a death warrant. i take exception with what has happened. the public is all over the place on this. the staff and the developer lobbyists, we are not opposed to growth, but they want to see realistic growth where the numbers balance at the end of the day. they don't want to pay higher taxes just so a bunch of developers can take money and run. i am seeing lobbyist the developers here say that they need to have higher densities in the neighborhood. some of them actually lived in the davidson area in single- family housing and drive here. we can't alivlow that kind of hypocrisy. where our live ability is threatened, our services are threatened just so they can make more money and be able to go to more meetings.

we have to listen to what people are saying here. it needs to be brought back to the table and worked through again based on something that actually has ballots at the end of the day. president olague: thank you. >> i am the chair of the san francisco housing committee. the data in this analysis was based on 2008 information and. the 2010 census will be available in a few months. i hope that when the 2010 information becomes available, it will be incorporated and changes will be made.

also going out to the analysis, the same story as before. most of the jobs are low and or moderate. i think they will have annual incomes less than $30,000 a year. most of it is market rate. that means for a single, about 80,000. 101,000 for a household of three. contrary to what our needs are, we have no need for controlling that. we have a very limited opportunities. until we find a solution, we

should not use up those opportunities. as far as the medium income work reports, they are not being provided for housing. unfortunately, the middle area, we are losing ground on continuously. it is rent-controlled. unfortunately, that opportunity is not here. the central subway is not really housing. however, very important, the central subway is draining muni

funds away from where it is most needed throughout the city. from what i understand, it will cost over half of the reserves this year. in the future, it will have an impact that will decrease the efficiency that is not there any way. it is a major problem. [chime] president olague: any additional public comment? >> i want to commend the staff for their heroic work they have done trying to move this housing element for word. it is now two years out of date. everybody has qualms, it is something they did not like. but we have got to move it

forward. for us, a successful housing element will have three elements. the first is promoting housing availability. this makes a very good attempt. i was struck by the conversation earlier, it was a great discussion. i vary between hope and despair when there is no money for housing affordability. there is a recession going on and we have said at the city, state, and national level, it is not a priority of ours. the other thing that a housing element should do is help us make a better land use choices and to decrease our carbon footprint.

it is pointing in the room right direction. it is far more powerful a force, decades of a culture that says that driving is good and it promotes freedom or something like that. that is a very powerful force against transit oriented development. a dollar a gallon gasoline tax is a lot of problems. there is no way to improve the environmental aspects of it without increasing height and density. it can't be done. although this is a deeply unpopular topic in many areas, there is not a single neighborhood that could not contribute in some small but significant way to addressing

this. use of the map of san francisco, there are huge areas of it. it could absolutely take more and do more in accommodating the housing that we are going to need. this gets to the third point that is density equity. this should be explicitly promoted in the city of san francisco. the housing element should not only apply to these neighborhoods east of twin peaks. it should apply to the whole city. [chime] president olague: thank you. >> commissioners, good evening. i urge you to not take a preliminary recommendation of

the staff and do not approve this update at this time. please consider the request for 90 days that can be used for gathering comments and responses because this third iteration of the housing element is considerably different from the first two versions. thank you very much for your comment towards the end of item 11. it is not being -- and it is vacant but not being taken into account. i and appreciate that very much and would like to talk to you about that offline. please do not take the staff recommendation. president olague: additional public comment? public comment is closed.

commissioner antonini: some comments with the broad stroke, even though the specifics of the plan might not be here, some things we want to consider so we don't lock ourselves into this plan so rigidly that we can't address some of the biggest problems. one of them is a transient society. if you talk to people that go back many generations, there will be a fourth generation san franciscan, the first generation that moved. cost is not necessarily a factor. there are other things that they bring out. they have problems with the condition of the street, they bring up the fact that they're having problems finding parking. that is an issue for families. we have to try to promote

policies that will allow people to stay here have their entire lives and raise families here. we talk about mergers and we try to discourage them. sometimes, they are the best things we can do. our housing talked -- stock is too small. a lot of times, families can stay by being a m able toerge two u -- being able to merge two units together. it allows them to make this into a unit to that is family friendly. the next family that needs it will have at other units. it is particularly critical on the eastern side of town. we have to be very careful about the opposed to the condo

conversions. i think one of the ways that people can stay in san francisco his through the existing housing stock, make it more affordable. together, they will buy three units and if they get lucky, they will be able to break it out and have their own place. the other issue you have is an old, deteriorated housing stock. we have a low-end, affordable housing, but we are not addressing the big problem which is the housing that is seismically compromised from a non-functional, often a fire hazard and no support services. we are not doing the people in a good and we are not doing the housing stock any good.

now we have another element, historic. we made mistakes in the sixties and tore everything down. they have to be restored and renovated it. a lot of the house and we have that much of the eastern part of the city is essentially a century or more old. they are being allowed to sell the market rate and provide the same amount of new low-income housing for the tenants. i think that would be a formula that might work. you see some many affordable housing projects throughout the city that are new, clean, safe, and a better location, but that is a concept that we want to be able to allow and not be so rigid in our element that we discourage somebody thinking creatively about the way to

address those things. those are the main things i am certain, happy to hear how they come forward to address it. they are merely recommendations, they are not mandatory. we should not deny a good project because of the level of affordability citywide. this is always a moving target, too. the city isn't a static thing. in come levels change, we have seen changes in the requirements and san francisco has had a low amount of housing required because of the fact that we have addressed part of that. those are my general feelings and the general terms about this. in terms of density, i agree that we have to share our part

in providing, but there is also diversity of density that allows us to keep a lot of people in san francisco that might move out of san francisco if they are fortunate enough to make enough to be able to afford a single- family home. we want those leaders contributing to our community, and if we make everything really dense -- we did a lot of that last week with a big projects. commissioner miguel: i would like to thank the staff for the work they have done. i have been asked a couple of the meetings that were convened

at the department it has not been easy. they have not then acrimonious. it was a difference of opinion, and that is what they should be. like any type of legislation, you're not going to satisfy everyone totally. as far as the particulars, i will have the letter in the

department on my reading to the element as it is now. i am not going to comment on the proposed march 24 date because what i am going to do does not really affect that. but i am going to move to initiate. commissioner moore: could you please answer this specific question that was raised by three people, questions that were very thought-provoking and important to me. one is speaking about demolitions, it is an extremely sensitive issue. there are couple of very -- i apologize for not catching your name.

and a third group of issues was raised. can you quickly touched on why some of the specifics were not addressed? >> i will do my best. commissioner moore: i would appreciate that. >> about discouraging and preventing demolition, the policy of the housing element has been there a long time. it is sound existing housing. unless the demolition results and a net increase in affordable housing, overall, it is consistent with the sentiment. the difference that i heard, i

am not familiar with the thepark merced conversation. i think he wanted a little more definition about what is a significant increase, not what is a net increase. commissioner moore: i greatly admire your demolition ordinance that you all put together. a very powerful document. the word prohibits, it discourages. it needs to be substituted for the word "prohibit." that would be my interpretation. i am very sensitive about what words we are using. the ultimate interpretation is in the words you are using.

i think we have to be really precise in the words we are using. it is a strong word, discourage is the right word. i think the housing stock is strong enough to afford the word "prohibit." i am just giving you some push back on elements that i am quite sensitive about. we are easily looking at things that we have brought forward. if we can go through the specifics of what the next person asks, i know they also talk about parking on a much more green policy. it would be nice to see an encouragement or a forward

leading statement that we are striving as we are creating proper transportation and infrastructure. and that we would perhaps encourage the reduction of parking. >> on the reduction of parking issue, i think in general of the department is very supportive of that. the general plan has 10 elements. the reduction of parking is primarily focused on addressing transportation so that people do not drive and they take transit. it is included in our transportation element. it is not included in this housing element. i can get you the number of the policy. we will continue to sort that. commissioner moore: i

appreciate that, obviously. the next is referred to a very specific point she made. i did not write them all down. if you would not mind, if you can? >> the policy expressing concern about the change for neighborhood supported verses community-based. you get a lot of feedback from draft 2, the language that was inadvertent on our part, it prioritized neighborhood residents over other people that might be participating. in an equitable society, it is very inappropriate. we hope it includes the neighborhood with any planning process. we did not prioritize them over

other people. it was our intent behind the changes. we think it is a valid one and an important one for equitable societies. because of some of the equity issues that might be there, the other issue that she raised was that the policy that there was a misunderstanding. it talks about considering greater flexibility. it does specified a community planning process that it could be applied to individual lots outside the planning process. that is not the intent of this policy, but we will scrutinize the language. commissioner moore: would you

make yourself available to follow up with a detailed conversation? >> absolutely. commissioner moore: sometimes in the subtlety of how we explain to each other, there is additional clarity. we want to make sure we don't overlook things, but i am comfortable that we are saying. i would like to see the code being more responsive to some of the challenges. we said that earlier, the current housing around the

premise of livability. we start to identify that we are losing the ability to define what livability means. from your perspective, i normally don't talk much about that. it is guaranteed in a much different way than what we are currently able to deliver and identified. we can have a conversation about that sometimes. we can look at it in a much more comfortable way. commissioner borden: i just wanted to add to the work that has been done here. it is clarifying some of the

issues. we look at the area on demolition as well, and we take a look at how to define that. when we approved that, our instances [unintelligible] it talks about the greater good and defines what some of those things might be so it will be much clearer. i think the truth is, we want to encourage and we want to make sure that there are greater use is for particular reasons. and we should actually spell those out. the issue or round demolition is of neighborhood character and integrity that we need to be mindful of. the more clarity we provide

instances in which it would be ok, as policy statements, we can look at it in the planning code. i thought maybe one of the language things we could talk about when we talk about the prioritization of transit corridors, maybe we can put in language for a prioritization of affordable housing, we really want to prioritize affordable housing and transit corridors. that we really want to incentivize affordable housing to go into those areas. and not for the housing element, but it made me think about what kinds of carrots and sticks that we should put in the policy document to provide more carats to encourage affordable housing. could it be that when you have all of the units on site, maybe

we can look at the nexus between some of these conditional decisions and how we can gain a greater affordability in that process. maybe we can put language around looking at developing housing and conditional uses, maybe there'll be language around how we use the trade for affordable housing. i think that is the thing. the idea that i thought of, affordable for more parking spaces, the overall parking limits. density bonuses. you know how we have the x zoning. you only get the additional 15 feet if you do

affordable housing. it is something we can at least say is a priority. i think maybe spelling out ideas like that. i don't know the implications, but if we put that out there, we can start working on directions. commissioner antonini: a couple of things, and i have a question on timing. a distinction needs to be made on transit first being discouraging auto use and using transit as opposed to not allowing residential parking. it will either be on the street or in a garage. they are two different things and the elements should be geared toward the discouragement of using the autos, but allowing them to have a place to put cars. and a question about density, i

think it was raised somewhere. we want to hear a little bit more about what that really means. we are talking general terms, and i think it was said that where area plans call for, a lot of neighborhoods would be fearful that all of a sudden, they would find out it has four dwelling units next door instead of two. part of the density does not necessarily help the property values if it ceases to be a single family homes. the final thing is the emphasis, two things quickly. affordability is very important. but what i hear a lot of from people is not the price, b