commissioner sugaya: thank you. this is really good work, you guys. president olague: i want to thank staff for all the work and also san francisco beautiful for being so vigilant on this matter so many years. as you mentioned earlier you kind of got us to where we were within the department. i wanted to make mention of that. mr. sanchez -- >> i wanted to briefly but sincerely express my deepest gratitude to all the gasp staff and i think this is such a tremendous achievement for all the department, lasting benefits for the city and i know it has not been easy, there have been many sophisticated legal challenges as mr. snyder noted, but you guys have used technology tremendously to improve the efficiency and you've been also very fair and equitable in your enforcement and very efficient in your enforcement. thank you very much.

president olague: that concludes this informational presentation and the commission can move on to item two on the calendar. commissioner sugaya. commissioner sugaya: yes, i'd like to make public that the company i work for did historic resource evaluation work for the environmental impact report. pardon me? for glen park. i think i remember in past meetings where there have been informational sessions about the plan itself where the e.i.r. hasn't been either advertised or isn't directly -- well, i suppose we could talk about it, but i believe i've sat in on informational items on area plans before when we've worked on the e.i.r. part. in the past, when we've had joint -- not joint meetings but

when the e.i.r. and the plan has all been scheduled together, i've recused myself on the e.i.r. votes but have been able to come back to vote on the community plan itself. and i feel in this case that as an informational item i can stay and participate. president olague: thank you. and with that, i'll actually call the item to the record. it's item two, case 20005 .1004, the glen park community planning presentation. >> good morning, commissioners. i'm the plan manager for the glen park community plan. and i'm joined by john billet and we are the john and john show for glen park. here for you this morning and we're very excited to be here and present to some of the work we've been doing with the community over the last year and a half. as you're probably aware this project goes a little farther back.

so if i could have the overhead. so just an agenda for what we'll be talking about today i want to give you guys some history and context into the planning work and the neighborhood itself. then we'll present a little overview of the plan package which are the materials you would have received last week in your packet. talk about the community process that has been underway and the work there and then our next steps and what's going to be coming up through the end of this year. so in 2003 the city received a grant to do a preliminary kind of community planning assessment for glen park. and what this was, was a series of intensive things that took park at the glen park elementary school for a week, very focused work that happened. and what that planning process did was identify some different concepts and visions for the neighborhood. these were in the areas of open space, a lot of transportation improvements and some concepts for potential development.

it didn't propose any zoning or check on the feasibility of the projects within that draft plan but it presented these ideas. so that plan was endorsed by the planning commission. i think commissioner antonini he you were on the commission at that time in 2004. so the plan did sit on the shelf for a little while until we could get some funding to carry forward the environmental review process and to do some of the transportation feasibility work to see if some of the ideas were feasible to move forward. so in 2009 with our partners at the san francisco municipal transportation agency we relaunched the glen park community planning process and we had an open house in glen park at the elementary school in april, and we've been out there probably the last year and a half having a number of different community meetings, workshops, and working closely with the neighborhood association and other groups. and in the fall we released the draft -- working draft of the glen park community plan, the first new draft since the 2003. and i have extra copies.

it's within your packet but if anyone would like one, i can have -- i have those. so in 2011 we're really looking forward to refining this draft we put together and having a number of community meetings to prioritize different transportation projects and we're looking forward to the e.i.r. coming out and moving towards adoption in the fall. so just a little bit about the plan area. this is a much smaller plan than i think some of the areas that you guys have been dealing with. this is not the eastern neighborhoods, this is a 12-block area basically and it's kind of a portion of glen park. it features the bart station and the neighborhood commercial area as the core part of our planning area and it does include some of the residential areas, kind of climbing towards glen canyon park but this is a small area that's kind of nestled between san jose avenue to the east and glen canyon

park to the west. so over our work there and through the 2003 plan we've been working with the community to really identify what is special about the neighborhood and what should be protected and what the issues are and then what the plan should say about all these things. so the first thing is really that glen parkers see themselves as a village in a larker city. maybe you guys are familiar with this but they refer to their neighborhood commercial district on diamond as a village and it definitely has some village characteristics. there are a number of local restaurants and shops and cafes, a pizza, popular restaurants and is the heart of the neighborhood, socialization space. you can see people outside, walking and meeting. and there is tremendous synergy with the bart station and pedestrians coming through there. it is a walkable, vibrant village area.

glen park is also another characteristic of glen park it's not a high rise urban neighborhood, not even mid rise urban fabed. a few buildings extend above three stories in the neighborhood. a lot of these buildings are single family homes that wind into the canyon so it gives the neighborhood a real human scale and intimacy that people appreciate. and one of the greatest resources of living near glen park is the proximity to glen canyon park which is 60 acres of -- 60 plus acres of urban wilderness, hiking trails, an a tremendous canyon like a little yosemite. you can see coyotes, owls there and people in glen park have access to this great resource. it also features one of the last free-flowing creeks in san francisco which which runs freely in the canyon but is calverted through the sewer system in the neighborhood. this was once the largest body of water in san francisco and providing up to 80% of the

drinking water at the time. and glen park is also a real commuter's dreamland. it has the bart station that can get you almost anywhere in the bay area by transit. there is a muni bus and rail service, and convenient freeway access to 280. and also just want to mention that something that we've encountered is this real strong sense of pride and love of the community that we've experienced being out there. and concerns wanting to protect what's special about the neighborhood and we've had numbers of people coming out to our meetings and sometimes 70 to 80 people it seems coming out to meetings which a really strong interest in what's going on there and any future change. just to give a little background and how the neighborhood evolved, before urban development like most of san francisco this was a big rancho area. so it was used for cattle

grazing, once called little switzerland because of the preponderance of dairies and farms. and really it started to develop mostly and get urbanized with the introduction of the first streetcar line in the city, first electric streetcar line in the city that was around 1900 that was able of course enabled more real estate development there. and 1906 earthquake also brought a number of refugees who kind of settled in this area. so by 1948 these are -- we have interesting aerial photos we need to take a look at. by 1948 you can see that most of this area is pretty built 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