of, you know, set of criteria or how does the department look at parking requirements as it relates to a green project or sustainable project. and then, someone asked me if there is any right things that were interesting as they relate to san francisco. chester hartman comes to mind, and another writer that we were talking about was rebecca solmet wrote some interesting books as well. i just wanted to put that out

there. commissioner miguel: i also read the article that commissioner antonini referred to, and it seemed to me that perhaps one part of the bay area air quality board not talking to the other part of the board or something -- either they are going to be transit-oriented development in order to improve air quality, or you are going to say that there is too much air pollution near transit, and therefore move it further out. i'm not quite sure which one is going to take hold, but the dichotomy totally confuses me. also, on -- the one thing that was missing from the article regarding the state offices moving outside of san francisco -- my first question was -- what are they considered qualifying

workers, or are they paying so low they cannot compete? it made no sense to me at all. i think you all know the number of people who would normally be qualified to work for that agency that live in san francisco and are looking for a work, so i was totally confused by that article as well. just to mention, during the past week, i met with the puc regarding the calaveras dam project, and had a very pleasurable situation yesterday morning of attending a groundbreaking jointly.

actually, two major projects in this case by martin buildings that are with amazingly complicated financing, coming forward. the financing is just unbelievable when they went into the details of nine years of work altogether, but at least we have two major rental housing projects that have broken ground, and that was an absolute pleasure to be on. >> thank you, commissioners. we can now move forward to directors' report. directors announcement and review, and the historic preservation commission. >> have to do the year, but

sorry to report that the reason i'm here is because the planning director is sick today, so he sends his apologies. i do have a brief directors report and a report from the board of appeals. i wanted to let you know that we did have a public meeting last saturday morning at the planning department. we reached out to our group that we call the action plan stakeholders group about a year to a year-and-a-half ago. we had a couple of meetings at the library with over 100 people in attendance. now that we are wrapping up a lot of the items, part of our action plan, we held an additional meeting to inform the public of that, and we had an attendance of about 20, which we think is a good sign that a lot of what we are trying to do was well received. a lot of our presentation will be in january. >> also, john ramm wanted to

wish you happy holidays, since this is your last before your holiday break. as far as board of appeals, sanchez attended a hearing last night. a variance for 1269 lombard. the other action is to adopt resolutions. >> good morning. rogers here with the weekly report on the board of supervisors. a lot is happening before the end of the year. we heard an ordinance by supervisor dufty for the path of gold. this is around market street. this was sent in review in

november. at the hearing, there was no recommendation, and they forwarded to the board to get an action next week, but without recommendations. what happened is that supervisor dufty amended the legislation for the department's recommendation. these were put on the lamp post and any banners would have to be certified appropriate. they agreed unanimously. that looks to be on track. at the land use committee, there was the sequa reform

ordinance. for procedures and some general modifications as well. you heard this ordinance in june of this year. you heard the legislation in june and july. hspc agreed with this. this was the fifth hearing. leader rector of the planning department expressed concern for the exemption process. and we would like to bring the changes back to the commission. the committee was supportive of this request. that put the legislation in a couple of pieces and they sent this forward. and this is for the overall

procedures for eir. at the requested more time for the exemption. they heard the split portion, and on that, they ask to reconvene on january 4. we hope to bring this back before you for the full hearing. also, they heard the dpw -- amendment for wireless in the public right-of-way. you heard this october 7. and they also recommended approval, sending this to the full board that were passing this on tuesday. there was also a grant request

for the historic resources preservation prague -- project, and this will is for $83,000. -- and this was for $83,000. and there is the enforcement effort for the academy of art, with the same presentation that you heard with the informational items. and no action was taken on this item. next, you heard resolutions sponsored by a supervisor mirkarimi, and you have addressed these in the previous week. we questioned a continuance at your request. they were going to consider a portion of this, with the proper usage in these districts. the recommendation was that they use this as a base, and the committee has some money items on the agenda that they did not

take action on this portion. thank you for your work on this and this item will be continued. the last item before this -- you have heard this the previous week. you did not take action but the committee did take action, recommending approval, and they sent this before the full board. also, at the full board of supervisors, there were a number of items and the first of these was an ordnance sponsored by supervisor dufty. this would provide an exception for qualified student housing. you heard this item in november and recommended several modifications. not inc. was a new definition for student housing. we recommend the supervisor

dufty continue to work on this. the staff and supervisor dufty agreed that we did not have time to make certain of how this would be working. and as you heard last week, the department has taken this on proactively. we will be pursuing this in the upcoming year. the ordinance was passed at the full board, but without modification. there was also a full ordnance, and this would amend the requirement for child care feasibility studies. and, this item was put before you in november. the ordinance would require a city agency or private developer to use city funds for a project to prepare a feasibility study on