out. and you know, you see the corner of bosworth and diamond street but no bart station there, there is a number of what looks like part of the commercial district that extended there. the southern pacific rail line near san jose still ran through the neighborhood down to san mateo. and you can see that san jose avenue is kind of a much slimmer four-lane road. and there's no 280 freeway and on the ewe side there is a whole other neighborhood of homes you can see down there. so as we move into the freeway building era, the building era of the 1960's and you can see the construction has begun both what looks like on 280 to the south but also to san jose avenue as it was to be realized as part of the future mission freeway which was halted. it was a freeway that would have connected glen park and the southern freeway through the mission to the central freeway. this is when there were plans

to crisscross freeways everywhere. that plan was halted but the entrance to that freeway was built and that's why we have this big san jose avenue today. as you can see that neighborhood to the south was removed, a number of homes were removed, and i think what this photo shows is kind of that core village area, that walkable, charming area, being encroached on through the years by the larger infrastructure. this is as it looks pretty much today. we have the bart station which went in in 1973, their parking lot and homes that were removed to accommodate those facilities. and we still have the village in there. but you can see a large part of the neighborhood is now covered by concrete to the south as part of these freeway and san jose avenue. so what are some of the challenges facing glen park? we've identified a few core issues through our planning work there through our discussions with the community and through some of our technical analysis.

the first, transportation and circulation issues that glen park faces, the second is the scale of some of this infrastructure that's come in and some of the negative impacts associated with that. and then development concerns. you know, we have while this is a builtout area there is you know, a future of change that may happen. so in terms of the circulation challenges basically a core issue is you have a very small neighborhood that is struggling to accommodate a lot of transportation need. you know, we have a lot of cars traveling through downtown glen park to get to the freeway, regional traffic, people from outside the neighborhood coming through to pass through. we have muni buses competing with employer shuttle buses the big tour buses now struggling to make turns on narrow streets in a small neighborhood and then a lot of pedestrians. there are so many pedestrians crossing from the village area to the bart station every day and there's conflicts between

vehicles and pedestrians. pedestrian safety is an issue. and congestion that cars do back up in this area during roushes. -- rush hours. the second issue is while these infrastructure changes like the bart station and the freeway vastly improved access to the neighborhood and for residents in this neighborhood they also had impacts to liveability. by increasing traffic and congestion in the area and exreating barriers between neighborhoods and pedestrian safety concerns. and this -- speaking of san jose avenue this is what san jose was before when it was known as the bernal cut with the railway. then widened to accommodate a wider san jose avenue and the railway. and then this is as it looks today, kind of built more freewaylike as part of that freeway that was never completed. and then the third challenge is the development concerns. glen park as we've seen even from these fricts way back has been largely built out for a

while, but in the small plan area there are a couple opportunity sites for infill and they're pretty high profile, one is the bart parking lot, another on the corn of northwest diamond and bosworth that is a smaller parking lot. there has been past and present interest in developing from both owners and there are questions and concerns about what will happen there. so given these challenges and special qualities of glen park, the goals, the three main goals are to protect and strengthen this vibrant walkable neighborhood commercial core, balance the use of streets for all the different people using the streets in a way that improves circulation and liveability, and minimizing some of the negative impacts of these larger infrastructure projects. and now i want to just discuss and give after overview of the plan package itself.

do you need -- commissioners, do you need copies of these or is everyone good? this is one document. it's the plan draft and then this is the draft planning code. president olague: we have that part. we've got that. >> so the plan package is really composed of three things. the first is the policy framework which is contained in this and that's you know, the general plan, policy objective

language that provides the vision and policy direction for the area plan. then we have a zoning proposal which we'll talk about in a little bit and then an impreltation program which describes how we're going to build the projects and get them on the ground. in terms of the policy part the first chapter is the land use and urban design chapter. and the objectives and policies here are really aimed at you know, recognizing the special character of this saudi arabia rant, walkable commercial district -- vibrant, walkable commercial district, continuing to concentrate is really the nexus of the commercial life in glen park, making streetscape and public improvements that support this commercial activity. and then recognizing that new development in the future will come into glen park, so an objective to ensure that this is compatible with the special character in the surrounding area. and that the community should be involved in decisions

affecting the neighborhood. and the third major objective is recognizing historic buildings and protecting them for the value that they place on neighborhood identity. transportation chapter, glen park community plan is largely a transportation plan. this is probably the biggest piece of the plan. and the plan is really talking about you know, what's paramount is improving pedestrian safety and walkability in this area. but also recognizing that this is a major local and regional transit center and that transit should be -- transit access should be improved as well including bicycle access. and then recognizing you know, that the traffic congestion and traffic issues are something we could also address. while we have you know, a real transit first orientation we do recognize there are issues with vehicles and congestion and exploring ways we might be able

to relieve that which would have a secondary benefit of benefiting you. so this is you know, the picture from 2010 of this core village diamond-bosworth intersection and i want to give you an idea of concepts we're exploring as part of the plan. you see the bart station, san jose and the i-280 onramp. so these are a few concepts that the plan is exploring. the first is we're really looking at ways to improve diamond and bosworth for pedestrians. widened sidewalks and also exploring a possibility with a pedestrian scramble phase to reduce conflict twens cars and pedestrians. also looking at establishing new pedestrian crossings. as you can see on boss worth to the east there are not many place ems people can cross

bosworth and a lot jaywalk to get to the station. one of the ideas also is to normalize that kind of larger intersection and one of the design concepts is this round-about which would kind of fulfill a traffic calming benefit, some beautification and establish new pedestrian crossings there. in terms of transit, an idea from the 2003 plan that we did find is potentially feasible but maybe not desirable is a bus loop that could be built around the back of the bart station. and this would get buses out of you know, some of the busy intersection of diamond and bosworth and allow buses to load and unload directly to the bart station. we're exploring that with mca now and whether that would be functional or desirable. and improving connections to the jade church. the jade-church line is in a no-man's land and connected by a pedestrian dridge that isn't a.d.a. accessible. one of the designs is to create

a sidewalk crossing to cross san jose, we'd have to make sure that was safe in order to function. one of the plan's big other transportation improvements is a proposal to repair san jose avenue as we mentioned this was -- is a freewaylike street and we've been hearing from folks who live near there that they don't like living near that street like that and doesn't need to function like that. so the plan proposes some near term and long-term solutions for san jose. near term solutions would be traffic calming solutions, speed reduction on san jose, possible lane reduction, traffic calming to reduce that freeway-like nature and the long-term vision would be kind of re-establishing some of the connections between the two neighborhoods. creating new intersections where there currently aren't any. that would also serve to kind of decrease some of the congestion in downtown glen park we think by providing

other options for cars to move through the area. and one of the bigger ideas is removing the bosworth street overpass. this would be a project of great magnitude ala octavia boulevard. if that could be removed, that intersection normalized, it can function better. we would have to be more study and technical analysis to see if that is feasible. the final policy chapter is the open space chapter. and really the open space chapter while we have glen canyon park which is tremendous open space and wild resource in glen park, downtown glen park and the village really lacks in quality public spaces and open space. so our idea here is to combine a mix of urban and green space in this area. some of the ideas are improlve proving the bart plazas, redesigning the bart plazas which are kind of used as a passenger area, a kind of fenced off from pedestrians and

don't function well. they could could function better as a public space and for transit and pedestrians. the other idea is exploring the possibility of parklets in the downtown glen park area. this is a great, vibrant area but very narrow sidewalks there so not a lot of opportunities but parklets present potentially exciting opportunity to create more space for people. the other idea is what we're calling the glen park greenway. the city owns a number of parcells on bosworth street and these are used as an informal trail for people to walk dogs, a trail worn down there, but there are barriers, it doesn't go completely through, you can climb over a little fence to keep going but we think it could be designed as a nice greenway for the neighborhood to connect the downtown with glen park, glen canyon park. the other interesting islais creek flows below that. there may be an opportunity to bring part of the creek to the

surface, and a lighting, as it is called, to create a recreational amenities for the neighborhood. we do not know if that is feasible. we have been talking to puc about the idea. the people that live there have a number of concerns, so there needs to be work done on that. the next piece of the plan package is our zoning proposal. just wanted to show a couple of pictures in case you are not familiar with the area of the commercial district. you can see it as a special character. an older district, built around transit. we really want to make some adjustments to the zoning that will help improve, keep that character. here is a map of the existing zoning in the area. the purple is the current neighborhood commercial district, nc-2 small scale,

surrounded by rh-1, rh-2, and you notice we also have a number of public parcels, bart station, parking lot, and parcel along the freeway. we are not proposing any changes to the residential zoning in the area. what we are looking at are these 53 parcels in the neighborhood commercial district. these are a mix of office, retail, restaurant uses. our idea is to carry forward a new planning work the department has been doing with the neighborhood commercial transit district into glen park, by giving glen park its own neighborhood zoning district. the plan proposes creating a gun park nct. some of the features of this --

the gold here would support the possibility and trends and orientation of this area. allow flexibility as similar ncts do with minimum parking and housing. density would be determined, not by lot size, but my bedroom count, other code requirements. the other feature would be curbed cut restrictions. given this continuous row of storefronts on these blocks, and we would like to restrict curb cuts so that pattern can continue without interrupting driveways or pedestrians. the final piece of the zoning proposal is reclassifying one parcel from rh-3 to nct. this is the thai restaurant.

it is limited nonconforming use but functions as a restaurant with housing above. we think it fits the nct rubric and could be made part of the commercial district. the bart parking lot. this was something that we thought deserved its own attention. the bart parking lot is currently zoned public and is located right across from the bart station, the 54-space parking lot. it is not supposed to be used for commuters, but sometimes i imagine it is. it also functions as a community parking lot for the district as well. bart issued an rfq for development teams in 2008 to request submissions from teams to explore development on the lot. this was something that the

neighborhood by surprise, and frankly, the local supervisor by surprise, and ignited a wave of controversy. that was just at the time where we're launching our community planning process. our earlier discussions about the plan, the first six months or so, were dominated by this issue. what does bart want to do? we were not able to answer all of the question that we had. bart was not able to answer the questions at the time. while the planned mentions that as in hillsides are appropriate for some sort of mixed use development, given their proximity to the bart station, commercial district, it is our recommendation, given the complicated nature of this site, it deserves it's own community process, when board is ready to move forward with its own team. a zoning oppose all maybe a

corporate to come out of that process at that time. the final piece, and implementation table in the back of the document. it is a two-page table that describes all the different projects that are emerging from this draft plan and actions to be taken, a key agencies responsible, and time frames and potential funding sources for those. this is a draft of our implementation plan for the community plan. we have been coordinating closely with city and regional partners, bart, sfmta, caltrans, puc, on this. we are happy to report we have $3.4 million in capital funds we need to be used around the bart station, and this was money that we received through the ft a few years ago. -- fta a few years ago. it is just waiting for final

product to be cleared before it can be spent. since this is such a small planetarium with not a lot of housing development, the projection of this area was up to 100 units, compared to some of the other bidder places. we do not have any impact fees proposed as part of this plan. briefly, i wanted to describe the community process. we have been held there since spring 2009, and number of workshops that planning has hosted, workshops the sfmta has posted related to parking and transportation, we have been at the glen park neighborhood association meetings, and have been working closely with other agencies. we have also done office hours at the glen park recreation center, if people had questions, made ourselves available that way. people have been really

involved, and that is great for our work. there are a variety of opinions, of course. in general, when we released the draft last september, we opened a comment period for this, we got about 70 different comments from different people. generally, there was support of the plan, which was good to hear. of course, they did not agree on all the different aspects. pedestrian improvements, pedestrian safety came through loud and clear as something people wanted improved. in terms of the transportation projects, people are interested in the transportation projects, supported the bigger ones, but wanted to see smaller, near term projects. people are tired of waiting. this has been going on since 2003. this is something we are putting an eye towards as we prioritize these community improvement. nobody had anything to say about

parking in glen park. that is one of the biggest issues there. the fear of removal of additional on street parking, fear of removal of available public parking. these are things that people are very concerned about, and the plan speaks to different opportunities we have to maximize street parking. the other piece is the park parking lot, which is a lightning rod for this project, as we discussed already. islais creek. and there are some folks that live along the creek path who are very concerned about what the effects might be if something was day lighting, flooding, mosquitos, and those are great questions. the plant just says that this is an opportunity in glen park and says it stays open. the other thing i wanted to mention was how this plan affects surrounding neighborhoods.

neighborhoods use the glen park village and transit of there is pretty spotty. some of those folks are older and are not able to get down. the importance of driving and parking available to them in order for them to access is important. the vernal heights neighbors are very involved in the san jose avenue project. they have been motivated about that, have been meeting with the mta and caltrans, supporting these long-term visions we also talked about. overall, our time line for moving forward, we are here with you today at this briefing. over the next couple of months, we will be refining the plants and more, working with mta to develop a method for getting these transportation projects internally and bringing them back out of the community to hear their thoughts and what they want to prioritize so that we can hone in on a package of

improvements we can tie to funding to move forward once the plan is adopted. we expect to have a revised plan package some time may be in the spring or summer, associated workshops with that. we are looking with our eyes on the prize, adopting the plan probably in the fall. the eir is scheduled to be released i think the 17th of march. then the comment period for that will begin. staff will be here in april to discuss the eir with you at that time. with its planned plan adoption and certification to take place, both around fall. i think that is all i had to say about the overview of the planning process. i would be happy to answer questions. >> public comment and then we

will go through the commissioners. is there any public comment on this item? >> my name is vicki, a glen park resident. i have attended a number of these meetings. i think john's summary of the reaction by the neighbors is pretty good, except that he sort of glossed over some of the parking problems and objections to the housing development. this glen park transit zone is a nebulous little thing where the density and number of housing units is not specified. it makes an assumption that everybody moving into these units would not have a car, would not need parking space. i think this is pretty unrealistic. parts of the plan are great, parts that deal with traffic,

possible improvements to the bart station. those are desperately needed. it is getting really dangerous there. the intersection at rush hour are terrible. the new zoning, i cannot say that it is really needed. what it does is opens up a way to tear down the building that are already there, stuff more people intoa district that is basically a little flat areas surrounded by hills on all sides with freeways on the other side. there is no place to expand. the parking is so terrible by the commuters coming in, people have to walk way up the hills. i cannot tell you the number of people i see pulling up in front

of my house, getting out with a suitcase to go down to bart to leave on a two-week trip. i know there are neighborhood parking zones where you can get a special sticker, but 50% of the neighbors have to agree to a $100 a year cost. so our block does not have this, and this is one of the first one people use as a long-term parking lot. so i do not see what is to be gained by changing this. they will be able to stuff a few more people into housing units of new retail, but we are going to lose -- no matter how sensitive the design -- we are going to lose the character. you have seen what the store fronts look like. to get these extra few people in their.

-- in there. the sidewalks are only so wide, and that space is taken up by trees and trash cans. people cannot even pass each other if they are walking. thank you very much. >> good morning, commissioners. vice-president of the glen park association. we wanted to make a few comments for the record. first of all, the glen park association represents residents and home owners in the quaint village of glen park. gpa has not taken an official position on the plan but we are interested and involved. we are very happy the process

the planning department's that has developed for working with the community. gpa has also been hosting working meetings with the community, gathered input and sending it on to the planning staff. certain issues are still being heard and considered. a few of those issues are addressing the mcp zoning height, expanding commercial areas, and development of the bart parking lot. thank you very much. commissioner antonini: thank you. >> thank you. >> i am the chairman of the glen park association. i agree entirely with what karen said, but i want to thank john and john to help us engage with the community to generate, i hope, better and useful, more

considerate input from the community. i see that came from mta is also here. i wanted to thank her for the pedestrian crossing we had been asking for. it just appeared recently. i wanted to thank her for that work. thank you. >> is there additional public comment? seeing none, public comment is closed. did you want to address us at all? if you are sticking around, we may have some questions for you. now that you have been addeoute. commissioner antonini? commissioner antonini: thank you for an excellent report. a lot of it is about the st